Ronaldo Munck: Irish universities need to set new priorities after Covid pandemic

An aerial view of the UCC campus. File picture: UCC

There is a strong tendency after any crisis to want to ‘get back to normal’. A new book, with a strong Irish input, Higher Education’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, argues, however, that this is neither possible nor desirable.

A crisis — as we have all learnt through living with Covid for a year now — is in fact a turning point in a disease. There is either recovery and renewal or a deepening of the illness and possibly death. There can be no return to the status quo and ‘business as usual’ is simply not an option for higher education, any more than for society as a whole.

We need a radical reset of the higher education system based on what we have learnt throughout the pandemic. This is a watershed moment where renewal or further decline are the only options. We need to place the public responsibility of the university at the core of its new mission. We need to prioritise the social impact of higher education, rethink what a ‘hybrid’ online/face-to-face teaching model should look like, prioritise socially engaged research and redouble our efforts to work with our communities for post-Covid reconstruction.

The higher education system reacted speedily and adjusted well to cope with the impact of Covid. It made a rapid shift to online delivery of courses that was easier for some institutions than others, depending on past investment and whether they already had a distance-learning orientation. Many colleges and universities played a strong support role in terms of a dedicated research effort and in the provision of healthcare and vaccination centres. The voluntary commitment by staff and students alike has been quite extraordinary.

However, the pandemic also exposed the dramatic inequalities within our institutions and in society as a whole 

When DCU in the Community (our local north Dublin outreach centre) shifted to online teaching last March, we found that nearly half of the 40-plus students we worked with lacked a laptop, tablet or even a smartphone to access online learning. 

This digital divide is just one more visible aspect of the very real disadvantages many students have suffered from. In Ireland and, indeed, globally, I have noted that among staff there was an unspoken divide between those ‘working from home’ (a problematic term in its own right) and the many technicians, security staff and other frontline groups that have kept the labs and essential services open.

Covid crisis has shown resilience and resources

The Covid-19 crisis has shown the resilience and resources that universities can offer. However, it has also shown the inequalities that not only exist but have been exacerbated by the pandemic. We do need to be bold moving forwards, rethinking our mission to make the higher education system more fit for purpose in the future.

This responsibility is shared with the public authorities that establish the framework within which higher education operates, not least our finance and governance frames. If higher education is to help shape the post-Covid world, these frames will need to be addressed with urgency. The recommendations for funding reform have been kicked down the road for far too long. The balance between a much-cherished institutional autonomy and the good governance principles society requires is not really addressed clearly and openly.

One of the key issues that needs to be addressed is that of sustainability. This needs to embrace more than good financial and governance norms, it has to address social engagement if the university is to be relevant and a leader of positive change.

This kind of change will require a new mindset, with collaboration replacing competition, and the nurturing of social relationships instead of a survival-of-the-fittest ethos. Student idealism and civic engagement are much diminished when universities are seen to abandon the pursuit of knowledge for a relentless commercialisation of all its aspects. 

The reaction to Covid-19, unprompted and spontaneous as it was, shows there are active germs of creativity and commitment present that can serve society well in the future. Higher education as a public good and a university that is engaged with society may well be a positive side benefit of the pandemic.

If we were to engage the full range of the very considerable academic and institutional resources of the university to address our local and national inequalities and, to be honest, deficits, then we can make a difference. 

Universities will need to demonstrate greater degrees of openness, transparency, responsiveness and accountability 

They will need to engage much more proactively and on an equal footing with their communities, rather than see themselves possessed of a higher knowledge. 

If they do this, they will better contribute to knowledge creation, better educate our students for active citizenship and help create, with others, a genuinely democratic and inclusive society. My experience in helping to organise the reflections collected in Higher Education’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic has convinced me that once we get over the ‘please let’s get back to normal’ syndrome, we can actively work towards translating these ideas into practice.

• Ronaldo Munck, Centre for Engaged Research, Dublin City University