How not to fund teaching and learning - Leesa Wheelahan

Oct 15, 2026

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Critiques Australia’s Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) and the Teaching and Learning Fund as mechanisms meant to improve higher education teaching and learning. Argues the scheme is conceptually and methodologically flawed, using measures that are neither valid nor reliable. The analysis claims the fund functions to create winners and losers, reshape market information for consumers, and strengthen audit and accountability cultures within universities, affecting academic behavior.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

The putative aims of the LTPF

Announcement, purpose, and funding levels

Comparison with research funding

How winners and losers are defined

Why the LTPF is conceptually and methodologically flawed

Invalid and unreliable measures

Market differentiation and audit culture

Positioning within neo-liberal reform processes

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S R E V I E W How not to fund teaching and learning Leesa Wheelahan In the increasingly research and innovation-driven landscape of higher education, the Federal Government’s Teaching and Learning Fund is supposed to redress the balance. Leesa Wheelehan is unconvinced. She argues the Fund simply encourages game-playing between institutions in manipulating their teaching outcomes, and rewards good teaching on grounds that make no statistical or policy sense. The Commonwealth Government’s Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) is not about improving the quality of teaching and learning in Australian universities, it is about creating winners and losers in the higher education market.This article critiques the LTPF on two levels. First, it argues that it is conceptually and methodologically flawed and cannot succeed in its own terms.The measures used are not valid or reliable. Second, the paper argues that the primary purpose of the LTPF is to further differentiate the higher education market through the creation of winners and losers, generate market information for consumers, contribute to the culture of audit and accountability within universities, and foster market subjectivities in which academics feel the need to ‘add value’ to themselves (Ball 2003: 217). The measures used by the LTPF and the processes used to implement them are suited for these purposes. The first section of the paper outlines the aims of the LTPF, and the way in which it is implemented. The next section explains why it is conceptually and methodologically flawed in its own terms.The third section situates the LTPF as part of broader processes of neo-liberal reform. The putative aims of the LTPF The Learning and Teaching Performance Fund was announced in 2003 as part of then Commonwealth Education Minister Brendan Nelson’s suite of ‘Backing Australia’s Future’ reforms. The putative purpose of the Fund was ‘to reward those institutions that best demonstrate excellence in learning and teaching’(Nelson 2003: 29) . Approximately $250 million was committed to the Fund over three years: $54 million was distributed in 2006, $83 million will be distributed in 2007 and $113 million will be distributed in 2008 (DEST 2004: 5) . As well as the announcement of the LTPF, the Commonwealth allocated $8 million for teaching awards from 2006 to 2008, and $22 million per year for the establishment of the Carrick Institute,Australia’s national institute for learning and teaching in higher education (DEST 2004: 5) .1 The Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) (2004: 5) explains that the LTPF was needed to raise the status of teaching and learning so that it was equal to that of research (DEST 2004: 6) . DEST explains that internal staff promotion and staff reward systems rewarded staff for research performance (implying but not stating that this was at the expense of teaching performance), and that there were no comparable processes to reward excellent teaching and excellent learning outcomes. DEST (2004: 5) emphasised that the Fund wasn’t an attempt to create ‘teaching only’universities, but that it would help to contribute to the diversity of the sector explaining that:‘It is envisaged that an increased focus on learning and teaching will foster diversity and help to ensure the ongoing quality of the Australian higher education sector’. Exactly how the Fund would contribute to diversity was not explained. Presumably vol 49, no 1 & 2, 2007 How not to fund teaching and learning, Leesa Wheelahan 31 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S R E V I E W this would be through identifying some institutions as excellent in learning-teaching, and implicitly contrasting these institutions to the rest, who are, by definition, not excellent, or even high performing. The LTPF differs from research funding in some important respects. First, far more money is allocated to research f

FAQs

What is the core argument about how the LTPF affects universities?

The article argues the LTPF does not improve teaching and learning quality; instead it creates winners and losers in the higher education market and encourages strategic performance manipulation.

What does the paper say about the measures used by the LTPF?

It contends the measures are conceptually and methodologically flawed, stating they are not valid or reliable for evaluating teaching and learning excellence.

How does the LTPF differ from research funding according to the text?

The paper contrasts the LTPF with research block grants that distribute funding to all universities on performance improvement, while the LTPF prominently identifies losers and allocates rewards based on demonstrating excellence.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Blitz