Cult of Efficiency in Education

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The Cult of Efficiency in Education: Comparative Reflections on the Reality and the RhetoricAuthor(s): Anthony R. WelchSource: Comparative Education, Vol. 34, No. 2, Special Number (20): Comparative Perspectivein Education Policy (Jun., 1998), pp. 157-175Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3099799

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Comparative Education Volume 34 No. 2 1998 pp. 157-175CARFAX

T h e C u l t o f Efficiency i nEducation: comparativeeflectionso n t h e r e a l i t y a n d t h e rhetoricANTHONY R. WELCHABSTRACT What is argued in this article is that the rising tide of 'efficiency' in contemporaryeducation often masks a reductionin both the quality of education provided and attempts to reducelevels of resources nvested in education, particularly in thepublic sector. Historical and comparativeexamples of reform movements in education in the US, UK and Australia, the methodology ofcomparative education and the ongoing reforms n higher education in both the UK and Australiareveal that argumentsabout efficiency, not least in the currentera of worldwideeconomicstringency,often consist of little more than arguments about economics or economism. In particular, efficiencymovements can be argued to be predicated upon the idea that both individual worth and the worthof education can be reduced to economic terms. Equally, individuals and societies are also seen asrational, in so far as they invest in education only to the extent that education delivers a bettereconomic rate of return than otherforms of investment.

IntroductionIf efficiency means the demoralizationof the school system; dollars saved andhuman materials squandered; discontent, drudgery and disillusion-We'll havenone of it! If efficiency denotes low finance, bickering and neglect; exploitation,suspicion and inhumanity;larger classes, smaller pay and diminished joy-We'llhave none of it! We'll espouse and exalt humane efficiency-efficiency that spellsfelicity, loyalty, participation,and right conduct. Give us honorable efficiencyandwe shall rally to the civic cause. (Callahan, 1962, p. 121)

There is a chill wind in the air and it goes under the name of efficiency. 'Goes under thename' because, rather ike Winnie the Pooh who had the name 'Sanders'abovehis door andlived under it, all is not as it seems. Some of the historical and comparativeexamples ofeducation in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centurytreatedin this article serveto clarifythe covertmeaning of efficiencyand to show importantparallelswith the current climate ofefficiency movements in higher education. It is argued and instanced that the forms ofefficiency which were imposed on schooling and higher education systems were motivatedmore by goals of cost cutting, a desireto vocationalise the curriculumand a desire to imposean ethos of business style principlesupon publicly funded education systems, often duringtimes of financialuncertainty.These goalswere often achieved at a considerablecost in socialterms, particularlyn terms of a loss in equityand a narrowingof the curriculum.Alternativenotions of efficiencyareadvancedwhich, while havingproperregardto questionsof financialCorrespondence o: AnthonyR. Welch, School of Social and Policy Studies in Education,Universityof Sydney,NewSouth Wales, 2006, Australia;e-mail < [email protected] .0305-0068/98/020157-19 $7.00 @ 1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd


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158 A. R. Welchand otherforms of public accountability, ackthe sociallyregressivecharacterand instrumen-tal techno-logic of earlierforms of efficiency.What is argued in this article is that the rising tide of 'efficiency' in contemporaryeducation often masks not only a reduction in both the quality of education provided, butalso attempts to increase productivitylevels in education, particularly n the public sector.Historical and comparativeexamples, in areas as diverse as historical reformmovements ineducation in the US, UK and Australia,the methodologyof comparativeeducation and theongoing reforms in higher education in both the UK and Australia show that argumentsabout efficiency,not least in the currentera of worldwideeconomic stringency,often consistof little more than arguments about economics or economism. The particularform ofeconomics which is appealedto, implicitlyor explicitly,is that of a laissez-faireorm, in whichgovernmentengages in only minimalregulationof the business cycle, and privateenterpriseis seen both as the prime engine of economic activityand a normativemodel for the operationof public sector institutions. In this model, the socialrealmworks best if run alongpureformsof economic rationalitysuch as the assumed 'laws of demand and supply', which shouldoperate unfettered by interferencein the form of controls upon monopoly, or by concernswith the environment or social welfare.In particular, fficiencymovements in educationcan be arguedto be predicatedupon theidea thatboth individualworth and the worth of educationcan be reduced to economic terms.That is, ultimately, ndividualshaveeconomic worthin much the same senseas othereconomiccommodities,for examplea naturalresource.Justas naturalresourcescan be sold in their rawstate or have more value added by furtherdevelopmentof the product, so too human beingsare seen as havingmore or less value by virtue of their level of educationand skills.Equally, education is seen in terms of its relative capacity to contribute to economicgrowth, and individualand social involvementin education is seen as an 'investment' to beweighed against other possible areas of return. The less directly economically quantifiableelements of educationare eitherdiscounted or assignedan (arbitrary) conomicvalue. Withinhumancapitaltheory,as this tradition s termed,individualsand societies are seen as 'rational'to the extent that they calculate how to maximisetheirreturnon theireducational nvestment(S. Marginson, 1989). Individuals and societies are also seen as rationalinsofar as they onlyinvest in education to the extent that educationdelivers a bettereconomic rate of returnthanother forms of investment (Blaug, 1972; Woodhall, 1972; World Bank, 1994).One of the common corollaries of this approachis that, given the assumptionthat it isindividualsthat reapthe benefit of theirinvestment in education,they themselves should bearthe costs. Ultimately, then, one of the asumptionsupon which human capital theory standsis that of methodological individualism, that is that the actions of groups are ultimatelyreducibleto the actions of individuals(Brodbeck,1968; Lukes, 1968; Durkheim, 1969). Thestate, it is sometimes argued, should not have to invest (substantially)in the training ofpersonnel, beyond the elementarylevel, since it is the individualwho reaps the benefit (S.Marginson, 1989).Anothercontingentlyassociated belief is the idea that education can contribute substan-tially to economic growth. This idea, popular among modernisationtheorists in the 1950sand 1960s and often used uncriticallyto legitimate substantial investment in education inThird World 'modernising'states (Welch, 1985), has waxed and waned over the post-warera. It has certainlybeen in vogue againformuch of the 1980s and haslicensed some growthin education, often of a specificallyvocational form, but, in the context of internationaleconomic stringencies, this notion has also meant a shift of resources away from publicinvestment in education and away from an emphasis on equity issues.Such arguments may be used frequentlyas legitimatingstrategiesby the state to reducepublic sector expenses in the area of education, particularly hose areas of inquirywhich are


