What is a university for?

It seems like a good question to ask as two universities in this state consider merging again. There have been attempts to do it before and they have failed. 

This state has three universities...for a population of not quite 1.8m people. Does it need three? 

I began my tertiary education at what was then called a "teachers' college". There were three of those in the state fifty years ago. None of them were very big. One was attached to the only university. The other two were simply there to train teachers. Most students only did two years of training. A few of us did three years. We "specialised" and came out with "diplomas" rather than "certificates". The training we received, even at diploma level, was very basic. The standard was low. Three years later I went off to university on the other side of the world and suddenly discovered what "going to university" meant. 

It was a revelation. Suddenly I was being intellectually challenged for the first time in my life. I was being taught by people who did actual research, wrote academic papers and text books. I found out the way I had been taught to cite research was not the way I was now expected to do it.  I discovered that having ideas was acceptable - and that I was expected to argue in support of them. At teachers' college I had simply been expected to repeat what the lecturers had told me. Of course we were told to present "arguments" in answer to examination questions but the reality was that putting the lecturers words into our own was more than sufficient.

In due course the "teachers' college" became a "college of advanced education". It didn't really change a lot. In the course of my work I went in and out of mine as I worked on setting up the first Toy Library in the state and on starting the first serious augmentative and alternative communication training program. I enjoyed it but the intellectual challenge was not there. I didn't find it in the classroom either. 

The state set up a second university. It was a bare windswept institution of scattered, inaccessible buildings on a hill. There was bias towards the sciences and it became associated with the fourth teacher training college that had been set up. The college was struggling to find staff. I tutored there in the late afternoons. The Senior Cat tutored there at night. Both of us had full time day jobs as well. 

Eventually of course I returned to university on the other side of the world. I left behind the vague rumblings of "what about a merger..." What merged were two of the teacher training colleges. They added some other things. All of them turned into what became known as the third university. (The other two training colleges were taken over by the first and second universities.)

I know those who study and work at the third university would disagree with me but I have always felt that it was a university too many. Yes, it does some research and some of that research is very good. Yes, it turns out teachers who are a little better trained than they once were. I have tutored students from that university. The standard is still not as high as I believe it should be but it is better than it once was. 

A lot of what is done there is practical rather than intellectual. That's good. We need people who are practical. 

But where should practical people be trained? Are we giving them degrees because it is nice to be able to put BA or BSc or BEng or something else after a name? Or are we giving them the same thing for reaching an intellectual standard of some rigour? What is that BA really worth?

Perhaps we lost a chance along the way to say, "Universities are about an intellectual challenge." If that is the case then merging the universities has to mean cutting away some of the very practical courses and returning them to our TAFE colleges (Technical and Further Education). It might even help to raise the standards in TAFE colleges and show others that having practical abilities is something to be nurtured and cherished. Surely that is better than being considered "second rate" at university?