If Italy’s university system is to proceed in a new direction, there are two crucial areas that must first be given a complete overhaul: its governance and its financial framework. And, that such reforms have become necessary is certainly a widely held view. The shape of these reforms and the regulations and procedures to be adopted, on this, the eve of the sitting government’s presentation of its university reform bill, is however still a matter for lively discussion both within academia and, in more general terms, the public arena.
Comparisons with trends seen elsewhere in Europe and the world could be an interesting place to start any analysis of this area of policy too. Comparative studies in fact, make it possible to identify the common thread that links the changes already taking place in the world’s most economically advanced countries. It seems that all are moving from a model in which universities are accessible only to an elite few, to one in which they are accessible to all, something that on paper at least, would appear to facilitate and perhaps attract a greater demand for tertiary and specialist education.
In management terms, this transformation has translated, elsewhere, into an outgrowing of the old, centralized modus operandi of the past, and in the consequential emphasis on the independent nature of individual institutions. This independence has, in turn, led to the refining of more flexible models of governance that pivot on objectives such as accountability and efficiency. In most European countries, the legal transformation leading to this newer style of university management marked the end of a transitional period that occurred more or less by accident and which highlighted, above all, the intrinsic incompatibility between independence and traditional governance.
Although the independent status of Italian universities was laid down in 1989, the transition is not yet complete. It has proved difficult, in recent years, to successfully reorganize the university system and avoid a form of ideological confrontation in the process. It has been difficult to overcome the resistance to change by the elements of a system still too self-referential in nature and with a tendency to protect individual interests rather than the general interests of all.
Whatever the historic and political origins of these problems, there can be no doubt that unless there is a determined effort to change the various mechanisms inherent in these institutions (the function of the Board of Directors, the role of managers and the academic workforce, staff selection, the distinction between teaching and research), the traditional objectives of a university will not be the only thing compromised – as a result of the furtherance of the concept that everyone has a right to access that level of education – but other objectives that a modern, enlightened society believes to be inalienable, such as accountability, efficiency and competitiveness, will also be affected.
It is also interesting to compare what is happening in the rest of the world on that front too: Italian universities are not competitive – with the exception, unsurprisingly, of the shining example set by the Institutes for Higher Education in specialist fields. Nor on the whole, as reported by the OCSE (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), are the students who graduate from them, and neither are the public institutions scattered across the country in a plethora of off-campus locations and provincial universities, most of which are not having much success in creating a more international profile for themselves or attracting high-caliber human capital from abroad.
What is missing, or insufficient – despite the positive moves made by both the present and previous legislatures as regards the National Evaluation Agency – is a university management culture based on merit and with accountability for results achieved. By the same token, the concept of a university as a service, subject therefore to periodic reviews of consumer satisfaction, is also struggling to find acceptance. The consumers in this case are the students and their families responsible for paying university fees, and in more general terms, the rest of society, given the belief that education is the fast-track to social elevation.
Exactly how to encourage the acceptance of merit-driven rewards, starting with evaluations based on indicators that are objectively verifiable – in both the research and, more importantly, the teaching sectors, remains an open question. It is obviously an issue that involves staff selection processes in particular. The debate inside academia today about a “national standard” for the independent recruitment of teaching staff, is an indication proving just how difficult it is to reach a commonly accepted solution, even if only on a temporary basis.
But, the problem, generally speaking, concerns the much broader question of whether public money should fund tertiary education. The transitional phase of this change is also taking years, having begun back in 1993 with the introduction of independent financing for universities. An analysis of the structure and growth in spending over the last fifteen years confirms that the framework of macro-financing currently in use in Italian universities is far from stable. On the one hand, in fact, the budgets of individual universities show, on average, a marked tendency towards an imbalance to the extent that it is foreseeable that within a few years a significant number of Italian universities may well find themselves in financial difficulties. On the other hand, the public funding universities receive from government through a dedicated channel known as the “Fondo di Finanziamento ordinario”, is having to stretch ever further due to the demands placed on their budgets by such historic costs as staffing, a significant portion of which goes to meeting the overall cost of docents’ salaries. The lack of any tax breaks is a further constraint.
A more equitable distribution of resources, and a reappraisal of the incentives and rules that govern their allocation, would make it possible to set about the rationalization and programming that are indispensable if the right balance is to be struck between the use of public resources and promoting the right to education for all.