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Pedro Nuno Teixeira · Jung Cheol Shin Editors-in-Chief Alberto Amaral · Elizabeth Balbachevsky Andres Bernasconi · Edward Choi · Hans De Wit Gaële Goastellec · Fiona Hunter · Barbara M. Kehm Manja Klemenčič · Patricio Langa · António Magalhães Goolam Mohamedbhai · Terhi Nokkala · Laura Rumbley Bjørn Stensaker · Lisa Unangst · Jussi Välimaa Rui Yang Editors
The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions
The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions
Pedro Nuno Teixeira • Jung Cheol Shin Editors-in-Chief
The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions With 180 Figures and 314 Tables
Editors-in-Chief Pedro Nuno Teixeira CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics - U. Porto Portugal
Jung Cheol Shin Department of Education Seoul National University Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
ISBN 978-94-017-8904-2 ISBN 978-94-017-8905-9 (eBook) ISBN 978-94-017-8906-6 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8905-9 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature B.V. The registered company address is: Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 GX Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Preface
Higher education has been facing major transformation in recent decades. One of the major transformations has been the relentless expansion of student enrollment that has made mass higher education a reality across continents and brought important developments in higher education such as the worldwide expansion of private institutions and the development of diverse types of higher education. The move towards mass and universal higher education brought increasing diversity to higher education, which has multiple and complex meanings for the higher education realm from the profile of the student body to the types of higher education. The move towards mass and universal higher education has also contributed to reshape the missions of higher education and its consolidation as a multipurpose institution. Higher education has been increasingly asked to play important and varied economic and social roles and this has been shaping its mission, its priorities, and its organizational and decision-making structures accordingly in order to serve an increasingly diverse set of constituencies. The worldwide expansion of higher education has been a decisive factor to make it a truly global reality, which was hardly the case just a few decades ago. Over the last decades there has been tremendous growth in the international links in higher education, through issues such as training, students’ mobility, staff mobility, and research activities. Nowadays it will be hard to find any higher education institution (HEI) in the world that is not in some way connected to other HEIs located in other countries. Another important and controversial facet of this global dimension is the fact that the benchmarking in higher education has become increasingly internationalized, notably through the proliferation and pervading influence of rankings and league tables in recent decades. Higher education is being shaped by rapid and significant transformations as its societal and technological environments are also rapidly changing. Among those transformations, the changes in population, technology, and economy and political changes are expected to have major impacts in higher education. One the one hand, the demographics of higher education is becoming increasingly complex, with many of those countries that have witnessed the early development of mass higher education now facing stagnant or declining demand and other parts of the world are still facing major expansion in demand for higher education, challenging governments and institutions to accommodate expanding cohorts of students in a way that balances access and inclusion with quality and relevance. On the other hand, we are observing v
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complex and profound technological advancement that is likely to entail major changes for the landscapes of “education” and “research” that may affect the different missions of higher education, the way these are fulfilled, and the organizational fabric that supports those missions. We are also witnessing major political and social changes that will inevitably impact higher education, such as the strong debates regarding nationalism, democratic participation, or inequality. Those political and societal changes will create major challenges to higher education, either in the form of growing barriers for academic mobility and collaboration or in regulatory and organizational changes aiming at responding to those emerging needs and realities. A significant part of the current landscape in higher education has been shaped by the long-term patterns of development of the welfare state and the dynamics of globalization. These have given higher education an unprecedented centrality in economic, social, and political debates, though have also created major pressures and challenges. It is yet to be seen how much of the pillars that sustained higher education in the past decades will be transformed in the coming years and how this will impinge in the fabric of higher education. Many of the contributions in this encyclopedia already reflect on these emerging trends, but this is still clearly work in progress for research in higher education in the coming years. Moreover, the capacity of the researchers in the field to anticipate and make sense of those transformations will be a critical factor for the sustainability of higher education as a central institution. Higher education research has mirrored these trends and has shown a remarkable capacity to address these issues through an increasingly sophisticated and robust research agenda by an increasingly diverse research community interested in higher education. This created the two fundamental conditions for the development of such a large-scale editorial project. Not only we had the necessity, but we also had the intellectual potential to fulfill that necessity. If such an editorial project aimed at tackling the realities of higher education, it would have to live up to its aforementioned major trends, namely by adopting an international, multidisciplinary, and multilevel approach. The major reference works developed by leading figures in the field of higher education studies such as the late Burton Clark, Guy Neave, or Philip Altbach have been published roughly 30 years ago and their effort has not been updated significantly since then. Moreover, several of these works have not been available for several years, preventing many younger institutions access to a major reference work in the field of higher education. Thus, there was a clear need for an international and up-to-date landmark editorial project on higher education that covers all themes in a comprehensive, accessible, and comparative way. The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions aims to map the field for the twenty-first century, reflecting the enormous changes in the field and the challenges ahead for future research. The topics covered have envisaged to encompass all key areas of higher education with a topical, geographical, and disciplinary approach, always aiming to draw comparative analyses and to cover diverse scholarly interpretations. The first part of the encyclopedia covers the National Entries that
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outline a comprehensive account of the reality of higher education in a very large and diverse set of countries. The presentation of almost 150 higher education systems was developed, as much as possible, in a comparative framework, following the same structure. Thus, each entry aims to cover briefly the historical context of the emergence and development of each higher education system, some basic data and trends about its higher education institutions, and a set of major topics that shape all higher education systems such as governance, funding, quality, and the major stakeholders (especially academics and students). In general, each entry ends with a concluding summary that outlines the major issues and challenges faced by that system and that should be followed attentively in the coming years. The development of these National Entries was coordinated by the Regional Editors, supported by the Editors-in-Chief, in order to attain a higher degree of coherence and comparativeness between those entries. The regional sections were organized as follows: Western Countries (Barbara Kehm); Asia and Pacific (Rui Yang, Jung Cheol Shin, and Pedro Nuno Teixeira); Latin America and Caribbean (Andrés Bernasconi and Elizabeth Balbachevsky); and Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and Middle-East (Goolam Mohamedbhai and Patrício Langa). The second part comprises the thematic entries, which takes advantage of the accumulated expertise in multiple aspects of higher education. The selection of entries was comprehensive and aimed to identify themes that were of significant interest to an international audience interested in higher education, notably by its significance to many systems of higher education. The thematic entries were structured according to a set of major themes in higher education research that avoided focusing too much on disciplinary approaches. Each theme was coordinated by an associate Editor (or more than one) in order to aim at consistency and comprehensiveness. The themes covered were the following: Elite and Mass Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century (Manja Klemenčič); The State and Higher Education (Alberto Amaral and António Magalhães); Higher Education and Its Communities (Gaele Goastellec); Higher Education as a Complex Organization (Bjorn Stensaker); Higher Education as a Global Reality (Hans de Wit, Fiona Hunter, Laura Rumbley, Edward Choi, and Lisa Unangst); The Political Economy of Higher Education (Pedro Nuno Teixeira); and Higher Education as a Research Field (Jussi Valimaa and Terhi Nokkala). Each of them supervised several dozens of entries, supported by the editors-in-chief, and painstakingly revised and commented on each of them. In the structuring of each theme we have tried to cover the major issues of the literature, but also to identify emerging topics that could add novelty to the analysis. Altogether, these almost 350 entries present a comprehensive, nuanced, and profound depiction of the world of higher education that is nourished by the different disciplinary perspectives that have been studying higher education and by the increasingly large number of specialized studies focusing on higher education. The final result owes tremendously to the competent and persistent editorial work of this team of outstanding scholars. We hope that this massive undertaking will become a reference source benefiting from the richness of scholarly perspectives and a wide range of internationally diverse contributions. This encyclopedia covers in an
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extremely comprehensive way the world of higher education both from a geographical as well as thematic/disciplinary perspective. Most importantly, we believe that the result of this effort will support indispensable comparative analyses as higher education has never been as interconnected as today. Whereas entries in previously published encyclopedia primarily reflected particular countries/national systems, this reference work is unrivaled in its international scope and its capacity to go beyond national boundaries by profiting from the wealth of international comparative research that has been developed in the field over the last decades. The aim was therefore to provide a complete resource on higher education institutions meant to advancing research and the exploration of key issues in higher education worldwide, to influence current thinking, and to raise awareness and create insight in current issues. The encyclopedia will provide readers at different levels a comprehensive and systematic research tool that combines research in depth and breadth with reflections about the realities of the higher education world. Thus, we have aimed that it could become a useful source for a very diverse set of audiences, from the more academic ones composed of researchers and students to the more practically oriented ones of policy makers and academic administrators. We sincerely hope that the latter will also find this work a useful reference for decision-making purposes. This purpose has been reinforced either by the significant knowledge of many contributors about the systemic and institutional dynamics of higher education, but also by the contribution of many scholars with past or current management and policy experience in higher education. The growth of higher education and its increasing complexity that has been briefly characterized above has been a powerful driver for the expansion of research in this field. Over the last decades we have seen a significant expansion of the community of researchers specialized in higher education, nurtured by a growing number of master and doctoral programs specialized in higher education topics. This has reflected in the number of scientific journals and the creation and/or consolidation of several national and international organizations of researchers. The research in the field has combined national studies with a strong comparative and international approach to higher education issues. Likewise, an overview of main publications in the field shows a growing strength regarding the diversity of methodological approaches. The vitality of the field has benefited by the expanding possibilities of interaction between researchers of multidisciplinary backgrounds. Thus, the amount of high-quality research about higher education has been expanded significantly over the last decades. This encyclopedia was made possible by the commitment and dedication of colleagues and researchers in the field of higher education from all over the world, reflecting an expanding and increasingly diverse community of researchers in this field. Twenty renowned scholars participated as editors and circa 540 authors wrote articles for thematic or systemic sections. The editors in the thematic sections are all located in Europe and North America, though they reflect a growing regional diversity in contrast with previous encyclopedias’ dominance of authors from English-speaking countries.
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Moreover, editors for regional sections on higher education systems are wellestablished scholars that have developed their careers in those regions. We believe that this diversity reflects a much more diverse field, but also that captures more adequately the complex and nuanced realities of higher education worldwide. In the case of thematic entries, there is still a large presence of authors from the countries where the field of higher education has consolidated earlier, with about two-thirds of authors based in the USA, UK, and Western Europe. However, this means that there is already 35% of authors based in countries that had a largely residual presence in previous reference works. Furthermore, in the system entries it was possible to develop a truly international approach with 80% of the contributions coming from authors based outside the traditional axis Western Europe/North America. Thus, although the distribution of editors and authors still reflects a broad scientific pattern in which major knowledge providers are based in the Anglo-Saxon and Western European countries, there are rapidly growing academic communities in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Africa, and Middle East, as shown in our higher education systems and institutions sections. We believe that higher education research in those growing academic communities will provide rich soils for academic development in the West as well as in their own regions. The list of editors and authors also present a significant diversity regarding important academic characteristics such as gender and age. Thus, 40% of the editors are women and more than half of the sections were coordinated or co-coordinated by female academics. The share of female authors is also very large, confirming a pattern of increasing recognition of women in academia. The age structure of the editorial team and of the authors contributing to the encyclopedia also reflects our aims of diversity with authors ranging from early career academics to well-known senior academics. Readers will recognize that the collaboration of early career academics and seniors brings overarching views on higher education from different perspectives. Especially noteworthy is the contribution of many young academics with high scholarly potential from non-Western higher education systems both in systemic and thematic entries, as it points out to a promising future of the field in many parts of the world. We are sure that those young academics will lead research with fresh perspectives and pioneering new research territories. Those young researchers have much field experiences as practitioners (most of them hold practitioner position in a higher education institution) and those experiences will provide rich ground for theoretical development in their academic career. This encyclopedia covers a wide range of topics related to contemporary higher education. In several cases there will be (unavoidable) overlaps or different perspectives about similar topics, but this was intentional and aimed to reflect the diversity of perspectives in the field that can and should not be subsumed in a single approach. Although we have searched to incorporate the dynamics of higher education in our encyclopedia, our academic endeavor is limited as we are still learning to grasp what some of these changes will bring to the realities of higher education. We are confident that the contribution of this research will provide valuable insights about this unknown future and the publication of this print edition is just a starting point for
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adventuring higher education research as a field of research. Our task is unfinished and we will continue to think about this fascinating and complex reality of higher education and the results of that future work will enrich the digital version of this work in the years to come. This was a complex and long project and we could not finish this introduction without expressing our deepest gratitude to the crucial people that contributed significantly to its successful accomplishment. First of all, we should thank our team of associated editors who played a critical role in structuring the entries for each theme, persuaded a great team of qualified authors to generously contribute, and reviewed their submissions. Secondly, we would like to thank the members of the advisory team, who helped us during this project, especially in its initial stages. A special thanks to our colleagues Guy Neave, Philip G. Altbach, and Ulrich Teichler for their continuous support and advice. Third, we would like to thank all contributors that did their best to accommodate our demands regarding length, deadlines, and content. Although we have tried to be flexible, we are aware that this was a big demand on many of them and we are grateful for their efforts. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the entire team at Springer for their support, professionalism, and tolerance. A special thanks to Yoka Jassen who initiated and provided support since the beginning of this project, to Michael Hermann at Springer reference who provided invaluable advice for the progress of this project. Last, but certainly not least, the entire editorial team is very grateful to Sarah Mathew and Tina Shelton for their time and dedication. We could not handle this project with almost 500 entries without the persistence, the generosity, and the commitment of all those that have been mentioned and we are deeply grateful to each and one of them. We hope that the final result will live up to their dedication. July 2020
Pedro Nuno Teixeira Jung Cheol Shin
List of Topics
Section Editors: Alberto Amaral and António Magalhães Accountability in Higher Education Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Asia Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Eastern Europe Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Latin America Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, North America Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe Bureaucracies and Ministries, Higher Education Economic Models and Policy Analysis, Higher Education Evaluative State, Higher Education, The Federal States, States and Local Policies in Higher Education Good Governance and Higher Education Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education Higher Education Policy Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education Intergovernmental Policies in Higher Education, Bologna International Organizations, Higher Education
Law and Higher Education in the EU and in the Flemish Community Market Mechanisms, Higher Education Multi-level Governance, Higher Education New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education Policy Cycle in Higher Education, Theories of Policy Implementation in Higher Education Policy Instruments in Higher Education Policy Learning and Borrowing in Higher Education Policy Outcomes and Effects in Higher Education Policy Process in Higher Education Policy-Making, Rhetoric, and Discourse in Higher Education Politics, Power, and Ideology in Higher Education Research on Higher Education and Europeanization State and Planning, Higher Education Section Editor: Manja Klemencˇicˇ Academics and Higher Education Expansion Access to and Widening Participation in Higher Education Access to Higher Education, Affirmative Action Access to Higher Education, Barriers to Enrollment and Choice African University Traditions, Historical Perspective Alternative Higher Education Asian University Traditions British University Traditions xi
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Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere Cultural Capital, Social Class, and Higher Education Demography and Higher Education Diversity and Higher Education Elite Higher Education Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education Engaged University, The Entrepreneurial University Equity in Higher Education Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries French University Traditions, Napoleonic to Contemporary Transformation Gender and Higher Education German (Humboldtian) University Tradition, The High Participation in Higher Education, Implications for Funding Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes Higher Education and the Public Good Higher Education Expansion in Africa and Middle East Higher Education Expansion in Asia and the Pacific Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China Higher Education Expansion in Latin America Higher Education for Sustainability Higher Education in Knowledge Systems Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of Higher Education Market Segmentation Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical Higher Education Systems, Types of Higher Education, Welfare States, and Inequalities Inequality in Higher Education Inequality in Higher Education and the Labor Market
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Institutional Diversity in Higher Education, Institutional Profiling Latin American University Tradition, The Mass Higher Education Non-university Higher Education Private Higher Education Public Higher Education Quality of Higher Education Systems Race, Ethnicity, and Higher Education Refugees and Higher Education Research University, The Social Mobility and Higher Education Stratification in Higher Education Student Employees in Higher Education Student Governments Student Politics Students and Higher Education Expansion The Idea of the University: Renewing the Great Tradition University Tradition in the United States, The University Traditions in the Middle East and North Africa University Traditions, Russia World-Class Universities Section Editor: Bjørn Stensaker Academic Deans in Higher Education Institutions Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions Changing Legal Framework for Higher Education Collegiality in Higher Education Dimensions of Sustainable Development in Higher Education Diversity and Leadership in Higher Education Entrepreneurial Leadership in Higher Education External Quality Assurance in Higher Education Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions Governance in Community Colleges Governance of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Governing Access and Success in Higher Education Human Resource Management, Higher Education Institutional Accountability in Higher Education Institutional Culture in Higher Education
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Institutional Drift in Higher Education Institutional Fundraising, Higher Education Institutions Institutional Research and Themes, Asia Institutional Research and Themes, Europe Institutional Research and Themes, Latin America Institutional Research and Themes, North America Institutional Research and Themes, Southern Africa Leadership in Higher Education, Concepts and Theories Leadership of Internationalization in Higher Education Institutions Linking Innovation, Education, and Research Management of Research, Higher Education Institutions Managing External Relations, Higher Education Institutions Marketing in Higher Education Mission Statement, Higher Education Models of Change in Higher Education Non-university Education and Professional Institutions Organization and Knowledge Production in Higher Education Organizational Change, Higher Education Organizational Culture in Higher Education Organizational Identity in Higher Education Peer Leadership, Higher Education Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education Recruitment and Admission Management, Higher Education Institutions Regional Roles of Higher Education Revenue Generation, Higher Education Institutions Shared Governance, Higher Education Institutions Strategic Planning in Higher Education Understanding Institutional Diversity Section Editor: Gaële Goastellec Academic Careers Academic Evaluation in Higher Education
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Academic Identity in Higher Education Academic Perception of Governance and Management Academic Profession, Higher Education Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends Admissions Processes to Higher Education, International Insights Bureaucratization Process in Higher Education Chair System in Higher Education Civic Engagement in Higher Education Communicating Science Online, Higher Education Community Engagement in Higher Education Community Partnerships, Higher Education Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education Diploma Devaluation, The Ins and Outs Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches, Higher Education Distance Teaching Universities Doctoral Student Socialization E-Learning in Higher Education Factors Influencing Scientists’ Public Engagement First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis Gender Discrimination in the Academic Profession Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession Learning and Educational Pathway to Higher Education Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education Merit and Equality in Higher Education Access New Managerialism in Higher Education New Public Management and the Academic Profession Non-tenured Teachers, Higher Education Overlap Model of Roles and Tasks in University Organizations Peer Instruction in Higher Education Peer Review, Higher Education Professional Staff Identities in Higher Education Public Engagement in Higher Education
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Public Engagement Measurement Recruitment of Academics Refugees’ Access to Higher Education Social and Public Responsibility, Universities Social Partnership, Cross-Sector Collaboration Student Retention in Higher Education, A Shared Issue Students’ Drop Out, Higher Education Students’ Experiences in Higher Education Social Contract of Science, The Understanding the Transition to Higher Education Universities and Regional Development in the Periphery Values and Beliefs in Higher Education Widening Access to Higher Education Women in Science Communication Section Editor: Pedro Nuno Teixeira Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons Commercialization of Science, Higher Education Competition in Higher Education Completion and Retention in Higher Education Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education Cost Disease, Higher Education Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education Degrees of Quality, Higher Education Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education Economics of Student Loans Excellence Schemes, Higher Education Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview For-Profit Higher Education Formula Funding, Higher Education Higher Education and Economic Development Higher Education Policy and Economic Development Human Capital and Economic Growth Human Capital: Historical and Conceptual Developments Information Issues, Higher Education Markets
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Market Differentiation in Higher Education Markets and Marketization in Higher Education Mergers and Consortia, Higher Education Nonmonetary Private Returns of Higher Education Nonparametric Methods and Higher Education Over-Skilling, Under-Skilling, and Higher Education Parametric Methods and Higher Education Peer Effects, Higher Education Performance Indicators in Higher Education Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in Europe Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in the USA Philanthropy and Individual Donors in Higher Education Pricing in Higher Education Private Higher Education in Developed Countries Private Higher Education in Developing Countries Privatization and Diversity in Higher Education Privatization, Higher Education Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe Public Funding, Asia Public Funding, Latin America Rates of Return to Education: Conceptual and Methodological Issues Returns to Higher Education and Gender Revenue Diversification, Higher Education Scale and Scope Economies, Higher Education Signalling and Credentialism, Higher Education Social Benefits of Higher Education Tuition Fees, Higher Education Tuition Fees, Worldwide Trends Universities and Enterprises Universities as Economic Organizations Varieties of Capitalism in Higher Education Section Editors: Hans de Wit, Laura E. Rumbley, Fiona Hunter, Lisa Unangst and Edward Choi Academic Mobility, Inequities in Opportunity and Experience
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Administrative Staff as Key Players in the Internationalization of Higher Education Collaborative Online International Learning in Higher Education Corruption in Higher Education Doctoral Studies in Europe Flagship Universities in Africa Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities Global Citizenship and Higher Education Global Higher Education, Digital Age Global Trends in Student Mobility Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views Graduate Education Developments in an International Context Higher Education as a Global Reality Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization Higher Education in Post-Conflict Settings Higher Education Networks, Associations, and Organizations in Europe Human Capital Policy in Science and Technology Identity and Internationalization in Catholic Higher Education Intercultural Competencies and the Global Citizen International Academic Mobility in Asia International Academic Mobility in Australia and New Zealand International Academic Mobility in Europe, Regional Perspectives International Alumni Matters, Beyond Academic Mobility International Branch Campuses, Management of International Consortia of Higher Education Institutions International Higher Education Development Aid, Possibilities and Pitfalls International Higher Education Hubs International Higher Education Partnerships in the Developing World International Organizations and Latin American Higher Education International Student Services Internationalization at Home
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Internationalization of Higher Education, Africa Internationalization of Higher Education, China Internationalization of Higher Education, Emerging Economy Perspectives Internationalization of Higher Education, European Policies Internationalization of Higher Education, Historical Perspective Internationalization of Higher Education, Latin America and the Caribbean Internationalization of Higher Education, Leadership Perspective Internationalization of Higher Education, Mapping and Measuring Internationalization of Higher Education, US Perspectives Internationalization of Higher Education, Evolving Concepts, Approaches, and Definitions Internationalization of Research and Knowledge Development Internationalization of the Curriculum in the Disciplines, Critical Perspectives Internationalization of the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Internationalizing the Student Experience Internationally Mobile Faculty, Comparative Perspectives Language and Internationalization of the Higher Education Curriculum Liberal Arts Education, Going Global National Policies for Internationalization New Modes of Student Mobility, Work Experience and Service Learning Online Programs and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Partnerships and Joint Programs in Higher Education, Management of Positioning European Higher Education Globally Quality Assurance and Internationalization, Higher Education Quality Assurance in Higher Education, A Global Perspective Refugees in Tertiary Education, European Policies and Practices Transnational Education
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Universities in the Age of Internationalization, Competition, and Cooperation University Rankings, National and International Dynamics US Accreditation and Quality Assurance, International Dimensions Section Editors: Jussi Välimaa and Terhi Nokkala American Foundations and Higher Education Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Comparative Research, Higher Education Consortium of Higher Education Researchers EAIR: The European Higher Education Society Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education Field of Higher Education Research in Latin America Field of Higher Education Research, Africa Field of Higher Education Research, Asia Field of Higher Education Research, China Field of Higher Education Research, Europe Field of Higher Education Research, India Field of Higher Education Research, North America Field of Higher Education Research, Russia Field of Higher Education Research, France Higher Education Conferences Higher Education Journals Higher Education Research in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden Higher Education Research in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) Higher Education Research, Australia Higher Education Research, Germany Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece) Higher Education Research, UK Historical Perspective, Research in Higher Education Innovation Studies in Higher Education Research International Organizations and Asian Higher Education
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Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in Africa Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in North America Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers, Europe Internationalization of Higher Education Research in East Asia Internationalization of Higher Education Studies in Latin America Organizational Studies, Research in Higher Education Pedagogical Perspectives in Higher Education Research Philosophical Perspectives, Research in Higher Education Political Perspective, Research in Higher Education Research in Higher Education, Cultural Perspectives Role of the European Union in the Field of Higher Education Research Role of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the Field of Higher Education Research Role of the World Bank Group in the Field of Higher Education Research Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research Science and Technology Studies in Higher Education Research Sociological Perspectives on Higher Education Research Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), The Section Editors: Rui Yang, Jung Cheol Shin and Pedro Nuno Teixeira Higher Education System and Institutions, Korea Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bhutan
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, China Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Fiji Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Hong Kong Higher Education Systems and Institutions, India Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Indonesia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Japan Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Lao People’s Democratic Republic Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Macau Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Malaysia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mongolia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Myanmar Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Nepal Higher Education Systems and Institutions, New Zealand Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Pakistan Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Philippines Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Singapore Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sri Lanka Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Taiwan Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Thailand Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Vietnam Section Editors: Elizabeth Balbachevsky and Andrés Bernasconi Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Colômbia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Costa Rica Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador Higher Education Systems and Institutions, El Salvador Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Guyana Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Honduras Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mexico Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Paraguay Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Peru Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Suriname Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Uruguay Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Venezuela Section Editors: Goolam Mohamedbhai and Patricio Langa Higher Education System and Institutions, Mauritius Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Algeria Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Angola Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burkina Faso Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cape Verde
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central African Republic Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Egypt Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Eswatini (Swaziland) Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Francophone Africa Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Gabon Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Gambia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ghana Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Guinea Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Guinea Bissau Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Iran Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Kenya Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Kuwait Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Lebanon Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Liberia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Libya Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Malawi Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mali Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mauritania Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Morocco Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mozambique Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Namibia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Niger Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Nigeria Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Qatar
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Rwanda Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Saudi Arabia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Senegal Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sierra Leone Higher Education Systems and Institutions, South Africa Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sudan Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sultanate of Oman Higher Education Systems and Institutions, São Tomé and Príncipe Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Tunisia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, United Arab Emirates Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Yemen Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Zambia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Zimbabwe Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Uganda Section Editor: Barbara M. Kehm Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Albania Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Austria Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belarus Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bosnia and Herzegovina Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Canada Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia
List of Topics
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Denmark Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Estonia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Finland Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Georgia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Germany Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Greece Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Holy See Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Hungary Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Iceland Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ireland Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Israel Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Italy Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Kosovo Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Latvia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Lithuania Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Luxembourg Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Macedonia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Malta Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Montenegro Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Northern Part of Cyprus
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Norway Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Poland Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Portugal Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Republic of Cyprus Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Republic of Moldova Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Romania Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Serbia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovakia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovenia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Spain Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sweden Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Switzerland Higher Education Systems and Institutions, The Netherlands Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Turkey Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ukraine Higher Education Systems and Institutions, United Kingdom Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Russia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, United States Higher-Education Systems and Institutions, France
About the Editors-in-Chief
Pedro Nuno Teixeira Director of CIPES – the Center for Research in Higher Education Policies and Professor in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Porto. He has served as an adviser on Higher Education and Science to the President of Portugal since April 2016. He was Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs at the University of Porto (2014–2018) and was also a member of Portugal’s National Council of Education (2014–2018). Professor Teixeira has published widely on higher education policy in a broad range of scientific journals and is a member of the editorial boards of the following journals: Higher Education, the European Journal of Higher Education, Higher Education Policy, Journal of Research in Higher Education, and OEconomia: History/Methodology/ Philosophy. He is also a member of the Board of Governors and Secretary General of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), an Associate Researcher of the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE), and a member of the Scientific Committees of the Réseau d'Etudes sur l'Enseignement Supérieur (RESUP) and of the European Network of Higher Education Doctoral Students (EURODOCS). Professor Teixeira has been of the Board of the BIAL Foundation (since 2015) and was a member of the Education Advisory Board of the Foundation Francisco Manuel dos Santos (2013–2018). He has also served on the evaluation panels for the European University Association (EUA) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).
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About the Editors-in-Chief
Jung Cheol Shin is a professor at Seoul National University. He served the Korean Ministry of Education for about 20 years and began his professorship since 2006 when he moved to Seoul National University. His research interests are higher education policy, knowledge and social development, and academic profession. Professor Shin is Co-editor-in-Chief of the book series Knowledge Studies in Higher Education. He is an editorial board member of Studies in Higher Education, Tertiary Education and Management, and Higher Education Forum. Professor Shin was visiting fellow at East-Wester Center (USA), Tohoku University (Japan), Kyoto University (Japan), Hiroshima University (Japan), and National Chengchi University (Taiwan). Currently, he is the Secretary General (interim) of the Higher Education Research Association (HERA). Professor Shin’s book publications include University Rankings (2011), Institutionalization of World-Class University (2012), The Future of the Post-Massified University at the Crossroads (2014), Teaching and Research in Contemporary Higher education (2014), and Doctoral Education for the Knowledge Society (2018). For details, please visit: http://skie.snu. ac.kr/html/index.php
About the Editors
Elite and Mass Higher Education Manja Klemenčič Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Higher Education and its Communities Gaële Goastellec OSPS, LACCUS, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland Higher Education and the State Alberto Amaral CIPES, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal António Magalhães Center for Research in Higher Education Policies CIPES - and Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal Higher Education as a Global Reality Edward Choi Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Hans de Wit Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA Fiona Hunter Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy Laura E. Rumbley European Association for International Education (EAIE), Amsterdam, The Netherlands Lisa Unangst Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Higher Education as Research Field Terhi Nokkala Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Jussi Välimaa Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Higher Education Institutions as Complex Organizations Bjørn Stensaker Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway xxiii
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions: Africa, Arab and Middle Eastern Countries Patricio Langa Centre for Adult and Continuing Education, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa Goolam Mohamedbhai Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Mauritius, Rose-Hill, Mauritius Higher Education Systems and Institutions: Asia and Pacific Jung Cheol Shin Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea Pedro Nuno Teixeira CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics - U. Porto, Portugal Rui Yang Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Higher Education Systems and Institutions: Latin America Elizabeth Balbachevsky Department of Political Science, Research Center on Public Policy, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Andrés Bernasconi School of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile Higher Education Systems and Institutions: Western Countries Barbara M. Kehm Leibniz Centre for Science and Society, Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany Political Economy of Higher Education Pedro Nuno Teixeira CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics - U. Porto, Portugal
About the Editors
Advisory Board Members
Philip G. Altbach Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA Akira Arimoto Hyogo University and Research Institute for Higher Education (RIHE), Kakogawa, Japan Guy Neave Centro de Investigac¸ão de Políticas do Ensino Superior (CIPES), Porto, Portugal University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands Sheldon Rothblatt University of California - Berkeley, Berkeley, USA Ulrich Teichler International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Gareth Williams Institute of Education - University College London, London, UK
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Contributors
Kaare Aagaard Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Timo Aarrevaara University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland Pius Coxwell Achanga National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), Kampala, Uganda Georgette Agneroh-Eboi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Adalberto Aguirre Jr. Department of Sociology, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA Ali Ait Si Mhamed Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan Khalid Ahmed Al Qaidani Center of Public Administration Development, Sana’a University, Sana’a, Yemen Khalaf Al’Abri Sultan Qaboos University, Seeb, Oman Ahoud Al-Asfour Department of Educational Foundations and Administration | Comparative Education, College of Basic Education (CBE), The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), Kuwait, Kuwait Cecilia Albert Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares/Madrid, Spain Ruby Alleyne Office of Quality Assurance and Institutional Effectiveness, The University of Trinidad and Tobago, Arima, Trinidad and Tobago Jeffrey W. Alstete School of Business, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY, USA Philip G. Altbach Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA Alberto Amaral CIPES, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
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Ravichandran Ammigan Office for International Students and Scholars, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy José Pedro Amorim CIIE – Centro de Investigac¸ão e Intervenc¸ão Educativas, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educac¸ão, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal Eric J. Anctil University of Portland, Portland, OR, USA Robert D. Anderson School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Carrie Amani Annabi Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dominik Antonowicz Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland Robert Archibald William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA Rodrigo Arocena Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay Redouane Assad Department of Strategies and Information System, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Hassan, Morocco N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Hortense Atta Diallo University Nangui Abrogoua, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Jana Bacevic University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Gasim Badri Ahfad University for Women, Omdurman, Sudan Diola Bagayoko Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, LA, USA Sylvia S. Bagley University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Nikola Baketa Center for Youth and Gender Studies, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Jorge Balán School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, New York, USA Ivan Baláž Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia Elizabeth Balbachevsky Department of Political Science, Research Center on Public Policy, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil Victoria Ballerini Research for Action, Philadelphia, PA, USA Osman Z. Barnawi Royal Commission Colleges and Institutes, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia Ronald Barnett University College London Institute of Education, London, UK
Contributors
Contributors
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Damian Barry L H Martin Institute, Melbourne Centre for Studies of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Aleš Bartušek Education Policy Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Roberta Malee Bassett The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA Janosch Baumann University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Jos Beelen The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague, The Netherlands Maarja Beerkens Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University, Hague, The Netherlands Eric Beerkens NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), The Hague, The Netherlands Stefan Beljean Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Enora Bennetot Pruvot Governance, Funding and Public Policy Development, European University Association (EUA), Brussels, Belgium Paul Benneworth Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Estela Mara Bensimon Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Peter James Bentley The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Sjur Bergan Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and Participation/DG Democracy, Council of Europe – Conseil de l’Europe, Strasbourg, France Andrés Bernasconi School of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile Rajika Bhandari Institute of International Education, New York, NY, USA Ronald Bisaso East African School of Higher Education Studies and Development, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Ricardo Biscaia CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Porto, Portugal ESTGA-UAveiro and ESS-IPPorto, Porto, Portugal Ivar Bleiklie Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Fred Kofi Boateng School of Education and Leadership, College of Education, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana Vikki Boliver School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham University, Durham, UK
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Contributors
Andrea Bonaccorsi University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy IRVAPP-FBK, Trento, Italy Victor M. H. Borden Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Jan Botha Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST), Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa Pepka Boyadjieva Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria Lucia Brajkovic American Council on Education, Washington, DC, USA Uwe Brandenburg Global Impact Institute, Prague, Czech Republic Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain John Brennan The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK Georgina Brewis UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK Barbara Brittingham New England Colleges-CIHE, Burlington, MA, USA
Association
of Schools
and
Rachel Brooks University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Roger Brown Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK D. Bruce Johnstone Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA Ian Bunting Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP), University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa Penny Jane Burke Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia Rutilia Calderón National Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Autonomous
University
of
Honduras,
Claire Callender Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck University of London and UCL, Institute of Education, London, UK Adalberto E. Campos Batres University Francisco Gavidia, San Salvador, El Salvador Sonia Cardoso A3ES, Lisbon, Portugal CIPES, Matosinhos, Portugal Vincent Carpentier UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
Contributors
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Teresa Carvalho University of Aveiro and CIPES, Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, Aveiro, Portugal Edel Cassar Ministry for Education and Employment, San Ġwann, Malta Santiago Castiello College of Education – Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA K. Chachoua National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), Research Institute on Arab and Muslim World Studies (IREMAM), Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France National Prehistory, History and Anthropology Research Centre (CRNPAH), Algiers, Algeria National Social and Cultural Anthropology Research Centre (CRASC), Oran, Algeria Celeste Chan University of Eastern Philippines, Catarman, Philippines Sheng-Ju Chan National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi County, Taiwan Khamtanch Chanthy Asian Development Bank, Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic Roger Y. Chao Jr. Independent Education Consultant, Hong Kong, China UNESCO International Center for Higher Education Innovation, Shenzhen, China Bruce Chapman Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Nicolas Charles University of Bordeaux, Centre Emile Durkheim, Bordeaux, France Le Chapelain Charlotte University of Lyon, Lyon, France Thierry Chevaillier Institut de recherche en éducation (IREDU), Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France Carmela Chávez Irigoyen Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima, Peru Edward Choi Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Riccardo Cinquegrani Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of Quality in Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties, Rome, Italy Patrick Clancy School of Sociology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Marie Clarke University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Diebolt Claude University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
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Nico Cloete Centre for Higher Education Trust (CHET), Wynberg, South Africa Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP), University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa Robert C. Cloud Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA Márcia Coelho CIIE – Centro de Investigac¸ão e Intervenc¸ão Educativas, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educac¸ão, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal Jean-Franc¸ois Condette CREHS (EA 4027) Laboratory Research, Artois University, Arras, France ESPE-Lille-Nord-de-France, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France Philip Conroy Pirimid Strategies, Winter Springs, FL, USA Francesca Costa Centre of Higher Education Internationalisation, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Milan, Italy Christine M. Cress Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA Fabienne Crettaz von Roten University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Suzanne Crew University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia Vernon Crew University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia John T. Crist George Mason University Korea, Incheon, Republic of Korea Glenda Crosling Office of Deputy Provost (Learning and Teaching), Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Office of Vice-Chancellor, Sunway University, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia Bojana Culum Department of Pedagogy, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia Cinzia Daraio Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering “A. Ruberti”, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy Daniel Dauber University of Warwick, Coventry, UK John L. Davies University of Bath, Cambridge, UK Scott Davies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Harry de Boer CHEPS, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Ariane de Gayardon UCL Institute of Education, London, NA, UK
Contributors
Contributors
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Jan De Groof College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands HSE, Moscow, Russia Gaétan de Rassenfosse College of Management of Technology, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Hans de Wit Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA Darla K. Deardorff Association of International Education Administrators, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA Rosemary Deem Royal Holloway University of London, London, UK Luis Delgado Internationalization of Higher Education, Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education, Madrid, Spain Ana Delicado Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal Elena Denisova-Schmidt University of St.Gallen (HSG), St.Gallen, Switzerland The Center for International Higher Education (CIHE), Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Roopa Desai Trilokekar York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Abdoulaye Diakité Gamal Abdel Nasser University in Conakry, Conakry, Guinea Amadou Tidjane Diallo Gamal Abdel Nasser University in Conakry, Conakry, Guinea Mamadou Kodiougou Diallo Central University Library of Guinea, Conakry, Guinea Diana Dias Universidade Europeia, Lisbon, Portugal CIPES – Center for Research in Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal David D. Dill University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA Sara Diogo CIPES - Research Centre on Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Portugal Michael Dobbins Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany Gretchen Dobson Academic Assembly, Inc., Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia Ian R. Dobson Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
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Pierre Doray Interuniversity Centre for Research on Science and Technology, Department of Sociology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada Kevin J. Dougherty Department of Education Policy and Social Analysis and Community College Research Center, Teachers College Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Jonathan Drennan University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Noah D. Drezner Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Franc¸ois Dubet Centre Émile Durkheim, UMR 5116, University of Bordeaux, EHESS, Bordeaux, France Marie Duru-Bellat IREDU and OSC, Sciences Po, Paris, France Institut de recherche en éducation (IREDU), Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France Judith S. Eaton Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Washington, DC, USA Katri Eeva Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK E. Egron-Polak International Association of Universities, Paris, France Mari Elken Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), Oslo, Norway Jason Eng Thye Tan National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Marta Entradas London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK Hubert Ertl Director of Research, Federal Institute for Vocational Education (BIBB), Bonn, Germany Thomas Estermann Governance, Funding and Public Policy Development, European University Association (EUA), Brussels, Belgium Henry Etzkowitz Science Technology and Society Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Christine Farrugia Institute of International Education, New York, NY, USA Irina Ferencz Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), Brussels, Belgium Hugo Figueiredo Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism (DEGEIT), Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP), University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
Contributors
Contributors
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Martin Finkelstein Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA Yvonne Fors Department of Quality Assurance, Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), Stockholm, Sweden C. J. H. Fowler Centre of Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Swaziland Gwendolyn H. Freed University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA Brigid Freeman Australia India Institute, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Jetta Frost Chair of Organization and Management, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Isak Froumin Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Tatiana Fumasoli Department Education, Practice and Society, University College London Institute of Education, London, UK Huang Futao Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan Jocelyne Gacel-Ávila University of Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico Eugenia Gallardo-Allen University of Costa Rica, San Pedro, Costa Rica Orkhon Gantogtokh Mongolian National Council for Education Accreditation, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia Ana García de Fanelli Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES), National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina Adela García-Aracil INGENIO(CSIC-UPV), Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain Susan K. Gardner University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe Zimbabwe Council for Higher Education, Harare, Zimbabwe Sahr P. T. Gbamanja Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone Wahid Gdoura Higher Institute of Documentation, Manouba University, Tunis, Tunisia Lars Geschwind KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Sandra Gift Quality Assurance Unit, The Vice Chancellery, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Olga Gille-Belova Bordeaux Montaigne University, Pessac, France
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Contributors
Henry Giroux McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada Lika Glonti National Erasmus+ Office Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia Gaële Goastellec OSPS, LACCUS, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland Kara A. Godwin Center for International Higher Education, College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Boston
Leo Goedegebuure L H Martin Institute, Melbourne Centre for Studies of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia José Humberto González Reyes Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, The Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico Paul Gore College of Professional Sciences, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, USA Åse Gornitzka Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Barbara M. Grant School of Critical Studies in Education, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Wendy Green University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia Kimberly Griffin College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Eric Grodsky University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, USA Amélie Groleau Centre on Population Dynamics, Department of Sociology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Magnus Gulbrandsen TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Sarah Guri-Rosenblit The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela Centre for Advanced Research in Education, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile Janet Haddock-Fraser Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK Cornelius Hagenmeier University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa Julian Hamann Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany Lazarus Hangula University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia Hanne Foss Hansen University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Contributors
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Zhidong Hao Department of Sociology, University of Macau, Macau, People’s Republic of China Robert Harmsen Institute of Political Science, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Jeni Hart Office of Graduate Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA Matthew Hartley University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, Philadelphia, PA, USA Fabian Hattke Chair of Organization and Management, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany Center for Higher Education and Science Studies, Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland John N. Hawkins Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA Martin Hayden Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia Nigel Healey Fiji National University, Suva, Fiji Savo Heleta Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa Robin Matross Helms American Council on Education, Washington, DC, USA Jane Hemsley-Brown Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK Mary Henkel Brunel University, London, UK Marcel Herbst 4mation, Zurich, Switzerland Kristinn Hermannsson University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK Wendy Hiew Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia Henrik Holmquist Department of Quality Assurance, Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), Stockholm, Sweden Richard R. Hopper Kennebec Valley Community College, Fairfield, ME, USA Hugo Horta Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Braden J. Hosch Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA Syed Zabid Hossain Department of Accounting and Information Systems, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh Adam Howard Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA
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Contributors
Yu-Ping Hsu Office of Research and Development, Providence University, Taichung City, Taiwan Futao Huang Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan Mike Hughes Ministry of Education, Kigali, Rwanda Jeroen Huisman Department of Sociology, Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Fiona J. H. Hunter Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Lombardy, Italy Sylvia Hurtado UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Los Angeles, CA, USA Abbey Hyde University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Petya Ilieva-Trichkova Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria Lynn Ilon Bayoom Hub, Iksan, South Korea Shanti Jagannathan Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines Elene Jibladze School of Arts and Sciences, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Geraint Johnes Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK Jill Johnes Huddersfield Business School, Huddersfield, UK
University of Huddersfield,
Catherine M. Johnson Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA M. Amanda Johnson-Toala Navitas, Boston, MA, USA D. Bruce Johnstone University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA Elspeth Jones Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK Ben Jongbloed Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Nico Jooste Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa Thomas Jorgensen European University Association, Brussels, Belgium Rajendra Dhoj Joshi Kathmandu, Nepal James Jowi African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE), Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya James Otieno Jowi Education, East African Community (EAC), Arusha, Tanzania
Contributors
xxxix
Jens Jungblut International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Katariina Juusola The British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE Zimani David Kadzamira Formerly at University of Malawi, Zomba, Malawi Johanna Kallo Department of Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland Susanna Karakhanyan International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), Barcelona, Spain Ilkka Kauppinen Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA Barbara M. Kehm Leibniz Centre for Science and Society, Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany Jouni Kekäle University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Area, Finland Robert Kelchen Department of Education Leadership, Management and Policy, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA Jane Kenway Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Jennifer R. Keup National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA Adrianna Kezar School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Lucky Kgosithebe Student Affairs, Human Resource Development Council, Gaborone, Botswana Conor King Innovative Research Universities, Melbourne, Australia Kevin Kinser Education Policy Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Fumi Kitagawa Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh, UK Jussi Kivistö Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland Manja Klemenčič Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Jane Knight Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Jang Wan Ko Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea Jan Kohoutek Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
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Florian Kohstall Center for International Cooperation, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany Aurelia Kollasch Iowa State University, Iowa, USA Sékou Konaté Gamal Abdel Nasser University in Conakry, Conakry, Guinea Yasemin Kooij Kassel University, Kassel, Germany Tatyana Koryakina CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Portugal Anna Kosmützky International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Jan Koucký Education Policy Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Georgette Florence Koyt-Deballé University of Bangui, Bangui, Central African Republic Tamás Kozma Institute of Educational and Cultural Studies, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary Matthias Kuder Senate Chancellery – Science and Research, Berlin, Germany Sergiy Kurbatov Institute of Higher Education National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine Chiharu Kuroda Center for International Education, Institute for Promoting International Partnerships, Kobe University, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan Marek Kwiek Faculty of Social Sciences, Center for Public Policy Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland Ľubica Lachká Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia Pablo Landoni-Couture Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay Michael Lanford University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Rattana Lao Policy and Research The Asia Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand William Lawton International Higher Education Consultant, London, UK Predrag Lažetić Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Betty Leask La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia Yann Lebeau School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Jenny Lee Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Molly N. N. Lee The HEAD Foundation, Singapore, Singapore
Contributors
Contributors
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Liudvika Leišyt_e TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany Maria Jose Lemaitre Center for Interuniversity Development, CINDA, Santiago, Chile Benedetto Lepori Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland Daniel Levy University at Albany, Albany, NY, USA Gilbert Likando University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia Shuiyun Liu Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Ye Liu International Development, King’s College London, London, UK William Yat Wai Lo The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Bridget Terry Long Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA Diogo Lourenc¸o Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies – REMIT, Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal Centre for Economics and Finance, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal Thierry M. Luescher University of the Free State, Mangaung, South Africa Peter Maassen Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Stephen Machin Department of Economics and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London, UK Meggan Madden Educational Leadership, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA António M. Magalhães Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), Porto, Portugal Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Alma Maldonado-Maldonado Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, The Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico C. M. Malish Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India Simon Marginson Centre for Global Higher Education, Linacre College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Giulio Marini Centre for Global Higher Education, Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
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Contributors
Alfredo Marra School of Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Edwin Marshall IGSR, University of Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname Jonas Masdonati University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Kenneth Kamwi Matengu University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia David J. Maurrasse Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, New York, NY, USA George S. McClellan Department of Higher Education, University of Mississippi, University, MS, USA Alexander C. McCormick Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA Lorraine McIlrath National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland Walter W. McMahon University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA Ian McNay Higher Education and Management, University of Greenwich, London, UK V. Lynn Meek LH Martin Institute for Higher Education, Leadership and Management, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia Niels Mejlgaard Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Isabel Menezes CIIE – Centro de Investigac¸ão e Intervenc¸ão Educativas, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educac¸ão, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal Sefika Mertkan Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus
Famagusta, North
Amy Scott Metcalfe Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada A. J. Metz Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA Elizabeth Apple Meza University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Robin Middlehurst Kingston University, Kingston, London, UK Stéphanie Mignot-Gérard IRG, UPEC, Créteil, France Adrian Miroiu Department of Political Science, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania Gabriela Miššíková Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia Edwin Marshall: deceased.
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Sitwe Benson Mkandawire School of Education, Department of Language and Social Sciences Education, University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia Goolam Mohamedbhai Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Mauritius, Rose-Hill, Mauritius Olli-Pekka Moisio Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Karen Monkman College of Education, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA Norma Morales Centro para el Desarrollo de la Competitivad, CDC, Asuncion, Capital, Paraguay Christopher Morphew School of Education, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA Roberto Moscati University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Patrícia Moura e Sá FEUC and CICP, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal Esperance Mukarutwaza Higher Education Council, Kigali, Rwanda Karen Mundy Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, University of Toronto OISE, Toronto, Canada Amanda C. Murphy Centre of Higher Education Internationalisation, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy Bonaventure Mvé Ondo Recteur honoraire de l’Université Omar Bongo, Libreville, Gabon Ranjit Gajendra Nadarajah LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Florence Nakamanya East African School of Higher Education Studies and Development, College of Education and External Studies, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda Sophia Neely College of Education, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA Martin Nekola Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Maresi Nerad College of Education, Higher Education, Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Clarissa Eckert Baeta Neves Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil Jon Nixon Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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Callixte Nizigama Department of Research and Quality Assurance, Université Lumière de Bujumbura, Bujumbura, Burundi James K. Njenga Department of Information Systems, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa Marcia Esther Noda Hernández Ministry of Higher Education, La Habana, Cuba Terhi Nokkala Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Pierre D. Nzinzi Departement of Philosophy, Université Omar Bongo, Libreville, Gabon Jennina Olivia Marie Obieta De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines Peter A. Okebukola Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria Kristin L. Olofsson School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA Åsa Olsson LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Imanol Ordorika Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico University of Johannesburg (UJ), Johannesburg, South Africa Luis Enrique Orozco Silva Facultad de Administración, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia Clare Overmann Institute of International Education, New York, USA David Palfreyman New College University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Paulina Pannen Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, Jakarta, Indonesia Antigoni Papadimitriou School of Education, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA Catherine Paradeise University Paris Est-LISIS, Paris, France Elke Park Institute for Science Communication and Higher Education Research, University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria María Cristina Parra-Sandoval Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela Attila Pausits Centre for Educational Management and Higher Education Development, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria European Higher Education Society (EAIR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands Hans Pechar Institute for Science Communication and Higher Education Research, University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria
Contributors
Contributors
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Elias Pekkola Faculty of Management, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland Gustavo Mejía Pérez Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, The Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico Adriana Perez-Encinas Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Research Institute on Higher Education and Science (INAECU), Joint Research Institute of the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Carlos III University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain Elena Petrov National Agency for Quality Assurance in Professional Education, Chisinau, Moldova Ly Thi Pham Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam France Picard Laval University, Québec, QC, Canada Pundy Pillay University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Rómulo Pinheiro Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway Roger Pizarro Milian Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Daria Platonova Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Yurgos Politis University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland István Polónyi Institute of Educational and Cultural Studies, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary Laura M. Portnoi College of Education, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, USA Gerard A. Postiglione Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China Justin J. W. Powell Institute of Education and Society, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg George Psacharopoulos Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA Brian Pusser Department of Leadership, Foundations and Policy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA Gabriella Pusztai Center for Higher Education Research and Development (CHERD), University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary Sungsup Ra Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines Barbara Read School of Education, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK Kristen A. Renn Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Amal Rhema Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
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Gary Rhoades Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, College of Education, Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA Jo Ritzen UNU-Merit/Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Susan L. Robertson Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Jason Robinson Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA María del Rocío Robledo Centro para el Desarrollo de la Competitivad, CDC, Asuncion, Capital, Paraguay Vera Rocha Department of Innovation and Organizational Economics, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark Graciela Rodríguez de Flores Departamento de Calidad Académica, Universidad Don Bosco, Soyapango, El Salvador Roberto Rodríguez-Gómez Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico Maria João Rosa DEGEIT and Cipes, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal Vladimír Roskovec Center for Higher Education Studies, Praha, Czech Republic Viola Rowe Cyril Potter College of Education, Georgetown, Guyana Adriana Ruiz Alvarado School of Education, University of Redlands, Redlands, CA, USA Laura E. Rumbley European Association for International Education (EAIE), Amsterdam, The Netherlands Carla Sá Universidade do Minho, NIPE and CIPES, Braga, Portugal Creso Sá Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Jan Sadlak IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence, Paris, France Kem Saichaie European Association for International Education (EAIE), Davis, CA, USA Mohsen Elmahdy Said Mechanical Design and Production Department, Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering, Giza, Egypt P. Saketi Department of Educational Administration and Planning, College of Education, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Fars, Iran Jamil Salmi Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile
Contributors
Contributors
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Dante J. Salto Instituto de Humanidades (IDH) – Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas / Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Cordoba, Argentina Gregory M. Saltzman Department of Economics and Management, Albion College, Albion, MI, USA Shakhawat Hossain Sarkar Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh Cláudia S. Sarrico ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Universidade de Lisboa and CIPES Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Lisbon, Portugal Saykhong Saynasine Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Sports, Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic Christian Schneijderberg International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany L. Schoelen Centre for Quality Assurance and Development (ZQ), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Faculty of Human and Social Sciences (SHS)-Sorbonne, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France Peter Scott UCL Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK Helena Šebková Center for Higher Education Studies, Praha, Czech Republic Marco Seeber CHEGG, Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Department of Sociology, Ghent, Belgium Chika Sehoole Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Dmitry Semyonov Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Jehona Serhati Organisation for Cooperation in Higher Education (OCIDES), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Fad Seydou National Coordinator of the Malian Society of Applied Sciences (MSAS), Bamako, Mali Arjan Shahini Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany Sofia Shakil East Asia Regional Department, Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines Rachel N. Shanyanana University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia Michael Shattock UCL Institute of Education, London, UK David J. Siegel Department of Educational Leadership, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
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Murvyn Sijlbing Department of Social Sciences, University of Suriname, Paramaribo, Suriname Cristina Sin CIPES – Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Portugal Agência de Avaliac¸ão e Acreditac¸ão do Ensino Superior (A3ES), Lisbon, Portugal Sheila Slaughter Institute of Higher Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA Christian Michael Smith University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, USA Anna Smolentseva Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Diana Soares CIPES – Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Portugal Catholic University of Portugal, Porto, Portugal Say Sok Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia Gi Soon Song Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines Nathan M. Sorber College of Education and Human Services, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA Manuel Souto-Otero School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK Helen Spencer-Oatey University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Barbara Sporn Institute for Higher Education Management, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria Marija Stambolieva Kassel, Germany Isabel Steinhardt International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Bjørn Stensaker Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Stephanie T. Stokamer Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA Tony Strike President and Vice-Chancellor’s Office, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Merlin Teodosia Suarez De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines Andrée Sursock European University Association (EUA), Brussels, Belgium Judith Sutz Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
Contributors
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Krystian Szadkowski Faculty of Social Sciences, Center for Public Policy Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland Myqerem Tafaj Departament of Agriculture and Environment, Agricultural University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania Clifford N. B. Tagoe University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana Yao Tano University Nangui Abrogoua, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Ted Tapper Oxford, the Collegiate University, Oxford, UK Orlanda Tavares A3ES, Lisbon, Portugal CIPES, Matosinhos, Portugal Barrett J. Taylor Department of Counseling and Higher Education, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Damtew Teferra Higher Education Training and Development, School of Education, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa Ulrich Teichler INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany Pedro Nuno Teixeira CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics - U. Porto, Portugal Ivo Tejeda Independent Consultant, Santiago, Chile Paul Temple UCL Institute of Education, London, UK Liz Thomas Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK Juliet Thondhlana School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Rose Patsy Tibok Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia William G. Tierney University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA Malcolm Tight Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK Voldemar Tomusk Mitcham, Surrey, UK Päivi Tynjälä Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Charikleia Tzanakou University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Inga Ulnicane University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Leang Un Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia
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Lisa Unangst Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Agnete Vabø Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway Jussi Välimaa Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Frans van Vught University of Twente, Center of Higher Education and Policy Studies (CHEPS), Enschede, The Netherlands Amélia Veiga Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), Porto, Portugal Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE), Porto, Portugal Daniela Véliz-Calderón Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile Marcela Verešová Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovakia Pedro Videira CIPES & DINAMIA’CET – ISCTE-IUL, Matosinhos, Portugal Lesley Vidovich Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (Directorate for Education and Skills), OECD, Paris, France Dominique Vinck Institut des Sciences Sociales, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Lazăr Vlăsceanu University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania Fabienne Crettaz von Roten University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Leena Wahlfors Universities Finland UNIFI, Helsinki, Finland Paul Wakeling Department of Education, University of York, York, UK Qi Wang Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shangai, China Gerald Wangenge-Ouma Department of Institutional Planning, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa Kelly A. Ward Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA Christopher M. Weible School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA Crista Weise Departament de Psicologia Bàsica Evolutiva i de L’Educació SINTE Research group, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Contributors
Contributors
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Celia Whitchurch University College London Institute of Education, London, UK Craig Whitsed Faculty of Humanities, School of Education, Curtin University, Perth, Australia Stephen Wilkins The British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE Kurt Willems Leuven Centre for Public Law, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Gareth Williams Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK Ross Williams Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia John Willoughby Department or Economics, American University, Washington, DC, USA Peter Woelert Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia Gregory Wolniak Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA Mimi Wolverton Retired Higher Education Professor and Consultant Austin, Texas, USA Ewan Wright Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China Gill Wyness UCL Institute of Education and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London, UK Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK Rui Yang Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong Po Yang Graduate School of Education, China Institute for Education Finance Research, Peking University, Beijing, China Akemi Yonemura Islamic University of Niger, Dakar, Senegal Ryan L. Young Education Policy and Leadership Studies, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Leïla Youssef El Metni Faculty of Business Studies, Arab Open University, Beirut, Lebanon Maria Yudkevich National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia Iryna Yuryeva Kyiv, Ukraine Farida Zagirova Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
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Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA Gonzalo Zapata Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile Martin Zelenka Education Policy Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Pavel Zgaga University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Adrian Ziderman Bar-llan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Frank Ziegele University of Twente, Center of Higher Education and Policy Sudies (CHEPS), Enschede, The Netherlands Christopher Ziguras School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia William Zumeta University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Contributors
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Absolute Mobility ▶ Social Mobility and Higher Education
Academic ▶ Higher Education Research, UK
Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues Sheila Slaughter Institute of Higher Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Introduction A number of theories speak to the increasing alignment between science and engineering, universities, and the economy. Among the more prominent are the triple helix (Etzkowitz et al. 1998), Mode 2 (Gibbons et al. 1994), and entrepreneurial universities (Clark 1998). The triple helix (science, government, industry) is in many cases a descriptive, win–win narrative that celebrates the decontextualized emergence of university-industry partnerships that are assumed to be engines of economic development and prosperity.
Universities win because they claim intellectual property that leads to income for research; industries win because they gain access to the scientific and technological creativity of university-based discoveries. However, the theory leaves universities as institutions relatively unexamined beyond technology transfer activities. Nor is government analyzed, other than in its provision of funds for research, while industry is usually focused upon in its capacity as partner with science, and not as located in specific political economies. The process of knowledge transfer is much more complex than the triple helix suggests, and the results, in terms of economic innovation, are far from clear, while university generation of income from research in both the EU and US has been quite limited (Geuna and Muscio 2009; Powers 2003). Mode 2 (Gibbons et al. 1994) analyzes the consequences of a shift from science controlled by disciplines and professional associations and embedded in universities to global entrepreneurial science driven by industrial demand, resulting in a sort of just-in-time science that deploys teams of scientists and engineers on projects around the world and disbands them on completion. Despite Mode 2’s many analytic contributions, this theory underestimates the strength of universities as institutions. Research universities – at least their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields – continue to flourish. Similarly, Mode 2 underestimates the role of the state and nonprofit sectors. Although the state has fallen into disfavor under neoliberalism, it
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020 P. N. Teixeira, J. C. Shin (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8905-9
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nonetheless continues to fund university education, faculty, and graduate student positions, as well as research at increasing rates, while the nonprofit sector plays an important part in intermediating the relations between state, science, and industry, often through policy narratives and discourse, channeling public funds toward the economy, both directly and indirectly (Ball 2012). A scholar often cited in European higher education literature is Burton Clark (1998), whose concept of the enterprise university has been widely influential. Clark argued a turbulent environment with competing demands required that universities to strengthen their administrative core in to better engage in activities that increase new sources of revenue, decrease reliance on the state, and craft new missions that meet environmental demands. He made the case that some European universities became entrepreneurial by developing a stronger steering core, and a more active entrepreneurial periphery that reinvigorates the academic heartland, which consists of the traditional disciplines and professions. He assumed universities would be able to incorporate entrepreneurial activity and energy without harming academic values and faculty voice, if not governance. However, he provided little evidence that the academic heartland remained strong and faculty values and voice intact. The concept of entrepreneurial universities was based on a triangle of market, state, and higher education, but the separation among these sectors has diminished markedly, especially in the USA. All of these concepts differ from the theory of academic capitalism because they tend to be based on institutional theory, do not attend clearly to power relations, and do not attend to the structural relations that draw together higher education, the state, and market sectors.
The Development of the Concept of Academic Capitalism In 1997, Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie developed the concept of academic capitalism in Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the
Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues
entrepreneurial university (Johns Hopkins University Press), to better understand marketization of higher education in four English speaking countries: The United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. In 2004, Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades developed a theory of academic capitalism in Academic capitalism: Market, state, and higher education (Johns Hopkins University Press), a book that concentrated only on the United States, where marketization of higher education was progressing at warp speed. The theory of academic capitalism was further refined by Sheila Slaughter and Brendan Cantwell in 2012 in “Transatlantic moves to the market: Academic capitalism in the US & EU.” Higher Education. 63, 5: 583–606. Several edited books also treat academic capitalism: Brendan Cantwell and Ilkka Kauppinen, (Eds.) 2014. Academic capitalism in the age of globalization (Johns Hopkins University Press), and Sheila Slaughter and Barrett J. Taylor (Eds). 2016. Higher education, Stratification, and workforce development: Competitive advantage in Europe, the US, and Canada. (Springer International Publishing). Academic capitalism is highly cited, both within the field of higher education and in many other fields, and the books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish. In their book of 1997, Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie used the concept of academic capitalism largely to focus on professorial behavior by examining national policy and the changing work of individual professors. The theories Slaughter and Leslie drew upon to explore the concept were Keynesian economics, globalization, resource dependency theory, and critical professionalization theories. In the 2004 book, Academic capitalism: Market, state and higher education, Slaughter and Rhoades thought the phenomenon of academic capitalism was developing so rapidly that theory construction was warrented. They expanded the concept by focusing on organizations as well as individuals and created a theory which conceptualized mechanisms that encouraged and explained the movement of higher education toward the market. The theory of academic capitalism saw groups of actors – faculty,
Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues
students, administrators, and academic professionals – as using a variety of state resources to create mechanisms such as new circuits of knowledge that linked higher education institutions to the knowledge industries and organizations of the neoliberal economy. These actors also used state resources to trigger mechanisms such as interstitial organizations to bring the corporate sector inside the university to participate in the generation of profit. These interstitial organizations were supported by new networks of actors in intermediating organizations that drew private and public sectors closer together. These market and market-like efforts within universities called for expanded managerial capacity to supervise new flows of external resources, investment in research infrastructure for the new economy, and investment in infrastructure to market institutions, products, and services to students. Expanded managerial capacity was also directed toward restructuring faculty work so as to lower instructional costs (although not costs generally). The term academic capitalism has stimulated significant debate, though its proponents considered that it was the best option to capture changes in the ethos of the academic profession, in part because alternatives – academic entrepreneurism or entrepreneurial activity – seemed to be euphemisms for academic capitalism, euphemisms that failed to capture fully the encroachment of the profit motive into academe. Of course, the word capitalism connotes private ownership of the factors of production – land, labor, and capital – and considering employees of public research universities to be capitalists at first glance seemed a blatant contradiction. However, capitalism also is defined as an economic system in which allocation decisions are driven by market forces. The authors play on words was purposeful. By using academic capitalism as the central concept, they defined the reality of the nascent environment of public research universities, an environment full of contradictions, in which faculty and professional staff expended their human capital stocks increasingly in competitive situations. In these situations, university employees were simultaneously employed by the public sector and are increasingly
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autonomous from it. They were academics who acted as capitalists from within the public sector: they were state-subsidized entrepreneurs. Although faculty and administrators at research intensive universities may be state subsidized entrepreneurs, their position in many ways was analogous to that of industrial researchers and entrepreneurs in primary sector industries (large, oligopolistic industries that produce critical goods and services and employ large numbers of persons, many of whom are unionized and receive a social benefits package as part of their wages and salaries [O’Connor 1973; Braverman 1975]). Many of these industries – for example, aerospace, computers, electronics, and nuclear industries, as well as pharmaceutical, chemical and agriculture industries – were cushioned from the market by state support from a variety of federal agencies, for example, the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the National Institutes of Health. These industries were supported by the federal government because they were perceived to be critical to a number of national missions – primarily defense, food supply, and health. So important were these missions that the industries contributing to them were partially subsidized by the state rather than left to the vagaries of the market. Many of the science-based products and processes produced by these industries relied on the same technologies for which academic capitalists in universities received public and private support. In other words, academic capitalists were subsidized primarily from the same sources and for many of the same reasons as industrial capitalists. The market, the state, and the academy (public universities are, of course, technically arms of the several states) are related in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. Another way to approach the idea of academic capitalism is through the widely accepted notion of human capital: knowledge and skills possessed by workers that contribute to economic growth. Conceptually, these worker capabilities make their contribution by adding to the quality of labor, which of course is one of the three factors
A
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of production, land, and capital being the other two. Universities are the repositories of much of the most scarce and valuable human capital that nations possess, capital that is valuable because it is essential to the development of the high technology and technoscience necessary for competing successfully in the global economy. The human capital possessed by universities, of course, is vested in their academic staffs. Thus, the specific commodity is academic capital, which is no more than the particular human capital possessed by academics. This final step in the logic is to say that when faculty implement their academic capital through engagement in production, they are engaging in academic capitalism. Their scarce and specialized knowledge and skills are being applied to productive work that yields a benefit to the individual academic, to the public university they serve, to the corporations they work with, and to the larger society. It is indeed academic capitalism that is involved, both technically and practically. Academic capitalism deals with market and market-like behaviors on the part of universities and faculty. Market-like behaviors refer to institutional and faculty competition for monies, whether these are from external grants and contracts, endowment funds, university-industry partnerships, or institutional investment in professors’ spin-off companies, or student tuition and fees. What makes these activities market-like is that they involve competition for funds from external resource providers. If institutions and faculty are not successful, there is no bureaucratic recourse; they do without. In contrast to market-like behaviors, market behaviors refer to for-profit activity on the part of institutions, activity such as patenting, and subsequent royalty and licensing agreements, spin-off companies, arms-length-corporations (corporations that are related to universities in terms of personnel and goals, but are chartered legally as separate entities), and university-industry partnerships, when these have a profit component. Market activity also covers more mundane endeavors, such as the sale of products and services from educational endeavors (e.g., logos and sports paraphernalia), profit-sharing with food services and book-stores and the like.
Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues
When we talk about how higher education is restructured, we mean substantive organizational change and associated changes in internal resource allocations (reduction or closure of departments, expansion or creation of other departments, establishment of interdisciplinary units); substantive change in the division of academic labor with regard to research and teaching; the establishment of new organizational forms (such as arms-length companies and research parks); and the organization of new administrative structures or the stream-lining or re-design of old ones.
Conclusion Overall, the theory of academic capitalism demonstrates colleges and universities are shifting from a public good knowledge/learning regime to an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime. The public good knowledge regime was characterized by valuing knowledge as a public good to which the citizenry has claims. Mertonian norms, such as communalism, universality, the free flow of knowledge, and organized skepticism, were associated with the public good model. The public good knowledge/learning regime paid heed to academic freedom, which honored professors’ right to follow research where it led and gave professors rights to dispose of discoveries as they saw fit (Merton 1942). The cornerstone of the public good knowledge regime was basic science that led to the discovery of new knowledge within the academic disciplines, serendipitously leading to public benefits. Mertonian values are often associated with the Vannevar Bush model, in which basic science that pushes back the frontiers of knowledge was necessarily performed in universities (Bush 1945). The discoveries of basic science always preceded development, which occurred in federal laboratories and sometimes in corporations. It often involved building and testing costly prototypes. Application followed development and almost always took place in corporations. The public good model assumed a relatively strong separation between public and private sectors.
Academic Capitalism, Conceptual Issues
However, returning to the public good knowledge/learning regime would be problematic because it had an unacknowledged side. In the 1945–1980 period, much scientific and engineering research depended on Department of Defense funding for weapons of mass destruction. The first university-industry-government partnerships were with military contractors such as General Electric and Westinghouse who build nuclear reactors as part of the Atoms for Peace program. Much scientific and engineering research was classified, and the need for secrecy fueled movements like McCarthyism, which created an unfavorable climate for academic freedom. The academic capitalism knowledge/learning regime values knowledge privatization and profit taking in which institutions, inventor faculty, and corporations have claims that come before those of the public. Public interest in science goods are subsumed in the increased growth expected from a strong knowledge economy. Rather than a single, nonexclusively licensed, widely distributed product – for example, vitamin D irradiated milk – serving the public good, the exclusive licensing of many products to private firms is presented as contributing to economic growth that benefits the whole society. Knowledge is construed as a private good, valued for creating streams of high-technology products that generate profit as they flow through global markets. Professors are obligated to disclose discoveries to their institutions, which have the authority to determine how knowledge shall be used. The cornerstones of the academic capitalism model are basic science for use and basic technology, models that make the case that science is embedded in commercial possibility (Stokes 1997; Branscomb 1997a, b). These models see little separation between science and commercial activity. Discovery is valued because it leads to hightechnology products for a knowledge economy. Academic capitalism also has an unacknowledged side. The benefits of economic growth do not always fall evenly on the population. Treating knowledge as a private good may make much of it inaccessible, perhaps constraining discovery and innovation. Conferring decision-making power on institutions rather than faculty may impinge
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upon academic freedom. Basic science for use and basic technology may provide narrow forms of discovery and education that do not sit well with concepts of public good. An academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime may undermine public support for higher education.
References Ball, S.J. 2012. Global Education, Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. New York: Routledge. Branscomb, L. et al. 1997a. Technology politics to technology policy. Issues in Science and Technology. 13 (Spring): 41–48. Branscomb, L. et. al. 1997b. Investing in innovation, toward a consensus strategy for federal technology policy. Cambridge: Harvard University, Center for Science and International Affairs. Braverman, H. 1975. Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press. Bush, V. 1945. Science–the endless frontier: A report to the president on a program for postwar scientific research. Reprint, Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1990. Cantwell, B., and I. Kauppinen. eds. 2014. Academic capitalism in the age of globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Clark, B. 1998. Creating entrepreneurial universities: Organizational pathways of transformation. Oxford: Pergamon. Etzkowitz, J., A. Webster, and P. Healey. 1998. Capitalizing knowledge: New interactions of industry and academe. Albany: SUNY Press. Geuna, A., and A. Muscio. 2009. The governance of university knowledge transfer: A critical review of the literature. xi, 47(1), 93–114. Gibbons, M., C. Limoges, S. Schwartzman, H. Nowotny, M. Trow, and P. Scott. 1994. The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage. Merton, R., K. 1942. The normative structure of science. The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. Reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973. O’Connor, J. 1973. The Fiscal Crisis of the State. New York: St. Martin’s. Powers, J. 2003. Commercializing academic research: Resource effects on performance of university technology transfer. Journal of Higher Education, 74(1), 26– 50. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2005. From endless frontier to basic science for use: Social contracts between science and society. Science, Technology and Human Values 30 (4): 1–37.
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6 Slaughter, S., and B. Cantwell. 2012. Transatlantic moves to the market: Academic capitalism in the US & EU. Higher Education 63 (5): 583–606. Slaughter, S., and L.L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 1990. Renorming the social relations of academic science: Technology transfer. Educational Policy 4 (4): 341–361. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and B. Taylor, eds. 2016. Higher education, stratification, and workforce development: Competitive advantage in Europe the US, and Canada. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Stokes, D. 1997. Pasteur’s quadrant: Basic science and technological innovation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Wood, F.Q. 1992. The commercialisation of university research in Australia: Issues and problems. Comparative Education 28: 293–313.
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons Sheila Slaughter Institute of Higher Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Introduction During the second half of the twentieth century, professors, like other professionals, gradually became more involved in the market (Slaughter and Rhoades 1990; Brint 1994). In the 1980s, globalization accelerated the movement of faculty and universities toward the market. The 1980s were a turning point, when faculty and universities were incorporated into the market to the point where professional work began to be patterned differently, in kind, rather than in degree. Participation in the market began to undercut the tacit contract between professors and society because the market put as much emphasis on the bottom line as on client welfare. The raison d’etre for special treatment for universities, the training ground of professionals, as well as for professional privilege was undermined, increasing the
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likelihood that universities would be treated more like other organizations and professionals more like other workers. As the economy globalized, the business or corporate sector in industrialized countries pushed the state to devote more resources to the enhancement and management of innovation, so that corporations and the nations in which they were headquartered could compete more successfully in world markets (Jessop 1993). Business leaders wanted government to sponsor commercial research and development in research universities and in government laboratories. In the United States, the National Science Foundation, once regarded as the bastion of basic research, developed Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers in the 1980s and, under President Clinton, a national science and technology policy exemplified by the Advanced Technology Programs housed in the Department of Commerce (Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). In the United Kingdom, Interdisciplinary Research Centers involving academic-industry-government funding emerged in the 1980s. Australia modeled its Cooperative Research Centers, founded in the 1990s, on the models provided by the United Kingdom and the United States (Hill 1993). Under Prime Minister Mulroney, Canada attempted to develop university-industrygovernment partnerships by tying increases in university research funding to corporate contributions for university research or for national research councils (Julien 1989). In all four countries, corporate CEOs worked with university leaders and government officials to develop partnerships aimed at bringing new products and processes to market (Slaughter 1990; Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). Faculty and research universities were willing to consider partnerships with business and government, based on commercial innovation because government spending on higher education was slowing down. The flow of public money to higher education receded, in part because of increasing claims on government funds. In the 1970s, the emergence of global financial markets made possible the financing of ever larger debts in western industrialized countries. These monies were used primarily for
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
entitlement programs (federally funded programs to which every citizen has a claim, for example, primary and secondary education, health care and social security), for debt service, and in the United States, for military expansion. As borrowing increased, federal shares of funding for postsecondary education programs (Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). In the United States, the federal government was the primary funding agent for student aid and for research grants and contracts, but the several states generally paid for faculty salaries and institutional operations in public universities. As the share of Federal funds for higher education decreased, the states picked up some of the burden, but not all, because the states, too, were spending the bulk of their monies on entitlement or mandated programs, such as health care and prisons. Beginning with the economic downturn in 1983, states periodically experienced fiscal crisis (state income failed to match state expenditures). These crises precipitated restructuring in higher education. In 1993–1994, the several states, for the first time, experienced an absolute decline in the amount of money expended on higher education, rather than a decline in the share of resources provided or in inflationadjusted, per student, expenditures. Again, the several states began to restructure higher education to contain costs. Restructuring often put increased resources at the disposal of units and departments close to the market, that is, those relatively able to generate external grants and contracts. At the state and federal level, then, conditions of financial uncertainty encouraged faculty and institutions to direct their efforts toward programs and research that intersected with the market. To maintain or expand resources, faculty increasingly had to compete for external dollars that were tied to market-related research, which was referred to variously as applied, commercial, strategic, and targeted research, whether these monies were in the form of research grants and contracts, service contracts, partnerships with industry and government, technology transfer, or the recruitment of more and higher fees-paying students. These institutional and professorial
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market or market-like efforts to secure external monies were markers of academic capitalism.
