On the Cultivation of Quality, Efficiency and Enterprise: An Overview of Recent Trends in Higher Education in Western Europe, 1986-1988

Abstract

Many years ago, before the advent of Vatican II, a number of churches, denominations and sects of the Protestant persuasion got together in a spirit of ecumenism. That which had divided in the past was now a source of rejoicing and commonalty. To mark the occasion and the new theology, an interdenominational Prayer Book appeared. It was, as one wag remarked, pleasing to everybody, but not to God! The same might be said of the spate of reforms which, over the past two years or so, have lit upon the world of higher education. The cultivation of quality, efficiency and enterprisethe present-day version of governmental 'New Theology'are not in themselves matters on which any right-minded person would dispute. We are all in favour of them, just as we are in favour of gastronomy and a thin waist-line. As abstract principles or as points of rhetoric, they are unassailable. Where the controversy arises is their operational, legislative and financial consequences for the individual establishments that go to make up the nation's system of higher education. It is at this point that the spirit of brotherly accord begins to wear thin and where the new social ethic, if pleasing to everybody, is not always pleasing for those who are the most affected by it. Certainly, the last two years have seen the return of student protests against certain specific aspects of government policy against increased selection at entry in both France and Spain and, in the former case, such a massive wave of protest that the Minister in charge of higher education was forced to resign. Other protests of a more sporadic order took place in Belgium and Portugal directed (as were the French and Spanish demonstrations as well) against increases in enrolment fees [1]. However spectacular at the time, student action has not served to slow down the overall momentum of change, the main outlines of which have, over the past two years, become clearer and more precise. What has become evident in the course of the past two years is that policies which were first developed as an empirical, short-term response to financial difficulties at the start of the decade have now assumed a long-term strategic thrust. This thrust takes several forms, but essentially bears down llpon the relationship between higher education and government on the one hand and between higher education and society on the other. As regards the first, it can be interpreted as the 'Rise of the Evaluative State' and, on the other, an attempt to insert a particular form of externally defined