Deinstitutionalisation and Renewal in Higher Education

Abstract

Despite some superficial heterogeneity, higher education institutions around the world share core structures. According to critics such as Ivan Illich, the ossification of these institutional forms has ended up impoverishing the practices they were originally intended to support. This article assesses the grounds for these claims and associated construction of alternatives. It identifies three significant features of the institution: gates – the controls on admissions to the university; roles – the distinctions drawn between students, lecturers and other actors; and badges – the processes and artefacts of validation of student learning and scholarship. These three features are seen to have varying forms, levels of rigidity and loci of control, and have ambiguous impacts on equality and fairness, and on the core purpose of the university to promote human understanding. Implications are drawn out for the future of the university, and for current initiatives that are attempting to subvert these structures and create alternative models.