A Academic Capitalism in 1980s and 1990s An in-depth review of state policy in four countries – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States – revealed that in the 1980s and 1990s, the higher education policies of three of the four countries, Canada being the exception, began to converge (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). The areas of convergence were science and technology policy, curriculum, access and finance, and degree of autonomy. For the most part, these policies were concerned with economic competitiveness: product and process innovation, channeling students and resources into curricula that meet the needs of a global marketplace, preparing more students for the postindustrial work place at lower costs, managing faculty and institutional work more effectively and efficiently. Each of the countries developed a number of policies outside these parameters that did not converge. Even in the areas of convergence, the four countries arrived at similar policies by very different paths. Australia and the United Kingdom used their ministries of education, the former led by a Labor government, the later by a conservative government. In Canada and the United States, the provinces and the several states, as would be expected in relatively decentralized systems, often developed their own initiatives to promote academic capitalism. In the United States, Congress was more aggressive than the executive branch in creating an infrastructure for academic capitalism. Despite the very real differences in their political cultures, the four countries developed similar policies at those points where higher education intersected with globalization of the postindustrial political economy. Tertiary education policies in all countries moved toward science and technology policies that emphasized academic capitalism at the expense of basic or fundamental research, toward curricula policy that concentrated monies in science and technology and fields close to the market (business and intellectual property law, for
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example), toward increased access at lower government cost per student and toward organizational policies that undercut the autonomy of academic institutions and of faculty. Research and development was probably the area in which the most dramatic policy changes occurred. In three countries, national policy shifted from promoting basic or fundamental research to privileging science and technology policy aimed at national wealth creation. Even in the United States and the United Kingdom, where fundamental R&D in the postwar period was to some degree conflated with defense R&D, strong civilian science and technology policies emerged (Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). The very words used to describe R&D changed. Research and development was no longer focused on basic or fundamental research, which came to be referred to derisively as “professors’ curiosity-driven research,” but on precompetitive, strategic, or targeted research (Lederman 1994; Wood 1992; Etzkowitz 1994a; Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). Notions of the way science and technology moved from academy to industry became more complex, changing from “spin-off,” a concept that did not dwell on the causality of the leap from laboratory to commercial product, to technology transfer, which envisioned a relatively linear but highly managed transfer, to evolutionary explanations that make the process more complex (Gummett 1991; Leydesdorff 1994). The three countries have discourses to discuss science and technology policy that go far beyond, sometimes even do away with, basic and fundamental research as central categories. All three countries saw R&D as the font of technoscience, necessary for home-based multinationals to compete successfully in the global economy. A number of policy initiatives involve universities in profit-making. The clearest cases are university technology licensing and university equity positions in faculty spin-off enterprises. In these instances, universities profit to the degree that products sell. However, technology parks directly bring profits to universities, if only the form of rent, and sometimes through housing jointventures. Centers of excellence, consortia with industry, and various university-industry
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
partnerships most often provide multiyear government and corporate funding for commercially geared R&D, but can utilize any of the profitsharing schemes described above: share of royalty or licensing income, joint-venture, or equity position. Changes in R&D policy in the several countries, then, moved universities into academic capitalism. Curriculum policies in all four countries resulted in cutbacks in the arts and humanities (with the exception of Australia) and in the social sciences (Martin et al. 1992). In countries where the power and budgets for tertiary education are not reserved for the states and provinces, namely, in Australia and the United Kingdom, the changes were made through allocation of student places (and, indirectly, faculty positions), with more students being funded in science and technology than in other areas. In the United Kingdom, for example, the fees allocated for social sciences and humanities students were cut by 30%, to $1300, while fees for science and engineering laboratory courses rose to $2772 per student (Halliday 1993). In the United States, changes were made indirectly, through cutbacks in research funding in nonscience and technology areas, which resulted in fewer graduate student places. In the United States, where salaries are partially determined by professors’ viability in the market and through individual negotiation between professor and administration, marked increases in salaries in technoscience areas reallocated institutional resources to these fields, making them more attractive to students. As other countries moved toward differential salaries, as did the United Kingdom, the resources concentrated in technoscience curricula, already rich in student places, were further concentrated. In all four countries, despite projections to the contrary, enrollments went up, tuition went up, government share of costs went down, and governments turned more to loans and grants to support students. Generally, working class and first generation college students were concentrated in the lower tiers of the system in all four countries. As tuitions increased and the rate of government spending decreased, able students from families willing to purchase tertiary education occupied
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
the most prestigious places, contributing to increased stratification and wealth inequality. The degree of autonomy possessed by institutions and professors was reduced in the several areas discussed: R&D, curricula, and access. The loss of institutional autonomy was clearly seen with regard to R&D. In the United Kingdom, the government agency responsible for buffering institutions from the state – the University Grants Committee – was abolished and replaced with agencies dominated by members of the business community. In Australia, the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, a body modeled on the British University Grants Committee, was abolished and many of its functions taken over by the Department of Education, Employment and Training, an agency the very title of which stressed the relationship between education and the economy (Marshall 1996). In the United States, the agency concerned with pure science – the National Science Foundation – began to promote industry-led research. To a substantial degree, the divisions between private and public organizations that had long protected institutional autonomy began to break down. The rule changes allowed public and nonprofit entities, whether universities, government agencies, or nonprofit research institutes, entry into the market, changing our common-sense understanding of what is public and what is private. Institutions still labeled public and nonprofit were able to patent and profit from discoveries made by their professional employees. Simultaneously, private, profitmaking organizations were able to make alienable areas of public life previously held by the community as a whole: scientific knowledge, data bases, technology, strains, and properties of plants, even living animals and fragments of human beings (Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). With the exception of Australia, this privatization was industry led, held together by government policies and government funding, and serviced by tertiary institutions trying to augment funds. Professors lost autonomy when research policies shifted from support for basic (professors’ curiosity-driven) research to more applied research geared to economic development. Professorial autonomy with regard to curricula was
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also eroded. National competitiveness policies, supported by industrialists, government bureaucrats, university administrators, and some faculty, to a considerable degree determined the direction of curricula through resource flows. Decisions about growth or decline of curricula were no longer made exclusively by faculty operating in a collegium. Instead, decisions were made at a national level to strengthen technoscience in hopes of stimulating national wealth creation. As market considerations began to influence professorial salaries, the collegial model of governance was attenuated as faculty who professed certain curricula were, quite literally, valued more than faculty who professed in less well-funded fields. Professors lost autonomy in other aspects of their work. The various quality assessment and accountability schemes developed in the four countries often called for evaluation from bodies outside tertiary institutions, and frequently, from bodies outside specific disciplines. As decisions about professors’ performance of academic work were moved outside the purview of professional expertise, professors became more like all other informational workers and less like a community of scholars. Again, Canada was an exception; it has no external review at the federal level and only one province has instituted an external evaluation system by the mid 1990s. Since 1980, the higher education policies of three of the four countries have converged, although the countries remain divergent on a number of important dimensions: for example, degree of centralization, student participation rates, and student support. The United Kingdom and Australia dealt with higher education and academic science and technology policy through relatively centralized state agencies, the United States through less centralized state agencies. Although the United Kingdom and Australia disbanded the buffer organizations that protected higher education from the state, the same degree of centralization in these countries persisted throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The United States did not develop more centralized agencies, although its policies on the relation of education to the economy began to converge with those of Australia and the United Kingdom. Prior to the
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1980s, Australia and the United Kingdom had relatively low higher education participation rates, with 10–12% of 18- to 21-year-old cohort attending higher education, while Canada and the United States had relatively high participation rates, with about 30% of the 18- to 21-year-old cohort attending. Canada overtook the United States in 1988. Although all countries made plans to increase participation, given their very different starting points, enrollment patterns held throughout the 1980s and 1990s. With regard to student financial aid, the United States moved toward high tuition and toward loans rather than grants, and Australia and the United Kingdom explored similar policies while continuing to offer much more generous government support to students, as does Canada, than does the United States. In the United States, graduate students in technoscience fields are supported primarily from their professors’ federal grants and contracts, while in the other countries graduate students are supported by low or no tuition policies and often have government stipends for living expenses (Lederman 1994). Despite persistent divergence with regard to organization, access, and student support, a remarkable degree of convergence in higher education and R&D policy occurred in three countries between 1980–1995. That convergence cannot be explained solely by the political party in power, given Australia’s labor government. We think that convergence is best explained by globalization theory. The rise of multipolar global competition destabilized Keynesian nation states, rendering problematic the implicit social contract between the citizenry and government with regard to entitlement programs and social safety nets. In the three countries, policy makers responded to increased competition for shares of global markets by reducing overall rates of increase in state expenditures and reallocating money among government functions. Generally, funds were taken away from discretionary programs, particularly from programs thought likely not to contribute in a direct way to technological innovation and economic competitiveness. In sum, postindustrial economies replaced industrial ones even as globalization of the
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
political economy destabilized traditional industrialized economies by replacing bipolar trading relationships with multipolar ones, causing the traditional industrialized nations to lose shares of global markets. In areas where higher education intersects with the global economy, three of the four countries have responded by developing policies that promote academic capitalism. Despite very different political cultures and institutions, the higher education policies of three of the four countries converged on science and technology policy, curriculum, access and finance, and degree of autonomy. These policies are, for the most part, geared toward increasing national economic competitiveness: they are concerned with product and process innovation, channeling students and resources into well-funded curricula that meet the needs of a global market place, preparing more students for the post-industrial work place at lower costs, and managing faculty and institutional work more effectively and efficiently.
Academic Capitalism: Developments and Complexities The United States provided the context for the theory of academic capitalism, developed in the 1990s and early 2000s (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). The focus on a single country was justified because the USA was the epitome of neoliberal capitalism. The rapid withdrawal of state resources from US higher education stimulated multiple approaches to the private sector on the part of various groups of actors within universities, making academe an exemplar of what a public neoliberal organization should be. New circuits of knowledge. Knowledge no longer moved primarily within scientific/professional/scholarly networks. Teaching was no longer the province of faculty members who worked with students in classrooms, connected to wider realms of knowledge through their departments and disciplinary associations. Courseware like BlackBoard and WebCT linked faculty to electronic platforms that standardized teaching across colleges and universities, creating new circuits of knowledge that are more accountable to
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
administrators than disciplinary associations. University-industry-government partnerships were another obvious example of new circuits of knowledge. University research was judged not only by peers but also by patent officials, who awarded ownership based on who is first to reduce to practice, and by corporations, which judged knowledge on its commercial potential. Although peer review was still important within scholarly disciplines, universities as institutions no longer judged their own performance. Instead, outside organizations like US News and World Report rated college and university performance, judging their worth to the student/parent consumer. To some degree, such outsiders have replaced accrediting associations, creating new circuits of knowledge that move outside the educational profession, fusing education with consumption. Institutions competed for position, as concerned to maintain place in US News and World Report rankings as in ratings of the disciplines by scholarly peers (Ehrenberg 2000). When US News and World Report developed new rating categories, such as the degree to which campuses were “wired” or the “port to pillow ratio” for information technology in dormitories, colleges, and universities competed in these areas, even though the relation between expenses for new infrastructure to educational outcomes was not examined. Peer review, the cornerstone of the academic profession, was no longer conducted solely by university members. The refereeing or review of scholarly papers by experts came to include degree holders who worked in industry as well as academics. The number of scholars from industry sitting on National Science Foundation (NSF) peer review programs rose substantially (Slaughter and Rhoades 1996). Although the industrial scholars may well be as competent as academics, the shift illustrated the new circuits of knowledge created under an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime. Interstitial organizational emergence. A number of new organizations emerged from the interstices of established colleges and universities to manage new activities related to generation of external revenues. Many of these organizations
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are boundary spanning, bringing universities, corporations, and the state closer together. For example, technology licensing offices equipped to manage intellectual property have burgeoned. Economic development offices have grown to oversee the linking of areas in which universities have research strength to efforts by the states to build their economies. Trademark licensing offices have emerged in increasing numbers of universities. Fund-raising officials are no longer confined to university foundations; they are now frequently located in colleges and even in departments. Universities, colleges, and departments have developed educational profit centers that market instructional programs to niche markets that are not part of the official curricula. Intermediating networks. Actors and organizations that participate in an academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime were arrayed in networks that intermediate between public, nonprofit, and private sector. Intermediating organizations have proliferated in the past 25 years. Examples of such organizations are the Business Higher Education Forum (Slaughter 1990), the University-Industry-Government Research Roundtable, Internet2, Educause, and the League for Innovation, to name only a few. These organizations bring together different sectors interested in solving common problems that often stem from opportunities created by the knowledge economy. In corporatist fashion, representatives of the different sectors attempt to arrive at solutions before approaching the policy or legislative process. Networks of intermediating organizations allow representatives of public, nonprofit, and private institutions to work on concrete problems, often redrawing (but not erasing) the boundaries between public and private. For example, in the 1980s, the Business Higher Education Forum, an organization of corporate and university CEOs, made the case for individual education accounts (IEAs), to which workers could make tax-free contributions from which they could then withdraw funds to pay for retraining to retool for another of the multiple careers occasioned by the rapidly changing knowledge economy (Slaughter 1990). Corporations envisioned IEAs as providing for perpetual worker retraining, and given the
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educational demands of the new economy, community colleges could design certification programs, 4-year colleges could offer off-curricula programs able to act as profit centers, and universities could develop masters of science degrees that were essentially professional retraining or professional development courses. Legislation similar to the IEA was passed as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. The network of business and university leaders redrew traditional educational boundaries, taking advantage of new markets in ways that served the neoliberal knowledge economy and providing directly for education of corporate workers at state and worker expense. Extended managerial capacity. New circuits of knowledge, interstitial organizational emergence, and intermediating networks called for extended managerial capacity on the part of colleges and universities. With trustees’ and university presidents’ approval, managers increased their capacity to engage the market, redrawing the boundaries between universities and the corporate sector. Patent and copyright offices, trademark licensing programs, economic development offices, distance-education profit centers, and special purpose foundations all increased the number of managers and managerial capacity within universities, to the point where nonexecutive administrators currently outnumber faculty. In the 1980s, technology transfer officials engaged the market by licensing patented technology to corporations in return for royalties. In the 1990s, many universities began to take equity in start-up companies based on intellectual property discovered by faculty members. In effect, university managers acted as venture capitalists, picking technologies they thought would be winners in the new economy. By the end of the 1990s, university managers were involved in the market in terms of licensing income, usually received in the form of royalties from sales; milestone payments, which were made when particular research results were reached; equity interest, which could include publicly tradable shares, privately held shares, or options to acquire shares; material transfer agreements; tangible property sales (cell lines, software, compositions of matter); and trade secrets. A few universities permitted profit-making corporations in which faculty and/or administrators
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
participated in corporations in which they held stock as consultants, employees, members, or chairs of boards of directors. Copyright policies were developed primarily in the 1980s and 1990s. Although a number of institutions “allowed” faculty members to personally own their scholarly and creative works, universities increasingly claimed materials that were “work for hire,” which included all work by academic professionals or work directly commissioned by universities – for example, general education syllabi – or that made substantial use of university resources, which faculty often did when developing digitized courseware. The educational materials covered included video recordings, study guides, tests, syllabi, bibliographies, texts, films, film strips, charts, transparencies, other visual aids, programmed instructional materials, live video and audio broadcasts, and computer software including programs, program descriptions, and documentation of integrated circuit and databases. Some university managers who negotiated with corporations over copyrighted products, processes, and services were located in technology licensing and transfer offices. Sometimes these offices were expanded to become intellectual property offices or technology transfer and creative works offices. These offices oversee the business aspects of commercializing intellectual properties and managing copyright issues or of developing enterprise centers to further build up and market copyrightable educational materials. Extended managerial capacity is less developed with regard to copyrights than it is for patents because institutional copyright policies and offices are a more recent phenomenon. New circuits of knowledge, interstitial organizational emergence, intermediating organizations, and expanded managerial capacity create networks through which college and universities connect to the knowledge economy. Colleges and universities also engage in an array of miscellaneous market and market-like behaviors that cut across colleges and universities, attaching a price to things that were once free or charging more for items or services that were once subsidized or provided at cost. For example, most universities now charge, whether outright or through fees, for
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
parking, use of student recreation facilities, and use of computer facilities. Historically, subsidized meal services were located in dormitories and provided low-cost food for students. Now food services are outsourced to fast-food companies such as McDonald’s and Domino’s and are part of food courts located in student unions, which serve as mini-malls and profit centers. Although market and market-like behaviors are defined by competition for external resources, they are also associated with a host of ancillary behaviors, such as advertising and marketing. Enrollment management offices spend large sums on advertising, designing view books and other materials that represent the educational life style of the institution, and then mailing them to affluent zip codes or to students who scored well on standardized tests. Trademark licensing officials work with “athleisure”-wear corporations to cross-license products that are sold in book stores, where students are captive markets. Market and market-like behaviors, as well as ancillary practices such as advertising, have permeated the fabric of colleges and universities. Although colleges and universities are integrating with the neoliberal knowledge economy and adopting many practices found in the corporate sector, they are not becoming corporations. Colleges and universities very clearly do not want to lose state and federal subsidies or, in the case of research universities, to pay taxes, to be held to corporate accounting standards (lax as these may be), to be held accountable for risks they take with state and donor money, and to relinquish, if they are public, eleventh-amendment protection and be liable for mistakes and various forms of malpractice. However, colleges and universities are participating in redrawing the boundaries between public and private sector, and they favor boundaries that allow them to participate in a wide variety of market activities that enable them to generate external revenues. Corporations participate in this redrawing because the new boundaries move research closer to the market, allowing universities to act as industrial laboratories and subsidizing the cost of product development. Similarly, many of the new forms of education prepare nontraditional student markets to use knowledge economy products or
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prepare them for entry-level work, socializing the cost of education. These boundaries between private and public are fluid: colleges and universities, corporations, and the state (of which public universities are a part) are in constant negotiation. Contradictions and ironies are rife. For example, for-profit tertiary education makes money for corporations that provide educational services but may conflict with corporations that prefer state subsidy of worker training. Corporations worked with universities to support Bayh-Dole (1980), which privatized federal research, but are unhappy with universities’ aggressive claims to intellectual property and litigate regularly against them about ownership of broad patents that underlie a variety of pharmaceutical products. The “firewall” that once separated public and private sectors has become increasingly permeable. As colleges and universities integrate with the knowledge economy, professional groups within them have to develop strategies for how they will position themselves. Departments and fields that are close to markets – for example, biotechnology, medical substances and devices, or information technology – have some built-in advantages, given the importance of these fields to the knowledge economy. However, the proximity of a department or program to the market does not always predict how it will fare in terms of institutional resource allocation or ability to generate external revenues. For example, a number of fine arts colleges, traditionally not conceptualized as close to the market, have redefined themselves so that they train art students in graphic design, digital animation, and web design, therefore connecting directly to the knowledge economy. Some departments find niche markets that allow them to generate external revenues. For example, some classics departments augment their budgets by sponsoring revenue-generating educational trips to Greece and Rome, while some anthropology departments offer tours of prehistoric sites, charging for the tour and the pleasure of digging. Some departments in education sell tests and measurements copyrighted by their faculty. Often the external revenues brought in by these market revenues allow such departments to continue to deliver the standard of education they think
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appropriate to their fields, while colleges and universities generally invest in other areas, such as information technology infrastructure or advertising for high-end, high-scoring student markets. Faculty are no longer the only important group of professionals within universities. Academic professionals have also organized themselves – in groups like the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the Association of Collegiate Licensing Administrators, the Association of University Marketing Professionals, and many others. In many cases, they were able to crystallize as professional groups because they responded to opportunities offered by the neoliberal knowledge economy. Lacking the prerogatives historically accorded to faculty, these new groups of professionals became more strategic, aggressive, and flexible than faculty in responding to the opportunity structures associated with the neoliberal knowledge economy.
Academic Capitalism in the USA and in Europe Given the move toward the market by many other countries, Slaughter and Cantwell (2012) decided to use the theory of academic capitalism as the analytical focus to compare the way the USA and the EU were moving higher education toward the market. The comparison was merited given that the EU indicated it hopes to surpass the USA in research by 2020. As in previous iterations, the theory of academic capitalism teases out the ways in which new institutional and organizational structures that link state agencies, corporations, and universities developed to take advantage of the openings provided by the neoliberal state to move toward the market. The mechanisms identified by Slaughter and Rhoades (2004) persist: new circuits of knowledge that link state agencies, corporations, and universities in entrepreneurial research endeavors are developed; interstitial organizations emerge to manage market endeavor; intermediating networks between public, nonprofit, and private sectors are initiated by actors from the various sectors to stabilize the new circuits of knowledge and
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
organizations that facilitate entrepreneurial activity on the part of universities. At the same time, universities build extended managerial capacity that enables them to function as economic actors. Slaughter and Cantwell make the case that although marketization is the EU is state-led to a greater degree than in the USA, state bureaucrats use the same mechanisms (described above) as in the USA and provide examples of these. Slaughter and Cantwell also argue that new mechanisms emerged in both the USA and EU as marketization intensified. These are new funding streams, narratives, discourses, and social technologies. The recently created European Research Council (ERC) has provided an example of new funding streams. The ERC research funds are available for the European Research Area through the Seventh Framework. Over the period 2007–2013, the ERC awarded €7.5 billion in research grants. Investigators can win up to €2 million per grant, which may last up to 5 years (European Research Council 2008). Grants are made through two streams, one for advanced investigators and one for starting investigators who completed their Ph.D. within the last 9 years in life sciences, physical science and engineering, social sciences and humanities “domains.” The ERC (2007) prioritized projects in information technology, “innovative” medicine, nano-electronics, embedded systems, aeronautics and air transport, hydrogen and fuel cells, and global monitoring for the environment. As is the case in the USA, research funds are concentrated in STEM fields, and especially the biomedical sciences, although not so heavily. The narratives and discourses in the USA and EU are somewhat different. In the USA, human capital was the higher education discourse that intersected broader competitiveness narratives. As is typical in the USA, the human capital narrative emphasized the role of the individual, thereby converting higher education into a private good (Becker 1964; Leslie and Brinkman 1988; McMahon 2009). Complementing human capital discourses were competitiveness narratives, which were initiated by corporate leaders and nonprofit think tanks in the 1980s (Slaughter 1990; Bruno 2009; Slaughter and Rhoades 2005)
Academic Capitalism, Evolution and Comparisons
to deal with the stiff competition the US faced from Germany and Japan. Students’ investment in human capital was represented as serving not only individuals’ ends, but societal needs for a highly educated labor force to build a strong economy. In other words, societal goods were conceived of in economic terms, rather than social goods or social justice. Like human capital discourses, competitiveness narratives were also taken up by the intermediating organizations discussed above as well as by some university staff, some academic disciplines and some faculty, many of whom demonstrated their closeness to the market through publication, patenting, technology transfer, and product and technology innovation. The competitiveness and human capital narratives stress investment in education that contributes to productivity, economic growth, health, environmental issues, and national defense. These types of education create a “scientifically literate” population and are predicated on a workforce versed in STEM fields. The humanities, arts, and social science fields not concerned with social technologies are, by and large, not mentioned. The Lisbon Agenda elaborated an EU competitiveness narrative. Using language of the academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime, the often-cited Lisbon Agenda aims were to make Europe the most competitive region in the world (European Commission 2000). Higher education was integral to the Lisbon Agenda, which calls for economic competitiveness through the interaction between the state, industry, and universities in networks of innovation driven by application and production of knowledge. Lisbon goals include expanding public and private funds for research and development, industry-university partnerships, establishing EU-wide networks of lifelong learning, and boosting tertiary participation, especially in science and technology fields. In 2006, the EC made the case that “European universities have enormous potential, but this potential is not fully harnessed and put to work effectively to underpin Europe’s drive for more growth and more jobs” (European Commission 2006, p. 3) and a detailed plan for “modernizing” Europe’s universities, which largely focused further market reforms, was announced.
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Social technologies are used to steer university staff toward the market and track their activity in competition for external resources (Geuna and Martin 2003; Bruno 2009). For example, in the EU the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) turns the attention of faculty and fields to the narratives of competition by providing incentives designed to gently nudge professionals’ activities in line with policy goals. Faculty and staff progress in cooperation with industry is followed by tracking attainment of bench marks and success in rankings. (Some) social sciences provide the methods, theoretical frameworks, and concepts (which are simultaneously discourses and narratives themselves) for social technologies such as bibliometrics (the analysis of academic article citations), rankings and league tables, soft law (Pestre and Weingart 2009). Narratives, discourses, and social technologies that justify and normalize competitive moves to the market are elaborated and articulated by all the players and deployed via social technologies. There is no particular order in which these phenomena occur. They can take place sequentially, simultaneously, independently, and always recursively. They explain how universities become marketized not only in science and engineering fields, but across a variety of fields. Currently, Cantwell, Slaughter, and Taylor are analyzing mechanisms that promote marketization that continue to emerge. They are exploring the idea that different sets of actors are able to deploy these mechanisms in very different ways. They hypothesize that that despite academe’s commitment to meritocratic order, the ability for institutions and individuals to leverage entrepreneurial activity and status co-varies tightly with accumulated state, institutional, and individual professional wealth (as measured by salary, research dollars, publications, entrepreneurial endeavor).
References Becker, G.S. 1964. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education, National Bureau of economic research, general series. Vol. 80. New York: Columbia University Press.
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16 Brint, S.G. 1994. In an age of experts: The changing role of professionals in politics and public life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bruno, I. 2009. The ‘indefinite discipline’ of competitiveness benchmarking as a neoliberal technology of government. Minerva 47: 261–280. Ehrenberg, R.G. 2000. Tuition rising: Why college costs so much. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Etzkowitz, H. 1994a. Academic-industry relations: A sociological paradigm for economic development. In Evolutionary economics and chaos theory: New directions in technology studies? ed. Loet Leydersdorff and Peter Van den Besselaar. London: Pinter. Etzkowitz. 1994b. Beyond the frontier: The convergence of military and civilian R&D in the U.S. Science Studies 7 (2): 5–22. European Commission. 2000. Presidential conclusions: Lisbon. European Council 23 and 24 March 2000. Resource document. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ summits/lis1_en.htm. Accessed 20 May 2010. European Commission. 2006. Delivering on the modernization agenda for universities. European Commission. http://ec.eupropa.eu/education/policies/2010/lisbon_ en.html. Accessed 17 May 2010. European Research Council. 2008. ERC advanced grant competition 2008: Statistics. Brussels: ERC. Geuna, A., and B. Martin. 2003. University research evaluation and funding: An international comparison. Minerva 41 (4): 277–304. Gummett, P. 1991. The evolution of science and technology policy: A UK perspective. Science and Public Policy 18 (1): 31–37. Halliday, J. 1993. Maoist Britain? The ideological function of vocationalizing the higher education curriculum. Curriculum Studies 1 (3): 365–381. Hill, S. 1993. Concentration of minds: Research centres in Australia. In Paper presented to the third international conference on University-industry relations. SUNY Purchase. May 1. State University of New York at Purchase, Purchase, New York. Jessop, B. 1993. Towards a Schumpeterian workfare state? Preliminary remarks on post-Fordist political economy. Studies in Political Economy 40 (Spring): 7–39. Julien, G. 1989. The funding of university research in Canada: Current trends. Higher Education Management 1 (1): 66–72. Lederman, L.L. 1994. A comparative analysis of civilian technology strategies among some nations. Policy Studies Journal 22 (2): 279–295. Leslie, L., and P. Brinkman. 1988. The economic value of higher education. New York: American Councilon Education/MacMillian Series on Higher Education. Leydesdorff, L. 1994. New models of technological change: New theories for technology studies? In Evolutionary economics and chaos theory: New directions in technology studies? ed. Loet Leydesdorff and Peter Van den Besselaar, 180–192. London: Pinter. Marshall, N. (1996). Policy communities, issue networks and the formulation of Australian higher education
Academic Careers policy. Higher Education. forthcoming 1996. 30 (3): 273–293. Martin, B.R., Irvine, J., and Isard., P.A. 1992. Input measures: trends in UK government spending on academic and related research: a comparison with F R Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands and USA. Science and Public Policy 17 (1): 3–13. McMahon, W. 2009. Higher learning, greater good: The private and social benefits of higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pestre, D., and P. Weingart. 2009. Governance of and through science and numbers: Categories tools and technologies – Preface. Minerva 47 (3): 241–242. Slaughter, S. 1990. Lipset’s ‘continental divide’ and the ideological basis for differences in higher education between Canada and the United States. Canadian Journal of Higher Education 20 (2): 81–93. Slaughter, S., and B. Cantwell. 2012. Transatlantic moves to the market: Academic capitalism in the US & EU. Higher Education. 63 (5): 583–606. Slaughter, S., and L.L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 1990. Renorming the social relations of academic science: Technology transfer. Educational Policy 4 (4): 341–361. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 1996. The emergence of a competitiveness research and development policy coalition and the commercialization of academic science and technology. Science, Technology and Human Values 21 (3 Summer): 303–339. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2005. From endless frontier to basic science for use: Social contracts between science and society. Science, Technology and Human Values. 30 (4): 1–37. Wood, F.Q. 1992. The commercialisation of university research in Australia: Issues and problems. Comparative Education 28: 293–313.
Academic Careers Tatiana Fumasoli Department Education, Practice and Society, University College London Institute of Education, London, UK
Synonyms Academic status; Employment; Positions
Academic Careers
Definition Academic careers: the sequence of positions over the working life of an academic, usually but not necessarily starting with a doctoral degree. The progression can be vertical, from assistant to full professor; horizontal, moving across institutions and/or countries holding the same academic title; or it can also be a “regression,” e.g., from dean of faculty back to professor.
Uniqueness Versus Comparability Academic careers are a core aspect of the functioning of higher education, since they organize the division of labor among academic professionals; they design possible occupational trajectories and foster a constant and coherent reproduction of academic workforce. In doing so, academic careers shape and delimitate the meaning and functions of academic expertise, the latter being further structured according to the fields of knowledge and to the rules and regulations underpinning higher education institutions. In other words, academic careers can be analyzed according to the tenets of the academic profession, of the disciplines, of the higher education institutions, and of the country (Clark 1983). It is then an empirical question to detect differences and similarities in a comparative analysis (Fumasoli 2014). The field of higher education research has investigated academic careers generally assuming their uniqueness in relations with other careers. Consequently, research has aimed to identify the distinctive features of academic careers, thereby fostering an important debate that has mainly shifted between two poles. On the one hand, survey-based research has provided a detailed characterization of academic careers through cross-sectional and/or longitudinal analysis (Teichler 1996). On the other hand, through a normative angle, academic careers have been scrutinized at the receiving end of managerialist pressures and New Public Management reforms. Against this backdrop, academics have partly lost their autonomy in handling selection and promotion of other academics, giving way to
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bureaucratic forces in the coordination and control of the academic enterprise (Amaral et al. 2002, 2003). Building on a synthesis of research carried on academic careers, this entry argues that academic careers could be profitably studied and debated within the broader ecology of occupational and professional careers. Along this line, academic careers could be analyzed not only focusing on their particular aspects, but, equally, by contextualizing such distinctive characteristics in a larger landscape of co-evolving professions and career pathways (Abbott 1988). Additionally, the increasing number and variety of knowledgeintensive organizations constitute a broader context that is likely to affect substantially the academic profession and academic careers (Gorman and Sandefur 2011). As a consequence, drawing on theoretical and analytical frameworks from the sociology of professions, career studies and organization theory allow us to understand three fundamental questions: (1) How academic careers are organized and evolve (2) Under which conditions academic careers display change and stability (3) To what extent convergence or differentiation between academic careers and other professional careers can be observed. This approach appears equally helpful in delineating effective policies aimed to improve the contribution, efficiency, and accountability of the academic workforce and of the university in contemporary society.
Convergence Between Academic and Corporate Careers There are several dimensions that can be considered in order to analyze the changing academic careers. First, the higher education sector has expanded dramatically. This has created a paradoxical tension between the shortage of qualified academic staff to accommodate increasing numbers of students, and the increasing use of adjunct staff in order to respond to student needs in the short term. Second, academic careers vary in their degree of regulation, with the notable extremes of the US where salary and progression are mainly
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the result of individuals’ negotiations within universities and European countries where universities, unions, and ministries of education need to agree on the main aspects related to the structure of remunerations and promotions (Williams et al. 1974). Finally, the organizational setting in which academic careers are embedded – that is, the university – has undergone several reforms to increase managerial coordination and control, accountability, as well as efficiency. This has put career structures under strain, as the traditional collegiate model where professors contributed significantly to decision making, or, at least, profited from extensive autonomy, has been limited by economic aspects, equality policies, and university strategies challenging the diversified academic discipline-based interests and practices (Fumasoli and Goastellec 2015; Fumasoli and Kehm 2017). While higher education research privileges a focus on how managerialist practices have affected academic careers, scholars in management studies have looked at how corporate careers have become more similar to academic careers (Baruch and Hall 2004; Harley et al. 2004). First, such studies have highlighted how reviews of academics for tenure and promotion remain in the hands of their peers, and continue to be based on prestige indicators such as publications and citations. Second, it is argued, university strategies remain substantially decoupled from academic career decisions, which continue to take place mainly in departments related to fields of knowledge. Management scholars thus underline how academic careers, seem to influence innovative corporate career models, where rank and file positions typical of bureaucracies have now become less salient (DeFilippi and Arthur 1994; Arthur and Rousseau 1996; Peiperl and Baruch 1997; Hall and Moss 1998). This seems to point to the fact that the corporate world has become similar to universities, as individual workers face fragmented, nonlinear career pathways, which are based on their own expertise and readiness to be mobile across organizations and countries. Equally, like for academics, individually initiated careers and network building, commitment to one’s own field of expertise and project-based
Academic Careers
work have become more relevant than upward career progression through bureaucratic positions within a single organization (Baruch and Hall 2004). However, at the same time, it can be observed that academic careers have also somewhat converged to other occupational careers. Reflecting the increasingly varied student population and more uncertain conditions for public funding, academic positions have become more differentiated. Thus, besides the traditional trajectories from junior through intermediate to senior positions, we can see nowadays several pathways and employment frameworks: from postdoctoral researchers, tenure track professors, to full professors. Even more importantly, this diversification is reflected in the increasing numbers of fixed-term contracts, teaching- or research-only employment, and part-time positions. This has been interpreted as a deleterious outcome of market forces and a drive toward short-term financial sustainability. Equally uncertainty in student enrolments, public funding, and other funding sources, as well as uncertainty related to longterm governmental policies and economic and financial conditions, have pushed universities to use more and more flexible employment contracts for their lecturers and researchers. As research on elite academics shows (van der Wende 2015; Kwiek 2016), only few academics are able to take advantage of global academic labor markets, while a significant majority is left to spend years of incertitude and risk of academic dropout.
Empirical Studies on Academic Careers Drawing on scholarship in career studies, empirical research on academic careers can be reviewed according to the following dimensions. First, academic careers can be seen from either an objective or a subjective angle: on the one hand, empirical analysis focuses on facts, numbers, and indicators; on the other hand, analysis addresses personal choices and individuals’ agency (Gunz and Peiperl 2007). In other words, research on academic careers can be positioned on a continuum from a close focus on individual perceptions and
Academic Careers
choices in a life-long occupational pathway to the opposite end conceiving academic careers as a social phenomenon (Moore et al. 2007). Methodologically, studies on academic careers can be divided into retrospective and prospective, the first being a more traditional approach to explore and explain what has happened in the past, the latter involving observation taking place across present and future points in time when decisions on one’s career are taken. The field of higher education studies has seen three large international research projects on academic careers between 1992 and 2012. The first major study of the academic profession was the Carnegie Study, which involved 14 countries and more than 19,000 responses (Altbach 2000). Significant differences in job satisfaction and career progression options are visible not so much across countries, but among three groups differently located along academic career pathways: the university professoriate, junior academic staff, and non-university professoriate (Teichler et al. 2013, pp. 5–6). The second major study of the academic profession was the Changing Academic Profession (CAP Study, 2004–2012). It involved 19 countries and focused on societal developments (relevance of knowledge, division of labor in national and international context), as well as on the institutional life within higher education institutions (influence of managerial power and pressures for the professionalization of academic work). Besides gathering almost 18,000 responses (Teichler and Höhle 2013, pp. 3–5), this Study involved a subjective and individual angle, in that it analyzed biographies and careers, employment conditions, the work situation of junior academics, their time budget, their assessment of their own professional situation, the different degrees of commitment to their discipline, their department and their institutions, and finally their job satisfaction. While significant differences emerged according to the national contexts, the study seems to confirm an increasing divide between professoriate and junior academics, the first enjoying permanent positions, autonomy of work organization, and professional status, the second depending for several years on fixedterm contracts and poor ability to plan their
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careers in the long term (Teichler et al. 2013, pp. 75–116). The third study of the academic profession was the EUROAC Study on the Academic Profession in Europe, carried out in 2010 and including 12 European countries. This Study used a mixed-methods approach comprising an in-depth literature review (Kehm and Teichler 2013), quantitative analysis based on a survey (Teichler and Höhle 2013), and interviews with 500 academics, administrators, and managers in 8 European countries (Fumasoli et al. 2015). The EuroAC results shows how short-term employment of junior academics has become internalized by the academic workforce and how international mobility has considerably increased, at least in some European countries, contributing to an internationalization of academic markets, careers, and the academic profession itself (Goastellec and Pekari 2013). These three large international studies have testified of the changing settings, identities, and practices of academic careers, resonating with the broader literature of career studies and its focus in the last two decades on original, boundaryless, protean careers in a globalized world. In parallel, scholars of higher education studies have focused on the academic profession and careers as social phenomena. Country-based case studies have offered an international comparative perspective on the configuration of the politics and policies of the higher education sector, of the organizational dimensions within higher education institutions, and of the distinctive knowledge bases of disciplinary fields. The sociological fabric of academic careers has been investigated in an edited volume by Burton Clark (1987) through country cases in USA and Europe as well as through cases related to disciplines and types of professional higher education. Musselin (2010) provides an analysis of academic careers in France, Germany, and USA in the disciplines of History and Mathematics, highlighting how the articulation of supply in academic labor markets is based on ideas of quality, on the autonomy of higher education institutions, and on their institutional settings (e.g., recruitment committees). Empirical studies on academic careers from an educational perspective have addressed the
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training and development needs of the academic workforce (Startup 1979; Chait and Ford 1982; Kogan et al. 1994; Blaxter et al. 1998; Sorcinelli et al. 2006). More recently, researchers of academic careers have adopted subjective approaches to investigate choice and identity in the building of individual academic career pathways. Along this line, Gopaul and Pifer (2016) offer a dialogic perspective on academic mobility in early career stages, reflecting on job insecurity, career uncertainty, and the unknowns of international mobility (see also Cai and Hall 2015; Morley et al. 2018). Ortlieb and Weiss (2018) look at the antecedents of academics’ perceptions on job insecurity to investigate individual academics’ agency in the unfolding of their careers. The effects of temporary contracts are addressed by Waaijer et al. (2017) who scrutinize how early career researchers’ lives and career plans are impacted. Clearly, research on growingly fragmented and insecure academic careers addresses fundamentally problematic aspects of the contemporary academic profession; at the same time, this type of research is potentially conducive to building theoretical and analytical bases to bridge studies on academic careers to the broader career studies scholarship, which have been tackling similar issues in the last two decades.
Drawing on Multiple Disciplines and Methods for a Future Research Agenda This section advocates a multidisciplinary and multilevel approach on academic careers that could expand the scope of theoretical and analytical development, as well as for empirical research (Arthur et al. 1989; Khapova and Arthur 2011; Lee et al. 2014). In this sense, sociology, social psychology, economics and management studies, political science, and public administration provide a significant toolkit of research topics, research questions, and methods that enhance how we can shed light on academic careers. A sociological perspective focuses on the meaning, understanding, and identities that engage in the structuring and restructuring of academic careers within broader social structures. This allows to explore not only how academics
Academic Careers
perceive themselves and their work, but also the broader role of such expertise-based careers in the contemporary society. Also, it can open up a debate on whether and how such careers can be located within or outside universities and the higher education sector. Chudzikowski and Mayrhofer (2011) suggest a Bourdieu-based analytical toolkit built on multilevel analysis uncovering the structure-agency link; social, economic, and policy contexts; and identities in changing academic careers. At a more micro level, social psychology look at the relations between individuals and groups and how such relations affect individual agency in the structures and processes of academic careers. Issues such as gender equality and inclusion of minorities, senior-junior relationships, coaching, and mentoring would be central in this approach, which aims to highlight individual career enactment and construction, as well as peer learning and solidarity. For instance, Schrodt et al. (2003) have analyzed the role of academic mentoring in the socialization process of junior academic staff. An economic and managerial approach analyzes the construction, distribution, and consumption of highly qualified (and rare) human resources based on expertise and talent. How are academic careers efficiently, effectively, economically organized and structured? Relatedly, an instrumental logic looking at the odds between investment and contribution to economic sectors of society would be at the center of such approach. Finally, a strategic management view would analyze the link between career structures and organizational output (Fumasoli 2014; Gornitzka and Maassen 2017). A political science and public administration approach focuses on rational behavior of the involved actors, the constellations thereof that emerge, and the representation of interests of the different groups. Equally, this perspective would analyze how order and stability in academic career pathways are achieved through power relationships that reflect ongoing negotiations within regulatory frameworks and bureaucratic structures shaping roles and division of labor in the academic enterprise (see, e.g., Musselin 2005). When it comes to methods, in-depth qualitative analysis through interviews and focus groups has
Academic Careers
been carried out extensively, allowing for fertile insights on how academics perceive and interpret their career pathways, the challenges, pitfalls, and opportunities academics are confronted with. Equally, the large international surveys conducted in the CAP project and affiliates have gathered an extensive database that offer many possibilities to conduct cross-country and longitudinal comparative analysis. These methods could be substantially integrated by the ethnographic methods developed in career studies, in order to gain further understanding and insight on the changing academic careers (Van Maanen 2015). We refer in particular to diary studies, which allow to gain insight not only from logs held by academics, but also by academics’ reflective analysis of their CV (Ohly et al. 2010). This seems to be particularly promising in order to understand the restructuring of academic careers: resumes can be analyzed as formal written texts, but also as interpretation of their authors or of other academics. A particular focus could be how academics acknowledge and validate experiences, expertise, and skills as crucial elements for progressions in academic careers.
Cross-References ▶ Recruitment of Academics
References Abbott, A. 1988. The system of professions. An essay on the division of expert labour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Altbach, P.G., ed. 2000. The changing academic workplace: Comparative perspectives. Boston: Center for International Higher Education, Boston College. Amaral, A., G.A. Jones, and B. Karseth, eds. 2002. Governing higher education: Comparing national perspectives. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Amaral, A., V.L. Meek, and I.M. Larsen, eds. 2003. The higher education managerial revolution? Dordrecht: Kluwer. Arthur, M.B., and D. Rousseau. 1996. The boundaryless career: A new employment principle for a new organizational era. New York: Oxford University Press. Arthur, M.B., D.T. Hall, and B.S. Lawrence. 1989. Generating new directions in career theory: The case for a transdisciplinary approach. In Handbook of career
21 theory, ed. M.B. Arthur, D.T. Hall, and B.S. Lawrence, 7–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baruch, Y., and D.T. Hall. 2004. The academic career: A model for future careers in other sectors? Journal of Vocational Behavior 64 (2): 241–262. Blaxter, L., C. Hughes, and M. Tight. 1998. Writing on academic careers. Studies in Higher Education 23(3): 281–295. Cai, L., & Hall, C. (2015). Motivations, expectations, and experiences of expatriate academic staff on an international branch campus in China. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20(3), 207–222. Chait, R.P., and A.T. Ford. 1982. Beyond tradition tenure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chudzikowski, K., and W. Mayrhofer. 2011. In search of the blue flower? Grand social theories and career research: The case of Bourdieu’s theory of practice. Human Relations 64 (1): 19–36. Clark, B.R. 1983. The higher education system: Organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clark, B.R., ed. 1987. The academic profession, national, disciplinary and institutional settings. Berkeley: University of California Press. DeFilippi, R.J., and M.B. Arthur. 1994. The boundaryless career: A competency-based prospective. Journal of Organizational Behaviour 15 (4): 307–324. Fumasoli, T. 2014. Strategic management of personnel policies: A comparative analysis of flagship universities in Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Austria. In New voices in higher education research and scholarship, ed. F. Ribeiro, Y. Politis, and B. Culum, 18–37. Hershey: IGI Global. Fumasoli, T., Goastellec, G. 2015. Global models, disciplinary and local patterns in academic recruitment processes. In Fumasoli, T., Goastellec, G. and Kehm, B. (eds.) Academic Careers in Europe - Trends, Challenges, Perspectives, Springer: Dordrecht. Fumasoli, T., Kehm, B. 2017. Recruitment of academics, Springer Encyclopedia of Higher Education, Dordrecht: Springer. Goastellec, G., and N. Pekari. 2013. The internationalisation of academic markets, careers and professions. In The work situation of the academic profession in Europe: Findings of a survey in twelve countries, ed. U. Teichler and E.A. Höhle, 229–248. Dordrecht: Springer. Gopaul, B., and M.J. Pifer. 2016. The conditions of movement: A discussion of academic mobility between two early career scholars. Higher Education Quarterly 70 (3): 225–245. Gorman, E.H., and R.L. Sandefur. 2011. “Golden Age,” quiescence, and revival: How the sociology of professions became the study of knowledge-based work. Work and Occupations 38 (3): 275. Gornitzka, A., and P. Maassen. 2017. European flagship universities: Autonomy and change. Higher Education Quarterly. 71: 231. Gunz and Peiperl. 2007. Introduction. In Handbook of career studies, ed. Gunz and Peiperl, 1–10. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
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22 Hall, D.T., and J.A. Moss. 1998. The new protean career contract: Helping organizations and employees adapt. Organizational Dynamics 26 (3): 22–37. Harley, S., M. Muller-Camen, and A. Collin. 2004. From academic communities to managed organisations: The implications for academic careers in UK and German universities. Journal of Vocational Behavior 64: 329–345. Kehm, B.M., and U. Teichler, eds. 2013. The academic profession in Europe: New tasks and new challenges. Dordrecht: Springer. Khapova, S.N., and M.B. Arthur. 2011. Interdisciplinary approaches to contemporary career studies. Human Relations 64 (1): 3–17. Kogan, M., I. Moses, and E. El-Khawas. 1994. Staffing higher education: Meeting new challenges. Higher education policy series 27. Paris: OECD. Kwiek, M. 2016. The European research elite: A crossnational study of highly productive academics in 11 countries. Higher Education 71 (3): 379–397. Lee, C.I., W. Felps, and Y. Baruch. 2014. Toward a taxonomy of career studies through bibliometric visualization. Journal of Vocational Behavior 85: 339–351. Moore, C., H. Gunz, and D. Hall. 2007. Tracing the historical roots of career theory in management and organization studies. In Handbook of career studies, ed. Gunz and Peiperl, 13–39. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Morley, L., Alexiadou, N., Garaz, S., GonzálezMonteagudo, J. and Taba, M. (2018) Internationalisation and migrant academics: the hidden narratives of mobility, Higher Education (published online 25 Jan). Musselin, C. 2005. Le marché des universitaires: France, Allemagne, États-Unis. Paris: Presses de Sciences-Po. Musselin, C. 2010. The market for academics. Abingdon: Routledge. Ohly, S., Sonnentag, S., Niessen, C. and Zapf, D. (2010) Diary Studies in Organizational Research. An Introduction and Some Practical Recommendations, Journal of Personnel Psychology, 9(2): 79–93. Ortlieb, R. and Weiss, S. (2018) What makes academic careers less insecure? The role of individual-level antecedents, Higher Education (published online 5 Jan). Peiperl, M.A., and Y. Baruch. 1997. Back to square zero: The post-corporate career. Organizational Dynamics 25 (4): 7–22. Schrodt, P., C.S. Cawyer, and R. Sanders. 2003. An examination of academic mentoring behaviors and new faculty members’ satisfaction with socialization and tenure and promotion processes. Communication Education 52: 17. Sorcinelli, M.D., A.E. Austin, and P.L. Eddy. 2006. Creating the future of faculty development: Learning from the past, understanding the present. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Startup, R. 1979. The university teacher and his world: A sociological and educational study. Farnborough: Hampshire.
Academic Community Teichler, U. 1996. The conditions of the academic profession: An international, comparative analysis of the academic profession in Western Europe, Japan and the USA. In Inside academia: New challenges of the academic profession, ed. P.A.M. Maassen and F.A. van Vught, 15–65. Utrecht: De Tijdstroom. Teichler, U., and E.A. Höhle, eds. 2013. The work situation of the academic profession in Europe: Findings of a survey in twelve countries. Dordrecht: Springer. Teichler, U., A. Arimoto, and W.K. Cummings. 2013. The changing academic profession. Major findings of a comparative survey. Dordrecht: Springer. van der Wende, M. (2015). International academic mobility: towards a concentration of the minds in Europe, European Review, 23 (1): 70–88. Van Maanen, J. 2015. The present of things past: Ethnography and career studies. Human Relations 68 (1): 35–53. Waaijer, C.J.F., R. Belder, H. Sonneveld, et al. 2017. Temporary contracts: Effect on job satisfaction and personal lives of recent PhD graduates. Higher Education 74: 321. Williams, G., T. Blackstone, and D. Metcalf. 1974. The academic labour market: Economic and social aspects of profession. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Academic Community ▶ New Public Management and the Academic Profession
Academic Community Views ▶ Academic Perception of Governance and Management
Academic Deans in Higher Education Institutions Mimi Wolverton Retired Higher Education Professor and Consultant Austin, Texas, USA
Historically, academic deans have been male, white, and in their mid-50s. Although some shifts have occurred in recent years with more women
Academic Deans in Higher Education Institutions
and people of color being hired into these positions, the deanship remains male and majority dominated. Most deans progress upward through faculty ranks and into either a department chair or associate dean’s position prior to moving into a deanship. Although some deans continue in this capacity for extended periods, on average, they remain academic deans for 5–6 years; after which, they either return to faculty ranks or advance into higher levels of institutional administration. Most deans become deans because of a desire to contribute – to improve the college and influence faculty development. Dealing with growth, facilitating change, even confronting crisis (whether financial, academic, or staff discontent) in a way that moves the college forward can spark their resolve to serve. Deans also strive for personal growth – experimenting with and, in some instances, setting a new career direction. Financial gain and any power, or authority associated with the position, rarely serve as motivating factors. Deans serve at the will of institutional provosts and presidents and lead at the discretion of faculty. They head professional bureaucracies (colleges), which house networks of smaller professional bureaucracies (departments) managed by chairs whose main duty is to coordinate and facilitate faculty work. These colleges, in their entirety, function under the umbrella of overarching institutions, themselves professional bureaucracies [Professional bureaucracies are decentralized systems of authority, designed to allow employed professional a greater degree of control over their work]. This hierarchical positioning of deans makes them organizational linchpins. They communicate institutional goals, needs, and demands down and faculty concerns, needs, and desires up. They advocate for and attempt to shape both sets of priorities. Their ultimate goal: to further faculty innovation and research and student learning.
Responsibilities and Tasks A myriad of tasks surround this goal. These tasks can be collapsed into six broadly defined areas of
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responsibility: internal productivity, academic personnel management, resource management, leadership, external and political relations, and personal scholarship. Sustaining internal productivity involves building a work climate in which morale is high and creativity abounds, establishing and sustaining effective lines of communication with and among faculty and support staff, and most importantly fostering good teaching and scholarship. Celebrating the life of the college and its people becomes an important aspect of promoting internal productivity. Academic personnel management refers to recruiting, selecting, developing, and evaluating department chairs and faculty. Organizing, and working with, department chairs, directors, and other senior staff comprise essential elements. Mentoring becomes the first step in developing individual and corporate capacity within a college and promoting academic health and faculty and student vitality. Deans as lead mentors model good mentoring practice and encourage others to engage in similar activities. Effective resource management keeps daily operations of the college and its departments running smoothly. The word stewardship captures much of the essence of this role. Tasks that define it include: supervising and supporting nonacademic support staff, managing college resources, assuring accurate college record keeping, maintaining college technological currency, and guaranteeing legal and agency guideline compliance. The multifaceted nature of leadership obligates deans to advance beyond management to providing guidance and inspiration. Deans delegate authority to ensure department and college effectiveness. They own and correct mistakes when mistakes occur. Deans attuned to their environments navigate the intricate labyrinth that lies within their own colleges across departments and centers, and between their colleges, the larger institution, and the communities within which they reside. Doing so entails cultivating effective communication channels across these factions through which concerns can be raised. And it necessitates regular solicitation of ideas on how
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to improve the college. Effective deans remain perpetually alert to the college’s place within the larger institution and its faculty, administrators, and students’ roles as institutional citizens. Effective deans promote public-spirited, social consciousness. Leadership is closely related to a fifth responsibility dimension – external and political relations. Tasks identified as either external or political in nature include: developing and initiating long-range college goals, building relationships with the external community at large and with college stakeholders in particular, fostering positive alumni relations, obtaining and managing external funding, and engaging in long-range financial planning. In addition, deans typically identify two college- and institution-specific tasks, fostering gender and ethnic diversity within the college and representing the college to upper administration, as relevant to this dimension. Although the former certainly can impact the work environment (a concern captured as germane to internal productivity), cultivating diversity can necessitate broadening the faculty and student recruitment pools, an external activity. The latter, representing the college to the administration, while internal to the institution, is perhaps viewed as politically charged. In all, these tasks appear closely related to and dependent on effective leadership. The final responsibility dimension deans identify relates to personal scholarship. Personal scholarship encompasses engaging in professional growth, remaining current within ones discipline, maintaining a scholarly program, and modeling scholarly behavior through research and publishing.
Influences on Deans Even though all six responsibilities shape the reality of a dean’s life, the intensity with which each impacts that reality ebbs and flows. When ambiguity is present, deans have difficulty in determining the roles in which they should engage at any given time. The situation worsens if expectations remain vague over extended periods. As a
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consequence, when the purpose of the institution is in flux, more stress arises. For instance, roles change when 2-year colleges begin offering 4-year degrees. Are they still 2-year institutions? When comprehensive universities expect faculty to conduct research, publish, and generate grant dollars, are they really comprehensive in nature? To be effective and meet their potential, deans and colleges must have a clear sense of purpose. They must know what really matters. Mission drift suggests change efforts in the offing. If deans are hired to bring about change, their college’s people often have goals that differ from the new institutional directives. The more tenured faculty in a college, the more likely the group as a whole will become increasingly vocal and demanding and less willing to bow to the desires of central administration. In addition, carrying out a provost’s instructions can run counter to protecting academic autonomy and faculty independence. Change, even with the best intentions, comes with mandates from presidents and provosts. If inadequately funded, these mandates frequently result in failure at the college level. Diversity initiatives, use of technology in every classroom, emphasis on improving quality or graduation rates or research productivity of the faculty all take money. Lack of resources, fiscal and human, intensifies the conflict that naturally surrounds change efforts and increases job-related stress. For deans, role conflict also rears its head on a daily basis. Do I serve as an arbiter of personal squabbles among faculty and/or staff? As one dean so succinctly put it, “Everybody’s perspective collides with everybody else’s in the dean’s office.” How many meetings am I really obliged to attend? How do I avoid being weighed down by everyday minutia and the demands of daily tasks when I should be working on my relationship with chairs and faculty, raising money for college endeavors, and forwarding my own scholarship agenda? In other words, dean lack time and that leads to stress. Family life and personal expectations compound stress for many deans, especially those who are young, have children living at home, hold excessively high self-expectations regarding
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what they hope to accomplish as deans, and perceive themselves solely as administrators. Here again, lack of time becomes a stressor and roles become misconstrued. Stress is a certainty of life. At ideal levels, it invigorates us. In excess, it incapacitates us. The key is to optimize it. And herein lies the challenge. The more role conflict and ambiguity associated with the deanship, the greater the levels of stress and the lower the levels of job satisfaction experienced. Role conflict and ambiguity will always exist but certain aspects of the job either minimize or maximize their effect. Both decrease when deans are satisfied with their level of scholarly productivity, view their institutions as good places to work, and see their colleges as adequately funded. Charges like sustaining current programming and dealing with growth result in the least amount of conflict and ambiguity, probably because college members have agreed upon agendas. Older deans who had mentors who helped them transition into their positions seem to fare better. Role conflict and ambiguity are exacerbated by a lack of a clearly articulated purpose and uncertainty. In some instances, lowering the level of one increases the level of the other. For example, deans who view themselves as faculty experience less role conflict, but ambiguity decreases for those who think of themselves as administrators and vice versa. Cultivating optimal stress levels depends in large part on fit between the dean and the environment. Fit means finding a balance between conflicting roles and the ability to shift between roles as needed. The six, primary responsibility dimensions compete for attention and time, and each necessitates some level of compromise.
Conflicting Roles Within the college, the clearest imbalance for deans arises quickly as administrative tasks involved in stimulating internal productivity and engaging in the overall academic management of the college overwhelm personal scholarship efforts. Deans have a past life and often in this
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former existence they were very good scholars. The dilemma they face revolves around the fact that time is finite and administrative and leadership responsibilities ascribed to the deanship often displace what was once the driving motivation for most of them. Developing new programs, strengthening existing ones, recruiting highquality students, and dealing with underprepared ones all take time. Faculty recruitment and retention, dealing with difficult personnel, and moving faculty toward change are critical elements of a healthy college. They take time. Ensuring diversity of faculty and the college’s student population is equally important and time consuming. Successful deans almost always decrease their research productivity levels, change their research agendas, or engage in team efforts to continue with ongoing lines of investigation. Some simply discontinue research efforts altogether. A similar disparity manifests itself in the management-leadership catch-22 deans face. Quite simply, the daily-to-dos of running the college wage war against “what we’re all about.” Here, resource management and engaging in the external and political realities of the college butt up against leadership activities that distinguish a college from its peers and demonstrate its worth. The former demand immediacy and the latter: reflection. Budgeting the use of fiscal and personnel resources not only calls for clearly defining day-to-day operational activities that require funding and determining the level of funding they need but also thinking beyond today to the tomorrows 1–5 years down the road. The continual need to upgrade technology and revisit the way in which it is used to foster learning exemplifies the tug between management and leadership. Similarly, public and legislative demands for accountability vie for time with long-range planning and community outreach. In today’s environment, fund raising becomes a critical endeavor that not only helps ensure short-term operational goals are met but future possibilities explored and brought to fruition. It requires not only political acumen but insightful leadership as well. Institutional obligations and college goals dictate which tasks and responsibilities deans favor at a given time. If a college holds a preeminent
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reputation for research, a dean might adopt a “steady as it goes strategy” – showcasing college strengths to attract funding, high-quality students, and top faculty. Here, greater emphasis might be placed on academic and resource management along with external relations. If the institution’s mission shifts or undergoes significant change, say with an increased emphasis on academic quality and productivity, it might require a new way of thinking, departmental reorganization, creating new groups with greater synergy. These demands might involve fund-raising efforts for scholarships and endowed faculty positions. Deans might need to model scholarly behavior. Internal productivity, external relations, and personal scholarship take precedence. When cultural change, such as proactively pursuing gender and racial diversity or wholeheartedly embracing technology, is in the wind, academic and resource management become keys to changing behavior and disrupting engrained inclinations, behaviors, and preferences. Similarly, a dean might face crisis. A prime example: the survival of the college. Here, streamlining operations, cutting costs, and closing or collapsing departments call for particular attention to academic and resource management and external and political relations.
Lack of Fit Deans deal with most types of change, conflict, and ambiguity and do so successfully. Rarely, however, can they rectify a lack of fit between them and their colleges. Such a mismatch leads to more stress, greater job dissatisfaction, and the possibility of a failed deanship. Lack of fit is a latent construct, which can materialize after a dean’s hire. Environments change; goals shift. A dean might possess a set of skills and exhibit a predisposition toward a specific organizational philosophy that matches the needs of the college at the time of hire. A change in institutional demands can require the use of strengths the dean does not possess, and past effectiveness can disappear.
Academic Deans in Higher Education Institutions
For instance, a dean might be hired as a scholar leader charged with increasing faculty research productivity. Then several years later, a financial downturn threatens the college’s existence. On the one hand, the dean must model desired behavior by maintaining a research agenda, publishing work, and procuring research grants. On the other, he/she must become a fundraiser and political advocate. Although not mutually exclusive, these skill sets are not natural bedfellows. Very likely, this dean’s skills and mind set no longer match the needs of college. Time management, operational management, and leadership itself jolt the uninitiated. Mary Catherine Bateson once commented, “Being a new dean is like learning to ice skate in full view of your faculty.” And it’s true. Going it alone makes the ice slipperier and the falls more painful. Working harder does not necessarily improve time management but it does wear deans out faster. The results – high turnover, burn out, and low productivity – cost too much in terms of people, time, and money.
The Importance of Leadership A veteran dean described his job as part entrepreneur, part fundraiser, part marketer, part seasoned administrator. Indeed, change places deans in the position of managing tension between various factions of the institution and college while at the same time keeping the organization focused on its mission and goals. Success demands they build collaborative partnerships with their faculties, other administrators, and college stakeholders. Better deans do so by maintaining an academic mentality on the one hand and embracing a business orientation on the other. They look for creative ways to organize the work of the college. If budgets permit, a cadre of associate and assistant deans emerges to carry part of the load. A codeanship, where two or more faculty share an office and split the work and stipend, but speak with one voice, represents a more unconventional approach to managing and leading a college. Such an arrangement often
Academic Dishonesty
allows deans to continue pursuing their research agendas. The prime charge given to deans is to create college cultures conducive to collegiality and productivity. To do so successfully requires imagination, creativity, and stamina. Every situation in which deans find themselves requires leadership. The most effective deans balance leadership and management, slightly favoring leadership. They think broadly, foster creativity, and promote innovation. They communicate, and they do it often. They make the tough decisions but do so impartially. As one dean noted, “Almost nothing buys more good will than people knowing your going to be fair, objective, and evenhanded.” In essence, deans build communities of scholars, set their direction, and empower others to help fulfill their potential. Not a simple task, but one crucial to institutional well-being.
Author’s Note on Institution Type and Location and Available Resources I use the word institution as an inclusive term. Although the experiences of academic deans who serve in 2-year colleges, liberal arts colleges, technical institutes, comprehensive universities that do not offer doctoral programs, and research universities can differ, the majority of their responsibilities and the challenges they face are similar. The same caveat holds across countries. Even though priorities and organizational structures might vary, successfully navigating the terrain any academic dean treads requires familiarity with the entire array of tasks mentioned herein. For academic deans, no matter the institution type or country, the charge remains the same – facilitate faculty productivity and ensure student learning. Not a great deal of literature on academic deans exists. Much of what does tends toward personal, anecdotal accounts, or discipline-specific research studies (i.e., deans of schools of medicine or nursing). Further, very little international literature exists.
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In an effort to provide resources for those interested in learning more about academic deans, I have included research-based studies as well as practice-based instructional tools.
References The following three books and one article offer practical guidance and information about what deans do and how they can work to be effective. Behling, L.L. 2014. The resource handbook for academic deans. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Buller, J.L. 2015. The essential academic dean or provost: A comprehensive desk reference. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. June, A. W. 2014. To change a campus, talk to the dean. The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, XLI(13), A18–A21. Krahenbuhl, G.S. 2004. Building the academic deanship: Strategies for success. Westport: ACE/Praeger Publishers. The three pieces listed below, two books and one article, report the results of the most comprehensive study of academic deans to date (over 1300 deans – education, business, liberal arts and science, and allied health – at 360, four-year USA institutions were surveyed with a 60% response rate. The study was replicated in Australia with similar results but not extensively reported. Montez, J., M. Wolverton, and W.H. Gmelch. 2003. The roles and challenges of the deanship. Review of Higher Education 26 (2): 243–268. Wolverton, M., and W.H. Gmelch. 2002. College deans: Leading from within. Phoenix: Oryx Press/Greenwood Publishing. Wolverton, M, Gmelch, W. H., Montez, J. & Nies, C. (2001). The changing nature of the academic deanship, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 28(1). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Academic Department, Institute ▶ Graduate Education Developments in an International Context
Academic Dishonesty ▶ Corruption in Higher Education
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Academic Drift ▶ Institutional Drift in Higher Education
Academic Evaluation in Higher Education Julian Hamann1 and Stefan Beljean2 1 Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany 2 Department of Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Synonyms Academic judgment; Assessment; Peer review
Definition Academic evaluation is a social process taking place in different arenas in which values, worths, virtues, or meanings are produced, diffused, assessed, legitimated, or institutionalized with respect to academic products and their producers.
Academic Drift
academic fields. Modern academic disciplines are fundamentally status economies. They revolve around the construction and stabilization of recognition via symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1988). Scholars produce knowledge in the pursuit of recognition from their peers, and recognition, in turn, is the basis for the construction of academic careers. Thus, as a process that ascribes worth, evaluation is also a boundary practice that negotiates, for example, disciplinary turfs, and signals which scholars and ideas are integrated into or excluded from a field (Gieryn 1983; Lamont and Molnár 2002). While the study of evaluation processes in academia has traditionally been the purview of the sociology of science (cf. Merton 1973), it is increasingly studied using analytical tools from the nascent field of the sociology of evaluation and valuation (Lamont 2012; Zuckerman 2012). In this article, we first map out the diversity of academic evaluations, before discussing different analytical perspectives that scholars have drawn on to study evaluation processes in academia. In a fourth section, we discuss scholarship that has pointed to variation in scholarly evaluations across disciplines. Lastly, we put to changes in the social organization of academic evaluation that are the result of recent changes in the governance of academic work as well as technological changes.
Introduction The world of academia is permeated with evaluations. Academic processes of evaluation play a central role in both the production and reception of scholarly work as well as for the status of academic entities like scholars, departments, or universities. Some of these evaluations are largely informal, taking place, for example, in smallgroup interactions. But there is also a wide array of evaluations in academia that are fairly formalized, such as letters of recommendation and peer reviews of journal manuscripts. Rankings of universities according to research performance are among the most standardized forms of evaluation. Evaluation has a central place in academia because of the crucial role recognition plays in
Academic Evaluation: A Variety of Practices and Arenas Academic evaluation aims at a variety of objects, it is accomplished through a multitude of practices, and it is performed by different actors. Considering this diversity, it is striking that we can identify a number of forms and arenas of evaluation that exist across communities and disciplines. All academic communities and disciplines are affected by higher education governance regimes that try to assess and audit the output of departments and universities in terms of research performance and societal impact (Martin 2011). Although this kind of evaluation is becoming increasingly influential in many countries, it is
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not typically the center of attention of scholarship on academic evaluation. We will discuss some of the effects of this systematic, policy-oriented evaluation toward the end of our article. But then of course, scholars are not only evaluated from the outside. Positioning discourses across all disciplines locate and anchor scholars in knowledgebased communities as well as in bureaucratic positions in institutions (Angermuller 2013), thereby straddling different logics of academic worlds. The ascription of values and worth in academia largely operates through peer review. This is evident across a number of different institutionalized arenas of evaluation. Among these arenas are, for example, funding panels. Not only do funding panels exist in all disciplines, often enough several disciplines are congregated in one panel. In order to evaluate proposals for fellowships and research grants (Lamont 2009), they rank submissions according to criteria of excellence, thus facing the challenge of agreeing on what criteria like “clarity,” “originality,” or “impact” actually mean (cf. Derrick and Samuel 2016). Furthermore, there are different arenas in which publications are evaluated. Before publication, editors assess manuscripts for their journals (cf. the overview by Meruane et al. 2016). Editorial judgments can be understood as a result of the intellectual milieus the editors are situated in, the impressions the editors gained by reading a manuscript, and the discussions in which they rationalize their judgments toward the editorial committee (Hirschauer 2010). After publication, editors judge articles in case of minor and major errors that need to be met with errata or retractions (Hesselmann et al. 2016), while book reviews provide a critical assessment of newly published books (Riley and Spreitzer 1970). They examine whether books contribute new knowledge to the field, thus providing an important source of orientation in the face of an everincreasing stock of academic publications (Nicolaisen 2002). Although funding and publications are vital resources in all communities and disciplines, evaluative practices and arenas go far beyond that. Appointments of professors, for example, are a consequential arena of academic evaluation where
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national traditions (Musselin 2009) influence how different academic criteria like networks and publications (Combes et al. 2008) intertwine with various non-academic criteria like gender (van den Brink and Benschop 2012). Academic obituaries are another example for a widely neglected arena of evaluation that consecrates deceased colleagues and demonstrates the customary rules according to which academic life-time achievements are narrated and assessed (Hamann 2016a; Macfarlane and Chan 2014). Last but not least, processes of evaluation also play a crucial role in the very production of scholarly knowledge. While philosophers of science have developed varying accounts of how scientific knowledge is produced and evolves – whether describing an incremental progression toward objective knowledge (Popper 1972), a conservative authority that prevents change (Feyerabend 1975), or a mediator for interchanging stages of revolutionary and normal science (Kuhn 1962) – their theories all acknowledge that scientific inquiry is centrally dependent on the evaluation of epistemic claims. This notion of an intimate connection between evaluation and epistemology has also been confirmed and highlighted by science studies of actual scientific practices (Knorr Cetina 1999; Latour 1988).
Analytical Perspectives on Academic Evaluation Existing scholarship has examined academic evaluation from a number of analytical perspectives. These perspectives are far from distinct and mutually exclusive, but we want to suggest five tentative strands. First, academic evaluations can be examined from a functionalist perspective, focusing on how well evaluative procedures serve their purposes. Research using this perspective examines, among other things, the validity, reliability, and fairness of judgments (Armstrong 1997; Bornmann and Daniel 2005; Reinhart 2009) and studies possible biases (Cole et al. 1981; Roumbanis 2016). Power-analytical approaches complement functionalist approaches with a second perspective on academic evaluation. This
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perspective focuses on dysfunctional effects in terms of structural inequalities like, for example, nepotism in peer review (Sandström and Hällsten 2008) or unequal opportunities of resource accumulation that follow from it (Hamann 2016b). The critical intention of this literature is shared by a third perspective that is concerned with the performativity of evaluations and evaluative devices. Scholarship using this analytical perspective has drawn attention to how journal peer review exerts discipline over scholarship (Siler and Strang 2016; Strang and Siler 2015; Teplitskiy 2016), how rankings trigger organizational change (Sauder and Espeland 2009), or how indicators incite strategic behavior or lead to goal displacement (see the overview in de Rijcke et al. 2015). Fourth, academic evaluations have been studied from a social-constructivist perspective, emphasizing that ideas and personas can be positioned and evaluated differently in various social and historical contexts (Angermuller 2015; Baert 2012). This has been illustrated for conceptions of merit and originality (Guetzkow et al. 2004; Tsay et al. 2003), for philosophical ideas (Collins 2000), or for thinkers like Jacques Derrida (Lamont 1987) and Richard Rorty (Gross 2008). Related to this, and fifth, there is a pragmatist perspective on academic evaluation that focuses on the practices reviewers perform to actually reach a consensus on, for example, “quality” (Hirschauer 2010; Lamont 2009). Pragmatist perspectives emphasize the situatedness of evaluative practices, highlighting that evaluations are accomplished in concrete contexts and interactions. However, academic communities and disciplines are also important explanatory factors for evaluative practices. This brings us to the next section.
Disciplinarity and Academic Evaluation While above we have discussed how most forms and arenas of academic evaluation are institutionalized across all disciplines, we want to emphasize in this section that the criteria of evaluation can differ substantially between and within scholarly communities. We will discuss, first,
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intradisciplinary aspects of evaluation criteria within disciplines; second, interdisciplinary aspects of evaluation criteria between disciplines; and third, transdisciplinary aspects of evaluation criteria across disciplines. To begin with, academic communities and disciplines vary on an intradisciplinary spectrum with respect to their internal diversity of evaluation criteria. Members of a discipline can widely agree on the core questions, methods, and theories, or they can be characterized by a plurality of notions of what is relevant, “good” research. Usually, this continuum spans from the natural sciences, where scholars share most evaluation criteria, over the less paradigmatic social sciences to the even less consensual humanities (Cole 1983; Evans et al. 2016). The degree to which disciplines share evaluation criteria has become a marker for their value. From Kuhn (1962), who remarkably equals paradigmatic closure with a discipline’s maturity, has evolved a powerful symbolic boundary that distinguishes “hard,” paradigmatic, and thus more “valuable” sciences from “soft,” pre-paradigmatic, and thus less “valuable” sciences (Peterson 2015; Smith et al. 2000). The paradigmaticness and scholarly consensus on evaluation criteria can, in turn, influence journal rejection rates (Hargens 1988). The diversity of interdisciplinary evaluation criteria, and especially their contestation between different communities and disciplines, has been studied for the social sciences and humanities. One important difference between the two disciplinary clusters is the value of subjectivity in the pursuit of knowledge. Humanists and those social scientists that are influenced by the cultural turn find subjectivity and interpretative skills to be vital for research that is “good” in terms of being, for example, “fascinating.” Many social scientists, especially in the quantitative strands, prefer validity and reliability in order to produce research that is “good” in terms of being “true” (Lamont 2009). This finding applies not only to the funding panels studied by Lamont but also, for example, to book reviews. Reviews in most humanities and social science disciplines have been found to be not only longer and more discursive than in the natural sciences but also to
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be critical of both content and style of argument e.g., by valuing the quality and detail of exposition over demonstration and proof (East 2011; Hyland 2004). Furthermore, interdisciplinary differences also become apparent in graduate school admission committees, where economists believe that excellence inheres in what is being evaluated, while philosophers see it as an ideal that reviewers socially construct (Posselt 2015). Transdisciplinary differences are illustrated, for example, by varying definitions of the evaluative criteria of “originality” between social sciences and humanities. Both disciplinary clusters employ a broad definition of “originality” that includes new perspectives, methods, questions, and arguments. But there are significant differences between the disciplinary clusters. In humanities and history, the most important aspect of originality is an innovative approach, while humanists also value original data. In comparison, social scientists privilege originality with respect to methods and also theories and research topics (Guetzkow et al. 2004). Arguably, intra-, inter-, and transdisciplinary differences are linked to distinct epistemological cultures (Knorr Cetina 1981), tribal affiliations and belongings (Becher and Trowler 2001), and disciplinary rhetoric (Bazerman 1981). Arenas of evaluation that have to deal with this pluralism illustrate not only the challenges that come with this but also strategies to overcome them. For instance, interdisciplinary panels do not merely draw on a combination of disciplinary criteria. Rather, hybrid criteria and standards emerge from practices and deliberations between evaluators (Lamont 2009). Transdisciplinary evaluation is characterized by respect for disciplinary sovereignty and deference to expertise. The respective arenas rely on trust between reviewers of different expertise that their respective judgments are unbiased and disinterested (Lamont et al. 2006). Procedures that are supposed to facilitate outcomes perceived as fair include either the application of the same set of general evaluation criteria to different, say, proposals (cf. Collins and Evans 2002) or the application of criteria that seem appropriate to each proposal in terms of being most relevant to the discipline from which the proposal emanates
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(Mallard et al. 2009). In turn, an obstacle for fair judgments could be that evaluations also have a boundary function. Evaluators use their judgments to reproduce or redefine the boundaries of their respective fields (Posselt 2016). Evaluative practices that establish fair judgments are not only influenced by the disciplinary composition of panels. Other questions that have an influence include, for example, whether panelists rate or rank proposals or whether they have an advisory or a decisional role (Lamont and Huutoniemi 2011). Apart from the rather deliberative strategies described up to this point, there are also more comprehensive strategies to conceptualize and measure academic quality and research performance by drawing on quantitative techniques. These approaches are increasingly mindful of disciplinary differences. Nonetheless, since criteria for “good” research and publication practices vary markedly across communities and disciplines, quantitative techniques have been proven to be less appropriate – and less acknowledged – in the social sciences and humanities (Mustajoki 2013; Ochsner et al. 2016). For example, customary methods of research performance evaluation are not appropriate for the humanities (Moed et al. 2002; Nederhof 2006). Alternative metrics, based on data from the social web and designed to assess non-academic criteria like popularity or media impact, share these limitations (Hammarfelt 2014). While the academic literature on research quality and performance assessments is distinctly aware of these restrictions, higher education policies do not always share this insight. Most large-scale audits famously ignore and overlook disciplinary differences. We discuss their attempts of academic evaluation in the following section.
