The appointment of Peter Mathieson as vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has raised some questions that are of interest not only to HKU but many universities around the world.

Whether Mathieson is qualified or not is not the concern. The issue is whether students should have been included in the search committee that picked him.

The broader issue is whether students should be represented at all in university committees.

That issue has been settled in practice by numerous universities (including HKU) by including students at various levels of administration, sometimes all the way to governing boards.

The issue, however, has not been settled in theory. The theoretical question is this: who is the customer of a university?

The question might look odd from the point of view of traditional universities, particularly state-funded ones, but in this age when universities, including the state-funded variety, are asked to generate income to cover expenses, such a question needs to be faced.

In applying for various forms of quality assessment, universities are routinely asked who they are serving. The routine answer is that a university serves its students. If that is the case and students are indeed the customers, then students should be included in all policy-making. "The customer is always right" has to be taken literally by universities.

This particular answer, however, leads to thorny questions. How can students tell which learning areas will be useful to them in their lives after graduation? How can students be experts in pedagogy, teaching styles, scientific research methods, and so on, unless they take on faith what and how their teachers teach them? Is curriculum design, like product design, supposed to be based on what students want, rather than need?

There have been several attempts to make students part of curriculum design. In teaching strategies such as "the contract method," for example, some teachers ask their students what they want to take up during a term and then let the students decide on the requirements for a particular subject.

A serious challenge to this routine answer, however, appeared with the Bologna Process in Europe. Despite protests by students and teachers, university administrators agreed that the customer of a university is business and industry. Decrying a perceived "mismatch" between what universities teach and what industry needs, industry has become more active in curriculum design. In projects such as "dual education", students are even asked to spend a huge portion of their school time working in corporations rather than sitting in classrooms. From the point of view of industry, students should not have any voice in their formation. Students are seen as products, much like products of a factory.

In places where parents shoulder the tuition fees of students, universities sometimes say that parents are their customers. There are schools where parents are included in policy-making. Some universities cannot raise tuition without parents agreeing and, in the process, demanding certain changes in curriculum or administration.

The theoretical issue has not been solved to anyone's satisfaction. This leads to drawn-out debates about the role of university leaders. There is a trend to choose managers over scholars as presidents or chancellors. HKU, for example, has defended its choice by pointing to the proven talent of Mathieson to "secure finances". Some other universities, also world-ranked like HKU, prefer a financial genius to an intellectual giant.

In fact, an intellectual giant, such as a Nobel laureate, may not necessarily know how to lead a university. Not all geniuses, for example, can speak before a large audience and stir them into action - something that university leaders have to do in times of crisis, economic or political.

One remembers the philosopher Plato's derision of the Greek poetic genius Homer as a general. Homer, in The Iliad, wrote about how various generals commanded their armies during the Trojan War. If Homer really knew how to wage war, said Plato, he would have made a great general, but nobody made him a general in real life. Clearly, argued Plato, people know better than to trust a genius.

The author is president of the Manila Times College and former Philippine under-secretary (deputy minister) of education.

(HK Edition 10/16/2013 page1)