Accordingly large and urgent? 2/2

This is the second of two articles on the Australian Universities Accord final report. The report describes the impact of the recommendations it contains as “large and urgent”, are they?

I thought I would consider the recommendations against a “7P” model of change that I've used for large scale enterprise transformations: considering what dimension each change recommendation impacts the most. The 7 dimensions, and their use in this context are listed below.

• Purpose: How does the change impact or assert the "why"
• People: How does the change impact people, either collectively or specifically targeted
• Process: How does the change impact how things are done
• Platform: How does the change impact the technology platform(s) used
• Place: How does the change impact "where" things are done
• Partners: How does the change impact the associated organisations
• Politics: How does the change impact the formal process and structure through which decisions are made

Secondly, I consider the scale of each change. Whether the proposed recommendation represents an improved way of doing what we do already (an incremental change), a different way of doing what we do already (a transitional change), or something that we want to do that is entirely new (a transformational change).?

The results are depicted below.?The size of the object represents the scale of the change (1.1 incremental, 1.2 transitional, 1.3 transformational), the shape of the object represents the type of change as shown in the key.

See [2] below for an interactive link. I created the diagram using Kumu (which is a nice tool BTW). The interactive model will let you focus on specific areas and filter by type of change and size of change.

In performing this analysis, it becomes clear that the Accord is trying to address many different issues, each of which can be considered important. A harsh review would liken the result to decision making in an organised anarchy, which is also known as the “garbage can model” [1]. Despite its name, this is an academic theory of decision making in organisations (and systems) where the degree of autonomy makes it akin to an "anarchy". Decisions here are an outcome or interpretation of several relatively independent streams of problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities within a system.?

Is the Accord a “garbage can”? I hope not. I agree wholeheartedly with first recommendation of the report: that education exists to underpin democracy and to drive sustainable social and economic development and while I find the recommendations uneven in terms of their scope and focus, none deserved to be dropped. It essential to all our futures that we get education and research right.?One observations seems obvious, the implementation of the Report will be more challenging than its production.

In terms of the future design of education: let’s agree that the idea and practice of “once and done”, finishing education in our youth, is well past its best before date. No matter our profession, career or passion, we will all need to continue to learn (and unlearn) throughout our lives.

This realisation relaxes a design constraint: we don’t need to set a fixed end destination of our education journey. We don’t need to design the perfect pedagogy for our future lives. We just need to agree where we want to head to next and to check and correct our direction from there. Agile education or the educational equivalent of “velocity made good” if you will.

To that end, I am particularly interested in the three recommendations that I've categorised as "platform" changes. They are:

• R 04 to help students accelerate the acquisition and recognition of their skills, help graduates track skills, qualifications and experience, and make it simpler for employers to verify job candidate capabilities, the Australian Government implement a National Skills Passport
• R 05 establish a comprehensive system of modular, stackable and transferable qualifications, including microcredentials, consistent with a reformed Australian Qualifications Framework
• R 06 move toward funding a set of microcredentials as a new element in the system of Commonwealth supported places, initially in areas of employer demand and national priority

From my perspective, I would like to see a "skills passport" [R 04] deliver what the words imply, something that each lifelong learner can take with them and in which they can hold the education and skills credentials that they have earned and from which they can present these credentials to whom they choose, when they choose, without the issuer being involved. Not all "passports" have these qualities, too many are locked into centralised platforms or proprietary technology stacks. There is no point in giving Australian learners a "passport" that can't be used internationally. This is understood by all the Universities who have signed up to the Groningen Declaration (https://groningendeclaration.org/), which is all the public Universities in Australia. But just because its obvious that the design should be based on open standards (e.g. W3C VC, or even, at a stretch, ISO mDoc), doesn't mean that it what it will be. There are many vested interests, and many millions of dollars already invested, in credential platforms and products.

With respect to recommendation 5, most institutions that I know of have been pursuing "snackable and stackable" objectives in their curriculum design for some time. This is nothing new, but no less important for that. It is also difficult to achieve. The dynamic nature of course content over time, and the complex combinations that can be created, make determining "equivalence" and "credit for prior learning" increasingly difficult. The general design for R 05 is simple, but the specifics are difficult and there will be a tension between defining a system and allowing the essential freedom to change.

R 06 goes directly towards an incentive model to encourage learners to take up courses that are deemed to have employer demand and national priority. Here my concern is that any such approach tends to be attempting to predict the future by looking in the rear view mirror. I look forward to an approach that can work with a government cadence and yet react quickly enough to the changing demands that will present themselves over the coming years.

What do you think? Large and Urgent? Transformational? If not, why not, and what should be changed??

[1] Garbage can model of decision making: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_can_model??

[2] Interactive representation here: https://kumu.io/johnonkumu/australian-universities-accord#map-of-2024-australian-universities-accord/change-impact-focus-and-magnitude??

460degrees

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