In late 2025, the Australian National University (ANU) found itself in the spotlight for reasons less flattering than its academic reputation. After only two years at the helm, Professor Genevieve Bell resigned as Vice Chancellor. There were months of speculation, debate, and even criticism.
Government approach to efficiency can hurt unis: Houghton
INSIGHTS & RESOURCES
Government approach to efficiency can hurt unis: Houghton
The Australian
by Bernard Lane
16 August 2017
“……..Year after year universities have made productivity gains but not of the scale that could consume $1.2 billion without some consequences,” said researcher Keith Houghton, a former business dean at the Australian National University.
With colleagues he studied the efficiency track record of universities, finding a sector-wide productivity increase of 15.2 per cent between 2007 and 2013.
However, the performance of individual universities varied widely, with some showing great efficiency and others struggling. And although all institutions benefited from system-wide changes such as better technology, only half were able to lift their institution-specific efficiency.
“The way the government has (handled this 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend) it seems to imply that every university is equally efficient or inefficient — that’s just not true,” Professor Houghton said.
“Overall, the industry has done well in terms of efficiency, it has been saving the taxpayer.
“But there are a small number of universities that, when you look year on year, they have either stagnated in terms of efficiency gains or, in one or two cases, they’ve actually going backwards.
“If I was the federal government, I would want to know which those institutions are — to try to support them to turn around that level of inefficiency.”
Australia has, on average, some of the largest universities in the English-speaking world. Some might speculate that this is an idiosyncratic outcome of the Australian education funding approach. While this is possible, even likely, the effect of global ranking algorithms may also factor into this. Those who have attempted to reverse engineer the three or four largest rankings appear to recognise that controlling for scale is a near-impossible task.
Earlier this year, the Higher Education and Research Group released its latest annual analysis of the productivity of the Australian university sector, including, for the first time, the three large private universities.