Recent Developments in the Organization of Academic Evaluation The linchpin of academic evaluation has long rested on the notion of academic autonomy and self-governance (Whitley 1984). According to this idea, the work of academics is first and foremost evaluated by other scholars. Thus, the
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primary form of recognition that counts in the world of academia is peer recognition. This is echoed not only in the more classical literature from Popper to Bourdieu that we have cited throughout this contribution. The vital role of peer recognition is also reflected by the central role that peer review has in academic disciplines, whether it is deployed for the distribution of research grants, the allocation of journal space, or the determination of winners of scholarly prizes and awards. In the last 10–20 years, however, there has been a series of developments that have weakened the relative autonomy of academic fields and that have added new dominant evaluative procedures and institutions. The most important factor contributing to this trend has probably been the rise of new public management, changing how higher education and its members are governed in many countries across the globe. The main thrust of this new form of governance has been to reduce government funding and introduce more market-like competition in higher education (e.g., for the case of the United Kingdom, see Deem et al. 2008). Additionally, new public management initiatives have also sought to increase the accountability of universities and its members (Strathern 2000). These developments have gone hand in hand with a stronger emphasis on external standards of evaluation in the assessment of scholarly work. One important example is the rise of rankings of academic departments and entire universities, promoted by both media corporations and government agencies (Collins and Park 2016; Espeland and Sauder 2016; Hazelkorn 2014). Another central concomitant has been the growing reliance on quantitative indicators to measure and track scholarly productivity and quality (Burrows 2012; de Rijcke et al. 2015). Taking the form of bibliometrics and citation indexes, these indicators have rapidly diffused into the scientific community, particularly the natural sciences, in part due to changes in the capability of information technology. Research shows that the growing reliance on such indicators has had a host of feedback effects on the content and organization of scholarship (Fochler et al. 2016; Hamann 2016b). While many scholars have been very critical of
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indicators, arguing that they render academic evaluation more mechanical and numerical (Lorenz 2012), new evaluative procedures and institutions seem to have become an established part of the wide range of academic evaluations.
Cross-References ▶ Admissions Processes to Higher Education, International Insights ▶ Evaluative State, Higher Education, The ▶ Peer Review, Higher Education ▶ Performance Indicators in Higher Education ▶ Recruitment of Academics ▶ Values and Beliefs in Higher Education
References Angermuller, Johannes. 2013. How to become an academic philosopher. Academic discourse as multileveled positioning practice. Sociología Histórica 2013: 263–289. Angermuller, Johannes. 2015. The moment of theory. The rise and decline of structuralism in France and beyond. London: Continuum. Armstrong, J. Scott. 1997. Peer review for journals: Evidence on quality control, fairness, and innovation. Science and Engineering Ethics 3: 63–84. Baert, Patrick. 2012. Positioning theory and intellectual interventions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 42: 304–324. Bazerman, Charles. 1981. What written knowledge does: Three examples of academic discourse. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11: 361–388. Becher, Tony, and Paul Trowler. 2001. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Bornmann, Lutz, and Hans-Dieter Daniel. 2005. Selection of research fellowship recipients by committee peer review: Analysis of reliability, fairness and predictive validity of Board of Trustees’ decisions. Scientometrics 63: 297–320. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1988. Homo Academicus. Cambridge: Polity Press. van den Brink, Marieke, and Yvonne Benschop. 2012. Gender practices in the construction of academic excellence: Sheep with five legs. Organization 19: 507–524. Burrows, Roger. 2012. Living with the h-index? Metric assemblages in the contemporary academy. The Sociological Review 60: 355–372. Cole, Stephen. 1983. The hierarchy of the sciences? American Journal of Sociology 89: 111–139.
Academic Evaluation in Higher Education Cole, Stephen, Jonathan R. Cole, and Gary A. Simon. 1981. Chance and consensus in peer review. Science 214: 881–886. Collins, Randall. 2000. The sociology of philosophies: A global theory of intellectual change. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Collins, Harry H., and Robert Evans. 2002. The third wave of science studies: Studies of expertise and experience. Social Studies of Science 32: 235–296. Collins, Francis L., and Gil-Sung Park. 2016. Ranking and the multiplication of reputation: Reflections from the frontier of globalizing higher education. Higher Education 72: 115–129. Combes, Pierre-Philippe, Laurent Linnemer, and Michael Visser. 2008. Publish or peer-rich? The role of skills and networks in hiring economics professors. Labour Economics 15: 423–441. Deem, Rosemary, Sam Hillyard, and Mike Reed. 2008. Knowledge, higher education, and the new managerialism: The changing management of UK universities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Derrick, Gemma E., and Gabrielle N. Samuel. 2016. The evaluation scale: Exploring decisions about societal impact in peer review panels. Minerva 54: 75–97. East, John W. 2011. The scholarly book review in the humanities. An academic cinderella? Journal of Scholarly Publishing 43: 52–67. Espeland, Wendy N., and Michael Sauder. 2016. Engines of anxiety. Rankings, reputation, and accountability in a quantified world. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Evans, Eliza D., Charles J. Gomez, and Daniel A. McFarland. 2016. Measuring paradigmaticness of disciplines using text. Sociological Science 2016: 757–778. Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against method: Outline of an anarchist theory of knowledge. New York: New Left Books. Fochler, Maximilian, Ulrike Felt, and Ruth Müller. 2016. Unsustainable growth, hyper-competition, and worth in life science research: Narrowing evaluative repertoires in doctoral and postdoctoral scientists’ work and lives. Minerva 54: 175–200. Gieryn, Thomas F. 1983. Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review 48: 781–795. Gross, Neil. 2008. Richard Rorty: The making of an American philosopher. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Guetzkow, Joshua, Michèle Lamont, and Grégoire Mallard. 2004. What is originality in the humanities and the social sciences? American Sociological Review 69: 190–212. Hamann, Julian. 2016a. ‘Let us salute one of our kind’. How academic obituaries consecrate research biographies. Poetics 56: 1–14. Hamann, Julian. 2016b. The visible hand of research performance assessment. Higher Education 72: 761–779. Hammarfelt, Björn. 2014. Using altmetrics for assessing research impact in the humanities. Scientometrics 101: 1419–1430.
33 Hargens, Lowell L. 1988. Scholarly consensus and journal rejection rates. American Sociological Review 53: 139–151. Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2014. Rankings and the global reputation race. New Directions for Higher Education 2014: 13–26. Hesselmann, Felicitas, Verena Graf, Marion Schmidt, and Martin Reinhart. 2016. The visibility of scientific misconduct: A review of the literature on retracted journal articles. Current Sociology online first: 1–32. Hirschauer, Stefan. 2010. Editorial judgements: A praxeology of ‘voting’ in peer review. Social Studies of Science 40: 71–103. Hyland, Ken. 2004. Disciplinary discourses. Social interactions in academic writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 1981. The manufacture of knowledge. An essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Knorr Cetina, Karin. 1999. Epistemic cultures. How the sciences make knowledge. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lamont, Michèle. 1987. How to become a dominant French philosopher: The case of Jacques Derrida. The American Journal of Sociology 93: 584–622. Lamont, Michèle. 2009. How professors think. Inside the curious world of academic judgement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lamont, Michèle. 2012. Toward a comparative sociology of valuation and evaluation. Annual Review of Sociology 38: 201–221. Lamont, Michèle, and Katri Huutoniemi. 2011. Comparing customary rules of fairness: Evaluative practices in various types of peer review panels. In Social knowledge in the making, ed. Charles Camic, Neil Gross, and Michèle Lamont, 209–232. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lamont, Michèle, and Virág Molnár. 2002. The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 167–195. Lamont, Michèle, Grégoire Mallard, and Joshua Guetzkow. 2006. Beyond blind faith: Overcoming the obstacles to interdisciplinary evaluation. Research Evaluation 15: 43–55. Latour, Bruno. 1988. Science in action. How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Lorenz, Chris. 2012. If you’re so smart, why are you under surveillance? Universities, neoliberalism, and new public management. Critical Inquiry 38: 599–629. Macfarlane, Bruce, and Roy Y. Chan. 2014. The last judgement: Exploring intellectual leadership in higher education through academic obituaries. Studies in Higher Education 39: 294–306. Mallard, Grégoire, Michèle Lamont, and Joshua Guetzkow. 2009. Fairness as appropriateness: Negotiating epistemological differences in peer review. Science, Technology, and Human Values 34: 573–606.
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34 Martin, Ben R. 2011. The research excellence framework and the ‘impact agenda’: Are we creating a Frankenstein monster? Research Evaluation 20: 247–254. Merton, Robert K. 1973. The sociology of science. Theoretical and empirical investigations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meruane, Omar Sabaj, Carlos Gonzáles Vergara, and Álvaro Pina-Stranger. 2016. What we still don’t know about peer review. Journal of Scholarly Publishing 47: 180–212. Moed, Henk F., Marc Luwel, and Anton J. Nederhof. 2002. Towards research performance in the humanities. Library Trends 50: 498–520. Musselin, Christine. 2009. The market for academics. New York: Routledge. Mustajoki, Arto. 2013. Measuring excellence in social sciences and humanities: Limitations and opportunities. In Global university rankings. Challenges for European higher education, ed. Tero Erkkilä, 147–165. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Nederhof, Anton J. 2006. Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in the social sciences and the humanities: A review. Scientometrics 66: 81–100. Nicolaisen, Jeppe. 2002. The scholarliness of published peer reviews: A bibliometric study of book reviews in selected social science fields. Research Evaluation 11: 129–140. Ochsner, Michael, Sven E. Hug, and Hans-Dieter Daniel, eds. 2016. Research assessment in the humanities. Towards criteria and procedures. Dordrecht: Springer. Peterson, David. 2015. All that is solid. Bench-building at the frontiers of two experimental sciences. American Sociological Review 80: 1201–1225. Popper, Karl R. 1972. Objective knowledge. An evolutionary approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Posselt, Julie R. 2015. Disciplinary logics in doctoral admissions: Understanding patterns of faculty evaluation. The Journal of Higher Education 86: 807–833. Posselt, Julie R. 2016. Inside graduate admissions. Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Reinhart, Martin. 2009. Peer review of grant applications in biology and medicine: Reliability, fairness, and validity. Scientometrics 81: 789–909. de Rijcke, Sarah, Paul Wouters, Alex D. Rushforth, Thomas P. Franssen, and Björn Hammarfelt. 2015. Evaluation practices and effects of indicator use – A literature review. Research Evaluation 25: 161–169. Riley, Lawrence E., and Elmer A. Spreitzer. 1970. Book reviewing in the social sciences. The American Sociologist 5: 358–363. Roumbanis, Lambros. 2016. Academic judgments under uncertainty: A study of collective anchoring effects in Swedish Research Council panel groups. Social Studies of Science, online first. Sandström, Ulf, and Martin Hällsten. 2008. Persistent nepotism in peer-review. Scientometrics 74: 175–189.
Academic Excellence Tables Sauder, Michael, and Wendy N. Espeland. 2009. The Discipline of rankings: Tight coupling and organizational change. American Sociological Review 74: 63–82. Siler, Kyle, and David Strang. 2016. Peer review and scholarly originality. Let 1,000 flowers bloom, but don’t step on any. Science, Technology, and Human Values 42: 29–61. Smith, Laurence D., Lisa A. Best, Alan D. Stubbs, John Johnston, and Andrea B. Archibald. 2000. Scientific graphs and the hierarchy of the sciences: A Latourian survey of inscription practices. Social Studies of Science 30: 73–94. Strang, David, and Kyle Siler. 2015. Revising as reframing. Original submissions versus published papers in administrative science quarterly, 2005 to 2009. Sociological Theory 33: 71–96. Strathern, Marilyn. 2000. The tyranny of transparency. British Educational Research Journal 26: 309–321. Teplitskiy, Misha. 2016. Frame search and re-search: How quantitative sociological articles change during peer review. The American Sociologist 47: 264–288. Tsay, Angela, Michèle Lamont, Andrew Abbott, and Joshua Guetzkow. 2003. From character to intellect: Changing conceptions of merit in the social sciences and humanities, 1951–1971. Poetics 2003: 23–49. Whitley, Richard D. 1984. The intellectual and social organization of the sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zuckerman, Ezra W. 2012. Construction, concentration, and (dis)continuities in social valuations. Annual Review of Sociology 38: 223–245.
Academic Excellence Tables ▶ University Rankings, National and International Dynamics
Academic Freedom ▶ Academic Identity in Higher Education
Academic Goals ▶ Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education
Academic Identity in Higher Education
Academic Identity in Higher Education Jonathan Drennan1, Marie Clarke2, Abbey Hyde2 and Yurgos Politis2 1 University College Cork, Cork, Ireland 2 University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
General Definition Traditionally associated with academic freedom, academic identity is today defined as lying at the crossroad of individual life course experiences and higher education specific contexts, and thus as an increasingly plural identity.
Synonyms Academic freedom; Academic professional development, socialization, education; Academic roles
Defining Academic Identity Definitions of academic identity in higher education are limited with a relative paucity of research in this area (Clarke et al. 2014). Those definitions that do exist tend to explore concepts related to professional identity in general rather than exploring academic identity in higher education. For example, Sachs (2001: 153) states that professional identity refers to “a set of externally ascribed attributes that are used to differentiate one group from another. . . It provides a shared set of attributes, values and so on so that enable the differentiation of one group from another.” In a review of the literature, Trede et al. (2012) identified a number of terms associated with academic and professional identity in higher education including: professional development, professional socialization, professional education, professional formation, and professional learning.
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When exploring academic identity in particular, there are a number of core concepts that emerge, including: collegiality, academic freedom, autonomy, professional self-regulation, values, and behavioral patterns (Clegg 2008; Winter 2009). However, there is a sense that many of these core concepts are evolving, changing, and, in some cases, being eroded from the discourse around academic identities due to the increasing scrutiny of the role and function of academics in today’s higher education system (Billot 2010; Clancy 2015). In particular, academic freedom as a core concept of academic identity has, it is argued, become increasingly eroded as organizational and governmental economic priorities predominate (Billot 2010). However, as academic roles continue to change, evolve, and expand, the question of academic identity is more to the fore than ever before especially in the context of continual change and the centrality of competitiveness within the higher education sector. In addition, a recent definition of identity in higher education conceptualizes the complexity of contexts which lead to the development of an academic identity and defines it as: A dynamic construct, as one’s individual identity emerges from a personal, ethnic and national context, but it is also socially constructed over time . . . In the context of academe, the individual develops their sense of ‘academic self’ through their imaginings of what comprises ‘the academic’, their past experiences and their understanding of the current circumstances (Billot 2010: 4).
The Context of Academic Identity To understand academic identity there is a need to discuss the rapid changes and complexity that exists in higher education systems, including the rapid growth from elite to universal participation in higher education, the changing profile of students (age, social group, income), changes in the working conditions of academics (short-term contracts, career pathways, promotional opportunities), the evolvement of the modular curriculum, the increasing vocationalism of academic
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programs, and the impact of managerialism on academic lives and work (Nixon 1996; Henkel 2005; Clegg, 2008; Winter 2009; Clarke et al. 2014). As higher education is increasingly viewed by governments as being more and more important to the economic growth of society, academics are increasingly being forced to reconfigure their roles and identity and as Henkel (2005: 195) states: There were strong pressures on academic communities and institutions not only to change their cultures and structures to enable them to manage the new policy environment but also to review their assumptions about roles, relationships and boundaries in that environment.
At the macro level, it is increasingly being argued that policies set by national governments, not least the setting of research priorities for the achievement of economic goals, has reduced the strength of academic autonomy and resulted in the need to develop programs of “applied” rather than “basic” research with income generation becoming a principal driving force behind research outputs (Henkel 2005). In addition, academics are increasingly evaluated in terms of outputs and performance; tenure, promotion, and pay progression are becoming dependent on the successful achievement of these outcomes (Lamont and Nordberg 2014). Although referring to the teaching profession, Sachs (2001: 151) outlines many parallel with higher education educators and researchers where the influence of state mandated goals is leading to the development and increasing influence of “managerial professionalism.” Managerial professionalism results in the requirement that academics are accountable and are required to develop an economic outlook in terms of their work; this is viewed as a new managerialism approach to academic work. New managerialism equates to the axiom: that which works in the private sector should also work in the public sector (Sachs 2001; Whitchurch and Gordon 2010). This is evident in the changing role of head of school or dean which has moved from one of being a senior colleague to one where the integration of managerial and market principles in their work predominate (Sachs 2001). The impact of
new managerialism in higher education has led to a restructuring and realignment of the professional identify of academics within the system. Winter (2009: 121) writes that this new managerialism has led to an “identity schism” between academic managers and the managed, which results in an incompatibility between the goals of each group. This identity schism, Winter argues, is portrayed in managers highlighting the centrality of commercialization, income generation, and productivity whereas academics identify with the importance of collegiality, research, and education. The introduction of managerialism, it is claimed, has also resulted in the increased control of academic work, a shifting of power from the academic to the manager, and a clear delineation of management and academic activities (Whitchurch and Gordon 2010). There is also continuing tension between the notion of academic freedom and economic pressures instigated by the higher education organization; this can be seen, as Billot (2010) highlights, in academics’ emphasis on student learning as opposed to the organization’s stress on student numbers. There is common ground in stating that higher education is in crisis, and this crisis affects the central actors in the system: the academic profession (Nixon 1996). This crisis has impacted on the working conditions of academics and the ever evolving roles and professionalization of academic work has led the profession to not only change its identity but to fundamentally question it. This questioning has led to a vulnerability of the position of academics not only in respect of tenure but also the role of academics in wider society; this is occurring in the context of public confidence rapidly declining in the traditional stalwarts of society such as politics, the church, banking, and the judiciary to name but a few. The result of these challenges is that a new set of professional and academic values and identities are emerging. While it is argued that academics can still largely control their work (teaching and research), control is increasingly becoming diminished in terms of student recruitment and research topics, which are increasingly being determined by the state and the market (Nixon 1996).
Academic Identity in Higher Education
The Development of Academic Identity The development of an academic identity is an iterative process where identity in higher education develops as a consequence of an academic’s interaction with their environment; in effect, “identity is not a fixed attribute of a person, but a relational phenomenon” (Beijaard et al. 2004: 108). Therefore, the mercurial nature of academic identities is “an on-going process of identity construction and deconstruction” due to the complexity of roles and the intellectual nature of academic work (Fitzmaurice 2013: 614). The development of academic identity is influenced by a multitude of factors, including: “personal attributes, early socialisation experiences, and contextual factors at both doctoral and initial career level” (Clarke et al. 2014; 18). It has been argued, however, that whatever academic identity existed has now been eroded due to the introduction of short-term contracts, the pressure to monetize academic outputs, the increasing influence of higher education professionals (HEPROs – management roles held in the university, usually, by nonacademics), and a loss of self-regulation. These pressures in turn have, it is argued, resulted in an undermining and loss of academic autonomy and status (Nixon 1996; Clegg 2008). In addition, the increasing influence of HEPROS has led to minimizing of the roles of academics as this cohort take over and professionalize roles previously in the domain of academics such as academic administration, educational technology, research support, and commercialization. These new roles are impacting on the traditional identities of academic staff related to teaching and research; however, even here there are tensions. Furthermore, values related to academic identity have changed considerably over the last 20 years, where, it is argued, that these traditional principles, such as academic freedom, no longer apply (Harris 2005), are under threat (Henkel 2005), and the professoriate has, if anything, become deskilled (Cote and Allahar 2007). This is seen in the extent to which marketization and monetization in particular have resulted in a reframing of academic identities due the corporate identity of the institution superseding the academic identity of the individual
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with claims that there is increasing blurring between these two identities (Harris 2005). Consumerism, marketization, student massification, and internationalization are themes that arise when discussing academic identity; the emerging consensus is that these pressures are fundamentally altering the identity of academics. The internationalization of the higher education sector has no doubt added benefits to the sector in terms of cultural development and understanding; however, this has not been without challenges not least in terms of realigning teaching and research strategies, increased international travel, overseas campuses, and international student recruitment; all factors that impact on traditional views of academic identity (Harris 2005). The identity of the academics has also been impacted upon by the rise of the evaluative state (Clancy 2015); this has resulted in increasing scrutiny and regulation of the work of academics leading to a loss of autonomy and academic freedom, previously the cornerstones of academic identity (Harris 2005). In the UK, these are evidenced in the centrality of Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the life of academics. However, the extent to which research evaluative policies have impacted on academic identity is, it is argued, debateable (Harris 2005).
Academic Identity Academic identity begins to develop as the individual transitions and is inducted into the academy; this process is influenced by both disciplinary and institutional factors (Billot and King 2017). The development of academic identity within a discipline is viewed as a process of “reconciliation” and “negotiation” (Gardner and Wiley 2016) where group norms and dynamics are developed through participation. This process involves “developing the knowledge, skills and values of the group, community or profession that one is participating in which are common to other members of the same group or community, but likely to be different to the knowledge, skills, and values of other groups/communities” (Gardner and Wiley 2016: 4). Although the development
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of academic identity is primarily influenced by an academic’s discipline or subject, there are other factors including professional networks, research focus, faculty structure, and the extent to which academics view their roles as predominantly one of education or research (Clarke et al. 2014). There are a number of discourses that surround the types of academic identity that are evident among higher education staff. Central to the debate are the identities that relate to the academic as a teacher or the academic as a researcher. However, it is evident that these roles, to an extent, have become dichotomized with a premium value accorded to being a researcher; this has resulted in the eroding of the identity of the academic as a teacher. Nixon (1996: 8) argues that there is not a singular professional identity in academia but a “plurality of occupations,” which is characterized by academics whose roles are defined by “task”; this plurality results in academics with job uncertainty, resulting in short-term contracts for those who predominantly teach compared those who predominantly do research and work with graduate students resulting in the perception of having a higher status within the organization. In effect, there has been a division between academic teaching identity and academic research identity. Nixon (1996) underlines that academic identity as a teacher is rarely acknowledged with institutional awards such as pay and promotion reflecting success in research rather than education. This increasing dichotomy between teaching and research is leading to tensions in identity among increasingly partitioned groups. In contrast, it is argued that dichotomizing academic identity into either teaching and/or research does not take into account the increasing complexity of academic roles in the twenty-first century. Clarke et al. (2014) highlights this complexity and highlights that academic identity increasingly will be formed by working across boundaries that incorporate internal and external relationships as well as comprising both professional and academic domains. Advancing this argument, it is more likely that there will not be one or two types of academic identity but a multitude of disciplinary and institutional focused identities. This will be particularly seen in the emergence of nontraditional discipline focused
Academic Identity in Higher Education
educational programs; academics working in this space will develop “hybridized identities” (Clegg 2008: 341) as identity adjusts to meet new ways of working. In addition, the “ivory tower” of academia is becoming less obvious as boundaries between the university and government, the private sector, and the professions become less demarcated; this is resulting in greater movement in and out of the higher education sector and, as a consequence, new identities are emerging as ideas and processes are carried from non-university and university institutions and vice versa (Whitchurch and Gordon 2010). Furthermore, the process of being an academic is infused by multiple roles and, as Clegg (2008: 340) highlights, “academic identity is complex and . . . cannot . . . be read off from descriptions of mainly teaching, research, or management roles.” The fracturing of traditional academic identities has resulted in not only a diversity of academic roles between institutions but also a range of identities within organizations; as Harris (2005) points out, the discourse of targets, income, and outputs are ingrained in the daily life of academics. These roles lead to conflict between the values and beliefs of academics and the evaluative and monitoring requirements of the institution, especially when economic matters of the university take precedence. Harris (2005: 426) describes this as a tension between corporate identity and academic identity and states: “identities are influenced by individual values and beliefs as well as by institutional culture and positioning.” The role of academics in enhancing the corporate identity of the university has also led to considerable change in academic identity, not least in relation to the oft derided but carefully scrutinized and reported national and international higher education league tables. There are particular challenges in negotiating academic identity for early career academics. For newer academics, developing professional identity can be impacted upon through struggling with the demands of developing a profile in teaching and research. Billot and King (2017) found that these struggles could emanate from the variability in support received by new academics from more experienced colleagues. Where support and mentoring was forthcoming, it was found to
Academic Identity in Higher Education
“increase the sense of a collective research community”; however, this required a “cultural shift” in thinking with newer academic needs given priority to enable them to develop their teaching and research capabilities (p. 618). Newer academics are increasingly faced with casual contracts and uncertainty of long-term employment; the consequence of this is the inability to establish their identity in higher education and a lack of structure around their career pathway. Billot and King (2017: 619) argued that ineffective induction processes for academics beginning their research career pathway led to a “sense of isolation” and a “lack of confidence,” which negatively impacted on the development of an academic identity. They further argued that relationships with other experienced academics, in particular through mentoring, provides the early career academic with a place in the organization, and this helps them understand what it means to be an academic.
Conclusion In exploring academic identity in the twenty-first century, there is not just one identity but many which intersect, are temporary, and changing. Whitchurch and Gordon (2010) argue that the idea of fixed identities, for example, an identity related to either research or teaching, does not “do justice to the diversity and complexity of contemporary identities in higher education.” This is seen in the “separation and fragmentation of functions” that were once in the domain of academics and have necessitated the handing over to new roles and the diversification of roles and functions: Within a single institution, therefore, there may exist individuals who see themselves as having different academic or professional identities, and different concepts of, for instance, academic autonomy, what constitutes applied research, relationships with students and teaching methods (Whitchurch and Gordon 2010).
Furthermore, the complexity of academic identity goes beyond the roles and responsibilities outlined in academic job descriptions (Whitchurch 2009); what is occurring is a move away from fixed identities to the development of a
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“fluid identity” as academics cope with the continuous levels of complexity occurring in the higher education sector (Billot 2010). As Clegg (2008: 343) concluded: “rather than being under threat, it appears that identities in academia are expanding and proliferating.” Universities have a unique role in society and within these unique institutions academic identity is continuously evolving under both institutional and societal pressures. These pressures are multifaceted and are leading to a reframing of academic identity from the traditional dichotomous view of an academic as a researcher or educator to an identity which is fluid and evolving as new roles, disciplines, and ways of working emerge. There are a number of reasons why these reformed identities are emerging, not least due to the impact of new managerialism on ways of working and the impact of globalization, the move to student universality and the blurring of roles within the university sector. These new identities are complex, varied, and are continuing to emerge; however, these identities are being derived through the broad scope of scholarship and the development of connections and partnerships within, between, and without higher education. This reframing of identity can lead to tensions, contested spaces, and can result in identity conflict especially for early career academics and those in new disciplines. However, the now fluid nature of academic identity reflects the reality of academic lives and the extent to which academic work is reflective of the constant change in society.
References Beijaard, D., P. Meijer, and N. Verloop. 2004. Reconsidering research on teachers professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education 20: 107–128. Billot, J. 2010. The imagined and the real: Identifying the tensions for academic identity. Higher Education Research & Development 29 (6): 709–721. Billot, J., and V. King. 2017. The missing measure? Academic identity and the induction process, Higher Education Research & Development 36 (3): 612–624. Clancy, P. 2015. Irish higher education: A comparative perspective. Dublin: IPA. Clarke, M., J. Drennan, A. Hyde, and Y. Politis. 2014. Academics’ perceptions of their professional contexts. In Academic work and careers in
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40 Europe, ed. T. Fumasoli, G. Goastellec, and B. Kehm. London: Springer. Clegg, S. 2008. Academic identities under threat? British Educational Research Journal 34 (3): 329–345. Cote, J., and A. Allahar. 2007. Ivory tower blues: A university system in crisis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Fitzmaurice, M. 2013. Constructing professional identity as a new academic: A moral endeavour. Studies in Higher Education 38 (4): 613–622. Gardner, A., and K. Willey. 2016. Academic identity reconstruction: The transition of engineering academics to engineering education researchers. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03075079.2016.1162779. Harris, S. 2005. Rethinking academic identities in neoliberal times. Teaching in Higher Education 10 (4): 421–433. Henkel, M. 2005. Academic identity and autonomy in a changing policy environment. Higher Education 49: 155–176. Lamont, C., and D. Nordberg 2014. Becoming or unbecoming: Contested academic identities. Paper presented at the 28th Annual British Academy of Management Conference (BAM2014), Belfast, Northern Ireland. Retrieved from http://eprints.bournemouth. ac.uk/21215/1/Becoming_or_unbecoming_BAM_full. pdf. Nixon, J. 1996. Professional identity and the restructuring of higher education. Studies in Higher Education 21 (1): 5–16. Sachs, J. 2001. Teacher professional identity: Competing discourses, competing outcomes. Journal of Education Policy 16 (2): 149–161. Trede, F., R. Macklin, and D. Bridges. 2012. Professional identity development: A review of the higher education literature. Studies in Higher Education 37 (3): 365–384. Winter, R. 2009. Academic manager or managed academic? Academic identity schisms in higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 31 (2): 121–131. Whitchurch, C. 2009. Progressing professional careers in UK higher education. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education 13 (1): 3–10. Whitchurch, C., and G. Gordon. 2010. Diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education: Some management challenges. Tertiary Education and Management 16 (2): 129–144.
Academic Judgment
Academic Market Internationalization ▶ Internationalization of Higher Research and Careers, Europe
Education
Academic Migration ▶ International Academic Mobility in Asia
Academic Misconduct ▶ Corruption in Higher Education
Academic Mobility in Canada, the United States, and Mexico ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in North America
Academic Mobility, Inequities in Opportunity and Experience Santiago Castiello1 and Jenny Lee2 1 College of Education – Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 2 Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Synonyms
Academic Judgment ▶ Academic Evaluation in Higher Education
Globalization; Inequality; International students; Internationalization; Study abroad
Academic Mobility, Inequities in Opportunity and Experience
Definition In this chapter, “academic mobility” specifically refers to international study abroad. While “academic mobility” can encompass a broader range of international education activities and include faculty and staff, the focus of this chapter utilizes a more narrow definition to briefly exemplify ways that international higher education is not equal or neutral. Internationalization is not neutral. While the stated intentions about internationalization tend to incorporate values toward promoting goodwill for all, such as developing global citizenship and building diplomacy, the realities in an unequal world can be very different. The most common form of internationalization in higher education involves student mobility. In this chapter, we will address three key questions: How is the world “unequal” in terms of academic mobility? How is this a problem? What can/should we do about it?
An Unequal World for Academic Mobility There is currently a major imbalance in international student flows. In 2013, the number of international students enrolled in tertiary education in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries was, on average, three times the number of students from OECD countries studying abroad (OECD 2014). Over half of all the world’s internationally mobile students are enrolled in just a few countries; the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, together receive more than 50% of all international students worldwide (OECD 2014). Asia alone contributes over 50% of all internationally mobile students (OECD 2014). The reasons for these imbalances vary. For example, at the national level, some countries, such as the USA and the UK, view internationalization as an opportunity to recruit students from a much wider market who can contribute economically and scientifically to the host country (Cantwell and
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Lee 2010); for others, such as South Africa, attracting international students is a way to build national capacity and further regional development (Lee and Sehoole 2015). Some countries, like Australia, even rely on educational services as a priority export (Department of Education and Training 2015). In short, the global patterns of mobility have become very unbalanced in the past decades, with degree-seeking students moving from south to north, from east to west, and from peripheries to centers (Altbach 2016; Cantwell et al. 2009; Lee and Sehoole 2015; Macready and Tucker 2011). But even within a same country, internationalization perspectives and practice can be quite stratified across institutions. For some, especially national and public research universities, internationalization is a strategy for positioning as national or regional leaders (Castiello et al. 2016). For these and other institutions, international student enrollment is a major revenue generation activity. This motivation is further evidenced by the results of the International Association of Universities’ 4th global survey in which institutions surveyed in North America identified as one of the top three priority internationalization activities: “recruiting fee paying international undergraduates” (Egron-Polak and Hudson 2014). The phenomenon is evidenced elsewhere, particularly among places that have or are experiencing a disinvestment in public funding. Lastly, at the individual level, the reasons for students to embark on an academic endeavor abroad might differ widely, from political reasons, such as seeking temporary asylum (Lee and Sehoole 2015), to social benefits, like the desire to study abroad for the “lure of life” that exists among the privileged classes (Altbach 2004, p. 21). Due to the added costs of study abroad compared to staying at home, those who participate in at least short-term study abroad tend to have higher incomes than those who do not. There is also evidence that even within the same country, students from the Global North tend to study short-term in the Global South and for reasons related to culture and vacation, while those within
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the Global South tend to study abroad (both in the Global North and the Global South) full-time for reasons related to their degree attainment (Cantwell et al. 2009; Lee and Sehoole 2015). Put another way, internationalization can be a pastime for some and a primary means of social mobility for others. Ultimately, there are inequalities in the opportunities and experiences of academic endeavors abroad depending on individual, institutional, national/regional differences of those involved.
How Is This a Problem? Unequal mobility is problematic for several reasons. Among the most commonly discussed challenges there is brain drain, which stagnates national development, making countries less productive and less competitive with the exodus abroad of top talent. But brain drain becomes even more problematic when misalignment arises between national and institutional priorities. On one hand, governments and researchers refer to brain drain as a major risk for middle and lower income countries (Didou Aupetit 2013; HolmNielsen et al. 2005; Egron-Polak and Hudson 2014). On the other hand, higher education institutions seek the prestige of having alumni working or pursuing higher degrees abroad with hopes that this will open doors for further collaborations. When there are divergent goals for the actors involved, solutions become more complex. Both higher education in general and the internationalization of higher education in particular are typically grounded in (or at least aspire to) the pursuit of a greater common good, in the advancement towards a better society (Marginson 2016). Yet, and perhaps more troubling than the past points, is the fact that current internationalization strategies seem to be perpetuating and even increasing the economic and social inequalities that already exist, not only between the so-called global north and global south, but in widening the inequality gap that is characteristic within developing economies (Altbach et al. 2009). A “Matthew Effect” (Merton 1973) occurs that exacerbates financial and prestige disparities in
favor of already wealthy and prestigious institutions. By enrolling so many full-tuition, selffunded students from abroad, rich universities get richer while governments around the world are defunding higher education (Johnstone 2004, 2006). Likewise, by enrolling more international students, institutions are becoming more selective when admitting their local students, thus increasing their rankings positions (Ehrenberg 2003). The added brain gain further secures wellresourced universities in their privileged positions among international rankings that value scientific production, like the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) (Yudkevich et al. 2016). However, these inequalities are not exclusive to high income countries; they are also present among lower income countries. Data have shown a considerable increase in the number of students from middle and lower income countries who are seeking semester long programs or graduate degrees abroad. But, who is benefiting from this increased enrollment? Are marginalized and underserved students within their home country partaking in internationalization or is it a luxury for the most affluent students? As captured in a recent article about internationalization in Latin America with a quote from a senior international officer at a Mexican institution: “We have two groups of students: one that can afford it [studying abroad] and one that can’t; we are creating inequality [emphasis added]” (Berry and Taylor 2014, p. 597). Are institutions aware of their role and responsibility in the stratification that internationalization of the elites can create in a sometimes already stratified system? Another problem that comes with an unequal and exponential flow of students and scholars from and to certain specific regions is xenophobia. Numerous studies have documented the problems of neo-racism and neo-nationalism discrimination in countries around the world (Lee and Rice 2007; Lee and Sehoole 2015; Lee et al. 2016; Lee 2017). Throughout the world, international students have experienced considerable discrimination based on negative stereotypes about their nation and culture of origin. The greatest challenges tend to be experienced by the Global South or less prosperous countries as
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well as countries that are perceived as nearby economic rivals for labor.
Moving Forward Universities have been described “as one of the last frontiers for hope of a more globally aware population” (Rhoads and Szelényi 2011, p. 42). How do we then promote greater equality and a more ethical approach towards internationalization? One recommendation is more and better research, but such research needs to take a poststructural and post-critical approach (Metcalfe 2015). Tackling the world’s inequities requires deconstructing the existing assumptions that lie beneath and reflecting on the consequences of policies aimed towards gaining equity. Is the issue equity in numbers of mobile students and faculty, i.e., more balanced geographic flows? Is the aspiration for “win-win” conditions for cooperation (Deschamps and Lee 2015)? It is important to question “whose structure and whose function” (Metcalfe 2015) as a basis to design mobility programs abroad and to inform research. Current internationalization jargon and the dominant narratives in policies and practices of international mobility should also be deconstructed. In short, we need to de-westernize the concept of internationalization (Dzulkifli 2005). Some relevant actors have already started to work towards this purpose. Twenty-four national and regional organizations involved in international higher education met in January 2014 and January 2017 in a group called the “Global Dialogues,” with the goal of shaping a more inclusive discourse and course of action that equalizes internationalization. The group highlighted three priority global commitments: (1) to treat internationalization as a means to an end, (2) to give internationalization back to the global community, and (3) to aspire to equal and ethical partnerships (IEASA 2014). Even though such gatherings of representatives from distinct regions are neither uncommon nor new, exercises like the global dialogues bring a different and refreshing perspective of collaborative engagement based on the deliberate intention to cocreate knowledge, a
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shared sense of values, and equitable decisionmaking processes (Jaquez et al. 2016). Internationalization at home offers other ways to equalize mobility. By preparing local students to be “global-oriented on issues and actions” and “to challenge nationalist policies” (Koyama 2015, p. 16), we can nurture more open, tolerant, and conscious generations. Rather than educating global citizens, we need to shift the perspective towards educating “global selves” (Killick 2015). This shift should include not only students, but also the faculty, administrators, and professionals who have been implementing these international programs based on the abovementioned constructs. Many international organizations and even individual higher education institutions have been moving in this direction. Nevertheless, the neoliberal globalization movement could be shifting towards the establishment of the “globalization of anti-globalization, the internationalization of nationalism, the popular front of populism” (Garton-Ash 2016). Given the current panorama, higher education institutions need to remain a bastion for cooperation among peoples and nations regardless of their political stances and their geopolitical position. Only by embracing global diversity, shared knowledge, and commongood oriented research can universities build the bridges that will bypass any political, economic, and ideological wall that divides the world and perpetuates its current inequalities.
References Altbach, P.G. 2004. Higher education crosses borders: Can the United States remain the top destination for foreign students? Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 36 (2): 18–24. Altbach, P.G. 2016. Global perspectives on higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P.G., L. Reisberg, and L.E. Rumbley. 2009. Trends in global higher education. Chestnut Hill: Boston College Center for International Higher Education. Berry, C., and J. Taylor. 2014. Internationalisation in higher education in latin america: Policies and practice in colombia and mexico. Higher Education 67 (5): 585–601.
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Cantwell, B., S. Luca, and J.J. Lee. 2009. Exploring the orientations of international students in Mexico: Differences by region of origin. Higher Education 57 (3): 335–354. Cantwell, B., and J.J. Lee. 2010. Unseen workers in the academic factory: Perceptions of neo-racism among international postdocs in the US and UK. Harvard Education Review 80 (4): 490–517. Castiello, S., J. J. Lee, M. S. Marei, L. O’Toole, and G. Rhoades. 2016. Marketing to international students: Presentation of university self in a geopolitical space. Paper presented at the ASHE annual meeting. Columbus: ASHE. Department of Education and Training. 2015, November. Export income to Australia from international education activity in 2014–15. Retrieved 27 Jan 2017, from Research Snapshot: https://internationaleducation.gov. au/research/Research-Snapshots/Documents/Export% 20Income%20FY2014-5.pdf. Deschamps, E., and J.J. Lee. 2015. Internationalization as mergers and acquisitions: Senior international officers’ entrepreneurial strategies and activities in public universities. Journal of Studies in International Education 19 (2): 122–139. Didou Aupetit, S. 2013. Trends in student and academic mobility in Latin America: From “brain drain” to “brain gain”. In Latin America’s new knowledge economy: Higher education, government and international collaboration, ed. J. Balán, 71–81. New York: Institute of International Education. Dzulkifli, A.R. 2005. The internationalization of education: A western construct. In Going global. The landscape for policy makers and practitioners in tertiary education, ed. M. Stiasny and T. Gore, 13–20. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Egron-Polak, E., and R. Hudson. 2014. Internationalization of higher education: Growing expectations, fundamental values. IAU 4th global survey. Paris: International Association of Universities. Ehrenberg, R.G. 2003. Reaching for the brass ring: The U.S. news & world report rankings and competition. Review of Higher Education 26 (2): 145–162. Garton-Ash, T. 2016, November 11. Populists are out to divide us. They must be stopped. The Guardian. Retrieved 24 Jan 2017, from https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2016/nov/11/populists-us. Holm-Nielsen, L., K. Thorn, J. Brunner, and J. Balán. 2005. Regional and international challenges to higher education in Latin America. In Higher education in Latin America: The international dimension, ed. H. De Wit, I. Jaramillo, J. Gacel-Ávila, and J. Knight, 39–99. Washington, DC: The World Bank. IEASA. 2014. Nelson Mandela Bay global dialogue declaration on the future of internationalisation of higher education. Port Elizabeth: IEASA. Jaquez, F., E. Ward, and M. Goguen. 2016. Collaborative engagement research and implications for institutional change. In Publicly engaged scholars: Next generation engagement and the future of higher education,
ed. M. Post, E. Ward, N.V. Longo, and J. Saltmarsh, 76–95. Sterling: Stylus Publishing. Johnstone, B. 2004. The economics and politics of cost sharing in higher education: Comparative perspectives. Economics of Education Review 23 (4): 403–410. Johnstone, B. 2006. Cost-sharing and the costeffectiveness of grants and loan subsidies to higher education. In Cost-sharing and accessibility in higher education: A fairer deal? ed. P.N. Teixeira, D.B. Johnstone, M.J. Rosa, and H. Vossensteyn, 51–78. Dordrecht: Springer. Killick, D. 2015. Developing the global student: Higher education in an era of globalization. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Koyama, J. 2015. The elusive and exclusive global citizen. Delhi: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization/Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development. Lee, J.J. 2017. Neo-nationalism in higher education: The case of South Africa. Studies in International Higher Education 42 (5): 869–886. Lee, J.J., and C. Rice. 2007. Welcome to America? International student perceptions of discrimination and neo-racism. Higher Education 53 (3): 381–409. Lee, J.J., and C. Sehoole. 2015. Regional, continental, and global mobility to an emerging economy: The case of South Africa. Higher Education 70 (5): 827–843. Lee, J.J., J.-E. Jon, and K. Byun. 2016. Neo-racism and neo-nationalism within Asia: The experiences of international students in South Korea. Journal of Studies in International Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1028315316669903, 1–20. Macready, C., and C. Tucker. 2011. Who goes where and why? An overview and analysis of global education mobility. New York: The Institute of International Education. Marginson, S. 2016. Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Merton, R.K. 1973. The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Metcalfe, A.S. 2015. Whose structure, whose function? (Feminist) post-structural approaches in higher education policy research. In Critical approaches to the study of higher education, ed. A.M. Martinez-Aleman, E.M. Bensimon, and B. Pusser, 220–240. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. OECD. 2014. Education at a Glance 2014. OECD Indicators. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/ eag-2014-en. Rhoads, R.A., and K. Szelényi. 2011. Global citizenship and the university: Advancing social life and relations in an interdependent world. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Yudkevich, M., P.G. Altbach, and L. Rumbley. 2016. Global university rankings as the ‘olympic games’ of higher education. In The global academic rankings game: Changing institutional policy, practice, and academic life, ed. M. Yudkevich, P.G. Altbach, and L. Rumbley, 1–11. New York: Routledge.
Academic Perception of Governance and Management
Academic Movement ▶ International Academic Mobility in Asia
Academic Perception of Governance and Management Teresa Carvalho University of Aveiro and CIPES, Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, Aveiro, Portugal
Synonyms Academic community views; Higher education institution reforms; Steering higher education
Definition Governance refers to the institutional arrangements higher education institutions (HEIs) apply to “govern” organizational and staff behaviors. Management is associated with the processes and instruments HEIs use to accomplish their objectives in an efficient way. In different HEIs the governance and management models have been changing, and the effects are differently perceived by academics.
Changes in Governance and Management Changes in HEIs’ governance and management have been identified worldwide both at the system level, usually referred to as changes in the steering model, and at the institutional level (Deem et al. 2007; Krüger et al. 2018). At the system level, there has been a tendency for the reduction of state direct control over HEIs by giving them more autonomy. This tendency is referred to in the literature as the shift from a “regulatory” to a “facilitatory” state (Neave and
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van Vught 1991) or toward an “evaluative state” (Neave 1998). Institutional autonomy is followed by increasing accountability mechanisms to control institutions’ performance to assure that they fulfil the state expectations (Bleiklie 2018; Krücken et al. 2018). These tendencies result in an increasing importance attributed to management values and norms in HEIs, which, inspired by New Public Management, tend to be assumed as more efficient to the extent that they are oriented to management policies and practices traditionally dominant in forprofit organizations. Governance at the institutional level is translated into a change in the balance between the principles of collegial and hierarchal coordination (Krüger et al. 2018). In the European context, until the 1960s HEIs were organized based on the notion that academics were the best-prepared and the right actors to manage HEIs. Academic collegiality was considered as the basis for all decision-making processes (in some cases that included also students and administrative staff) with the central administration having a weak position in the power structure (Krücken et al. 2018). This governance model is also known as “shared governance” (Shattock 2002, 2006; Stensaker and Vabø 2013). Academic collegiality was considered as an essential feature in assuring academic freedom. The structural reforms developed under the New Public Management (NPM) and managerialism influences were sustained in the rhetorical assumption that collegial structures were less efficient (Santiago and Carvalho 2012; Carvalho and Santiago 2010, 2015; Deem et al. 2007), and, to counter this, more management-like models of governance started to be implemented, imposing a management culture in HEIs (Ball 2015, 2016). The implementation of these models turned HEIs into complete (Enders et al. 2008) or unitary institutions (Carvalho and Santiago 2010). From being considered as organized anarchies or loosely coupled institutions, HEIs started to be expected to answer as a single voice to external pressures. In the coordination system, HEIs’ organization and management started assuming a fundamental role (de Boer et al. 2007), in particular the
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performance management and the development of audit and quality assurance systems. Power started to be more concentrated at the top, and rectors or vice-chancellors were (re)configured from primus inter pares into CEOs (chief executive officers) (Carvalho and Machado 2011; O’Connor 2014). Simultaneously, HEIs were expected to be more accountable to society and to justify the value of the money they receive from public sources. These tendencies have been framed in narratives centered on the idea of “opening HEIs to society.” Within this framework, an increasing presence of external stakeholders started to be assumed as necessary to include the general interests of society in HEIs’ decisions. The increase in stakeholders’ power to take relevant decisions at the institutional level, such as the election or appointment of rectors, is concomitant to the decrease in the influence of collegiate bodies (Krücken et al. 2018). In parallel, the accountability and quality mechanisms associated with the tendency to increase institutional autonomy resulted in augmenting the number and qualifications of administrative/management staff in HEIs (Gornitzka and Larsen 2004; Whitchurch 2008; Whitchurch and Gordon 2010; Carvalho and Videira 2017; Carvalho et al. 2016).
while others, such as Poland, tend to maintain their collegial structures (Kwiek 2015). Based on CAP (Changing Academic Profession) empirical data, including data from 13 European countries, Aarrevaara and Dobson (2013) reveal that collegial decision-making still has a role in these European countries, this being especially true for Germany. The same tendency to identify differences between countries was found by Harry de Boer et al. (2007) who developed a comparative study on the shifts in university governance in four countries (England, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany). The authors reveal the existence of similar general tendencies in governance restructuring in these countries but also identify significant differences between them. In being part of the decision-making structures, based on collegiality, academics had control over their work conditions. This control was not only related with the definition of their reward systems and their operating conditions inside institutes but above all with their privileged power positions which gave them freedom to define their research and teaching agendas. The new governance and management models, being more or less collegial, redefined HEIs’ power structures, resulting in limitations to the academic self-governance of HEIs and, in consequence, to their control over academic work. In this context, there is a general consensus that the changes in governance and management represent a threat to academic freedom (Karran 2007, 2009; Aarrevaara 2010; Carvalho and Santiago 2015; Höhle and Teichler 2013; Teichler et al. 2013). This conclusion is corroborated by de Boer and colleagues’ study on England, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany. In all of these countries, the governance reconfigurations seem to be translated into a retreat of academic self-governance, since “whatever new powers the university leadership and external stakeholders win, the academic profession loses” (de Boer et al. 2007, p. 150). Yet, this does not mean, contrary to the expected, that there is an inevitable reduction in academics’ institutional power. Actually, de Boer et al. (2007) conclude that it is possible to have
New Governance and Management Models and Academics Despite being undeniable that similar general tendencies occurred in changes in governance and management models, one cannot dismiss the existence of relevant differences between countries, questioning the thesis of isomorphic homogenization between distinct higher education (HE) systems. Actually, different comparative studies reveal relevant distinctions between countries (Teichler et al. 2013). In the European context, some countries are identified as having faced a high reduction in the collective influence of academics over decision-making in HEIs, as is the case for the Netherlands (Bleiklie et al. 2011),
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strong leadership along with a strong professoriate and that academics still play a part in the system’s governance. The authors defend that if it is true that collective academic power, as well as the individual academics’ influence, has been weakened, it is however still possible to acknowledge academics relevant role in policy- and decision-making (de Boer et al. 2007). In the same line, Bleiklie et al. (2011) argue that reputed academics can still assume the most prestigious top hierarchical positions and coordinate their institutions by means of soft steering, legitimacy, and prestige, instead of authority, with the consensus-oriented culture remaining as the dominant style in HEIs’ top decision-making in some countries (de Boer et al. 2007). Christine Musselin (2013) reinforces the conclusion that there is a common route in governance reforms to reduce collegial decisionmaking; however she defends that, in fact, this reduction ended up empowering the academic elite. According to her, academic oligarchy maintains a relevant role in essential activities that are part of the professional regulation such as the peer review processes, the research evaluation, and the definition and development of national research programs (Musselin 2013). This conclusion seems to be reinforced by studies that are more recent. An empirical comparative study between Portugal and Finland showed a tendency for a decrease in collegial decision-making, which was equally perceived by academics in both countries (Carvalho and Diogo 2018). However, important interprofessional differences were also acknowledged, with some academics with management responsibilities recognizing that they are still called to participate in institutional strategic decisionmaking, both in Finland and in Portugal. To conclude, one can say that common tendencies on changes in governance and management have been acknowledged in different countries, even if this is also accompanied by important differences. The implementation of the new governance and management models is expected to have promoted a decrease in academics’ organizational power. Actually, there is a tendency for
academics to perceive a decrease in their participation in collegial decision-making in different national contexts. However, this general feeling is followed by more specific perceptions in some subgroups, calling attention to the relevance of actors’ agency when analyzing change processes. Empirical studies, based on academics’ perceptions, reveal that there is an individual dimension that needs to be taken into account when analyzing the way academics perceive changes in governance and management. The reduction in academics’ power is a common tendency, but the personal prestige and position each academic has inside academia can determine the stronger or weaker perceptions of power restructuring. As Carvalho and Diogo (2018) state, despite the reduction in academics’ power, “taking the heterogeneous character of the profession, certain sub-groups with positional power can actually perceive the maintenance, or even an increase, in their professional autonomy” (Carvalho and Diogo 2018: 29). To better understand the way changes in governance and management models redefined power structures in HEIs, it is also relevant to analyze how academics perceive the increasing influence of other key actors within this governance and management framework.
Perceptions on the Redefinition of Power Structures The new governance models value a model of decision-making in which a great diversity of actors participate, including both internal and external stakeholders. In this context, academics’ traditional power within HEIs is said to be diminishing, while the power of other groups, such as professional managers and external stakeholders, is increasing. Nevertheless, empirical studies reflecting on actors’ perceptions on HEIs’ power redefinition seem to evidence realities that are more complex. External stakeholders can be defined, according to Amaral and Magalhães (Amaral and Magalhaes 2002: 2), as “a person, or an entity
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with a legitimate interest in higher education and which, as such, acquires the right to intervene.” In order to make HEIs more responsive to environmental needs, external stakeholders are said to increase their prominence in HEIs in different national contexts (Pinheiro 2015). The presence of external stakeholders tends to be recognized as positive by academics (Bruckmann 2015); however this does not mean that a shift in power is seen as effective. Actually it seems that academics’ cognitive framework didn’t change as a result of the increasing presence of external stakeholders in governance models because academics keep the conviction that academic and scientific issues should be mainly decided by academics (Bruckmann 2015). Simultaneously, the roles of managers and administrators have been strengthened and professionalized. This increasing presence of professional managers is said to promote academics’ deprofessionalization (Gornitzka and Larsen 2004). However, other perspectives present a more complex situation, arguing that instead of a shift in power, there is a redefinition of boundaries between the two professional groups. Whitchurch (2008) identifies a third space, as a result of blurred boundaries, resulting from the creation of partnerships between teaching and nonteaching staff. An empirical study developed in the Portuguese context reveals that transformations in HEIs’ governance models with a concentration of power in decision-making at the top and the loss of influence of collegial bodies in decisionmaking processes are not necessarily accompanied by an increase in managers or administrative staff power (Carvalho et al. 2016; Carvalho and Videira 2017). In the Portuguese context, both teaching and nonteaching staff recognize the persistence of the “traditional” power relations with the teaching staff still being recognized as having a higher degree of participation in decisionmaking processes (Carvalho and Videira 2017). The internal differences in the academic profession can be identified as a relevant justification for these perceptions. As seen previously, it is possible to have a more hierarchical structure within the new governance models with the power being still concentrated in a small group of academics.
Krücken et al. (2013) advance another argument to explain the persistence of representations of academics as a group with institutional power within HEIs. In analyzing the German case, the authors conclude that new categories of administrative and management positions have emerged along with a decrease in lower-level positions, such as those related with clerical work. Yet, this was accompanied by the maintenance of the traditional professional organizational model with HEIs remaining controlled by academics and not by administrators or managers. The authors advance that this may be explained by the fact that academics are increasingly incorporating more administrative and management roles to the traditional teaching and research activities that they traditionally performed. Furthermore, the impact of changes in governance and management roles may be lessened or moderated by the core characteristics of a professional organization that has been characterizing HEIs for several years (Krücken et al. 2013). To conclude, one can say that the tendency to transform governance and management models in HEIs is not perceived in the same way by all academics. There is a general tendency to consider that academics lose power in the new models, but there are relevant differences between subgroups with contradictory tendencies concerning the way they perceive transformations in power relations with other groups in academia. Research in this field needs to include academic internal segmentation and to reflect on the way power is allocated in HEIs, as well as on the distinct sources of academics’ power, which may contribute to clarify the persistent perceptions of a maintenance of traditional institutional status quo in a less collegial academia.
Cross-References ▶ Governance in Community Colleges ▶ Multi-Level Governance, Higher Education Acknowledgments This work is funded by National Funds through the FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/CED/00757/2013.
Academic Perception of Governance and Management
References Aarrevaara, T. 2010. Academic freedom in a changing academic world. European Review 18 (S1): S55–S69. Aarrevaara, T., and I.R. Dobson. 2013. Movers and shakers: Do academics control their own work? In The work situation of the academic profession in Europe: Findings of a survey in twelve countries, 159–181. Dordrecht: Springer. Amaral, A., and A. Magalhaes. 2002. The emergent role of external stakeholders in European higher education governance. In Governing higher education: National perspectives on institutional governance, 1–21. Dordrecht: Springer. Ball, S. 2015. Education, governance and the tyranny of numbers. Journal of Education Policy 30 (3): 299–301. Ball, S. 2016. Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast. Policy Futures in Education 14 (8): 1046–1059. Bleiklie, I. 2018. Changing notions of the governance– creativity nexus. European Review 26: 1–14. Bleiklie, I., J. Enders, B. Lepori, and C. Musselin. 2011. New public management, network governance and the university as a changing professional organization. In The Ashgate research companion to new public management, ed. Tom Christensen and Per Laegreid, 161–176. Farnham: Ashgate. Bruckmann, S. 2015. Shifting boundaries in universities’ governance models. In The transformation of university institutional and organizational boundaries, 163–184. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Carvalho, T., and S. Diogo. 2018. Does more institutional autonomy equal to more professional autonomy? Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 40 (1): 18–33. Carvalho, T., and M. Machado. 2011. Senior management in higher education. In Gender, power and management. A cross cultural analysis of higher education, ed. K. White and B. Bagilhole, 90–109. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Carvalho, T., and R. Santiago. 2010. New public management and ‘middle-management’: How do deans influence institutional policies? In The changing dynamics of higher education middle management: Vol. 28. Higher Education Dynamics, ser. ed. P. Maassen, and J. Müller & vol. ed. L. Meek, L. Goedegebuure, R. Santiago, and T. Carvalho, 165–196. Dordrecht: Springer. Carvalho, T., and R. Santiago. 2015. Professional autonomy in a comparative perspective: academics, doctors and nurses. In Professionalism, managerialism and reform in higher education and the health services: The European Welfare State and Rise of the Knowledge Society, ed. T. Carvalho and R. Santiago, 30–63. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Carvalho, T., and P. Videira. 2017. Losing autonomy? Restructuring higher education institutions governance and relations between teaching and non-teaching staff. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03075079.2017.1401059. Published online nov. 2017.
49 Carvalho, T., G. Marini, and P. Videira. 2016. Is new public management redefining professional boundaries and changing power relations within higher education institutions? Journal of the European Higher Education Area 6 (3): 59–74. de Boer, H., J. Enders, and U. Schimank. 2007. On the way towards new public management? The governance of university systems in England, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany. In New forms of governance in research organizations, 137–152. Dordrecht: Springer. Deem, R., H. Sam, and M. Reed. 2007. Knowledge, higher education, and the new managerialism: The changing management of UK universities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Enders, J., H. De Boer, and L. Liudvika. 2008. On striking the right notes: Shifts in governance and the organisational transformation of universities. In From governance to identity: A Festschrift for Mary Henkel, ed. Alberto Amaral, Ivar Bleiklie, and Christine Musselin, 113–129. Dordrecht: Springer. Gornitzka, Å., and I. Larsen. 2004. Towards professionalisation? Restructuring of administrative work force in universities. Higher Education 47 (4): 455–471. Höhle, E. A., and U. Teichler. 2013. The academic profession in the light of comparative surveys. In The academic profession in Europe: New tasks and new challenges, 23–38. Springer, Dordrecht. Karran, T. 2007. Academic freedom in Europe: A preliminary comparative analysis. Higher Education Policy 20 (3): 289–313. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300159. Karran, T. 2009. Academic freedom in Europe: Time for a Magna Charta? Higher Education Policy 22 (2): 163–189. Krücken, G., A. Blümel, and K. Kloke. 2013. The managerial turn in higher education? On the interplay of organizational and occupational change in German academia. Minerva 51 (4): 417–442. Krücken, G., L. Engwall, and E. De Corte. 2018. Introduction to the special issue on ‘university governance and creativity’. European Review 26 (S1): S1–S5. Krüger, K., M. Parellada, D. Samoilovich, and A. Sursock. 2018. Governance reforms in European university systems: The case of Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Portugal. Vol. 8. Cham: Springer. Kwiek, M. 2015. The unfading power of collegiality? University governance in Poland in a European comparative and quantitative perspective. International Journal of Educational Development 43: 77–89. Musselin, C. 2013. Redefinition of the relationships between academics and their university. Higher Education 65 (1): 25–37. Neave, G. 1998. The evaluative state reconsidered. European Journal of Education 33 (3): 265–284. Neave, G., & van Vught, F. A. (1991). Prometheus bound: The changing relationship between government and higher education in Western Europe. O’Connor, P. 2014. Management and gender in higher education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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50 Pinheiro, R. 2015. The role of internal and external stakeholders. In Higher Education in the BRICS Countries, 43–57. Dordrecht: Springer. Santiago, R., and T. Carvalho. 2012. Managerialism rhetoric’s in Portuguese higher education. Minerva 50 (4): 511–532. Shattock, M. 2002. Re–balancing modern concepts of university governance. Higher Education Quarterly 56 (3): 235–244. Shattock, M. 2006. Managing good governance in higher education. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Stensaker, B., and A. Vabø. 2013. Re-inventing shared governance: Implications for organisational culture and institutional leadership. Higher Education Quarterly 67 (3): 256–274. Teichler, U., A. Arimoto, and W. Cummings. 2013. The changing academic profession – Major findings of a comparative survey, The changing academy – The changing academic profession in international comparative perspective. Vol. 1. Dordrecht: Springer. Whitchurch, C. 2008. Shifting identities and blurring boundaries: The emergence of third space professionals in UK higher education. Higher Education Quarterly 62 (4): 377–396. Whitchurch, Celia, and George Gordon. 2010. Diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education: Some management challenges. Tertiary Education and Management 16 (2): 129–144.
Academic Profession, Higher Education Ulrich Teichler INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Synonyms Faculty; Key profession; Scholars
Definition persons professionally active in the generation, discussion, preservation and dissemination of systematic knowledge through teaching and research within the frame of higher education Institutions and research institutes.
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Terms and Concepts Scholars are conceived to be persons characterized by a high intellectual caliber, being active in the generation, discussion, preservation, and dissemination of systematic knowledge. The somewhat narrower term “academic profession” suggests that these activities are undertaken for most of the period of the adult life-span, are distinct from those in the center of other occupations, and as a rule serve to secure livelihood. Finally, these activities are assumed to be undertaken as a rule in the framework of universities or – more widely defined – institutions of higher or tertiary education. Generation and dissemination knowledge as well as its utilization in various ways are the tasks of many occupations. Scholars at institutions of higher education, though, are conceived to do this in the most intellectual demanding and systematic way, as core activities of their profession named research and (academic) teaching. They are considered to be the carriers of knowledge in all areas, often called disciplines, and to shape also the knowledge of experts working in various professional areas (e.g., academics of the discipline law shaping the knowledge of judges or lawyers, academics of engineering shaping that of engineers). The social historian Harold Perkin (1969) called the academic profession “key profession” in order to characterize their centrality in knowledge systems and high societal prestige. For various reasons, the delineation of the academic profession is vague. First in terms of institutional settings: Those in charge of teaching and research at universities and other institutions of higher education are viewed as belonging to the academic profession. In the United States of America, even the term “faculty” is employed for the academic profession, i.e., term depicting university departments in Europe. Views vary though, whether those active at research institutes outside higher education and those working at other institutions of “tertiary” education should be included as well, and those involved in “research and development (R&D)” in industry or in charge of the generation and dissemination of systematic knowledge in other organization are
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rarely viewed as members of the academic profession. As regards research activities, however, the term “researchers” is often viewed as most comprehensive, and national and international research statistics define academics as one subcategory of researchers. Second in terms of dominant functions: Persons primarily in charge of teaching and/or research at the abovementioned named institutions are viewed as academics. Customs and legal regulations vary, though, whether those with managerial functions (“rectors,” “presidents,” “deans”) are defined as academics who happens to be involved in coordination functions or as administrators. Similarly, professionals at higher education institutions primarily in charge of service and management-support activities (occasionally named “higher educational professionals,” “middle-level managers,” etc.) are often defined as administrators, in various instances though as academics. Third in terms of employment status: Definitions employed in major comparative surveys suggest that those are viewed undoubtedly as members of the academic profession who are employed for the respective purposes at least halftime. Views vary, though, whether those should be included as well, who are employed for less than halftime, who are contracted on honorarium basis for individual courses or other work units, who work in this domain without financial compensation (for example, a “Honorar-Professor” in Germany), or who are retired and continue to be active in academia. Fourth in terms of stages of career and work: The title “professor” is most common to depict the mature academic. Those named professors often tend to be assured of the highest pay and stable employment conditions, and they often have supervisory functions regarding academics viewed as not fully matured. Academics having not – yet – reached the professoriate undergo a long process, which is initially characterized by a dominance of learning but gradually shifts toward productive work: This can be characterized as “formative years” of academic work (Teichler 2006). Thereby, definitions vary as regards the first stage of the academic career. The term
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doctoral “student” is customary in some countries, while terms such as doctoral “candidate” or similarly are preferred in other countries. In some countries, more than half of the doctoral candidates are employees at higher education institutions, while in others study without pay, support by means of fellowships, or the status of ‘auxiliary’ staff prevails (Gokhberg et al. 2016).
Characteristics of the Academic Profession Reviews of the characteristics of the academic profession have to take into account that certain features of the knowledge system might be universal and that certain elements of the institutional fabrique of higher education are arranged similarly worldwide. However, many features of career, employment, job descriptions, and coordination are regulated nationally or on lower levels (regionally or institutionally; see Clark 1984; Teichler et al. 2013). Yet, though the details might vary, three features can be observed all over the world. Obviously, the academic profession ideally is characterized by a close link between research and teaching. This link is applicable to academics at institutions called “universities” in Europe and otherwise “research universities” or “researchoriented universities.” According to some analyses, teaching is historically the key function of higher education only supplemented during the recent two centuries in some sectors by research (Altbach 1991). The terms “university teacher” or “higher education teacher” are employed – at times legally, often in statistics, often informally – to characterize the academic profession. Other analyses, in contrast, underscore research as most strongly shaping the identity of the academic profession (Enders 2006). Actually, the notion of “unity of research and teaching,” coined by Wilhelm von Humboldt with reference to the foundation of the University of Berlin in 1810, is most frequently named the core idea of the modern university. Detailed accounts, however, suggest that most academics in some countries understand this as dominance of research which
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is taken up in teaching, and those in some other countries strive for a balance between research and teaching, while finally others take a dominance of teaching for granted (Arimoto 2014). Teaching tends to dominate in other higher education institutions, which in most instances have no right to award doctoral degrees, often have an applied educational thrust and often offer shorter study programs. It should be added that additional functions of the academic professions are depicted with terms such as “administration,” “services,” “knowledge transfer,” “third mission,” “civic engagement,” etc. This indicates partly additional activities within the academic system, e.g., academic self-administration or evaluation and assessment activities, and externally directed activities such as transfer knowledge to society or academics’ active involvement in other life spheres (see Jongbloed et al. 2008). Further, the academic profession is characterized by a very long process of learning and maturation. In most countries, academics eventually appointed to professorial positions at about 40 years are only considered full-fledged members of the academic profession when they reach this stage. In most other professions, though, a stable influential position is reached at an earlier stage and is not so clearly segmented in titles, functions, and inter-professional power. The junior career path is highly selective in many countries. In economically advanced countries, less than one tenth of persons having been awarded a first higher education degree eventually reach a doctorate, and in most countries with relatively high rates of doctorate, less than one fifth of doctorate holders eventually reach senior academic positions. Moreover, part-time and short-term employment are far more frequent among junior than among senior academics in most countries (see Galaz-Fontes et al. 2016). Irrespective of the duration and selectivity of junior academic careers stages: A substantial divide between senior academics – often called the professoriate – and junior academics holds true in many countries. In Germany, for example, even not a common term of academic profession exists for senior academics, officially called “higher education teachers,” and junior academics
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called “academic coworkers.” The former tend to be privileged as regards reputation, access to resources for research, as well as influence in internal decision-making, and they often have supervisory functions as regards junior academics’ work. This raises the question whether there is a single or various academic professions – according to status, as discussed here, or to the extent of involvement in research or according to institutional types, as discussed below (Teichler 2010). Finally, the academic profession enjoys a higher degree of disposition in determining its work tasks than other professions do as a rule. “Academic freedom” is considered necessary to generate new knowledge and to prepare students for indeterminate work tasks (Shils 1991). In some countries, “academic freedom” is reinforced by a high degree of institutional “autonomy,” whereby academics, notably professors – often, but not consistently – have substantial influence on administrative matters of their higher education institution.
Changing Contexts, Expectations, and Activities The academic profession experienced substantial changes in recent decades regarding its context and societal expectations directed to it, and academics themselves changed in many respects their views and activities – often in response to changing environments. Expansion of higher education (Altbach 1996), increasing managerial power, growing expectations regarding the relevance of academic work, and internationalization of academia and society are the most important trends addressed in this framework (Höhle and Teichler 2013). Expansion of higher education: The proportion of the respective age group enrolling in higher education as students from less than one tenth on average in economically advanced countries in the 1950s to more than half five decades later reflects a growing importance of higher education. But the concurrent growth of the academic profession did not necessarily lead to an increased
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pride as regards the importance of the knowledge system. Rather, expansion triggered diversification of higher education, whereby the top of system could persist with moderate chances, while less privileged sectors experienced substantial changes, e.g., the establishment of institutions the academics of which were solely in charge of teaching or had limited research tasks. Moreover, teaching and research in those sectors were expected to have an applied approach rather than the absolute freedom of exploring new territories of knowledge. While some academics in these sectors were satisfied with the other profile of their institutions and work assignments, others felt themselves as inferior to the reputation of universities and the traditional professoriate and, in response, reinforced “academic drift” toward the traditional model. Altogether, the view seems to have spread among academics in the wake of higher education expansion that they are a profession under pressure – not only loosing social exclusivity but also facing deteriorating employment and work conditions. According to various surveys, the percentage even of senior academics employed shortterm or part-time increased as well as of those in lower income categories. Yet concurrently, access to academia increased of hitherto underprivileged socio-biographic groups, i.e., women (see Eggins 2017), academics with parents of lower educational backgrounds, and academics from various ethnic groups and foreigners (Finkelstein et al. 1998). Interpretations, however, varied about the extent to which greater success of traditionally underrepresented groups was attributable to a loss of privileges as a whole or an indication of a more meritocratic career system. Increasing managerial power: In many countries, institutional leadership has moved since about the 1980s from moderate power in predominantly collegial settings toward powerful professional management. Regulatory systems got tighter, allocation of resources became a tool of management, and mechanisms of evaluation and performance assessment spread. Many analyses show that mechanisms of “marketization” and “entrepreneurialism” are closely linked to
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managerial regimes (Enders 2001). While this often was hailed as increasing institutional “autonomy” vis-à-vis government and other stakeholders as well as strengthened effectiveness and efficiency, attempts of introducing such changes often met with skepticism and resistance on the part of academics. Fear seemed to be widespread that this restricts the potentials of academics to strive for unexpected insight. Growing managerial power often is linked to efforts to underscore specific characteristics of individual higher education institutions and to strengthen the notion of belonging to an institution or even of institution-based identity. This has been reinforced in recent years by strong attention being paid to “rankings” of individual universities. Most studies on academic views and activities, however, have shown that academics vary enormously according to disciplines (Becher 1989) and that they feel most strongly committed to their discipline and possibly to their unit of teaching and research and less – if at all – to their higher education institution (Altbach 1996; Teichler et al. 2013). Growing expectation of relevance: The increasing popularity of terms such as “knowledge society” or even “knowledge economy” do not merely suggest that systematic knowledge moves toward increasing influence on economic and societal developments but also that higher education aims at contributing in a more targeted way to these developments (see Cummings and Teichler 2015). This is often underscored by growing involvement of external “stakeholder” in higher education, increasing calls for raising funds from sources outside academia, calling for greater concern of graduates’ “employability’ in study programs, and underscoring the measurement of “impact” in evaluation activities. This also meets with skeptical views in academia, many of whom being concerned that academic quality might be sacrificed for relevance, and others that universities might be driven to serve only the external expectations of powerful and influential stakeholders. Internationalization: Although the academic profession traditionally strives for borderless collection of knowledge, is mobile across borders,
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appreciates international reputation, and often harbors cosmopolitan values, experts note a recent trend toward internationalization of higher education. Notably, physical mobility of student and academics is supported in a more targeted manner and increases substantially, and international research collaboration notably is increasingly viewed as beneficial. Worldwide virtual communication becomes more important in teaching and research. Academics seem to adapt to these challenges more readily than to those named above; thus, more than one tenth of academics on average of economically advanced countries work abroad, about one fifth are awarded a doctoral degree abroad, and more than half of academics have substantial international experiences in the course of their career (see Cavalli and Teichler 2015). Yet, problems of internationalization are pointed out as well – i.e., loss of talents notably on the part of economically and academically disadvantaged regions (“brain drain”), labor market barriers, quality loss due to disparities of academic experiences, and lack of language skills or of intercultural understanding.
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professional situation even is on the rise (Teichler et al. 2013). Most characterizations, however, have those in economically advanced countries in mind. In other parts of the world, we frequently note on the one hand constraints of working conditions, more infringements of academic freedom, and often restrictions as regards research that it even was characterized as “endangered species” (Vessuri and Teichler 2008). On the other hand, successful moves of “catching up” with economically advanced countries can be seen in some instances (see UNESCO 2010). The variety of observations, thus, calls for being cautious in general statements about the academic profession and for taking note of variations across countries, disciplines, institutions, and status groups.
Cross-References ▶ Academic Careers ▶ Chair System in Higher Education
References Conclusion Some analyses of the academic profession underscore academic freedom, high motivation in the search for truth and new knowledge, and collaboration in collegial settings as characteristic. Others point out endemic problems, e.g., the ambivalent situation of junior academics. Others finally underscore increasing challenges due to higher education expansion, growing managerial power, and increasing expectation to be relevant to technology, economy, and society. The majority of features not fitting the ideal initially named are viewed by some academics as endangering the essentials of the academic profession. International comparative studies, however, suggests that the majority of academics accommodates to features, which are in part viewed as questionable and dangerous, and altogether continue to consider their professional setting as satisfactory. Satisfaction with the overall
Altbach, Philip G. 1991. The academic profession. In International higher education: An encyclopedia, ed. Philip G. Altbach, 23–45. New York: Garland. Altbach, Philip G. 1996. The international academic profession. Princeton: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Arimoto, Akira. 2014. The teaching and research nexus in the third wave age. In Teaching and research in contemporary higher education, ed. Jung Cheol Shin, Akira Arimoto, William K. Cummings, and Ulrich Teichler, 15–33. Dordrecht: Springer. Becher, Tony. 1989. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual inquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Buckingham: SRHE & Open University Press. Cavalli, Alessandro, and Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Mobility and migration in science (special issue). European Review 23 (Supplement 1) Clark, Burton R., ed. 1984. The academic profession: National, disciplinary, and institutional settings. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cummings, William K., and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 2015. The relevance of academic work in comparative perspective. Dordrecht: Springer. Eggins, Heather, ed. 2017. The changing role of women in higher education. Cham: Springer.
