The NTEU report says the University of Melbourne has a 42 per cent make-up of corporate board appointments. Photo: Wirestock.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has published research showing that university governing boards are stacked with unelected corporate executives or consultants.
As of April this year, 366 of the 545 positions on university governing bodies were appointed. Just 137 of the appointees were elected from staff, students and graduates of these institutions, while 143 came out of for-profit organisations.
The report declares corporatised university governance coincides with record levels of insecure employment and wage theft in the tertiary sector, along with persistently out-of-touch levels of remuneration for senior managers.
Victorian universities recently published their 2023 annual reports, which revealed six of the state’s eight vice-chancellors received pay rises last year. Some of these salary boosts were over $50,000, despite five of the universities posting annual deficits in the tens of millions.
NTEU national president Dr Alison Barnes said as a result of corporate stacking, Australia was seeing the worst traits of big business infecting public universities.
“Vice-chancellors raking in more than $1 million each year are getting away with turning cherished institutions into corporate husks because there’s so little accountability,” Dr Barnes said.
“No-one is more committed to sustainable universities that deliver for Australian society than staff and students.
“Yet we’re now in a shocking situation where they are outnumbered by big-business appointees with little to no experience in higher education.”
Tertiary institutions with the highest number of corporate board appointees include the University of New England (50 per cent), University of Wollongong (50 per cent), Macquarie University (46 per cent), University of Melbourne (42 per cent) and La Trobe University (40 per cent).
Major corporations and consultancies represented on university councils include KPMG, PwC, BCG, JP Morgan, Macquarie Bank, Foxtel, Nine, Coal Network, Woodside Petroleum, and Rio Tinto.
The NTEU report claims that while the influence of private membership on governing boards is notable, the proliferation of consultants into these positions is even more concerning.
“In recent years, universities have come under increasing pressure for their excessive use of consultants,” the report says. “In 2023 it was reported (by the Sydney Morning Herald) that the top ten ranked universities spent at least $249m on consultants alone.
“Extrapolated out, this could mean the sector is spending close to $1 billion per year on consultants.
“As it presently stands, only Universities in Victoria and Queensland are required to report on their spending on consultants, and this reporting is still minimal.”
The Australian Universities Accord interim and final reports identified poor governance at tertiary institutions as the root cause of several systemic issues within the sector.
It also noted that non-academic executive roles in higher education had tripled in number since 1991.
The accord said that to achieve long-term security and prosperity for the sector and the nation, universities must bring more tertiary experience onto governing bodies.
Last week the NTEU said the Federal Government, and its state and territory counterparts, should set a national minimum standard for the number of elected staff and student positions on each council or senate.
The union also said the governments should consider public and higher education sector experience in board appointments, rather than the current preference for consultants and corporate.
