UNIVERSITY REFORMS FROM 1984 TO 1999
INTR ODUCTION
The environments in which the experiences of international students took place are both historical (as with the Colombo Plan) and political. While the Colombo Plan was, for the most part, within the territory of foreign affairs, subsequent policies concerning international education shifted toward other policy areas. This shift was not necessarily pragmatic; rather, it was philosophical (changing notions of supporting developing nations), global (the decreasing threat of Communism), and, particularly in New Zealand's case, ideological. Whereas once the education of international students sat comfortably within aid parameters, this was becoming no longer the case. Paralleling these shifts, were significant social and educational policy changes in New Zealand, which were themselves part of broader philosophical, economic, and political shifts and can be analysed and critiqued (c£ Boston, 1 988; Boston, 1 999; Boston et al, 1 99 1 ; Boston and Dalziel, 1 992a; Stephens and Boston, 1 994). These shifts, in turn, affected New Zealand's approach to international students, from being recipients of revenue to being providers of revenue. There was not so much a deliberate calculated shift, but, as demonstrated in the previous chapter, changes were incremental and largely reactive to changing circumstances in foreign and trade policies.
The detail and depth of analysis given to changes in education policy in the period covered by this chapter is necessary for several reasons. Firstly, these changes show the educational environment into which international students were been recruited. Secondly, these changes show the pervasiveness of neo-liberal ideology in government policy of this period. Thirdly, and finally, these changes show the
absence
of international students (as a group of people, rather than a commodity) in the formation of this education policy. Whereas international students had a role under New Zealand's foreign policy from thehad, a far greater presence when New Zealand's foreign policy was aid-directed; their position in both recent foreign policy and education policy (domestic and international) is far more problematic and their direct presence and influence is less noticeable.
This chapter analyses these reforms through Government policy documents from 1 984 to 1 999 and to the election of New Zealand's fifth Labour Government. Education played a significant role in both the policy and philosophical agendas of the fourth Labour Govenunent (1984-1 990). Expressions of these philosophies, critically analysed herein, included the Treasury's
Government Management Report,
the Business Roundtable'sReforming Tertiary Education in New Zealand,
and the Hawke Report. There was also significant legislation during this period, including the 1 989 Education Act. Education policy held a relatively less significant platform in the National-led Governments ( 1 990-1 999), but this period saw an extension of the neo-liberal policies enacted during the 1 980s. ill the education field, these included lower subsidies and higher fees across the board, as well as a substantive legislative shift toward export education as trade.
New Zealand's shift toward the marketing and commodification of education was not unique. Similar changes took place in both Britain and Australia (Butterworth and Tarling, 1994; cf Coady, 2000; Karmel, 2000). Of Australian reforms, one author commented that "the [Australian] government pressed its view that education was a commodity that should be marketed, a view which led to the selling of education like soap powder to those who could be persuaded to pay for it" (cited in Butterworth and Tarling, 1 994:244). Similar growth trends also occurred elsewhere. For example, the 'Group of Eight' leading industrial nations has adopted a goal of doubling student and teacher exchanges in the next ten years (Ministry of Education, 200 1 a).
During the reign of the New Right in the 1 980s and 1 990s, the
raison d 'etre
of universities was threatened, or at least amended (Peters, 1 997b). Under neo-liberal politics, education, in its economic rationale and as an'arm'
of the state was, like most other public sectors, reconceptualised. According to the neo-liberal agenda: the state was too large; it was undertaking projects that could better be done by the private sector; and the citizen, as an individual actor, was 'rational'. This 'rational actor' "possess[ed] the information to enable them to make the best judgments on risks and potentials in order to guide their conduct; they must be freed to choose according to �e natural laws of the free market on the onehand and human nature on the other" (Rose, 1 999 : 1 3 9). In this agenda, "all aspects of social behaviour [were] conceptualised along economic lines - as calculative actions undertaken through the universal faculty of choice" (Rose, 1 999: 1 4 1).
Theoretical agendas drove the process, but they all returned to the notion of a ratiOIial actor and a minimum State (Boston et al, 1 99 1 ). There are two consequences of this agenda relevant here. The 'rolling back [of] the State' (Kelsey, 1 993) saw declining levels of State funding from universities under programmes of both the Labour and National Governments of this period. Universities needed to compensate this withdrawal of funding through other means. Here is the second relevant aspect. The 1 989 Education Act and its subsequent amendments opened the way for selling New Zealand's education abroad. Not only was the ideological environment ripe for such a change, the economic environment almost required it. Neo-liberalism drove the process, whichever party was in Government, a process that began radically, and with disarming speed with the election of the Fourth Labour Government in 1 984.
TERTIARY EDUCATION UNDER LABOUR (1 984-1990)
Holland and Boston ( 1 990: 1) argue that the Fourth Labour Government was responsible for a period of 'perestroika', of radical reform. The significant reforms of this Government "were responsible for the destabilization that characterized Government policy and administration from early 1 988 until 1990" (Holland and Boston, 1 990: 1). The politics of the Fourth Labour Government were 'radical politics', which extended into every facet of New Zealand life and every avenue of policy. While its biggest changes were in administrative reform, economic policy, foreign affairs, and party and electoral behaviour (Boston and Holland, 1987; Holland and Boston, 1990), changes also extended into the education sector.
Education was a significant platform for the Fourth Labour Government, to the extent that the Prime Minister David Lange held both the Prime Minister-ship and the Education portfolio. Labour also reformed both the primary and secondary school sectors, in the form of its 1 988 charter 'Tomorrow's Schools' (cf. Grace, 1 990). It adopted new - or, at least, reformed - notions of education, seeing it as a commodity, with key regulative principles
of choice in a free-market, parent-power, accountability, and efficient management (Grace,
1 990).
Effectively, in this period, higher education in New Zealand was transformed from a social entitlement, albeit one conditional on ability and performance, into a private investment in 'human capital'. The changes were significant, but not wholesale. However, they were ideological and international and those two . impetuses alone served as masters, rather than servants, in policy in later years. As Butterworth and Tarling ( 1 994:63) argue:
In Britain, the United States, Australia and New Zealand the idea of education was enthusiastically reconstructed. The idea of education as a social good, which included education as social engineering, as the transmission belt of values and as potent engine of the consensus-seeking state, had prevailed through a century and more of public provision. This idea was now retired. The state would continue and even increase its expenditure on education, but as a matter of economic advantage. The focus shifted from the social good of the citizen as participant in the common weal and fixed on the individualised consumer of an investment good.
These changes were driven by neo-liberal ideology and attendant advice from Treasury and within the Cabinet itself. For example, advice given to the Government, by Treasury, suggested: that education was a commodity in the market place; that the important relationship between the education service and its participants was that of provider and customer/consumer; that the State was not the best mechanism for the provision of education services; and that such services would be better delivered through a free-market system (Grace,