Academics and Higher Education Expansion Enders, Jürgen. 2001. Between state control and academic capitalism: A comparative perspective of academic staff in Europe. In Academic staff in Europe: Changing contexts and conditions, ed. Jürgen Enders, 1–23. Westport: Greenwood Press. Enders, Jürgen. 2006. The academic profession. In International handbook of higher education, ed. James F. F. Forest and Philip G. Altbach, 1–21. Dordrecht: Springer. Finkelstein, Martin J., Robert K. Seal, and Jack H. Schuster. 1998. The new academic generation: A profession in transformation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Galaz-Fontes, Jesús, Akira Arimoto, Ulrich Teichler, and John Brennan, eds. 2016. Biographies and careers throughout academic life. Cham: Springer. Gokhberg, Leonid, Natalia Shmatko, and Laudeline Auriol, eds. 2016. The science and technology labor force: The value of doctorate holders and development of professional careers. Cham: Springer. Höhle, Ester Ava, and Ulrich Teichler. 2013. The academic profession in the light of comparative surveys. In The academic profession in Europe: New tasks and new challenges, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Ulrich Teichler, 23–38. Dordrecht: Springer. Jongbloed, Ben, Jürgen Enders, and Carlo Salerno. 2008. Higher education and its communities: Interconnections, interdependencies and a research agenda. Higher Education 56: 303–324. Perkin, Harold. 1969. Key profession: A history of the association of university teachers. London: Routledge/Palmer. Shils, Edward. 1991. Academic freedom. In International higher education: An encylopedia, ed. Philip G. Altbach, 1–22. New York & London: Garland. Teichler, Ulrich, ed. 2006. The formative years of scholars. London: Portland. Teichler, Ulrich. 2010. The diversifying academic profession. European Review 18 (Supplement 1): 157–179. Teichler, Ulrich, Akira Arimoto, and William K. Cummings. 2013. The changing academic profession: Major findings of a comparative study. Dordrecht: Springer. UNESCO. 2010. UNESCO science report 2010. Paris: UNESCO Vessuri, Hebe, and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 2008. Universities as centres of research and knowledge production: An endangered species. Rotterdam and Taipei: Sense.
Academic Professional Development, Socialization, Education ▶ Academic Identity in Higher Education
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Academic Roles ▶ Academic Identity in Higher Education
Academic Status ▶ Academic Careers
Academics and Higher Education Expansion Maria Yudkevich National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Many people associate the massification of higher education, which has become an inherent part to the educational landscape of many countries in the past decades (Schofer and Meyer 2005), primarily with the increase in enrolment rates. Indeed, according to Ulrich Teichler, “the term ‘mass higher education’ was traditionally employed to describe the growth of enrolment beyond the level of academic reproduction and training for a small number of occupations requiring this education for demanding professions and privileged social positions” (Teichler 1998, P. 19). At the same time, the impact of the massification goes beyond a mere growth in the number of young people with a higher education diploma. Massification has a significant effect on the academic profession, its substance, and, of course, the people who represent universities’ academic core. What are the underlying factors behind this effect, and what does it mean in practice? First of all, student numbers are growing. Faculty is expanding too but at a slower pace (Coates et al. 2009). As a result, university expenditures per student are often going down, while the students per teacher ratio and faculty members’ workload are increasing. All these induce a forced shift toward such educational technologies that
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allow faculty to work with numerous students simultaneously: lectures for large student groups, standardized tests, and use of online elements. Faculty members are confronted with the challenge of mass teaching, which is replacing individual approach in education. Secondly, the growth in student numbers is not only important from a quantitative point of view. Universities encounter students with a completely new social status, different motivations (usually far from a desire to build an academic career), and varying entry levels (Beerkens-Soo and Vossensteyn 2009). Faculty members have to explore new methods of working with such a heterogeneous and less well-prepared student audience. Student needs regarding higher education, which many of them treat as an investment that should yield returns on the labor market, are changing too. They have a more market-oriented view on the competencies they are gaining. Students, as well as other stakeholders, are increasingly seen as customers whose interests in universities have to take into account (Kwiek 2009; Schmidtlein and Berdahl 2011). On the whole, the academic system is switching from internal accountability to external (Van Valey 2001). Thirdly, it is becoming clear that the diversity of demand on behalf of those entering the higher education system inevitably defines the diversification of higher education institutions (GuriRosenblit et al. 2007). Various types of HEIs emerge; they have different mandates and serve different market segments. New HEIs aimed at delivering professional training that matches labor market needs emerge in addition to traditional research universities. Therefore, the conditions and scope of work of faculty employed at HEIs of different types vary dramatically too (on changing working conditions in academic in comparative perspectives, see Altbach et al. 2012; Altbach et al. 2013). Consequently, there is a shift away from the traditional research-focused tenure model, which implies that each faculty member does both research and teaching and takes part in university governance too. Varying working conditions and
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a substantial expansion in the scope of work lead to the fact that an academic career can nowadays be associated with an array of contract types. However, they share one key feature: that is, they are losing the fundamental elements of a traditional academic contract, such as guaranteed regular employment, right to academic freedom, and right to peer evaluation of one’s professional performance. There are temporary contracts emerging (Gumport et al. 1997; Finkelstein et al. 2016) – contracts aimed at a particular aspect of academic work and structurally and substantively similar to wage worker contracts. There is a desacralization of the academic profession going on. It is no longer domain of the elites, its borders are becoming blurred, and the distance between members of the academic guild and traditional wage workers is getting smaller. This comes with a partial loss of autonomy (Altbach 2011; Shimank 2005). University academics’ professional status is weakening (Kwiek 2009). As Ulrich Teichler puts it, “higher education is in the grip of a strong feeling of loss of social exclusiveness. Academic careers lose their glamour in terms of social status, income, superior knowledge and professional self-control” (Teichler 2001, P. 5). The fact that different faculty groups are employed under different types of contracts leads to further stratification of the academic profession, which carries important negative implications (Kwiek 2009). For example, faculty working on a temporary contract and adjunct professors usually get a smaller remuneration, are confronted with a higher workload, and are less loyal to their university. They have a less clear understanding of its institutional goals and are to a smaller degree integrated into university life. Since they are treated like wage workers, they take only modest part in the processes of academic governance. Therefore, the faculty no longer represents a homogeneous group of academics who share the same values, equally invest their interests and efforts in university life, and enjoy the same guarantees. Growing academic stratification between faculty members and differentiation of HEIs causes more competition on the elite research universities’ labor market. In the US universities, for
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example, the share of young tenured faculty is constantly going down (including both entry tenure-track positions and real tenured positions), which is increasingly stressful for young academics (Altbach 2011; Altbach 2015). The decline of the professional status of university faculty coincides with the processes of authority shift from the academic community to professional administrators (Whitchurch and Gordon 2010) and the emergence of new forms of control over academic activities (Musselin 2007). The existing system of faculty evaluation and remuneration, which implies a holistic approach to academic work, is no longer valid in the situation of fragmented academic activities (Mcfarlane 2011). Fragmentation comes along with the formalization of monitoring systems and the introduction of peculiar reporting formats. Peer evaluation is no longer secondary to academic work; instead it is becoming a separate process that requires both faculties’ and administrators’ efforts and time. Faculty members view external reporting as an infringement of academic freedom, which causes extra stress: faculties, who used to “own” the university, are becoming just employees who are subordinate to professional administrators and have to implement the latter’s decisions. Thus, the massification of higher education implies a whole range of consequences for the academic profession, most of which are caused by structural changes on the higher education market. To sum up, we can quote Marek Kwiek: “Massified educational systems (and corresponding an increasingly massified academic profession) unavoidably lead towards various new forms of differentiation, diversification and stratification” (Kwiek 2009, P. 116).
References Altbach, Phillip G. 2011. Harsh realities: The professoriate in the twenty-first century. In American higher education in the twenty-first century: Social, political, and economic challenges, ed. Philip G. Altbach, Patricia J. Gumport, and Robert O. Berdahl, 227–253. Baltimore: JHU Press.
57 Altbach, Phillip G. 2015. Building an academic career: The twenty-first-century challenge. In Young faculty in the twenty-first century. International perspectives, ed. Maria Yudkevich, Philip G. Altbach, and Laura Rumbley, 5–20. Albany: SUNY University Press. Altbach, Philip G., Gregory Androushchak, Ivan Pacheko, Maria Yudkevich, and Liz Reisberg. 2012. Paying the professoriate: A global comparison of compensation and contracts. New York: Routledge. Altbach, Philip G., Gregory Androushchak, Yaroslav Kuzminov, Maria Yudkevich, and Liz Reisberg. 2013. The global future of higher education and the academic profession: The BRICs and the United States. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Beerkens-Soo, Maarja, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2009. Higher education issues and trends from an international perspective. Report prepared for the Veerman Committee, Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, The Netherlands. Coates, Hamish, Ian Dobson, Daniel Edwards, Tim Friedman, Leo Goedegebuure, and Lynn Meek. 2009. The attractiveness of the Australian academic profession: A comparative analysis. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research. Finkelstein, Martin J., Valezie M. Conley, Jack H. Schuster. 2006. The faculty factor reassessing the American faculty in a turbulent Era. Baltimore: JHU Press. Gumport, Patricia, Maria Iannozzi, Susan Shaman, and Robert Zemsky. 1997. Trends in higher education from massification to post-massification, RIHE International Seminar Reports, No. 10, 57–93. Guri-Rosenblit, Sarah, Helena Šebková, and Ulrich Teichler. 2007. Massification and diversity of higher education systems: Interplay of complex dimensions. Higher Education Policy 20(4): 373–389. Kwiek, Marek. 2009. The changing attractiveness of European higher education: Current developments, future challenges, and major policy issues. In The European higher education area: Perspectives on a moving target, 107–124. Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Macfarlane, Bruce. 2011. The morphing of academic practice: Unbundling and the rise of the para-academic. Higher Education Quarterly 65(1): 59–73. Musselin, Christine. 2007. The transformation of academic work: Facts and analysis. https://hal-sciencespo. archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/1066077/filename/ escholarship-uc-item-5c10883g.pdf Schimank, Uwe. 2005. ‘New public management’ and the academic profession: Reflections on the German situation. Minerva 43(4): 361–376. Schmidtlein, Frank A., and Robert O. Berdahl. 2011. Autonomy and accountability: Who controls academe. In American higher education in the twenty-first century: Social, political, and economic challenges, ed. Philip G. Altbach, Patricia J. Gumport, and Robert O. Berdahl, 69–87. Baltimore: JHU Press. Schofer, Evan, and John W. Meyer. 2005. The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review 70(6): 898–920.
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58 Teichler, Ulrich. 1998. Massification: A challenge for institutions of higher education. Tertiary Education and Management 4(1): 17–27. Teichler, Ulrich. 2001. Mass higher education and the need for new responses. Tertiary Education and Management 7(1): 3–7. Van Valey, Thomas L. 2001. Recent changes in higher education and their ethical implications. Teaching Sociology 29: 1–8. Whitchurch, Celia, and George Gordon. 2010. Diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education: Some management challenges. Tertiary Education and Management 16(2): 129–144.
Access and Equity ▶ Refugees in Tertiary Education, European Policies and Practices
Access Organization ▶ Admissions Processes to Higher Education, International Insights
Access to and Widening Participation in Higher Education Penny Jane Burke Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Widening Access and participation (WP) has emerged as a major policy concern in a number of national contexts. It is connected to longer histories over struggles for the right to higher education, to concerns for greater fairness in society, and to ensuring that higher education is more equitable and inclusive. It is also shaped by the growing diversification of student constituencies that have resulted from higher education expansion over the later decades of the twentieth
Access and Equity
century. In the English context, during the period of the New Labour Government (1997–2010), widening participation, often shorthanded as “WP,” gained discursive hegemony, and this discourse has gained momentum internationally. However, the concept of “widening participation” is highly contested within and across different national contexts, and there is no one agreed definition. The different meanings circulating from policies of WP are often implicit, while assumptions are often made about a common or universal understanding of the term. The meanings attached to WP are not only highly contextual but are also connected to diverse and competing values and perspectives, as well as interconnected policies across the public sphere. WP is thus a contested terrain, and there are different perspectives underpinning policy and practice, which have different outcomes and effects. WP is largely concerned with redressing the under-representation of certain social groups in higher education. WP is also connected to wider social movements for greater educational equality, for example, through access, enabling, and foundation programs driven by concerns to develop more socially just higher education systems. Such approaches to WP aim to transform educational structures, systems, and cultures and to create more inclusive institutional contexts, sometimes characterized as “transformatory” approaches to WP (Burke 2002; Jones and Thomas 2005). Although such transformatory approaches are at play, which are embedded in a social justice orientation to WP, “utilitarianism” has been identified as the dominant approach to WP (Jones and Thomas 2005). A utilitarian approach to WP might be described as focusing primarily on individual attitudes couched in a compensatory and remedial framework. This approach is underpinned by notions of individual deficit and strongly emphasizes the relationship between higher education and the economy (Jones and Thomas 2005: 618), characteristic of neoliberalism. The purpose of HE in the utilitarian, neoliberal framework is reduced to enhancing employability, entrepreneurialism, and economic competitiveness (Morley 1999; Thompson 2000;
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Archer et al. 2003). This has arguably led to greater stratification of institutions. Indeed it has been argued in the British context that “one of the most pernicious effects of the government’s widening participation strategy could be to solidify existing hierarchies (of institutions and knowledge) within higher education” (Barr 2008: 36). Neoliberal perspectives and outcomes underpin utilitarianism, with a focus on the types of employability, human capital, development of skills, and competencies that promote an efficient and competitive workforce in global knowledge economies and markets. Neoliberal and utilitarian discourses of WP have been critiqued for individualizing social inequalities, concealing the social structures, processes, and discourses that reproduce exclusions and marginalization in and through higher education systems. WP policies and strategies include identifying specific groups who should be targeted by WP initiatives and activities. The target groups are different across different national contexts, are debated and contested, and might change over time. The targeting strategies and methods used by policy makers and institutions aim to ensure that WP resources, opportunities, and funding are distributed specifically to those groups who have experienced social and educational disadvantages. Without targeting strategies and methods, it is always possible that WP initiatives and activities might reproduce inequalities by distributing further resources and opportunities to those individuals, families, and groups who already benefit significantly from social and educational advantages and privileges. However, targeting strategies are always potentially problematic in the way they focus on some groups to the exclusion of other groups and tend to perpetuate deficit discourses, which are based in flawed assumptions that students associated with WP target groups lack aspiration, motivation, capability, resilience, and so forth. Targeting could unintentionally contribute to the construction of negative stereotypes or to unwittingly pathologizing communities who have already suffered histories of misrecognition (Fraser 1997). Furthermore, targeting specific groups tends to construct those groups as
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homogenous, as having a singular voice, history, and a shared set of needs and interests. This fails to acknowledge that personal and social identities are complex formations of multiple and intersecting differences, shaped by deeply embedded structural, economic, and cultural inequalities.
Excellence and Equity A key contemporary discourse at play in higher education is “excellence,” profoundly shaping possibilities and imaginaries in relation to challenging underrepresentation and exclusion in HE. The forces of neoliberal globalization have placed pressure on institutions to strive toward becoming “global universities” and to position themselves as “world-class,” competing for the “best students” in a stratified market driven by league table rankings. Institutions attempt to negotiate the regulatory demands of “excellence” and “equity,” despite the often contradictory values attached to each. “Excellence” as part of a “ranking movement” is “both a manifestation of the new global competitive environment and a driver of change in the field of HE” (Rostan and Vaira 2011, p. vii). Although excellence should not be perceived as in opposition to equity, discourses of “excellence” in higher education institutions (HEIs) often overshadow and/or challenge discourses of WP (see, e.g., Stevenson et al. 2014). Excellence thus poses tensions for the overarching aim of creating greater equity in higher education. For example, in seeking “excellence,” processes of selection and differentiation often become embedded in everyday practices and naturalized, increasingly seen as a necessary and inevitable dimension of HE. Maher and Tetreault (2006) argue that discourses of excellence are associated with struggles for prestige, which compel institutions to participate in competitive practices in the race to be ranked as “world-class.” Nixon (2013, p. 96) warns that competition for funds and for students has led to institutional stratification and the self-protective groupings of institutions, which lobbied intensively for their
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market niche. Within this context, prestige has itself become a marketable commodity, reinforcing institutional stratification. What we see are levels of institutional sedimentation that provide the bases for structural inequalities that define, restrict and control the horizons of expectation and possibility. ‘Competition between and within universities’, as Stromquist (2012) points out, ‘does not foster equity but instead creates “winners” and “losers.”’ (Nixon 2013, p. 178)
In the US context, Lazerson (2010, p. 23) argues that HE has expanded in a segmented and hierarchical fashion in ways that might well be interpreted as having “preserved the social structure of inequality.” In the Chinese context, the impact of “excellence” on WP is similarly observed, with “elitism being reinvigorated” (Zha and Ding 2007, p. 55).
Raising Aspiration As a key part of WP strategy, many universities have developed targeted outreach activities aimed at raising the aspiration of children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The focus on “raising aspirations” has been critiqued as confusing material poverty with a so-called poverty of aspiration (Morley 2003; Burke 2012; Whitty et al. 2016). There are a number of examples emerging from the UK context where “aspiration-raising” activities have been shown in fact to reinforce rather than overcome cultural and socioeconomic divisions and inequalities (Slack 2003). The focus on “raising aspirations,” it has been argued, oversimplifies aspiration-formation, ignoring the ways that aspirations are formed in and through complex structural, social, economic, and cultural inequalities, relations, and identities (Burke 2012). The problem is not that students from backgrounds targeted by WP policies lack aspiration but that they are too often denied access to the web of social networks, pedagogical opportunities, educational resources, academic practices, and symbolic and material forms of capital legitimated by institutions such as schools and universities that facilitate high levels of
educational attainment and expectation. Some have highlighted that educational aspiration is mediated by students’ attachments to locality and the feelings of belonging and social inclusion that underpin those attachments (see Ball et al. 1995; Gewirtz et al. 1995; Reay and Ball 1997). Young children imagine future possibilities in the context of the commitment they have to their local area, contexts, and communities (Connolly and Neill 2001). Reay et al. (2001) similarly observe how HE applicants from working-class backgrounds often stress the importance of locality and community in their decision-making process and the sense of security, comfort, and familiarity generated through these localized expressions. Appadurai (2004) conceptualizes aspiration formation as a “navigational capacity” (Sellar and Gale 2011). This draws on insights by sociologists such as Ball and Vincent (1998) who highlight how students from middle-class backgrounds are able to draw on both the formal forms of “cold” knowledge available as well as “hot” knowledge – the knowledge available through informal social networks. Students from working-class backgrounds usually do not benefit from access to “hot” knowledge about higher education and therefore must rely on official forms of “cold” knowledge, which might be challenging to access and decipher. In this way, students from historically under-represented backgrounds “typically have diminished navigational capacities – the result of their limited archives of experience – with which to negotiate their way towards their aspirations” (Gale and Parker 2013).
Diversity “Diversity” is a key theme of WP, and meeting the needs of diverse learners has become a central concern. In some ways, this has helped highlight the importance of teaching and learning in higher education, with concerns to develop pedagogical strategies to address increasingly diverse student groups. However, diversity is too often reduced to tokenistic notions, for example, in the marketing images of university students from diverse
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backgrounds (Leathwood and Read 2009) without ample attention to how diversity raises serious challenges for admissions, student support, pedagogical, curricula, and assessment strategies in a highly stratified system (Stevenson et al. 2014; Burke et al. 2016). The emphasis of WP policies on equality of opportunity, through treating all individuals the same, conceals histories of inequalities and the significance of social differences that are reproduced through educational systems and structures, as well as differential familial, social, and cultural habitus and capital. Such inequalities require an acknowledgement that WP strategies might at times need a focus on difference and its intersection with structural and cultural formations of inequality. This has led to some heated debate about policies for and practices of affirmative and/or positive action, raising questions about how to address the tensions between practices of “fairness” and “equality” and how to recognize entrenched historical and social inequalities of different groups who are differently located and positioned in terms of access to educational opportunities and outcomes (Fraser 1997). This has led to a focus on how WP strategies might be most effective when framed by both redistribution (e.g., of resources and opportunities) and recognition (e.g., of social and cultural differences), even when these might be in tension (Burke 2012). Researchers also point out the need to understand diversity in relation to intersecting social differences. In the US context, Maher and Tetreault draw on the concept of diversity to “analyze the challenges to institutional privilege brought about by the entrance of new groups into the academy” (Maher and Tetrault 2006: 5). They understand diversity to mean “people and ideas that are different from the assumed norm of White, heterosexual, middle-class and collegeeducated men” (Maher and Tetrault 2006). In their study of the implications of increased diversity in British higher education, Chris Hockings and her colleagues argue that diversity extends beyond the traditional structural divisions of class, gender, and ethnicity, also encompassing diverse student entry routes and the different ways that students combine life, work, and study
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(Hockings et al. 2008). Critiquing the often used terms of “traditional” and “nontraditional” students in WP policy and practice, they argue that such terms tend to mask the complexity of diverse student populations (Hockings et al. 2008). They examine the ways that difference is used as a source of diversity, enriching the lives of others, or as a mechanism of isolation and marginalization of those who are seen as not fitting in or as “others” (Hockings et al. 2008).
Fair Access WP policy has been largely preoccupied with questions of “fair access.” In England, for example, the 2004 report on admissions practices in HE, chaired by Steven Schwartz, examined “the options that English higher education institutions should consider when assessing the merit of applicants for their courses, and to report on the principles underlying these options” (Schwartz 2004, p. 4). Schwartz asserted that there was no evidence of poor admissions practice in universities but that there was a need for greater transparency of entry requirements and selection processes. This perspective tends to conflate “transparency” and “fairness,” both of which have acquired considerable currency in discourses of HE admission policy. However, making admission processes and practices clear and transparent does not render them “fair” if they continue to discriminate against groups who have been disadvantaged or marginalized socially and educationally (Burke and McManus 2009). The notion of “fair access” has its roots in liberal concerns to promote access to HE among individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds that are deemed to have high levels of potential and ability (Kettley 2007, p. 335). This concern has been expressed at different moments and in different ways throughout the twentieth century. The seminal Robbins Report in Britain presented the meritocratic principle that HE should be provided for all those who have achieved the appropriate entry qualifications and who wish to pursue such courses (Robbins 1963). This underpinning principle has not changed in English policy discourses
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and is echoed in many other contemporary national contexts. For example, Australian Senator the Hon Simon Birmingham stated that: We need to ensure that good quality higher education is accessible to all students who have the ability and well informed motivations to benefit from it. (Birmingham 2015, p. 9)
This view of “fair access” is strongly framed by notions of meritocracy (Young 1961). Meritocracy is premised on the belief that all individuals who work hard, and have the prerequisite ability, can succeed within a fair and democratic system. However, such a perspective does not address differential social positions and power relations, which provide some social groups with greater access to the valuable cultural and material resources necessary to gain institutionally legitimated academic forms of success. This lack of attention to the social reproduction of inequalities through cultural, educational, social, and academic forms of capital constructs “success” and “failure” in terms only of individual effort and talent. This reinforces flawed explanations of deficit and locates the problem of WP in the individual rather than in inequitable educational and social structures, cultures, and discourses. Morley and Lugg (2009) argue that WP might thus be understood as a technology of differentiation and stratification, rather than a social justice intervention (2009, p. 41). Leyva (2009) traces the implicit logic behind meritocratic discourses to the historically entrenched relationship between social Darwinism and neoliberalism. This logic tends to naturalize social inequalities on the premise that the socially “fittest” groups, those who demonstrate economic and educational success, gained their social advantage through their evolved ability, intelligence, and merit. Individual underachievement and nonparticipation in HE are thus constructed largely as the result of lack of (cap)ability and/or lack of aspiration.
Inclusion, Belonging, and Difference A concern to create inclusive HE cultures in which a sense of belonging is fostered has been a major theme of WP debates. The broad aim is to
counter exclusive cultures and elitism and to develop inclusive teaching and learning practices, curriculum, and assessment frameworks. However, “inclusion” has been critiqued for placing responsibility on those students deemed to be “different” to transform themselves to meet the dominant and normalized construction of “university student.” Policy discourses of inclusion emphasize the need to: include those who are excluded into the dominant framework/state of being, rather than challenging existing inequalities within the mainstream system, or encouraging alternative ways of being. (Archer 2003, p. 23)
Fostering a sense of belonging has been identified as a strategy to create more inclusive cultures that are not based on a requirement of students to conform to the dominant framework/state of being. Rather, belonging is premised on the recognition and value of difference, including the different perspectives, histories, and experiences students from underrepresented backgrounds bring to HE. Difference is seen as central to developing inclusive pedagogies for equity and social justice (Chawla and Rodriguez 2007; Barnett 2011). Difference should be embraced: not as a problem to be regulated for neoliberal processes of standardization and homogenization but as a critical resource to reflexively develop collective and ethical participation in pedagogical spaces. Such collective participation is not based on a notion that we can overcome power relations, but an understanding that power is complex and fluid and an inevitable dimension of pedagogical relations in which difference is and should be part of the dynamics in which we create meaning and understanding. (Burke 2015, p. 400)
Difference helps to reconceptualize WP as relational and “constructed within systems of power” (Brah 1996: 88). Brah argues that it is important to make a distinction between difference as the “marker of collective histories” and difference as “codified in an individual’s biography” (Brah 1996: 89). However, both forms of difference are significant in the understanding of inequalities in access to and participation in HE and struggles over the right to higher education. Widening participation in higher education is fraught with dilemmas and tensions, with multiple
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layers, histories, and forms of inequality running through a range of social and educational contexts and pedagogical relations. It is caught up in power struggles, including questions about the purposes of higher education and who has the right to higher education (Burke 2012). Critical scholars have highlighted the ways that contemporary higher education, a diverse and differentiated field, is increasingly being reframed in relation to the logics of neoliberalism and a complex web of intersecting political forces and discourses (Burke et al. 2016). This raises challenges for how we understand “widening participation” and related policies, strategies, and practices.
References Appadurai, A. 2004. The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. In Culture and public action, ed. V. Rao and M. Walton, 59–84. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Archer, L. 2003. Race, masculinity and schooling: Muslim boys and education. Berkshire: Open University Press. Archer, L., M. Hutchings, C. Leathwood, and A. Ross. 2003. Widening participation in higher education: Implications for policy and practice. In Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion, ed. L. Archer, M. Hutchings, and A. Ross. London: Routledge Falmer. Ball, S.J., and C. Vincent. 1998. ‘I Heard It on the Grapevine’: ‘Hot’ knowledge and school choice. British Journal of Sociology of Education 19(3): 377–400. Ball, S.J., R. Bowe, and S. Gewirtz. 1995. Circuits of schooling: A sociological exploration of parental choice of school in social class contexts. Sociology Review 43: 52–78. Barnett, P. 2011. Discussions across difference: Addressing the affective dimensions of teaching diverse students about diversity. Teaching in Higher Education 16(6): 669–679. Barr, J. 2008. The stranger within: On the idea of an educated public. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Birmingham, S. 2015. Speech: Times higher education world academic summit. Retrieved from http://www. senatorbirmingham.com.au/Media-Centre/Speeches/ID/ 2850/Speech-Times-Higher-Education-World- AcademicSummit. Brah, A. 1996. Cartographophies of diaspora: Contesting identities. London and New York: Routledge. Burke, P.J. 2002. Accessing education effectively widening participation. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Burke, P.J. 2012. The right to higher education: Beyond widening participation. London: Routledge. Burke, P.J. 2015. Re/imagining higher education pedagogies: Gender, emotion and difference. Teaching in Higher Education 20(4): 388–401.
63 Burke, P.J., and J. McManus. 2009. Art for a few: Exclusion and misrecognition in art and design higher education admissions. London: National Arts Learning Network. Burke, P.J., G. Crozier, and L. Misiaszek. 2016. Changing pedagogical spaces in higher education: Diversity, inequalities and misrecognition. Oxon: Routledge. Chawla, D., and A. Rodriguez. 2007. New imaginations of difference: On teaching, writing, and culturing. Teaching in Higher Education 12(5): 697–708. https://doi. org/10.1080/13562510701596265. Connolly, P., and J. Neill. 2001. Constructions of locality and gender and their impact on the educational aspirations of working-class children. International Studies in Sociology of Education 11(2): 107–130. Fraser, N. 1997. Justice interruptus: Critical reflections on the ‘Postsocialist’ condition. London and New York: Routledge. Gale, T. and S. Parker. 2013. Widening participation in Australian higher education. Report submitted to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), England Gewirtz, S., S.J. Ball, and R. Bowe. 1995. Markets, choice and equity in education. Buckingham: Open University Press. Hockings, C., S. Cooke, M. Bowl, H. Yamashita, and S. McGinty. 2008. Learning and teaching for diversity and difference in higher education: Towards more inclusive learning environments, Teaching and learning research briefing 41. London: Teaching and Learning Research Programme, ESRC. Jones, R., and L. Thomas. 2005. The 2003 UK government higher education white paper: A critical assessment of its implications for the access and widening participation agenda. Journal of Education Policy 20(5): 615–630. Kettley, N. 2007. The past, present and future of widening participation research. British Journal of Sociology of Education 28(3): 333–347. Lazerson, M. 2010. Higher education and the American dream: Success and its discontents. Budapest: Central European University Press. Leathwood, C., and B. Read. 2009. Gender and the changing face of higher education: A feminized future? Berkshire: Open University Press. Leyva, Rodolfo. 2009. No child left behind: A neoliberal repackaging of social darwinism. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 17(1): 364–381 , June. Maher, F., and M. Tetrault. 2006. Privilege and diversity in the academy. New York: Routledge. Morley, L. 1999. Organising feminisms: The micropolitics of the academy. Hampshire: Macmillan Press. Morley, L. 2003. Quality and power in higher education. Berkshire and Philadelphia: Society for Research in Higher Education and Open University Press. Morley, L., and R. Lugg. 2009. Mapping meritocracy: Intersecting gender, poverty and higher educational opportunity structures. Higher Education Policy 22: 37–60.
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64 Nixon, J. 2013. The drift to conformity: The myth of institutional diversity. In Global university rankings: Challenges for European higher education, ed. Tero Erkkilä, 92–108. London and New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Reay, D., and S.J. Ball. 1997. “Spoilt for Choice”: The working classes and educational markets. Oxford Review of Education 23(1): 89–101. Reay, D., J. Davies, M. David, and S.J. Ball. 2001. Choices of degree or degrees of choice? Class, “Race” and the higher education choice process. Sociology 35(4): 855–974. Robbins, L. 1963. Higher education: A report. London: HMSO. Rostan, M., and M. Vaira. 2011. Questioning excellence in higher education: an introduction. In Questioning excellence in higher education: Policies, experiences and challenges in national and comparative perspective, ed. M. Rostan and M. Vaira, vii–xvii. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Schwartz, S. 2004. Fair admissions to higher education: Recommendations for good practice. London: Department for Education and Skills. Sellar, S., and T. Gale. 2011. Mobility, aspiration, voice: A new structure of feeling for student equity in higher education. Critical Studies in Education 52(2): 115–134. Slack, K. 2003. Whose aspirations are they anyway? International Journal of Inclusive Education 7(4): 325–335. Stevenson, J., P.J. Burke, and P. Whelan. 2014. Pedagogic stratification and the shifting landscape of higher education. York: Higher Education Academy. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ Research/PedagogicStratification Stromquist, N. 2012. Theory and ideology in the gender proposals of the world bank’s education strategy 2020. In: Christopher S. Collins and Alexander W. Wiseman (ed.) Education Strategy in the Developing World: Revising the World Bank’s Education Policy (International Perspectives on Education and Society) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 16:133–149. Thompson, J. 2000. Introduction. In Stretching the academy: The politics and practice of widening participation in higher education, ed. J. Thompson. NIACE: Leicester. Whitty, G, A. Hayton and S. Tang. 2016 The growth of participation in higher education in England. In Widening participation in higher education: International perspectives. occasional papers, Issue 1, May 2016. Special Issue co-published with the Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. Newcastle: Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education. Young, M. 1961. The rise of the meritocracy 1870–2033: An essay on education and equality. London: Pelican Books. Zha, X., and S. Ding. 2007. Can low tuition fee policy improve higher education equity and social welfare? Frontiers of Education in China 2(2): 181–190.
Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends
Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends Jan Koucký, Martin Zelenka and Aleš Bartušek Education Policy Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Synonyms Enrolment in tertiary institutions
Definition Access questions a student ability to enroll in any tertiary institution. Although equal access is formally guaranteed in almost all systems of tertiary education in developed countries, the influence of ascriptive factors remains generally strong. To a certain extent, it is an unintended consequence of the meritocratic principle that is therefore criticized on the grounds that, although it emphasizes competence and results, in fact it favors those who have had better conditions for achieving them only due to a more stimulating and richer (in economic, social, and cultural terms) family background. Ascription occurs when social class or stratum placement is primarily hereditary. In other words, people are placed in positions in a stratification system because of qualities beyond their control. Race, social class, strata or group (parental characteristics), sex, age, and ethnicity are good examples of these qualities. Ascription is one way sociologists explain why stratification occurs.
Expansion and Equity The role and position of education in modern European societies underwent substantial changes in the course of the second half of the twentieth century. Higher levels of education were traditionally open to a relatively tiny group of the population. Unlike primary and, later on, secondary education, they remained highly elitist for a
Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends
much longer time both in terms of the chances of its acquisition and in terms of the nature of education provided. Participation in higher education was very low before WWII and it only exceeded 10% in the mid-1950s in some European countries. However, the rate of participation (i.e., the proportion of students in the relevant age cohort) in tertiary education increased significantly in developed countries over the last 60 years. This has changed the structure and nature of universities and other tertiary education institutions as well as, and most importantly, the social functions and roles of tertiary education. The enormous growth in the share of the population studying at tertiary education institutions was the consequence of economic, political, and social changes. The economic prosperity in developed Europe after WWII brought about major changes in the labor market and in terms of employment structure. Jobs were created in large numbers and there were increasing requirements for well-prepared and skilled workforce. This was caused by a continuous emergence of new technologies and the related growth in productivity, new trends in consumption, expansion of international trade, and changes in the division and organization of labor. Moreover, transition from agrarian societies of the previous centuries depending primarily on land (still in 1870 nearly a half of the population of Western Europe worked in agriculture) to industrial societies focusing on machinery (the bulk of work took place in factories) was completed. In the second half of the twentieth century the industrial era gradually comes to an end and work in service society focuses more on trade, transport, and similar activities demanding in terms of human labor (the largest proportion of employment moves from industry to traditional services). The last two decades of the twentieth century witness another change where knowledge, innovation and information, as well as the human capacity to acquire knowledge, make use of it and learn, become the main productive force in the knowledge society. Higher education is not only associated with a higher level of employability and income (and, consequently, higher living standards), but it is also considered a key factor of economic growth
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and technological advancement (Becker 1964; Blaug 1970; Denison 1967; Mincer 1974; or Schultz 1961). Emerging in the 1960s, theory of human capital gained recognition with an assertion that the capacities and education of people were more important (and yielding better returns to investment both to society and individuals) than other forms of capital. However, the following decades saw a certain sobering up from overly optimistic expectations of the social benefits of investment in education (economic analyses repeatedly confirmed that individual returns of education were higher than those to society, e.g., Psacharopoulos 2002). It was pointed out that some of the premises of the human capital theory were untenable (Wolf 2002), and attention was increasingly drawn to the importance of the signaling and allocating functions of education. However, the importance of education for the development of society and the economy has been increasingly stressed again as a result of the gradual process of European integration and the building of the common market. This process is further reinforced by much stiffer global competition requiring that the potential of the entire population (preferably all social groups and individuals) be used in full, and therefore their education and qualifications be enhanced as much as possible. The same requirements are, however, also stipulated by the development of society and politics. The postwar democratization of education was perceived as a substantial widening of rights and liberties of citizens and thus as part and parcel of the overall postwar democratization in Europe. It was also linked with great expectations – some important political programs assumed that education would become an effective instrument in tackling poverty and bringing more justice. Education thus appears as a prerequisite for upholding democratic society that requires full participation in civic life. While some other bonds holding society together have been weakened, the education system is expected to function as an integrating force, limiting marginalization and even exclusion of individuals and social groups. Education has a major influence not only on the stability and cohesion of society as a whole, but also on the development and the quality of life
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of each individual; it facilitates a larger degree of sharing the cultural wealth, establishment of broad social networks and healthier lifestyles. Attention is currently focused not only on quantitative growth, but also on the actual distribution of educational opportunities in society. Nearly all developed countries seek, in addition to increasing the overall rate of participation in education, to increase and equalize participation of all social strata regardless of their social, economic, cultural, or ethnic background, and to ensure equal opportunities (or equity) for each individual. Efforts to overcome social inequality in access to higher education therefore constitute one of the principal characteristics of modern democratic society. Ensuring equal access to education based on individuals’ ability and results (the principle of meritocracy) and not on ascriptive factors has become a generally declared and acknowledged goal. Equity has become, along with quality and efficiency, one of the main objectives of education policies of developed countries as well as international organizations (D’Addio 2007). There exist many grounds for it – and again on multiple levels, economic, socio-political, and ethical. Equal access to education for members of all social groups and strata facilitates the development of the potential of the entire young generation and, in this way, ensures the most effective use of their talents and aptitudes for the benefits of the economy and society. It maintains social cohesion, as it facilitates changes in social status (status mobility) between the generations of parents and children. It makes it more difficult for some to accumulate privileges and for others to be pushed to the margins of society and, in this way, it helps to avoid otherwise inevitable social conflicts. Finally, equal chances in life constitute one of the foundations of understanding justice in democratic societies, as all human beings should have the same human rights, including to education. The individual function of education has been strengthened as well. It was particularly in the postwar period of democratization of society, which brought about extensive opportunities of enhancing individuals’ social status and life, that
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education became a major factor of upward mobility, “the way up.” Education attained became an important component of the social status of each individual and his/her family, and a factor of change. Tertiary education was indeed viewed as a relatively reliable “lift” to social success: to interesting and prestigious work, high living standard and style, and good social position. Efforts to increase one’s position (and/or that of one’s own children) resulted in an unprecedented growth of educational aspirations in all groups of society. Although individual demand for education does not always correspond to abilities or future position on the labor market, yet it has become the main driving force of the quantitative expansion of education. After decades of expansion, tertiary education – today acquired by a substantial proportion of young people – is seen more as a safeguard against social decline than as a social lift, a safeguard that is even no longer entirely reliable (Keller 2008). Problems thus raised provoke a certain tension between social and individual functions of education. Diversification and Inequalities The development of tertiary education during the last 60 years shows that its expansion is inevitably interlinked with its diversification, both processes are interdependent, caused by the same reasons. The economic reasons and the demand on the labor market – when the graduation rate is growing – require more types and levels of education and training, including short and largely professionally and practically oriented programs. Social reasons and widening of access result in a far higher heterogeneity of students and thus in a greater diversity of their aptitudes, interests, motivations, and goals. Hence quantitative expansion is accompanied with structural transformation, and as new types of institutions and study programs impact on other characteristics of tertiary education, also qualitative transformation is under way. This fundamental threefold transformation proceeds in more stages than one. It was as early as the 1970s that American sociologist Trow – making use of the experience of US higher education institutions that were ahead of European
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development – defined together with the OECD three basic phases of tertiary education (and thus three types of tertiary education systems) as elite, mass, and universal. Trow characterized and explained them not only in terms of their function, goals, structure, and further qualitative characteristics (e.g., governance, quality standards, access and selection, curriculum) but also quantitatively, according to the proportion of the relevant age group admitted to studies (that is to the entry rate). He established a 15% limit for transition from the elite to the mass phase, and a 30% limit for transition from the mass to the universal phase (Trow 1974), revising later both limits according to experience newly gained in Europe and the USA to 25% and 50%, respectively (Trow 2005). In Europe, the transition from the elite to the mass phase has been in progress since the second half of the 1960s. New short and mostly vocationally oriented programs have been introduced, offered in new types of institutions that were often transformed from best upper secondary technical schools. A whole range included, for instance, Polytechnics in Great Britain and Finland, Fachhochschulen in Germany and Austria, Institutes Universitaires de Technologie and Sections des Techniciens Supérieurs (STS) in France, Higher Vocational Schools (HBO) in the Netherlands, Flemish Hogescholen and Wallonian Hautes Écoles in Belgium, Regional Colleges in Ireland or Norway, or Higher Professional Schools (VOŠ) in the Czech Republic. Although they usually had a lower status as HE nonuniversity institutions or as tertiary non-HE institutions, their graduates often found a good position on a growing labor market. Some countries defined their tertiary education systems explicitly as binary with a clear distinction made between universities and other types of institution (today for instance in Belgium, Finland, or France). However, even in cases where these systems formally remained – or again became – unitary (for instance in the Netherlands, Germany, or the United Kingdom), they still underwent internal structural and qualitative differentiation: vertical according to the position and prestige of the institution, and horizontal
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according to the focus and specialization of the study programs (Brennan and Naidoo 2007). Since the 1990s research into inequalities in access to tertiary education has been focusing on three key questions that emerge in the process of studying the issue of expansion of tertiary education on the one hand and the issue of inequality in access to this education on the other hand. Does quantitative growth (i.e., a robust expansion of opportunities of studying at tertiary level) also lead to a more equal and fairer access to this education regardless of various advantages or disadvantages on the part of the applicant? Does it result in a genuine decrease in inequality? Moreover, the fact that expansion of tertiary education goes hand in hand with its diversification raises another question: What is the impact of internal diversification of the system on the development of inequalities – irrespective of whether the diversification consists in differences between various sectors of tertiary education, individual schools/ institutions of tertiary education, levels (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD), or fields of studies, with different prestige and standards and, consequently, with a varying level of selectivity? According to the theory of Maximally Maintained Inequality (Raftery and Hout 1993; Raftery 2007) the influence of family background does not decrease until the educational needs of the most favored social groups are satisfied – i.e., until nearly all individuals within these groups achieve the relevant level of education (the term saturation point is used in this context). At this point inequalities began to decrease at the given level of education, but they increase at the next more advanced level, as the population applying for these studies becomes more heterogeneous. The MMI theory is consistent with some other conclusions and it is therefore often used as a working hypothesis in research into expansion and stratification of education. For example, the authors of an extensive comparative study of inequalities in access to education in 12 countries characterized this situation as persistent inequality (Shavit and Blossfeld 1993). Expansion of tertiary education necessarily affects its functions and roles in society. The reason is that, at individual level, instead of serving
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as a lift to prestigious jobs and careers tertiary education becomes a necessary but far from sufficient precondition for reaching up to these jobs and careers. Expansion of tertiary education is accompanied by its inner diversification. New study opportunities emerge predominantly at the lower, less selective level that has been added to complement the higher level of traditional universities. Individual strategies therefore cannot aim at a mere acquisition of tertiary education, but rather at completion of elite and prestigious institutions, at acquisition of higher degrees, studies of preferred programs, etc. However, access to these continues to be limited. This means that inequalities in access have not been eliminated, but have merely shifted within diversified systems and have taken new forms – qualitative and structural instead of quantitative. The Effectively Maintained Inequality theory offers similar conclusions (Lucas 2001; Lucas and Beresford 2010). The new situation continues to be nontransparent. First, it is not clear what the roles of quantitative, qualitative, and structural factors are in various countries. Answering this question would require extensive comparative analyses of the various factors and dimensions involved. However, comparative analyses are limited by a lack of relevant and up-to-date information (Clancy and Goastellec 2007). This is why some of the most recent comparative projects are designed as profound sociological qualitative studies that do compare a number of countries, but also focus on their overall situation and broader context, interpret their specific development, and analyze national data sources without claiming rigorous comparability and relevance. One of the most extensive comparative studies (Shavit et al. 2007) that concerns inequalities in access to tertiary education in 15 countries has expanded on the existing knowledge of the effects of diversification and provided a new assessment of the whole process (particularly see Arum et al. 2007). Firstly, the study focuses on the relationship between expansion, differentiation, and market structure of tertiary education and their impact on inequalities. Expansion is taking place in all countries and, under certain conditions, can lead to a
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decrease in inequality. At the same time, expansion is closely linked to differentiation, as diversified tertiary education systems increase the overall participation rate. Secondly, the study interprets the research results from two perspectives – diversion and inclusion. The outcomes of the study confirm that inclusion does occur. Although social selection remains the same (until the saturation point is achieved), there are more students of all classes (including those with disadvantages) continuing their education, and inequalities therefore decrease within the age cohort as a whole. Thirdly, the study stresses that the above conclusions – i.e., that expansion supports inclusion although inequalities do not decrease – lead to a new interpretation of earlier research (Shavit and Blossfeld 1993). It was this research that produced the term persistent inequality, but failed to get to the very essence of the problem. Expansion at a certain level of education increases the level of heterogeneity of those who then move on to study at a higher level. This means, at the same time, that expansion facilitates access for a larger proportion of young people from all social strata, and the system should therefore be considered as more inclusive. Although relative inequalities remain unchanged, inclusion leads to an absolute enlargement of access for a wide range of the population. And even though it is possible to see education predominantly as a positional good, yet its expansion represents a benefit because it increases the human capital of individuals and of the entire society. Unfortunately, one of the main problems faced by researches in Europe and around the world is the lack of suitable and comparable data across countries. One of the most recent comparative study (Atherton et al. 2016) considered whether it might be possible to develop a reliable so-called Global Equity Index that would compare HE access across nations, but found that there are not currently enough suitable data available to create a meaningful index. In place of an index, and as a catalyst to action, they have produced a Global Equity Data Charter for HE, with suggestions for some coordinated next steps that providers, national governments, and international organizations can take to gather more comprehensive and comparable data.
Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends
Inequality in Tertiary Education Attainment 1950–2015 The following analysis of the development of inequalities in tertiary education attainment is based on the data gathered in the first seven rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), from 2002/2003 to 2014/15, respectively, in more than 30 European countries. Using a concept and methodology developed here (Koucký et al. 2009) and further elaborated here (Koucký et al. 2010), the analysis of the Inequality Index in European countries has revealed that the level of inequality in tertiary education attainment in Europe had been gradually decreasing over the first three decades, but since has increased to about the same level as it was at the beginning. In many European countries inequalities reached their minimum levels during the 1970s and 1980s, but in the 1990s they began to grow again. In number of countries their levels even exceeded those achieved in the 1950s and 1960s. The change in the 1990s can be explained by the overall development of society, in developed countries around the world rather strongly affected by neoliberalism. Its manifestations included, among other things, an increase in the level of wealth and of income inequality and other similar indicators. Since then the Inequality Index for Europe remained about the same. Neither the average European level of inequality in tertiary education attainment nor the longterm trends can be generalized for all countries and periods. It is necessary to deal with individual countries and periods specifically, as they differ a lot. It has turned out, for example, that the originally large spread of the Inequality Index (measured by standard deviation) between countries began to diminish in the 1950s and kept on diminishing till the 1970s. However, the spread of Index values in the 1980s got larger again, and after two decades of smaller differences, the differences in inequality between European countries have reached in its new high in the 2010s. In the decade immediately after the end of the WWII there were high levels of inequalities in tertiary education attainment particularly in Portugal, Lithuania, France Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Spain. However, from that time on inequalities in
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most of these countries have tended to decrease or fluctuate – although this was not true of all participating countries (e.g., Bulgaria and Slovakia) and all periods analyzed. For example, in the last two and half decades (1990–2015) the highest level of inequality in tertiary education attainment of all 22 analyzed countries can be found in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and also in Belgium, which is the country where inequality in tertiary education attainment has risen the most since the 1980s. A major trend of growing inequalities can also be observed in Estonia (1960s–1980s), the United Kingdom (1960s–1990s), Bulgaria and Lithuania (since 1960s to the present), Slovakia (in 1970s), Germany (1960s–2000s), Greece (1970s–2000s), Sweden (since the 1980s to the present), and France (in the 2010s). However, while in Bulgaria and Slovakia the level of inequality in tertiary education attainment was above-the-average as early as the 1950s, countries such as Estonia, the United Kingdom, and Sweden have never reached the European average and Germany and Greece has stepped over the European average as late as during one of the most recent decade (2000–2010). On the other hand, a steady decrease in the level of inequalities in TE attainment in early decades occurred in Portugal, Finland, Spain, Lithuania, and Sweden. The same happened in Slovenia and Denmark during the most recent decades. However, while Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, and even Spain have shown the lowest inequality levels of all countries in the most recent one and half decade (2000–2015), these values have risen to average levels in the case of Portugal and Sweden and to an above-the-average level in case of Lithuania. Both influences – the starting level of inequality and the long-term development tendencies – are intertwined and explain their present level. In the most recent periods after 2000, the level of inequalities has been the lowest in Denmark, Slovenia, Finland, and Estonia – i.e., countries where the Inequality index has either underlined a major decrease or been low for the entire period (Fig. 1). The analysis of the spread clearly confirms that the differences between countries are far from negligible – both in terms of the level and the development of inequalities in tertiary education
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Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends, Fig. 1 Inequality index in TE attainment, European countries 1950– 2015 (Source: European Social Survey 2017)
attainment. The analysis of development trends and position of individual countries in all six time periods under review has led to the identification of three groups of countries. Although the three groups do represent certain types, the specific position and development of individual countries tend to create a continuum where it is not possible to strictly define any clear-cut boundaries, and countries forming one group still remain relatively heterogeneous. The breakdown of the countries into groups being, to a degree, related to their geographical position and cultural political situation, the three resulting types (groups of countries) have been described as countries of North-Western Europe, countries of SouthWestern Europe, and countries of Eastern Europe. The identification of these groups of countries has resulted in defining three, relatively different trajectories of development that vary both in terms of their overall level and the dynamics of change. In terms of the spread of the level of inequalities (measured by standard deviation), the differences in inequalities were the largest in the 1950s and have become the smallest in the most recent period after 2010. Differences in the level of
inequality between the three groups of countries were decreasing from the 1950s to the 1970s, then slightly increased in the 1980s, and then have begun to decrease again.
The three basic, relatively homogenous groups of European countries are composed as follows: North-Western Europe (North-West): Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Germany (DE), Ireland (IE), the Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Sweden (SE), the United Kingdom (GB). South-Western Europe (South-West): Belgium (BE), France (FR), Greece (GR), Portugal (PT), Spain (ES), Switzerland (CH). Eastern Europe (East): Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Estonia (EE), Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT), Poland (PL), the Slovak Republic (SK), Slovenia (SI) (Fig. 2).
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Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends, Fig. 2 Inequality index in tertiary education attainment, Groups of European countries 1950-2015 (Source: European Social Survey 2017)
The decrease in the overall level of Inequality Index in tertiary education attainment in Europe in the early decades can be largely attributed to the countries of South-Western Europe. Historically, they have a predominantly catholic tradition with a steeper social hierarchy and more clearly stratified social groups and classes. The original levels of inequality in tertiary education attainment in these countries were the highest of all (in the 1950s the Inequality Index was 56 on average, being by far the highest in Portugal) but they began to show a steady decrease in the following decades. In the 1990s inequalities in SouthWestern Europe have started increasing slightly again (51) and, after a small decrease, have increased quite sharply in the last half of a decade. However, this increase has happened only because of increase in Belgium and France. Overall, the lowest levels of inequalities in tertiary education attainment in the entire postwar period can be found in countries of North-Western Europe. They are, to a large degree, rooted in the protestant tradition with a less steep social hierarchy and smaller differences between the characteristics of social groups and strata. Between
1950s and 1980s the average Inequality Index first has decreased and started to gradually increase in the range of 41–44. It then sharply increased to a value of 48 where it remained stable ever since. However, despite this increase in inequalities in the 1990s (the largest one occurred in Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway) this group of countries remains far below the European average. Countries of Eastern Europe experienced an entirely different and more fluctuating development in terms of inequalities. In the 1950s they showed approximately the average European level of Inequality Index in tertiary education attainment. In most Eastern European countries this was caused, above all, by postwar communist takeovers that were often accompanied by an extensive “regrouping” of social strata or “overturning” of social structure, a massive emigration of people from higher social classes and the introduction of “class” criteria in admission to tertiary education institutions. Understandably, this disrupted the processes of intergeneration transmission of education (see, for example, Bourdieu 1986). Despite this, inequalities in
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tertiary education attainment began to increase again as early as the 1960s and then, again, in the 1980s, as members of “new social elites” gradually restored and consolidated the continuity of intergeneration transmission. As a result, in the 1960s for the first time the average Inequality Index in countries of Eastern Europe achieved the highest level of all three groups. From the 1990s – i.e., immediately after the demise of socialism – Eastern European countries experienced further social changes. They resulted, among other things, in increasing overall social inequalities in many areas, for example, in the distribution of wealth and income. It is therefore not surprising that these changes also had an impact on inequalities in tertiary education attainment. This was particularly due the social status crystallization (a process where status characteristics, which were originally only very loosely connected, begin to strengthen their mutual links and correlate together) that manifested itself, apart from other things, in a severe strengthening of the link between education and income (which was very loose under socialism). An increase in the overall congruence of social status where education began to play a major role had another important implication. In systems with a low proportion of adults with higher qualifications, demand for tertiary education on the part of new young generations began to grow dramatically (in some Eastern European countries they represented large demographic groups). It took higher education policy several years to respond to this development. Due to the necessary selection as part of a supply oriented system, successful candidates were mainly those with a more favorable (supportive) family background and a higher level of economic, social, and cultural capital (see, for example, Shavit et al. 2007). After 2000 inequalities have begun slowly to decrease in Eastern European countries. In connection with an increase of Inequality Index the countries of South-Western Europe in the last half of a decade the level of Inequality Index for Eastern and South-Western European countries is now basically the same. In addition to the overall influence of family background on inequalities in tertiary education
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attainment of children from various social strata, each of the four factors of family background (so-called ascriptive factors) has a different impact on the overall level of inequality. Another objective was therefore to analyze the scale of impact of various family background factors for the European population for various periods. It has revealed two basic dimensions of intergeneration transmission of inequalities in tertiary education attainment. The first one relates to characteristics of the father and of the mother, the second one to characteristics of occupation and of education. The most significant trend in Europe in the last 60 years in most of countries is the shift from the predominance of the father’s characteristics to the characteristics of education of both parents. The impact of the father’s occupation has been more or less constantly decreasing in Europe since the 1950s when it was at its peak and has actually become the factor with least impact. On the other hand, the impact of the mother’s occupation has been strengthening in the last 65 years even to the level that it has become stronger factor than father’s occupation and about as strong as father’s education. In general, the prevalence of the father has been gradually weakening and impact of mother strengthening. This led to a period of 1990–2010 where impacts of all four factors have become very much similar. However, an analysis of last half a decade showed rather steep increase in impact of mother’s education which is now clearly the strongest factor. Admittedly it is only half a decade and only analysis of future data will show whether this is long term trend.
References Arum, Richard, Adam Gamoran, and Yossi Shavit. 2007. More inclusion than diversion: Expansion, differentiation, and market structure in higher education. In Stratification in higher education, A comparative study. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Atherton, Graeme, Constantino Dumangane, and Geoff Whitty. 2016. Charting equity in higher education: Drawing the global access map. London: Open Ideas at Pearson, Pearson. Becker, Gary. 1964. Human capital. New York: Columbia University Press.
Access to Higher Education, Affirmative Action Blaug, Mark. 1970. An introduction to the economics of education. England: Penguin Books. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. Forms of capital. In Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, ed. John G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood Press. Brennan, John, and Rajani Naidoo. 2007. Higher education and the achievement of equity and social justice. In Higher education looking forward theme 2. European Science Foundation. Strasbourge, France. Clancy, Patrick, and Gaële Goastellec. 2007. Exploring access and equity in higher education: Policy and performance in a comparative perspective. Higher Education Quarterly 61 (2): 136–154. d’Addio, Anna C. 2007. Intergenerational transmission of disadvantage: Mobility or immobility across generations? A review of the evidence for OECD countries. Paris: OECD. Denison, Edward. 1967. Why growth rates differ: Post war experience in nine countries. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Keller, Jan. 2008. Vzdeˇlanostní spolecˇnost? (The knowledge society?). Praha: SLON. Koucký, Jan, Aleš Bartušek, and Jan Kovařovic. 2009. Who is more equal? Access to tertiary education in Europe. Prague: Education Policy Centre, Faculty of Education, Charles University. Koucký, Jan, Aleš Bartušek, and Jan Kovařovic. 2010. Who gets a degree? Access to tertiary education in Europe 1950–2009. Prague: Education Policy Centre, Faculty of Education, Charles University. Lucas, Samuel R. 2001. Effectively maintained inequality: Education transitions, track mobility, and social background effects. American Journal of Sociology 106: 1642–1690. Lucas, Samuel R., and Lauren Beresford. 2010. Naming and classifying: Theory, evidence, and equity in education. Review of Research in Education 34 (1): 25–84. Mincer, Jacob. 1974. Schooling, experience, and earnings. New York: Columbia University Press. Psacharopoulos, George. 2002. Returns to investment in education: a further update. Washington, DC: World Bank. Raftery, Adrian E. 2007. Maximally maintained inequality and educational inequality in the Czech Republic. Seminar of MSMT and Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the CR. 11 April 2007. Prague, Czech Republic. Raftery, Adrian E., and Michael Hout. 1993. Maximally maintained inequality: Expansion, reform, and opportunity in irish education. Sociology of Education 66: 41–62. Schultz, Theodore. 1961. Investment in human capital. American Economic Review 51: 1–17. Shavit, Yossi, and Hans P. Blossfeld. 1993. Persistent inequality: Changing educational attainment in thirteen countries. Boulder: Westview Press. Shavit, Yossi, Richard Arum, and Adam Gamoran, eds. 2007. Stratification in higher education. A comparative study. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
73 Trow, Marin A. 1974. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. In Policies for higher education. Paris: OECD. Trow, Marin A. 2005. Reflections on the transition from Elite to mass to universal access. In International Handbook of Higher Education. Kluwer Publishers. Dordrecht, Netherlands. Wolf, Alison. 2002. Does education matter? London: Penguin Books.
Access to Higher Education, Affirmative Action Bridget Terry Long Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA
Synonyms Positive discrimination
Definitions Affirmative action refers to the use of preferences favoring individuals in a particular group when making a choice between candidates. In regards to higher education, it refers to preferences in admissions decisions, i.e., being more likely to choose students from a certain group over others, all else equal. Framed more broadly, affirmative action is a policy focused on creating differential processes or applying different standards in order to promote more equal access to higher education opportunity. The preferences that receive the most attention are those for specific racial or ethnic groups, but affirmative action policies could alternatively be tailored to favor other student traits, such as low-income status (i.e., “economic” affirmative action). Additionally, college admissions committees have been shown to show preferences for students with legacy status (having a parent or other relative who has attended the institution), athletes, and students of a certain gender.
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The Use of Preferences in College Admissions in the USA Most of the work on affirmative action has focused on the context of the USA. Although most American students attend the college of their choice and 80% of colleges are nonselective, there has been a great deal of concern about how admissions decisions are made and the extent to which preferences are given to certain groups. This question has become more important as differences in resources, government subsidies, and returns by level of college selectivity have been better documented (Hurlburt and Kirshstein 2012; Hoxby and Long 1999). It is important to acknowledge that students’ decisions play an important role in determining the outcomes we observe in higher education. In other words, affirmative action, or lack thereof, will not alone determine whether colleges and universities are racially and ethnically diverse. Because students’ decisions, as well as their access to resources and opportunities, are also important determinants of campus racial and ethnic composition, postsecondary institutions require more than race-conscious policies in order to diversify their campuses. Persistent differences by race, income, or gender all along the educational pipeline, from primary to secondary education, imply substantial gaps in college access even in the face of racial preferences. Although there is a perception that racial affirmative action is extensive in American higher education, the true role of race in college admissions is largely unclear. To discern the role of racial preferences, researchers have often compared the academic characteristics of students of different races at a particular college. The most popular indicator has been differences in the test scores of students of various races and ethnicities who have been accepted to the college. The implicit assumption of this approach is that test scores, often college entrance exams like the SAT or ACT, are a good measure of preparation for college and a good predictor of future postsecondary performance. However, research shows that such tests have limited ability to predict who will do well in college. Research on the
Access to Higher Education, Affirmative Action
predictive ability of SAT scores on future college performance suggest older versions of the test explained only about one-third of a student’s first-year performance in college (Bridgeman et al. 2000). More recent versions of the SAT, which has been revised in response to critique and pressure from colleges, have higher correlations (Shaw 2015). But even these correlations may overstate the predictive ability of the SAT, as Rothstein (2004) finds that, after correcting for selection issues inherent in studies of predictive validity, the SAT’s contribution to predictions of freshman grade point averages are about 20% smaller than the usual methods imply. Notably, the predictive power of the SAT varies by student gender and race, with the exam having a strong correlation with future performance for some groups versus others. The test also varies in how well it predicts future student performance by institution (Aguinis et al. 2016), and as a result, the SAT is a better predictive tool for some schools than others. Research on the predictive power of the ACT, the other major college entrance exam in the USA, suggests only two of the four subtests are good predictors of positive college outcomes (Bettinger et al. 2013). Additional critiques of college entrance exams include the fact that scores are easily influenced by test preparation and repeated sittings, which are both more prominent activities among more affluent students (Vigdor and Clotfelter 2003; Bound et al. 2009) and the assertion that such exams actually do not capture the material most often taught in high school or expected in college. To improve the predictive power of test scores, most suggest using it in combination with other academic measures, such as high school GPA. When determining the extent of preferences in college admissions, it is important to understand that test scores are only one of many factors admissions committees consider in their decisions. Admissions committees in the USA, particularly at selective institutions tasked with choosing between thousands of applicants, take into account a wide variety of criteria, including student essays, recommendations from teachers, extracurricular activities, and leadership
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experiences. Also, beyond just using high school GPA, admissions committees also consider the rigor of the courses taken. These additional factors are difficult to quantify in an objective way for the large-scale analyses needed to discern whether and how preferences are being used by admissions committees. For example, Kane (1998) compares the college application decisions of high school graduates at elite institutions. Although he finds that students of color attended slightly better institutions than white students with similar background characteristics, he notes that this observation is based only on test score and high school GPA information. Given the importance of other factors, a comparison of the mean test scores of students from different racial or ethnic backgrounds who have been accepted by a college is not a sufficient way to determine whether and to what degree racial preferences have been used in admissions. Looking beyond the most selective institutions, evidence of racial preferences at large, competitive (mostly public) colleges is stronger based on the admission processes employed by the institutions. With tens of thousands of applicants, large, public flagship universities do not have the time nor the capacity (i.e., admissions staff) to review millions of pieces of subjective material. Instead, many assign points to various aspects of an applicant’s file and then accept all students above a cutoff. The practice of assigning points to a student based on racial category alone is what was called into question in Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 US 244 (2003), a case brought forth by a student against the University of Michigan. It is unclear how many minority students would have been accepted without the points awarded for race. Moreover, without the racial category, many students of color may have alternatively received points for being from an underrepresented high school or having what the University of Michigan defined as socioeconomic disadvantage. However, the court ruled against the university for this specific practice, and since then, schools have generally moved towards treating factors like race, income, or being a firstgeneration college student as part of a holistic process rather than explicitly assigning points.
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Challenges to Racial Preferences and Alternatives In response to the challenges to affirmative action, several states have eliminated racial preferences in admissions. Instead of using preferences explicitly in admissions, several states have replaced affirmative action policies with percentage plans. Under these policies, the top proportion of a high school is given admission to some set of public universities. To understand the effects of these programs, researchers have compared levels of diversity before and after enactment. As the oldest program, Texas has been the focus of much of the research in this area. Several years after the introduction of the policy, researchers have found that the black enrollment level is still lower than before the end of affirmative action (Kain and O’Brien 2003). Quantitative analysis by Horn and Flores (2003) provide further analysis of the Texas, California, and Florida plans. They conclude that percentage plans alone do not serve as effective alternatives to affirmative action. The elimination of affirmative action in these states certainly had a chilling effect on the appeal of selective public colleges for students of color. The number of applications from minority students fell significantly at these schools, and therefore, the level of minority acceptances would have fallen even without the elimination of racial preferences. Instead, such policies must be coupled with recruitment, outreach, financial aid, and support programs targeted at underrepresented communities with large minority student populations. As an alternative to race-based preferences, some have instead suggested preferences should be given to students on the basis of income. To address the paucity of low-income students at the most selective colleges in the USA, these advocates favor “economic affirmative action.” Cancian (1998) compares the effects of racebased programs to admissions policies based on class or economic status. Using the NLSY to simulate the effects of different admission scenarios, she finds that doing so would not produce the same results as programs that target race. Bowen et al. (2005) also consider the effects of considering economic diversity (i.e., income) in
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admissions. This research suggests that using preferences according to student income is not a good substitute for using racial preferences in admissions decisions. The reason stems from the fact that although many students of color are from low-income backgrounds, there are still many more white students who are poor and who would benefit from economic affirmative action. Bowen et al. (2005) suggest that selective colleges should to continue race-sensitive admissions policies while also working to enroll more students from low-income backgrounds.
Affirmative Action Outside of the USA In the global context, countries beyond the USA have used affirmative action to promote equity in their tertiary education systems. For some, their policies are in response to historical discriminatory policies and practices, such as Apartheid in South Africa, the differential treatment of persons of different castes in India, and explicit favoritism towards white persons as in Brazil (Long and Kavazanjian 2012). Another justification relates to economics: this argument suggests that helping disadvantaged people will contribute to the economic efficiency of a country (Moses 2010). While increased access to tertiary education has been documented across the world, like in the USA, low-income, minority, and first-generation college student are the least likely to enroll and succeed in tertiary education. Across nations and cultures, countries have used a diverse set of mechanisms and procedures in the name of affirmative action. One decision that must be made is about the approach, or how the country will designate the beneficiaries, which can be particularly challenging if the country does not have a good census or way of categorizing and tracking individuals by group. Countries could designate beneficiaries of redistributive policies according to membership in established groups (e.g., South Africa) or construct its own social categories to determine who is eligible for preferences (e.g., India). The form of affirmative action can also vary from being a preferential boost in admissions, which is defined as adding points to
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the ratings of a target group. Alternatively, some countries, like Malaysia and Brazil, use quota systems that allot a certain number of slots to members of the target group. For example, a policy in India mandated that 49.5% of seats be reserved for students and faculty members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other “backward” classes (Deshpande 2006; Gupta 2006). The strength of the policy also varies across countries. In some places, preference is only given to the target group in a case of equally qualified candidates. Other countries have much strong policies and exert preferences that result in choosing the disadvantaged group over other candidates regardless of qualifications.
References Aguinis, H., S.A. Culpepper, and C.A. Pierce. 2016. Differential prediction generalization in college admissions testing. Journal of Educational Psychology 108: 1045–1059. Bettinger, Eric P., Brent J. Evans, and Devin G. Pope. 2013. Improving college performance and retention the easy way: Unpacking the ACT exam. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 5 (2): 26–52. Bound, John, Brad Hershbein, and Bridget T. Long. 2009. Student reactions to increasing college competition. Journal of Economic Perspectives 23 (4): 119–146. Bowen, William G., Martin A. Kurzweil, and Eugene M. Tobin. 2005. Equity and excellence in American higher education. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Bridgeman, Brian, Laura McCamley-Jenkins, and Nancy Ervin. 2000. Predictions of freshman grade-point average from the revised and recentered SAT I: Reasoning test, Research report 2000-1. New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Cancian, Maria. 1998. Race-based versus class-based affirmative action in college admissions. Journal of Policy Analysis & Management 17 (1): 94–105. Deshpande, A. 2006. Affirmative action in India and the United States. In Equity & development: World development report. Washington, DC: The World Bank, Background Papers. Gupta, A. 2006. Affirmative action in higher education in India and the US: A study in contrast. Berkley: Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California. Horn, C., and S. Flores. 2003. Percent plans in college admissions: A comparative analysis of three states’ experiences. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Civil Rights Project.
Access to Higher Education, Barriers to Enrollment and Choice Hoxby, Caroline M., and B.T. Long. 1999. Explaining rising income and wage inequality among the collegeeducated. Cambridge, MA: working paper no. 6873. Hurlburt, Steven, and Rita J. Kirshstein. 2012. Spending: Where does the money go? Washington, DC: The Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research. Kain, J., and D. O’Brien. 2003. Hopwood and the top 10 percent law. Cecil and Ida Green Center for the Study of Science and Society, Working Paper, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas. Kane, T.J. 1998. Racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions. In The black-white test score gap, ed. C. Jencks and M. Phillips, 431–456. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Long, B.T., and Laura Kavazanjian. 2012. Affirmative action in tertiary education: A meta-analysis of global policies and practices. World Bank report. Moses, M.S. 2010. Moral and instrumental rationales for affirmative action in five national contexts. Educational Researcher 39 (3): 211–228. Rothstein, Jesse M. 2004. College performance predictions and the SAT. Journal of Econometrics 121 (1–2): 297–317. Shaw, Emily J. 2015. An SAT validity primer. The College Board. Available at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ ED558085.pdf Vigdor, Jacob, and Charles Clotfelter. 2003. Retaking the SAT. Journal of Human Resources 38 (1): 1–33.
Access to Higher Education, Barriers to Enrollment and Choice Bridget Terry Long Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA
Definitions Access refers to whether a student attends higher education. In other words, it is the question of whether a student is able to enroll in any postsecondary institution. Choice focuses more on the student’s particular selection of an institution. While most students are able to access at least some colleges for attendance, they may not have the opportunity to attend any institution (i.e., choice) due to barriers, such as affordability and academic preparation or achievement level (Long 2007). For example, in the United States, financial
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aid policy and open admissions standards make public, 2-year colleges accessible to all students, but not all students are able to attend the more expensive and selective 4-year universities. While governments have created policies and programs to bolster college access, there are growing concerns about barriers to choice due to the fact that there are differences in resources and outcomes for students by institution type (Long and Kurlaender 2009). Also, with better data being made available to track student persistence in college over time, there is acknowledgment that college access is not a sufficient indicator of increased education levels due to high rates of attrition, particularly among low-income students. In recent work, there is much more focus on whether students complete their intended postsecondary training and the policies that might support degree completion.
Trends Trends during the last several decades document that college access has increased substantially in the United States. The percentage of students who recently completed high school and enrolled in college by the October immediately thereafter increased from 45% in 1960 to 69% in 2015 (US Department of Education 2016). Additional students choose to enter a postsecondary institution later in life leading to the fact that about threefourths of Americans eventually enter college. In terms of choice, there is good information on how college enrollment is split between 4-year colleges and universities, which focus on awarding bachelor’s and graduate degrees, and 2-year colleges (i.e., community colleges), which primarily award associate’s degrees and educational certificates. In 2015, about 25% of recent high school graduates chose community college, while 44% enrolled immediately in a 4-year college (US Department of Education 2016). College access differs by demographic group and is reflected by gaps in enrollment rates. In 2015, 69.5% of White, recent high school graduates enrolled in college in comparison to 62.6% and 67.1% for Black and Hispanic students,
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respectively. Meanwhile, Asian students had higher levels of college enrollment than other groups, at 86.7% in 2015. There are also major gaps by family income level. In 2015, 63% of students from low-income families (defined at the bottom 20% of the income distribution in the United States) enrolled in college immediately following high school graduation in comparison to 83% of students from high-income families (defined as the top 20%) (US Department of Education 2016).
Key Challenges to College Access and Choice There are many barriers to college access, especially for low-income and minority students, but most can be grouped into three major categories: affordability, academic preparation, and information. The major first set of barriers to college access relates to cost and affordability. During the 2016–2017 school year, the average total list tuition and fees at public 4-year colleges and universities was $9650, with average total charges amounting to $20,090. Concerns about affordability are even greater at private 4-year colleges and universities, which charged an average list tuition price of $33,480, or $45,370 including room and board. Relative to family incomes, tuition prices have skyrocketed during the last several decades. From 2006–2007 to 2016–2017, in-state tuition and fees at public, 4-year colleges and universities increased an average of 3.5% per year beyond inflation; in comparison, median family income in the United States increased only 0.4% per year from 2005 to 2015 (College Board 2016a). A second major set of barriers to college access and choice is academic preparation. Many students do not finish secondary school adequately prepared for higher education. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicate that in 2004, only 26.8% of high school seniors had completed “high-level” academic coursework, defined as 4 years of English, 3 years of mathematics (including at least 1 year of a course higher than Algebra II), 3 years of science, 3 years of social studies, and 2 years of
a single non-English language (Chen et al. 2010). Furthermore, a lack of alignment between the K-12 and postsecondary education systems frequently results in confusing messages to students and their parents about how and what students should do to prepare for college (Venezia et al. 2003). There are also significant gaps in test scores by background (Jencks and Phillips 1998; Reeves and Halikias 2017 and Jencks et al. 1998). Therefore, while academic preparation is a problem for many students, it is a problem that especially affects low-income and minority students. The third major impediment to college access for many students is the lack of information and the complexity of the college enrollment process, from decisions about preparation to the admissions and financial aid application process to college choice and matriculation. Information is a critical factor in models of higher education decision-making (Becker 1993), with the amount and accuracy of information a student has being important to supporting his or her calculation of the relative costs and benefits of going to college. Complexity and lack of information partly explain some of the challenges related to affordability and preparation described above. For instance, low awareness and information about financial aid is a barrier for some students to complete the necessary applications to obtain support to help them pay for college.
Attempts to Address Barriers and Lessons for the Future To help families deal with the expense and encourage college enrollment, the federal and state governments spent $54 million on student grants in 2015–2016. The federal government also spent $96 million to provide student loans (College Board 2016b). States are also deeply involved in providing financial subsidies to students, which take the form of appropriations to public colleges and universities. These funds act as operational support for public institutions and enable them to lower the tuition price for in-state students. In 2015, state appropriations to public colleges and universities totaled $78 billion
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(SHEEO 2016). After taking into account the multiple sources of financial assistance, the price paid by students is much lower than the list prices in college catalogs (College Board 2016a). The growth in college enrollment during the last several decades is at least partly explained by the growth in financial aid to students. Researchers have consistently found that grants have positive effects on college enrollment (Deming and Dynarski 2010; Dynarski and Scott-Clayton 2013). However, policy design is an important determinant of a program’s effectiveness, with easy-to-understand programs having the largest impact (Long 2010). However, even with grants, the remaining costs that families must meet are often substantial, which put into jeopardy the college access. As a consequence of unmet financial need, students are increasingly turning to loans to cover their postsecondary costs. Unfortunately, little is also known about how the availability of loans affects college access, because identifying the effect of loans is empirically challenging due selection issues. However, many papers highlight concerns, including the long-term negative repercussions of an excessive student debt burden. To address issues of academic preparation, many colleges and universities have remedial or developments courses, which target students in need of material below “college level” with the purpose of improving students’ abilities to succeed in college. The bulk of remediation is provided by nonselective, public institutions, the point of entry for 80% of 4-year students and virtually all 2-year students (Bettinger and Long 2009). In many ways, remediation is what enables college access for significant numbers of students by allowing them to enroll in higher education even though they are not fully prepared for postsecondary course material. Unfortunately, traditional remediation programs have been found to have mixed, or even negative, effects on the outcomes of students (Bettinger and Long 2009; Calcagno and Long 2008; Martorell and McFarlin 2011; Boatman and Long forthcoming). More recently, there are efforts to reform remedial courses, sometimes using technology and additional supports, and early results suggest such
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reforms produce better results on average (Boatman 2012). To better meet the needs of underprepared students, some colleges have also implemented interventions such as summer bridge programs, learning communities, academic counseling, and tutoring in an effort to help students build better study skills (Bettinger et al. 2013; Sommo et al. 2012). In acknowledgment of how lack of information limits college access, recent policy efforts have focused on simplifying forms and procedures for getting financial aid. Evidence suggests interventions that help streamline and provide assistance to students during the college enrollment process can have dramatic effects on access. For example, Bettinger et al. (2012) implemented a program that used tax information to pre-populate the financial aid form and then streamlined the completion of the rest of the form. They found that the intervention increased substantially college aid applications, improved the timeliness of application submission, increased the receipt of need-based grant aid, and ultimately increased the likelihood of college attendance and persistence. There is a growing body of research that suggests targeted help at key points in the college enrollment process could support better decisions about academic preparation and financial aid receipt (Castleman and Page 2016; Long and Bettinger 2017).