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The Cult of Efficiency in Education 159seen to have a less substantialor less quantifiableeconomic return. Indeed, the assumptionthat the privatesector is (necessarily)more efficient than the public sector is often legitimatedby the perceived greater conformity of the private sector to the canons of (business)efficiency, in particular he principlethat the worth of activities should be measured, largelyor wholly, in economic terms.Thus, a simple correlationbetween efficiencyand privatisationcan occur at the core of so-called efficiencymovements, which under the guise of efficiencyare actuallyinterested in pursuinga form of economism, which may well have the effect ofreducing quality (in education), rather than enhancing it.Another form of argumentwhich links economism with efficiency movements in edu-cation is the way in which education may come to be characterised increasingly as acommodity (Apple, 1982; Lyotard, 1984; Welch, 1988; Peters, 1992) by both the state andconservativepressure groups, who may often espouse a directlybusiness ethic in respect ofeducation. At the very least, such efficiencymovements have tended to redefine the relationbetween the state and education, such that the role of the state is increasinglycircumscribed(Cemy, 1990; Yeatman, 1993; Welch, 1996). Indeed, privatisationmaywell be an associatedfeature of contemporary efficiency movements, on the assumed grounds that the publicsector is inefficient,but at the same time the public sector is made increasinglycaptiveto theargument that it must be run on business lines to be efficient. Efficiency, however, ispromoted at the cost of other considerationssuch as equityand the provisionof service to thewhole community, which thus means that the public sector in education is progressivelydisempowered, since it is now open to the charge that it is no longer fulfilling its charteradequately.Indeed, given efficiencyarguments,it is harder to fulfil that charter,particularlyfor marginalor disadvantagedgroups, who have the most to lose at the hands of efficiency.In contrastto the principlesof economism outlined above, both the neo-Marxistschoolof criticaltheory and theories of post-modernityoffer somewhat similarcritiquesof contem-porarynotions of 'efficiency'and their associatedpractices (althoughthis is not to diminishimportantdifferences on other fronts). Criticaltheory and its most prominent contemporaryexponent, Jiirgen Habermas, is deeply critical of trends in modem society, which havedivergedfrom older practiceswhich relatedtheoryto practice.Now, it is argued,older goalsof human and social enlightenment and emancipationand notions of the social good havebeen subsumedby a more technocraticconsciousness,wherebyproblemsof system effective-ness are addressedby the 'purposive-rationalapplicationof techniques assuredby empiricalscience' (Habermas, 1974, p. 254, see also Habermas, 1970, 1978, 1984). Modem (Westerncapitalist) societies, then, are distinguished by a greaterconcern with the technical (that is,administrative/industrial/functionaloncerns) than with the practical(whichhave more to dowith ethical and political decisions). The originaldistinction between 'praxis'and 'techne' isowed to the Greeks;criticaltheoryextends its reach to the analysisof modernityand society,in particularto the extension of a form of rationalityand related social processes, whichcelebrates efficiency at the expense of ethics. With Marcuse (1968) and others, Habermas(1974) is profoundlycritical of the extension of an instrumentalrationality(associatedwithaspectsof MaxWeber's account of modernityin society), wherebynorms and socialgoals aresimply assumed, rather than debated: '... a technologybecome autonomousdictates a valuesystem-namely its own-to the domain of praxisit has usurped,and all in the name of valuefreedom' (p. 270). In the process, means-ends values of economy and efficiency permeatesocial institutions and practices (Pusey, 1991) at the expense of ethics and older notions ofthe social good. Ball (1990), for example,showedhow correlatenotions of business efficiencyare assumed ratherthan problematisedin education, as part of an increasingtechnology ofcontrol.


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160 A. R. WelchWhile more thoroughgoing in its rejectionof modernistepistemologicalclaims and lessrooted in a careful exposition of specific episodes in the development of modern society,Lyotard's (1984) account of (post)-modernity is also critical of the extension of what hetermed performativity nto many arenas of society. Knowledge itself is being commodifiedand is now one of the principal productive forces in late modem society. Universities andacademic work are thereforesubject to processes of performativity,whereby 'optimisingthesystem'sperformance'(Lyotard,1984, p. xxiv) becomes the ultimategoal and the technologyis found within the discourse of business and management. Thus, system performancecriteria are invoked to decide whether a particularresearch centre should be allowed tocontinue (Lyotard, 1984, p. 47) and questions drawn from the discourse of businessefficiency dominate: 'Is it efficient?'or 'Is it saleable?' become more important and morecommon questions than 'Is it true?'(Lyotard,1984, p. 51). While comparativeeducationhascome to post-modernity rather late (Rust, 1991; Coulby & Jones, 1996; Cowen, 1996a;Welch, 1998b), there are some interestingsigns that the notion of performativitys now beingapplied to the analysis of education and, more specifically,to changes in universities and

academic work (Cowen, 1996b; Currie, 1998).Efficiency in Education-historical examplesThe first of two historical examples which reveal the covert character of educational'efficiencymovements' is that of the 'paymentby results' or Revised Code, introducedintoBritish educationaround the 1860s and in various formsinto some of the Australiancoloniesat much the same time (Turney, 1969, pp. 229-232). The defence of the Englishscheme wasencapsulatedin RobertLowe's boast: 'If it is not cheap it shall be efficient; f it is not efficientit shall be cheap' (Maclure, 1973, pp. 79-82).In generalterms, the scheme's legitimacywas assuredby the strongprevailingcurrentofbusiness accountabilityand efficiencyreflected in the Report of the Newcastle Commission(Newcastle Report, 1861): 'The Commissionersheld the common view of the periodthat thenotion of accountability,so vital to a well-run business, should be appliedvigorouslyto allforms of governmentexpenditure'(Musgrave,1968, p. 35). Indeed RobertLowe, perhapsitsmajor proponent,once claimedthat the rationalefor paymentby results was 'more financialthan literary'.Accountability and efficiency are both measures which continue to command widecommunity support in our society. What, then, were the major problems encounteredwiththe utilisation of these values as the principal means of regulating elementary schools inEngland in the nineteenth century?

In practice, the scheme, largely inspiredby middle-class fears of rising calls upon statefunds for elementaryschools (which were patronisedby the workingclass) and the needs ofa 'business age' (Musgrave,1968, p. 36) specified a standardwhich each child had to attainto pass at that 'standard'.The standard was based upon the assumed needs of industryfora literate workforce, as much as the qualities which were assumed to be needed by theworkingclass: '... a Christianversion of the three R's for boys and girls up to the age of tenor twelve' (Musgrave, 1968, p. 36). The scheme had a profoundlydepressing effect uponboth monies expended by the stateupon elementaryeducation (the grantfell from ?813,441in 1861 to ?636,806 in 1865) and also heraldeda precipitousdecline in numbers of pupilteachers and teachers' college trainees. The latter number fell from 2792 to 2403 within 6years of the scheme being introduced, at a time of demonstrablyincreasing need, whileMatthewArnold,perhapsthe best knowneducational nspectorof his age, estimatedthat oneof the principaleffects of the introduction of the Revised Code was to worsen the ratio ofpupil teachersto studentsin schools: from 1:36in 1861 to 1:54 5 yearslater (Maclure, 1973,


