Knaves or knights, pawns or queens? An evaluation of Australian higher education reform policy

Purpose – To invoke Julian Le Grand’s conceptual model of the interaction between human motivation and policy formulation in order to explain how motivational endogeneity in the university environment has distorted policy outcomes in the Australian higher education reform program. Design/methodology/approach – Le Grand contends that changes in the perception of policy makers of both motivation and agency in the public sector have transformed public sector reform programs in the past two decades. However, because producers and consumers of public services react vigorously to different policy presumptions of their behaviour, a problem of endogeneity arises that may distort the intended outcomes of reform processes. This conceptual framework is applied to higher education reform in Australia from the so-called Dawkins reform program in the late 1980s onwards. Findings – Argues that the Le Grand model can shed light on the changes in Australian higher education that have occurred as a consequence of the ongoing reform process and account for at least some of the unintended negative consequences of the reforms. Originality/value – The paper represents the first application of the Le Grand model to higher education reform.