Transforming universities with an equity focus
By Richard Heller
Inequity is everywhere in higher education, and my book Distributing Knowledge: Openness, Equity and Higher Education Transformation offers an equity lens through which the sector could transform itself.
There is inequity in the dissemination of knowledge, with variation in access to higher education between countries and regions within countries, as well as across various social groupings—the population groups to which you belong largely determines your access to learning opportunities. There is inequity in the creation of knowledge because the experiences of certain populations and groups are under-represented in research, as well as inequity in the publication of research, and in educational programmes. This is what can be termed knowledge inequity, as the stock of human knowledge is biased towards some population groups and away from others. Within universities there is gross inequity between high-paid executives and academic staff—many of whom are on precarious contracts, as universities have become business enterprises and education a commodity rather than serving a societal purpose and responding to societal needs such as the climate emergency and a reduction in socioeconomic inequity.
To give an example: In Australia and the UK, and probably elsewhere as well, university finances are propped up by profits from fee income from international students. Looking through an equity lens at the rate in different countries per 100,000 population at which students enrol in Australian universities, we discover that international students do not reflect global needs for higher education. There is variation between regions and countries in the rate at which students come to Australia, but this has no relation to the educational or financial needs of the country. In fact, the only relationship is that some countries with a high GDP have a high rate of international students in Australian universities. Individual ability to pay fees appears to be the driving force, and universities attract who they can and who will pay fees. As an example from SE Asia, Malaysia and Singapore together provided 47% of SE Asian international student numbers in Australia in 2022 but comprise only 6% of the total population of SE Asia. Indonesia, with a much lower GDP and greater need, provided 12% of SE Asian international student numbers in Australia but comprise 40% of SE Asia’s combined population. The pattern of enrolments serves no obvious strategic purpose for Australia, or the need for boosting a country’s knowledge stock; it is purely an income generation exercise for Australian universities.
Thomas Piketty provides an appropriate context in his book with Michael Sandel, Equality—What It Means and Why It Matters: ‘I think the fact that we’ve sort of given up on an ambitious egalitarian objective for higher education is at the source of many of our problems today—economic, and even more so democratic’.
Equity problems also arise in the creation of knowledge through research. Many of the same populations that miss out on education are also under-represented in research. Research has focused on Global North populations, and this extends to the researchers themselves and the funding they receive. A relevant example comes from research into neglected tropical diseases where the majority of research funding goes to researchers in countries where the diseases do not even exist.
The publication of research findings is dominated by big business, where there are five particularly large companies making massive profits from the journals they publish. Libraries are charged high fees to hold their journals, and where the publisher allows free access to the journal, it is the author of the research paper, or the author’s institution, who has to pay article processing charges. Again, this creates obvious inequity as the profit motive overrides equity.
As you see from these examples, the higher education sector is failing in its mission to reduce knowledge inequity. As Piketty suggests, inequity is responsible for many of our social and economic problems, while the higher education sector is not tackling, and is even contributing to, social inequity. Nor is the sector paying real attention to the climate emergency.
What if we could provide education to wherever and whenever it is needed, with low impact on the climate? Where equity and societal priorities rather than a business model are reflected in the mission of universities? Where students from rural and remote areas and those at social disadvantage could equally access education, extended globally to those at real need? Where educational resources are open and can be shared, increasing access to best practice resources and reducing costs all round? Where research can involve under-represented populations, and research publications move away from predatory commercial publishers and are free—for researchers to publish and for those who require the information to read? What if there was a way to transform higher education towards these ideals?
I’d like to suggest that my book offers ways in which the sector could transform using an equity focus. The title of the book: Distributing Knowledge: Openness, Equity and Higher Education Transformation gives a good guide as to its theme and content. The book is built around a framework for distributing knowledge for equity, where education is largely online and utilises a distributed model with large campuses largely replaced by local hubs—which can be physical or virtual. Educational resources will be open and can be shared. Research will be able to involve under-represented populations as research hubs will also be distributed rather than centralised. Publication of research will use the ‘Diamond Open Access’ model—a community-driven, academic-led, and academic-owned model allowing open access to journals and textbooks avoiding the current paywalls. The carbon footprint of higher education would be drastically reduced. The distributed model would extend to leadership, reducing managerialism, increasing academic autonomy and reducing internal inequity. Collaborative development and sharing of Open Educational Resources reduce the drive to the commodification of education, and open publishing reduces the power of commercial publishers. These various initiatives will increase knowledge equity. The distributed model is consistent with societal moves towards decentralisation of the internet (Web 3.0 and 4.0) and federated IT infrastructures (such as the Fediverse for social media). The adoption of such a model would encourage new locally driven academic environments and research initiatives responsive to societal needs, and increase knowledge equity.
The book ends with an urgent call to action. I would welcome any suggestions of ways to advocate for distributing knowledge for equity and transform higher education. Please get in touch with me.