ABSTRACT

Teachers and administrators in the academic world may be apprehensive of accountability because institutions of higher learning have a long history of muddling through and getting away with it in fairly comfortable fashion. Accountability, however, threatens to fix responsibility, to demand fundamental thinking about ends and means, and to require the development and application of sophisticated management tools to activities whose goals have been generally unclear and whose methods and procedures have been largely unexamined. The framework in which tertiary institutions might be held accountable at the federal level in Australia can be found in constitutional powers, legislative provisions, and administrative and policy initiatives and procedures of the Commonwealth. The framework for accountability in tertiary education at the federal level is completed by noting the growing significance of the Commonwealth Department of Education as the primary advisor to the Commonwealth Minister on policy issues across the whole spectrum of education.