Follow the money, as they say. Via AFR:
University vice-chancellors’ pay is “ridiculous” compared to their overseas counterparts and COVID-19 has exposed the inability of most of them to deliver the performance that would be expected if they were earning the same money in the private sector, say two leading business academics.
Professors Tom Smith and James Guthrie from Macquarie University Business School said the average pay of Australia’s 39 vice-chancellors – the university equivalent of a chief executive – is $985,000, compared to just $670,000 in the US and $635,000 in the UK.
“Chief executives are paid for their business acumen. That is their vital ingredient and they have training to get it. They generate strategic direction and that equals value creation,” said Professor Smith who is the head of the Department of Applied Finance at Macquarie University.
Good one. Australian vice-chancellors are paid so highly for one reason only: for a flexible ethical outlook. Why?
Because the international student trade in Australia has had a frighteningly deleterious impact on pedagogy as:
- Chinese students shut down free speech;
- Confucious Institutes openly teach CCP propaganda;
- those students and academics not toeing the line of ‘Xi Jinping thought’ are persecuted from campus;
- cheating is allowed to run wild;
- insufficient language requirements are allowed;
- local students are forced to teach foreign via group asignments;
- pedagogical standards tumble.
In short, Australian vice-chancellors are no different to bankers in the GFC. They are arbitraging their own institution’s good health for short term personal gain.
The high salary is the bribe that assuages any angst in this regard. Clearly, the salaries should be crushed by via regulation.
