The Council of the Australian Association of University Professors has welcomed the announcement of a Federal Parliamentary inquiry into the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers.

The governance of Australian universities faces significant challenges, with systemic issues and breakdowns in university governance affecting their functioning at all levels. University management currently operates with no proper oversight to regulate or hold them accountable for their self-serving actions. This culture of unchallenged authority must be dismantled to restore integrity, transparency, and proper governance in Australian universities.

These governance issues are negatively impacting both the quality of education they are providing to students, and academics’ well-being and safety at work, as well as their career progression and job security. The resulting erosion of trust between university management and teaching and/or researching academics, combined with no transparency and accountability within university management, has tarnished public perception of the value of universities and their international standing.

At the core of the issue is a pattern of serious mismanagement and poor practice by university leadership, characterised by blatant disregard for established policies, fairness, transparency, integrity, accountability, academic standards, and natural justice.

Governance at universities is also compromised because their governing bodies, statutory authorities such as TEQSA, and ultimately state and Federal Governments, currently only receive filtered information that can conceal malpractice. Non-academics who occupy senior roles on university governing boards also often lack sensitivity to the unique requirements of university governance.

Some of AAUP’s specific governance concerns include:

Suppression of dissent: Academics and students who raise legitimate concerns about senior management decisions and practices face intimidation,  marginalisation, bullying, discrimination, retaliation and even termination.

Resource management concerns: Allegations of resource mismanagement, including inappropriate use or miss-allocation of funding, which raise questions about accountability and efficient use of public funds.

Nepotism and cronyism: Staff recruitment and promotion may be influenced by favouritism, with merit overlooked in favour of personal connections.

Lack of transparency: Key decision-making processes lack transparency and critical discussion, leaving academics and stakeholders disengaged.

Lack of accountability: The leaders and senior managers of Australian universities are not held accountable to anyone or any particular body for their governance performance.

Unfortunately, when such concerns have been raised by academics, university management has tended to respond by “stonewalling” and with media management to deflect attention away from academics’ legitimate claims, which undermines the special obligations that universities have as publicly funded institutions.

In case there is any doubt, the recent Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 cited “Australia’s top five universities all slip down the rankings, due to declining reputation and international outlook” and noted “declining reputation and international outlook” as critical factors in the demotion of several institutions. Such reputational decline tends to be the outcome of ongoing corrosive governance failures, and deceptive self-presentation (“marketing”) by management that overlooks the factual experience of students and academics who are ‘on the ground’ involved in teaching, learning and research.

The Federal Government, as the major funder of our universities, should implement practical and popular measures to reduce the excessive overhead costs at universities, including the reduction of senior executive remuneration (pay ratio) to the level of other civil servants in publicly funded organisations, and the withholding of funding to individual universities pro-rata to their failure in achieving an agreed progressive reduction in the transactional costs of administration (such as the current overuse by senior university management of external consultants).

AAUP is taking a firm stand to improve university culture and governance through fact-based, data-driven research and the foundational principles that have upheld academic freedom, the pursuit of truth, and the dissemination of knowledge for centuries, all for the betterment of society ( https://www.professoriate.org).

Ensuring transparency, accountability, and a commitment to core academic values are embedded into the governing structures of our universities is essential to restoring public trust and ensuring their healthy future.

For inquiries, please contact: aaup_council@professoriate.org

Republished from The Council of the Australian Association of University Professors (AAUP), Feb 12, 2025