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The CultofEfficiencyn Education 161p. 81). It encouraged cheating on the part of teacherswhose annual salaries were now tiedboth to the numbers of pupils in their classes and to the number of passes obtainedby theirstudents in particularexams. For example, inspectors reported that teachers 'stuffed andalmost roasted' (Hyndman, 1978, p. 34) their pupils on test items once the teachers knewthat the visit of the inspector was imminent. Other teachers secretly trained their pupils sothat when they were asked questions they raised their right hands if they knew the correctanswer but their left if they did not, thus creating a more favourableimpression upon thevisiting inspector. Another teacher proudly proclaimedthat his entire class would pass thetest, because 'any one of them can copy three desks off' (Hyndman, 1978, p. 34) and therewere also reports of excessive punishment for those who let their teacher down, as when ateacher caned his entire class for leaving the 'd' out of 'pigeon' on the test. Other teachersfalsifiedtheirregisters, nflatingthe numbers of pupils enrolled so that the numbers werekeptup. Or manifestlysick children were dragged along to school to satisfy attendancerequire-ments, upon which teachers'salarieswere dependent (Hyndman, 1978, p. 37) (Pupilshad tohave 200 attendancesper year to their credit, before they could take the test.) Moreover,teachers,who had previouslybeen paid directly,now had to negotiate with school managers'as to their rate of remuneration'(Musgrave, 1968, p. 37).A furtherproductof the Revised Code was a narrowingof the curriculum,and a narrowinstrumentalism with respect to educational aims. Cramming, based upon the specificcurriculumareas outlinedin the test, ratherthan teaching,became the means to ensureone'slivelihood as a teacher and there is no doubt that pupils, teachers and the process ofeducation were made pooreras a result: 'Now thereis alwaysa tendencyboth in teachers andpupils to confine themselves to the minimum of requirement.Attention is paid to the subjectwhich pays to the exclusion of all others' (Hyndman, 1978, p. 30).Teachers were, literally,impoverishedby this system. And humiliatedtoo, as when oneteacher had to inscribe into his log, in a working-class school in 1885, the followingassessment:

The annals of this School for the lastsix or sevenyearsaremerelyrecordsof failureand inefficiency,and unless steps aretaken to raise it from its present unsatisfactorycondition, it will soon be a question whether it can any longerbe recognised as anefficient School. (Turnbull in Hyndman, 1978, p. 32)Matthew Arnold, in his annualreportof 1867, 5 years after the introductionof the RevisedCode, makes the point quite unambiguously.

'The mode of teachingin the primaryschools has certainlyfallen off in intelligence,spirit, and inventivenessduring the four or five years which have elapsed since mylast report. It could not well be otherwise. In a countrywhere everyoneis prone torelytoo much on mechanicalprocesses and too little on intelligence, a changein theEducation Department's regulations,which, by making two-thirds of the Govern-ment grant depend upon a mechanical examination,inevitably gives a mechanicalturn to the school teaching, a mechanical turn to the inspection, is and must betrying to the intellectual life of a school. (Maclure, 1973, p. 81)

An inspector of the time wrote of the '... absurdities ...' of teaching infant classes of suchthings as 'pachydermatousanimals,and monocotyledonousplants' (Lawson & Silver, 1973,p. 282). Indeed, one of the majordefects of this regime, was that children were drilledratherthan educated.

[Just]as it is now found possible, by ingeniouspreparation, o get childrenthroughthe Revised Code examinationin reading, writing and ciphering, so, it will with


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162 A. R. Welchpractice no doubt be found possible to get the three-fourthsof the one-fifth of thechildren over six through the examination in grammar, geography and history,without their really knowingany one of these three matters. (Maclure, 1973, p. 81)

The scheme was introduced largelyas a means of curbing justifiedgrowthin state expendi-ture on education, but its implementation was justified by appeals to the principle of'efficiency'.The Australianschemes, which were introduced into the colonies of New South Wales,Western Australia,South Australia and Victoriain differentforms, have been characterisedas havinglargely producedsimilaroutcomes to those achievedin England.The introductionof the so-called 'standardsof proficiency' nto New South Walesby WilliamWilkinsentailedscrupulously close following of the set requirements by teachers and a similarly closeexamination of those requirements by the inspectors. Teachers' promotion prospects weredirectlytied to the resultsobtainedby theirpupils in the test. One of the majoreffects of theintroduction of the scheme was that of '... encouraging rote learning and the use ofmechanical modes of instruction' (Turney, 1969, p. 230), while the role of inspectorschanged from that of mentor to more of an assessor: 'The work of the inspector largelybecame one of mechanical examining and his reports became mainly based on statisticalanalysisof results' (Turney, 1969, p. 231).Teachers, too, were dominated by the standardsand engaged in mechanical forms ofpedagogywhich slavishlyfollowed key texts. A critic of the time arguedthat the fault laynotwith the teachers, many of whom did not wish to teach in such a narrowand instrumentalfashion, but who were nonetheless

... defeatedby the machinerywhich they were obliged to employ. They were boundby the books prescribedto them; the inspectors, upon whose reports their breaddepended, were perhapsbound by the same books in testing the proficiencyof thescholars ... The schoolmasterswho would fain teach in a more rationalmanner,areafraid to displease their inspectors, whom they suppose to be stronglyin favour ofthis kind of [mechanical]teaching. (Turney, 1969, p. 232)In the colony of Victoriapayment by results was acknowledgedto have achieved 'theencouragement (of) ... memorization rather than reasoning,to formal, mechanicalteachingmethods, and ... keeping the curriculumnarrow' (Barcan, 1981, p. 107; see also Rodwell,1992).Historically,however, the payment by results scheme in Englandand a varietyof similar

schemes in Australiancolonies at much the same time were not the only ones to use appealsto efficiency as a means to promote business style reformsin education. A second exampleis the introduction of Taylorismor scientificmanagementinto US schools and universities nthe period around World WarI (Callahan, 1962). Here, the 'cult of efficiency'as it came tobe called, impoverishededucation. Here again,the impetus came frombusiness interestswhowere concerned,under the banner of efficiency,with reducingcosts (termed'wastage')to thestate in education and, at the same time, with shifting the financial burden of trainingworkers, through apprenticeships, away from industry which had been their traditionaltrainingground. A narrowingof the curriculumin the direction of vocational trainingwasaccomplished, and also a reduction in the abilityof the education system to respond to theneeds of Blacks, ruraldwellers, poor Whites and the growing proportionof immigrantsinthe US.The impulse for the introduction of Taylorism into US schools had much more todo with the development of US capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century and the


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The Cultof Efficiencyn Education 163beginning of the twentieth century and the associated celebration of businessmen andbusiness principles, rather than an argument based upon education. During the period1900-1925, the manner in which the legitimationof the introduction of business principlesinto US schools was achieved followed a ratherstandardpattern,one not very differentfromthe rationale for the introductionof the same principlesinto the field of local governmentatmuch the same time. The argument '... consisted of making unfavourable comparisonsbetween the schools and business enterprise, of applying business-industrial criteria (e.g.economy and efficiency)to education,and of suggestingthat business and industrialpracticesbe adopted by educators' (Callahan, 1962, p. 6). In 1903, the AtlanticMonthly magazinearguedthe case strongly:'The managementof school affairs s a largebusiness involvingina city of 100,000 inhabitants an expenditure of probably $500,000 annually; the samebusiness principles adopted in modem industryshould be employed here' (Callahan, 1962,p. 6). Two years later, the National Education Association commenced its symposium onresearch directions with the topic of a 'Comparison of Modern Business Methods withEducational Methods'. By 1907, books on 'classroommanagement' were being publishedandwidelyread,whicharguedthat classroommanagement maybe lookedupon as a 'businessproblem'and that "unquestionedobedience" was a cardinalprinciplein a fashion which was"entirely analogous to that in any other organization or system-the army, the navy,governmental, great business enterprises (or small business enterprises for that matter)"(Callahan, 1962, p. 7). US universities were also coming under pressure to reform theirpractices to be more in tune with the climate of business efficiency. By 1910, it could bearguedthat 'Ouruniversitiesarebeginningto be run as businesscolleges. They advertise,theycompete with one another, they pretend to give good value to their customers. They desireto increase their trade, they offer social advantagesand business openings to their patrons'(Callahan, 1962, p. 7). In schools, the ubiquitous school boards were re-fashioned to reflectthe climate of business efficiency more closely. This meant that, in practice, two principalchangestended to characterise hese reforms:school boards were cut in size, sometimes quitedrastically,as in the case of the Boston School Board whichwas cut from 24 to five members,and they came to be increasinglydominatedby businessmen, whose majorbrief they saw asthe renovation of school administrationalong business lines. This represented a profoundchangefrom the practiceof the nineteenth century,wherebythe best-known school adminis-trators were people like William T. Harris, Horace Mann and Henry Barnard,whose famederived principallyfrom their work as educational scholars and reformers.One last importantarea of changeprovoked by the risingtide of business ideology in USeducation at this time was that of curriculumreform.One of the principaleffortsengagedinby some of the more spectacularlysuccessful businessmen of the time was to make thecurriculummore practical.Well-known figures such as Andrew Carnegie or Vanderbilt orRockefeller argued that their success had nothing to do with 'book learning' or 'merescholastic learning'but was based on good old fashioned common sense together with thekind of business acumen which could not be taught in schools. Carnegie was particularlysevere in his condemnation of the wasteful, deleterious and impracticalnature of collegestudy.

