Counting Out the Scholars: The Case Against Performance Indicators in Higher Education

Alexander D. Gregor is director of the Centre for Higher Education
Research and Development at the University of Manitoba and coeditor of
Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

Published under the aegis of the Canadian Association of University
Teachers (CAUT), the national federation of university faculty
associations, this comprehensive and well-documented monograph examines
the issues surrounding the use of performance indicators (PIs) in higher
education, both in Canada and in other parts of the world. Used by
governments for purposes of assessment and accountability, PIs are a
matter of serious policy concern. They can shape the way institutions
behave, and can significantly affect university enrolments and funding.
The authors argue that while PIs have a place in certain corporate
settings, they are inappropriate instruments in the identification and
measurement of the unique characteristics of the core university
enterprise: its teaching, research, and service mandates. They use
examples from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States to
illustrate the unfortunate consequences of using PIs in academic
settings.

At the same time, Bruneau and Savage recognize the need to find ways to
define and measure the attainment of meaningful institutional goals.
They propose various alternatives to PIs, which can, they suggest, be
left in the hands of the institutions themselves. This ignores the fact
that the rise of PIs was in part a result of a perceived unwillingness
or inability on the part of institutions to subject themselves to
effective scrutiny; and it underlines the major flaw in an otherwise
very useful study: the absence of other perspectives—administrators,
government, private sector, and students—on the issue.