ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how discourses of quality and equality interact or collide in the context of massification and the changing demography of higher education. The juxtaposition of political and intellectual authority means that public service institutions over the last two decades have been subject to 'human accounting'. Values, as well as technologies and drive systems from the cultural world of business and commerce, have been imported into higher education, bringing with them new meanings, priorities and truths. Massification raised questions about how to ensure quality and standards. Concerns related to value for money and public accountability. Human capital theory has also been more overtly applied to higher education in relation to global competitiveness and national prosperity. There is an implied relationship between accountability and improvement. Quality in general, and total quality management (TQM) in particular, represent an example of surveillance and regulation, with a primary aim to render employees more docile, compliant and governmentable.
