The Discipline Review of Australian Law Schools. Centre for the Study of Higher Education Research Working Papers, 93.6.

Overview & Synopsis

The expansion of higher education in the 1960s from an elite to a mass activity has led inevitably to a demand that higher education be responsive and accountable to the wider community. There are several approaches to evaluation of quality and economic effectiveness in higher education institutions and programs. In the mid-1980s, Australia's Commonwealth Government initiated a series of discipline reviews, as part of an ongoing process of the evaluation of higher education. This paper discusses the discipline review approach to evaluation, in the context of the Discipline Review of Australian Law Schools. It considers the following aspects of the Law School review: the objectives of the Commonwealth discipline reviews, the assessment of quality, the assessment of economic efficiency, responsiveness to community needs, and responses to the law discipline review itself. Appendices provide data on the expansion rates of students in higher education and results from a survey of law students concerning their rating of a law course and the law school. Contains 18 references. (Author/GLR)