The Federation of New Brunswick Faculty Associations (FNBFA) has released a Position Paper on the Implementation of Performance-based Funding in New Brunswick Public Universities (January 2020).
Also of interest is CAUT’s review of performance based funding in higher education (October 2019), which addressed similar approaches to higher education funding in Ontario and Alberta.
The FNBFA paper addresses the following issues:
- the public universities’ current accountability structures,
- the reasons behind the push for performance-based funding (PBF),
- the problems with PBF, and
- what are we to do instead of PBF.
We argue, first, that the public universities of New Brunswick are already subjected to a wide range of accountability measures; second, that the motivation to implement performance-based funding (PBF) stems from serious misunderstandings about public universities; third, that the implementation of PBF in various jurisdictions around the world over the past 30 years demonstrates that it is not the answer to the real problems experienced by public universities; and fourth, that what public universities need instead is a consistent and adequate level of funding that will enable them to fulfil their fundamental teaching and research missions, while preserving academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
(From the abstract of the FNBFA position paper)
Members are encouraged to read the FNBFA position paper and CAUT’s review.