References Becker, Gary. 1993. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Bettinger, Eric, and Bridget T. Long. 2009. Addressing the needs of under-prepared college students: Does college remediation work? Journal of Human Resources 44 (3): 736–771. Bettinger, Eric, Bridget T. Long, Philip Oreopoulos, and Lisa Sanbonmatsu. 2012. The role of application assistance and information in college decisions: Results from the H&R block FAFSA experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 127 (3): 1–38. Bettinger, Eric, Angela Boatman, and Bridget T. Long. 2013. Student supports: Developmental education and other academic programs. In Future of children: Postsecondary education in the U.S., ed. C. Rouse, L. Barrow, and T. Brock, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Vol. 23(1)
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80 Boatman, Angela. 2012. Evaluating institutional efforts to streamline postsecondary remediation: The causal effects of the Tennessee developmental course redesign initiative on early student academic success. New York, NY: National Center for Postsecondary Research Working Paper. Boatman, Angela, and Bridget T. Long. Does remediation work for all students? How the effects of postsecondary remedial and developmental courses vary by level of academic preparation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Forthcoming. Calcagno, Juan Carlos, and Bridget T. Long. 2008. The impact of postsecondary remediation using a regression discontinuity design: Addressing endogenous sorting and noncompliance, Working Paper No. 14194. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Castleman, Ben, and Lindsay Page. 2016. Freshman year financial aid nudges: An experiment to increase FAFSA renewal and college persistence. Journal of Human Resources 31 (51): 389–415. Chen, Xianglei, Joanna Wu, and Shayna Tasoff. 2010. Academic preparation for college in the high school senior class of 2003–04. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. College Board. 2016a. Trends in college pricing. New York: The College Board. College Board. 2016b. Trend in student financial aid. New York: The College Board. Deming, David, and Susan Dynarski. 2010. Into college, out of poverty? Policies to increase the postsecondary attainment of the poor. In Targeting investments in children: Fighting poverty when resources are limited, ed. Phil Levine and David Zimmerman. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dynarski, Susan, and Judith Scott-Clayton. 2013. Financial aid policy: Lessons from research. The Future of Children 23 (1): 67–91. Jencks, Christopher, and Meredith Phillips. 1998. The Black-White test score gap. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Long, Bridget T. 2007. The contributions of economics to the study of college access and success. Teachers College Record 109 (10). Long, Bridget T. 2010. Making college affordable by improving aid policy. In Issues in science and technology. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Summer. Long, Bridget T., and Eric Bettinger. 2017. Simplification and incentives: A randomized experiment to increase college savings. Harvard University manuscript. Long, Bridget T., and Michal Kurlaender. 2009. Do community colleges provide a viable pathway to a baccalaureate degree? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 31 (1): 30–53. Martorell, Paco, and Isaac McFarlin. 2011. Help or hindrance? The effects of college remediation on academic and labor market outcomes. The Review of Economics and Statistics 93 (2): 436–454.
Accountability Reeves, Richard, and Dimitrios Halikias. 2017. Race gaps in SAT scores highlight inequality and hinder upward mobility. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Sommo, Colleen, Alexander Mayer, Timothy Rudd, and Dan Cullinan. 2012. Commencement day: Six-year effects of a freshman learning community program at Kingsborough community college. New York: MDRC. State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO). 2016. State higher education finance: FY 2015. Boulder: State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. U.S. Department of Education. 2016. Digest of education statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Venezia, Andrea, Michael Kirst, and Anthony Antonio. 2003. Betraying the college dream: How disconnected K-12 and postsecondary education systems undermine student aspirations. Stanford: Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research.
Accountability ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe
Accountability in Higher Education Jeroen Huisman Department of Sociology, Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Introduction The concept of accountability has always been figured in higher education if only for the fact that – despite notions of the ivory tower, knowledge for its own sake, and academic freedom (all suggesting academia does not need to account for its activities) – academics and their institutions through time have had relationships with various stakeholders in which “answerability” continuously played a role. Such answerability relates to universities accounting for – in the traditional sense of the word – public money spent but also to academics explaining, in their professional work, how they set up their research, which methods they used and why, and explaining to
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what extent their results are valid, reliable, and generalizable. What is relatively new is that the notion of accountability is much more explicit on stakeholders’ agendas than in the past and that it appears that the balance between accountability and autonomy tilts quite often toward an overemphasis on accounting for performance. The changes will be addressed in more detail in the next section. As suggested, “answerability” would be the term closest to accountability, but a somewhat more elaborate definition would be helpful to unpack the intricacies. Burke (2004, p. 2) asked – echoing the work of Trow (1996) and Behn (2003) – “Who is accountable to whom, for what purposes, for whose benefit, by which means, and with what consequences?” This perspective is in sync with approaches from public policy and administration (see also Romzek 2000). Bovens (2007, p. 450) offers a fine-grained definition of accountability as “a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgement, and the actor may face consequences.” Like Burke, he stresses the importance of relationships between actor (who is accountable?) and forum (accountable to whom?), including rewards and sanctions (with what consequences?) involved. To further clarify the concept, it may be helpful to juxtapose it to other concepts often used in the academic literature: accountability in contrast to trust (Trow 1996), academic freedom (external accountability seen as “a threat to the freedom of professionals to manage their own time and define their own work”, Trow 1996, p. 312), and institutional autonomy (Estermann et al. 2011). In this context, accountability is – implicitly or explicitly – judged as a loss of trust, freedom, and autonomy.
Historical Background In various reflections on the emergence or stronger visibility of accountability (Alexander 2000; Burke 2004; Trow 1996), three explanations dominate. A first explanation is rooted in the idea of massification of higher education, which undeniably brought along high(er) public costs to
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maintain a much larger higher education system. As a consequence, governments – being the main funder of higher education – were forced to (re) balance investments in higher education and other semipublic sectors, like primary and secondary education, health, and social welfare. Second, with the growth of higher education as an important semipublic sector, governments – particularly in Western Europe (Neave and van Vught 1991) – started to realize that it became difficult or even dysfunctional to try to steer higher education through (detailed) regulation. Governments indeed took initiatives to grant higher education institutions more autonomy by, e.g., deregulation and self-regulation, but it appears however that full trust was not what most governments had in mind when push came to shove. Governments, alongside granting autonomy, introduced ex post evaluations (through quality evaluation and assurance policies) and asked institutions in return to autonomy to account for their activities (through annual reporting, spending reviews, and performance reporting). In contemporary higher education, systems show different levels of autonomy, and the level of autonomy also differs by topic (see, e.g., Estermann et al. 2011). Logically, this implies also different ways and levels of governmental intrusiveness (and hence different configurations of accountability mechanisms). Third, related to the shift in steering, partly under the influence of neoliberal or NPM perspectives emerging in the 1980s and 1990s, performance standards and output controls were considered to be appropriate tools for steering public sectors, and trust seemed to have disappeared largely from the governments’ radars, which made the idea of the obligation to explain and justify conduct much more prominent, and this further fueled the debate on how higher education institutions – importantly through audits and performance indicators (see below) – should account for their activities.
Traditional and New Types and Forms of Accountability With the increasing attention to accountability, obviously researchers started to investigate the
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way it materializes and the consequences accountability practices may have. To make sense of the types and forms, we follow Romzek (2000) who made an important distinction between four types of accountability. She argues that professional and political accountability have always been part and parcel of (public) sectors in which key actors have considerable discretion to pursue relevant tasks. Indeed, professional accountability has been around in higher education and research for a long time, in that academics always have been asked to explain, e.g., which methods they use in their investigations, what the empirical basis is for their findings (and how reliable and valid these data are), and how they arrive at their conclusions (including their generalizability). The norms and standards for what is deemed an appropriate level of answerability stem from professional socialization, bearing in mind that there is considerable variety in norms and values (and the plurality thereof) across disciplines and fields. Political accountability is visible in the ways university representatives relate to higher education’s stakeholders: “the accountable official anticipates and responds to someone else’s agenda or expectations” (Romzek 2000, p. 27). Political accountability is apparent when university representatives explain to governments and parliaments – either by invitation or proactively – what their institutions do and why (obviously emphasizing the important contributions they make to the economy and society). These two forms are in some contrast to hierarchical and legal accountability, forms in which there is a more direct and explicit answerability relation. Legislation may prescribe that higher education institutions report annually to the government or relevant ministry or may require universities to have their financial reports audited. Hierarchical accountability may traditionally have been less common in professional settings with a stress on trust and collegial behavior, but New Public Management has introduced the idea of appointed professional managers and higher education leaders that “have the right to manage.” In sum, forms and types of accountability have always been figured – implicitly or explicitly – in higher education. It appears, however, that
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increasingly important values such as calls for responsiveness and efficiency (Romzek 2000, p. 29) have led to more explicit attention to specific accountability tools and mechanisms. Two of the most used (and investigated) tools that governments have introduced are quality assurance and performance indicators.
Accounting for Quality Undeniably, the introduction of quality assurance mechanisms in many higher education systems from roughly the 1980s on was partly geared toward quality improvement and enhancement, but the objective of answerability may have dominated the discourses. External quality assurance (of programs and institutions) nicely fits Bovens’ definition of accountability in that governments set up a relationship between higher education institutions (actors) and a quality assurance agency (forum), in which the actor has an obligation to explain and to justify how it takes care that the quality of the program or institution is maintained (conduct). The forum normally sets the standards, and peers are involved in posing questions to the actor and passing a judgment. Judgments are normally qualitative, in that a visitation committee of peers present a narrative (fitting the idea of quality enhancement), culminating either in a final qualitative assessment (excellent, good, poor) or a score (sometimes not much more than simply reflecting the qualitative assessment, 5, excellent; 4, good; etc.). These judgments may have consequences (sanctions) in terms of the actor maintaining or losing a license or public financial support. There can also be indirect sanctions, in that potential students may decide not to register for or employers may be reluctant to contract a graduate of a program or institution that has not received a favorable judgment. Surprisingly, there is limited research on the effects of quality assurance in general (Williams and Harvey 2015), and an even more limited focus on quality assurance as accountability. Studies so far address the following themes. One strand of literature stresses the burden that this type of
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accountability brings along. For example, Power (1997) speaks of the audit explosion, stressing the many accountability questions professionals and their institutions nowadays must answer, and argues that it leads to an increase in bureaucracy and – moreover – to rituals and ceremonies, implicitly questioning the effectiveness of the instrument: Does it actually lead to improved quality (see also Strathern 1997)? In some countries, the perceived excessive workload that quality assurance brings along has led governments to shift their attention from program assessment to institutional audits. Another strand of literature gradually starts to address impacts on institutions, academics, and students. Studies confirm that quality assurance has brought along more awareness of, attention to, and greater concern for quality issues (in teaching and learning). The evidence is however thin on whether accountability has increased quality and, if so, at what costs and with what side effects? Regarding the latter, Williams and Harvey (2015) – summarizing the relevant literature – point at the downsides: the risk of excessive bureaucratization, greater administrative workloads for academic staff keeping them from their core tasks, formalization that stifles innovation, and creativity and the de-professionalization of academic staff (being policed and suffering from a lack of trust) (see also, e.g., Hoecht 2006; Murphy 2009).
(Ac)counting by Numbers: Performance-Based Funding It could be argued that accounting for (educational) quality does in practice not necessarily differ from performance-based funding. It may be merely a matter of emphasis on particular critical elements of the tools in place. But what would distinguish performance-based funding conceptually from quality assessment (section “Accounting for Quality”) is the former’s stronger emphasis on the role of indicators and formulas versus narratives, the accompanying stress on outcomes and outputs versus processes, and a stronger role of (financial) sanctions.
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Using Bovens’ terminology again regarding performance funding: there is a funding relationship between a higher education institution (actor) and a government or governmental agency (forum), in which the actor has an obligation to offer performance indicators (that are seen as proxies of its conduct and achievements). The forum decides – most of the times a priori – which indicators are important and what a “proper” performance would be and which formula is to be used to translate the performances in terms of resources to be allocated in the future. Because of the formulaic approach, there is limited scope for posing questions, and judgments (on future resources) are passed almost automatically. The institution receives a reward – but may not perceive this in such a way . . . – if performances are above average and a sanction in the case of underperformance (as defined by the forum). Some research has focused on the goals (Behn 2003) and appropriateness of performance-based funding in public contexts, arguing that performances are not (fully) under the control of the higher education institutions themselves; hence “punishing” institutions that do not perform well is unfair and moreover does not help them to perform better. Other research has focused on what would be good indicators of performance in higher education, much of it criticizing the contemporary indicators used in resource allocation models. Often reference is made to a popular formulation of Goodhart’s law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure, pointing at the largely unwanted side effects of performance measurement (see also Strathern 1997). Finally, more work appears that empirically investigates the impact of performance-based funding on institutional and student performance. Most of this research (e.g., Shin 2010; Volkwein and Tandberg 2008) concludes that performances do not improve (the work of Rezende 2010 being an exception). The explanations of the lack of improvement are not straightforward, although reference is made to the potential lack of institutional capacity and capabilities of higher education managers and leaders to make a real difference (Shin 2010).
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Conclusion Accountability has changed the landscape in higher education, particularly the governance relationships between key stakeholders (especially government and its agencies) and higher education institutions. Increased scrutiny has put higher education institutions in the spotlight, and they will have to continue to explain for their behavior and performances, whether they like it or not and whether or not they agree with the quality and performance indicators. In this entry, the role of quality assurance and performance indicators (in relation to funding) has been emphasized as the main tools of contemporary governments. It appears that through these mechanisms, the performances of higher education institutions have become more transparent, with the caveat that indicators used are mere proxies and not always deemed reliable or valid. That said, the current accountability procedures in place in various systems seem to satisfice stakeholders. Sometimes a crisis or incident in a particular higher education system (fraud, poor quality – sometimes despite quality assurance being in place) begs the question whether the accountability measures should be more stringent, and this sometimes leads to adjustments in the instruments. Major overhauls are not expected, apart maybe from the development in the direction of risk-based approaches, with a focus on scrutiny of activities that are regarded as the riskiest (King 2015) and performance contracts (to be interpreted as “softer” versions of performance-based funding, leaving more scope for negotiation and interpretation of performances, see, e.g., De Boer et al. 2015). Important accountability questions remain unanswered and warrant further research. Some of these go back to the intangibility of performances in higher education: What are proper indicators of quality and performance? Does the quality and performance of higher education institutions actually increase? In concrete terms, do students learn more or better? Are institutions more effective and efficient? Other relevant questions pertain to the effects. Does accountability mechanism affect performance? Do potential advantages of accountability mechanisms
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outweigh the costs? And, related, what are the side effects of accountability and are these positive or problematic?
Cross-References ▶ Evaluative State, Higher Education, The ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Accountability in Higher Education
References Alexander, F. King. 2000. The changing face of accountability. Monitoring and assessing institutional performance in higher education. Journal of Higher Education 71 (4): 411–431. Behn, Richard D. 2003. Why measure performance? Different purposes require different measures. Public Administration Review 63 (5): 586–606. Boer, De, Ben Jongbloed Harry, Paul Benneworth, Leon Cremonini, Renze Kolster, Andrea Kottmann, Katharina Lemmens-Krug, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2015. Performance-based funding and performance agreements in fourteen higher education systems. Enschede: CHEPS, University of Twente. Bovens, Mark. 2007. Analysing and assessing accountability: A conceptual framework. European Law Journal 13 (4): 447–468. Burke, Joseph C., ed. 2004. Achieving accountability in higher education. Balancing public, academic and market demands. San Francisco: Wiley. Estermann, Thomas, Terhi Nokkala, and Monica Steinel. 2011. University autonomy in Europe II. The scorecard. Brussels: EUA. Hoecht, Andrea. 2006. Quality assurance in UK higher education: Issues of trust, control, professional autonomy and accountability. Higher Education 51: 541–563. King, Roger. 2015. Institutional autonomy and accountability. In The Palgrave international handbook of higher education policy and governance, ed. Jeroen Huisman, Harry de Boer, David D. Dill, and Manuel Souto-Otero, 485–505. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Murphy, Mark. 2009. Bureaucracy and its limits: Accountability and rationality in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 30 (6): 683–695. Neave, Guy, and Frans A. van Vught, eds. 1991. Prometheus bound. The changing relationship between government and higher education in Western Europe. Oxford: Pergamon. Power, Michael. 1997. The audit society. Rituals of verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions Rezende, Marcelo. 2010. The effects of accountability on higher education. Economics of Education Review 29: 842–856. Romzek, Barbara S. 2000. Dynamics of public sector accountability in an era of reform. International Review of Administrative Sciences 66 (1): 21–44. Shin, Jung Cheol. 2010. Impacts of performance-based accountability on institutional performance in the U.S. Higher Education 60: 47–68. Strathern, Marilyn. 1997. ‘Improving ratings’: Audit in the British university system. European Review 5: 305–321. Trow, Martin. 1996. Trust, markets and accountability in higher education: A comparative perspective. Higher Education Policy 9 (4): 309–324. Volkwein, J. Fredericks, and David A. Tandberg. 2008. Measuring up: Examining the connections among state structural characteristics, regulatory practices, and performance. Research in Higher Education 49: 180–197. Williams, James, and Lee Harvey. 2015. Quality assurance in higher education. In The Palgrave international handbook of higher education policy and governance, ed. Jeroen Huisman, Harry de Boer, David D. Dill, and Manuel Souto-Otero, 506–525. Basinstoke: Palgrave.
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Activity-Based Funding ▶ Performance-Based Education
Funding,
Higher
Administration ▶ Bureaucratization Process in Higher Education
Administrative Data ▶ Performance Indicators in Higher Education
Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions Accreditation ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Quality Assurance in Higher Education, A Global Perspective
Tony Strike President and Vice-Chancellor’s Office, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Synonyms Institutional research; New public management; Strategic planning
Acquiring a Student Skillset ▶ Understanding Education
the
Transition
to
Active Participation in Public Life ▶ Civic Engagement in Higher Education
Active-Learning Approach ▶ Peer Instruction in Higher Education
Higher
Definition Administrative planning is not (yet) a welldefined, recognizable, and bounded set of processes or activities that consistently belong together in a single, identifiable administrative functional area. There is no unified naming convention for the activities found in higher education institutions’ administrative planning offices across the world and nor is there one name for the offices where administrative planning activities are located. Activities defined by some institutions as administrative planning are in some other institutions under the responsibility of
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other roles or functions. While administrative planning activities can be identified as distinct from other administrative activities using some criterion, they are located differently in institutions and so defy a functional definition (Strike et al. 2017). Terenzini (1993) took the view that in the USA the activity he identified as institutional research could best be described using the three types of intelligence required: technical or analytical intelligence, issues intelligence, and contextual intelligence. Administrative planning is more productively defined as a process than as an administrative function, a process which is intended to be used to help academic leaders decide on priorities or actions or on the allocation of resources. In this chapter, administrative planning is taken to be the systematic organization of the processes that exist at the institutional level to guide academic decision-making about the future. This definition includes an institution’s internal management of its academic units through an internal planning cycle, sometimes resulting in student intake targets, teaching loads, student fee setting, and the planning or forecasting of research activity and income. Administrative planning may also include performance monitoring, external competitor, or market analysis, providing data and analysis to support internal management decision-making. Some administrative planning may also exist at the level of the continent (e.g., the European Union’s modernization agenda for higher education), nation, state, or system, but these extra-institutional layers of activity are not considered other than contextually to help explain what is observed at the institutional level.
Introduction Internationally higher education as an activity has since the 1970s and 1980s changed in its scale, in its rates of participation, in its funding sources, in its regulatory and governance mechanisms, and in its expected contribution to the economy of nation states and to business innovation. The marketization of higher education has led to competition between autonomous institutions for
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income and competition for high-quality staff and for increased rank in third-party league tables, which has in turn driven an increased desire for institutional-level differentiation and competitive advantage. The emergence of strategic planning in higher education as a distinct administrative activity was also a feature of the 1970s and 1980s. Some argued the existence of this new set of administrative activities was evidence of the bureaucratization of academic leadership (Lane and Stenlund 1983) if not its usurpation using the tools of a new managerialism (Deem 1998), rather than a set of processes for supporting academic leaders in their more challenging roles. It is easy to see how this critique came about. For example, Kotler and Murphy (1981, p. 472) wrote “This procedure is hierarchical in the context that overall goals are generally set at the top. . ..each dean and department chairperson would develop a strategic plan and send it up to the high level administrators. Then, the top administrators would examine all plans.” Another view might be that institutional-level academic leaders increasingly looked for a more professionalized administrative planning process to aid them in what had become a complex environment in which to exercise a leadership role and to help them to respond to an increased accountability burden. Keller’s authoritative best seller (Keller 1983) exemplified a heyday for administrative planning as a rational, orderly, and systematic answer for an academic leadership looking for a way to meet the challenges they then faced. Whatever the founding explanation, administrative planning activities are now recognizable and discoverable in higher education institutions on every continent. Once established as a mainstream activity, administrative planning was disparaged as a management fad (Birnbaum 2000) and for being “too linear, for relying too heavily on available hard information, for creating elaborate paperwork mills, for being too formalized and structured, for ignoring organizational context and culture, and for discouraging creative, positive change” (Dooris 2002, p. 27). Criticism of administrative planning in the 1980s and 1990s was not though unique to higher education (Mintzberg 1994).
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Structured Intentions and Flexible Creativity A survey of the UK Russell Group (researchintensive) universities conducted in 2016 found that 20 of the 22 respondents had an internal annual planning cycle, which in the majority of cases was being led by the vice-chancellor or deputy vice-chancellor or a pro vice-chancellor with a planning brief. The director or head of planning in most cases coordinated and contributed to the annual planning process. The purpose of the planning cycle varied by institution and included setting student numbers and budgets, staffing levels, or evaluating performance (Strike et al. 2017). Chadwick and Kew-Fickus (2017, p. 72) argued that the “annual planning cycle is the route through which higher education institutions (HEIs) take their strategic intentions and translate them into targets, budgets and activities in order to make strategy happen.” It is part of the inherent ideology of administrative planning that it is a process and as such it must be structured, intentional, transparent, sequential, comprehensive, and informed so to permit considered and contextualized decision-making. However, Chadwick and Kew-Fickus accept that when higher education institutions consider how to implement strategy, this was often through “a few large initiatives, which by their very nature are one-off, time-bound and focussed on a discrete area of activity.” They explain this phenomena is not a failure of administrative planning “so much as fundamental to the nature of higher education institutions: complex, multi-faceted, composed of disciplines which often have strikingly different needs, and characterised by distributed decisionmaking rooted in the professional expertise and autonomy of the academy.” Academic professionals are responsible for planning, directing, and undertaking academic teaching and research within higher education institutions. Knight and Trowler (2001, p. 132) asserted that given this cultural reality, the top-down managerialism required as a precondition of successful administrative planning “depends on a rather rationalist, reductionist and mechanistic view of how organisations operate, use resources and create value.
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There are good reasons for believing that even if it is a sustainable view of systems designed to do simple tasks, it is quite inappropriate to complex systems with multiple means for pursuing fuzzy goals.” If there is a controversy here, it lies between those who believe all decisions should be part of an agreed planning process and those who believe such tidiness and discipline are unnecessary or unhelpful to creativity and change or are countercultural to the academy.
Strategy Formation and Implementation Orientations Strategy formation and strategy implementation are separate processes requiring different approaches, skills, and attributes (Mintzberg and Lampel 1999). The planning perspective manifests as an ordered and sequential process for delivering incremental phases of an approved strategy. Implementation of a strategy, as seen in a planning orientation, leans toward process thinking and process management founded on benchmarks, goals, indicators, and action plans. However, once a strategy has been formulated, other legitimate responses than a planning orientation can be found which are less analytical or are aimed at something other than inculcating process uniformity. More emergent, episodic, differentiated, or crafted approaches might include, for example, contingency management, cultural change, organizational development, developing a learning organization (Okumus and Roper 1999), performance-based steering, total quality management (Akyel et al. 2012), or strategic project management. Strategic management could be constructed, for example, on a “strategy-structure-culture” or a “strategystandards-training” pattern of implementation instead of a “strategy-goals-plans” pattern. Strike and Labbe (2016) identify in a literary-textual analysis of institutional strategic plans that differentiation can be achieved by using emotion, by creating narratives and stories about culture and values, and by using case studies as evidence as an alternative to rational goals, indicators, and metrics where benchmarks and rank are offered as the evidence. Institutions need to be clear within their
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national context how much freedom they have to escape the confines of imposed measures of excellence and so express their mission and identity on their own terms, but in any case they can perhaps more freely choose how to express their goals and how to implement them.
A Continuum Between Research, Policy, and Practice This chapter excluded from its definition of administrative planning the work of academic researchers looking at higher education as a field of study, even when focussed on research or analysis for the particular employing institution. Some institutional researchers are academic and others are administrative. One of the problems found in defining administrative planning was the oftenblurred line between higher education research undertaken by academics as a field of study (institutional research) and the inquiry and analysis needed for decision support undertaken by administrators (administrative planning). The highlighting of this division is not done here to create or suggest a firewall; the relationship in other contexts than in making a definition is a useful bridge between higher education research, policy, and practice. In the USA, the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) was formed in 1976 to advance the study of higher education. By contrast, the American Association for Institutional Research (AIR) incorporated in 1966 was for those interested in collecting and analyzing data to support institutional decisionmaking. The Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) was also formed in 1966 as a community of higher education administrative planning professionals supporting the achievement of institutional planning goals. A similar tribal division was found in the UK, with academics, whose field of study is higher education, belonging to the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), formed in 1965 as a learned society concerned with the greater understanding of higher education through research. Academics in academic administration who study their
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institution to aid management decision-making belong to the Higher Education Institutional Research Network (HEIR), joined by practitioners in administrative roles who also conduct institutional research. Those who are pursuing policy and practice likely belong to the Higher Education Strategic Planners Association (HESPA), formerly the National Planners Group (NPG). Presented this way it may look like a continuum, but in fact in the USA and the UK, the number of administrative planners belonging to more than their one group is limited, with little conversation between the researchers and practitioners. Less strong tribal identities may cause these different groups to meet or merge. The European Higher Education Society (EAIR), for example, brings together researchers using institutional data and those involved in policy and practice, including research. EAIR professes itself an association of experts and professionals interested in the relationship between research, policy, and practice in higher education and genuinely seems to achieve this mixed participation.
Administrative Planning Around the World By visiting 24 university websites across 19 countries and 6 continents in July 2017 to look for examples of planning systems and processes, it was possible to observe the variety of ways in which administrative planning activities were structurally located, titled, and organized around the world. Google Translate was used for those higher education websites that were not available in English. Higher education institutions were identified in Europe (Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Netherlands), Africa (South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya), Asia (Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and Thailand), North America, South America (Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador), and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). Confirmation of the existence of administrative planning was first sought, and then its structural or reporting location was noted, the name of the office found, and some
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description made of the activities included in the function described. For example, in Germany the Freie Universitat Berlin had an Office of Strategic Planning and Reporting as a support team to the Executive Board. The office had responsibility for external reporting, an annual planning cycle, and performance-based allocation of funds. They also provided advice to senior leaders on the strategic positioning of the university (see http://www.fuberlin.de/sites/bws/index.html).
Results The first observation was that administrative planning activities could always be found and although existing in many forms could reasonably be taken to be ubiquitous. Secondly, the title of the functional area, which encapsulated the administrative planning activities, varied substantially. Examples found included but were not limited to the Office of Strategic Planning and Reporting, Office for Internal Audit, Strategic Planning Office, Planning and Control Function, Institutional Planning Department, Institutional Research and Planning Office, Office of Institutional Research, Global Planning and Strategy Centre, Executive Secretariat of the Planning Committee, Office of Governance and Planning, and Planning and Information Office. The functional content of the offices where the administrative planning activities were located also varied. They included, for example, some or all of collecting and analyzing data, external reporting, annual planning cycles, allocation of funds, internal audit, monitoring performance of academic departments, analysis to support decision-making, developing responses to the national policy environment, student surveys, key performance indicators, servicing committees, forecasting student numbers, and setting tuition fees. Where any one of these activities was identified as belonging to administrative planning in one institution, it could be found allocated to another function in another institution. Administrative planning offices reported variously to an executive board or a planning committee; to the registrar or secretary general
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or equivalent senior administrative role; to the provost, vice-president, or academic prorector, or an equivalent senior academic role, or in some cases to the president or the vice-chancellor or equivalent. The similarity in the existence of planning processes across the universities investigated was striking, with variations around the location of the planning function within the structure of the university and the additional functions also coordinated by the department or team that was responsible for planning. There were also differences between countries on the availability of information provided on public websites.
Looking Ahead As system and data management capabilities for storage, analysis, and sharing of information and insights improve, the emphasis will shift from administrative planning as a process toward institutions viewing administrative planning as a source of business intelligence and analytics. There is undoubtedly more emphasis on the quantification of outcomes from education and research. This has led to a proliferation in the range and type of measures used to benchmark the performance of academics, disciplines, departments, institutions, or countries with one another. Those who argue that higher education can and should resist a reductionist view of what it is for and what it does are not winning the debate with the governments, with the industry, and with the public who provide the funds and who want facts. The argument now turns on the responsible use and interpretation of metrics in the management of higher education rather than on the very existence of the metrics. Wilsdon (2017) presses for the development of better indicators, the contextualized interpretation, and the avoidance of algorithmic accountability. Just as administrative planning was proclaimed in the 1970s and 1980s as a useful process, in the early 2000s advanced analytics are being claimed as a new and powerful differentiator. The technical or analytical intelligence originally identified by Terenzini (1993) to
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exploit these new technological advances exists in large part in administrative planning teams and will continue to legitimize and give impetus to the functions evolution.
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as it typically has the data skills to exploit new technological capabilities to help inform academic decision-makers.
References Conclusions Administrative planning has a 40–50 year history in higher education. At the boundary, its identity blurs with academic research into higher education as a field of study and with institutional research. An activity defined in one higher education institution as administrative planning can fall within the remit of another function in another institution. No common or agreed set of core functions exist which define administrative planning as distinctive, and so it is more usefully defined as a process. In most cases the rationale for the processes described seems to be to implement an extant institutional strategy. Administrative planning is open to accusations of bureaucratizing higher education and for introducing tools and processes identified with new public management. However, administrative planning exists, and it has it seems become normative. Taken together these findings might suggest administrative planning is unnecessary, even contested. It is sustained because it is found to be desirable by academic leaders in helping them perform their roles or because of regulatory or governance requirements imposed from out with the institution itself. The absence of core functions probably means administrative planning must constantly (re-)prove the value of systematizing and must ensure its outcomes are worthwhile. The rational process orientation of much of the administrative planning commonly described by universities is one but not the only means by which institutions can choose to express and implement strategy. New system capabilities for holding, analyzing, and sharing insights from data are supporting a fresh drive toward the quantification and measurement of the outputs from higher education and are facilitating a modern trend toward management through the use of metrics and indicators. This technological trend is giving fresh impetus and legitimacy to the administrative planning function
Akyel, N., T. KorkusuzPolat, and S. Arslankay. 2012. Strategic planning in institutions of higher education: A case study of Sakarya University. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 58: 66–72. Birnbaum, Robert. 2000. Management fads in higher education: Where they came from, what they do, why they fail. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chadwick, Steve, and Olivia Kew-Fickus. 2017. The planning cycle: A strategic conversation. In Higher education strategy and planning: A professional guide, ed. Tony Strike, 71–92. Abingdon: Routledge. Deem, Rosemary. 1998. ‘New managerialism’ and higher education: The management of performances and cultures in universities in the United Kingdom. International Studies in Sociology of Education 8 (1): 47–70. Dooris, Michael J. 2002–2003. Two decades of strategic planning. Planning for Higher Education 31 (2): 26–32. Keller, George. 1983. Academic strategy: The management revolution in American higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Knight, Paul, and Paul J. Trowler. 2001. Departmental leadership in higher education. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Kotler, Philip, and Patrick E. Murphy. 1981. Strategic planning for higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 52 (5): 470–489. Lane, Jan-Erik, and Hans Stenlund. 1983. Bureaucratisation of a system of higher education. Comparative Education 19 (3): 305–323. Mintzberg, Henry. 1994. The rise and fall of strategic planning. New York: Free Press. Mintzberg, Henry, and Joseph Lampel. 1999. Reflecting on the strategy process. Sloan Management Review 1999: 21–30. Okumus, F., and A. Roper. 1999. A review of disparate approaches to strategy implementation in hospitality firms. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 23 (21): 21–39. Strike, Tony, and J. Labbe. 2016. Exploding the myth: Literary analysis of universities’ strategic plans. In Positioning higher education institutions: From here to there, 125–140. Rotterdam: Sense. Strike, Tony, Martin Hanlon, and Dominic Foster. 2017. The functions of strategic planning. In Higher education strategy and planning: A professional guide, ed. Tony Strike, 30–48. Abingdon: Routledge. Terenzini, Patrick. 1993. On the nature of institutional research and the knowledge and skills it requires. Research in Higher Education 34: 1–10. Wilsdon, James. 2017. Responsible metrics. In Higher education strategy and planning: A professional guide, ed. Tony Strike, 247–253. Abingdon: Routledge.
Administrative Staff as Key Players in the Internationalization of Higher Education
Administrative Staff as Key Players in the Internationalization of Higher Education Fiona J. H. Hunter Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Synonyms Internationalization of administrative/support/ professional staff in higher education
Definition Measures undertaken by a higher education institution to ensure its administrative staff (other than those in international offices) are adequately prepared to perform tasks related to the internationalization of higher education and training administrative staff to become active players in the process. It is recognized that the level of preparation of administrative staff to carry out internationalization tasks will vary significantly in different institutions and world regions.
Administrative Staff and Definitions of Internationalization There have been many revisions and reiterations in the definitions of internationalization of higher education over the last 25 years or so, each seeking to reflect more accurately the various evolutions in the way the term is understood and enacted around the world. Typically, the administrative staff – i.e., those individuals who do not hold positions focused directly on teaching/learning and/or research – or their functions have been excluded from these definitional exercises, and even when scant reference is made, the administrative role is rarely discussed in the literature. To a large extent, this trend is reflected also in the
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practice of internationalization where, although administrative staff have always been involved, the focus has been placed principally on academic activities and hence on students and teachers. As early as the mid-1990s, when internationalization was still a fledging concept, Knight and de Wit (1995) highlighted the need to prepare “faculty, staff and students to function in an international and intercultural context.” While much has been done, or at least debated, about the preparation of graduates for life and work in a globalized world and an increasing attention is paid to the need to train faculty to teach in the international classroom or to encourage their active involvement in internationally coproduced research, it is presumed to a large extent that administrative staff are just getting on with the tasks at hand. They have been described as invisible actors, expected to adapt to the changing institutional needs and provide the requisite levels of service, with or without the appropriate training (Brandenburg 2016). As institutions aspire to a more comprehensive approach to internationalization, as defined by Hudzik (2011), the focus and the challenges are typically seen around making the necessary changes in the teaching, learning, and research functions. However, the same definition stresses the importance of engaging the entire higher education community and makes specific reference not only to institutional leadership, governance, faculty, and students but also to all academic service and support units (Hudzik 2011). The trend to consider the administrative role and ramifications of internationalization is reflected also in the recently revised and closely related definitions for internationalization at home and internationalization of the curriculum. As these dimensions become more comprehensive and inclusive, they include references to the service functions that are required to underpin effective internationalization processes. The revised definition for internationalization at home by Beelen and Jones (2015) also includes the informal curriculum and thus embraces all aspects of the student experience. This includes the provision of student services and hence the role of administrative staff. Leask’s retooling of
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her own definition for internationalization of the curriculum (IoC) makes explicit reference to the support services and thus includes the administrative role, as well (Leask 2015). Finally, a recently revised version of Knight’s widely accepted definition of internationalization of higher education (de Wit et al. 2015) seeks to provide an overarching sense of purpose to internationalization. It highlights that it is not just a process but one that is purposeful and inclusive. By embracing “all students” in the definition, it seeks to reflect the growing awareness that internationalization must become less elitist if it is to make a real contribution to the quality of education and research. In parallel, by including “all staff,” it also reflects an increasing awareness that internationalization is critically dependent on their active engagement whether they be in academic or administrative functions. Academic engagement is increasingly being addressed in the literature and to varying degrees is reflected in institutional policies and practice, precisely through greater interest in the “at home” dimension of internationalization and the related development of internationalized curricula. However, much less attention has been paid to the administrative function and on how it contributes not only to the quality of the student experience but also to how it can foster institutional improvement in internationalization.
Internationalization as a CrossFunctional Dimension There has long been the understanding that the administrative function is principally the responsibility of a specialized unit, generally referred to as the international office or other variations of the term. While well-prepared, professional staff in the international office can make a significant contribution to the success of international activities, it is also increasingly recognized that as internationalization grows in volume and scope, it can no longer remain an exclusive responsibility of a single unit. Rather, it needs to be distributed across a range of administrative units, each with its own specializations and competences. These
units however may be in need of specific skills development if they are to become active players in internationalization. Higher education institutions, that identify internationalization as strategic to the mission, recognize that “international education no longer can be seen as a fragmented list of activities executed by international offices and a small group of motivated internationalists among staff and students” (de Wit 2011). This implies the need for a more holistic approach that considers not only the appropriate academic activities but also the support services and the management of resources, financial and human, that work in synergy toward achieving institutional goals. Such an approach demonstrates an understanding that internationalization is a cross-functional dimension of all institutional activities (Hunter and Sparnon 2018). As universities declare internationalization to be increasingly important or even essential to their development, a growing number have developed or are developing a strategic plan in order to reach their goals. Naturally, these strategies come in a range of forms and degrees of effectiveness, and having a strategic plan does not always mean that it is reflected in institutional policies and everyday practices. A commitment to internationalization requires a carefully thought-out process that takes into consideration the development of the whole institution. This inevitably implies a longterm change process, and the more open and future-focused the university is, the more likely it will be willing to engage in organizational change as an essential component of its internationalization strategy. Beyond a strategy that identifies and implements appropriate structures and processes, it will be the people working within an institution who bring the objectives to life and make internationalization to happen. And it is increasingly important to recognize that those working in administrative units, providing high-quality professional services across a broad range of functions, are vital to this endeavor. However, this crucial role is often ignored in many institutions today. Consequently, insufficient attention is paid to providing administrators with the necessary
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knowledge and preparation to deliver appropriate levels of service in line with the university’s aspirations for quality and excellence in internationalization (Hunter 2018).
Fulfilling the Potential of Administrative Staff to Become Key Players in Internationalization The first step is recognizing the fundamental role these staff play and acknowledging them as active participants or, better still, equal partners in the internationalization process. Higher education institutions that adopt a more comprehensive approach to internationalization will also need to build a shared understanding of – and sense of commitment to – internationalization in both their academic and administrative communities. Otherwise, they face the risk of dividing people into two groups – those who are committed and convinced versus those who feel distant and disengaged from internationalization (Hunter 2018). The second step is linking the development of support services to the institution’s strategic direction in internationalization. This can be done through the provision of dedicated training for administrative staff, which is often understood in non-English-speaking countries as English language courses. While the ability to speak English is indeed a key skill, staff also need to be able to communicate in a multicultural environment and to have greater understanding of internationalization in general, as well as their own institution’s internationalization’s strategy. Professional development is not only about gaining appropriate knowledge and skills but also about building team spirit and shared commitment. Whatever the program developed, it is important to make it meaningful to the staff by tailoring professional development to their specific needs as well as linking it to the human resource policies for career advancement and promotion. If human resource needs are built into the strategy for internationalization, it will be easier to identify the types of intervention required or how current and future human resources might be better deployed. Indeed, in some cases it may be more effective to
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hire new staff, especially where high-level professional skills are required; this can be a means to accelerate the internationalization process and change the institutional culture (Brandenburg 2016).
Conclusions Improving the capacity of administrative staff to deliver high-quality international services is not without challenges. These may often be linked to shortcomings in current institutional structures and practices that are not supportive of internationalization, such as workload levels and understaffing, communication and coordination of different administrative units, excessive bureaucracy, and limited financial resources that can prevent or discourage effective engagement on the part of administrative staff. The starting point is to address these challenges in the strategic planning phase and to undertake the necessary steps to recognize the importance of administrative staff in a way that enables them to emerge as equal partners and key facilitators of internationalization.
Cross-References ▶ Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization
References Beelen, J., and E. Jones. 2015. Redefining internationalisation at home. Bucharest: Bologna Researchers Conference. Brandenburg, U. 2016. The value of administrative staff for internationalization. In International higher education. Number 85: Spring. Boston College: Centre for International Higher Education. de Wit, H. 2011, October. Naming Internationalization will not revive it. University World News No 194. de Wit, H., F. Hunter, L. Howard, and E. Egron Polak. 2015. Internationalisation of higher education. Brussels: European Parliament. Directorate-General for Internal Policies.
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94 Hudzik, J. 2011. Comprehensive internationalization: From concept to action. In Comprehensive internationalization: From concept to action, ed. J. Hudzik, p6. Washington, DC: NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Hunter, F. 2018. Training administrative staff to become key players in the internationalization of higher education. In International higher education. Boston College: Centre for International Higher Education. Hunter, F., and N. Sparnon. 2018. Warp and Weft: weaving internationalization into institutional life. In The future agenda for internationalization in higher education: Next generation insights into research, policy and practice, ed. D. Proctor and L. Rumbley. Abingdon: Routledge. Knight, J., and H. de Wit. 1995. Strategies for internationalization of higher education. Historical and contextual perspectives. In Strategies for internationalization of higher education, ed. H. de Wit, 5–32. Amsterdam: EAIE. Leask, B.I. 2015. Internationalising the curriculum. In Internationalising the curriculum, ed. B. Leask, 9. London: Routledge.
Administrators ▶ Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession
Administrators
Synonyms Access organization; Selection processes
Introduction This entry provides international insights into admissions processes to higher education. As the number of people entering higher education has grown, and the role of higher education systems has expanded, greater attention has been focused on admissions processes that facilitate and enable this transition. Concurrently, credentialism has increased the stakes for admission as demand for qualifications, and the benefits such qualifications confer have both grown. Recognition of the role of higher education in elite reproduction and upward mobility (Bathmaker et al. 2016; Savage et al. 2015; Waller et al. 2018) has also ensured that attention has been given to the degree to which admissions processes support inclusivity of different social groups and address social justice imperatives.
Systemic Influences on Admissions Processes
Admissions Processes to Higher Education, International Insights Brigid Freeman Australia India Institute, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Definition Admissions processes consider secondary school preparation, examinations, application documentation, and/or previous degree achievements and involve various selection methods (including any affirmative action processes) to determine the eligibility of applicants for entry into higher education generally, specific higher education sectors, institutions, or educational programs.
The near universalization of primary education and growth in secondary school participation globally are reflected in the growing cohort of school graduates who aspire to higher education, notwithstanding continuing school participation challenges in South Asia and SubSaharan Africa. This trend is exacerbated in countries with large youth populations, most notably including India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the Philippines (United Nations 2014). Higher education systems have grown, and with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, and massified such that gross tertiary enrolment ratios (GTERs) typically exceed 15%. North America and most Western European countries as well as many Central and Eastern European countries have achieved universal status (i.e., GTERs exceeding 50%) using Trow’s (1974) classification.
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This tendency toward high participation systems is global (Marginson 2016a). Despite capacity growth, unmet demand remains a challenge in some developing countries (e.g., India), particularly where senior secondary graduation rates have experienced dramatic increases. Most higher education systems now comprise a hierarchy of institutions (see Marginson 2016b). This vertical stratification increases competition for admission to elite institutions and has consequences for the internal diversification of admission processes within national higher education systems. These admissions processes tend to vary depending on the higher education sector (public, private), the category or type of higher education institution, and the discipline in question (science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or humanities, arts and social sciences). Higher education systems, and higher education institutions within these systems, have approached admissions processes in various ways. There is variation between and within countries with respect to the use of examinations (secondary leaving, national entrance, institution-specific), stand-alone or supplementary admissions tests (aptitude tests), as well as alternative selection methods. Regulatory or accreditation authorities frequently apply additional admissions requirements for regulated professions, typically including health, accountancy, engineering, law, and teaching. Admissions examinations and tests attest different abilities (Watanabe, 2015) including but not limited to academic capability, aptitude, and potential to succeed in higher education. While some admissions processes are highly centralized and regulated, others are decentralized and more flexible. Centralization is more likely at the undergraduate level given the highly regulated nature of senior secondary education examinations and certifications. Some admissions processes are standardized, others ad hoc. Some are managed by government or government instrumentalities; others rely heavily on higher education institutions operationalizing institution-specific requirements, processes, and decision-making involving a high degree of autonomy. Increasingly, dual issues of equity for
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underrepresented social groups, fairness, and meritorious selection drive admissions system reform (Freeman 2015).
Types of Higher Education Admissions Processes: Undergraduate Programs There are discrete types of higher education admissions processes. The dominant types identified in the research literature primarily concern entry into higher education directly from senior secondary education; however, higher education systems and institutions increasingly accommodate applicants not proceeding directly from senior secondary education (e.g., mature entrants and school non-completers) and applicants seeking entry into postgraduate programs. Different higher education system or institutional authorities may separately administer admissions for domestic and international applicants. Helms (2008) identified five dominant types of undergraduate admissions processes after analyzing publicly available data regarding a large number of diverse higher education systems in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, Asia, Anglosphere countries, and Africa. The dominant types include “secondary leaving examinations,” “entrance examinations,” “multiple examinations,” “standardized aptitude tests,” and “no examinations.” Examinations or tests include those undertaken to complete senior secondary schooling or gain entry into higher education. Importantly, Helms’ typology categorizes countries according to the dominant type of admissions processes, noting that in many instances, a supplementary type of examination or test is also employed. In each instance, higher education systems or individual higher education institutions establish program eligibility requirements that typically include disciplinary prerequisites such as schoollevel mathematics and science subjects and language proficiency requirements. In addition to the various examinations and tests identified, secondary school preparation, application materials, and demographic features may be considered. The extent to which some or all of these are taken into
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consideration varies considerably between and within countries. The first type of admissions process, secondary leaving examinations, is predominantly based on an applicant’s performance in secondary school leaving examinations. Admissions decisions may be based solely on scores achieved in national, regional, or state secondary leaving examinations or on a combination of inputs including both examinations scores and other performance information (e.g., grade point average results). Secondary leaving examinations aim to measure knowledge acquired in senior secondary school. The second type of admissions process, entrance examinations, is predominantly based on an applicant’s performance in one or more national, regional, or institutional entrance examinations. National or regional examinations are frequently administered centrally by government, while institution-specific entrance examinations are administered by individual higher education institutions or groups of similar higher education institutions. Like secondary leaving examinations, entrance examinations aim to measure knowledge acquired in senior secondary school. Admissions decisions may be based solely on scores achieved in one such entrance examination or on a combination of inputs including senior secondary school academic performance. The third type of admissions process, standardized aptitude tests, is predominantly based on an applicant’s performance in aptitude tests that measure general cognitive abilities in contrast to examinations that assess achievement. Admissions decisions may be based solely on scores achieved in one or more standardized aptitude tests or on knowledge acquired during or after secondary school (i.e., academic performance). Standardized aptitude test results may also be considered in conjunction with other materials, such as an application dossier. The fourth type of admissions process, multiple examinations, is based on an applicant’s performance in more than one type of examination or test (e.g., secondary leaving examination as well as an entrance examination and/or standardized aptitude test). In some instances, consideration may also be given to senior secondary school academic
performance (e.g., grade point average). The final type, no examinations, occurs in systems where admissions processes generally consider academic performance in senior secondary school (e.g., grade point average results) or an application dossier rather than secondary leaving or entrance examinations, or standardized aptitude tests (Helms 2008). Dominance of type frequently reflects scope of government authority regarding secondary education examinations and higher education admissions. Where a school education system features standardized secondary leaving examinations, centralized government education authorities typically administer such examinations. In such instances, government authorities may also administer higher education admissions processes to allocate applicants to places or seats. Similarly, where national entrance examinations represent the dominant admissions type, centralized government authorities are typically responsible for their conduct. Admissions decisions are then taken either centrally by an administering government authority (i.e., where applicants are allocated to institutions on the basis of the entrance examination outcome) or by autonomous individual institutions. Where standardized aptitude tests are predominantly used, typically a set range of tests and testing organizations are relied upon (e.g., the US-based Educational Testing Service and American College Testing Inc.). Where multiple examinations represent the dominant admissions type, centralized government authorities are typically responsible for at least some elements of the admissions process, be that administration of secondary leaving examinations or entrance examinations. Furthering Helm’s admissions typology, Abouchedid (2010) analyzed admissions processes in seven countries across the four geographical regions of East Asia, North America, Europe, and Eurasia. Abouchedid’s four types incorporate both examinations and tests and the extent to which administration of these tests is centralized or decentralized. The four types of admissions processes, again which relate predominantly to undergraduate admissions, include “secondary school-leaving test results” which
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may or may not be centrally administered, “centralized national entrance tests,” “decentralized entrance tests” such as aptitude tests administered by a variety of organizations, and “additional entrance tests administered locally by higher education institutions” (i.e., multiple examinations or tests) (Abouchedid 2010). Higher education systems may use more than one type of admissions process. In a separate exercise, Coates et al. (2010) identified discipline-specific admissions tests, particularly those relating to medical and health sciences, law, engineering, history, and mathematics. Some of these discipline-specific admissions tests are used within the respective country system-wide, whereas others are used by select institutions. Admissions processes reliant on single examination/test results tend to be more objective than processes reliant on multiple examination/ test results and/or a variety of application materials (Helms 2015). As admissions processes aim to predict the likelihood of successful higher education program completion, scholars have examined the predictive validity and reliability of school completion examinations, higher education entrance examinations, and aptitude tests. This work has contributed to ongoing reforms, most notably to secondary curriculum and examinations. In addition to the discrete types of admissions processes, higher education systems and individual institutions have introduced affirmative action measures supportive of increased social groups historically underrepresented in higher education. For example, public Indian higher education institutions have comprehensive “reservation” or affirmative action quota systems. The research literature has extensively examined systems that operate to preclude different social groups from higher education on the basis of race and ethnicity (see Bowen and Bok 2016; Flores et al. 2017), socioeconomic background (see Walpole 2003), and gender (see Leathwood and Read 2008). The literature has also examined the lived experiences of particular social groups, including working class students, entering higher education (see Coulson et al. 2018).
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Higher Education Admissions Processes: Postgraduate Programs As is the case with admissions processes relating to entry into undergraduate programs, admission into postgraduate programs typically relies on an applicant’s performance at the immediately preceding level of education (e.g., examinations and/or grade point average results relating to undergraduate programs). In addition, entrance examinations and/or standardized aptitude tests may be administered. For example, the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) assessment administered by the Educational Testing Service is a standardized aptitude test used by many US graduate schools. At the postgraduate level, higher education institutions may require specific application documentation such as recommendation letters and use a variety of selection methods, such as interviews. Admissions processes at the postgraduate level have received far less scholarly attention than those at the undergraduate level. This literature has focused on disciplinary practices (e.g., entry into medicine programs), motivations of applicants in selecting postgraduate studies, and entry into particular types of programs, such as doctoral degrees (see Brailsford 2010). As participation in postgraduate level higher education increases, it is anticipated that greater scholarly attention will be given to this matter. Where admissions processes at the postgraduate level involve examinations, these may be discipline specific, particularly for regulated professions or fields of education where enrolments are restricted. Elite higher education institutions are typically more selective, and this is reflected in higher education admissions processes for postgraduate programs. While admission to undergraduate-level programs involves consideration of achievement in school-level science and mathematics, and proficiency in the language of instruction, admission to postgraduate programs may require completion of an undergraduate program or honors year in a relevant discipline, particularly STEM disciplines, languages, and creative arts. Admission to postgraduate programs may involve consideration of
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equivalent knowledge, skills, and capabilities developed through relevant work experience and internships, particularly for mature age applicants. Applicants for postgraduate programs in regulated professions may need to meet additional requirements specified by regulatory or accreditation authorities or professional councils. Higher degree by research students may be required to submit a detailed application including a research proposal.
Prevalence of Different Types: An International Perspective Secondary leaving examinations represent the dominant type for senior secondary school graduates seeking admission directly into undergraduate higher education. In some instances, secondary leaving examinations provide entry broadly into higher education, while in other instances, such examinations provide entry into specific programs, particularly where such programs have more selective eligibility criteria or otherwise restricted entry. Secondary leaving examinations represent the dominant type of admissions process for entry to higher education institutions in Asia (Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Korea), the Anglosphere (Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom), Europe (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands), and Africa (Tanzania, South Africa) (Helms 2008; Freeman 2015). In many of these higher education systems, while secondary leaving examinations are clearly the dominant type, admissions processes consider achievement on secondary leaving examinations in conjunction with other tests (e.g., standardized aptitude tests) and supplementary information derived from sources such as letters of recommendation, creative arts/performance portfolios, dossiers, and personal statements. For example, in Indonesia, results from the senior secondary certificate (STTB-SMA or Certificate of Completion of Academic Secondary School) are considered for applicants to national universities in conjunction with the national selection process, Selection of National State University Entrance (SNMPTN) (International
Association of Universities 2015). In Sweden, the senior secondary school certificate (Slutbetyg från Gymnasieskolan) is required for higher education admission, and in addition, the Swedish Council for Higher Education administers the Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (SweSAT). National, standardized entrance examinations are implemented as the dominant type for senior secondary school graduates seeking admission directly into undergraduate higher education in a small number of countries in Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria), the Middle East (Turkey, Iran), Europe (Georgia, Spain), as well as China (Helms 2008; Freeman 2015). Frequently, admissions processes in these countries take into consideration both performances on various standardized entrance examinations as well as supplementary or contextual information derived from other sources. There are few examples where multiple examinations are formally used, despite the global trend toward convergence of admissions processes and selection methods reflecting growing competition and stratification and tension between equity, fairness, and meritorious selection (Freeman 2015). Examples include Japan, Finland, Israel, several BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India), Mexico, and the Philippines (Helms 2008; Freeman 2015). Multiple examinations appear to be dominant in those higher education systems that have great diversity at the senior secondary school level in terms of qualifications and examinations. At least in some cases, this type applies where there is also variable quality. It is likely that the prevalence of admissions processes predominantly involving multiple examinations or nuanced admissions systems is understated, and this is suggested by the reliance on supplementary types in many if not most examples provided. Similarly, there are few examples of higher education systems predominantly involving no examinations, other than Canada. As a federation with a highly decentralized higher education system, there is no countrywide standardized, senior secondary school certificate or national admissions examination, notwithstanding some coordinated provincial or territorial admissions center operations, in-province privileging of applicants, and province-level secondary leaving examinations.
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Admissions Challenges
Cross-References
There is increasing performance pressure on school students aspiring to higher education. This has contributed to growth in shadow education that complements school education, and other forms of out-of-school coaching and examination preparation. There is a high degree of competition for admission in many systems, particularly admission to prestigious institutions. Similarly, admission to some high-status regulated professions (e.g., medical science) may be limited. Within this context, there are growing concerns regarding the “high stakes” nature of secondary leaving examinations. Higher education admissions processes influence school curriculum and pedagogy (e.g., “teaching to the test”), including emphasis on critical thinking and student engagement. Admissions processes remain subject to scrutiny with respect to what they assess, their capacity to predict future success (i.e., predictive validity), and the potential for overreliance on one admissions process. Where admissions processes allow multiple inputs, institutions may consider potential in addition to, or rather than, prior academic achievement. Increasingly, admissions decision-makers at system- or institutional-level benefit from more than one input. Admissions processes may also accommodate exceptional applicants from special groups (e.g., elite athletes, and veterans).
▶ Massification ▶ Merit and equality in higher education access ▶ Signalling and Credentialism, Higher Education ▶ Widening access to higher education
Conclusion Admissions processes are by definition the “archetypal. . .gatekeeper” (Polesel and Freeman 2015, p. 5) of higher education. While there is a small range of types, academic performance on secondary leaving examinations is the principal basis on which school graduates are admitted directly to higher education. However, admissions processes are increasingly nuanced and based on a variety of considerations including single, dual, or multiple assessments (secondary leaving and entrance examinations and aptitude tests) and supplementary information aimed at diversifying access to and within higher education.
References Abouchedid, K. 2010. Undergraduate admissions, equity of access and quality in higher education: An international comparative perspective. In Towards an Arab higher education space: international challenges and societal responsibilities: Proceedings of the Arab Regional Conference on Higher Education. Beirut: UNESCO. Bathmaker, A.M., N. Ingram, J. Abrahams, A. Hoare, R. Waller, and H. Bradley. 2016. Higher education, social class and social mobility: The degree generation. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bowen, W.G., and D. Bok. 2016. The shape of the river: Long-term consequences of considering race in college and university admissions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brailsford, I. 2010. Motives and aspirations for doctoral study: Career, personal, and inter-personal factors in the decision to embark on a history PhD. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 5 (1): 16–27. Coates, H. B., D. Edwards, and T. Friedman. 2010. Student aptitude test for tertiary admission (SATTA) pilot program: Evaluation report for the Department of Education, employment and workplace relations (DEEWR). Coulson, S., L. Garforth, G. Payne, and E. Wastell. 2018. Admissions, adaptations, and anxieties: Social class inside and outside the elite university. In Higher education and social inequalities: University admissions, experiences and outcomes, ed. R. Waller, N. Ingram, and M.R.M. Ward. London: Routledge. Flores, S.M., C.L. Horn, W.C. Kidder, P. Gándara, M.C. Long, and G. Orfield. 2017. Alternative paths to diversity: Exploring and implementing effective college admissions policies. Princeton: Educational Testing Service. Freeman, B. 2015. Who to admit, how and at whose expense? International comparative review of higher education admissions policies. (Unpublished paper). Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/ 19668099/Who_to_admit_how_and_at_whose_expense _International_comparative_review_of_higher_education _admissions_policies. Helms, R.M. 2008. University admission worldwide. Education working paper series number – 15. Washington DC: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
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100 Helms, R.M. 2015. University admissions: Practices and procedures worldwide. International Higher Education 5: 5–7. International Association of Universities. 2015. World higher education database. Retrieved from http://www.whed.net/home.php. Leathwood, C., and B. Read. 2008. Gender and the changing face of higher education: A feminized future? London: McGraw-Hill. Marginson, S. 2016a. High participation systems of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 87 (2): 243–271. Marginson, S. 2016b. Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing. Polesel, J., and B. Freeman. 2015. Australian university admissions policies and their impact on schools. In The transition from secondary education to higher education: Case studies from Asia and the Pacific, ed. C. Wing, 5–16. Bangkok: UNESCO. Savage, M., N. Cunningham, F. Devine, S. Friedman, D. Laurison, L. McKenzie, A. Miles, H. Snee, and P. Wakeling. 2015. Social class in the 21st century. London: Penguin. Trow, M. 1974. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. In The general report on the conference on the future structures of post-secondary education, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD. United Nations. 2014. World population prospects 2012 revisions. Retrieved from http://esa.un.org/wpp/ Waller, R., N. Ingram, and M.R.M. Ward. 2018. Higher education and social inequalities: University admissions, experiences and outcomes. London: Routledge. Walpole, M. 2003. Socioeconomic status and college: How SES affects college experiences and outcomes. The Review of Higher Education 27 (1): 45–73. Watanabe, M.E. 2015. Typology of abilities tested in University entrance examinations: Comparisons of the United States, Japan, Iran and France. Comparative Sociology 14 (1): 79–101.
Advancement
Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education Kristin L. Olofsson and Christopher M. Weible School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA
Controversy is a common feature in any organization and governing system where there exist divergent value orientations. A number of policy issues in higher education illustrate such controversies, including debates over securing and allocating funds, affordability, and rights to free speech. One approach for understanding these controversies is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014). Through 2016, there have been over 300 applications of the ACF. Most of these applications have focused on North American and Europe, with an increasing number of studies in other parts of the world. Just over half the applications of the ACF have been in environmental policy, followed by health and economic policy. There have been a handful of applications of the ACF to higher education policy issues, including Beverwijk et al. (2008), Shakespeare (2008), Dougherty et al. (2010), Ness (2010), and Balbachevsky (2015).
Main Questions
Advancement ▶ Institutional Fundraising, Higher Education Institutions
Adviser, Supervisor ▶ Graduate Education Developments in an International Context
The scope of the ACF centers around three main areas: advocacy coalitions, policy-oriented learning, and policy change. Questions regarding advocacy coalitions typically ask: How do actors build and maintain coalitions? How are coalitions used to achieve policy objectives? What are the characteristics of coalitions? How do actors interact within and between coalitions? In terms of policy-oriented learning, common questions include: How do actors learn within and between coalitions? What impact does learning have on coalition stability? How do actors use information, and what types of information are used, in learning processes? Finally, standard questions
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about policy change and, conversely, policy stasis ask: What explains the likelihood of policy change? What types of policy change might occur over time? What are the conditions that lead to policy change? How does policy change impact stakeholders and the public?
Assumptions There are several assumptions upon which the framework is built. First, the ACF aims to explain policy processes within a “subsystem.” The subsystem is the basic unit of analysis and bounds the realm of interpretation and application. A policy subsystem is defined by a policy topic, a geographical scope, and the actors who attempt to influence the processes within. Three characteristics bound a subsystem. First, within a subsystem there may be innumerable components that interact intentionally toward outputs and outcomes on a given policy topic. These components could be at the individual level, such as belief systems or resources, or they could be at the subsystem level, such as institutional (rules and norms), socioeconomic, and biophysical conditions. It is the intention of the framework to identify and clarify subsystem components to illuminate the policy process. Second, subsystems involve actors who are intentionally involved in the given policy topic; subsystems are not comprised of any and all actors who might be interested or even affected by a policy decision. Finally, the framework recognizes that subsystems are often nested and overlap and are not wholly independent. The second assumption of the ACF is that individuals are boundedly rational and are motivated by their belief systems. The actors involved in the subsystem, who are by definition those regularly attempting to influence policy, are limited in their ability to process information. Consequently, they rely on their belief systems to guide decision-making. The three-tiered belief system is a central component of the framework. The first tier is comprised of “deep core beliefs,” stable normative and ontological foundations that are not policy specific. Rarely are there changes to deep core beliefs. The next tier of beliefs is
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“policy core beliefs,” which are bound to the policy subsystem. Policy core beliefs can be normative or may be more empirical. Normative policy core beliefs might consider value priorities and welfare of stakeholders within the subsystem. Empirical policy core beliefs might refer to the attributes of the severity of the problem and its causes or assess the impacts of the preferred solutions. The final tier of belief systems in the ACF are termed “secondary beliefs,” which usually refer to the individuals’ preferred instrumental means for achieving the goals of their policy core beliefs. The next assumption of the ACF combines individuals within subsystems to form coalitions. Actors aggregate into one or more coalitions with the intent to influence subsystem affairs. There are numerous ways through which actors could form coalitions, but the ACF assumes that actors join together based on shared beliefs and coordination strategies. Ultimately, policy is conceptualized as a translation of the belief systems of the winning coalition(s). Importantly, policy is not static – it can shift over time as coalitional power waxes and wanes. This is related to another original assumption of the ACF: In order to fully understand policy processes, researchers should consider a long-term time perspective (10 years or more). Finally, the ACF assumes that information, particularly scientific and technical information, is vital to understanding coalitions, coalitional behavior, and subsystem affairs. The ACF does not assume that individuals completely disregard evidence and rely on values when making decisions under cognitive constraints. The framework recognizes that individuals incorporate scientific and technical information into their belief systems. This information can be used to shape understandings of causes, problem attributes, and preferred solutions.
Theoretical Emphases Figure 1 represents the ACF’s conception of the policy process. On the far right, the policy subsystem is depicted with two coalitions, Coalition A and Coalition B. It is possible for a subsystem to
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Relatively Stable Parameters
Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education
Long Term Coalition Opportunity Structures
1. Basic attributes of the problem area and distribution of natural resources
1. Degree of consensus needed for major policy change
2. Fundamental sociocultural values and social structure
2. Openness of political system
3. Basic constitutional structure
2. Overlapping Societal Cleavages
Policy Subsystem Coalition A Beliefs Resources
Coalition B Beliefs Resources
Strategies
Strategies
Decisions by Government Authorities
External Subsystem Events 1. Changes in socio-economic conditions 2. Changes in public opinion 3. Changes in systemic governing coalition
Short Term Constraints and Resources of Subsystem Actors
Institutional Rules
Policy Outputs
4. Changes in other policy subsystems Policy Impacts
Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education, Fig. 1 Flow diagram of the advocacy coalition framework. (Source: Weible et al. 2011)
contain more than two coalitions or no coalitions. Coalitions form based on shared beliefs and develop strategies to affect decisions by government authorities. These decisions run through institutional rules, generating policy outputs, and ultimately policy impacts. The policy process is not linear and, thus, provides for feedback opportunities. The shape of subsystems and the activities within are dictated by the left-hand side of the figure. There are relatively stable parameters, such as the basic attributes of the problem area, distribution of natural resources, fundamental values, and basic constitutional structures, that shape the subsystem as well as opportunities for participation. External subsystem events, like changes in socioeconomic conditions, public opinion, ruling parties, and other overlapping subsystems, provide additional opportunities for participation in the given subsystem. These opportunities for exploitation are encompassed in the middle of
the figure as short-term constraints and resources of subsystem actors. Relatively stable parameters dictate coalition opportunity structures, which can be conceptualized as the rules of the game for participation. Opportunity structures vary by context and are influential in determining who may participate and how. The overall flow of the ACF describes the general conceptual categories, variables, and relations, within which the three theoretical emphases of the framework take form. Advocacy Coalitions Groups of regularly participating actors who share beliefs and intentionally coordinate their actions to influence a policy subsystem comprise an advocacy coalition. There are five hypotheses within this theoretical emphasis. Coalition Hypothesis 1 On major controversies within a policy subsystem when policy core beliefs
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are in dispute, the lineup of allies and opponents tends to be rather stable over periods of a decade or so. Empirical work has largely confirmed Coalition Hypothesis 1. Coalitional stability does not demand that membership is static over time; it often changes. However, the basic composition of the coalition remains stable, as it is formed around shared beliefs, not individuals. Further work on Coalition Hypothesis 1 should explore the determinants of coalition defection and, in cases when coalition breakdown has occurred, determine why and how that disintegration happened and how the subsystem was impacted as a result. Coalition Hypothesis 2 Actors within an advocacy coalition will show substantial consensus on issues pertaining to the policy core, although less so on secondary aspects. Coalition Hypothesis 3 An actor (or coalition) will give up secondary aspects of her (its) belief system before acknowledging weaknesses in the policy core. Actors need not share deep core beliefs, but they should at least agree on policy core beliefs. Empirical work on belief systems has considered the extent to which policy core and secondary beliefs must be shared to encourage the formation of an advocacy coalition. Coalition Hypotheses 2 and 3 have found only partial support thus far in empirical applications. This could be because the threetiered belief system has not yet been standardized and thus differing approaches to operationalization and measurement have led to differing results. Since belief systems are central to coalition formation, it is essential to develop commonly understood concepts of the tripartite belief system. Coalition Hypothesis 4 Within a coalition, administrative agencies will usually advocate more moderate positions than their interest group allies. Coalition Hypothesis 5 Actors within purposive groups are more constrained in their expression of
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beliefs and policy positions than actors from material groups. Coalition Hypotheses 4 and 5 have not been tested empirically to a great extent. In the applications that have tested Coalition Hypothesis 4, there has been mixed confirmation; to date, Coalition Hypothesis 5 has been tested only a limited number of times with promising indications of confirmation. However, much more work remains to be done on these hypotheses before confirmation or even partial support can be claimed. An informal but increasingly influential hypothesis within the advocacy coalition emphasis tests the assumption that coalitions form on the basis of shared beliefs. The “Belief Homophily Hypothesis” has been largely confirmed, but researchers have found that coalition stability is contingent not only upon shared beliefs but also on other factors such as perceived influence of the actors within the coalition, coalition resources, and trust. Overall, empirical support for advocacy coalitions is strong for Coalition Hypothesis 1 and the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, mixed for Coalition Hypotheses 2 and 3, and underdeveloped for Coalition Hypotheses 4 and 5. This could reflect difficulties in testing these hypotheses, or it may be due to the lack of standardized definitions of belief systems. There are four additional concepts that are influential in the study of advocacy coalitions. First, not all subsystems are characterized by coalitions that necessarily share power equally. There can be dominant and minority coalitions. A subsystem may be dominated by one coalition that retains the majority of control, while a minority coalition contests that dominance and searches for opportunities for influence. Second, coalition formation is contingent upon overcoming threats to collective action. Beyond shared beliefs, actors must intentionally choose to coordinate their actions into an advocacy coalition. How and why actors coordinate remains underdeveloped in the framework. Third, not all actors play equal roles within a coalition. Some actors are recognized as principle actors that may be more influential or active, and other actors serve as auxiliary actors who are perhaps not as regularly engaged
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in coalition activities. Finally, resources play an important role in determining the capacity of coalitions to engage in subsystem politics. Resources can constrain or enable advocacy coalitions to participate and influence subsystem affairs. In higher education policy, Dougherty et al. (2010) applied the ACF and identified the structure and beliefs of coalitions to better understand the politics surrounding in-state tuition eligibility for undocumented students. Similarly, Balbachevsky (2015) used the ACF to understand fissures and points of compromise in the political landscape of Brazilian higher education by identifying key stakeholders and coalitional alliances. Policy-Oriented Learning Learning as a concept is important in policy processes; however, the concept is difficult to study, which has been reflected in the relatively limited number of empirical applications focusing on policy-oriented learning. Policy-oriented learning refers to changes that eventually become permanent in belief systems. Of interest to the ACF is how learning is associated with changes in belief systems and what information, specifically scientific and/or technical, is used to promote learning. There are four explanations associated with learning. First, the attributes of the arenas or venues in which actors participate in the policy process occurs dictate the opportunities for learning. Attributes can be shaped by coalition opportunity structures, such as the openness of venues, or by short-term constraints and resources of actors. The second explanation for learning is associated with the level of conflict between coalitions. It has been theorized that there is an indirect relationship between the level of conflict between coalitions within a subsystem and the potential for cross-coalition learning. The higher the level of conflict within a subsystem, the lower the potential for cross-coalition learning. Third, the quality of information available within a given subsystem is directly related to the potential for policy-oriented learning. With higher levels of quality data comes increased potential for cross-coalition learning. Finally, some attributes of actors regularly involved in subsystem activities have been identified to have an impact
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on the potential for policy-oriented learning. When actors display extreme beliefs, it appears to be less likely that cross-coalition learning may occur. It has also been identified that an individual actor in the coalition may play a role as a policy broker who works to encourage learning and agreements among coalitions. These four explanations can be found within the five hypotheses related to policy-oriented learning in the ACF. Learning Hypothesis 1 Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there is an intermediate level of informed conflict between the two coalitions. This requires that (1) each have the technical resources to engage in the debate and (2) the conflict be between secondary aspects of one belief system and core elements of the other or, alternatively, between important secondary aspects of the two belief systems. Learning Hypothesis 2 Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there exists a forum that is (1) prestigious enough to force professionals from different coalitions to participate and (2) dominated by professional norms. Learning Hypothesis 3 Problems for which accepted quantitative data and theory exist are more conducive to policy-oriented learning across belief systems than those in which data and theory are generally qualitative, quite subjective, or altogether lacking. Learning Hypothesis 4 Problems involving natural systems are more conducive to policyoriented learning across belief systems than those involving purely social or political systems because, in the former, many of the critical variables are not themselves active strategists and because controlled experimentation is more feasible. Learning Hypothesis 5 Even when accumulation of technical information does not change the views of the opposing coalition, it can have important impacts on policy – at least in the short run – by altering the views of policy brokers.
Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education
In a study of merit aid eligibility in Georgia, Ness (2010) found learning to be a factor in shaping beliefs and policy; more specifically, people learned about policy issues from other subsystems. Similarly, Shakespeare (2008) found that different information patterns affect belief systems in New York’s higher education system. Policy Change The final theoretical emphasis within the ACF focuses on policy change and pathways to policy change. Policy Change Hypothesis 1 Significant perturbations external to the subsystem, a significant perturbation internal to the subsystem, policyoriented learning, negotiated agreement, or some combination thereof are necessary, but not sufficient, sources of change in the policy core attributes of a governmental program. Policy change can be either major or minor. The ACF theorizes that policy change can occur through an external event to the subsystem, such as a change in socioeconomic conditions or extreme events such as a crisis or disaster. Internal events to the subsystem can also lead to policy change by influencing beliefs and drawing attention to ongoing government policies. Policyoriented learning has mostly been found to affect incremental or minor policy change. Negotiated agreements can emerge in various ways but largely dependent upon a hurting stalemate, when both sides of an issue no longer view the status quo as acceptable and have no other option but negotiation, and supported by institutions that encourage collaboration and cross-coalitional interactions. There has been significant empirical support for Policy Change Hypothesis 1. There is a second hypothesis related to policy change. Policy Change Hypothesis 2 brings together coalition influence on the subsystem with propensity for major policy change as mitigated or encouraged by the hierarchical nature of jurisdictions. This hypothesis has found partial to somewhat strong support within empirical research applications, but the number of tests has been relatively few. Beverwijk et al. (2008)
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found that external system-wide changes in the political system affected policy change in reallocating authority to govern higher education in Mozambique. Policy Change Hypothesis 2 The policy core attributes of a government program in a specific jurisdiction will not be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition that instated the program remains in power within that jurisdiction – except when the change is imposed by a hierarchically superior jurisdiction. There is still great potential to improve knowledge about coalitions, learning, and policy change and to develop a better understanding of controversies in the area of higher education policy. In doing so, researchers can embrace a variety of methods, but these must be supported by clear and transparent definitions and measurements. Otherwise, the best lessons from these applications will not accumulate into a cohesive and cumulative body of knowledge.
