Performance indicators in New Zealand higher education: accountability or control?

This paper examines and critiques the development of a set of performance indicators in New Zealand higher education introduced as a result of recent reforms. The first section outlines the policy context for their introduction in terms of a set of core public sector reforms more generally, and reforms carried out with regard to education and higher education in particular. The second section reviews and discusses the national set of performance indicators that have been developed and considers their role and significance within new mechanisms designed to improve efficiency and accountability. The third section briefly backgrounds the university opposition to the Education Amendment Act, 1990 and the policy settlement that resulted. It also updates developments under the present National government and indicates the relationship of these developments to the emergence of the right in New Zealand education.