Why reform should be about continuous quality improvement

Universities everywhere are under pressure to reform, to better meet today’s societal challenges and economic pressures and in turn the needs of their main stakeholders – students, staff, as well as employers and society at large.

The response to recent challenges has seen broad adoption of online teaching-learning delivery and changes made to academic programme offerings to make them more attractive in an increasingly competitive student market and to expand institutions’ domestic and/or international reach.

We have also witnessed the removal of certain discipline specialisations, the consolidation or downsizing of academic faculties, the restructuring of staff groupings and greater centralisation of decision-making.

Any and all of these changes have a significant impact on an institution’s greatest asset: its people. The question is how can universities better respond to these stresses knowing that there will forever be change pressures of some sort or another?

The illusion of progress

Constant restructuring does not work. Nor does change for change’s sake, which frequently accompanies the appointment of a new leader keen to put his/her stamp on an institution.

The institution is once again reluctantly thrown into developing a new Strategic vision and accompanying Plan, even though the last Plan hasn’t been fully realised. Staff are expected to engage in a lengthy process of responding to green and white papers that, frankly speaking, tend to present predetermined proposals.

The ‘why are we doing this?’ question is rarely satisfactorily answered, and staff become increasingly sceptical that the time and resources required for the new proposals to succeed will be afforded before another change strategy is announced.

In the meantime, staff who may still be adapting to recently approved work demands and/or changes in their roles and work conditions are left disenchanted about the value of the whole process and start to question the fitness of management.

The American author Charlton Ogburn, writing in 1957 about meeting any new situation with constant reorganising/restructuring, said: “It can be a method for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.” How apt his observation still is in the case of how change is often handled by management in the higher education sector.

How HE deals with change

Change can be challenging in any organisation. It generally brings with it a certain amount of tension amongst those who are uncertain about how the change will impact them. Staff see the potential loss of principles they hold dear, possible forced employee redundancies and diminished quality in the services and support available to students and staff.

Trying to change too much too quickly or for the wrong or inadequate reasons will inevitably lead to resistance. What is too often missing during the change process is acknowledgement and preservation of those elements in the institution that are working well, which includes existing knowledge and skill sets of staff.

The message is that change in the sector is constant. The key to dealing with it is having the right structures and processes in place all year round, all working well together to successfully support the implementation of progressive change through a continuous quality improvement (CQI) process.

Universities need to build flexibility and adaptability into their systems to manage change elements that serve to support progressive change and allow the existing structures, procedures and staff to successfully adapt to any called-for change. But staff also need to be made aware that there will from time to time likely be some unintended consequences attached to any change.

Sustained CQI should inform the institution’s representative committees, its working groups, faculties, and administrative units, as well as at the executive governance level. All these entities have a key role to play in keeping on top of the external and internal landscape, locating areas of non-performance, identifying gaps in procedures and potentials for improvement and seeking out new opportunities and better ways of addressing both external and internal pressures.

This calls for regular, thorough internal reviews of academic programme offerings, checks on possible gaps in policy, procedures and guidelines, verification of the adequacy of staff and student support, and regular evaluation of the efficacy of key committees and governing structures.

Most universities have written policies or procedures that address these items. However, questions could be justifiably asked about how reliably they meet their obligations.

The importance of communication

The most significant factor in addressing any tension, suspicion, distress and/or resistance associated with change is making sure staff are kept informed through regular, clear communication. It is paramount to listen to staff, and hear from as many diverse viewpoints as possible, which in itself can lead to a more complete understanding of the issues for all stakeholders.

This does not, of course, necessarily mean all viewpoints can be adopted in full, but it does mean treating offered opinions seriously and providing explanations about the decisions that are ultimately taken.

Staff involvement is fundamental to helping change work. University management who choose to ignore resistance to change do so at their own peril and have negligible chance of successfully implementing change.

There must be authentic debate across the institution and through various formal groupings, such as committees and informal stakeholder focus groups, about potential impacts on the institution and its academic and professional staff.

Finally, there will be unforeseen significant change pressures that universities from time to time have to deal with. The COVID pandemic was one such example, which was handled well by some and not so well by others, and more recently the rise of technology and its impact on education.

However, if the mechanisms identified above are in place to handle change and importantly, they are consistently working productively to address external and internal stresses, then change is seen as an inevitable occurrence and part of basic continuous improvement.

Dr Nita Temmerman has held senior university positions, including pro vice-chancellor (academic quality and partnerships) and executive dean in Australia. She is an invited accreditation specialist with the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications and an international associate with the Center for Learning Innovations and Customised Knowledge Solutions in Dubai. She is the chair of two higher education academic boards and an invited professor and consultant to universities in Australia, the Pacific region, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.