In my own experience I can say that I have known few young men intended forbusiness who were not injuredby a collegiateeducation. Had they gone into activework during the years spent at college they would have been better educated menin everysense of that term.The fire and energyheve been stampedout of them, andhow to so manageas to live a life of idleness and not a life of usefulness has becomethe chief question with them. (Callahan, 1962, p. 9)


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164 A. R. WelchIn the yearsafter 1900, pressureto renovatethe curriculumof both schools and universitiesalongpracticaland utilitarian ines grewever stronger.It was suggestedthat business Englishcould usefully be substituted for composition and that business principles, contracts andbookkeepingbe instituted in schools, at least for those 70% of pupils who did not go on tohigh school. At least for this group and, arguably,for all pupils the 'love of learning'shouldbe subordinatedto the 'love of earning' (Callahan, 1962, p. 10). Although there were thoseeducationistswho preachedthe need to resist the power of the 'almightydollar',nonethelessthe dominant mood was one of increasingaccommodation to the business mentality.Fromhere it was but a step to the introduction of the 'efficiency expert' into schools (Callahan,1962, pp. 15-17, and 153-178).This accommodation to the demands of business also meant the proliferationof morevocational courses in schools. However, the rhetoricsupportingthis change was somewhatdifferent. US business interests, having consistently failed to invest in the training ofapprentices, became increasingly alarmed at the paucity of skilled personnel which wasavailableto service the needs of an industrialisingeconomy. Given this lack, two strategiessuggested themselves: either to import foreign labour (particularly rom Germany, whosetechnical and industrialeducation was universally admired) or to train the future workersin the US. However, the industrialistsdid not wish to adopt the financial burden of trainingUS youth themselves. Thus, the tactic adopted was to press the state to adopt the burden.The contradictions in this argument, which hinged around the notion of efficiency,were occasionally pointed out by educationists,tired of the carpingcriticisms of the manu-facturers.

... as a first step to secure their ends, they and their agents in unmeasured termsdenounced the public schools as behind the age, as inefficient, as lackingin publicspirit. And why? Because the public schools are not training artisans-doing thework that had been done by employers of labour for thousands of years. Thearroganceof the manufacturerswas two-fold-first, in condemningthe schools fornot doing what ... had never beforebeen considered the duty of the schools to do;and second, in demanding that the state, after ... fill[ing] the pockets of themanufacturers[throughtariffprotection], should then proceed to pay the bills fortrainingtheir workmen. (Callahan, 1962, pp. 13-14)What the two historicalexamplesdiscussed above reveal aresomethingof the contradic-tions involved in the arguments about efficiency in education. In particular,the examplesreveal, in different ways, that appeals to the principle of efficiency often mask underlying

argumentswhich are of a more directlyeconomistic form. In the first instance, the RevisedCode (or payment by results scheme) was introduced as a means of curbingthe increasingcall upon state finances at a time of the extension of elementaryeducation to the Britishworking class. Indeed, efficiency was defended in precisely these terms by Robert Lowe,although clearlyit could reasonablybe arguedthat the potential increase in expenditureoneducation was quite justified and efficient. To inhibit the spread of elementary schoolingamongthe industrialproletariatcould be seen, in contrast to the claims of those who invokedthe claims of efficiency, to be both unjust and inefficientwith respect to the development ofBritish industry, the dominance of which was coming under increasingthreat from foreigncompetitors, particularlyGerman competitors (Welch, 1981).In the other case discussed, the argumentsabout efficiencywere at least as central,buttook a somewhat different form. In the case of US schools and universities, 'efficiency'wasdefined ratherdifferently.Here, efficiency was seen as both the promotion of the businessethic within schools (in terms of specific revisions to the curriculumand to the overallvalue


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TheCultofEfficiencyn Education 165system) and a reduction in emphasis on mere academic learning,which was to be replacedby a more practicalcurriculum.At the same time, the public schools were derided for theirinefficiencywith respect to the provisionof that narrow technicaltrainingwhich was desiredby US manufacturers,despite the fact that schools had never seen such specific vocationaltrainingas their brief. Efficiencyfor the manufacturersconsisted of shifting the burden fortechnical trainingfrom their own shouldersto that of the state. The fact that the efficiencyproposals discriminated against traditionallymarginal groups was of little interest to themanufacturingand business interests, for whom questions of equity were outweighed byconsiderationsof economics (Callahan, 1962, p. 167).In each case, then, the argumentsaboutefficiencyreduced to forms of economism whichin practicerestrictedthe participationof fringegroups such as the workingclass, migrantsorBlacks. In both cases, the changes were economically and politicallydrivenby conservativepolitical interests and/or business, for reasons which had little if anything to do with thequality of education. In both cases, so-called 'efficiency' was achieved at the cost ofeffectiveness. In both cases, the quality and quantity of education was reduced, by aconcentration on economics and business ideologies rather than a form of efficiency andeffectiveness which comprehended equity. While education is indeed an industry, if it isallowed to become simply a business it becomes impoverished, in more than a merelyfinancial sense.

