MUST READ BY STUDENTS, PARENTS AND SPONSORS RIGHT ACROSS THE COUNTRY (PNG). GOVERNMENTS INTERFERENCE ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF UNIVERSITIES ADMINISTRATION IN THE COUNTRY WILL SEVERELY HAVE NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON OUR UNIVERSITIES. ARTICLE 109 MUST BE REPEALED IMMEDIATELY!!!. STUDENT LEADERS MUST RISE UP TO STOP THE GOVERNMENT FROM PASSING THIS UNIVERSITY ACT. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// By, Dr. Albert Schram (Unitech VC) Throwing away the baby of higher education reform with the bathwater of political interference Executive Summary As expressed earlier, in our view the Minister should repeal Art. 109 of the proposed new Higher Education Act, which calls for direct or indirect appointments by the National Executive Council (= the Government of PNG) of University Council members and executives. All PNG Vice-Chancellors and Chancellors belief Art. 109 will lead to further politicisation of the University Councils, and eventual collapse of PNGs fragile higher education system. Article 109 is unnecessary since the government has enough powers in Council through government appointed members and MPs, through the Public Finance Management Act, and through the Emergency Act. It can intervene in University Councils in specific cases when this is necessary. Implementing this article will have catastrophic effects on the university system. No university in New Zealand, Australia has directly appointed Chancellors, Pro-Chancellors or Vice Chancellors. Of 34 European countries only 2 countries with world class university systems have this (The Netherlands, Sweden) but these are cases of stable consensus democracies with exceptional social harmony. Finally, the use of consequential amendments of the Higher Edcuation Acts to the individual University Acts can be challenged in court. Any state university can do this, and this would probably preclude the further reform of the governance system of PNG universities. It is therefore wise if the Minister of Higher Education repeal Art. 109 before the Act is published in the national Gazzette. On Thursday 23 October, representatives of the Higher Education Sector met in the Holiday Inn for a 2 day workshop discussing a key piece of new legislation the 2014 Higher Education Act. The process to create this Act started 13 years ago, and seems now to have reached a milestone. The HE Act has already been approved by Parliament 50-0, although not yet published in the official Gacette. It can therefor not yet be implemented. At the workshop, the draft of the University Governance Manual was also distributed, which has a mandatory nature and is the regulation accompanying this Act. Regrettably, the main stakeholders, the Chancellors and the Vice-Chancellors had not previously been consulted in a meaningful manner. Most of us were presented with the texts on the day itself. Vice-Chancellors tend to resent being ambushed, in particular since there is an active PNG Vice-Chancellors committee, and other consultation mechanisms. There are many good things in the new HE Act. The OHE will be transformed into the Dept. of HE, and will eventually have a sufficient number of staff. Oddly, however, from the experience of the past decades the Government seems to have drawn the conclusion that it needs more powers to appoint political allies into the Councils and Executive. At UNITECH we drew the opposite conclusion, because the last 2 years the government kept interfering mostly in favour of the former Council members, whose track record of lack of oversight and irresponsibility has been amply documented and us free for everybody to read in the report of the investigation led by the late Judge Mark Sevua. The Vice-Chancellors, supported by their Chancellors, were appalled to read Art. 109. It says: Division 2 Papua New Guinea Public Universities ... Art. 109 National Executive Council to make or approve certain appointments (1) The Chancellor and Pro Chancellor of the University shall be appointed by the National Executive Council, on the recommendation of the Minister through the process prescribed in a regulation (this is presumably the University Governance Manual AS). (2) the National Executive Council shall approve the appointment of all members of the governing body of the University, other than ex officio members and elected members, on the recommendation of the Minister through the process prescribed in a regulation. (3) The National Executive Council shall approve the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer of the University, on the recommendation of the Minister through the process prescribed in a regulation. (4) Appointments and approvals under Subsections (1), (2)) and (3) will be published in the National Gazzette. The proposed amendments of article 109 the Higher Education Act to the UNITECH Act are, for example: 26. THE CHANCELLOR. (1) There shall be a Chancellor who shall be appointed by the National Executive Council. ... 27. THE PRO-CHANCELLOR. (1) There shall be a Pro-Chancellor who shall be appointed the National Executive Council. ... 28. THE VICE-CHANCELLOR. (1) There shall be a Vice-Chancellor who shall be appointed in the manner and for the period prescribed by the Statutes, subject to the approval of the National Executive Council. ... At the workshop, private universities learned to their dismay among other things there will now be government representatives on their Councils. So were the experiences of PNG universities of the last decades so terrible as to warrant similar draconian measures? Nowhere in the Independent Review of the PNG University System (the Namaliu-Garnaut Report) does it call for similar measures. This review focuses mostly on the need to make investments to improve the academic quality before expanding the system further, and the downsizing of the the bloated University Councils. The Director General of OHE, Prof. David Kavanamur pointed out that the new HE Act is a living piece of legislation, and we should try it for 10-15 years. We fear, however, by then the PNG University system will have collapsed under the weight of political interference by successive Ministers and governments, which in PNG can succeed each other in rapid succession. The last two years, for example, we had 3 Minister of Higher Education. Instability in the government would therefore be imported into the University Councils. Now, apart from the inappropriate consultation process, what does the international experience teach us about political appointees in Council and the Executive of the Universities? In no university in Australia, New Zealand are the high executives appointed or approved by the government. Apparently, the Australian advisors of OHE belief that what is unacceptable for them, is acceptable for Papua New Guienans. We can only guess to the reasons why. From the European University Association study on University Autonomy (2009) we learn that of 34 countries in Europe In some universities in Iceland, Romania, Sweden and in some Swiss Cantons the appointment of the Rector (=Vice-Chancellor) must be confirmed either by the government or the relevant Ministry. (p. 14). The long term effects of a similar politicisation of the University Council and Executive are not positive. Of those 3 countries, only Sweden has a significant number of universities in the THE top 400 (=world class university). Unlike PNG, however Sweden is a case of exceptional social peace and harmony. Moreover, a government approved Vice-Chancellor is not conducive to maintaining the authority of the office, upholding the provisions of the Act, and maintaining peace and harmony on campus. At UNITECH, after the battle in favour of the Vice-Chancellor and against the government which continued to support the former, unaccountable and irresponsible Council, we fear that this provision will merely create more unrest. Regarding external members to the University Council, including appointed Chancellors and Pro-Chancellors, we read: They are either controlled by the university itself (for instance in Denmark, Finland, France and Portugal), or by a higher authority such as the Ministry of Education (as is the case in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland). (p. 13) Again none of these countries except the Netherlands have a significant number of world class universities. The Netherlands, however, is a case of exceptional peace and harmony at universities to the the institutionalization of student and staff participation in governance, and effective consultation mechanisms. In sum, I continue to reiterate that Art. 109 should be repealed, so that we do not throw out the baby of the Higher Education Act with the bathwater of political interference. The last thing we need after over 2 years of the prolonged governance crisis at UNITECH, which was caused in large part by wrong sided interference by the governance in Council matters, and their inability to use existing democratic mechanisms and tools already provided by existing legislation.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 20:35:03 +0000
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