References Balbachevsky, E. 2015. The role of internal and external stakeholders in Brazilian higher education. In Higher education in BRICS countries, 193–214. Dordrecht: Springer. Beverwijk, J., L. Goedegebuure, and J. Huisman. 2008. Policy change in nascent subsystems: Mozambican higher education policy 1993–2003. Policy Sciences 41: 357–377. Dougherty, K.J., H.K. Nienhusser, and B.E. Vega. 2010. Undocumented immigrants and state higher education policy: The politics of in-state tuition eligibility in Texas and Arizona. The Review of Higher Education 34 (1): 123–173. Jenkins-Smith, H.C., D. Nohrstedt, C.M. Weible, and P.A. Sabatier. 2014. The advocacy coalition framework: Foundations, evolution, and ongoing research. In Theories of the policy process, ed. P.A. Sabatier and C.M. Weible, 3rd ed., 183–223. Boulder: Westview Press. Ness, E.C. 2010. The politics of determining merit aid eligibility criteria: An analysis of the policy process. The Journal of Higher Education 81 (1): 33–60. Shakespeare, C. 2008. Uncovering Information’s role in the state higher education policy-making process. Educational Policy 22 (6): 875–899.
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African Higher Education Studies ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Africa
African University Traditions, Historical Perspective N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Introduction The early African university education/higher education system was characterized by its entire or partial indigenous origin. In contrast, contemporary African universities are of European colonial legacy. Despite its earlier experiences, the continent is now the world region with the lowest university enrollment. Its 54 countries have major differences in institutional capacity. The numbers and types range from a single public university in some small countries like São Tomé and Príncipe to dozens of universities like in South Africa and Egypt and more than a 100 universities and colleges like in Algeria and Nigeria. In the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 editions of international ranking system, no African institution was among the first 100 universities. While this ranking is controversial, it suggests Africa’s standing in global knowledge production. In a recent book, Göransson and Brundenius (2011) analyze the evolving mission of universities in the changing local and global contexts. Some of the changes in Africa are addressed in African Higher Education in Transition: Recurrent Impediments, Emerging Challenges and New Potentialities (Assié-Lumumba Forthcoming).
African Higher Education Studies
This paper, structured under three headings, critically examines African universities in various historical moments. The first section discusses indigenous African and Afro-Islamic/ Muslim institutions before they were disrupted by centuries of large-scale enslavement followed by colonization. The second section analyzes institutions of European/Western origins from the nineteenth century to the post-independence period. The third section, followed by the conclusion, reviews the new complex landscape of universities.
Indigenous and Afro-Islamic Institutions Various socio-historical, political, and broader societal factors contribute to shaping and redefining the university. Eric Ashby (1964: 3) argues: “The university is a medieval institution” that reproduces a certain ideal rooted in the past and yet at the same time “has kept pace with the mutations of society.” Thus, the idea and history of universities in Africa are intertwined with broader African history. Two critical dimensions define the longest period in African social history, with the emergence and evolution of higher education/university and indigenous knowledge systems that lasted thousands of years within the Nile Valley Civilization (Ben-Jochannan and Clarke 1991; Ajayi et al. 1996). The second component relates to the “Afro-Islamic” institutions of higher learning. African “indigenous higher education produced and transmitted new knowledge necessary for understanding the world, the nature of man (sic), society, God and various divinities, the promotion of agriculture and health, literature and philosophy” (Ajayi et al. 1996: 5). It has been argued that “the roots of the University as a community of scholars, with an international outlook but also with responsibilities within particular cultures can be traced back to two institutions that developed in Egypt in the last two or three centuries B.C. and A.D.” (Ajayi et al. 1996: 5), with two models, namely the Alexandria model and the monastic system with complex and sophisticated knowledge production (Ajayi et al. 1996; Lulat 2005).
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Earlier African institutions fulfilled the educational mission for knowledge sake and practical applications in different domains of society. As Lulat (2005) points out, “the Egyptians may not have had exact replicas of the modern university or college, but . . . they did possess an institution that, from their perspective, fulfilled some of the roles of higher education institution. One such institution dating from around c. 2000 B.C. E. was the per-ankh (or the House of Life)” which had the Egyptian temples as their sites composed of larges campuses (Lulat 2005: 44). This Egyptian case must be located within the broader framework of the Nile Valley Civilization, which started in the Upper Nile regions including Ethiopia and expanded in the Lower Nile in Egypt. The second type of institution of higher learning in Africa before the European colonial rule emerged from the positive and creative crossfertilization of indigenous African culture and new impetus from Islam and its various effects (Kane 2011, 2012; Sy 2014) especially in the North, West, and East Africa. Of particular significance was the creation of Karawiyyinn in Fez (Morocco) in 859 A.D., Al-Azhar in Cairo (Egypt) in 970, and Sankore in Timbuktu from the twelfth century. Al-Azhar is considered the “oldest continuously operating University in the world” (Arab Information Center 1966: 282). These institutional innovations reflected an advanced level of fusion and symbiosis of African and Islamic/Arabian cultures. Important aspects included the use of Arabic directly or to transcribe African languages (Ajami) for learning (Hassane 2008; Kane 2011). Mazrui (2012: 5) argues: Muslim Africa virtually invented the global university in its simpler form. The standing monuments to that Muslim African invention consist today of Al-Azhar University in Cairo and the Qarawiyin Center of Learning in Morocco. . . . These two Afro-Muslim institutions are centuries older than Oxford and Cambridge in England, . . . Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
These Afro-Islamic universities did not expand beyond the areas where the religious anchor was absent. The cataclysmic TransAtlantic Enslavement that lasted for centuries followed by the colonization of the entire continent at the end of the nineteenth century led to stagnation of these
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universities which even earlier did not transition into secular institutions responding to broader needs of society. In contrast, contemporary Western universities that are becoming a global model even in countries that were not colonized were created by Christian Churches, especially congregations of the Catholic Church (e.g., Jesuits and Oratorians). These institutions were indigenous to Europe, as they emerged and grew organically from European socio-historical realities. In contrast, European education traditions in Africa were created by Europeans to fulfill their interests during the colonization, neo-colonial era pressures, and dependency (Mazrui 1975). Thus, even if with time they become more rooted in African contexts, they are not indigenous to Africa, given their history, as articulated in the following section.
African Universities of European/ Western Influence: The Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts The Africans under colonial rule overwhelmingly rejected education designed and managed by European missionaries and colonial governments (Foster 1965; Assié-Lumumba 2016). During the period of informal colonization, until the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 and the formal partitioning of the continent, some missionaries established educational programs on coastal posts and sent to Europe a few Africans to acquire some mainly religious education. However, generally, when European education was introduced in the context of colonization across the African continent, it was rejected. The Africans who attended colonial schools were enlisted by force (Foster 1965; Assié-Lumumba 2016). The Africans’ negative attitude was part of their resistance to colonization and refusal to be “mis-educated” by the colonizers who wanted to control their mind and give them only basic education. The Europeans were fully aware that knowledge from formal education was likely to empower the colonized. As captured by the Belgians in the Congo, “pas d’élite pas the problème” (no élite no problem), meaning that without advanced education among the colonized there would be no
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risk of an elite/critical thinkers challenging and putting at risk the colonial system (LumumbaKasongo 1981). Thus, higher education, especially university education, was off-limit for the colonized. By the end of World War II, despite their initial rejection of European education, Africans had realized that, indeed, even rudimentary schooling carried a certain power (Ki-Zerbo 1972). Thus, they demanded equal access to all types and levels of European education, including universities. The first African country to have a modern higher education institution of Western origin was Liberia, a state established in 1821 by the American Colonization Society (ACS), for formerly enslaved African Americans who wanted to return to Africa. It became an independent country in 1847 with continued American influence. In 1862, Liberia College was created and became the University of Liberia in 1951. Created by the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century, Cuttington College in Liberia experienced several interruptions and reopened in 1949. The AmericoLiberians adopted a motto of “the love of freedom brought us here” but created an unequal society where they became the self-appointed rulers imitating their former American masters. Thus, university education reflected the unequal social structure. Ethiopia was the only African country that remained free of colonization by defeating its assigned colonial power, Italy in 1896, despite it trying again to occupy Ethiopia in the early 1930s. Ethiopia’s contemporary higher education was conceived as a fusion of American and various European traditions including the British and Germany. In British colonies, the British Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies and the Phelps-Stokes Commission played vital roles in defining higher education. In 1939, the British Governors of West African colonies discussed and agreed on the creation of a full-fledged West African university (Ajayi et al. 1996). Several “colleges,” including Gordon Memorial College in Khartoum (Sudan), Makerere Government College in Kampala (Uganda), Yaba Higher College in Lagos (Nigeria), Princess of Wales
African University Traditions, Historical Perspective
School and College in Achimota (Ghana), and Fourah Bay College in Freetown (Sierra Leone) were created between the end of the nineteenth century and the 1920s. Although most of them were initially vocational/technical secondary schools, they constituted the foundation of post-independence universities. The French proclaimed policy of assimilation ontologically on contradiction with the goal of colonization. It did not include higher education for the colonized Africans. They created the Instituts des Hautes Études in Dakar, Tananarive, and Abidjan shortly before the independence process in the 1950s/1960s. In their North African protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia and settler colony of Algeria, the French did not promote higher education either and, besides a few precolonial Afro-Islamic institutions, the contemporary universities were created after independence. In general, North African countries with no conventional colonial experiences, including Libya (with Italian and British colonial influence) and Egypt, currently have larger number of universities, some of which use Arabic, while other African universities in general use languages of the former colonial powers. The Vatican/Catholic Church and the Protestants later heavily influenced the Belgian colonial education system in the Democratic Republic of Congo and to a certain extent in Burundi and Rwanda. Belgian policy emphasized mass basic schooling with higher education reserved only for future priests. Full-fledged universities were created after independence. Portugal, too, ignored the aspirations of the Africans and thus former Portuguese colonies created their universities after independence acquired in the 1970s. Similarly, Equatorial Guinea, which acquired its independence from Spain in 1968, Zimbabwe, a former British settler colony with white minority rule until it acquired its independence in 1980, and Namibia, which fought for independence from South Africa until 1990, created their universities after independence. In South Africa, Apartheid policy defined all education along racial lines with Whites, Colored, Indians, and Blacks, with inequitable resource allocation for the institutions leading to unequal
African University Traditions, Historical Perspective
quality. Despite the post-Apartheid policy to increase enrollment of under-represented groups and promote diversity in all institutions, the inequality from Apartheid is still noticeable in education.
Local-Global Dynamics and New University Landscape Zeleza (2016: 4) states that “in 1944, the entire continent had a grand total of 31 institutions of higher education, far fewer that the number of countries!” Even if in 2015 Africa still had fewer institutions, with 1639 institutions Africa and was second only to Oceania with 140 compared to Latin America and the Caribbean with 3060, North America 3826, Europe 4042, and Asia up to 6100 (Zeleza 6) argues: “It was in Africa, however, where the magnitude of growth was the largest from a very low base of course. The number of higher education institutions on the continent increased by 52.87 times between 1945 and 2015” (Zeleza 6). There have been several generations of African institutions since the 1950s. The mission of the first post-independence universities was clearly articulated by African policymakers and scholars, for instance in Creating the African University: Emerging Issues of the 1970s (Yesufu 1973). The first institutions were created amidst the euphoria of human capital theory, which stipulates a linear and positive correlation between formal education and individual socio-economic attainment, as well as national development (Schultz 1977). These were public universities with broad societal mission, and comprehensive disciplinary coverage. The internal and external shock of the economic crisis of the 1970s–1980s and the ensuing misguided and infamous policy of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) brought stagnation, decay, and underfunding of African universities. In the absence of alternatives to education, considering the slow or nonexistent industrialization, and the UNESCO–World Bank joint report Higher Education in Developing
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Countries: Peril or Promise (Task Force on Higher Education and Society 2000) the resurgence of relentless demand, a new generation of universities arose, specialized foci, for instance in science, technology, or agriculture (Assié-Lumumba 2006). In recent years, eUniversities or open and mega-universities have increased while the University of South Africa (UNISA) created in 1946 was the only one for decades. Some have a dualmode delivery combining distance and face-toface learning, while others such as the Zimbabwe Open University and the Open University of Tanzania are single-mode virtual institutions. Accelerated globalization and liberalization in the context of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) policies and “agreements” have an impact on higher education (Cossa 2008), specifically the emergence and increase of private universities. Many private institutions are secular while others are sectarian, with the dominance of Christian denominations and a few Islamic universities, often connected to broader global networks. Hence, they are well funded and tend to exhibit relatively higher quality in terms of cognitive learning than for-profit private institutions. Only South Africa under Apartheid created universities for the Blacks in rural settings. Postcolonial universities in Africa have been urban and predominantly in the capital cities. However, many African countries are now creating community colleges and universities in rural areas (Jacob et al. 2009) to contribute to meet relentless demand. These institutions encounter numerous challenges with regards to infrastructure and communication, qualification of the teaching, and administrative support staff’s willingness to settle in rural areas. A new type of institution targets underrepresented groups, especially women. Besides the Ahfad University for Women in the Sudan, Kiriri Women’s University of Science and Technology in Nairobi (Kenya) and Women’s University in Africa in Zimbabwe have been created. Extensions of institutions of the Global North, including distance-learning delivery and physical sites in Africa, have increased. Other recent complexities reflect the increasing roles of newly
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industrialized and emerging economies in African higher education. For instance, China as a rising player has been creating Confucius institutes. Given South Africa’s relatively broader/quantitative institutional capacity despite the issues of inequality, transnational education is not a burning issue. However, in many other African countries, it offers opportunities but presents major problems including coherent policies of higher education for development.
Concluding Remarks Despite the continued lower enrollment rates in comparison to other regions of the world, African countries made unprecedented achievements after independence, in terms of the number of universities built and enrollment rates since independence. Regardless of their respective trajectories, African universities and their stakeholders are still struggling with the colonial legacies (Mazrui 1975) which, for instance, have contributed to fuel student protests, for instance in South Africa, demanding the “decolonization of the mind.” Assié-Lumumba (2016: 58) argues that “African students pursuing higher education in Europe played significant roles in the anti-colonial struggle. In their determination to make an impact, it became critical for them to organize.” Hence, several student organizations of Pan-African perspectives were formed from the beginning of the twentieth century such as the West African Student Association in London and Fédération des Etudiants d’Afrique Noire en France (FEANF) demanding unconditional independence of African countries. The movements continued after independence although some governments wanted to control and co-opt students by creating student sections of ruling parties, especially during the decades of one-party systems under many brutal regimes. In South Africa, the youth and especially the students constituted an integral part of the struggle against Apartheid. The current student movements (Luescher et al. 2016) have been demanding that decolonization be addressed with commitment to promote Africanization. They have been requesting that
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unequal educational opportunity as corollary of historical inequality in the distribution and access to resources. Such grievances are in line with the historical struggle. An important dimension worth mentioning is the fact that in the current period of the twenty-first century, students now use digital technologies extensively (e.g., social media) to mobilize, strategize, and organize movements to advance their causes. The idea of university prevails (AssiéLumumba 2010; Assié-Lumumba and Lumumba-Kasongo 2011; Zeleza and Olukoshi 2004). However, a critical issue is how to pursue this idea in promoting national development agendas amidst the multiplicity of external and private actors with different or even conflicting objectives. Given the power relations, what are the challenges and possibilities of transnational universities? Brain drain is being explored for brain gain in creating positions for temporary or permanent returnees of scholars of African descent. One of the facilitating programs is the African Diasporan Fellows program sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. On the whole, it is imperative to craft visions for African integrated development with different types of universities in alignment. The African Union’s Pan-African University for holistic and sustainable social progress is conceptualized to respond to prevailing challenges in making use of opportunities.
References Ajayi, J.E.A., Goma, L. K.H., Ampah Johnson, G.; with a contribution by Wanjiku Mwotia. 1996. The African experience with higher education. Accra/London/Athens, Ohio: The Association of African Universities/ James Currey/Ohio University Press. Arab Information Center. 1966. Education in the Arab States. New York: Arab Information Center. Ashby, E. 1964. African universities and Western tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Assié-Lumumba, N.T. 2006. Higher Education in Africa: Crises, Reforms and Transformation. Dakar: CODESRIA. Assié-Lumumba, N.T. 2010. African universities, imperatives of international reach, and perverse effects of globalisation. In Internationalisation of higher education and development. Zur Rolle von Universitäten
Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education und Hochschulen in Entwicklungsprozessen, ed. Österreichische Forschungsstiftung für Internationale Entwicklung, 33–49. Vienna: ÖFSE. Assié-Lumumba, N. 2016. Harnessing the empowerment nexus of Afropolitanism and higher education: Purposeful fusion for Africa’s social progress in the 21st century. Journal of African Transformation 1 (2): 51–76. Assié-Lumumba, N.T. Forthcoming. African higher education in transition: Recurrent impediments, emerging challenges and new potentialities. Dakar: CODESRIA. Assié-Lumumba, N.T., and T. Lumumba-Kasongo. 2011. The idea of the Public University and the National Project in Africa: Toward a full circle, from the 1960s to the present. In Knowledge matters: The public mission of the research university, ed. Craig Calhoun and Diana Rhoten. New York: Columbia University Press. Ben-Jochannan, Y., and J.H. Clarke. 1991. New dimensions in African history: The London lectures of Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan and Dr. John Henrik Clarke. Trenton: Africa World Press. Cossa, J. 2008. Power, politics, and higher education in Southern Africa: International regimes, local governments, and educational autonomy. Amherst: Cambria Press. Foster, P. 1965. Education and social change in Ghana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Göransson, B., and C. Brundenius, eds. 2011. Universities in transition: The changing role and challenges for academic institutions. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Hassane, M. 2008. Ajami in Africa: The use of Arabic script in the transcription of African languages. In The meanings of Timbuktu, ed. Sahamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, 109–121. Dakar: CODESRIA. Jacob, W.J., Y.K. Nsubuga, and C.B. Mugimu. 2009. Higher education in Uganda: The role of community colleges in educational delivery and reform. In Community college models: Globalization and higher education reform, ed. Rosalind Latiner-Raby and Edward Valeau, 335–358. Dordrecht: Springer. Kane, O. 2011. Non-Europhone intellectuals. Dakar: CODESRIA. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph. 1972. Histoire d’Afrique: d’hier à demain. Paris: Hatier. Luescher, T.M., Manja Klemenčič, and James Otieno Jowi, eds. 2016. Student politics in Africa: Representation and activism. Cape Town: African Minds. Lulat, Y.G.-M. 2005. A history of African higher education from antiquity to the present: A critical synthesis. Westport: Praeger. Lumumba-Kasongo, T. 1981. A study of modernization process in the Congo between 1910 and 1960: An evaluation of social ethics. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, the University of Chicago, Chicago. Mazrui, A.A. 1975. The African University as a multinational corporation: Problems of penetration and dependency. Harvard Educational Review 45 (2): 191–210. Mazrui, A.A. 2012. From Euro-Colonial colleges to the global university: Transitions in Muslim and African
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experience. Second Draft of a paper delivered at the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Virginia. Schultz, T.W. 1977. Investment in human capital. In Power and ideology in education, ed. Jerome Karabel and A.H. Halsey. New York: Oxford University Press. Sy, J.H. 2014. L’Afrique, Berceau de l’Écriture. Et ses manuscrits en peril, Des origines de l’écriture aux manuscrits anciens (Egypte pharaonique, Sahara, Sénégal, Ghana, Niger). Paris: l’Harmattan. UNESCO and the World Bank – Task Force on Higher Education and Society. 2000. Higher education in developing countries: Peril or promise. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. Yesufu, T.M., ed. 1973. Creating the African university: Emerging issues of the 1970s. Ibadan: Oxford University Press. Zeleza, P.T. 2016. The transformation of global higher education, 1945–2015. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Zeleza, P.T., and A. Olukoshi, eds. 2004. African universities in the 21st century, Liberalisation and internationalisation. Vol. 1. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Agencies ▶ Higher Education Networks, Associations, and Organizations in Europe
Agenda Setting ▶ International Organizations and Asian Higher Education
Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education Jana Bacevic1 and Terhi Nokkala2 1 University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK 2 Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Synonyms Policy cycle; Policy development; Policy framing; Policy process
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Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education
Definition The capacity of an actor to define or influence issues on the public agenda by selecting issues seen as important or relevant or by shaping the way these issues are framed, discussed, and interpreted.
Introduction Agenda setting is one of the key concepts in the critical or interpretative approaches in the study of policy development. Developed in response to positivist paradigms, which saw policies as largely technical solutions to objectively existing problems, critical or interpretive analysis emphasizes the constructed, contingent, and processual nature of policies, in particular the role of differently positioned actors in bringing specific issues to the fore (Fischer 2003). In this sense, the use of agenda setting in the research on higher education policy is fundamentally related to the questions of political power and influence and thus to the relationship between longer-term structural change and stability, on the one hand, and individual or collective agency, on the other. In broad terms, agenda setting refers to the capacity of an actor (individual, group, organization, institution) to define or influence issues on the public agenda. This occurs in two ways: on the one hand, selecting issues seen as important or relevant (thematization or problematization), and, on the other, shaping the way these issues are framed, discussed, and interpreted (framing or interpretation). While policy processes normally involve elements of both, their analysis can be traced to two relatively distinct disciplinary traditions, one largely reliant on political science and the other on communication and media studies. This article summarizes the main elements of both traditions and then delineates their convergences and implications for higher education policy research.
Agenda Setting in Political Science The political science tradition of agenda-setting research addresses the mechanisms through which policy issues arise into the policy arena – for
example, through actions of policy makers, NGOs, and the media. In this framework, agenda setting is usually focused on the first stage of the policy cycle, followed by policy formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation (Jann and Wegrich 2007: 43). In their seminal Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Baumgartner and Jones frame the development of agendas in the context of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, where periods of relative stability are interlaced with moments of rapid and sudden change. The theory of punctuated equilibrium posits policy monopolies, “a monopoly on political understandings concerning the policy of interest, and an institutional arrangement that reinforces that understanding” (Baumgartner and Jones 2009: 6). These institutionalized arrangements mediate and limit the access of outsiders to discussions concerning specific policies, reinforcing monopolies, and resisting change. They are also supported by strong, easily communicable ideas that resonate with a wider public – such as progress, participation, or economic growth (Baumgartner and Jones 2009: 6–7). Policy venues are institutions that make authoritative policy decisions, such as state and local authorities or professional associations. Policy images present the given policy issue from a specific perspective, but evolve, are discussed, and contested over time by policy makers, interest groups, the media, and wider public. Policy issues enter the policy agenda through political actors’ strategically minded venue shopping, seeking venues where issues can be decided in a way favorable to them (Baumgartner and Jones 2009; McLendon 2003). Another influential contribution to agenda setting is Kingdon’s (2014) theory of three streams of policy making. Kingdon drew on Cohen et al. (1972) “garbage can” model, seeking to explain the seeming lack of rationality that often accompanies policy making (cf. McLendon 2003). The problem stream comprises issues that policy makers and other policy actors choose to pay attention to. Actors can be governmental, such as policy makers and government officials, or nongovernmental, such as NGOs. Similarly, they can be visible, such as elected politicians, or invisible,
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such as officials or topic specialists. Policy entrepreneurs are actors who take an active role in advocating for certain ideas (Kingdon 2014; Yagci 2014; McLendon 2003). Policy stream comprises policy ideas and potential solutions developed by various policy communities to the identified problems. As there are typically more issues in the policy stream that can be accommodated, they compete for the attention of policy makers. Issues that offer solutions to the recognized problems achieve higher status on the agenda. Finally, the political stream includes political circumstances, such as the general mood in the country and its population, factors related to interest groups, and important administrative or legislative changes within the government. Policy change, in this view, depends on the “coupling” of three streams: if an issue is recognized as a problem, if a solution is identified for it, and if political arena is receptive for change, agenda shift is likely to occur (Kingdon 2014). Both Baumgartner and Jones’s and Kingdon’s models reject incrementalism and rational choice theories in favor of unpredictable and sometimes rapid changes in how issues arise into the policy agenda. According to punctuated equilibrium theory, policy agenda change results from chancing constellations of policy venues and images. This is not unlike the basic structure of the multiple stream framework, where change follows fortuitous coupling of the problem, solution, and political situation. Similarly, both theories emphasize the role of policy entrepreneurs in pushing their projects. Examples of the use of these theories in higher education research include the work of McLendon (2003) and Mills (2007) on higher education governance and funding, Yagci (2014) on the emergence of the social dimension in the Bologna process agenda, and Corbett (2011) on the competing European higher education agendas by the European Commission and the Bologna Process.
Agenda Setting and Media and Communication Studies The agenda-setting theory in communication studies focuses on the agenda-setting function of
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media (including, more recently, social media) and their impact on public opinion. Agendasetting theory in this tradition was initially developed by Maxwell McCombs on the basis of the famous Chapel Hill study (McCombs and Shaw 1972), which demonstrated the link between the space given to specific issue in the mass media and the prominence of the issue for the surveyed public. Since then, research on agenda setting has evolved to encompass seven facets (or levels) of the agenda-setting process. The first is basic agenda setting; the second is attribute agenda setting (what kinds of attributes salient issues have, from which perspective they are presented, and how they are framed); then, networked agenda setting (the role of media and public networks in issue salience); and the psychology of agenda setting (i.e., the effects and mechanisms of influence on different people). Separate facets address consequences of agenda setting for attitudes, opinions, and behavior, origins of the media agenda (i.e., how issues achieve salience in the media), and, last but not least, agendamelding, which refers to effects that the relationship between issues in the media and reference communities, experiences, and values on influencing people’s worldviews (McCombs et al. 2014). The relevance of media and issue framing for agenda-setting and policy processes became particularly pronounced in controversies surrounding “echo chambers,” “content bubbles,” “fake news,” and other possible ways of distorting facts, primarily associated with the spread of social media (e.g., Flaxman et al. 2016). In the context of higher education, these issues have relevance not only because of the ways media report (or not) on specific issues (for instance, tuition fees, strikes and student occupations, or immigration) but also because the relationship between media and universities becomes increasingly complex in the context in which academics are encouraged to use media as outlets for engaging with the public. In this sense, while universities and academics can use the impetus for public visibility to play a stronger and more pronounced role in agenda setting, this is not without pitfalls: a series of recent cases, in particular in the USA, testifies to challenges raised by the delineation between “private” and “public”
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forms of engagement on social media (e.g., Bacevic 2017). While it would be an overstatement to say that social media have “colonized” the public sphere, in contemporary democracies, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a strict (analytical or political) boundary between elements of agenda setting that take place in “traditional” political arenas – the parliament, executive bodies, agencies – and those generated in and through the media.
Agenda Setting, Knowledge, and Epistemic Communities This issue connects to one of the domains in which political science- and media and communication-influenced theories converge: the question of the role of knowledge and epistemic communities in agenda setting (e.g., Dunlop 2016). While epistemic communities are not uniquely restricted to networks of academic knowledge production, the role and status of knowledge (and expertise) play a significant role in the early stages of agenda setting, especially in defining the legitimacy of specific actors in putting forward authoritative statements concerning the definition and framing of a policy issue. The issues raised in this domain go beyond the uses of epistemic authority in specific instances of policy making and into questions of the social origin of knowledge, expertise, as well as the construction of facts.
Agenda Setting, Power, and Agency While initially drawing on separate theoretical vocabularies and methodological toolboxes, different forms of research on agenda setting converge around a number of questions. The first is political power: what kind of agents are in the position to place issues on the agenda, as well as to push them through? The second is the question of process: how does this happen? Last, but not least, the question of impact: what are the effects of agenda setting, and how does it influence decision-making in the long run?
Understanding how specific actors use political power in bargaining and other processes of policy construction is central not only to agenda setting but also to the broader understanding of the processes of political contestation and decision-making. Sell and Prakash, for instance, argue that “because agenda setting involves both the provision of information and of normative frames, it crucially influences policy debates and ultimately, policy outcomes. . .Given that most policy debates feature competing agendas, it is important to examine whose agenda prevails. After all, politics is about who gets what and how” (2004: 145). This aspect rests on a realist notion of power, which locates it in tangible relations of domination, usually tied to different socioeconomic capitals (e.g., Cronin 1996). Post-structuralist notions of power, by contrast, have focused on its diffuse nature (Lukes 2005; Foucault 2000). From this point of view, power is everywhere: this means that the agenda cannot always be attributed to specific actors or moments in the policy process. This shifted the emphasis to discourse (see Smith 2013; Wodak and Fairclough 2010) and, in particular, the question of framing. Framing refers to the question of who sets the tone of issues on the agenda and what rhetorical and discursive strategies are employed. Frames are both normative and discursive in nature; however, as rhetorical devices, they are also agential, in the sense in which they have the power to incite (or justify) action. Benford and Snow wrote “collective action frames [are] action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization” (2000: 614). Sell and Prakash also emphasize the importance of framing in the process of agenda setting and its relationship to knowledge: “One of the most important activities of any campaign is agenda setting – generating issues by disseminating information and providing a normative frame to interpret it. The agenda-setting process is shaped by how various perspectives are presented in relation to dominant policy concerns. Normative frames help to translate information into knowledge” (Sell and Prakash 2004:157).
Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education
This type of analysis can be connected to the broader tradition of cultural political economy, which aspires to understand how cultural (discursive) constructions interact over time in order to produce relatively durable configurations of political power (e.g., Sum and Jessop 2013). In this process, actors navigate the social world by reducing its complexity through meaning making, that is, attributing forms of value to objects, forms, and relations. Meaning is cultural and thus precedes specific forms of action (and thus, for instance, specific policy choices); equally, however, it is not completely independent of social structure – for instance, specific configurations of power. In this sense, the “success” of a particular form of agenda setting can be said to depend on two things: one is the capacity of an actor to monopolize (or challenge) meaning or value of specific ideas, objects, or relations; the other is the “fit” of that act or process of meaning making (semiosis) with “extra-semiotic” elements – social cohesion, inequality, etc. – of the context. For instance, a policy focusing on autonomy is not likely to gain traction in a policy environment where there is a high level of distrust toward institutional freedom; however, if a group of policy actors manages to re-signify it so as to apply to individual, rather than institutional powers, it may become more successful. Thus, while processes of agenda setting influence the course of events, they still conform to path dependencies, institutional logics, and other more durable effects (e.g., Hay 2002). A similar approach in the context of higher education is Nokkala and Bacevic’s (2014) analysis of the role of European University Association (EUA), which shows how an organization uses the production of knowledge in the context of generating policy discourses in order to bolster its own position in the political landscape. Framing, in this context, is used not only to influence the agenda but also to increase the power and relevance of a specific political actor. This extends agenda setting from the question of how actors influence agendas to the question of how agendas help create and position individual or institutional actors in the policymaking arena. In the analysis of the framing and positioning of different actors in the “market” for higher education in the
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Global South, Robertson and Komljenovic (2016) address similar questions, grounding them more explicitly in the elaboration of the cultural political economic framework (Robertson and Dale 2015). In this sense, the emphasis is on the constitution of actors in higher education markets and market relations as part of the regime of international trade in goods and services.
Perspectives and Challenges Some higher education policy issues have gained traction as part of global political-economic trends. For example, the drive toward greater institutional autonomy can be seen as part of the processes of declining public funding of higher education, where autonomy is equated with institution’s “freedom” to compete in the market. Dissecting the role of different actors in this increasingly glonacal (Marginson and Rhoades 2002) context can be demanding, especially given the size and amorphousness of some international higher education policy actors, such as the European Commission. Agenda setting, especially in the form in which it combines the analysis of more and less explicit forms of political power, offers a number of interesting perspectives for understanding such policy processes. This is especially true in the growing domain of critical policy studies, which focus on the cultural as well as political and economic aspects of policy making. On the other hand, these approaches are almost always constrained to explaining how things came to be the way that they are; it is very difficult to use them in order to assess what will happen. This, however, is not necessarily a shortcoming of agenda-setting theory as such; it is possible to conceive of agenda setting as an element of prospective analysis that would entail a minute analysis of day-to-day decision-making.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy Coalition Framework, Education ▶ Higher Education Policy
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▶ Policy Cycle in Higher Education, Theories of ▶ Policy-Making, Rhetoric, and Discourse in Higher Education ▶ Policy Process in Higher Education ▶ Politics, Power, and Ideology in Higher Education
References Bacevic, Jana. 2017. University under attack? Politics, contestation and agency beyond the neoliberal university. In The global university, ed. R. Barnett and M. Peters. New York: Peter Lang. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Brian D. Jones. 2009. Agendas and instability in American politics. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 611–639. Cohen, Michael, James March, and Johan Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1–25. Corbett, Anne. 2011. Ping pong: Competing leadership for reform in EU higher education 1998–2006. European Journal of Education 46 (1): 36–53. Cronin, Ciaran. 1996. Bourdieu and Foucault on power and modernity. Philosophy and Social Criticism 22 (6): 55–85. Dunlop, Clare. 2016. Knowledge, epistemic communities, and agenda setting. In Handbook of public policy agenda setting, ed. N. Zahariadis, 273–294. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Fischer, Frank. 2003. Reframing public policy: Discursive politics and deliberative practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Flaxman, Seth, Sharad Goel, and Justin Rao. 2016. Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and online news consumption. Public Opinion Quarterly 80: 298–320. Foucault, Michel. 2000. Power. New York: Vintage. Hay, Colin. 2002. Political analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jann, Werner, and Kai Wegrich. 2007. Theories of the policy cycle. In Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics, and methods, ed. F. Fischer, G.J. Miller, and M.S. Sidney, 43–62. Boca Raton: Taylor and Francis. Kingdon, James. 2014. Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. 2nd ed. Pierson New International Edition. Harlow: Pierson Education Limited. Lukes, Stephen. 2005. Power: A radical view. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Marginson, Simon, and Gary Rhoades. 2002. Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education 43 (3): 281–309. McCombs, Maxwell, and David L. Shaw. 1972. The agenda-setting function of mass media. The Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (2): 176–187.
Agent Theory McCombs, Maxwell, Donald Shaw, and David Weaver. 2014. New directions in agenda-setting theory and research. Mass Communication and Society 17 (6): 781–802. McLendon, Michael K. 2003. State governance and reform of higher education: Patterns, trends, and theories of the public policy process. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, ed. J.C. Smart, 57–144. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Mills, Michael R. 2007. Stories of politics and policy: Florida’s higher education governance reorganization. The Journal of Higher Education 78 (2): 162–187. Nokkala, Terhi, and Jana Bacevic. 2014. University autonomy, agenda setting and the construction of agency: The case of the European University Association in the European Higher Education Area. European Educational Research Journal 13 (6): 699–714. Robertson, Susan L., and Roger Dale. 2015. Towards a ‘critical cultural political economy’ account of the globalising of education. Globalisation, Education, Societies 13 (1): 149–170. Robertson, Susan L., and Janja Komljenovic. 2016. Nonstate actors, and the advance of frontier higher education markets in the global south. Oxford Review of Education 42 (4): 594–611. Sell, Susan K., and Aseem Prakash. 2004. Using ideas strategically: The contest between business and NGO networks in intellectual property rights. International Studies Quarterly 48 (1): 143–175. Smith, Karen. 2013. Critical discourse analysis and higher education research. In Theory and method in higher education research, ed. Jeroen Huisman and Malcolm Tight, 61–79. Buckingham: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Sum, Ngai-Ling, and Bob Jessop. 2013. Towards a cultural political economy: Putting culture in its place in political economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Wodak, Ruth, and Norman Fairclough. 2010. Recontextualizing European higher education policies: The cases of Austria and Romania. Critical Discourse Studies 7 (1): 19–40. Yagci, Yasemin. 2014. Setting policy agenda for the social dimension of the Bologna process. Higher Education Policy 27 (4): 509–528.
Agent Theory ▶ Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches, Higher Education
Agglomeration ▶ Mergers and Consortia, Higher Education
Alternative Higher Education
Alternative Credentials ▶ Alternative Higher Education
Alternative Higher Education Manja Klemenčič Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Synonyms Alternative credentials; Alternative pathways to academic degree; Experimental higher education
Definition Alternative higher education refers to alternative pathways to academic degree be that through alternative forms of higher education institutions or alternative programs leading to an academic degree or recognition of prior learning or of acquired competences. Alternative higher education also refers to alternative credentials such as industry-recognized certificates, badges, licenses, and nanodegrees as alternatives to academic degrees.
Introduction This chapter reviews the history and the more recent developments in the alternative higher education and discusses the emerging forms of alternative higher education provision. The emergence of alternative higher education institutions implies innovations in how higher education is organized and delivered, to what purposes or credentials it serves, and what pathways lead to a credential. Alternative higher education is always a response to some perceived deficiency or student or labor market expectations that have not been met in the
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existing higher education provision. In this sense, alternative higher education comes as a corrective or as educational innovation vis-à-vis the mainstream higher education provision. Alternative higher education has existed throughout history in parallel to the mainstream higher education, i.e., to the institutions that have attracted majority of students, have obtained funding from various benefactors including the state, and those that are nowadays accredited by recognized accrediting bodies. Over the years, some alternative higher education institutions have become mainstream, some remained marginal even if accredited, and some disappeared completely. We know most about those forms of alternative higher education that became mainstream. For example, land grant universities in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century were considered an educational innovation and an alternative form and soon became a widespread and permanent mainstream feature of the American higher education systems (Anderson 1976; Williams 1991; Geiger 2000; Kerr 2001; Sorber 2016). Similarly, community colleges were initially an educational innovation and between 1900 and 2000 became a formidable feature of American higher education (Ratcliff 1993; Cohen and Brawer 1996; Brint and Karabel 1989; ZamaniGallaher 2016; Sorber 2016). In the early twentieth century, it was the experimental work colleges and co-op colleges that presented innovations in the United States (Staley 2018). These colleges, which remain a marginal yet undoubtedly visible feature of American higher education, combine classroom education with practical work experiences. They establish partnerships with employers who provide students with paid work experience, and these work experiences are an integral part of academic requirements. Elsewhere in the world, the alternative higher education provision introduced liberal arts programs, i.e., interdisciplinary programs with some components of general education, to their traditionally disciplinaryspecialized or vocationally oriented institutions (Godwin 2017). The liberal arts colleges outside the United States too are a marginal yet visible segment of higher education provision. Finally,
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we are witnessing a rise in alternative credentials, such as industry-recognized certificates, badges, licenses, and online nanodegrees as alternatives to academic degrees obtained from the mainstream institutions (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). More emphasis is also given to recognition of prior learning and awarding credit for out-of-class experiences and independent study, all of which reinforce the notion of flexible learning pathways or alternative academic pathways (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). In the remainder of the chapter, I first discuss factors leading to emergence of alternative higher education and then the different types of alternative higher education provision.
Factors Leading to Alternative Higher Education Provision There exist several overarching factors that bring about the emergence of alternative higher education provision. First, since the late nineteenth century, emergence of alternative higher education institutions has been part of the progressive education movement that highlights the importance of experiential learning. According to the progressive movement, learners are expected to actively co-construct knowledge. This was to correct the instructional practice focused on passive transmission of knowledge. These new ways of thinking about learning prompted occurrence of alternative or free schools on all educational levels, with many examples of alternative schooling models maintained until today, such as the Waldorf School and Montessori School (Mills and McGregor 2017). This progressive education tradition was articulated – in different ways – by prominent educationalist including John Dewey, Carl Rogers, Lev Vygotsky, Paulo Freire, Helen Parkhurst, Rudolf Steiner, and Maria Montessori among many others. The establishment of alternative higher education institutions or programs often materializes student rebellion against the established ways of conducting higher education not meeting certain student needs (Magid and King 1974). In the
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United States, many alternative higher education institutions or programs emerged after the 1965 Berkeley Free Speech Movement, initially as “liberation classes” and as alternative higher education programs funded by student governments or established by students or communities (ibid., also Mayhew 1977; Kliewer 1999). Students criticized the traditional higher education institutions – which were originally created to serve the elites but were now opening doors to masses of students from all social backgrounds – on a number of issues: (1) for being overly bureaucratic and lacking student voice in governance, (2) for the curricula ignoring the social circumstances and social inequalities majority of students were experiencing firsthand, and (3) for the poor quality of teaching and learning and difficult study conditions that arose when the increases in student enrollments were not fully matched with teaching staff hires and student support resources (Klemenčič and Park 2018; Klemenčič 2019). The reforms over time have sought to address these criticisms, and many are still ongoing. Study programs, such as African American Studies and Ethnic Studies, that emerged as alternative in that period have over the years taken hold across the mainstream higher education institutions. Multidisciplinary study programs too have been incorporated into mainstream higher education institutions. Similarly, student participation in governance has become a visible feature in shared governance arrangements almost everywhere, even if institutional practices vary significantly (Klemenčič and Park 2018). Like the aforementioned reforms, however, the reforms of teaching and learning to be more student-centered too are still ongoing and far from completed (Hoidn and Klemenčič 2020). Student agency in learning and teaching and in institutional governance that was so much called for in the 1960s is only just emerging as an accepted principle in the contemporary higher education (Klemenčič 2020). The higher education institutions established in 1960ies and 1970ies have embraced educational experimentation in their core. These institutions have introduced a number of innovative forms of higher education provision, such as multidisciplinary
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schools, problem-based and area studies, and participatory governance, a trend that could be seen not only in the United States (such as the New College of Florida) but also in the United Kingdom (e.g., University of Sussex) and Australia (e.g., La Trobe University) (Murphy et al. 2010 cited in Staley 2018). These education innovations not only persisted in the new universities which soon became mainstream institutions but also diffused – at different speed and to a different extent – to other existing higher education institutions. Second, approximately since 2000, the education technologies are becoming more advanced, diversified, and more affordable. This is paving the way for emergence of various forms of online learning both inside and outside the mainstream higher education. Distance learning that used to be an alternative form of education in the past shifted fully into online education (Toetenel and Rienties 2020). Online study programs, such as those offered initially by alternative “open universities” (e.g., Open University in United Kingdom), are now a common practice also among many mainstream higher education institutions. Online higher education institutions are now part of the mainstream higher education sector. With further advancement in educational technologies as well as availability and affordability of technology for educational purposes, online education has massively expanded and also differentiated the range of its education services (Palvia et al. 2018). These developments are not only initiating innovative education strategies but also prompting mainstream higher education institutions to adopt technology-enhanced learning, such as blended learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), incorporating digital methods and digital tools into classroom practice, course management software and learning analytics technologies, even artificial intelligence, as well as technology-enhanced tutoring and mentoring, libraries, and assessment. The rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which were designed initially by higher education institutions but gradually adopted also by other providers, both nonprofit and commercial companies,
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increasingly blurs the boundaries between formal higher education provision and nonformal learning (Toetenel and Rienties 2020). Learning technologies nevertheless require considerable capital investment, which makes it difficult for many higher education institutions to afford. Yet learning-outcome-based and competence-based education that it enables is something that is appealing to students and employers and thus draws private investment and emergence of private nonacademic providers (Soares et al. 2013). Third, the rising cost of higher education or lack of affordable higher education too has over the history prompted innovative and less costly alternative higher education provision. The rising cost of higher education (and especially in the United States, massive accumulated student debt) raises question among the public whether higher education is worth the cost as well as whether cheaper alternatives to college exist (Craig 2018). The concern is not only how much students actually learn in college (Arum and Roksa 2011) but whether colleges and universities sufficiently align their programs with labor market demand and curriculum with workforce requirements and create career counseling and pathways to help their students to find the first good job (Carnevale et al. 2017). Accentuated is also awareness of fast-changing industries and accordingly changing labor market needs which demand flexibility from higher education institutions in what knowledge and skills they confer onto their graduates. These perceived deficiencies of the contemporary mainstream higher education too have prompted alternative higher education through alternative academic pathways and alternative credentials (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). These cater to students gaining specific vocational skills, which are shorter and cheaper than traditional degree. While different types of work-based training and distance education have existed long before, these shorter-term alternative programs and credentials are taking a number of forms, allow for flexible learning pathways, and are purposefully directed at students gaining employment. Despite proliferation and promise of these programs and credentials, their efficacy in terms
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of competitiveness for jobs (and the reception by the employers) is still unclear, and their quality assurance is underdeveloped (lacking robust data on cost, features, and student outcomes) (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). The wave of the alternative higher education since 2000 can be explained through advancement in educational-learning technologies, but also the problems of “disruptive technologies” in higher education as discussed by Christiansen (2008) in his seminal work The Innovator’s Dilemma and later by Christiansen and Eyring (2011) in The Innovative University. Christiansen (2008) introduced the concept of disruptive technologies pointing to the fact that organizations competing for customers often develop products and services to the extent that they no longer provide value to the customer; hence, the company’s investment in innovations and additions was wasted. Craig (2018, xiii) suggests that similar developments could be seen in higher education and these developments are prompting alternative higher education forms: “disruptors are emerging because the college and university product is more than some students need or are willing or able to pay for.” Christiansen and Eyring (2011) applied the notion of disruptive technology to universities suggesting innovative and less costly ways for performing core functions of teaching, research, and service, some of which include work-based training, flexible learning pathways, and nanocredentials discussed earlier.
Types of Alternative and Emerging Higher Education According to organizational forms, we can distinguish between completely new alternative higher education institutions and alternative higher education provision as university-affiliated programs or community-based programs or combinations of both. New Alternative Higher Education Institutions Among the existing alternative (types of) higher education institutions are work colleges in the
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United States (Wilson and Lyons 1961). The work colleges are federally recognized as a special type of higher education institutions that have “comprehensive work-learning-service” programs as an essential and core component of their liberal arts educational programs (US Government Publishing Office). Each student enrolled at the work college has campus employment that is part of the work-learning-service academic requirement which also helps students to reduce the cost of education (https://www. workcolleges.org/). Another distinct alternative higher education institutions are cooperative or co-op colleges which were founded at the University of Cincinnati in 1906 by Herman Schneider in order to integrate the theory and practice of engineering (Reilly 2006). Co-op colleges provide academic credit for structured work experiences that students gain with an outside employer (Auld 1972). This form of workintegrated learning involves a partnership between the higher education institution and the employer and provides paid employment to the student along with integration of this experience into the academic provision (Cedercreutz 2008). Other alternative organizational forms of higher education institutions are “network(ed) universities,” such as what Staley (2018) refers to as a model of “Nomad University” in which study and work are not grounded in a single site, but the physical location shifts around the world. This model is most closely depicted in the Minerva Schools at the Keck Graduate Institute (https://www.minerva.kgi.edu/about/) (Kosslyn and Nelson 2017). Similar vision is also at the core of the European Union’s new initiative of the European Universities through which funding is provided to a selection of “university alliances” which have “a shared, integrated, long-term strategy for education. . .going beyond existing higher education cooperation models” with European inter-university campus and embedded mobility enabling students and staff (https://ec.europa.eu/ programmes/erasmus-plus/programme-guide/partb/three-key-actions/key-action-2/european-univers ities_en).
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New Alternative Higher Education Programs Within Existing Higher Education Institutions or as Community Programs Alternative higher education is not necessarily a new institution but rather a program or a school which has been established as a form of educational innovation within the existing accredited higher education institution or as a postsecondary education opportunity outside formal higher education, i.e., as a community program. Experimental colleges have been established within the existing accredited higher education institutions. For example, the Experimental College at Tufts University is a department at the existing research university offering education programs distinct from Tuft’s regular study program offer. Amsterdam University College in the Netherlands is a unit within University of Amsterdam which functions as a “liberal arts college” and is in that distinct from the University’s study program offer. Strong student self-governance and student participation in curriculum design and in co-teaching are common features of the experimental colleges. In the United States where student governments have – compared to Europe – much weaker authority in institutional governance, this feature is an important point of distinction from the mainstream higher education institutions. Similarly, liberal arts programs, which are rare in European context, are the distinct – innovative – feature of the Amsterdam University College compared to other programs of University of Amsterdam. There are also nontraditional postsecondary learning opportunities and spaces that may be attached to higher education institutions or not. In an excellent review of alternative academic credential and academic pathways, Brown and Kurzweil (2017) present three categories of alternative postsecondary credentials: (1) labor market training and credentialing including certificate programs, work-based training, and skills-based short courses, (2) online credentialing including MOOCs and online micro-credentials, and (3) competency-based education programs. According to Brown and Kurzweil (2017), certificate programs are mostly offered by for-profit
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trade schools, for-profit degree-granting institutions, and community colleges, in particular in health sciences and consumer services. Workbased training includes apprenticeships and other forms of on-the-job training that can be offered at higher education institutions or in companies or in partnership between both or as community development programs (e.g., last-mile training programs; see also Craig 2018). Skillsbased short courses are popular in the emerging technology sector, such as coding boot camps and other specific technology skills that are offered by for-profit entities along or in partnership with mainstream higher education institutions (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). An example mentioned by Craig (2018) is a software company that not only develops software for clients but also trains software developers through an “outsourced apprenticeship” model registered by the Department of Labor in the United States. The idea of apprenticeship model of alternative higher education is, as mentioned also by Staley (2018, 16), to “substituting classroom instruction with experiences in real-word settings, led by practitioners.” Often offered by private providers other than higher education institutions, these programs also offer alternative financing arrangements outside of the traditional student loans. Online credentials through MOOCs and bundled online courses that lead to certificates and “nanodegrees” are offered by both business sector and higher education institutions, and new partnerships are emerging to use online credentials as components of a traditional degree (Brown and Kurzweil 2017). Finally, competency-based education programs provide “alternative pathways to a degree or credential that are more personalized, flexible, and aligned with in-demand skills” and that tend to “recognize prior and extra-institutional learning and allow students to progress at a pace determined by the rate at which they demonstrate learning outcomes” (Brown and Kurzweil 2017, 3). Finally, there exists also alternative higher education that is established purposefully in direct opposition to the traditional – mainstream – higher education. Although small scale, a notable example of such is the “UnCollege” movement (https://www.uncollege.org/). UnCollege evolved
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from 2011 with the support of Thiel Fellowship which grants selected fellows funding to forgo college and offers “gap programs” to help participants develop skills for self-study and future employment.
Conclusion There is prolific and growing literature on transformation of higher education which includes also scenarios for emerging and alternative higher education provision. Anya Kamenetz’s (2010) book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education was prompted by her earlier exploration into high dropout rates and massive accumulated debt of higher education students in the United States. She puts forward options of Do-It-Yourself University by pursuing nonformal education using open and online educational resources or students creating learning and career opportunities for themselves. Ryan Craig (2018) is offering faster and cheaper alternatives to college (with a full directory) and suggestions for changes to be taken by selective and nonselective colleges to offer students faster and cheaper pathways to employment. David J. Staley’s (2018) notable book Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education makes a step further by offering ten models of alternative universities categorized by (1) distinct organizational forms, (2) apprenticeship as substituting classroom instruction with experiences in real-world settings with practitioners, (3) technology not only as a system of delivery but interaction with technology to engage in cognition, and (4) attributes as conferring a particular kind of transformative experience. Joseph Aoun’s (2017) Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence too highlights the potential of technology beyond merely being a mode of delivery of higher education. Kosslyn and Nelson (2017) put together an edited volume that looks at the concept of the Minerva “university” as a new distinct form of undergraduate education, highly selective in its admissions, but offering students a nomad study experience with full emersion in experiential
Alternative Higher Education
learning in different parts of the world. And Brown and Kurzweil (2017) wrote The Complex Universe of Alternative Postsecondary Credentials and Pathways for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences offering an overview of the complexity of postsecondary credentials as an alternative to an academic degree and alternative pathways to academic credentials. All in all, there is a sense in this literature of significant transformations happening in higher education and even more to come. The questions of change and continuity in higher education are a common narrative in higher education discourse in scholarship, policy, and practice. Yet, the basic features of the medieval universities are still recognizable in most higher education institutions. The imperatives for reforms are undoubtedly more notable for lower-tier institutions than for the most recognizable world-class universities. But the calls for reform include also elite higher education (Bok 2008). As a response to the last wave of alternative higher education, the academic institutions are beginning to be more purposeful in connecting real-world work experiences with their academic programs, pursue partnerships with business and other community institutions, utilize educational technologies and strengthen student agency in more student-centered higher education. Yet, especially in the American liberal arts and sciences education, the arguments in favor of developing general competencies rather than specific vocational skills to prepare students for twentyfirst century careers remain prevalent (Bok 2008; Baum and McPherson 2019). Thus, it remains to be seen which of the current trends in alternative higher education will become a permanent feature of higher education landscapes and at what scale.
Cross-References ▶ Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education ▶ Students and Higher Education Expansion ▶ University Tradition in the United States, The
Alternative Higher Education
References Anderson, G. Lester, ed. 1976. Land-Grant universities and their continuing challenge. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. Aoun, J.E. 2017. Robot-proof: Higher education in the age of artificial intelligence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Arum, R., and J. Roksa. 2011. Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Auld, Robert B. 1972. The cooperative education movement: Association of cooperative colleges. Journal of Cooperative Education 8 (5): 24–27. ISSN 0022-0132. Baum, S., and M. McPherson. 2019. Improving teaching: Strengthening the college learning experience. Daedalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 148 (4): 5–13. Bok, D. 2008. Our underachieving colleges. A candid look at how much students learn and why they should be learning more. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. 1989. The diverted dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, J., and M. Kurzweil. 2017. The complex universe of alternative postsecondary credentials and pathways. Cambridge, MA: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Carnevale, A.P., I.T. Garcia, and A. Gulish. 2017. Career pathways: Five ways to connect college and careers. Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce, July 11, 2017. https://cew.georgetown. edu/wp-content/uploads/LEE-final.pdf Cedercreutz, C.C. 2008. Leveraging cooperative education to guide curricular innovation: The development of a corporate feedback system for continuous improvement. Cincinnati: Center for Cooperative Education Research and Innovation. Christiansen, C. 2008. The innovator’s dilemma: The revolutionary book that will change the way you do business. New York: Harper Business. Christiansen, C.M., and H.J. Eyring. 2011. The innovative university: Changing the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cohen, Arthur M., and Florence B. Brawer. 1996. The American community college. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Craig, R. 2018. A new U: Faster+cheaper alternatives to college. Dallas: BenBella Books. Geiger, Roger L., ed. 2000. The American college in the nineteenth century. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Godwin, K.A. 2017. Trends in liberal education: Précis of a global phenomenon. In The evolution of liberal arts in the global age, ed. P. Marber and D. Araya, 87–105. London: Routledge. Hoidn, S., and M. Klemenčič, eds. 2020. Routledge handbook on student-centered learning and teaching in higher education. New York/Abingdon: Routledge.
123 Kamenetz, A. 2010. DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the coming transformation of education. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing. Kerr, Clark. 2001. The uses of the university. 5th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Klemenčič, M. 2019. Students and Higher Education Expansion. In: Teixeira P., Shin J. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Dordrecht: Springer. Klemenčič, M. 2020. Students as actors and agents in student-centered higher education. In Routledge handbook on student-centered learning and teaching in higher education, ed. S. Hoidn and M. Klemenčič. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter 5. Klemenčič, M., and BoYun Park. 2018. Student politics: Between representation and activism. In Handbook on the politics of higher education, ed. Hamish Coates, Brendan Cantwell, and Roger King, 468–486. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. Kliewer J. 1999. The innovative campus: Nurturing the distinctive learning environment. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education/Oryx Press. Kosslyn, Stephen M., and Ben Nelson. 2017. Building the intentional university: Minerva and the future of higher education. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Magid, L., and N. King. 1974. Mini-manual for free university. Lincoln: Study Commission on Undergraduate Education and the Education of teachers. Mayhew, L. 1977. Legacy of the seventies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mills, M., and G. McGregor. 2017. Alternative education. Oxford research encyclopedia of education. Alternative and non-formal education. https://doi.org/10.1093/ acrefore/9780190264093.013.40. Murphy, P., M.A. Peters, and S. Marginson. 2010. Imagination: Three models of imagination in the age of knowledge economy. New York: Peter Lang. Palvia, S., P. Aeron, P. Gupta, D. Mahapatra, R. Parida, R. Rosner, and S. Sindhi. 2018. Online education: Worldwide status, challenges, trends, and implications. Journal of Global Information Technology Management 21 (4): 233–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 1097198X.2018.1542262. Ratcliff, James L. 1993. Seven streams in the historical development of the modern American community college. In A handbook on the community college in America: Its history, mission and management, ed. George A. Baker III. Boulder: Greenwood Press. Reilly, M. 2006. The ivory tower and the smokestack: 100 years of cooperative education at the University of Cincinnati. Cincinnati: Emmis Books. Soares, L., J. Eaton, and B. Smith. 2013. Higher education: New models, new rules. Educause Review 48 (5). https:// er.educause.edu/articles/2013/10/higher-education-newmodels-new-rules. Sorber, N.M. 2016. The University Tradition in the United States. In: Shin J., Teixeira P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Dordrecht: Springer.
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124 Staley, D.J. 2018. Alternative universities: Speculative design for innovation in higher education. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Toetenel, L., and B. Rienties. 2020. The virtuous circle of learning design and learning analytics to develop student centred online education. In Routledge handbook of student-centred learning and teaching in higher education, ed. S. Hoidn and M. Klemenčič. New York/Abingdon: Routledge. Chapter 20. US Government Publishing Office. eCFR, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Title 34. Education Subtitle B. Regulations of the Offices of the Department of Education Chapter VI. Office of postsecondary education, department of education Part 675. Federal work-study programs Subpart C. Work-Colleges Program (§§ 675.41–675.50). Williams, Roger L. 1991. The origins of federal support for higher education: George W. Atherton and the landgrant college movement. University Park: Pennsylvania State Press. Wilson, James Warner, and Edward H. Lyons. 1961. Workstudy college programs; appraisal and report of the study of cooperative education. New York: Harper. Zamani-Gallaher, E.M. 2016. Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education. In: Shin J., Teixeira P. (eds) Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Dordrecht: Springer.
Alternative Pathways to Academic Degree ▶ Alternative Higher Education
Alumni Giving ▶ Philanthropy and Individual Donors in Higher Education
American Foundations and Higher Education Aurelia Kollasch Iowa State University, Iowa, USA
Synonyms Charitable body; Endowment; Funding agency; Source of funds
Alternative Pathways to Academic Degree
Definition A type of an entity that supports charitable activities by making grants to unrelated organizations or institutions or to individuals for scientific, educational, cultural, religious, or other charitable purposes. USA has more than 80,000 private grantmaking foundations and over 4,700 degree granting educational institutions. American foundations are one of the largest sources of support to higher education institutions representing 30% of the 2016 total with $12.5 billion in giving (Council for Aid Education 2017). Currently, California leads the country in $10 million plus gifts to higher education, with 19 gifts totaling $1.25 billion, followed by New York (11 gifts totaling $263 million), and Pennsylvania (eight gifts totaling $173 million) (Foundation Center 2016). At the same time, more than 25% of total donations go to less than 1% of the universities, with institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Southern California leading the way (Council for Aid Education 2017). This is mostly contributed to so-called mega gifts of $100 million or more provided by leading “mega foundations” such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Duke Endowment, Lilly Endowment Inc., and the Lumina Foundation for Education (Hall and Thomas 2012). American foundations have historically been significant contributors to the progress of American higher education institutions. The Council on Foundations (2017) defines a foundation as an entity that supports charitable activities by making grants to unrelated organizations or institutions or to individuals for scientific, educational, cultural, religious, or other charitable purposes. Structural differences in any foundations may vary greatly, but most foundations have their own board of directors, at least a portion of their assets invested in an endowment, and grant money on at least an annual basis. These charitable organizations have a long history of supporting higher education for two distinct reasons: core capacity and institution building; and access and social change. The first is that American foundations support the
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advancement of knowledge and institutional excellence (Geiger 1990) having their funding assistance directed to core research and teaching programs in higher education. Secondly, higher education has always been seen as a critical gateway to greater opportunities and as the great equalizer in American society, thus being a sound ground for support (Anheier and Hammack 2010).
History and Role(s) of American Foundations in Higher Education Since the late 1800s, American foundations have been active in the growth and development of higher education by providing funds for new academic and research projects, capital building projects, programs designed to increase college access and affordability, and in collaborating with higher education institutions to engage and influence the public policy arena. During their early years of higher education philanthropy, from the late nineteenth century until World War II, American foundations helped institutions of higher education to establish the idea of a competitive national framework. Toward the end of the 1800s, Andrew Carnegie along with benefactors such as John D. Rockefeller and Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage set up some of the nation’s first grant-making philanthropies. The early philanthropies varied in their goals and impact while their funding initiatives both reinforced and challenged inequities in education. Nevertheless, these philanthropies, perhaps the best known of which were the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, increasingly tried to raise the visibility of educational inequities and, thus, were widely perceived as liberal and altruistic for much of the twentieth century. The foundations were also harbingers for setting standards by which institutions would compete and be measured in terms of academic research and teaching (Anheier and Hammack 2010). During this time period, American foundations were the most influential forces in higher education concentrating their efforts on strategic donations while the
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relationship between foundations and universities has been one of the well-suited institutional parings in American public life (Anheier and Hammack 2010). During post-World-War II years, American foundations primarily focused their grant making efforts on university infrastructure and capital building projects. The leading private foundations, such as Ford Foundation, had to redefine their role in a new institutional setting in which the federal government had become a major funder to exhibit systemic influence. While the growth of federal funding for higher education increased in form of federal grants through the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the foundations had to reposition themselves to provide resources for private education and support for humanities. Still, there were many reasons for American foundations to focus on higher education, most importantly, the fact that education was high on the national agenda during the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, the post-World War II enrollment surge of returning veterans followed by the baby boom made higher education one of America’s great growth industries between 1945 and 1970 (Crossland 1983). Particularly, large foundations such as Ford, Sloan, Mellon, Kresge, and MacArthur took advantage of opportunities to creatively shape university infrastructure. Also, as early as the late 1960s, many foundations began developing program-related investments (PRIs) tactics to stretch limited funds and to attract other funders to projects. Similarly to grants, PRIs are vehicles for charitable purposes, but unlike grants, PRIs are recyclable philanthropic funds when repaid and often come with at least a modest rate of financial return. In the Tax Reform Act of 1969, the Internal Revenue Code permitted a giving vehicle for foundations called Program-Related Investments, or PRIs. A PRI is a method of making capital available to both nonprofits and for-profits that are addressing social or environmental concerns. While PRIs have existed for over 40 years, foundations have been slow to adopt such investment strategies. Program-related investments have gained momentum since the 1990s – especially
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between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s – with substantial growth in the dollar amount invested, the number of PRIs granted, and the number of foundations participating. The total PRI dollar amount increased significantly from the lowest point of $106 million in 1996 to over $400 million in 2007. Moreover, the average PRI dollar amount has increased steadily since 2005, rising from nearly $635,756 in 2005 to over $1.5 million in 2009 (Lilly Family School of Philanthropy n.d.). Program-related investing is gaining attention within the foundation community for both managing risk and generating attractive long-term returns, but their use by foundations still remains limited. At the beginning of the new millennium, American foundations started approaching philanthropy differently by shifting from being grant-making organizations to being leadership organizations attempting to wield their financial power to influence public policy and act as catalysts for change. At the same time, American foundations also increased their commitment to transparency. The Foundation Center has continued to provide information on foundations and their grant making while many foundations shifted their focus to evaluate impact and to present attainable, measurable, and sustainable results. By the time the 2008 financial crisis affected American and international markets, the American foundations already looked ahead with new social change initiatives that vary from access and equity towards student financial aid.
Current Landscape of American Foundations in Higher Education The landscape of foundation philanthropy in higher education has changed a great deal while major funders in this sector represent a different set of actors with potentially different social objectives. Private foundations (sometimes called independent foundations) and institutionally related foundations (sometimes referred to as campus foundations) are major players in the current higher education landscape.
American Foundations and Higher Education
All private foundations are 501(c)(3) organizations, which means that they are exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. The 501(c) (3) designation is a legal designation reserved for organizations that are exclusively charitable. There are also different types of private foundations. Independent foundations (those founded by an individual, family or group of individuals and operated by the donor, donor’s family or independent board) made up 90% of all US foundations in 2011 and had total assets of $540 billion and total giving of $33 billion, according to the Foundation Center. Independent foundations that include most of the nation’s largest foundations such as Ford, Bill and Melinda Gates, J. Paul Getty Trust, Rober Wood Johnson, Kellogg, and William and Flora Hewlett are usually funded by endowments from a single source. The so-called mega foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Lumina Foundation have enormous resources to further support higher education initiatives from access and equity towards student financial aid. In addition, a new type of advocacy philanthropy has emerged to influence government action, policy, and legislation (Hall and Thomas 2012). These and other foundations can be catalysts for change in the future by not only collaborating with public research institutions, but also among each other. The fact that four leading national foundations have just announced the launch of a free online resource designed to help the staff of other private foundations explore the rules and potential impact of program-related investments, is one way American foundations might shape and influence the future direction of higher education. Created by staff at the Bill and Melinda Gates, William and Flora Hewlett, Gordon and Betty Moore, and David and Lucile Packard foundations as part of the Learn Foundation Law suite of resources, Program-Related Investment Rules for Private Foundations includes a series of interactive training modules that provide an overview of how foundations can use PRIs to help nonprofit organizations seize time-sensitive opportunities, attract capital to a new field, scale their efforts to achieve maximum impact, and stimulate private-
American Foundations and Higher Education
sector innovations that align with their own programmatic strategies. Institutionally related foundations, also called campus or institution foundations, have played a vital role in raising and managing private resources in support of public institutions of higher education. These foundations are typically incorporated as public charities under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which means that these types of foundations are incorporated as nonprofit, tax-exempt charities. Their primary purpose is to help raise private support for their affiliated institution or system. An institution or system can receive, spend, and invest funds directly, often bypassing university governance procedures or the restrictions that would typically apply to state appropriations and to state procurement. What distinguishes institutionally related foundations from private foundations is that they are integrated into public academic institutions. They do not establish funding or usage priorities while the governing board of the college or university defines its mission and priorities. The Kansas University Endowment Association was the first campus foundation that enabled the university to use private gift funds to purchase the real estate, which became part of the campus (Bass 2010). As public funding for higher education has been declining, many state college and university systems have increasingly come to depend on revenue from institutionally related foundations. Yet faculty, students, and members of the public often know little about how those foundations manage and spend vital academic resources. In recent years, numerous reports of alleged wrongdoing involving foundations at state academic institutions suggest the need for researchers to take a more active role in holding these entities accountable. Campus foundations not only receive donations, but also may have an ability to generate substantial income from a variety of campus-related functions such as bookstores, tickets, sponsorship sales for arts and athletic events, campus-related intellectual property, student housing, and more. With diminishing state appropriations and other government-related funding being constrained, campus foundations
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are critical entities for sustaining and supporting academic goals. Both campus foundations and higher education institution they serve need to collaborate to advance both institutional priorities and the philanthropic interests of their donors. The approach for much higher education foundations to grant making has changed throughout history, but their role in the growth and development of higher education through funding of new buildings, campuses, academic programs, and research projects has been unprecedented. Educational opportunity is and will remain a main focus of American foundations. However, the legitimacy of foundations is still intensely debated, particularly with regard to higher education. The extensive literature on philanthropic foundations has questioned and continues to question the legitimacy of foundations, particularly when grants are used to transform institutions or entire fields (Anheier and Leat 2007; Anheier and Hammack 2010; Bacchetti and Ehrlich 2007). In the current and future landscape of American philanthropy, traditional grant-making activity will be supplemented with American foundations collaboratively working with the higher education institutions. These collaborations will involve assistance in goal setting, decision-making, and evaluating progress and outcomes to ensure that priorities set up by foundations are met. Both American foundations and higher education institutions will continue to develop interdisciplinary team-based structures that would bring both research and communication expertise to inform future sustainable and strategic strategies. For instance, the Effective Philanthropy Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS) at Stanford University is an interdisciplinary team and supported by grants from the Raikes Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Foundation where experts in strategic philanthropy, human centered design, and the behavioral sciences work together to better understand donor motivations and behavior. Most notably, American foundations will continue implementing mechanisms of strategic grant making and public policy advocacy. However, the means to achieve these ends might shift to either
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fund intermediaries (i.e., College Board, Complete College America, Gateway to College National Network, or Institute for Higher Education Policy) or to pursue strategic collaborative efforts with government at both the state and federal level, and to further collaborate with other foundations. For instance, the newest entrant in the landscape is the ACT Foundation that brought together Gates, Lumina, and Joyce foundations to further promote advocacy philanthropy by supporting a national network of industry associations to ensure learners understand what skills they need to get jobs. In addition to American foundations expanding their advocacy role might be a shift to directly support students rather than institutions that serve them. For example, the Lumina Foundation and the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation fund awards and the report to offer micro grants to students to help them finish their education. This allows the institutions to offer micro grants in financial aid to students who are on track academically and who have unmet need to assist them to graduate and to use this financial assistance at the end of their education rather than using aid on the front end of students’ enrollment. The current and future landscape of foundation philanthropy will continue to flourish in this collaborative environment, in which both higher education institutions and foundations act to shape significant research agendas. For institutions of higher education, initiatives revolving around issues of measuring quality of educational experiences aligning educational systems to provide a seamless transition from high school to postsecondary school and on closing the achievement gaps for low-income and/or minority populations will remain to be a priority.
American Higher Education Bacchetti, R., and T. Ehrlich. 2007. Reconnecting education and foundations: Turning good intentions into educational capital. Stanford: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Bass, D. 2010. The foundation-institution partnership: The role of institutionally related foundations in public higher education. New Directions for Higher Education 149: 17–25. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.377. Council for Aid Education. 2017. Colleges and Universities Raise $41 Billion in 2016 [Press release]. http://cae. org/images/uploads/pdf/VSE-2016-Press-Release.pdf. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. Crossland, F.E. 1983. Foundations and higher education. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 35 (2): 48–60. Foundation Center. 2016. A mid-year report on $10 million+ gifts and commitments to higher education. Marts & Lundy Report. http://philanthropynewsdigest. org/news/10-million-plus-gifts-to-higher-education-do wn-in-first-half-of-2016?_ga¼2.259692874.17933624 37.1506354322-1422207005.1502302127. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. Geiger, R. 1990. Organized research units: Their role in the development of university research. Journal of Higher Education 61 (1): 1–19. Hall, C., and S. Thomas. 2012. ‘Advocacy philanthropy’ and the public policy agenda: The role of modern foundations in American higher education. Paper prepared for the 93rd annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada, April 2012 https://www.insidehighered.com/ sites/default/server_files/files/Hall%20&%20Thomas2 0AERA%202012%20-%20final.pdf. Accessed 29 Nov 2017. Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. n.d. Leveraging the power of foundations: An analysis of program related investing. https://philanthropy.iupui.edu/files/research/ complete_report_final_51713.pdf. Accessed 29 Nov 2017.
American Higher Education ▶ University Tradition in the United States, The
References Anheier, H.K., and D. Leat. 2007. Creative philanthropy: Toward a new philanthropy for the twenty-first century. New York: Routledge. Anheier, H.K., and D.C. Hammack. 2010. American foundations: Roles and contributions. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Analysis of Discursive Practices ▶ Policy-Making, Rhetoric, and Discourse in Higher Education
Asian University Traditions
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Analysis of Political Discourse
Asian Religions Traditions
▶ Policy-Making, Rhetoric, and Discourse in Higher Education
▶ Asian University Traditions
Anchors Institution ▶ Community Partnerships, Higher Education
Asian University Traditions John N. Hawkins1 and Molly N.N. Lee2 1 Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA 2 The HEAD Foundation, Singapore, Singapore
Apparent Over-Education ▶ Over-Skilling, Under-Skilling, and Higher Education
Applied Higher Education Research Undertaken Within Universities ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Southern Africa
Synonyms Asian religions traditions
Definition Asian university traditions are intellectual traditions that were firmly entrenched in the Asian context prior to Western contact and these traditions continue to impact on the Asian universities.
Introduction
Arena of the Workplace ▶ Overlap Model of Roles and Tasks in University Organizations
Argumentation ▶ Policy-Making, Rhetoric, and Discourse in Higher Education
Articles ▶ Higher Education Journals
Asia is a diverse region in terms of geographical size, economic development, political ideologies, and educational traditions. There are small island states such as Singapore, Sri Lanka, East Timor, and Maldives, as well as countries such as China, Indonesia, and India which have huge populations and large geographical areas. Japan and South Korea are advanced industrialized countries, with Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand as newly industrialized countries, whereas China, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are countries in transition (i.e., from agricultural economy to an industrialized economy, from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy). Many countries in the region have a colonial history, and their education systems are part of the colonial legacy.
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It is commonly maintained that Asian universities have their roots in the West. The impact of Western academic models are found in various aspects of the Asian universities, including the patterns of institutional governance, the ethos of academic profession, the rhythm of academic life, ideas about science, procedure of examination and assessment, in some cases the language of instruction, and other aspects of higher education (Altbach 1989). Studies have shown that various models have been imported by many Asian countries during the colonial period, including China, Japan, and Thailand even though these countries had not been under any colonial rule. The French model was imported by former French colonies, namely, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, while Indonesia imported the Dutch model and the Philippines imported the American model. The British model was imposed on all the former British colonies such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Hong Kong, and several others. Other European powers also exported their university models to Asia: the Germans in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan and the Russians in the central Asian republics (Altbach and Umakoshi 2004; Neubauer et al. 2013). It was pointed out that even in the postcolonial period, the continuing impact of the West is still very significant throughout Asia, as exhibited in the pervasive and subtle influence of the English language, the idea of the university as a meritocratic organization, the importance of scientific research, the notion of academic freedom, and institutional autonomy (Altbach 1989). While Asian universities are patterned on Western models, it is also clear that many Asian countries have adapted the models to suit local needs and realities. No doubt there has been considerable interplay between foreign influences and local cultural contexts. It has been observed that, historically, centers of higher education were outgrowths of religious and/or philosophical influences (King et al. 2011). This is particularly the case in countries with strong intellectual traditions such as those with Confucian, Buddhist, or Islamic traditions. These strong intellectual traditions were firmly entrenched in the local context prior to Western contact and therefore would
Asian University Traditions
continue to dominate in many aspects of social, cultural, and educational life in the Asian region (Hawkins 2013). The purpose of this entry is to analyze how these cultural traditions have influenced the historical development of universities in the different parts of Asia. The first part focuses on Southeast Asia and the latter part is on East Asia.