Efficiency and Performativity: contemporary higher educationThe two historical and comparativeexamplestreated above reveal thatefficiencymovementshave coalesced around an agenda of cost containment, an increased business influence, anarrowingand vocationalisingof the curriculumand an instrumentalconcern with enhancedsystem performance.The above examples, however, are by no means the only examples ofeconomicallydrivenefficiencymovements in education. Indeed, recent and ongoing reformmovements in the UK and Australia,as elsewhere,reflect some of the preoccupationsof theearlier 'efficiency'reformers n education. As Cowen (1996b) argued succinctly:

The universityreform movement in the 1980s and 1990s is centred aroundmakinguniversity systems efficient and relevant. The concept of efficiency includesmeasurement of university production (of knowledge), and the test of relevanceincludes making what is researched (and taught) useful to the national economy.(p. 246)Policy changes in several areas of higher education since the 1980s reveal the hiddencharacterof appealsto the principleof efficiency.In the UK, when policies to introduce fullcost fees for overseas students were proposed by the ConservativeGovernment in the late1970s andearly 1980s, these moves werepartlydefended on the basis that institutionswouldthus be encouraged to become more responsive and, hence, efficient. The vice-chancellorsand principals of higher educational institutions concerned could have been forgivenfor thinking otherwise, however, when the same government withdrew an estimated?100 000 000 (Williams, 1981, p. 261) in funds, and when overseas student enrolmentsfellsubstantially.Course viabilitywas threatened in numbers of institutionsin higher educationand higher degree enrolments, traditionallystronglyrepresented by overseas students, weremuch reduced,particularlyrom the Third World. The worldwidereaction,particularly romCommonwealth countries such as Malaysia and Nigeria, against these moves towards'efficiency' was so strong that a subsequent package of amendments (the so-called 'Pympackage') was introduced to ameliorate its effects. This is a chapter of educational history


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166 A. R. Welchupon which many Australian nstitutions have reflected, as the rise of a 'user-pays'ethos inhighereducationhas licensed the significantrelative reductionin public funding over the lastdecade, necessitating, inter alia, a markedly greater emphasis upon the recruitment offull-fee-payinginternationalstudents, largelyfrom the Asia Pacific region.The research arena is anotherwhere argumentsregardingefficiencyhave abounded overthe last decade or more. As state funds for research were reduced (Peters, 1992), partlyinresponse to fiscal crises in both the UK and Australia (Altbach & Lewis, 1996, pp. 7-8),government arguedthat industryshould be fundingmore research.Certainly,public fundingof basic research is sufferingin both systems and the situationis unlikelyto improve,with agrowing emphasis in each system upon research which issues in short-term, quantifiableeconomic gains (Miller, 1995b). Although funding cutbacksproved more severe in the UKthan Australia,provoking campaignssuch as 'Save British Science' in the UK TimesHigherEducationSupplement, 986c, p. 6), in neither countrydid industrystep in to fill the breach.That researchwhich is conducted in industrytends to be verymission oriented, leavingbasicresearchlargelyuntouched. Even an Australian Government decision to grant a 150% taxexemption to industryfor its research,while important,could not substitute for the lack ofgovernmentfunding. In this context, moves to concentrateresearcheffort,by takingfromtheexisting limited research cake and enriching a few selected research teams at the expenseof all other researchers (Walford, 1988; Miller, 1995b), according to often inaccuratequantitative performance ndicators (TheAustralian,1997a), can hardlybe seen as efficient.Yet it is precisely on these grounds that the changes are being defended. Clearly, in an eraof declining resources and overall lack of economic growth, efficiency is being used as alegitimating deologyto defend reductionsin expenditureswhich are considerednecessary bythe state.A furtherexampleof the incorporationof 'efficiency'principlesinto highereducation inthe UK has been the institution of the centralised Polytechnics and Colleges FundingCouncil (PCFC) and the Universities Funding Council (UFC) in the late 1980s, the latterreplacing the University Grants Committee. It is notable that both of the new bodiescontained a 'greater representationof business interests than the former bodies' (Miller,1995a, p. 46). Indeed, the 1987 UK White Paper made this connection explicit: 'highereducation should servethe economy more efficiently'and should 'takeincreasingaccount ofthe economic requirementsof the country' (Department of Education and Science, 1987,pp. 1-2).In the UK and Australiain recent years higher education has been under attack fromseveralquarters.This motivation forand style of such attacks s not unique to eithercountry,but there are some parallelsbetween the British and Australiansituations (Welch, 1988).Without pursuing all these parallels here, efficiency is once more the stick with whicheducation is being chastised. Once again too, however, the reality of efficiency belies therhetoric.

Despite rising retention rates at senior secondary levels in Australia and substantialgrowth in higher education enrolments in the decade from the early 1980s (Sheehan &Welch, 1996, p. 54), universitiesare stillbeing told that they must do more with less, despiteevidence that they have been doing so alreadyfor the past decade (Committee of Inquiry,1986). In the UK too, the period of the 1980s and 1990s has been one in which 'universitiesand polytechnics were encouraged to increase overall student numbers while reducing percapitacosts' (Miller, 1995a, p. 43; see also Peters, 1992). Indeed 'the UFC demandeda clearlink between efficiency, expressedby a university'sproportionof fees-only students, and theallocation of furthergrowth' (Pritchard, 1994, p. 255; see also Walford, 1988). There is aclear danger in too heavy a reliance upon quantitative performance indicators, since a


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The Cult of Efficiency in Education 167perfectlyreasonableresponseon the partof universitieswould be 'to develop courseappraisalsystems which record performancein just those terms' (Barnett, 1990, p. 103). Increasingcost pressures for cost containment meant that university libraries found it increasinglydifficult to maintain servicesand stock at traditionallevels, research and support personnelhave declined in number, levels of support for tertiarystudents have fallen and academicstaffinghas declined (Walford, 1988; Peters, 1992). In addition, untenured staff fortunateenough still to have positions felt the chill winds of financialstringencyever more closely. Inthe name of efficientplanning ('staffflexibility'),tenure was effectivelyabolishedin the UKfor all new and promoted staff (Pritchard, 1994) and increasing use made of short-termcontract staff (Miller, 1995b, p. 165) and part-timestaff (Miller, 1995a, p. 55) In Australiatoo, similar pressures have also seen increasing use made of part-time and short-termcontracts, which was so excessive that, in late 1997, it attracted the ire of the AustralianIndustrial Relations Court (AIRC) (The Australian, 1997b). In turn, the proportion oftenured staff in that country has declined from 81% in the early 1980s to less than 60% adecade later (Sheehan & Welch, 1996, p. 60).

Research, both at the national scientific research organisation (the CommonwealthScientific and Industrial ResearchOrganisation)and within Australianuniversities,becameincreasinglyunderfunded and there are moves to break the nexus between teaching andresearchthroughthe creation of a species of teaching-onlyacademics. Institutionalamalga-mations were forcedupon often reluctant universitiesand colleges (Sheehan&Welch, 1996,pp. 57-58) based on poorly defended efficiency arguments of economies of scale. Theseamalgamations led to much discontent and difficulties among academic staff and wereundertakenwithout much consultation or the fundingnecessaryto providefor the trainingofstaff who were faced with new expectationsand without a real increasein research funds tobe apportioned specificallyto that group of ex-college academics for whom researchhadtraditionallynot been an expectationand who largelydid not receive funds for that purpose,but who can no longer expect promotionin universitieswithout a substantialresearchprofile.Once again, this was paralleledin the UK to some extent: '... there is pressureon academicstaff in the formercolleges and polytechnicsto obtain Ph.D's andengage in research,despitethe fact that many were recruitedessentiallyas teachers' (Miller, 1995a, p. 44).This brief sketch of the changes in Australianand UK higher education in recent yearsreveals the covert characterof efficiency. Virtuallyno-one seriouslyopposed the principlethatinstitutions of highereducation should be run efficientlyand effectively,as other institutionsin society, whether financed from the public or privatesector. Many, however, queried thetiming and underlyingintent of such reforms at a time of severe financial constraintsandincreasinglystrident attacks upon public sector expenditures, often dismissed as 'wastage'(Welch, 1996, pp. 1-23). Paradoxically,the effects of the implementation of the changedstaffing arrangementscould well be to weaken the principleof equity in institutions of highereducation and, at the same time, to reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of individualdepartmentsand, thus, the institutionsof which they are a part. There is no doubt that theimplementationof the Jarratproposalsin the UK in the 1980s achievedpreciselythis in manyBritish institutions and was exacerbatedby moves to rate individualuniversity departmentsaccording to supposed research excellence (Times Higher Education Supplement, 1986a,p. 1-5; Neave, 1988) and then tie a proportionof the institution's overallgrantto this rating.And indeed this weakeningseems to have been one purpose of the Britishproposals: 'Theintention is that a departmenthaving been designated as weak by the UGC the universityshould be obliged to take some action, eitherto strengthen t or to punish it. The idea is thatthe strongshould grow strong(er),and the weakweaker'(TimesHigherEducationSupplement1986b, p. 36). Experience suggests that the costs of such reviews are no less substantialin


