Make universities great again
By David Hughes
First published in the MRC’s Watercooler newsletter. Sign up to our mailing list to receive Watercooler directly in your inbox.
Over the last few weeks the Menzies Research Centre has been focused on providing solutions to turn around the decline of our educational institutions.
In light of the challenges students are facing, Freya Leach and I recently asked Dr Brendan Nelson what advice he would offer to young people today. You can watch some of our discussion here.
What concerns Brendan is that much of our political discourse today is “I'm right, you're wrong, and you're stupid”. His advice, in the face of these challenges, is to nurture and protect the inner integrity of your intellect, your ability to think.
According to Brendan, “What transcends everything — rank, power, money, influence, looks, intellect and talent — is character. Informed by worthwhile, intrinsic virtues or values.”
“You also have to imbue yourself with this imaginative capacity to see the world through the eyes of others. It's important for us to know what other people think. But what's much more important is to understand how others think. If you understand who and what is shaping this person's worldview, that's when you're more than halfway there to challenging and changing them.”
Brendan’s words struck a chord as we were in the midst of researching our report into the trends in Western institutions. Specifically our universities and schools. Our work was motivated by two problems:
A decline in education standards and student performance.
An emerging spirit of distrust and antagonism. Students are taught to blame failure, defeat and disappointment on the failings of others or the failings of our wider society, culture or class.
It's concerning because failure, defeat and disappointment are crucial factors in personal development. Inevitable setbacks are an opportunity to teach young people to problem solve, bounce back and deal with stress.
Our educational institutions often fuel anxiety and social tension as younger generations are taught to deride the past, to fear the future and question their own identity in the present. We should teach children about Kokoda not because we want to celebrate war but because children need to know the values of courage, strength and sacrifice. This helps prepare them for our harsh and unforgiving world.
We want students to think critically about the past, present and future. But we can’t lose sight of the values that bind us as a nation. Our universities should seek to enhance the values that have made our Western liberal democracy so successful. Unfortunately, universities often prefer to tear down those foundations.
As we look to re-focus these organisations, I can think of three universal values that should be at the forefront.
First, we must place integrity above all else. Last year 60% of students confessed to some form of cheating and over 10,000 academic papers were retracted due to poor academic integrity. Corporate pressures at universities are compromising the integrity of teaching and research coupled with a desire to promote agendas and political and social goals at the expense of quality. The ramifications stretch far beyond our universities. To use one recent example, a prominent Australian cancer researcher was recently found guilty of research misconduct. Over his three-decade career, the academic in question was awarded over $38 million in publicly funded research grants.
Second, our universities must embrace the spirit of liberalism which knows that reasonable people can disagree.
Finally, we need to encourage independent thought. Our universities must be grounded in the pursuit of free thought and truth — both necessary for the flourishing of a liberal democracy. People cannot thrive when independent thought is restricted.
We explore all of these issues in our recent report which also offers nine policy solutions that can be implemented immediately. You can read our report here.