Southeast Asia Many of the Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar have strong Buddhist traditions, and to some extent in Singapore and Malaysia as well. In all these countries, Buddhist universities were established to keep the Buddhist cultural traditions alive and to train Buddhist monks, novice, and lay persons. The aim is to promote Buddhism in these societies, especially in meditation and other spiritual practices, including Buddhist studies and the Pali language. Many of the Thai universities emphasize contemplative learning and inquiry and offer courses on contemplative practices (Olen et al. 2014). It was reported that in 2006, Singapore and Thailand together with China and India planned to revive the renowned Nalanda University which existed in the northern India state of Bihar from the fifth century until it was ransacked and burnt to the ground in 1193 by Turkish invaders (Alya 2013). The revived Nalanda University aims at being a global institution focusing on research, pan-Asian integration, sustainable development, and the revival of Asian languages. At the same time, it will study local issues of environment, agriculture, and livelihoods. The revival of Nalanda University is seen by many as the restoration of the ancient intellectual exchange between two great civilizations of Asia- India and China. A number of the Southeast Asian countries, namely, Singapore and Vietnam, including the Chinese community in Malaysia have Confucian tradition. The Confucian tradition in higher education dates back to the Han dynasty in the form of the civil service examinations in China. The examination system was a mechanism to recruit
Asian University Traditions
men of ability and virtue on the basis of merit rather than on the basis of family or political connections to be members of the state bureaucracy. These civil examinations also played a central role in the social and intellectual life in traditional China. The civil examination system lasted from 650 to 1905 in China, and it has spread to neighboring countries such as Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. A recent study by Marginson (2011) identified the “Confucian Model” of higher education as evident in East Asia and Singapore. The model consists of four interrelated features, namely, (i) a strong nation-state which steers and controls the development of higher education, (ii) high tertiary participation rates with a large private sector and household funding, (iii) high stakes public examinations, and (iv) strong state support for research. These features are found in the Singapore higher education system and to a lesser extent, only item (i) and item (ii) are found in Vietnam. The high value placed on the pursuit of higher education is found in all Confucian societies. This is particularly so in Vietnam and Malaysia in the Southeast Asian region where the local communities established and fund their own universities such as the people-founded universities in Vietnam and the Chinese community-based universities in Malaysia. As for the Islamic tradition, Al-Azhar University which was established in Cairo, Egypt, in the tenth century AD has had a strong influence on Islamic higher education in Southeast Asia. It is one of the first universities in the world and the only one to survive as a modern university which includes secular subjects in the curriculum. Today, it is the chief center for Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. In the Southeast Asian region, both Indonesia and Malaysia have developed some forms of Islamic higher education influenced by this model. While the Institutions of Islamic Higher Education in Indonesia were established as early as the 1940s as natural extensions of the widely spread madrasahs (traditional Islamic schools) and pesantrens (traditional Islamic boarding schools) (Fu’Ad and Jamhari 2003), Islamic higher education in Malaysia is a more recent phenomenon. The first
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Islamic university in Malaysia was only established in 1983, and this is the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). A few other Islamic higher education institutions were established even later such as the Selangor International Islamic University College in 1995 and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) in 1998. The main aim of most Islamic educational institutions is to integrate faith with learning, and there are various ways of achieving this aim (Anderson et al. 2011). A very popular approach is to adopt a secular curriculum to which a discrete Islamic study component is appended. This approach is quite common in Malaysian universities where all Muslim students are required to take Islamic studies as a compulsory course. Another approach is to use the Quran as a dynamic framework for organizing knowledge and research. This approach which is sometimes known as the “Islamization of knowledge” has been adopted by IIUM and USIM in Malaysia. Islamic pedagogies focus on the integration of Naqli (revealed knowledge) and Aqli (human knowledge) with the aim of creating an Islamic systems of knowledge. The new tradition in Islamic education in Indonesia is to introduce a tradition of rational discourse to Islamic pedagogy, that is, to integrate traditional knowledge into a wider empirical analysis of social realities (Fu’Ad and Jamhari 2003). The ethical aspects of Islamic higher education implies that research should be designed around knowledge that is useful to humanity and to avoid knowledge that is harmful. The study of contemporary problems with a classical framework of Islamic knowledge is the guiding philosophy of Islamic higher education in the region.
East Asia As is noted above, there is no neat division between the indigenous intellectual and cultural traditions of Southeast and East Asia as the Indianized, Sinicized, and Islamic traditions overlap in several cases. However, China looms large, and for our purposes, we will consider East Asia to include all those settings that were heavily influenced by China (principally China, Japan,
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Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and surrounding areas). It is useful to go into some detail to illuminate the intellectual history of China in order to provide some framing for the discussion of educational forms that, it is argued, have had a profound and lasting influence on East Asia and China’s twentieth- and twenty-first-century higher education transformation as was briefly noted in the subsection above on Southeast Asia. The intellectual foundations of China have characteristically been associated with a brief historical period during the latter part of the Zhou dynasty (500–200 BCE). This period has popularly been termed the “golden age” of philosophy in China, for it was at this time that the major philosophers and thinkers who came to dominate traditional Chinese intellectual, and eventually educational thought, lived and worked (Schwartz 1985; Mote 1971). Thinkers as diverse as Confucius and Laozi are purported to have vied with each other intellectually during this period. In any case, it was at this time that the basic foundations of Confucianism and Daoism and the later development of Legalism were formed thus providing the primary groundwork for future East Asian and Chinese cultural and educational development. Although Confucianism was eventually to triumph as the predominant intellectual strain in Chinese thought, the traditions of Daoism and Legalism made important contributions in this early period. When Confucianism was declared the state philosophy during the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), there was already a mixture of Daoism (particularly the laissez-faire attitude toward economics) and Legalism (bureaucratic organization and administrative control) present, resulting in the fact that Confucianism became a useful tool for the state but never its master (Ho 1968, 1962). The moral code permeating Chinese education from the time of Confucius to the Qing dynasty consisted of a set of codes regarding social relationships such as those between parents and children, brothers and sisters, teachers and students, and subject and ruler. These hierarchical social relationships especially between teachers and students have carried over into the modern era throughout the region. The proper harmony among these relationships
Asian University Traditions
resulted in the individual expression of ren (benevolence) toward society. This concept of benevolence and harmony became a universal ideal for the Chinese, as well as for educators in Japan and Korea. Because the codes involved social behavior, they could be taught, and Confucianism particularly emphasized the power of education to improve society and citizenship in both an intellectual and moral sense (Ho 1968). By providing a model, which people could emulate, education could transform society. Intellectuals and scholars during the Han dynasty assumed a new role as government advisers and officials. It was during this period that the scholar-officials grew to become the dominant social force in the government. When Confucianism was decreed to be the official ideology, state universities or academies consequently were established along with a competitive civil serve examination, which in turn served as a catalyst for whatever education existed at that time. The establishment of the examination system insured the continual reproduction of the scholar elite as a segment of the ruling group (Loewe 1965). Thus, the Zhou and Han periods set an intellectual pattern which was to dominate and define educational theory and practice until the next major period of intellectual change during the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE). This linkage between the state and education carried forward into the modern era and in many respects remains significant in East Asia today. The sophisticated and deep intellectual tradition of China briefly referenced above provided a rich philosophical foundation for the development of an equally sophisticated “educational system.” While this was not a system in the sense that we think of these constructs today, it contained many of the features that allow us to discuss it and make some comparisons with contemporary educational developments. As this new “system” further developed, it spreads across much of East Asia, and today elements are readily identified in Japan, Korea, and other settings in East Asia (for an excellent summary of Korea’s historical legacy in higher education, see Lee 1998). Basically, two forms came to dominate this system: senior institutions (i.e.,
Asian University Traditions
colleges and universities) for the imperial civil service examination and the smaller, private academies both for personal enrichment and professional development, more closely aligned with the world of work (Cleverly 1985; Galt 1951). At the apex, in the case of China, the Imperial College was established in 124 BCE as an institution for scholar/officials to study Confucianism. By the Sui-Tang period (581–907 CE), a codified system had been established at this level for examination procedures, assessment, and evaluation in such areas as law, calligraphy, mathematics, and science. A hierarchy of degrees emerged from this system, each with various rights and privileges. Thus, one can see the enormous and long-standing historical legacy of these traditions. Over time, these institutions also offered a model of decentralization of organization and management, over and against the more centralized Imperial College model, thus framing a debate on the competing values of centralization versus decentralization in higher education, a debate and enduring theme that continues into the present day. It also framed the region’s response to Western models of higher education, whether presented by the Germans, Japanese, French, Russians/Soviets, or Americans. By the Ming period, the shuyuan or academy displayed many of the features of modern higher education, including a particular style of architecture, a discernible campus style that was easily recognizable with lecture halls, various shrines, dormitory facilities, eating facilities, a library, study bays, and so on, usually situated on roughly one acre of land (Meskill 1982). By the late Qing dynasty, China, Japan, and Korea had two indigenous historically entrenched, higher education structural models in place when confronted with Western higher education: one highly centralized, Confucian, and state centered (the Imperial Colleges and universities) and the other decentralized where one observed a freer discussion and more innovative curriculum with multiple philosophical influences (Buddhism and Daoism in the case of China and Buddhism in both Japan and Korea with other indigenous patterns of thought such as Shinto in Japan: Rawski 1979; Lee 1998; de Bary 1964).
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Later, in the case of China in the Republican period (1911–1949 CE) when China sought to move forward on a “modernization” track, policy-makers were presented two external traditions that were therefore not unfamiliar to them. These were the European model, with its emphasis on a more centralized approach within more authoritarian structures (not unlike Confucian learning) typified by Beijing University and the German-supported Tongji University, and the American model somewhat reminiscent of the academy typified by Qinghua University and a host of missionary colleges and other institutions founded by Chinese scholars recently returned from the United States (Hayhoe 1989; Clark 2006; Franke 1979). Nevertheless, the multiple European and North American influences present in China and East Asia in the modern period gave them much to choose from without wholly giving up the main elements of indigenous educational traditions. The net result, it could be argued, has been a fluid development of a hybrid higher education model, one that is still evolving within a template of the Western model but not entirely of it (Hayhoe 1989; Clark 2006; Hawkins 2013). Much the same could be said for the overall educational curriculum and relations between students and teachers in the region.
Conclusion There are a variety of interweaving threads that help clarify the historical legacies and traditions that shaped and formed higher education in the Southeast and East Asian regions. Diversity is certainly a common feature of the region, with multiple impacts in the form of geography, politics, colonialism, economic patterns, ethnicity, philosophy, and religion among others. Internationally, there are also important features both within the region and those resulting from contact with the West. Out of this complex and rich historical experience, higher education in Southeast and East Asia reveals dynamic patterns of indigenous pedagogy and organization, intermixed with those of several outside influences. As
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globalization further impacts this growing region, higher education is in a continual state of adaptation and change.
References Altbach, P.G. 1989. Twisted roots: The Western impact on Asian higher education. Higher Education 18: 9–29. Altbach, P.G., and T. Umakoshi, ed. 2004. Asian universities: Historical perspectives and contemporary challenges. Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Alya, M. 2013. Revived Nalanda University will balance local and global research. University World News Global Edition Issue 259. http://www.university worldnews.com/article.php?story ¼20130213115825860. Accessed 31 Mar 2016. Anderson, P., C. Tan, and Y. Suleiman, ed. 2011. Reforms in Islamic education: A report of a conference held at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, April 9–11. Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Clark, W. 2006. Academic charisma and the origins of the research university. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cleverley, J. 1985. The schooling of China: Tradition and modernity in Chinese education. London: George Allen & Unwin. de Bary, W.T., ed. 1964. Sources of Japanese tradition. New York: Columbia University Press. Franke, W. 1979. The reform and abolition of the traditional Chinese examination system. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Fu’Ad, J., and Jamhari, ed. 2003. The modernization of Islam in Indonesia. Montreal/Jakarta: IndonesiaCanada Islamic Higher Education Project. Galt, M.S. 1951. A history of Chinese educational institutions. Vol. 1. London: Probsthian Press. Hawkins, John N. 2013. East-West? Tradition and the development of hybrid higher education in Asia. In The dynamics of higher education development in East Asia, ed. D. Neubauer, J.C. Shin, and J.N. Hawkins, 51–67. Palgrave Macmillan: New York. Hayhoe, R. 1989. China’s universities and Western academic models. Higher Education 18: 49–85. Ho, P.T. 1962. The ladder of success in imperial China. New York: Columbia University Press. Ho, P.T. 1968. Salient aspects of China’s heritage. In China in crisis: China’s heritage and the communist political tradition, ed. Ho Ping-ti and Tang Tsou. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. King, R., S. Marginson, and R. Naidoo, ed. 2011. Handbook on globalization and higher education. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lee, Jeong-Kyu. 1998. Religious factors affecting premodern Korean elite/higher education. Seoul National University of Educational Research 8: 31–63.
Assessing Loewe, M. 1965. Imperial China: The historical background to the modern age. New York: Praeger. Marginson, S. 2011. Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian model. Higher Education 61(5): 587–611. Meskill, J. 1982. Academies in Ming China: A historical essay. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Mote, F.W. 1971. Intellectual foundations of China. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Neubauer, D., J.C. Shin, and J.N. Hawkins, ed. 2013. The dynamics of higher education development in East Asia: Asian cultural heritage, Western dominance, economic development, and globalization. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Olen, G., E.W. Sarath, C. Scott, and H. Bai, ed. 2014. Contemplative learning and inquiry across disciplines. New York: SUNY Press. Rawski, E.S. 1979. Education and popular literacy in Ch’ing China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Schwartz, B.I. 1985. The world of thought in ancient China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Assessing ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Mapping and Measuring
Assessment ▶ Academic Evaluation in Higher Education ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Mapping and Measuring ▶ Peer Review, Higher Education
Asset-Based Community Development ▶ Community Partnerships, Higher Education
Association ▶ Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), The
Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)
Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Kristen A. Renn Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Definition The Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) is a non profit scholarly association based in the United States, dedicated to advancing higher education as a field of study. The stable URL for the association is www.ashe.ws.
Membership There are over 2000 members of the association, of whom about 40% are full-time graduate students undertaking master’s or doctoral degrees in a range of areas including education and other social sciences. About half of ASHE members are university faculty, mostly in academic programs that focus on some aspect of higher education, such as administration, leadership, or policy. ASHE members also include researchers working in non-university settings, including government, think tanks, and advocacy organizations. Two to three percent of ASHE members are from outside the United States.
Organizational Structure ASHE is led by a full-time executive director and governed by a board of directors elected by the membership. Voting members of the board are the president, president-elect, and immediate past president; two graduate student members at large; and four members at large. Additional members serve ex officio and nonvoting on the board: legal counsel, financial officer, executive director, and the chairs of councils and some committees. Councils include the Council for the
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Advancement of Higher Education Programs, Council for Ethnic Participation, Council for International Higher Education, and Council for Public Policy in Higher Education; these groups typically are referenced as CAHEP, CEP, CIHE, and CPPHE, respectively. Standing committees lead activities related to fundraising and philanthropy, publications, awards, position taking, and nominations for elected officers. An annual meeting program committee is formed each year, and other committees are appointed on an ad hoc basis. ASHE by-laws guide governance and decision-making by the board.
Values ASHE has stated values related to diversity and to ethics. ASHE enacts diversity values through nondiscrimination on the basis of personal and social identities and through doing business in a way that does not support discriminatory activities. ASHE enacts its ethical values through publications and conference activities as well as through how it engages in communication with individuals and communities.
Purpose and Activities As stated in its organizational by-laws, “The primary mission of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) is to foster scholarly inquiry of the highest standards of excellence for the purpose of increasing knowledge about and the understanding of higher education” (https://www.ashe.ws/ashebylaws). Scholarly inquiry includes empirical studies of postsecondary education, as well as philosophical, historical, legal, and other humanistic studies. Areas of inquiry include studies of college students, faculty, leaders, organizations, finance, governance, curriculum, teaching, learning, policy, and law. As an association, ASHE supports researchers through dissemination of research in publications and its annual conference. ASHE owns the
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academic journal Review of Higher Education, which is published by Johns Hopkins University Press in four issues per annual volume; the publications committee runs a selection process for the editorial team and recommends it to the board of directors for approval. The Review of Higher Education is highly selective, has a high impact factor, and has been named among the top journals in higher education. The Review of Higher Education is peer-reviewed in a “double-masked” process, in which reviewers do not know the identities of authors and authors do not know the identities of the reviewers of their manuscript. The annual conference provides opportunities for higher education scholars, whether or not they are ASHE members, to present their research. Conference content is peer-reviewed, meaning that authors submit masked proposals, which are reviewed by members of the association. About half of the proposals are accepted each year. Authors are then invited to present their work as stand-alone papers, roundtable papers, or posters or in self-designed paper and symposium sessions. Paper sessions typically include a chair, who manages the sessions by introducing speakers and keeping time, and a discussant, who provides public feedback to authors; there is variation, however, across session types, and some sessions have a moderator instead of chair or discussant. Historically ASHE has not created conference proceedings, but authors themselves will then use feedback from a session discussant and audience members to revise their papers and submit them as journal manuscripts for publication or sometimes to group them with other papers as a book manuscript. ASHE also engages in supporting members’ professional development by offering opportunities for ongoing learning. Activities include workshops at the annual conference, synchronous online webinars on research topics or methods, and asynchronous learning through social media and archived material. Some councils offer mentoring programs for early- or midcareer scholars, and periodically ASHE partners with a foundation to sponsor seminars or symposia related to specific topics or research methods.
Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)
History ASHE was incorporated in 1976 in Washington, DC, USA. It emerged from another association, the now-defunct American Association for Higher Education (AAHE, records now stored at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University) (Hoover Institution 2012). The first ASHE president was C. Robert Pace (1976–1977). ASHE members elect a new president every year. The first woman was Kathryn M. Moore (1983–1984) and the first person of color was Michael T. Nettles (1992–1993). ASHE presidents give an address at the annual meeting, and the addresses are then printed in the Review of Higher Education, providing an historical record of timely issues as included in these talks. Early ASHE meetings were one and a half days long and included a business meeting and social activities in addition to sessions on higher education research. Records of these meetings show that members held positions in college and university administration and state policy, as well as some faculty members in education and other social sciences. By 1982, ASHE members began to convene preconference sessions for the heads of academic programs in higher education administration, a sign that in addition to being an association for the dissemination of research ASHE was becoming an association where professors of higher education could find their counterparts from other universities to exchange ideas and advice. A session that year titled “Future of Degree Programs in Higher Education” also indicates that ASHE was a location where higher education faculty could discuss program-related issues as well as research in the field. This interest was later formalized as the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education Programs, which continues to offer preconference sessions for higher education faculty and program coordinators. ASHE has overseen several publications designed to advance the study of higher education. With changes to scholarly communication and the ability to access publications electronically, some of these formats were deemed unnecessary and discontinued. The ASHE Reader Series consisted of edited topical volumes (e.g., governance, organizations, diversity, history) that
Asylum Seekers
brought together important existing single publications (journal articles, book chapters) for use in graduate courses in higher education. Before these materials were available electronically, the ASHE Readers provided convenient sources for instructors and students. The ASHE-ERIC Monograph Series, later the ASHE Monograph Series, was an annual volume of two-to-four issues, treated as topical monographs, synthesizing important areas of knowledge. ASHE gives several awards annually which are useful markers of the progress and growth of the association. The ASHE Dissertation of the Year Award, later named for the late Bobby Wright, was inaugurated in 1979. The first Distinguished Service Award was given in 1987 to recognize an individual commitment to the association and its success. The Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award was first given in 1985 to recognize someone whose career has been devoted to the study of higher education and who advanced the field through extraordinary scholars, leadership, and service. The first Leadership Award was given in 1990, for outstanding leadership in advancing the study of higher education. The Mentoring Award was inaugurated in 2009 to recognize noteworthy contributions to the field through developing scholars in the association. The Book Award was begun in 2018 to recognize an outstanding contribution to the study and scholarship of higher education. The first Promising Scholar/Early Career Award was given in 1989, to recognize achievement or potential for future research by an individual no more than 6 years beyond receipt of the doctoral degree. The first Research Achievement Award was given in 1985, for an individual whose published research advances understanding of higher education in a significant way. A Special Merit Award is given occasionally, first in 1989, to recognize a person, group, or organization for their distinctive support for the purposes and goals of ASHE. Councils and committees give additional awards. Since 1977, ASHE has had an executive director. Until 2004, these executive directors also maintained their professional roles as professors or other higher education research positions. In 2004 the ASHE office was moved to Michigan State University where it was led by the first full-
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time executive director. Contracts between ASHE and institutional hosts have lasted 5 years, generally with the association and the institution sharing some costs for operation. After 10 years the association moved its office to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Executive directors have been individuals holding PhDs in higher education. The ASHE staff consists of a fulltime executive director, an additional full-time staff member, and part-time staff and/or graduate student assistants at UNLV.
Cross-References ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers ▶ EAIR: The European Higher Education Society ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, North America ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Historical Perspective, Research in Higher Education ▶ Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), The
References Hoover Institution. 2012. Inventory of the American Association for Higher Education records now online. https://www.hoover.org/news/inventory-amer ican-association-higher-education-records-now-online. Accessed 12 Sept 2019.
Associations ▶ Higher Education Networks, Associations, and Organizations in Europe
Asylum Seekers ▶ Refugees in Tertiary Education, European Policies and Practices ▶ Refugees’ Access to Higher Education
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Attrition ▶ Student Retention in Higher Education, A Shared Issue
Audit ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ US Accreditation and Quality Assurance, International Dimensions
Authority ▶ Bureaucratization Process in Higher Education
Autonomy ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa Gerald Wangenge-Ouma1 and Lucky Kgosithebe2 1 Department of Institutional Planning, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa 2 Student Affairs, Human Resource Development Council, Gaborone, Botswana
Debates about autonomy and accountability in African higher education are as old as the earliest universities on the continent. The report of the Asquith Commission (1945), which led to the founding of some of the earliest university colleges in Sub-Saharan Africa, which later became fully fledged universities, for example, University of Ghana (1948), University of Ibadan (1948),
Attrition
Khartoum University College (1949), Makerere University College (1949), makes the point that “it was essential that Colonial universities should be autonomous in the sense in which the universities of Great Britain are autonomous” (Colonial Office 1945, p. 34). Regarding accountability, the report emphasizes that these universities “should be required, for example, to publish an annual report accompanied by a financial statement. . . and it is reasonable that that periodic visitations should take place by a properly constituted authority” (p. 34). From the outset, it was deemed appropriate and desirable that these universities should manage their own affairs but with the obligation of accounting for their stewardship. Having supported the idea of autonomy for the new institutions, the Commission instead recommended that the new university colleges grant the degrees of the University of London. This, ostensibly, was so as to guarantee quality. The result of this recommendation was that the new university colleges became constituent colleges of the University of London. The University of London had “the final word in the determination of the standards of the examination and the syllabuses prescribed for them, and in the appointment of examiners” (p. 42). This role played by the University of London considerably diminished the autonomy of the university colleges. At Makerere University College, for example, Mazrui (2012, p. 12) reports that “the teaching of Marxism and socialist thought was discouraged until after Uganda’s independence in 1962 – mainly because decision-makers at the University of London were cautious about promoting Marxism in either Africa or the Muslim world.” This model of a “special” relationship between African university colleges with a university in the colonial metropoles was practiced by many of the colonial powers. The Lovanium University Centre in the Congo became the overseas campus of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, and higher education institutions in French colonial Africa became overseas campuses of French universities (Lulat 2003). Thus, historically, institutions of higher learning in Africa were not granted substantive autonomy, that is, the power to determine their own goals and programs, what
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa
Berdahl (1990, p. 172) describes as “the what of academe.” The onset of Uhuru (independence) in the 1960s was accompanied by intense debates on the question of the relationship between universities and the new independent states. As Mngomezulu (2012) points out, the experience of colonial domination in politics and education made the African leaders approach higher education with caution, which had implications for autonomy and accountability. The general consensus, as evidenced in debates at the then University of East Africa, was that, while universities needed academic freedom and autonomy in order to be able to perform their teaching and research duties effectively, the transplantation of Western notions of university autonomy in their pure form would be inapplicable in Africa (Mngomezulu 2012). Higher education was considered a central plank in the actualization of the promise of Uhuru, a task that was considered so important to be left to academics alone.
Autonomy The evolution of university autonomy has neither been linear (from less autonomy to more autonomy) nor homogenous across the continent. It is characterized by variability both within and across countries. Nigeria and South Africa provide interesting insights on the checkered history of university autonomy in Africa. The 1970s through to the early 2000s were a challenging period for university autonomy in Nigeria, especially during the various periods of military dictatorships. The relationship between the state and Nigerian universities during this period can be characterized as one of state control and interference. The various military dictatorships increased their control of universities by, inter alia, eroding the powers of university councils as the statutory employers of university staff and those of senate as the supreme organ in academic matters. In 1975, a decree was promulgated which, among others, gave the Head of the Federal Military Government power to appoint and remove vice-chancellors, a responsibility that
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hitherto belonged to university councils (Onyeonoru 2008). Over time, the role of the University Visitor (also the head of state) evolved from a largely ceremonial one to one whereby he was empowered to intervene and interfere in the routine administration of universities. The erosion of university autonomy in Nigeria persisted through the 1980s and 1990s. Several positive changes have, however, since been registered. In 2003, an amendment to the University Act provided for improved autonomy. The Visitor’s administrative powers, for example, with regard to the appointment of vice-chancellors, were reverted to university councils (Onyeonoru 2008). The changes granting greater autonomy to Nigerian universities have, however, not stopped the state from interfering. For example, the Nigerian government unilaterally sacked and appointed 13 vice-chancellors in 2016 despite this being the statutory responsibility of the governing councils of universities. The evolution of university autonomy in South Africa can be divided into two periods – the apartheid period (which ended in 1994) and the postapartheid period. Consistent with its ideology of racial segregation, apartheid South Africa had segregated institutions for various race groups. Legal constraints were established to prevent institutions designated for the use of one race group from enrolling students from another race group (Bunting 2006). While all the universities – for all race groups – had some forms of limitations on their autonomy, whitesonly universities enjoyed greater levels of autonomy compared to the other universities. For example, while whites-only universities were allowed to keep their unspent budgets and build up reserves, blacks-only universities were required to return such unspent budgets to the state. Blacks-only universities also experienced tighter controls over the appointment of teaching staff and the curriculum. The postapartheid period has been characterized by extensive restructuring of the South African higher education system, with implications for autonomy. The 1997 Higher Education Act provides the minister responsible for higher education with several instruments for
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steering and interfering with the sector, for example, determination of policy on the funding of higher education and the power to merge two or more public higher education institutions into a single public higher education institution (Hall and Symes 2005). The various ways in which these instruments have been utilized have led some (e.g., Jansen 2004; Hall and Symes 2005) to argue that the postapartheid state has systematically increased direct state control over higher education. A good example is the merger of higher education institutions between 2001 and 2007, which was carried out against the wishes of the universities involved.
Accountability Universities operate in a context of interdependent relationships with various stakeholders, for example, governments, professional bodies, and national and international organizations. These interdependent relationships vis-a-vis the need to maintain trust and confidence have led to the establishment of various external accountability mechanisms. The various external accountability mechanisms that have been implemented in African higher education systems are inextricably linked to the history of higher education on the continent; its promise and crisis; the encounter of the state or, more specifically, higher education with global forces; its relationship with market forces; and obtaining national sociopolitical trends (Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2011). At Uhuru, for example, the newly independent African states looked at higher education as one of the essential elements of economic and political revitalization. Consistent with this view of the university, accountability was characterized mainly by public expectations about universities as engines of development. Recent changes in South Africa demonstrate how major shifts in the macro political context lead to changes in higher education accountability regimes. Higher education in apartheid South Africa was generally geared at supporting and maintaining the apartheid project; hence, following the collapse of apartheid, the key driver of accountability
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in higher education in South Africa has become transformation and development, the overriding policy imperative of the postapartheid state (Wangenge-Ouma and Langa 2011). The challenge of quality is probably the greatest driver of external accountability in African higher education. The tremendous expansion of higher education systems on the continent have not often been matched with concomitant increase in resources. It has been claimed that, generally, the quality of higher education in a number of African countries is suspect; curricula are irrelevant, often producing skills that are tangential to the continent’s development needs and challenges. Not infrequently, African universities have been castigated for apparently failing to adjust their curricula in response to the needs of industry, business, and the professions (Langa and Wangenge-Ouma 2014). Various external accountability mechanisms – such as external quality assurance, accreditation, and accountability reporting – have since been implemented across the continent to “fix” this challenge.
Conclusion University autonomy and accountability have been, and remain, issues of immense contestation in Africa. While the current state of university autonomy has drastically improved compared to decades past, the state still maintains a very strong presence in the affairs of universities. Have the various accountability-related initiatives improved the quality of African higher education and enhanced its societal relevance? Have these initiatives enhanced research output or improved the financial management of African universities? These questions have no singular answer given the complexity of the African higher education landscape. Nonetheless, the continent is replete with many universities that “comply” with various accountability requirements but are badly run and offer mediocre higher education. The realization of the full benefit of the various accountability mechanisms requires, among others, the alignment of enrolments with resources, the empowerment of accreditation
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and quality assurance bodies to undertake their work without political interference, and the building of capacity for governance and financial management within universities.
Mazrui, A.A. 2012. From Euro-colonial colleges to the global university: Transitions in Muslim and African experience. Unpublished paper. Mngomezulu, B.R. 2012. Politics and higher education in East Africa: From the 1920s to 1970. Bloemfontein: Sun Press. Onyeonoru, I. 2008. University autonomy and cost recovery policies: Union contestation and sustainable university system. Unpublished paper. Republic of South Africa. 1997. Higher Education Act, No. 101 of 1997 (Government Gazette No.18515), Pretoria. Wangenge-Ouma, and P.V. Langa. 2011. Accountability in Africa: A disciplinary power in African higher education systems. In Accountability in higher education: Global perspectives on trust and power, ed. B. Stensaker and L. Harvey, 49–72. New York: Routledge.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Asia ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Eastern Europe ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Latin America ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, North America ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe ▶ Evaluative State, Higher Education, The ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Quality Assurance in Higher Education, A Global Perspective
References Berdahl, R. 1990. Academic freedom, autonomy and accountability in British universities. Studies in Higher Education 15 (2): 169–180. Bunting, I. 2006. The higher education landscape under apartheid. In Transformation in higher education, ed. N. Cloete, P. Maassen, R. Fehnel, T. Moja, T. Gibbon, and H. Perold. Norwell: Springer. Colonial Office. 1945. Report of the commission on higher education in the colonies. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office. Hall, M., and A. Symes. 2005. South African higher education in the first decade of democracy: From cooperative governance to conditional autonomy. Studies in Higher Education 30 (2): 199–212. Jansen, J. 2004. Accounting for autonomy. The 41st TB Davie memorial lecture [delivered at the] University of Cape Town, 26 August 2004. Unpublished paper. Langa, P., and G. Wangenge-Ouma. 2014. Good access to poor courses won’t create real learning. University World News. Issue No: 327, 04 July 2014. Lulat, Y.G.-M. 2003. The development of higher education in Africa: A historical survey. In African higher education: An international reference handbook, ed. D. Teferra and P.G. Altbach, 15–31. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Asia Shuiyun Liu1 and Ye Liu2 1 Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China 2 International Development, King’s College London, London, UK
Introduction Higher education systems in Asia have achieved remarkable successes, partly because there has been a consistently high level of governmental support (ADB 2011) and partly because the rapid economic growth in the region has become a crucial drive to marketize the provision. The countries, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam in the region of East and Southeast Asia, arguably have shared cultural similarities (Shin and Harman 2009). However, there are also crucial differences in the size of higher education sectors, which is largely dependent on the nation’s demographic characteristics, economic development, and political regimes. This chapter focuses on the autonomy and accountability of higher education systems among these countries.
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precedent levels of direct involvement by the states. Instead, new strategies focus on the mechanisms of funding allocation and quality assurance (Liu 2016). For instance, Mok characterizes this as a “concentration and selection” strategy, through which only the best universities are selected for the funding to improve their research capacities and international recognition (Mok 2013).
Similar to Western experiences of mass participation in higher education (Marginson 2016), these countries have developed their systems at an unprecedented level since the 1980s. Gross enrolment ratio to tertiary education has increased from 5.33% in 1980 to 39.03% in 2014 among East Asian countries and from 4.52% to 22.75% among South and West Asian countries (UNESCO 2016). This rapid expansion of the systems has challenged the conventional higher education governance and management in many respects. The first concerns the source of funding. The traditional funding sources from the state cannot meet the growing demands from the mass clientele. Therefore, new policies were introduced to allow the private sector to be involved in the market share. In Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, private universities enroll the majority of students, in some cases, up to 80% of the student population (ADB 2011). In addition to privatization, a more popular approach is to diversify the financial sources by charging tuition fees for public universities. By 2010, the private contribution has accounted for nearly 70% of higher education spending among East Asian countries (Liu et al. 2016). The rapid expansion and privatization have raised serious concerns regarding academic quality and standards. Second, new public management (NPM) reforms, which have been widely introduced in these countries, aim to devolve financial responsibilities to institutions and promote entrepreneurship within the sector (Marginson 2016). Meanwhile, the concept of NPM also intensifies the competitions of higher education institutions at the national and international level (Naidoo 2015). A variety of elite projects have been developed as a response to the international competition, including China’s “985 project,” South Korean “Brain Korea 21,” and “the University Research Excellence” in Taiwan. As the priorities have shifted toward elite competitions and research excellence, a new type of governance has emerged to respond to these changes. There has been a trend of increasing flexibility and autonomy in management without
The Development of Higher Education Accountability and Quality Assurance Schemes Central to the new governance is quality assurance. Accountability has driven these countries to develop their national quality assurance systems over the past decade partly to ensure the provision quality and partly to enhance their competitiveness internationally (Liu 2016; APQN 2011). To date, there are at least two quality assurance (QA) agencies at the national level across half of the Asian countries, including Japan, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, and Taiwan (APQN 2011). Most QA agencies are state-funded organizations; but there are indeed a few independent QA agencies, which only receive some of funding from the public sources and therefore charge the application fees from individual institutions, in the case of Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications (HKCAAVQ), and the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP). These QA agencies in Asia demonstrate a diversity of approaches and experiences (Stella 2010). The earliest agency of such is the Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA), which was founded in 1947 (Hou 2015). HKCAAVQ has also established consistent policies and procedures, which has wide regional impact. By comparison, the Quality Assurance Center of Lao PDR was only established in 2008, which is yet to be fully developed (Hou 2015). It can be argued that the development of QA agencies is consistent with the level of the growth of higher education systems. More than 70% of these agencies have undertaken reviews at the program and institutional
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level, including the Accreditation Committee of Cambodia, the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT). Accreditation, evaluation, and audit are three major assessment tools (Hou 2015). One of the main challenges for these schemes is a lack of autonomy. These QA agencies are either public institutions or affiliated with a particular governmental department; therefore, they more or less function in order to justify the allocation of the governmental funding based on accreditation outcomes, which undermines their own autonomy (Hou 2015). Coincident with the national agencies is the rise of international accreditors, which provide quality assurance services for national institutions. In some countries including Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, national institutions were encouraged to seek international accreditation to enhance their capacity of academic competitiveness internationally. Subsequently, there emerges the demand of integrating international accreditation into the national quality assurance frameworks (Hou 2015). Moreover, -global university ranking exercises, including the QS World University Rankings, the QS University Ranking, and Academic Ranking by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, serve the additional function of measuring academic performance. The global competition resulted in an increase of the regional initiatives to assess the quality of provision. The Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN), established in Hong Kong in 2003, aimed to “enhance the quality of higher education in Asia and the Pacific region through strengthening the work of quality assurance agencies and extending the cooperation between them” (APQN 2012). It proposed “Chiba Principles” for QA agencies within the region (APQN 2010). Furthermore, the ASEAN University Network (AUN) was established to promote quality assurance and evaluation in Southeast Asia (Welch 2007).
“decentralized centralization” (Shin and Harman 2009). On the one hand, the governments have decentralized a certain level of autonomy and flexibility in finance and recruitment at the institutional level. On the other hand, they have adopted a variety of quality assurance mechanisms domestically and externally to measure performance and quality. This new strategy of governance is dressed up in the discourse of quality assurance and accountability to monitor and control the higher education systems in such a way that we argue as the rise of managerial states.
Conclusion In summary, higher education governance in Asia has been reshaped in the era of globalization and massification. It is characterized as a process of
References Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2011. Higher education across Asia: An overview of issues and strategies. Manila: ADB. Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN). 2010. Chiba principles. http://www.apqn.org/. Accessed 11 Sept 2016. Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN). 2011. Technical proposal. Unpublished. Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN). 2012. The AsiaPacific quality network. http://www.apqn.org/. Accessed 11 Sept 2016. Hou, Angela Yung Chi. 2015. The quality of mass higher education in East Asia: Development and challenges for Asian quality assurance agencies in the glonacal higher education. In Mass higher education development in East Asia: Strategy, quality, and challenges, ed. Jung Cheol Shin, Gerald A. Postiglione, and Futong Huang, 307–324. Dordrecht: Springer. Liu, Shuiyun. 2016. Quality assurance and intuitional transformation: The Chinese experience. Singapore: Springer. Liu, Ye, Andy Green, and Nicola Pensiero. 2016. Expansion of higher education and inequality of opportunities: A cross-national analysis. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 38 (3): 242–263. Marginson, Simon. 2016. High participation systems of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 87 (2): 243–271. Mok, Ka Ho. 2013. The quest for an entrepreneurial university in East Asia: Impact on academics and administrators in higher education. Asia Pacific Education Review 14 (1): 11–22. Naidoo, Rajani. 2015. The competition fetish in higher education: Varieties, animators and consequences. British Journal of Sociology of Education 37 (1): 1–10. Shin, Jung Cheol, and Grant Harman. 2009. New challenges for higher education: Global and Asia-Pacific perspectives. Asia Pacific Education Review 10 (1): 1–13. Stella, Antony. 2010. The Chiba principles: A survey analysis on the developments in the APQN membership. Shanghai: Asia-Pacific Quality Network.
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UNESCO. 2016. The institute for statistics. http://data.uis. unesco.org/Index.aspx?queryid¼142#. Accessed 10 Aug 2016. Welch, Anthony. 2007. Governance issues in South East Asian higher education: Finance, devolution and transparency in the global era. Asia Pacific Journal of Education 27 (3): 237–253.
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Eastern Europe Pavel Zgaga University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Synonyms Central Europe; Southeast Europe; The Baltics; Western Balkans
Definition The concept of Eastern Europe seems unambiguous only from a perspective of the physical geography; in interweaving of history, culture, and politics, it becomes complicated – Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, etc. This is important also when discussing higher education. Furthermore, compared to Western Europe, higher education research in Eastern Europe has begun to develop only in recent years. If the specific features and diversities of the “West” have been investigated almost to the last detail, the “East” is often submerged in the night, in which all cows seem black. The division of Europe into West and East is a relative historical matter. After WW I, the political map of the region was fundamentally changed, and a fairly hermetic delimitation with the newborn Soviet Union was established. After WW II, the Soviet influence spread far toward the West, but generally speaking, “Sovietization” was not all an encompassing process. The enlarged “communist world” remained internally different and partly even opposite. “Eastern bloc” established
strictly controlled borders against the “Western bloc” but also against the “revisionist” Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) which was from the 1950s economically more connected to the West than to the East. Academies of Science, as known in the Soviet bloc, did not exist in the SFRY, and the development of higher education was strolled by different routes. The third type of “communism” was introduced in Albania, isolated from the world up until the 1990s. Differences in political systems determined the differences in education systems, understandings of the relationship between the state and the university, etc. Therefore, “emphasizing difference” (Scott 2006) is inevitable: common features get sense only in the light of differences. After 1989, one of the most noticeable systemic changes was the introduction of provision on academic freedom and/or autonomy in the national legislation. Before, these concepts were not clearly demarcated and used in fundamental law. According to the Constitution of the USSR (1977), it was the state which “provides for planned development of science and the training of scientific personnel and organises introduction of the results of research in the economy and other spheres of life” (Art. 26). Academic institutions and individual academics didn’t have special rights, but citizens were “guaranteed freedom of scientific, technical, and artistic work” however “in accordance with the aims of building communism” (Art. 47). With political changes, this required a thorough conceptual turn. The introduction of relevant provision was carried out in various ways and at various times. In most of the countries, a provision both on institutional autonomy and academic freedom was introduced in the constitution (see OSCE 2016, Legislationline.org); typical definition can be, e.g., “The autonomy of the institutions of higher education shall be ensured” (Poland). The provision of institutional autonomy is not always guaranteed directly in the constitution but in special law (Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Slovakia). Constitutional provisions do not define the accountability of universities; this is normally resolved in the field laws and was introduced later.
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The post-1989 constitutional provisions outlined a principled, deep separation from the previous system. Yet, the implementation of the new principles has been faced with many idiosyncrasies. Even in neighboring countries with similar tradition, it proceeded in different ways, e.g., either leaned on “conservative and reserved legislation” as in the Czech Republic or on “new, very liberal rules for establishing non-state higher education institutions” as in Poland (Simonova and Antonowicz 2006). A comparative study of four countries found out that “despite relatively similar starting conditions the differences in HE governance have increased since the system transformation” (Dobbins and Knill 2009). Gradually, it became clear that the higher education “transition” hasn’t been just about the “liberation” of academia from ideological and/or state control but also about a new contract between society and university. Different situations across countries conditioned further differences among reformed education systems. Thus, gradual “convergence toward a common model” (Dobbins and Knill 2009) was possible only due to “the lure of the West” (Scott 2006) and “a powerful role of European agendas” (Kwiek 2012). The political transition took place in various ways, including wars; therefore developments in various social subsystems, including education, were far from being common for all countries. The academic “struggle for autonomy” was still not entirely a thing of the past. In 1998, for example, the Milosevic’s government in Serbia adopted a new higher education law, which encountered unprecedented fierce resistance. This law represented a step backward even when compared to the pre-1989 situation: inter alia, it stipulated that the “old” employment contracts for all academic staff shall terminate, that the Rector and other bodies shall be directly appointed by the Government, etc. (Belgrade Circle 1998). The Serbian Constitution at that time guaranteed the “freedom of creating and publishing scientific and artistic work” but not institutional autonomy. Vesna Rakić-Vodinelić, professor in Law from Belgrade University, made an interesting argument against the law of 1998: “The guarantee of freedom of science also
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means the guarantee of the freedom of the University as the institutional bearer of science and education. [. . .] From this basic freedom, legal regulations should arise about a minimum legal guarantee of autonomy (freedom) of the University” (Belgrade Circle 1998). Further repression led to growing resistance among students and staff; it fused with the resistance of civil society and finally caused the fall of Milosevic (2000). However, after this tumultuous period, it took a few years to introduce provisions on academic autonomy and freedom in the Constitution (2006), such as we found in other countries soon after 1990. This specific interpretation of autonomy is a characteristic for most of the regions. It is conditioned by historical memory of covert tensions between the state and the university, public controversies, and even conflicts (e.g., student movement). According to it, institutional autonomy can’t be reduced to issues of governance and management, but it is interwoven with the academic freedom: “autonomy” is understood as a guardian, “the institutional bearer of science and education.” This is perhaps the essential common conceptual assumption, from which the higher education reforms of the 1990s had been fed. Comparative analysis has shown that “nearly half the EU states do not have protection for academic freedom and university autonomy written into their constitution” and that the constitutional protection for academic freedom is positioned higher in ex-socialist countries than in the rest of Europe (Karran 2007). A special feature of the transition period was the “situation of unfettered autonomy”: “instead of clear principles and legislation regulating the relationship between the state and HE providers, academics conceived the reintroduction of autonomy as a political action to accelerate the erosion of totalitarianism” (Dobbins and Knill 2009). This is why the new post-1990 laws “were sometimes utopian in their formulations” and lacked the concept of accountability; however, the reality of the transition period caused that this utopianism was gradually replaced with pragmatism: “Autonomy, initially seen largely in
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terms of an absence of state power, was gradually replaced by new notions of civic and market accountability” (Scott 2006). This shift has been again quite complicated. The former system models lost legitimacy, but elements of the academic culture as formed during previous decades were partly maintained. This also applies to the understanding of universities as responsible to society: the new concept of accountability has been partly imported from the West and partly influenced by the previous “quality control” technologies which often looked ideologically “neutral” in the new context. On the East, the move from the state control model to the state steering model was held in essentially different circumstances than on the West. Recent research has identified three “routes to accountability in Eastern Europe”: via political process (e.g., accreditation agencies), via the market (development of market-like mechanisms), and by taking account of international audiences (supranational bodies) (Temple 2011). The move from “accountability to political authorities” toward “multiple constituencies” (Scott 2006) has been – paradoxically – to a large extent carried out by external pressures (government, supranational bodies). Through this process, the situation is “becoming like everywhere else” (Temple 2011): the concept of accountability has been enforced everywhere. The side result is that the concept of “university autonomy” as the “guardian” of academic freedom has now to face with a more instrumental concept of “institutional autonomy.” In this situation, universities are put in a position to searching for the golden mean.
Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 1977. http://www.departments. bucknell.edu/russian/const/1977toc.html. 15 Dec 2016. Dobbins, M., and Ch. Knill. 2009. Higher education policies in central and Eastern Europe: Convergence toward a common model? Governance 22 (3): 397–430. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0491.2009. 01445.x. Karran, T. 2007. Academic freedom in Europe: A preliminary comparative analysis. Higher Education Policy 20: 289–313. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave. hep.8300159. Kwiek, M. 2012. Universities and knowledge production in Central Europe. European Educational Research Journal 11 (1): 111–126. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj. 2012.11.1.111. OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe). 2016. Legislationline.org; http://www.osce. org/odihr/legislationline. 15 Dec 2016. Scott, P. 2006. Higher education in central and Eastern Europe. In International handbook of higher education. Part two: Regions and countries, ed. J.F. Forest and G. Altbach, 423–441. Dordrecht: Springer. Simonová, N., and D. Antonowicz. 2006. Czech and polish higher education – From bureaucracy to market competition. Czech Sociological Review 42 (3): 517–536. URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar56535. 15 Dec 2016. Temple, P. 2011. Accountability in Eastern Europe. Becoming like everywhere else? In Accountability in higher education. Global perspectives on trust and power, ed. B. Stensaker and L. Harvey, 93–109. New York: Routledge.
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Latin America Maria Jose Lemaitre Center for Interuniversity Development, CINDA, Santiago, Chile
Cross-References ▶ Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Accountability in Education
Synonyms Higher
References Belgrade Circle. 1998. In defence of the university. Beograd: Beogradski krug.
Independence; Public responsibility
Historical Background Latin America groups together countries in North, Central, and South America, as well as the
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Caribbean, which respond to Spanish or Portuguese roots. It is a diverse region, united by its cultural and language background. Until the second half of the twentieth century, higher education systems in the region were integrated by three types of universities: public or State owned; Catholic universities, established by the Church under special provisions that assimilated them to the public universities; and secular, elite universities, established by entrepreneurial groups, with a clear public commitment. Even though the last two groups were formally private institutions, all were created by law and operated in a similar way to public universities in terms of mission or target population; governments recognized this by funding them under the same criteria that applied to public universities. A student revolt in 1918 in Universidad de Cordoba, Argentina, which rapidly expanded to other countries, reframed the relations between the university, society, and the government and set the basis for a definition of university autonomy in Latin America which is valid until now, involving features such as the following (Tunnerman 2008): • The right for the university to choose its own authorities, appoint professors, and develop programs without the intervention of the government or any other organization, with the participation of all parties in the university (students, staff, and graduates), also known as cogovernance. • The right to determine its political, teaching, administrative, economic, and financial decisions, without the interference of the government or the Church. • A review of the contents of study programs, freedom to modernize program offerings, curricula, and teaching methods. • Legal guarantee of public funding, together with the capacity to manage resources without interference from the government. • No tuition fees, democratization of access to universities, no attendance requirements. • Strengthening of the social function of the university and increased concern about national issues.
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As a result, higher education systems were relatively homogenous, composed of prestigious universities, with enormous autonomy in terms of their internal government and decision-making and free from external interference or regulations. They were also generously funded by the State (in many cases, with a certain percentage of GDP assured by the constitution), protected from competition by laws limiting the establishment of higher education institutions and focused on the education of a relatively small and selected fraction of the student population. In this respect, they enjoyed the “privileged autonomy” of assured resources, with no intervention from government or any public agency. In exchange, universities were expected to train the elite professional and technical staff necessary to support national wellbeing and development (Brunner and Uribe 2007). Governments, in turn, have left higher education policies and regulations under the responsibility of the public universities, which actually regulate the operation of the other institutions in the country. They base their strength and social power in their recognized and exclusive ability to grant professional degrees, significant elements for social mobility in highly stratified social contexts. They define good practice and for many years carried out what can be considered mutual “corporate regulation,” implicitly defining what was acceptable, but without any obligation to be accountable for the resources they received or the outcomes of their work.
Changes in Higher Education Thus, for over 60 years, universities in Latin America enjoyed a wide-ranging autonomy. While it was mostly described as their capacity for self-governance, in practice it meant that public universities decided who they hired and under what conditions; the academic mix of programs offered; conditions for the admission of students; and the granting of degrees. They determined who paid, how much, and how resources were to be used and demanded from the government the resources needed for their operation.
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Governments, on their part, maintained a basically passive attitude regarding institutional performance, keeping their part of the agreement and thus fostering the central role of public institutions. During the last third of the twentieth century, things began to change. The region witnessed an unprecedented growth of enrollment, which went from 1.8 million students to 12.5 million between 1970 and 2000 and grew to 21.8 million in 2014. This increased demand for higher education led, in some countries, to the growth of public universities, but mostly to the emergence of a significant number of new, demand absorbing private universities. These currently represent two thirds of the total number of universities, and enroll almost 50% of the students, although countries differ greatly: Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, and Paraguay have over 60% of students in the private sector, while Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay show figures around or below one third (Brunner and Miranda 2016). Around the 1980s, economic crises forced governments to change their patterns of funding, and in many cases, to transfer part of the financial burden to the private sector; the growing concern about quality linked to the emergence of these new private higher education institutions led to the development of assessment or quality assurance mechanisms, and financial mechanisms started emphasizing accountability and incentives based funding schemes. Institutions now had to pay attention to a new environment, where regulations started to become the norm rather than the exception; where funding depended on their ability to tune into governmental priorities; where competition and market forces appeared as a new actor affecting their decisions, their purposes, and policies.
Quality Assurance and Accountability Diversification led to an erosion of trust in higher education and the need for “someone” to assure quality. In a context of increased demands for public funding, it became unacceptable not to show that resources had been used effectively
and efficiently; public funding, which was normally allocated on the basis of historic considerations, became increasingly linked to incentives, with performance based funding and competitive funds for the development of priority areas. Higher education institutions (HEIs) had to look for other sources of income: tuition fees, which currently represent a significant portion of the budget of all private institutions and of some of the public ones; research contracts; and services to the public and private sector, all of which may interfere with their traditional view of academic freedom and independence. Around 1990, several countries (Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico) began developing quality assurance (QA) mechanisms. Initially, these focused mostly on private institutions, but gradually expanded to cover both public and private ones; their first concern was program accreditation, with a later focus on institutional review, mainly to be used as a basis for policy decisions. A recent study (Lemaitre and Zenteno 2012) showed that most HEIs have adjusted their academic structure and their practices to the requirements of external reviews and to the incentives associated to public funding; while there is a strong perception among university leaders, academic staff, and students that QA mechanisms have contributed to the improvement of higher education practices, they are also concerned about their impact on institutional autonomy. The effect of QA mechanisms has shown governments that QA is a valuable regulatory tool. If during the first years, QA agencies operated quite independently, currently governments are becoming increasingly involved in the definition and application of licensing and accreditation criteria. While this is not exclusive to Latin America, it is evident in several countries in the region: Ecuador has closed a number of universities based on accreditation results; Colombia requires all programs and institutions to show that they meet basic standards and, together with Chile, links licensing and/or accreditation results to access to public funds; Argentina requires that all programs considered to be “in the public interest” are accredited and links improvement funds to actions
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emerging from external reviews; Peru has imposed a mandatory licensing scheme for all HEIs and compulsory accreditation for some programs. Latin America has traveled thus from an unqualified concept of autonomy to one that is most often referred to as “responsible autonomy” or “regulated autonomy.” Many universities now have had to establish external governing boards, with representation of the government or external stakeholders, thus effectively constraining the self-governance which was one of the main tenets of traditional autonomy. Their decisions must take into consideration market demands and national policies, and thus reach a new arrangement, “which represents the response of universities to the uncertainties and demands of the times and of the national and local contexts” (Acosta 2008). They had to leave their protected enclosure and take their place at the center of social life, thus making relevance one of the main components of their quality. They have to find significant and relevant answers to the distinction between academic freedom, autonomy, and social responsibility.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education
References Acosta, Adrián. 2008. La autonomía universitaria en América Latina: Problemas, desafíos y temas capitales. Editado por UDUAL. Universidades LVIII 36: 69–82. Brunner, J.J., and D.A. Miranda. 2016. Educación Superior en Iberoamérica. Informe 2016. CINDA: Santiago. Brunner, J.J., and D. Uribe. 2007. Mercados universitarios: El nuevo escenario de la educación superior. Santiago de Chile: Universidad Diego Portales. Lemaitre, M.J., and E. Zenteno. 2012. Aseguramiento de la calidad en Iberoamérica. Informe Educación Superior 2012. CINDA: Santiago. Tunnerman, C. 2008. Noventa an˜ os de la reforma universitaria de Cordoba. Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales.
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Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, North America Judith S. Eaton Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Washington, DC, USA
With the advent of knowledge-driven societies that are at the core of international competitiveness and cooperation, higher education has taken on enhanced importance, especially in the eyes of various governments. This is often accompanied by considerable media and student and other public attention to a country’s colleges and universities. This is the case for North America – Canada, Mexico, and the United States – as well as many other regions of the world. This importance has been about assuring an educated workforce as more and more jobs are created in technology and not in manufacturing fields and concerns about the structural mismatch between the education of the workforce and the jobs that need to be filled. It has been about the imperative of building national capacity for creativity and innovation in research. And, it has been about the role of higher education in addressing equity and social justice in society. This importance has been underscored as the cost of higher education has increased and as more and more countries turn to tuition or charging students as part of financing higher education. It is buttressed by the desirability of internationalizing higher education through such practices as expanding student mobility, cooperative research efforts, and faculty exchange. With the emergence of highly public national, regional, and national ranking systems and qualification frameworks, every country has its higher education prestige and prominence on the line for all to see. All of these factors have been influential with regard to the current state of both autonomy and accountability in higher education. Autonomy is about independence in academic decisionmaking. Accountability is about being answerable to another party, e.g., government, students, and
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others in this decision-making. In many ways, autonomy and accountability are opposite sides of the same coin. Autonomy requires trust; accountability can often be an indicator of lack of trust. Autonomy is about self-determination; accountability is about being told what to do. Autonomy and accountability interact, with government typically the most important player and, at times, a mediator here. With regard to autonomy, historically, the United States, Canada, and Mexico consistently and publicly affirm the importance and value of colleges and universities sustaining a significant level of independence. This is focused particularly in the academic arena and in judgments about, e.g., the development of curriculum, the appointment of faculty, and the setting of academic standards. However, the longstanding commitment to autonomy is now accompanied by expanding and increasingly explicit requirements especially from government and particularly with regard to the quality and performance of institutions in relation to student learning. The primary impact is to restrict the degrees of freedom with regard to academic decision-making. For example, in the United States, the federal government has taken on judging the quality of an institution based on graduation rates. It stipulates the extent to which distance learning enrollments can grow and how and whether an institution can expand via branch campuses or new programs. In Mexico, significant growth in higher education enrollment has triggered a major expansion of private institutions. This, in turn, has triggered concern for additional oversight to sustain quality and calls for national quality standards (Else 2015). In Canada, the Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC), an intergovernmental body that provides a Canada-wide focus on postsecondary education, includes both assessing student skills and setting education indicators as part of its charge (CMEC n.d.). The future of autonomy is uncertain. Given the essential role of effective higher education and the cost of higher education to governments and to students, the current trend of ongoing and even expanding oversight through law, regulation, or
public opinion is likely to continue, raising questions about what “autonomy” will mean in the future. Increased accountability has taken many forms. It can mean being answerable to government, with law and regulation that applies to higher education and structures how higher education is to operate. It can also mean being judged in a more informal but nonetheless powerful way by students and the public, especially the media. The CMEC sustains a Canadian Degree Qualifications Framework as well as standards for assessing new degree programs and institutions that structure accountability. In Mexico, given economic conditions and growth in higher education demand, funding is increasingly focused on results (Gonzalez et al. 2013). In the United States, many colleges and universities must be responsive to public criticism or concern. Institutions with low graduation rates and students who do not complete their studies yet accrue considerable debt are increasingly subject to public criticism. Accountability that is indiscriminate can have a deleterious impact on higher education’s fundamental strengths. If a college or university sees its primary purpose as intellectual development or research, accountability measures that focus primarily on, e.g., job placement of graduates, however important, can divert attention from the self-proclaimed priorities of the institution. The freedom, richness, and spontaneity of open intellectual inquiry can be undermined by the ongoing emphasis on valuing education only if it leads to certain kinds of jobs and earnings. The future of accountability appears robust – for the same reason that the future of autonomy looks uncertain. Higher education is now viewed as too important for only a “trust-us” approach that has been effective throughout much of its history. The current state of autonomy and accountability is having a powerful impact on highly valuable and traditional features of higher education. These include academic freedom and academic leadership, peer review to define and judge quality, and sustaining the diversity of higher education through emphasis on institutional mission or purpose. If an outside party, government or media, is determining the parameters of academic decision-
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making – what faculty teach, what standards they set, and their research and work with students – faculty’s scope of judgment and discretion are reduced. If regulation – versus professional judgment – dominates judgment about quality and performance, the role of peer review is curtailed as well. Diminished autonomy and rising accountability can also reduce the diversity of higher education. The key challenge is to achieve balance. Yes, higher education needs to sustain autonomy but not at the price of ignoring responsibility to its sources of funding and those who provide approval to operate. Yes, higher education needs to be accountable but not at the price of any opportunity for independent action. Central here is the distinction between a college and university be held accountable for its actions – in contrast to accountability that is really the management of an institution from outside. For example, an institution that is held accountable will know that expectations it must meet have been set. However, the institution has the freedom of action to determine how it will meet the expectations. And, in the academic sphere, the institution also has the freedom to determine its academic success indicators, purpose, and direction. There is already consideration of such balance, particularly between institutions and governments. In the United States, there is a serious political debate about how much further the federal government can or should go in its oversight of higher education. In Mexico, there is significant attention to student mobility, both through credit transfer within the country and cross-border higher education, especially with the United States and Canada (Maldonado-Maldonado 2015). This attention also includes emphasis on institutional autonomy. In Canada, the work of the CMEC includes an ongoing commitment to institutional autonomy, through such cooperative efforts with the Universities Canada, a nongovernmental organization of institutions (Weinrib and Jones 2014). Changes in autonomy and accountability in North America are driven by both the growth of higher education and its heightened importance economically, socially, and politically. Whatever
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the future holds, the key to sustaining the strengths of higher education is to achieve a balance, with adequate autonomy for academic leadership and adequate accountability to assure responsiveness and responsibility in serving students and society.
References Council of Ministers of Education. n.d. About CMEC. http://www.cmec.ca/en/. Accessed Mar 2017. Else, H. 2015. Mexico grapples with quality control as private growth creates ‘Tension’. Times Higher Education. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/search? e¼404&search¼news%20mexico%20grapples%20qu ality. Accessed Dec 2016. Gonzalez et al. 2013. Model of higher education funding in Mexico and Chile. 10th Higher Education Reforms Workshop, Slovenia. https://www.researchgate.net/pub lication/307857771_Models_of_Higher_Education_Fun ding_in_Mexico_and_Chile_Is_There_a_Possible_Equi librium_Between_the_Chronic_Lack_of_Public_Funds_ and_the_Student_Debt_Crisis. Accessed Mar 2017. Maldonado-Maldonado, A. 2015. Presidential politics and higher education reform in Mexico. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313414486_ Presidential_Politics_and_Higher_Education_Reforms_ in_Mexico. Accessed Feb 2017. Weinrib, J., and G. Jones. 2014. Largely a matter of degrees: Quality assurance and Canadian universities. Politics and Society 33 (3): 225–236. http://www. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S14494035140003 20. Accessed Dec 2016.
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe Andrée Sursock European University Association (EUA), Brussels, Belgium
Synonyms Accountability; Autonomy; Bureaucracy; European commission; Managerialism; New Public Management; Performance-based funding; Reform; Shared governance
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Autonomy and accountability in Western European higher education have been the focus of multiple rounds of reforms, most recently, at the turn of the twenty-first century. Up to then, many higher education systems in Europe were run centrally by the ministries. In some countries, the faculties were considered to be institutions on a par with the university of which they were but a theoretical part; often, they received their funding from their ministry rather than via the central university administration. This meant that universities were “loosely coupled systems” (Weick 1976) and their leadership constrained in their steering ability. Several contextual developments have precipitated a wave of policy reforms that affected both autonomy and accountability, including increased globalization and internationalization; the growing importance of new technologies; the rise of knowledge-based economies; and the growth in student numbers, which challenged the capacity of ministries to manage the institutions or to fund the expanding systems. Underlying these policy reforms were concerns about bolstering the capacity of higher education to contribute to economic competitiveness and regional development through strengthened research capacity and the promotion of graduate employability. The rising importance of New Public Management (NPM) – with its central tenet: more autonomy in exchange for more accountability – provided a framework for these new policies. The European Commission (EC) expressed these concerns through a number of communications on higher education in an attempt to shape national policies. This took place in the context of the Bologna Process (for the accountability strand) and framed as part of the “Lisbon Agenda” (for the autonomy). The Lisbon Agenda aimed to ensure that Europe becomes the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world and required paying attention to university governance and increasing their funding. It prompted the EC to issue a series of papers focused on this topic (starting with EC 2003). In parallel, the European University Association (EUA) together with its national members (the national associations of universities)
were demanding more autonomy for universities while encouraging them to develop internal quality mechanisms in order to bolster their leadership and management capacity. This convergence of views resulted in enlarging the scope of institutional autonomy and increasing accountability requirements through a variety of mechanisms. The Irish and British higher education systems, which had enjoyed a strong tradition of institutional autonomy, have also been affected by greater accountability requirements, as had the Netherlands, which implemented governance changes earlier than the other continental systems. Some studies have looked at the role of various agents in policy implementation (e.g., Stensaker et al. 2012) while others have examined the impact of these change. The new legal frameworks have been converging toward a governance model (Amaral et al. 2012), albeit with national and institutional variations (Musselin 2005b). Key trends include the emergence of bureaucracies and of a managerial culture, greater power concentration in the hands of the top management teams, the limitations on individual or faculty autonomy, and the erosion of shared governance (e.g., Amaral et al. 2003; Paradeise et al. 2009; Middlehurst and Teixeira 2012; Musselin 2005a). The diversification of funding sources required responding to the multiple accountability requirements of the funders and stronger administrations, notably for the research-intensive universities (e.g., Mohrman et al. 2008). Accountability mechanisms accompanied autonomy reforms. In many countries, the composition of university boards must now include external members. As a signal of their accountability function, appointment systems vary from those where the national authorities alone decide on these appointments to those that are made jointly with the institutions. Only in a handful of countries are universities free to appoint external board members without external interference (Estermann et al. 2011). In parallel to governance change – and after a period of instability (e.g., Sursock 2011) – quality assurance in Western Europe has been shifting toward institutional approaches (e.g.,
Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe
quality audits, institutional reviews). These tend to be context-sensitive and mission-driven and presuppose the capacity of autonomous institutions to set their own course. The stress on both institutional accountability and autonomy found its concretization in the 2015 version of The European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Europe (ESG 2015). This text strengthens the role of universities in managing their quality and reaffirms a co-regulatory approach linking internal and external quality assurance processes. Following the launch of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in 2003, the past 13 years have also seen the multiplication of international ranking schemes. However imperfect these rankings are, they have captured the attention of governments and the wider public who tend to see them as a form of quality assurance (e.g., Hazelkorn 2016). The EC has stepped in by funding the “U-Multirank” tool and promoting a variety of “transparency instruments” that are meant to measure the performance of higher education institutions or systems and to generate pressures for change (e.g., Hazelkorn 2012). The importance of ranking has led some countries to promote regional and international alliances of universities and even mergers in order to bolster their scientific impact and their international position. In some countries, these developments are taking place at the same time as autonomy reforms were being implemented, providing the institutional leadership with a rather complex set of change management challenges (Sursock 2014). The expanded financial autonomy granted to the universities has resulted in a growing emphasis on financial accountability to the State (e.g., Teixeira 2009). This trend has been amplified by the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, notably its negative effect on youth unemployment. These developments have had an impact on higher education including in countries that were not directly affected by it (e.g., EUA 2014). Many countries have bolstered their reporting requirements, particularly with respect to the graduates’ career trajectories and requiring institutions to demonstrate their value to economic development. Policy responses have included decreasing or
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concentrating funding and “excellence initiatives” (Salmi 2016). The spread of performance-based funding and other funding mechanisms have steered institutions and limited their capacity to chart their own course (Bennetot Pruvot et al. 2015). The changes of the past 15 years have been complex, unrelenting, and difficult. Addressing them bolstered institutional leadership and promoted more strategic – albeit managerial – higher education institutions. It remains to be seen if these have been profound changes or simply cosmetic, leaving the academic staff to work both autonomously (Musselin 2007) and collegially at least in the research-intensive universities (Rip and Kulati 2014).
Cross-References ▶ Evaluative State, Higher Education, The ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education ▶ Intergovernmental Policies in Higher Education, Bologna ▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education ▶ Policy Outcomes and Effects in Higher Education
References Amaral, A., V.L. Meek, and I.M. Larsen, eds. 2003. The higher education managerial revolution? Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer Academic Publishing. Amaral, A., O. Tavares, and C. Santos. 2012. Higher education reforms in Europe: A comparative perspective of new legal frameworks in Europe. In European higher education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna Process and National Reforms, ed. A. Curaj, P. Scott, L. Vlasceanu, and L. Wilson, vol. 2, 655–673. New York: Springer. Bennetot Pruvot, E., A.-L. Claeys-Kulik, and T. Estermann. 2015. Designing strategies for efficient funding of universities in Europe. Brussels: European University Association. Estermann, T., T. Nokkala, and M. Steinel. 2011. University autonomy in Europe II – The scorecard. European University Association. European Commission (2003), The role of the universities in the Europe of knowledge.
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European University Association (EUA). 2014. Report by EUA Public Funding Observatory. http://www.eua.be/ Libraries/Governance_Autonomy_Funding/PFO_anal ysis_2014_final.sflb.ashx Hazelkorn, E. 2012. European “transparency instruments”: Driving the modernisation of European higher education. In European higher education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna Process and National Reforms, ed. A. Curaj, P. Scott, L. Vlasceanu, and L. Wilson, vol. 1, 339–360. New York: Springer. Hazelkorn, E., ed. 2016. Global rankings and the geopolitics of higher education: Understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policy and society. Abingdon: Routledge. Middlehurst, R., and P. Teixeira. 2012. Governance within the EHEA: Dynamic trends, common challenges and national particularities. In European higher education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna Process and National Reforms, ed. A. Curaj, P. Scott, L. Vlasceanu, and L. Wilson, vol. 2, 527–552. New York: Springer. Mohrman, K., M. Wanhua, and D. Baker. 2008. The research University in Transition: The emerging global model. Higher Education Policy 21 (2008): 5–27. Musselin, C. 2005a. European academic labour markets in transition. Higher Education 49: 135–154. Musselin, C. 2005b. Change or continuity in higher education governance? Lessons drawn from twenty years of national reforms in European countries. In Governing knowledge. A study of continuity and change in higher education; a festschrift in honour of Maurice Kogan, ed. I. Bleiklie and M. Henkel. New York: Springer. Musselin, C. 2007. Are universities specific organisations? In Towards a multiversity? Universities between global trends and national traditions, ed. G. Krücken, A. Kosmützky, and M. Torka, 123–206. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Paradeise, C., E. Reale, I. Bleikilie, and E. Ferlie, eds. 2009. University governance: Western European comparative perspectives. New York: Springer. Rip, A., and T. Kulati. 2014. Multilevel dynamics in universities in changing research landscapes. In The changing governance of higher education and research, ed. D. Jansen and I. Pruisken, 105–115. New York: Springer. Salmi, J. 2016. Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities. In Global rankings and the geo-politics of higher education: Understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policy and society, ed. E. Hazelkorn. Abingdon: Routledge. Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area, (ESG), May 2015. Stensaker, B., J. Välimaa, and C. Sarrico, eds. 2012. Managing reform in universities: The dynamics of culture, identity and organizational change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sursock, A. 2011. Accountability in Western Europe: Shifting quality assurance paradigms. In Accountability in higher education: Global perspectives on trust and power, ed. B. Stensaker and L. Harvey, 111–132. Abingdon: Routledge. Sursock, A. 2014. Alliances and mergers in France: Incentives, success factors and obstacles. In Mergers and alliances in higher education: Current international practice and emerging opportunities, ed. L. Georghiou, A. Curaj, J. Cassingena Harper, and E. Egron-Polak. New York: Springer. Teixeira, P. 2009. Economic imperialism and the ivory tower: Economic issues and policy challenges in the funding of higher education in the EHEA (20102020). In The European higher education area: Perspectives on a moving target, ed. B.M. Kehm, J. Huisman, and B. Stensaker, 43–60. Dordrecht: Sense Publisher. Weick, K.E. 1976. Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (1): 1–19.
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Bildung
Branding
▶ The Idea of the University: Renewing the Great Tradition
▶ Managing External Relations, Higher Education Institutions
Borderless Higher Education
Bribery
▶ Transnational Education (TNE)
▶ Corruption in Higher Education
Brain Circulation
Bridge Programs
▶ Human Capital Policy in Science and Technology ▶ Internationally Mobile Faculty, Comparative Perspectives
▶ Refugees in Tertiary Education, European Policies and Practices
British University Traditions Brain-Drain ▶ Human Capital Technology
Policy
in
Science
and
Robert D. Anderson School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Definition
Branch Institutions ▶ International Branch Campuses, Management of
The complex of traditions which came together to shape the modern British university.
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Introduction In a comparative context, the distinctive English contribution to university ideals is usually seen as the collegiate, residential form of elite education characterized by Oxford and Cambridge, which emphasized socialization and character formation as much as intellectual training (Charle 2004). But this was not the only British tradition. Scotland had four universities with a professorial rather than a collegiate structure, and in the nineteenth century, new university colleges were founded on the professorial pattern, first in London, then in the large provincial cities of England. Yet another model was the “examining university,” starting with the University of London in 1836, which administered examinations and awarded degrees to students in independent colleges, but did not itself provide teaching. There were thus several British university traditions, developing and interacting in the nineteenth century, then converging into a national system which remained fairly unchanged until the 1960s. After that, the expansion of higher education embraced yet another tradition which had developed outside the university sector, that of vocational or technical education. Britain today thus has a diverse university system which has been built up by the addition of successive layers, some of which retain much more prestige than others, and its traditions cannot be understood without some account of their past history (Anderson 1992, 2006). Outside influences on British universities have been limited, though German models in the nineteenth century, and American in the twentieth, popularized the idea of the research university. British traditions themselves influenced early college development in the United States, but had little influence in continental Europe, where French and German models dominated. However, the diffusion of British traditions to the British Empire was an important aspect of global university expansion.
The Oxbridge Educational Ideal Although Oxford and Cambridge universities (often described collectively as “Oxbridge”)
British University Traditions
were medieval foundations, their modern form is largely the result of legislation in the second half of the nineteenth century. The universities as institutions were distinct from the colleges, which retained corporate and financial autonomy, and teaching was shared between university professors and college “fellows.” Students were required to be members of colleges and usually to live within them; they were small communities allowing close personal relations and moral supervision. One purpose of the Victorian reforms was to make Oxford and Cambridge training grounds for a new middle-class elite serving the professions and public service. They were national universities, with close metropolitan links to politics, law, the civil service, and (by the twentieth century) the literary and artistic life of London. The colleges socialized students through their corporate life and rituals, and it was always a British principle that the different elements of the elite should be educated together rather than (e.g., as in France) in specialized institutions. This tradition was reinforced because the reform of Oxbridge was closely linked with the growth of the “public schools” – secondary schools which were also residential, nationally recruited, and socially exclusive. These schools dominated Oxbridge student entry and passed on many of their values. Within British society, Oxford and Cambridge represented privilege. But internally, they fostered meritocratic competition through their examination system. They developed practices which mark the British academic tradition to this day. “Honors” examinations at the end of the threeyear curriculum, based on written papers, led to the division of candidates into competitive “classes.” The curriculum broadened out from the early duopoly of classics and mathematics, but as new subjects were introduced, they were organized into specialized examination courses (the “singlesubject degree”), rather than the broader multidisciplinary approach preferred in Scotland. Professors gave lectures, but the essence of the teaching tradition lay in frequent personal meetings between students and college teachers, where students presented their work for criticism and discussion (the “tutorial system”). Tutorials and
British University Traditions
examinations together produced a distinctive intellectual style which emphasized literary, critical, and analytical skills rather than original research (and in the eyes of critics, encouraged superficiality and mere cleverness). This constituted a distinctive form of liberal education, in which two different principles can be discerned. One was to train or “sharpen” the mind through vigorous intellectual exercise. Performance in examinations, and mastery of a traditional discipline, was seen as a test of general intellectual ability, which could then be applied in any career. The other aim was to shape the personality, through subjects with a unique civilizing role. Classics, philosophy, and mathematics were the traditional educational instruments, and when Oxford and Cambridge introduced new disciplines like history, English literature, and natural science, they were expected to have the same liberal character. Purely applied or vocational subjects were viewed with suspicion. Many have seen this as part of a long-lived anti-industrial bias in British culture. The tradition of liberal education within a college community was embodied in John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, first published under that title in 1873, but dating back to lectures given in Dublin in the 1850s. Newman had been a college fellow at Oxford, but his conception of the pastoral relationship between teacher and student was essentially a religious one; the modern tutorial system was a later creation. Newman believed in “universal knowledge,” an ideal which specialization made obsolete, and he was not a champion of the research university, though sometimes cited in its support. For him the disinterested pursuit of truth and “intellectual excellence” were ends in themselves, and this was primarily an educational ideal. The purpose of universities was the perfection of the individual’s intellect and personality; there are parallels with the German ideal of Bildung. Though the 1860s and 1870s saw much debate about university education, mainly between the protagonists of science and classical culture (Sanderson 1975), Newman’s book does not seem to have been much read in his own time. But it was influential later and is rightly regarded
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as a classic statement of the English university tradition (Rothblatt 1997). The idea that research was a fundamental task of the university, which owed much to the German example, was a comparatively late development in Britain; the PhD, for example, was adopted only around 1919. At Oxford, notably, research was often resisted by college tutors who saw their task as preparing their charges for public life, rather than training future scientists and scholars. But once the need for research was accepted, the universities became its natural home, as Britain lacked any tradition of separate research academies or institutes. The professionalization of science and scholarship was largely a university phenomenon, and Oxford and Cambridge, with their size and resources, assumed leadership in many disciplines. The teaching tradition itself, with its emphasis on the pursuit of truth for its own sake and on individual analytical and critical skills, eased the adoption of the “Humboldtian” concept of the unity of teaching and research. The principle that students benefited from studying under teachers working on the “frontiers of knowledge” was absorbed into the older liberal ideal and survives in the idea of “research-led teaching.”