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168 A. R. WelchAustralia (Miller, 1995b) and that, paradoxically, such 'quality' audits can lead to theopposite effect: 'a decline in standardsbecause of the great effort involved in satisfyingtheformal bureaucratic demands of the procedure' (Pritchard, 1994, p. 258). The costs ofcompliance by universitieswith forms of surveillancefostered by what has been termed the'intrusivestate' (Barnett, 1990, pp. 152-158) or what, in the Australiancontext, has beencharacterised as the triumph of the technology of total quality management [TQM](Sheehan, 1996) are substantial, and not merely in narrowly economic terms. Even in afinancial sense, however, costs are high: the former vice-chancellor of a British universityestimated that the costs to Britishuniversitiesof such efficiency audits were in the order of'a third of an averagesized university's teaching capacity, 50 researchers'work and almost?250 000 a year in photocopying' (Pritchard, 1994, p. 258). Is this the kind of efficiencytobe promoted in our universities?For at least a decade, some have argued that social Darwinism is neither the mostcomplete nor the most humane method of promoting genuine efficiencyand effectivenessinhigher educationalinstitutions (VanVught & Maassen, 1988). On the contrary,the creationand impositionof a market n highereducation,as well as the excessiverelianceupon narrowand quantitativeperformance ndicators,is likelyto weakenseriouslyoverallmorale,produc-tivity, choice and resources for basic research. In contrast, an investment in equity can beseen as contributing to increased efficiency, as examples of business investment in pro-grammes of equal opportunity reveal. Equity, it can be argued, is an important part ofefficiency, ratherthan its counter, as is often currentlyassertedby business groups and themedia interests they control.The Theme of Efficiency in Comparative Educational LiteratureIt is not merely in the area of contemporary policies in higher education that one mayrecognise the hidden agenda which lies behind the theme of efficiency. In the literature ofcomparativeeducationthe concept of efficiencyhas also been an importanttheme at certainpoints. How has it operatedand what effects did it have on the forms of analysisin which itwas incorporated?One of the earlier explorations of the theme of efficiency within the literature ofcomparativeeducationwasby an economist concerned with extendingthe rangeof quantitat-ive applications in comparative education. Immediately, however, in stating his '... onefundamentalprinciple [as] ... to achievegiven ends with a minimum of resources and energy..' (Edding, 1964, p. 394), he was faced with problems which were not addressed ade-quately.A large partof the problemin Edding's (1964) argument ies in its implicit assumptions.One of the most basic of these assumptionsis the implicit correlationof efficiencywith botheconomism and rationality. Edding (1964) admitted that educators at times 'confuse eco-nomics with economies' (p. 393), a stand he criticised as unjustifiable.(Some of the examplesraisedabovemay, however,be seen to presentsome justifications or this apparentconfusionon the part of educators.) However, in his own argument, the confusion of 'rationalprinciples' (Edding, 1964, p. 393) and research based upon the application of economiccalculations, in particularcost analytics,is ubiquitous. '... I formed the conclusion that thissubject [efficiency] is nearest to the core of economics ...' (Edding, 1964, p. 393). Oneconsequence of this approach is that values are implicitly consigned to the realm of theirrationaland must not be allowed to interferewith the developmentof research. The notionthat values are also an area of rational research is anathema. This conventional divisionbetween facts and values and the argument that research must be value free is part of


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The CultofEfficiencyn Education 169Edding's (1964) implicit or unwitting adoption of the centuries-oldpositivist paradigminwhich such dualities are rigidly preservedas the basis upon which researchproceeds and inwhich all values (beyondthat of a taken forgrantedscientism) are of equalworth, all equallysubstitutable (Habermas, 1970a; Giddens, 1979). 'If a certain size of school seems fornon-economic reasons desirable, this size can be put into the formula as a fixed factor'(Edding, 1964, p. 395). Edding's (1964) failureto recognise that economism itself is a valuelies behind his inabilityto deal with the question of values in his own research.Otherproblemsraisedby Edding's (1964) statementof the problemwere furtherdirectproducts of his tacit adoption of the positivist paradigm. Perhaps one of the most majorconsequences of Edding's (1964) adoptionof positivismas his modusoperandis the questionof the resolution of values. As was argued above, within positivism values are all of equalworth (and non-worth) and, thus, equallysubstitutable.Thus, when Edding (1964) came tothis questionhe was predictablysilent, beyond rituallyassertingthat ends are given. Indeed,within positivismthere can be no rationaldiscussion of values, since these are seen as quiteoutside the sphereof 'facts'or data, to which positivistsare so committed.Withinpositivism,values are not seen to fall within the parametersof 'research'.However, within educationthedetermination of values affects the very way in which the education system functions,particularlywith reference to questions such as that of equity and freedom. Indeed, thesevalues, of which Edding (1964) was so shy, will determine what counts as efficiencywithinany particulareducationsystem. For example,the measurement of efficiencywithin a systemdedicated to equity would be based upon differentprinciplesfrom one based upon marketprinciples, in which simple measures of productivitywould ignore questions of inequalitybased upon race, sex or class.Values then are central to the consideration of efficiency in education, a positionadmittedby scholarsworkingin the areasof social indicators and indicatorsof performancein education (Olkinuora, 1972; Carr-Hill & Magnussen, 1973; Organisationfor EconomicCo-operation and Development, 1988). How, then, does one admit the role of values ineducationandyet not allow them to intrude into the supposedlytechnicalissues of efficiency?Edding's (1964) answer to this genuine dilemma was that of the conventional positivist.Given that education has to do with both 'growth process of body and mind, and ... spiritualvalues, (then) allowances should be made for such values. But they should not be allowedtohinder research' (Edding, 1964, pp. 394-395).But what kind of research?By strictlyseparating he collection of factsfromthe questionof values, Edding (1964) was already committing himself to one research tradition. Themodel of research which was indeed commended by Edding (1964) is of a conventionallypositivist form:

experimentalresearchand developmentas is to be found in industryand the naturalsciences ... controlled experimentswith sufficiently argenumbers of groupsundervarious conditions ... a strict isolation of factors ... and the efficient exclusion of thatparticularfactor known as experimentalenthusiasm. (p. 400)

