Prospects of new international rules for trade in educational services are a serious threat to third-level education as we know it, writes Seán Byrne
The OECD will shortly publish a review of Irish third-level education which may form the basis of a policy that will significantly change the present structures.
The OECD review is taking place as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is considering proposals, originating in the US, that would allow the import and export of higher education subject to WTO rules and free of most restrictions. The basic philosophy of the US trade negotiators is that governments, instead of funding higher education directly, should buy it from private profit-making education "providers". If this proposal is accepted it would mean abandoning ideals and principles that have underpinned higher education since the Middle Ages.
Higher education is already strongly affected by globalisation. Universities and other third-level colleges are under pressure from governments to contribute to economic growth by providing "relevant" courses and by "responding to the needs of industry".
The submission by the IDA to the OECD review group gives the impression that the sole function of higher education is to meet the needs of industry. Competition for mobile foreign investment has resulted in pressure to cram more and more young people into "relevant" third-level courses.
In higher education, talk of targets, budgets and accountability has almost displaced reflection on aims or ideals. Third-level education is being pushed towards the marketplace to earn its revenues. The recent plans put forward by the provost of Trinity College and the president of UCD to restructure their universities show the pressures that university leaders face in a globalised "knowledge market".
There are many positive aspects to the globalisation of higher education. New communications technologies, global research networks and internationally mobile scholars facilitate the rapid transmission of new knowledge. Some poor countries benefit from this trend as distance education becomes more sophisticated through the use of satellite broadcasting.
But these benefits are largely due to the generosity of non-profit-making institutions, which share their learning and resources with countries that cannot afford adequate third-level provision. If the WTO proposals are accepted, this type of provision might be outlawed and poor countries, if they want third-level education, may have to buy it in the international marketplace.
While information and communications technology (ICT) offers great benefits in higher education, there is also the possibility that it could be used as means of providing cut-price government-funded third-level education for those unable to pay for the "real thing". ICT in education could be used for the mass transmission of knowledge and skills, with relatively small numbers of academic staff providing online courses in functional surroundings and with little face-to-face contact with students.
On the other hand, those who can afford high fees will be able to buy more personal contact with tutors amid the "dreaming spires".
From their foundation in the Middle Ages until the middle of the 20th century, universities were independent institutions that expanded the range of human knowledge, and, while they educated only a wealthy elite, their scholars were often critical of dominant discourses and were central to developing new ones.
University education was seen as a "public good", which provides benefits to society in addition to the person receiving the education. Academic freedom was regarded as essential to insulate scholars from economic and political pressures.
While the discoveries of university-based scientists were often very profitably commercialised, most university scientists were not motivated by financial rewards. Most of the scientists working on the human genome project have resisted the patenting of genetic material and the main inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners Lee, described himself and his collaborators as "volunteers".
The rise of the Internet and the globalisation of knowledge are threatening this ethos. While much new knowledge is still being generated in universities, multinational corporations have created a new international market in knowledge. This market is dominated by a handful of global corporations, such as Microsoft in information technology, Merck and Biogen in biotechnology and Elsevier in publishing.
Universities must attract research funds from large corporations and seek to commercialise their research in co-operation with such companies. The intrusion of the values of the marketplace on to the campus is changing public and political attitudes towards higher education. Third-level education is increasingly seen as a "private" service, which should be paid for like any other private service.
While unwilling to fund third-level education adequately, the Irish and British governments are demanding that third-level colleges admit more and more students. Egalitarian provision cannot be reconciled with a market-oriented system of higher education.
The privately owned Dublin Business School was recently taken over by Kaplan, one of the largest profit-making providers of further education in the US. Kaplan could, if given the opportunity, tender for the provision of many third-level courses in Ireland.
This is precisely the model favoured by the US negotiators at the WTO. If the WTO proposals are accepted (and they are facing little opposition from EU negotiators) hugely wealthy, profit-oriented US institutions could drive many third-level institutions in other countries out of business. As opposition to "regulation" is a core principle of the WTO, the profit-oriented colleges could resist existing quality-control mechanisms. Trade in higher education will become like trade in software or insurance and any attempt to maintain academic standards or autonomy will be resisted as a "restraint on trade".
• Seán Byrne lectures in economics in the Dublin Institute of Technology