Alleviating the human cost of COVID-19 in Australian universities
By Elizabeth Baré, Janet Beard and Teresa Tjia.
Introduction
The student cohort which commences or returns to Australian university campuses in 2022 will be vastly different to that which commenced in 2019. Not only will a substantial proportion of returning students in Victoria and New South Wales have had no or limited time on campus in 2020 and 2021 (they represent approximately 59% of the nation’s returning students at universities2), the numbers of commencing international students may be limited and, in some Australian states, many first-year students will have experienced long periods of absence from school.
In the first half of 2020, staff at Australian universities performed the Herculean task of shifting teaching and learning interactions, assessment, and student engagement online; in some cases, having limited knowledge of digital pedagogy or technical expertise. As a result of a sustained effort, domestic students and international students who remained enrolled either in Australia or overseas were able to continue their education and complete course work. Courses requiring the exercise of practical skills or work-related placement experience faced significant problems in completing their courses in the relevant time frame. While the lived experience in Australian universities in 2021 has differed between states and student cohorts because of the extent of COVID infections and lockdowns, currently much teaching remains blended or digital, and students only attend campus in limited mode in the eastern states.
Many have argued that COVID-driven changes in pedagogy in 2020 were but an acceleration of trends already in play, and that a substantial proportion of undergraduate and postgraduate coursework teaching will remain on-line, at least in the near future, given the perception that this form of teaching is cost effective. It is estimated that staff reduction exercises across the whole higher education sector has resulted in the loss of approximately 40,000 people between May 2019 and 2020, with further restructures and downsizing being undertaken in 2021 impacting on fixed term and continuing staff3.
Changes of this magnitude come with significant loss of funding, intellectual capital and expertise, but equally as significant is the human cost in terms of staff and student engagement and morale.
A significant early warning lies in the decline in Learner Engagement4 scores for both undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students in the 2020 Student Experience Survey (SES)5 conducted as part of the Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching (QILT)6 surveys. As will be shown in the next section, the data suggest a level of disquiet with the quality and experience of on-line education delivery and a diminution in the sense of institutional belonging and support.
As students and staff return to campus, it is important that the human settings facilitate reengagement and commitment. Leadership is key to this and how leaders respond to the many challenges will determine the degree of success. We elaborate some issues in the following sections and highlight five challenges faced by universities going forward, suggesting that additional attention must be paid to students and staff to ensure their health and wellbeing.
* Please download the paper for footnotes.
Elizabeth Baré, Janet Beard and Teresa Tjia are Honorary Fellows of the LH Martin Institute.
The authors have worked many years in higher education at senior levels and draw on their experience and knowledge of the sector in writing this paper.