Edding's (1964) work, then, can be characterisedas reductionist, in the sense that theunderstandingof efficiency in education is reduced to the implementation of economisticprinciples. However, this was not the only example of this process whereby efficiency wasused as a basic organisingprinciplein comparativeresearch.Nor was it the only exampleinwhich efficiency masked the primacy of an underlying economism. One of the moreimportant chaptersin the annals of comparativeeducation has been that of the influence oftheories informed by functionalistprecepts. As in the social sciences more generally,func-tionalist assumptionswere most influentialin comparativeeducation in the post-warperiod


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170 A. R. Welchand dominatedparticularareasof specialisation,in particularmodernisationtheory (Welch,1985). The notion of efficiency was an importantorganisingprinciple within functionalisttheory. Systemic efficiencywas a paramountconcern within functionalisttheory and legiti-mated a view of social change as slow, accretiveand evolutionary.Any majorforms of socialchange were considered to be disruptiveof social order and efficiency and to be dysfunc-tional. As is well known, the analogy was biological: just as species evolved slowly overhundreds and thousands of generationsin order to suit their environment (with negligiblechange over any single generation), so too, it was argued, society must also evolve slowly,with minimalchanges.Anythingmore was inefficientin terms of adaptationto the exigenciesof the externalenvironment.

Epstein (1983) examined some of these issues in the context of debates between PhilipFoster and MartinCarnoy.Foster, Epstein (1983) argued,betraysconventionalfunctionalistconcerns by arguingfor a view of the market system as the most fair and reasonable andconducive to economic growthand development:'Interferenceby the state into the workingsof the marketerodes the inherent equitabilityand efficiency of that system and is thereforeusually unwarranted'(p. 7).It is here that the realmeaningof efficiency s againmade clear, for efficiency,while seenby figures such as Foster to be a value-freeconcept, in fact contains its own value system.Carnoyrecognised the contradiction in Foster's position here, by arguingthat the efficiencyof the state is rarelyneutral, as it is assumed to be within functionalisttheory: '... the statein non-socialist developing countries is controlled not by disinterested parties, but by thelocal bourgeoisieand by foreign,ex-colonialgroupswho seek economic stabilityin their owninterestratherthan genuine reformand democratic,decentralizeddecision making'(Epstein,1983, p. 7).Likewise,schoolingmaybe an efficientproducerof well-socialised andtechnicallyskilledindividuals while still serving 'as an important part of the state's repressive apparatusbysocializingand cognitivelypreparing abour for the capitalistproductionof goods' (Epstein,1983, p. 7). Indeed, one of the majordisagreementsbetween Carnoyand Foster is over thequestion of efficiency, as capturedin the following quotations.

We have argued that the persistence of poverty, unemployment, and differentialaccess to schooling is not the result of inefficienciesin capitalistdevelopment, butthe direct product of that development. (Carnoy, 1975, p. 396)We have also arguedthat the educational system in capitalistsociety is inefficientsince it is unable to legitimize completely the inequalities of capitalism. Thisinefficiency is contradictory o continued capitalistgrowth and can be exploited tomake furthercapitalist control difficult and to raise consciousness of the need todismantle the existing production system. (Carnoy, 1975, pp. 396-397)

Carnoy's (1975) assessmentthat teachersare one of the principalforms of social control andthat the state parcelsout knowledgedifferentially o differentgroups in society, referredto anotion of class, which is antithetical to functionalist concepts of integration and unitary,consensuallyheld values in society. Teachers as 'middle management'and state distributionof knowledge along class lines is something which functionalists with their deep anderroneouscommitment to value-freeanalysiscannot afford to acknowledge.Implicitlythen,functionalistsreduce education to a formula of technical efficiency:producing the correctnumberof graduateswith both the rightblend of skillsand a commitment to the given socialsystem and hierarchy.


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The Cultof Efficiencyn Education 171ConclusionAt a time when advancedindustrialisedeconomies such as the UK andAustralia, ndeed themodem state itself, is under strain (Habermas, 1976; Offe, 1993) and there is increasingpressure to deregulate wages and conditions, weaken unions and reduce resources in thepublic sector, manyhave arguedthat educators and intellectualsneed to continue campaign-ing strongly to reassert genuine efficiency and effectiveness in education, as against theinterests of business and governmentto prune (higher)education further at the cost of thosegroups alreadydisadvantaged:women, blacks, migrants,youth and the poor (Macleanet al.,1990; Said, 1994; Gewirtz et al., 1995, pp. 9-11; Welch, 1998b).As more than one recent scholar has pointed out, 'efficiency', 'managerialism''flexibility', 'international competitiveness', 'responsiveness', 'TQM' and 'economy' areterms much in vogue (Sheehan, 1996; Currie, 1998) among those who reveal at the sametime an interest in reducing public sector expenditures in areas such as education andwelfare. In Australia,the UK and the USA the rhetoric of efficiency now often belies therealityof attacksupon the public sector and principlesof equalityof opportunity.What has been argued and illustrated throughout this article is that the theme ofefficiency in education has an ugly, but often hidden side. Appeals to efficiency can licenseattacks upon the very education system which it is supposed to enhance. In fact, as thehistorical and comparativecase studies of both schools and universitiesreveal, the cult ofefficiency often masks an economistic, technicist conception of education which resists anyincursions by criteriaof equity or social or individualdevelopment. In so doing, efficiencyreveals its own value system very clearly and gives the lie to its own claims regardingitsvalue-freenature.As in the opening quotationof this article,the implicationwhich shouldbe derivedfromthe above argumentand the associated illustrations s that as educators,we must continue toassert a genuine and humane efficiency and effectiveness and resist the imposition of anarrow,utilitarianand instrumentalist orm of educationby those who, under the cloak of anillusory efficiency(economism), wish nothing more thanto justifythe reduction of warrantedstate expenditures n (higher)educationor to reduce the economic and social costs of equityin education and return to an earlier era in which social hierarchywas less malleable than inthe twentieth century.Secondly and associated with the firstpoint, there is a dangerin allowingeconomics tomasqueradeas rationality.As Pusey (1991) and others have argued, economics as well asother sciences can easilyappealto their status quasciences to claim extralegitimacyfor theirfindings. This phenomenon explains, in large part, the power of Taylorism (see above,p. 162), paymentby results and TQM as reform movements in education. More than this,however, if the claim is thereby accepted that economics can be appealedto as a means ofdeciding whether to proceed with a policy (in education) or not, then it has succeeded inrepresenting rationality or rational choices between different social goals (Welch, 1996,pp. 1-23) and displacingother more traditional orms of rationality, n particular hose whichincluded an ethical component containing some vision of the 'good life'.The currentimpositionof business and marketprinciplesof efficiencyupon schools anduniversities results in predictabledistortions of the principles of social justice and equality,towards ones of economics and business management.

