ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the notion of accountability and its relation to the concept of efficiency of resource use. It discusses number of factors impinging on the availability and use of resources in higher education. The chapter also reviews the alternative procedures that are being urged, mainly from outside of higher education, to promote accountability, namely, an increase in market pressures through the reintroduction of fees or an increasing degree of bureaucratic control through State and Commonwealth Commissions. In Australia the groups external to the staff of higher education institutions who have the most potential power over resources are students and government. Apparent academic staff/student ratios in 1975 were a little over 11 although support staff and expenditure per student were less than in universities. In retrospect the abolition of fees and the removal of State funding may have made higher education too dependent on a single source of funds for independent research and teaching.