It rests upon a rhetoricof [institutional]autonomy, and ... [individual]freedom ofchoice but delivers a very effective means of surrogatecontrol. It also provides amechanism for driving down educational expenditureswhich draws upon a dis-course of efficiencyand which effectivelyuses the proceduresof competitiveformula


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172 A. R. Welchfunding to disguise cuts in public expenditure.Individual institutions are left withthe freedom to manage their own contraction. Furthermore,the ideology of themarket is introduced by, and introduces, a common management of regulationacross the private and public sectors based on a non-principled self interest.(Gewirtz et al., 1995, p. 190)

We see in the above quotation echoes of prior episodes when efficiency was used as a toolwith which to refashionschools and universitiesalong business lines. In each instance, it isarguably the case that the reforms were imposed in circumstances whereby educationconceived as 'less part of social policy, but was increasingly viewed as a sub-sector ofeconomic policy' (Neave, 1988, p. 274).Significantreforms in education in Australia,the UK and the US over the 1980s and1990s have been justified by appealsto business principlesof efficiency; n reality,they havebeen part of a much broader reshapingof the social order, in which education has beenexpected to help 'reducepublic sector expendituresand, on the other (hand), to improvetheeconomic performance and competitiveness of business' (Miller, 1995b, p. 166). Suchefficiencymeasures are accompanied by increasinglycomplex systems of appraisalof educa-tional workers(teachersand academics) (Barnett, 1996) and a reductionin theirprofessionalautonomy, as their work is increasinglyconfined within systems of management, one ofwhose principaltasks is to increase productivityby forcing workerscontinuallyto do morewith less. The moral technology (Ball, 1990) of TQM (and like forms of business tech-nology), however, is blind to questions of social justiceand equality,which are overwhelmedby the technical imperative of system efficiency. The mask of rationality,neutrality andobjectivityrepresentedby such mechanisms of efficiency,however,fails to hide the outcomesof an underlying instrumental, economistic form of rationality: cost containment, neo-vocationalism, the commodification of knowledge and disempowerment and perhapsdeskillingof educational workers. It is, then, not altogethera surpriseto find a clear echo ofthe resistance by teachers in mid-nineteenth century England to the punitive effects of theRevised Code in allegations of teacher-assistedcheating at national tests of 11 year olds,which surfacedagain in England in mid-1997 (GuardianWeekly,1997).As the cloud of economic globalisationcasts its lengtheningshadow on both advancedindustrial nations and the developingworld at the end of the twentieth century (Martin &Schumann, 1997), educational institutions are not immune to its effects. Business interestsare, once more, increasinglyinfluential on school and universitycouncils and, under suchinfluences, schools and universities (like other social institutions) are pressed to be moreefficient: to work better, do more with less, be responsive to market forces, engage inentrepreneurialactivities and engage in ongoing (indeed, endless) processes of so-calledquality improvement,via techniques of self assessment and regulation.These processes fitreasonablywell with what Ritzer (1993, pp. 9-12) termed the McDonaldisation of society,which, he argued,consists of fourmainprinciples:efficiency,quantificationand calculability,predictabilityand the substitutionof non-humantechnology for human controls. Increasingcritical attention is now being paid to the applicationof this ideologyand processes to schoolsand, more recently, to the academic profession (Currie, 1998; Hartley, 1995; K.-H. Mok1997), as well as to the damaging human and social effects of these narrower,technicistnotions of efficiency, such as the insecurity of (full-time) employment, impoverishment,increasedstress and anxietyand a sense of powerlessness(Rees, 1995), which areparticularlyexperienced by socially marginalgroups in society.While recognisingthe need for efficient and effective decision making,public account-ability and some kind of responsivenessto state and market, however, it is still possible to


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The Cult of Efficiency in Education 173resist the domination of education by increasinglynarrow and technicist versions of the'dismal science' (Grace, 1994) and to insist upon a wider and fairer form of efficiency, thatdoes some justice to notions of equality and difference,by comprehendingboth wider andmore liberal conceptions of curriculumand the educative process and which equally em-braces the interests of the 'have-nots' as well as the 'have':working-classstudents, recentmigrants, indigenous minorities and others. This more humane and inclusive form ofefficiency (as indicated in the opening quotation of this article) is one more likely tocommand the support of educationalworkers, to license a wider and more liberal form ofeducation and to provide quality education to all, ratherthan principallyto those who aremost able to manipulatethe system. It is in this sense that one can arguethat a system whichcultivates all the talent in a society is genuinely efficient and effective.REFERENCESALTBACH,. & LEWIs,L. (1996) The academic profession in internationalperspective, in P. ALTBACH Ed.): The

International cademicProfession. ortraits f ourteen ountries, p. 3-50 (Princeton,CarnegieFoundation for theAdvancement of Teaching).APPLE,M. (1982) Educationand Power(London, Routledge).BALL, . (1990) Managementas moral technology. A Luddite analysis,in: S.J.BALL Ed.), FoucaultandEducation;disciplinesnd knowledge, p. 153-166 (London, Routledge).BARCAN,. (1981) A HistoryofAustralianEducation Oxford, OxfordUniversityPress).BARNETT (1990) The Idea of Higher Education(Buckingham, Society for Research in Higher Education/OpenUniversity Press).BARNETT,. (1996) The evaluation of the higher education system in the United Kingdom, in: R.C. COWENEd.)The Evaluationof HigherEducationSystemsWorldYearbook f Education1996, pp. 144-158 (London, KoganPage).BLAUG,M. (1972) An Introductiono the Economics f Education London, Penguin).BRODBECK,. (1968) Methodologicalindividualism:definition and reductions, in: M. BRODBECKEd.), ReadingsnthePhilosophy f the SocialSciences,pp. 280-303 (London, CollierMacmillan).CALLAHAN,. (1962) Educationand the Cultof Efficiency London, Universityof Chicago Press).CARNOY, . (1975) The role of education in a strategy for social change, ComparativeEducationReview, 19,pp. 393-402.CARR-HILL,. & MAGNUSSEN,O. (1973) Indicators f Performancef EducationalSystems(Paris, OrganisationforEconomic Co-operationand Development).CERNY,. (1990) TheChangingArchitecturef theState. Structure, gencyand thestate(London, Sage).COMMITTEEFENQUIRY1986) Reviewof Efficiency nd Effectivenessn HigherEducation Canberra,AGPS).COULBY,. & JONES, . (1996) Post-modernity, education and European identities, ComparativeEducation,32,pp. 171-184.COWEN, . (1996a) Last past the post: comparativeeducation, modernityand perhapspostmodernity,ComparativeEducation,32, pp. 151-170.COWEN,R. (1996b) Performativity,postmodernityand education, Comparative ducation,32, pp. 245-258.CURRIE,. (1998) Globalisationand the professoriate,Comparative ducationReview, 42, pp. 15-29.DEPARTMENTFEDUCATIONNDSCIENCE1987) HigherEducation:meeting hechallenge London, HMSO).DURKHEIM,E. (1969) Individualism and the intellectuals (Tr. Lukes, S. ed.) Political Studies, 17, pp. 19-30.EDDING,. (1964) Efficiencyin education, International eviewof Education,10, pp. 393-395, 400.EPSTEIN,. (1983) Currentsleft and right: ideology in comparative education, Comparative ducationReview,27,pp. 3-29.GEWIRTZ,., BALL, . & BOWE, . (1995) Markets,Choiceand Equity n Education Buckingham,Open UniversityPress).GIDDENS,A. (1979) Positivism and its critics, in: T. BoTTOMORE& R. NISBETT(Eds), A History of SociologicalAnalysis,pp. 237-286 (London, Heinemann).GRACE, . (1994) Education is a public good: on the need to resist the domination of economic science, in: D.

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Cult of Efficiency in Education

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