Other British Models The years between 1850 and 1914 saw both expansion and differentiation of British universities (Anderson 2006; Rothblatt 1983). The oldest element was the Scottish universities, like Oxbridge of medieval origins, but also subject to modernizing reforms in the nineteenth century. Their traditions included the idea that they were national institutions at the service of the whole community; a “democratic” ethos related to their relative social accessibility as urban, nonresidential universities; and the combination of a broadly “philosophical” and multidisciplinary arts degree with professional training for the church, law, and medicine. Teaching was in the hands of a strong professorate. The professorial model was followed when two colleges were founded in London around
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1830, but these did not have the power to award degrees, and in 1836, the state chartered the University of London for this purpose. Its powers to administer examinations and grant degrees were not confined to London, and the “examining university,” often taking the form of a federation of colleges, became an influential and distinctively British institution (Anderson 2015). When new university colleges were founded in the English provinces, mostly in industrial cities – in Manchester in 1851, in the 1870s and in the 1880s elsewhere – they initially took their degrees from London. These “civic” or “redbrick” colleges followed the professorial pattern of teaching, recruited their students locally, and did not have residential colleges, but they differed from the Scottish universities. While the latter saw themselves as components of a national system, the English urban universities were founded and governed by local elites and expressed their civic and cultural aspirations. And while the Scottish universities trained mainly for the traditional learned professions, the new English ones were oriented to the needs of local industry and commerce and welcomed new and vocational subjects into the curriculum (Sanderson 1972). Their practical ethos, their relation to local communities, the London examination system, and national coordination through state grants from 1889 onward created a common identity for these universities, which itself influenced later foundations (Whyte 2015). Various forms of advanced education were also available in local technical colleges. Often this was part-time and given in evening classes. Another significant development was university “extension,” pioneered by Oxford and Cambridge, which made evening lectures of university standard available in towns throughout England. This was one of the few British innovations copied in continental Europe. By the early twentieth century, the Workers’ Educational Association was extending it to working-class audiences. Alongside elite university traditions, therefore, Britain has a significant tradition of democratic and adult education (Bell and Tight 1993). Most universities developed “extramural” or “continuing education” departments, though these have become less important in recent years.
British University Traditions
Two further points may be made. One is that when women gained admission to higher education, the 1870s being the key decade, two rather different traditions emerged. At Oxford and Cambridge, and in London, separate women’s colleges were founded, but in the civic universities and Scotland, and in most London colleges, women studied alongside men. Oxford and Cambridge restricted women’s full university membership for many years. Yet even there, the assumption was that women would study the same subjects as men and compete on equal terms. Compared with some countries, there was little tradition of women’s university education as a distinctive sphere. Second, as higher education expanded within Britain, it also did so in the British Empire. Universities were founded in India and Australia in the 1850s and in settler “dominions” like New Zealand and South Africa (Canada had more varied traditions). From the 1940s, universities were developed in colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Both the professorial and the examining or federal university served as models, and British degree systems, terminology, and ceremonies were taken over. There was significant interchange of academic staff, and many students from the empire came to study in Britain. The first Congress of Universities of the British Empire met in 1912 (Newton 1924; Pietsch 2013). These university connections have survived the transition from empire to Commonwealth.
The Twentieth Century and after By the early twentieth century, British traditions were converging into a national system, though with different types of university (Anderson 2006). One new factor was the development of London as a major university center, following the reform of London University as a “teaching university” and important new foundations like the Imperial College of Science and Technology (1907). Observers identified the emergence of an “Oxbridge-London axis,” or “golden triangle” which concentrated resources in metropolitan South-Eastern England, while the civic universities drifted away from their local roots and
British University Traditions
conformed to a more standardized pattern influenced by Oxbridge values (Shils 1955). National uniformity was reinforced by the channeling of state finance through the University Grants Committee (1919). The UGC respected university autonomy to a remarkable degree, perhaps because the values of elite universities and those of the governing class hardly differed. But this depended on a narrow definition of university education which excluded technical colleges and only recognized universities which taught a broad spread of disciplines and combined teaching with research. British universities down to the 1960s formed a small and cohesive group, in close association with the state though independent of it. Neither confessional nor private universities, common in other countries, existed in Britain. This tradition of university education as a public good has fueled academic resistance to recent neoliberal policies of marketization and competition (Collini 2012). By the 1960s, the nineteenth-century liberal university had come to terms with the research ideal and achieved, for a time, the Humboldtian balance between teaching and research. New foundations of that period reflected this compromise, and the period is often looked back to as an academic golden age (Tight 2010). It saw both the foundation of new campus (or “plateglass”) universities, planned as small residential communities, and the promotion of advanced technical colleges to university status. The Robbins report of 1963, a landmark in British university policy, endorsed these changes. Yet far from revolutionizing concepts of the university, the period was marked by the continuing strength of older traditions, including the value of personal relations between teacher and student and the university as a community. The campus universities reflected this, and the older civic universities also developed residential accommodation and began to recruit students on a national basis. The characteristically British view that the university experience means leaving home really dates from this period. But as expansion continued, tensions grew. There were still only 22 universities in 1960, by 1980 there were 42, and today there are around 120. The percentage of young people entering higher education of all types was around 8% in
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the 1960s, 14% in the 1980s, nearly 50% today. A key date was 1992, when full university status was given to the “polytechnics” created in the 1960s from existing technical and vocational colleges. This raised the question of whether university values with their roots in the elite period needed to be rethought. Should alternative traditions, of a more open, democratic, or communitarian kind, be revalorized in a pluralist system (Halsey 1992; Scott 1993)? Arguably this challenge was avoided, and what has emerged instead is a hierarchical system where the elite traditions of the highest stratum still enjoy the highest prestige. There is no formal acknowledgement that universities should be of different types, despite pressures arising from the desire of governments to save money and the need to concentrate resources on a select number of internationally competitive universities. In practice, mechanisms of discrimination have arisen; but in theory, all universities have the same mission and award undergraduate and postgraduate degrees which are judged by the same standards. Some traditions, like communal residence, continue to shape popular views of university life, and though this is now far from universal, universities are still expected to provide extensive social and sporting facilities. Other traditions, like the singlesubject degree and degree classification, survive throughout the system. Newman-style notions of liberal education and pastoral relations, and the rhetoric of a “community of scholars and students,” may have vanished, but universities still try to organize “face to face” teaching in seminars and small groups and to encourage independent learning and critical discussion. Overseas students trained in more didactic traditions sometimes have difficulty adapting to this. In the age of globalization and international league tables based essentially on research, American universities are the dominant model. Because of a partly shared history, and the English language, British universities are well placed to benefit from this and to recruit students internationally. Yet similarities can be misleading. National traditions, as elsewhere in Europe, remain strong. Britain has perhaps not learnt the lessons of multiplicity which derive from America’s longer history of democratic higher
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education, and tensions between mass higher education and values derived from the elite age underlie many contemporary university problems. The most fundamental, perhaps, is whether the virtues of the British university tradition – free debate, the disinterested pursuit of truth, careful attention to teaching, and concern for the individual student – can be infused into higher education as a whole, or will be confined to an elite sector, reflecting the social privilege and unequal opportunities which, in a country where economic inequality is entangled with the cultural factor of social class, the British university hierarchy tends to reproduce.
Budget Management Rothblatt, Sheldon. 1997. The modern university and its discontents: The fate of Newman’s legacies in Britain and America. Cambridge: University Press. Sanderson, Michael. 1972. The universities and British industry, 1850–1970. London: Routledge. Sanderson, Michael. 1975. The universities in the nineteenth century. London: Routledge. Scott, Peter. 1993. The idea of the university in the 21st century: A British perspective. British Journal of Educational Studies 41: 4–25. Shils, Edward. 1955. The intellectuals. I. Great Britain. Encounter 4(4): 5–16. Tight, Malcolm. 2010. The golden age of academe: Myth or memory? British Journal of Educational Studies 58: 105–116. Whyte, William. 2015. Redbrick: A social and architectural history of Britain’s civic universities. Oxford: University Press.
Cross-References ▶ Mass Higher Education
Budget Management
References
▶ Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions
Anderson, Robert. 1992. Universities and elites in Britain since 1800. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Anderson, Robert. 2006. British universities past and present. London: Continuum. Anderson, Robert. 2015. Examinations and university models in nineteenth century Britain. Annali di Storia delle Università Italiane 1: 105–125. Bell, Robert, and Malcolm Tight. 1993. Open universities: A British tradition? Buckingham: Open University Press. Charle, Christophe. 2004. Patterns. In A history of the university in Europe. III. Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1800–1945), ed. Walter Rüegg, 33–75. Cambridge: University Press. Collini, Stefan. 2012. What are universities for? London: Penguin. Halsey, A.H. 1992. Decline of donnish dominion: The British academic professions in the twentieth century. Oxford: Clarendon. Newton, A.P. 1924. The universities and educational systems of the British Empire. London: Collins. Pietsch, Tamson. 2013. Empire of scholars: Universities, networks and the British academic world, 1850–1939. Manchester: University Press. Rothblatt, Sheldon. 1983. The diversification of higher education in England. In The transformation of higher learning 1860–1930: expansion, diversification, social opening, and professionalisation in England, Germany, Russia, and the United States, ed. Konrad H. Jarausch, 131–148. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Budgeting ▶ Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Formula Funding, Higher Education ▶ Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe
Bureaucracies and Ministries, Higher Education Alfredo Marra1 and Roberto Moscati2 1 School of Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy 2 University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
Introduction 1. To develop any line of thought on the importance that bureaucratic and political participations have on systems of higher education,
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light needs to be shed on some of the basic characteristics which differentiate the various systems right from their beginnings. First of all, it must be remembered how in the modern period the external power the universities relate to is the nation-state. A Continental European model can be identified, where the nation-state has become the main partner of the universities, following the reforms brought in by the Napoleonic system and the German model proposed by Wilhelm von Humboldt. This runs side by side with an Anglo-Saxon model in the UK and the USA where the state’s role has always been far more marginal. In greater detail, the European model has led to universities becoming the legal property of the state, in moves to ensure the priority of national interests and protect them by setting up a regulated legally defined area around the universities. The state control model which has in this way taken over Continental Europe is therefore based on the principle of “legal homogeneity” and follows the nationstate’s centralist logic, which developed with the French Revolution of 1789. Differently, in Anglo-Saxon states, the interests of the community were not identified in its origins with the concept of nation-state but with “proprietary individualism.” According to this line of thought, which is traced back to John Locke, the acquisition and accumulation of goods and wealth give the individual responsibility for the common good and existing social order. Thus, we find a different definition of “community” conceived in economic terms and linked to property, so community meaning wealth in community, or “common wealth” (Neave 2002). 2. As is well-known, the “coordination triangle” elaborated by Burton Clark in his comparative analysis of higher education systems is an extremely efficient synthetic model for defining the prevalent forces in the different national systems of higher education (Clark 1983). Systems which are not Anglo-Saxon inspired emerge more under the influence of academic oligarchies or state authorities and are less likely to open up to the market in the Anglo-Saxon way.
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Nevertheless, the Clark model needs to be seen as the starting point of a situation that has become more and more complex, due to the increase in social players involved in higher education, and the ever-widening reference points for universities encompassing local, national, and supranational elements. It is telling, furthermore, how states – increasingly in the Humboldtian-Napoleonic systems following in the wake of the Anglo-Saxons – link universities closer to users (students, research backers, both understood as stakeholders). But at the same time, however, the states keep control over the results (and often the processes for obtaining them), where action convergence and uniformity mechanisms offer more and better guarantees than the old centralist system of bygone times, in other words: the rise of the “controlled autonomy” (Neave 1995, 1998; Capano 1998). 3. In more general terms, it must be kept in mind how higher education is involved in the processes of transformation influenced by the changes in knowledge and their importance on the development of the economy and society. In the most recent series of analyses and reflections on the subject, the description of the forms that the evolutionary process of higher education systems has taken in the specific contexts of the nation-states falls into three currents, identified with (a) NPM (see also chapter on “New Public Management or Neo-Liberalism, Higher Education” by I. Bleikli), (b) network governance, and (c) the neo-Weberian evolution (Ferlie et al. 2008; Paradeise et al. 2009). What really happened was that hybrid forms of the three models were produced. More precisely, there seems to be a greater tendency in Continental European countries toward either network governance models (in which new actors are being involved in policy making and realizing) or neoWeberian alternatives, which put more emphasis on legal and procedural rather than on economic aspects of the functions and tasks of the systems of public services and specifically higher education. Systems therefore are not so much market oriented but focusing on citizens’ needs. Therefore, the commitment arises to make public
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bureaucracy more efficient and improve the state’s capacity to monitor and evaluate rather than reduce its impact. 4. Any reference to bureaucracy recalls the fact that it is becoming more and more important in the processes of development and organization of higher education systems. In fact, the organizations within the same systems have multiplied in relation to the increased request for training, both because of the rise in functions attributed to universities and the calls for performance and assessment which society makes. Whatever the system – Anglo-Saxon or otherwise – universities undergo frequent processes of transformation in order to answer the multiplying requests coming from the outside world. These dynamics all together call for an often exponential increase in bureaucraticadministrative activity. There are many readings of this process, and one of the major ones is the structuralist model, according to which the structural characteristics of the politico-administrative system help to explain the reform policies in higher education (Bleiklie and Michelsen 2013). This approach identifies six main tendencies in the evolution of higher education systems: (i) a process of hierarchization in universities according to the New Public Management model which attributes greater importance to a strong leadership and the managerial structure of executive power at the cost of the structures elected by the academic world, (ii) a revision of financing universities partially according to performance, (iii) the assessment of the universities, (iv) a greater stakeholder involvement in academic life, (v) a greater role given to supranational players (the EU, OCSE, the Bologna Process) in policies for higher education systems, and (vi) a greater individual autonomy for individual universities, but also a greater standardization of procedures and criteria for assessing performance. 5. It can be asked how far these tendencies have developed in the various different systems of higher education. The picture we have offers
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some features and differences which have effect on the evolution of the various systems: (a) In state-centralized structures, more general reforms can be carried out, while in decentralized ones, there are greater possibilities to hold back political decisions. In federal systems as in Germany and Switzerland, reform processes are slowed down by mechanisms like consultation and the right to veto. (b) Where there are majority, government’s public policies are more easily formed, while where consensus has to be sought, radical reforms are not favored. (c) In the dynamics of the relations between politicians and bureaucrats, the level of politicization of top civil servants is of fundamental importance, given that the relations between political power and civil service vertices affect the destiny of the reforms. A greater harmony favors incremental reform processes, while conflictual situations may lead to radical reforms. (d) The systems following the Napoleonic tradition – characterized by administrative cultures based on the central role of the law, strong control, and an abundance of regulations (the “Rechtsstaat” model) –differ greatly from Anglo-Saxon models, where the role of public interest holds sway. In Napoleonic-type systems, the implementation gap is most evident, while if the principle of the spoil system is introduced, the politician-mandarin relationship is strengthened, so that the reforms tend to be more radical. In any case, a reform responds to important characteristics concerning sociopolitical policies, political parties, as well as the establishment’s attitude to the need for reform and possibility of carrying it out. There therefore emerges the importance of behavioral factors in any explanation of the differences in putting reforms in place. Besides, behavior factors can have different effects from system to system in the politico-administrative contexts of the various states (Ongaro and Valotti 2008).
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Ministries and Bureaucrats in the Napoleonic Model 1. In an analysis of the political and administrative components, the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Napoleonic systems are very evident, as we have just seen. Other details conditioning the impact of NPM on the Napoleonic-type systems need, however, to be kept in mind. In the first place, university goers are seen as citizens with rights and duties rather than clients of a public service. Then public functionaries are defined as public officials forming a separate social group of bureaucrats; accountability is viewed in legalistic rather than meritocratic terms. 2. A pertinent example is offered by the Italian system, which classifies as Napoleonic in inspiration but with some differences from both the Spanish and French models, the latter being the historical benchmark. Features of the Italian system include (i) established results tend to correspond to merely respecting the established norms, (ii) a spoil system which highlights the importance of loyalty to the reference group rather than evaluating and reaching the foreseen targets, and (iii) the government tendency to reverse the decisions taken by the preceding government. Furthermore, the country’s culture complicates the relation between politicians and the top administration, often emptying content of the reforms, which end by being only formally implemented (Ongaro and Valotti 2008). Among the Humboldtian-Napoleonic systems, Italy had its own story to tell. For more than 40 years after the creation of the Italian Constitution in 1948, political intervention, in particular by ministers, was of little significance, if not almost inexistent in the development of a higher education policy (Capano 1998, 211). Marginalized by the far more important school policy, higher education was for a long time entrusted to the Ministry of Education, which for a considerable period carried out the role of decision-maker. The literature has constantly highlighted the excess of formalism and bureaucracy in the management of university
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education going right back to the early years of the unification of Italy in the 1860s and 1870s (Mortara 1977, 617; Melis 1994, 187; Capano 2011, 160). Over the last 25 years, however, in Italy as in the main European countries, there has been a series of changes which, partly inspired by the ideas of New Public Management, have substantially modified the setup of higher education and the relative roles of politicians and bureaucrats. Its beginnings coincide more or less with Law no.168/1989, which recognized university autonomy solemnly affirmed in the constitution, but till then only existing on paper. The same law also provided for the institution of a specific Ministry of the University and Scientific and Technological Research. The underlying idea was that only a strong center, capable of governing the system from a distance, would be able to guarantee the conditions necessary for individual universities to become autonomous. What can be called the “season of autonomy” (see also chapter on ▶ “Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe” by A. Sursock) did not, however, enjoy a linear development, due to a plurality of factors. The First one which needs to be remembered is that eight different ministers followed one another in the first 12 years of the Ministry’s existence. Evidently far too many, without anyone staying for long enough to be able to elaborate an overall long-term policy. Furthermore, and this is the most significant fact, the progressive recognition of university autonomy was accompanied by a conspicuous production, especially by governments, of both primary (legal) and secondary (advisory) regulations (Monti 2007, 94). More generally speaking, the norms which gradually extended, at times ambiguously, the space for university autonomy, are both fragmentary and incremental. New norms are added to existing ones, so creating a stratification extending the legally regulated area wider, more tangled, and of increasingly difficult understanding (Cassese 2001a). The situation has inevitably increased the role of bureaucracy, de facto the sole center of power to select, interpret, and apply the norms.
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In sum, it can be said that for the way the season of autonomy was put in place, it led to less bureaucracy – because the Ministry was deprived of the penetrating powers it had held before 1989 – but at the same time to more bureaucracy, as an effect of the uncertainty due to the exponential increase in rules and regulations. In more recent years, the situation had grown worse and worse. The universities, by now far more in number, are treated like all other public administrations and controlled by an enormous quantity of regulations. The financial regulations aim at containing costs, as a reaction to the economic crisis. The organizational ones aim at controlling a correct academic life, from insisting on impartial treatment to contrasting corruption. These prevalently administrative legislations have resulted in further expenses and more bureaucracy. According to some recent research (Vesperini 2013), the legislator intervened in university matters over 120 times in the decade 2004–2013, an average of more than once a month. In most cases the interventions took place at governmental and not parliamentary level, so witnessing the strong government pressure on universities. Beyond primary sources, there are a great quantity of various prescriptive acts to be added (rules, decrees, notes, etc.) dictated from the center by the Ministry and ANVUR, the government assessment agency, operative since 2011. In addition, with the creation of ANVUR, the system is further centralized, given that the results of its actions constitute by law the basis of almost all the procedures putting reforms in place. In many cases, in fact, ANVUR’s decisions are not limited to detailing the content of the law for its implementation, but they also carry out a function which executes and replaces the law at the same time. As a consequence, evaluation has fully entered administrative activity and has finished by following its rules, so that the weight of traditional ministerial bureaucracy is further burdened by evaluations declined in formalistic and bureaucratic terms (Cassese 2013). 3. At the level of single universities, resistance to reforms comes more from teaching than
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administrative staff. The teaching staff complain in general about the lack of information about the modalities of the innovations, which they have resisted less in cases of sticks and carrots mechanisms, linked to the coming into operation of the national system of evaluation. Reforms encounter different difficulties in being implemented in France, too. “The first reason is a high degree of individual resistance. The individual autonomy is enhanced by the fact that universities are loosely coupled organisations. . .many activities can be continued as before at the individual level because there is nothing to constrain these activities. . .The second reason deals with the presidents and their teams. These leaders. . .do not give enough attention to the implementation process. . .The third reason is linked to the rather difficult relationships between the group composed of the president, his team and the administrators on the one hand and the deans (and the academic and administrative staff within the faculties) on the other” (Muselin and MignotGerard 2002, 75). In the case of Spain, the introduction of the Bologna Process was delayed by the parallel debate over LOU, the law for national reform, where the teaching staff resisted for a longtime requests to modify yet again the curricula. Reforms are difficult to implement in Spain because of the problems in aligning the powers of the central state, local ones, and the universities themselves (Mora and Vidal 2005; Barone et al. 2010). It must be said in more general terms that in line with other countries, in Italy, evaluation processes added to the multiplication of relations with the outside world have sparked off in the universities a process of rationalization of the internal organizational mechanisms. It has led to an increased importance in the managerial dimension and therefore internal administration. Recently there has been a decided strengthening – sanctioned by the 2010 Reform Law – both of the decision-making bodies (rector and board of administration) and the managerial bodies (in particular the registrar, the top figure in the administration). The tendency is for a governance
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diarchy, with the registrar side by side with the rector. A similar situation has come into being in France, with a dual hierarchy, in which the président manages the vice présidents and the registrar manages the administration. Differently, in the Spanish system, the rector can count on an equipo rectoral formed by a certain number of vice rectors and a secretario general named by the rector, who together with the vice rectors and the government-appointed gerente form the Junta de Gobierno, which in principle offers a homogeneous model of governance. In various countries, there is no clear definition of the relations between governing bodies and bureaucracy, and there is often much uncertainty about the administration’s managerial competences and likewise the tasks and functions of the teaching staff. Inadequate and untrained administrative structures mean that a part of the managerial functions have fallen to the teaching staff. So in practice, there has been a noteworthy change in the internal responsibilities between teaching and administrative staff. The former are being more and more called upon to take on organizational and bureaucratic responsibilities, thus increasing uncertainty over roles and tasks. In the French case, it is interesting to observe a similar evolution of relations and roles between policy-forming and administrative bodies. “It seems as if the respective roles of the different actors were clear and easy to respect. This is reinforced by the fact that they all often stress that there is a clear divide between the roles of the decision-makers (the ‘politiques’ as the elected leaders are called) and the administration. The former are supposed to define the orientations and the latter to implement them. . . (but) many concrete examples show that the borderline between the political and the administrative roles is not that straightforward. But it is interesting to observe that the divide between strategy and execution, which is so often presented as a managerial rule for an efficient public management, is appropriated by the French senior managers” (Chatelain-Ponroy et al. 2014, 74).
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Conclusions To sum up, the Italian, French, and Spanish systems of higher education are all characterized by the change processes common to systems in the global world, with particular influence of the NPM’s neoliberal approach. The interweaving of this approach with the traditions of the Napoleonic model has provoked hybrid transformations in the systems and the relation between the political (ministerial) and administrative (bureaucrat) dimensions. On one side, the centralized systems have been forced to modify their direct control thanks to the new functions that society is requiring from universities. It does not seem, however, that the steering at a distance strategy has been developed completely and the burden of national assessment and accreditation has been added to the still considerable weight of ministerial bureaucracy. On the other hand, the new roles universities are called to add to their existing ones require an increased organizational activity and therefore internal administrative duties. The various forms of “controlled autonomy” the universities enjoy bring with them multiple responsibilities and internal assessments which finish by attributing greater power to the managerial roles which belong to the administration. The systems belonging to the Napoleonic model probably feel more than others the transformational process in act. The difficulties in implementing the reforms signal this. At management level, the organization of the governance makes it difficult to reach and maintain a balance between meritocracy, democracy, and bureaucracy (Gornitzka et al. 1998, 44).
References Barone, C., et al. 2010. Le trasformazioni dei modelli di governance (The transformation of governance models). In Torri d’avorio in frantumi? (Hivory towers in fragments?), ed. R. Moscati, M. Regini, and M. Rostan, 131–196. Bologna: Il Mulino. Bleiklie, I., and S. Michelsen. 2013. Comparing HE policies in Europe. Structures and reform output in eight countries. Higher Education 65: 113–133. https://doi. org/10.10007/s10734-012-9584-6.
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166 Capano, G. 1998. La politica universitaria (University politics). Bologna: Il Mulino. Capano, G. 2011. Un centro organizzato per non governare? (A centre organized not to govern?). In Governare le università. Il centro del sistema (Governing the universities. The centre of the system), ed. C. Bologna and G. Endrici, 157–174. Bologna: Il Mulino. Cassese, S. 2001. L’autonomia e il testo unico sull’università (The autonomy and the comprehensive law on university). Giornale di diritto amministrativo 5: 515–524. Cassese, S. 2013. L’ANVUR ha ucciso la valutazione, W la valutazione! (ANVUR has killed the evaluation, long life to the evaluation!). Il Mulino LXII (1): 73–79. https://doi.org/10.1402/44137. Chatelain-Ponroy, S., et al. 2014. The impact of recent reforms on the institutional governance of French universities. In International trends in university governance. Autonomy, self-government and the distribution of authority, ed. M. Schattock, 67–88. Abington: Routledge. Clark, R.B. 1983. The higher education system. Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ferlie, E., C. Musselin, and G. Andresani. 2008. The steering of higher education system: A public management perspective. Higher Education 56 (3): 325–348. Gornitzka, Å., S. Kyvik, and I.M. Larsen. 1998. The bureaucratization of universities. Minerva 36: 21–47. Melis, G. 1994. Alle origini della Direzione generale per l’istruzione superiore, (At the origin of the general direction for the higher education). In L’università tra Otto e Novecento: i modelli europei e il caso italiano, (The university between nineteenth and twentieth century: The European models and the Italian case), ed. I. Porciani, 187–208. Napoli: Jovene. Monti, A. 2007. Indagine sul declino dell’università italiana, (Enquire on the decline of the italian university). Roma: Gangemi. Mora, J.-G., and J. Vidal. 2005. Two decades of change in Spanish universities: Learning the hard way. In Reform and change in higher education. Analysing policy implementation, ed. Å. Gornitzka, M. Kogan, and A. Amaral, 135–152. Dordrecht: Springer. Mortara, V. 1977. Lettera aperta su baroni e burocrati dalla periferia del sistema (Open letter on barons and bureaucrats from the outskirts of the system). Il Mulino XXV (252): 617–622. Muselin, C., and C. Mignot-Gerard. 2002. The recent evolution of French universities. In Governing higher education: National perspectives on institutional governance, ed. A. Amaral, G.A. Jones, and B. Karseth, 63–86. Dordrecht: Springer. Neave, G. 1995. On living in interesting times: Higher education in Western Europe 1985–1995. European Journal of Education 4: 378–393. Neave, G. 1998. The evaluative state reconsidered. European Journal of Education 3: 265–284.
Bureaucracy Neave, G. 2002. The stakeholders perspective historically explored. In Higher education in a globalising world, ed. J. Enders and O. Fulton, 17–37. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Ongaro, E., and G. Valotti. 2008. Public management reform in Italy: Explaining the implementation gap. International Journal of Public Sector Management 21 (2): 174–204. Paradeise, C., et al., eds. 2009. University governance: Western European comparative perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer. Vesperini, G. 2013. Iperregolazione e burocratizzazione del sistema universitario (Overregulation and bureaucratisation of the university system). Rivista trimestrale di diritto pubblico 4: 947–966.
Bureaucracy ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe
Bureaucratization Process in Higher Education Christian Schneijderberg International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Synonyms Administration; Authority; Red tape
Definition Bureaucratization is about 1) a defined set of regular activities and official duties, 2) stable and rule led with communication channels based on written documents assuring communication and attainment of goals, and 3) employment of qualified personnel with attributed duties and rights. Universities are bureaucratic organizations. By law research, teaching and knowledge and technology transfer are defined as the functions of universities. Formal regulations exist for
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employing professors, structuring academic and administrative work, and filing student enrolment, progress, and examinations. In addition to the examples of traditional bureaucracy, if you wish, new(er) bureaucratization processes like standardized reporting of indicators, provision of information to university rankings and ratings, application of ISO-standards for university products and services, teaching reports, and auditing, accreditation, and evaluations procedures of (almost) every aspect of university life continuously enlarges the bureaucratization of universities. The new(er) bureaucratization processes are prominent in the new public management (see ▶ New Public Management) and governance (see ▶ Governance) discourse about organizational accountability and public transparency of universities. In countries like Germany, the bureaucratization of universities is part of universities becoming more independent from the state, with the state creating functional equivalents to what previously was directly controlled and steered by the ministries responsible for higher education and research. Research about bureaucracy was prominent roughly in the period from 1950 to 1980, when bureaucratic, organizational, and work processes were widely studied (e.g., van de Ven et al. 1976). Most, if not all, research builds on the basic ideas of bureaucracy formulated by Max Weber in Economy and Society (1978), first published in German in 1921. According to Weber modern bureaucracies follow a specific manner: “There is the principle of fixed and official jurisdictional areas, which are generally ordered by rules [. . .] by laws or administrative regulations” (Weber 1978: 956). The principle differentiates: 1. A defined set of regular activities and official duties. 2. Stable and rule led with communication channels based on written documents (“the files”) assuring that goals are communicated, e.g., to subordinates, and that these goals are reached. 3. Employment of qualified personnel with attribution of corresponding duties and rights; the explicit and implicit knowledge of these rules
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are defined as a special technical learning, e.g., of legal, business, and management issues. Weber (1978: 957) makes a distinction between the state sphere, where “these three elements constitute bureaucratic agency,” and the private economic sphere, where “they constitute a bureaucratic enterprise.” Weber notes concerning public agency and private enterprise that in Continental Europe a strict distinction is made, whereas in Anglo-American and Asian countries the distinction of public and private is rather blurred. Bureaucratic agency and enterprise are regarded as rational and efficient mechanisms for the achievement of goals and services of and inside universities. Bureaucratic agency and enterprise are also regarded as an “instrument of power, of exercising control over people and over different spheres of life, and of continuous expansion of such power either in the interests of the bureaucracy itself or in the interests of some (often sinister) masters” (Eisenstadt 1959: 303), e.g., in university and departmental administration and management. Several approaches to studying and measuring bureaucratization can be found in the literature, mostly related to administration and organization theory. Among others, Pugh et al. (1968) use a multidimensional grid for the analysis of bureaucracy in organizations. The five distinct but interrelated dimensions are: 1. Specialization has three point of reference: division of labor within the organization, functional distribution of official duties, and numerous full-time positions requiring specialized training. 2. Standardization refers to regular events ranging from decision-making and management processes to teaching of students and doing research. Primarily teaching and research legitimize the organization, and decision-making and management processes award legitimacy to universities being run well. 3. Formalization tackles the extent to which rules of enrolment, procedures of promotion, instructions for employees, and communications about job descriptions or information-passing
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documents like decisions by the university presidency are spelled out in written form. 4. Centralization addresses management and decision-making in universities, especially hierarchical levels, authorization of executive action, and jurisdictions of committees like the academic senate. Depending on the tradition of the higher education system and the size of organizations also decentralized management and decision-making in departments by deans, faculty committees, etc. have to be taken into consideration. 5. Configuration can be understood as an allencompassing organizational chart of the university defining every role, hierarchical interrelatedness and workflow, and outcome control. In centralized and decentralized university, management and administration configuration influences the role structure, e.g., of academics controlling administrators who are controlling clerks. The five dimensions can be high on one or more dimension and low on one or more other dimensions. Pugh et al. (1968) also stress that flexibility and traditions can influence bureaucratic processes in organizations. Though, bureaucracy being high or low does not only depend on its basic or extended dimensions as described by Weber (1978) and Pugh et al. (1968). For instance, van de Ven et al. (1976: 323) show that (bureaucratic and) processual work activities or tasks can be coordinated by programming (impersonal mode), e.g., via rules, plans, schedules, policies, procedures, and information systems, and feedback, using vertical and/or horizontal channels of communication for the information of individuals (personal mode) or groups (group mode). Both, individuals and groups, can be informed in scheduled and unscheduled occasions. Van de Ven et al. (1976) find that task uncertainty, task interdependence, and group size are valuable predictors for a more or less bureaucratic coordination of work in organizations: Growing size of a group has an impersonalizing effect on the coordination of work; the more task interdependence and task uncertainty exists, the more impersonal and group modes of coordination
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are effective; person modes of coordination are used in addition to impersonal modes, except for programmed coordination of work. In a recent study Walsh and Lee (2015) show that the work organization in large research groups in science becomes more bureaucratized. Large groups have a clear division of tasks between academic ranks and tasks at hand, e.g., doing research, training of pre- and postdoctoral candidates, and publishing. Task uncertainty in interdisciplinary research groups is met by clear division of work. Walsh and Lee (2015: 1597) find that for the technology of production “interdependence has significant effects on bureaucratic structuring, distinct from the effects of size, including negative effects on division of labor, but positive effects of standardization. Looking further, the effect of size on bureaucratization, especially division of labor, is larger in high interdependency than in low interdependency work settings.” In higher education studies bureaucratization is often addressed to discuss the organization of academic work (e.g., Blau 1994). Weber (1978) conceptualizes bureaucratization and professionalization as social aspects of rationalization. Ritzer (1975) points out that bureaucracy and profession are not antithetical and share common features. In Weber’s writing, Ritzer (1975: 631) identifies ten characteristics of a profession which are power, systematic knowledge, rational training, vocational qualifications, specialization, fulltime occupation, existence of a clientele, salaries, promotions, and professional duties. Already an early study by Hall (1968) suggests that professionals working in an organization affect the structure of the organization, and, at the same time, the organizational structure does affect the process of professionalization. On the one side, the process of bureaucratization is regarded as compromising the academic profession from inside, what Kogan (2007) labeled as the bureaucratization of the collegium, and from outside with professors becoming managed professionals by administrators (Rhoades 1998). On the other side, bureaucratization secures professional control in universities, evaluation of quality, etc. (Kogan 2007). The tension of professional and bureaucratic organization can
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be pinpointed by referring to mechanisms of mediation or control (Ouchi 1980): Bureaucracies are found to be efficient, when both goal incongruence and performance ambiguity are moderately high, what applies to the organization of research, teaching, and knowledge and technology transfer in universities; professions, academic communities, or clans are efficient when goal incongruence is low, e.g., primacy of research, and performance ambiguity is high, e.g., judged by peer review (see ▶ Peer Review). Acknowledging this, it can be concluded that “a stable service-oriented bureaucracy (the type of bureaucracy depicted in the Weberian ideal type of bureaucracy) is based on the existence of some equilibrium or modus vivendi between professional autonomy and societal (or political) control” (Eisenstadt 1959: 313).
Cross-References ▶ Academic Profession, Higher Education ▶ Governance ▶ New Public Management ▶ New Public Management and the Academic Profession ▶ Peer Review
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References Blau, Peter. 1994. The organization of academic work. New Brunswick: Transaction Press. Eisenstadt, Shmuel. 1959. Bureaucracy, bureaucratization, and debureaucratization. Administrative Science Quarterly 4 (3): 302–320. Hall, Richard. 1968. Professionalization and bureaucratization. American Sociological Review 33 (1): 92–104. Kogan, Maurice. 2007. The academic profession and its interface with management. In Key challenges to the academic profession, ed. Maurice Kogan and Ulrich Teichler, 159–174. Kassel: INCHER. Ouchi, William. 1980. Markets, bureaucracies, and clans. Administrative Science Quarterly 25 (1): 129–141. Pugh, Derek, David Hickson, Christopher Hinings, and Christopher Turner. 1968. Dimensions of organization structure. Administrative Science Quarterly 13: 65–105. Rhoades, Gary. 1998. Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor. Albany: State University Press. Ritzer, George. 1975. Professionalization, bureaucratization and rationalization: The views of Max Weber. Social Forces 53 (4): 627–634. de Ven, Van, Andre Delbecq Andrew, and Richard Koenig. 1976. Determinants of coordination modes within organizations. American Sociological Review 41: 322–338. Walsh, John, and You-Na Lee. 2015. The bureaucratization of science. Research Policy 44: 1584–1600. Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and society. Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Capacity Building
Chair System in Higher Education
▶ Higher Education in Post-Conflict Settings
Catholic Identity-Based Internationalization ▶ Identity and Internationalization in Catholic Higher Education
Census Data ▶ Performance Indicators in Higher Education
Centers, Institutes, and Networks Affiliated with the UN ▶ Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research
Central Europe ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Eastern Europe
Michael Dobbins Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
Origins The university chair system has its roots in the earliest European universities established between the thirteenth and sixteenth century. Ever since, it has taken on various context-specific forms both in Europe and beyond. The term “chair” is derived from the Greek and Latin word catheda which was originally translated into German as Lesestuhl (reading chair). Later the term evolved into the German word Lehrstuhl (teaching chair) which described a high position of a teaching professor or professor ordinarius at a university. Originally, university chairs were a reflection of the guild-like internal structure of the first European universities (e.g., Bologna, Paris, Florence), in which research and teaching activities were centered in small units specializing in a highly specific area of inquiry. These units were headed by a master, or maestro in Italian, who had highly specialized knowledge (Clark 1983). He directed and oversaw the research activities of small groups of “pupils” or “apprentices,” i.e., students wishing to become acquainted with his field of inquiry based on his guidance.
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The university reforms in Prussia under Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) resulted in the further institutionalization of the chair system as a model of academic governance, both in Germany and far beyond. In university systems which initially followed the Humboldtian tradition, teaching and research were inseparably intertwined and structurally concentrated in the individual professorial chairs (Froese 2013). The chairholders became the central decision-making units in university governance, while academic senates consisting nearly exclusively of professorial chairholders cemented their collective power. This system of governance became predominant in much of pre-communist Central and Eastern Europe (in particular Poland, the Czech Republic, and Baltics), Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia as well as several Japanese universities during the age of German scientific dominance (Cutts 1997). Numerous research-oriented American and British universities also introduced professorial chairs in certain instances, although their meaning later took on different connotations (see below). In systems highly influenced by the German model, professorial chairholders generally came to enjoy not only civil servant status but were also in most cases appointed for life. Although the chairholders formally operated in the service of society and science as a whole, they were generally most committed to their specific scientific discipline. Along these lines, it was assumed that chairholding professors could not be effectively steered or controlled by governments or markets. This form of governance was reinstated in postwar Germany (Burtscheidt 2010) and several leading research universities in Japan as well (Cutts 1997). In the United States, Great Britain, and other English-speaking countries, by contrast, academic departments became the main decisionmaking units (see below).
Functional Logic of the Chair System and Critique Thereof In chair-based systems, university governance is highly compartmentalized, as each chair usually
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enjoys a supreme degree of autonomy, not least due to their highly specific foci of research and teaching. This results in a decentralized, collegially organized structure, in which overarching university governance can be viewed as the aggregation of the often highly heterogeneous preferences of individual chairholders. According to Clark (1987: 64), professorial chairholders operate within their own academic “dominions,” constituting bastions of authority at the microlevel (1983: 40) or “small monopolies in thousand parts.” (1983: 140). This institutional setup has concrete ramifications for all dimensions of university governance. For example, in many chairbased systems funding is generally streamlined directly from the government (sometimes via university management) to the individual chairs (Froese 2013). This allows them extensive leeway in the selection of academic staff. Historically, chairholders have unilaterally chosen their research staff and doctoral candidates. In the German and Polish cases, this even applies to postdoctoral academics seeking a habilitation. This has traditionally put aspiring researchers in a state of direct subordination to and dependence on chairholders (Enders 2001), hence frequently limiting their autonomy over the content and substance of their own research projects. In such constellations academic advancement is often the function of the personal, individual relationship between the professor and his/her doctoral candidates, making research a highly personal experience, heavily influenced by the character, personality, and individual demands of the chairholder. In some chair systems, such as Italy, attachment to a professorial chairholder is seen as essentially the only strategy for career advancement (Martinotti and Giasanti 1977). The chair system in many ways constitutes a pyramid-like structure, in which academic power, prestige, and autonomy are concentrated in individual chairs – at the bottom of the pyramid, while other subordinate academics often remain in a state of limbo and uncertainty. This is frequently reflected by their limited work contracts, weak leverage over university governance, and, subsequently, a high degree of professional inequality within universities (Enders 2001). This pyramid
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structure also directly impacts the internal governance of universities, as the highly specialized chairs often may hinder the creation of overarching university policy. In other words, the institutional fragmentation resulting from the disciplinespecific chairs may undermine the capacity for institutional leadership (Dobbins et al. 2011). Thus university management has little leverage over the setup, orientation, and everyday research and teaching activities of individual chairs. The frequent informal “nonaggression pacts” between chairs may lead to situations in which all chairholders can expect there to be no decisions which infringe upon their collective interests. Thus, individual professors are often averse to making uncooperative decisions, which would undermine majority positions, as this might lead to later punishment. Hence, there is a strong status quo bias, which in the German case is frequently viewed as the reason for the lacking capacity for reform (see Schimank 2005: 8). This does not go to say that there is no competition in chair systems. In fact, chairholders find themselves in a state of permanent competition for third-party funds, qualified student assistants, and doctoral candidates, while extreme competition among postgraduates over limited research positions at relevant research chairs often exists. Nevertheless, the chair system generally has been associated with institutional immobility (Burtscheidt 2010: 106), protection of privilege (Clark 1987: 153), and low job satisfaction among nonprofessorial academics. Recent research has shown that chair systems tend to be more sluggish in implementing what is viewed as “modern” or “market-oriented” higher education policy (e.g., entrepreneurial university management, socioeconomic accountability, extensive quality assurance) (see Dobbins 2011). Along these lines, scholars have pointed out further purported weaknesses. For example, in chair systems, there are often significant difficulties in reconciling heterogeneous professorial preferences in the recruitment of new high-ranking staff or professors. This often results in the nomination of “compromise candidates” despite their weaker qualifications (Färber and Spangenberg 2008) or even the breakdown of recruitment processes due to the
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inability of the chairholders to reach an agreement and the lacking means of intervention of university management. Froese (2013) has also lamented the constraints that the chair structure imposes on efforts for academic departments to pursue joint scientific aims. Thus, the cellular structure of the chair system may be seen as barrier to scientific innovation.
Decline or Renaissance of the Chair Model? If one exclusively focused on the higher education systems of industrialized western countries as well as those of South America and Africa, one could justifiably argue that the chair model is in a state of decline or has already died out. In the United States, weaker governmental regulation of higher education has enabled greater structural diversity at universities. In general though, most American universities – including those heavily influenced by the Humboldtian model – moved to department-based structures in the twentieth century. Interestingly, the department structure was largely the result of the transfer of the Germanbased chair model to American graduate schools. The import of the chair system soon prompted scholars and administrators to analyze its various weaknesses as described above. Subsequently, most graduate schools sought to elevate the department to the main decision-making unit and break down the segmented chair-based structures (Ben-David 1984). This development coincided with the expansion of higher education and an overall drive to dismantle elitist, class-based structures in education. From an academic perspective, the department was seen as more conducive to the bundling of scientific expertise and also catering to a broader and more diverse student clientele. In fact, the term “chair” took on a different connotation in the American context and now designates the head of the department, i.e., department chair, to whom all department members are to some degree responsible. In Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands, the chair model also remained prominent until the 1960s, in particular in the social sciences and
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humanities. However, these systems gradually adopted department-like structures and nowadays frequently exhibit various hybrid forms in-between the German chair system and the US department system, with a tendency toward the department model (Röbken 2004). Even in Germany, where the chair model was the most deeply entrenched, numerous leading universities (e.g., Freiburg, Heidelberg) have shifted toward the department- or faculty-based structures, while some other German (and Austrian) universities have at least nominally replaced the chairs (Lehrstühle) with the Professuren (professorships). In Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and several western European countries (e.g., Belgium, the Netherlands), universities have frequently introduced the so-called endowed chairs based on large financial contributions from leading enterprises (e.g., the Bombardier Chairs in Canada) or named after distinguished scholars, often for a limited time period. One prominent example in the United Kingdom, which also largely shifted to department structures, is the prestigious Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (UK). It was named after its endower Henry Lucas (1610–1663) and has been held by internationally renowned scholars such as Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. By contrast, many post-communist countries have countered the trend toward the abolishment or structural adaptation of the chair model. In particular, Poland and the Czech Republic, and also (historically less Humboldt-oriented) Romania and Bulgaria, drew heavily on the chair system existing in the prewar era or during the AustriaHungary Empire. The chair structure, buffered off by numerous new intermediate bodies (e.g., academic senates, rectors’ conferences) was seen as the most effective means of protecting collective academic interests against the state (Neave 2003). This structural compartmentalization of the university was largely motivated by extreme sensitivities of the academic community toward any kind of external intervention after decades of communist rule (Scott 2002; Dobbins 2011). Thus the chair system and related institutions of academic self-administration were regarded as the form of
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governance which best represented democracy. It remains to be seen in the coming years whether this one last strong bastion of the traditional chair model will remain entrenched amid large-scale higher education expansion and globalization or whether post-communist democracies will also gradually shift toward department-oriented or other hybrid governance structures.
References Ben-David, Joseph. 1984. The scientist’s role in society: A comparative study. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Burtscheidt, Christine. 2010. Humboldts falsche Erben: Eine Bilanz der deutschen Hochschulreform. Frankfurt: Campus. Clark, Burton. 1983. The higher education system. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clark, Burton. 1987. Academic life. Small worlds. Different worlds. Lawrenceville: Princeton University Press. Cutts, Robert. 1997. An empire of schools: Japan’s universities and the molding of a national power elite. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Dobbins, Michael. 2011. Higher education policies in central and eastern Europe: Convergence towards a common model? Basingstoke: Palgrave. Dobbins, Michael, Eva-Maria Vögtle, and Christoph Knill. 2011. An analytical framework for the cross-country comparison of higher education governance. Higher Education 62 (5): 665–683. Enders, Jürgen. 2001. A chair system in transition: Appointments, promotions and gate-keeping in German higher education. Higher Education 41 (1–2): 3–25. Färber, Christine, and Ulrike Spangenberg. 2008. Wie werden Professuren besetzt? Chancengleichheit in Berufungsverfahren. Frankfurt: Campus. Froese, Anna. 2013. Organisation der Forschungsuniversität. Wiesbaden: Springer. Martinotti, Guido, and Alberto Giasanti. 1977. The robed baron: The academic profession in the Italian university. Higher Education 6: 189–207. Neave, Guy. 2003. On the return from Babylon: A long voyage around history, ideology and systems change. In Real-time systems – reflections on higher education in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia, ed. J. File and L. Goedegebuure, 16–37. Enschede: Logo CHEPS, University of Twente. Röbken, Heinke. 2004. Inside the knowledge factory: Organization change in business schools in Germany, Sweden and the USA. Wiesbaden: DUV. Schimank, Uwe (2005) ‘Die akademische Profession und die Universitäten: „New Public Management“ und eine drohende Entprofessionalisierung’, in: Klatetzki, Thomas / Tacke, Veronika (eds) Organisation und
Changing Legal Framework for Higher Education Profession, Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 143–164. Scott, Peter. 2002. Reflections on the reform of higher education in central and eastern Europe. Higher Education in Europe 27 (1–2): 137–152.
Change Management ▶ Models of Change in Higher Education
Changes and Continuities ▶ Historical Perspective, Research in Higher Education
Changing Legal Framework for Higher Education David Palfreyman New College University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Introduction This essay considers the changing legal framework within which higher education (HE – see Palfreyman and Temple 2017) operates in various countries and legal systems. The concept of “The Law of Higher Education” (in, e.g., Farrington and Palfreyman (2012) for the UK and Kaplin and Lee (2013) or Alexander and Alexander (2011) for the USA) covers the ways in which the law of a country impacts upon the structure, governance, and management of the universities, colleges, and institutes as the higher education institutions (HEIs) within which HE is delivered. This will include the law relating to, say, premises safety and employee health and safety being applied in the same way to these HEIs as to any other organization or business, public or commercial. Similarly, the law relating to data protection, employment contracts, discrimination, freedom of information, or
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intellectual property ownership and exploitation generally and broadly applies to HEIs as for other entities. There will, however, be special aspects of how the law treats HE by way of, notably, (1) the legal status of HEIs, how they are created, how they acquire degree-awarding powers, and how they are funded by government; (2) the studentHEI legal relationship and curtailed rights of the former to sue the latter for academic malpractice or negligence in its delivery of teaching and examining (via the concept of judicial deference to academic judgment); and (3) the issue of academic freedom, which often links to the employment privilege of faculty tenure in some HEIs. Next those three aspects are explored in terms of how the politics of HE and the making of public policy concerning the structure and financing of HE and HEIs lead to legislation as the framework for applying special HE law to HEIs. And we end with a case study on the dramatically changing legal landscape for English HE and HEIs as a result of a series of public policy decisions over the past 15 years that (re-)introduced and then steadily increased the tuition fees charged to undergraduates and now leading to the almost complete removal of the direct taxpayer subsidy of undergraduate teaching and culminating in significant legislation passed in 2017 for the regulation of the new market-oriented and studentconsumer context of HE delivery.
Public or Private? First, however, a short note on the confusing issue of who “owns” and “controls” the HEI: is it a public body or a private entity? In the USA the HEIs are either public or private, in the former case always nonprofit and in the latter as mainly also nonprofit but with significant for-profit commercial providers of HE (HEPs). Thus, for instance, Berkeley is a campus within the public state-owned/funded nonprofit University of California system; Harvard, MIT, and Stanford are private nonprofits; and the University of Phoenix is a for-profit. That is not to say that private HEIs such as Princeton or Yale do not receive significant public funds for research as
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grants from federal agencies or that a state university such as Michigan does not have sizeable nonpublic income streams, especially by way of tuition fees and commercially funded research. The states will have legislation to determine the control of the state-funded HEIs, some states imposing more direct control than others via Boards of Regents, elected or governornominated; the US law on charities controls the private nonprofits through their lay-dominated Boards of Trustees; and US companies’ legislation governs the for-profits via their Boards of Directors. In the UK all HEIs are private in terms of being independent legal entities, almost all as nonprofit charitable corporations created either by Royal Charter (New College, say, in 1379 or the 1900s civic universities in such cities as Bristol or Birmingham and the 1960s new campus universities such as Warwick, Sussex, and York) or by statute when in 1992 all the former publicly owned/controlled polytechnics were made into independent entities (such as Oxford Brookes University or Coventry University). These UK HEIs are not owned/controlled by the state and are not public bodies, albeit receiving public funds for teaching and for research: they are subject to the case law of the arcane law of corporations (Halsbury 2010; as distinct from more modern companies’ legislation) and to charity law (Halsbury 2015) and operate through lay-dominated Boards or Councils with the members being charity trustees. There are also a growing number of for-profit commercial HEIs, which do not receive public grant funding for either teaching or research: they are governed by company law and a board of directors. Australia is similar to the UK, as is New Zealand. Latin American nations, as for many Asian countries, have a mix of public nonprofit and private nonprofit HEIs, with a widely varying quantity of for-profit HEPs. In Europe, beyond the UK, it is generally the case that HE is a free or low-fee publicly funded and publicly controlled system, with much debate about the introducing of or the increasing of tuition fees and also about the degree of autonomy to be granted to public HEIs in terms of budget control, the makeup of their governing bodies, freedom to
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select faculty, whether student access to HE is open or selective, etc. – a few EU or Bologna Process (BP) member states have significant elements of private for-profit HE provision, with a lesser number of nonprofit private HEPs.
The Politics of HE, HE Public Policy, and HE Legislation The University is an entity dating back to its origins as a European medieval guild – of students at the University of Bologna (emerging in the 1080s) and of academics at the University of Paris (the 1150s) and then a little later at Oxford (the 1160s) – the latter masters-model soon eclipsing the student-model. This academic guild model still prevails at Oxford and Cambridge as universities (and within the colleges as part of their federal structures), where, uniquely globally, the faculty are sovereign (Tapper and Palfreyman 2011). Everywhere else a lay-dominated board of governors, with varying degrees of local or central government power or influence in appointing such governors, “owns” and largely controls the HEI, subject to some degree of devolved power and authority to the academics or faculty operating via a Senate, an Academic Board, or similar body within the HEI’s constitution (Tapper and Palfreyman 2010). Over the centuries the university as a concept and model has survived and developed: initially negotiating its way between the power of the Monarch and of the Church, latterly adjusting to the direct control or at least the strong influence of Government, especially where and when (notably the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s) government funding of HE was generous (and perhaps overly so?). In recent decades in many countries such public funding has declined as HE has “massified” so as to become much more costly to the taxpayer and as government priorities for spending have changed (especially the cost of aging demographics by way of pensions, health care, and social care) – for instance, in the Netherlands the number of students grew by about 100,000 between 2000 and 2014, while the government funding per student per year declined by some
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25% (van der Zwaan 2017, pp. 68–69); it was a similar story in the UK as HE “massified” from the mid-1980s until around 2000 when tuition fees were (re-)introduced to begin to correct for the inability of government to afford mass HE as the funding levels of a smaller elite HE system. In addition, some detect a neoliberal agenda to shift HE away from being a publicly provided free good to HEIs operating in a HE market with students paying tuition fees and becoming consumers: HEIs slide down from the ivory tower on the acropolis and (re-)enter the sordid agora! In addition, a “new public management” Zeitgeist in very many countries has called for greater transparency and accountability for HEI’s use of public funds, questioning the efficiency of and cost control within HE as well as its effectiveness in enhancing the employability of its graduates and thereby contribute to the economy (see, for instance, Martin (2011) for a powerful critique of the alleged poor governance, weak management, rent-seeking behavior, declining quality, inadequate cost control, and low productivity that, he argues, characterizes HE). The result of this “politics of HE” is the determination of public policy on HE that then leads to a changing legal framework within which HEIs have to operate. Yet, while there may well be a global neoliberal driving force behind the trajectory of a national HE system, there are in this complex mix of “the politics of HE” also aspects of the political culture of the country and of its historical attitudes toward the concept of the idea and ideal of the university that will shape just how far along that trajectory a system might move over time. And the changing legal framework manifests itself in some nations as “hard” law by way of new legislation directly controlling HEIs (or in some cases devolving autonomy to them as a process of deregulation), for example, typically a new “Higher Education Law” in the civil code nations where usually HEIs are predominantly public and state-controlled. Or the change is implemented as “soft” law in terms of how the flow of government subsidy of HE influences HEIs – for example, in England, as a common-law country where HEIs are private corporations and not public bodies, HEFCE’s
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(the Higher Education Funding Council for England) grant/subsidy-distributing function steadily fades, and it becomes something of a reluctant regulator of an evolving HE marketplace. (See, by way of discussion of this shifting HE landscape, for the USA Labaree 2017; for the UK, Palfreyman and Tapper 2014; and for Europe and beyond, van der Zwaan 2017.) But, of course, the pendulum of history and public policy-making can swing back – the 2017 general election in the UK had the Labour Party promising the abolition of the £9250 pa university tuition fees (and Labour duly increased its “youth” vote, gaining 40% of the overall vote to the Conservatives at c42% emerging as the largest single party in the Commons). In Germany substantial tuition fees for undergraduates were introduced – and then withdrawn a few years later – while in oil-rich Norway free HE is written into law. There is, of course, no “right” answer as to how to split the cost of HE between the taxpayer and the student/ family in terms of the assumed public-private benefits (McMahon 2009); but the trend globally is toward such cost sharing via the introduction of tuition fees (Heller and Callender 2013). Thus, the “soft” law “guidance” from government to agencies distributing funds to HEIs may change, or the “hard” law – whether very detailed or rather general – may need to be changed. Almost all such framework legislation in the civil law systems tends to incorporate key concepts: HE as a public good, freedom of HEIs from political interference but with autonomy being linked to accountability, fair access for students (and fairness or equity may involve such dimensions as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, and rural-urban home residence), democratic governance of HEIs but often also increasingly allowing firm management by the administration (the rector becomes a CEO), quality assurance regimes for teaching, varying elements of protection for the student as a consumer part financing his/her HE via tuition fees, the adoption of the BP degree cycle system, and so on (see Chap. 25, pp. 684–702, of Farrington and Palfreyman 2012, for discussion of “Higher Education Law in the European Civil Law Systems”).
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The Student-HEI Legal Relationship and Judicial Deference to Academic Judgment In every legal jurisdiction, it is as a matter of judicial or tribunal policy that students are not able to challenge HEIs on the basis of an alleged failure to deliver the student-university contractto-educate at the appropriate standard of skill and care reasonably to be expected of the normally competent HEI and its faculty. Similarly, in tort law, the HEI and its academics are sheltered from accusations of academic malpractice or professional negligence – even in the USA where actions in negligence are rather common. This is because there is a fear of the courts or tribunals being clogged by aggrieved students challenging academic grades and degree results, as well as because the judiciary is ill-equipped to secondguess the actions of academics as experts when properly exercising their academic judgment. This provides HEIs and indeed academics as professionals with a degree of judicial immunity that no longer is available to, say, doctors and lawyers who once may have enjoyed a similarly privileged position: in academe there is still a Get Out Of Jail Free card! The student can, however, challenge in court academic or disciplinary decisions where there appears to have been procedural failings within the terms of the contractual relationship in the common-law jurisdictions or at a tribunal where there is a deficiency in the behavior of the public body HEI in the civil code systems. This might arise because, say, it was supposedly an inquorate meeting of the exam board or the student’s marks was added up wrongly, or where concrete elements of a course were promised but not delivered, or where published procedures for complaints, appeals, and disciplinary action were not properly followed or were incompatible with contractual or administrative fairness. In the common-law jurisdictions, it is clearly established from case law stretching back over a century that the HEI is in a B2C, business-toconsumer, contractual relationship with the student and that consumer protection law applies. It is obviously the case that the contract is a prolonged one by any service industry standards and
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a hugely complex one in that it requires the very active participation of the student to take full advantage of the teaching/learning and assessment opportunities being delivered with reasonable care and skill by the HEI. It is not enough to register, paying the tuition fees where levied, and await the award of the degree, just as, sadly, joining a gym does not in itself lead to weight loss without some effort. In the context of students across many nations now paying significant tuition fees to public HEIs and increasingly to for-profit commercial HEPs, however, it seems possible that a legal challenge to this judicial convention of deference to properly exercised expert academic judgment that reached a high level within the court hierarchy might see the convention overturned as inappropriate for what is a market-based and more consumerist model of HE delivery, compared to the norm of free or nearly free HE as a public good or service that almost universally prevailed some decades ago. That would indeed be a very substantial change in the legal framework for HE. (See Chap. 6 of Palfreyman and Tapper 2014, re “The Student as Consumer: Legal Framework and Practical Reality.”)
Academic Freedom and Faculty Tenure The concept of academic freedom, often linked to the idea of faculty tenure, is much discussed, much abused, and much misunderstood. It can be said to range from a minimalist interpretation – a legal protection for the academic guild in going about its professional teaching and research tasks unfettered by random government interference – to one where academe and academics are charged with being, or self-appointed as, “the conscience of society” and having “to speak truth to power” (Fish 2014; Finkin and Post 2009). In the USA it is probably less protected by law than academe realizes or would like; in the UK there is some degree of statutory protection; in other countries the legislative wording may appear strong, but the practical political reality can be very different. Thus, as a few examples, French law confirms: “researchers and teachers are fully independent
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and enjoy full freedom of speech in the course of their research and teaching activities, providing they respect principles of tolerance and objectivity”; and for Germany: “art and science research and teaching are free [but] freedom of teaching does not absolve from loyalty to the constitution.” In the USA two Supreme Court cases set the framework: from 1957 in Sweeney we hear of “the essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities. . . Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding. . . It is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which prevail ‘the essential four freedoms of a university’ to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it should be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” And from Keyishian (1967): “The classroom is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas’. The nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth.” The turmoil of the politics of HE – which in turn occasionally in some countries triggers at least debate if not attempts to amend the legal framework that seeks to protect academic freedom, whether narrowly or expansively interpreted – opens up controversies over such as campus free speech, student “safe spaces”, whether academics as employees can widely criticize the governance and management of their employing institutions, and whether academic freedom really gives faculty the duty and scope to offer opinions (beyond any general free speech rights as an ordinary citizen) on political and social issues not necessarily linked to their obvious area of academic expertise. It is interesting that there were attempts as the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 passed through Parliament to expand the legal protection of academic freedom in English law beyond this wording dating from 1988 legislation: “academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or
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privileges they may have at their institutions.” The amendment to the Bill at one stage read: “universities are autonomous institutions and must uphold the principles of academic freedom and speech. . . [and also] must ensure that they promote freedom of thought and expression, and freedom from discrimination [as well as being] free to act as critics of government and the conscience of society” (assuming that an academe of experts has not in fact now forfeited that role to the pundits of the modern think-tank: Drezner 2017). As enacted, however, the 2017 legislation simply instructs that the new HE regulator, the Office for Students, “must have regard to the need to protect the institutional autonomy of English higher education providers”; and this idea of institutional autonomy or academic freedom is later defined as the freedom to determine what to teach, how to teach it, who shall teach, and whom to teach – while individual academic freedom continues to be protected by several references to the 1988 wording as set out above.
Case Study: The 2017 Higher Education and Research Act in England and Regulation of the HE Market by the New Office for Students This case study of HE in England over the past few years is arguably of an extreme policy experiment within “the politics of higher education” – that policy stance may forever remain an outlier example; or it may yet become an exemplar copied elsewhere! This is what has happened. The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA17) sets out a new legal framework for the delivery of HE in England – to the extent that, as discussed above, in a common-law jurisdiction where universities are private corporations and not directly state-owned/controlled, there can be any direct government regulation of HE and of HEIs. In essence, the Act recognizes the shift over recent decades of English HE as a seminationalized and substantially publicly provided/ funded activity to being an economic activity operating in a quasi-market, charging high tuition fees that create the student-qua-consumer and
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require the more robust application of consumer protection laws to the student-university contractto-educate: the Act seeks to regulate the HE market that public policy for funding mass HE has engendered (Palfreyman and Tapper 2014). The very tone of the legislation is expressed in the name of the new regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), as evocative of many such agencies created over the decades of the privatization of former state-delivered nationalized industries such as water, telecommunications, electricity, post, and railways – Ofwat, Ofcom, Oftel, etc. The old idea of a HE funding agency passes into history as the OfS replaces HEFCE (once the UGC, the University Grants Committee, and later the UFC, the Universities Funding Council), which is not surprising if the funding from government of undergraduate teaching has been almost entirely substituted for by students paying tuition fees. In so far as there is any significant state financing of HE, the Act creates the UKRI (the United Kingdom Research and Innovation body) as a new agency to take over the work of HEFCE in allocating research support monies to HEIs on the basis of the periodic REF assessments (Research Excellence Framework – once the Research Assessment Exercise, RAE): the vast majority of such REF funding now going to a small minority of universities (led by Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, ICL, KCL) and the distribution is such that a dozen effectively “teaching-only” HEIs get merely one-half of 1% of the REF pot! The HERA17 provides a useful case study of the matters government might want to address in adjusting the legal framework for HE as countries struggle with the financing of mass HE and other stakeholder claims on public finances. So, to work through the legislation, first, “a body corporate called the Office for Students is established” which “must have regard to” inter alia “the need to encourage competition between English higher education providers” and “the need to promote value for money in the provision of higher education by English higher education providers” – all based on “the principles of best regulatory practice” (including the activities of the OfS being “transparent, accountable, proportionate and consistent, and targeted only at cases in which action
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is needed”). Second, the government must not seek to give “guidance” to the OfS that in any way interferes with institutional autonomy or institutional academic freedom, defined as noted in the above section. Third, the OfS “must establish and maintain a register of English higher education providers,” to be “publicly available,” and only the undergraduate students of such registered HEPs may access the government’s student loans scheme for UK citizens that helps them pay their tuition fees up to a “regulated” level (currently set at £9250 pa from 2017/18) for a “qualifying” course. And the OfS in registering an HEP will have agreed an “access and participation plan condition” designed to widen social equity in entering and completing HE, as well as being able to impose “a public interest governance condition”. The former seeks to address the vexed and vexing issue of family background in relation to HE (see Crawford et al. 2017); the latter aims to ensure that HEPs comply with good practice and especially respect the academic freedom of faculty. The OfS may also require an HEP to supply “a student protection plan” designed to protect the interests of students who get caught up in the process of an HEP becoming insolvent. Fourth, the Act gives explicit powers to the OfS (subject, of course, to an appeal process and to standard public law safeguards as to how the OfS reaches it decisions) to impose “monetary penalties” upon an HEP, to “suspend” an HEP’s registration, and to “de-register” an HEP. Fifth, the OfS “may assess, or make arrangements for the assessment of, the quality of and the standards applied to, higher education provided by English higher education providers,” by way of it having to establish a “Quality Assessment Committee” and it being able to set up a scheme “to give ratings” to HEPs (this will be the continuation and refinement of the TEF, Teaching Excellence Framework, operated directly by government for the first time in 2017 that has awarded gold, silver, or bronze grades to English universities – with some interesting results whereby some universities scoring heavily in the REF and the global rankings have been rated bronze in the TEF, reflecting a possible neglect of undergraduate teaching that can occur in a research-focused
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HEIs where chasing the kudos of R can trump the routine resourcing of and commitment to T in terms of institutional brand and also individual academic career success). In due course, and subject to a review by “a suitable independent person” likely “to command the confidence” of registered HEPs, the TEF rating may be linked to the OfS allowing or prohibiting HEPs to increase their tuition fees in line with inflation, thereby potentially opening up over time a HE marketplace differentiated by price in the form of varying undergraduate tuition fees (a marketplace that exists and has existed for some years in relation to the fees charged for postgraduate courses and to international students). Sixth, a specific section of the Act carefully stresses the “duty to protect academic freedom” as well as “the freedom of institutions” or “institutional autonomy” imposed upon the OfS. Seventh, the OfS has the power to “authorize” a registered HEP to grant degrees, and such a degree-awarding power may be revoked by the OfS if there are serious concerns about teaching quality and degree standards in the HEP – but such a draconian revocation of the degreeawarding powers of, say, the University of Cambridge as a registered HEP can be done only by way of a parliamentary process (it is “exercisable by statutory instrument”) and after a detailed reassessment of the HEP’s quality and standards. Eight, the OfS shall control the use of the word “university” in the title of an institution and shall control the unauthorized use of “university”: in effect, it could strip the University of Oxford of the title “University” – but only after an exhaustive enquiry, appeals, and legal challenge process – and it can also reduce the traditional barriers or hurdles for a new for-profit HEP in entering the English HE market and challenging the incumbent HEIs. Ninth, the OfS can seek a warrant “to enter and search premises in England” occupied by one of its registered HEPs (the related Schedule 5 re “Powers of Entry and Search etc.” runs to almost 6 pages of this Act’s 135 pages!); and the OfS “must monitor and report on financial sustainability” of HEPs, just as HEFCE has for its universities; it can also engender “studies for
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improving economy, efficiency and effectiveness.” It is to be part-funded by charging an annual fee to its registered HEPs. And it shall publish “a regulatory framework” on how it goes about the duties listed so far. Finally, with reference to the OfS, the (very rarely exercised) power of the Archbishop of Canterbury under the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1553 to grant a degree is, charmingly, unaffected! The HERA17 also creates the UKRI which draws together the various Research Councils and will “facilitate, encourage and support research into science, technology, humanities and new ideas” as well as engender “knowledge exchange.” The UKRI may be required by government to establish a “research and innovation strategy.” It will distribute substantial government funds, and in doing so it (and government) must respect “the Haldane principle” (dating back to the early-C20) that “decisions on individual research proposals are best taken following an evaluation of the quality and likely impact of the proposals (such as a peer review process).” The OfS and the UKRI will, as appropriate, cooperate and share information and set up “join working” as necessary. Both agencies must each deliver an annual report to Parliament. The impact of the OfS upon English HE and HEIs will now depend in part on the formal application of the legal architecture of this new regulatory regime; and also on the tone or style, the organizational culture, the OfS adopts in its relationship with its registered HEPs.
Conclusion It is hoped that the above list of themes and issues the government is trying to address via the HERA17 in the case of English HE illustrates via this case study the way that a nation’s legal framework relating to HE may be set and indeed may change in accordance with the politics of HE. These “politics” of HE are probably being driven by a combination of: • The prevailing public attitudes to universities and academe or indeed to the size and role of
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government (perhaps a neoliberal agenda; possibly a growing reaction to such), with such attitudes varying across nations. Politicians searching for ways that HE might hopefully contribute to the economy (via the human capital theory as a route for HE to add economic value and also via the benefits of intellectual property created and exploited within HEIs). The state of public finances (whatever are deemed politically acceptable levels of taxation, and other calls upon and priorities for public spending). The degree of trust in such institutions as universities in terms of whether to devolve power from the state to them where traditionally the state has centrally controlled HE and HEIs or to increase state “steering” of HE and HEIs where historically universities have been autonomous entities. The assessment of whether HE is seen as a public or social good as opposed to a private or consumption good, and, the more it is seen as the latter, the greater the questioning over who should pay for it in terms of shifting its cost between taxpayer by way of public subsidy and the student/family by way of tuition fees. The more it is seen as a private good, the greater the shift toward a market ideology driving “the politics of higher education” and change in the legal framework within which HE and HEIs operate. Whether government wishes to encourage forprofit HEPs to enter the HE market or indeed wants to curtail their presence – and, in fact, the degree to which government intends to stimulate an HE market at all. The degree to which political and policy contemplation of HE is in isolation or is seen as closely linked to the provision of further education (FE) and as part of a comprehensive approach to post-compulsory tertiary education (where HE + FE = TE).
Thus, in short, the law, as it impacts upon HE and HEIs and the legal framework in which it does so, as ever follows the politics surrounding HE and HE policy-making and hence the legislative
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process flowing from the prevailing social and economic value attached to the university and its many varied outputs.
References Alexander, K.L., and K. Alexander. 2011. Higher education law: Policy and perspectives. New York: Routledge. Crawford, C., et al. 2017. Family background & university success: Differences in higher education access and outcomes in England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drezner, D.W. 2017. The Ideas Industry: How pessimists, partisans, and plutocrats are transforming the marketplace of ideas. New York: Oxford University Press. Farrington, D., and D. Palfreyman. 2012. The Law of Higher Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Finkin, M.W., and R.G. Post. 2009. For the common good: Principles of American academic freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fish, S. 2014. Versions of academic freedom: From professionalism to revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Halsbury’s Laws of England. 2010. volume 24 on Corporations (LexisNexis) Halsbury’s Laws of England. 2015. volume 8 on Charities (LexisNexis) Heller, D.E., and C. Callender. 2013. Student financing of higher education: A comparative perspective. New York: Routledge. Kaplin, W.A., and B.A. Lee. 2013. The Law of Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Labaree, D.F. 2017. A perfect mess: The unlikely ascendency of American higher education. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Martin, R.E. 2011. The college cost disease: Higher cost and lower quality. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. McMahon, W.W. 2009. Higher learning, greater good: The private and social benefits of higher education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Palfreyman, D., and T. Tapper. 2014. Reshaping the university: The rise of the regulated market in higher education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Palfreyman, D., and P. Temple. 2017. Universities and colleges – A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tapper, T., and D. Palfreyman. 2010. The collegial tradition in the age of mass higher education. Dordrecht: Springer. Tapper, T., and D. Palfreyman. 2011. Oxford, the collegiate university: Conflict, consensus and continuity. Dordrecht: Springer. van der Zwaan, B. 2017. Higher Education in 2040: A global approach. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Civic Engagement in Higher Education
Charitable Body ▶ American Foundations and Higher Education
Cheating ▶ Corruption in Higher Education
Civic Engagement ▶ Community Engagement in Higher Education ▶ Factors Influencing Scientists’ Public Engagement
Civic Engagement in Higher Education Christine M. Cress1 and Stephanie T. Stokamer2 1 Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA 2 Pacific University, Forest Grove, OR, USA
Synonyms Active participation in public life; Civic responsibility; Community engagement; Community service-learning; Community-based learning; Community-based research; Engaged scholarship; Service-learning; Volunteerism
Definition Civic engagement is “working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community through both political and non-political processes” (Ehrlich 2000, p. vi). While not universal, countries in Europe, North America, and South
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America tend to hold inevitable that a thriving pluralist democratic society depends upon active participation of its citizens, characterized by informed deliberation and collaboration to address public problems and work toward common goals (Colby et al. 2007). The origin of the term civic is derived from the Latin civicus relating to city or town and civis meaning citizen. Likewise, Gottlieb and Robinson (2002) define the attitudinal precursor to civic engagement as having a sense of civic responsibility which is “active participation in the public life of a community in an informed, committed, and constructive manner, with a focus on the common good” (p. 16). Similarly, although not necessarily couched in democratic terminology, many countries in Africa and Asia tend to adhere to the corresponding belief that the inclusion of multiple voices in decision-making and problemsolving leads to thriving communities. As well, most nations seem to understand that citizen participation alone is not sufficient for collective success. Rather, prosperous societies require citizens competent enough to engage effectively in the tasks of maintaining civil society and government (Dahl 1992; Verba et al. 1995). Thus, civic engagement of individuals requires knowledgeable as well as active participation in the affairs of community and concomitant attitudinal dedication toward socially beneficial public purposes and outcomes.
Colleges and Universities Education has long played a part in developing the civic competence needed to effectively engage in democratic processes (Dewey 1916; Galston 2001). Cogan (1999) argued that civic competencies “do not just occur naturally in people. They must be taught consciously through schooling to each new generation” (p. 52). Though the relative importance of the civic mission of educational institutions varies across institutional type and geographic region, preparing graduates for personal and professional lives as citizens has been the historical mission and goal of most colleges and universities.
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Respectively, Keeter et al. (2002) remarked, “Engaged citizens are made, not born” (p. 28). As well, Harkavy (2006) highlights the central role of colleges and universities “to educate students for democratic citizenship, and help create a fair, decent, and just society” (p. 9). Moreover, Astin et al. (2000), Battistoni (1997), Ehrlich (2000), Colby et al. (2003), Boyte (2008), and Saltmarsh (2005) are among the many scholars who have affirmed the community, national, and global necessity of higher education in developing students’ civic competencies through civic engagement. Beyond facilitating students’ political capacities for making informed decisions about and involving themselves in political processes, civic engagement is the ethos, advocacy, and action for collaboratively transforming community (Cress 2011). Not to be confused with civic education, the teaching about city, state, and national policies and procedures as a part of democratic citizenship (primarily voting behavior), civic engagement requires not just knowing about but actually connecting the self to community activities for broader societal gain.
Related Terminology Civic engagement as a concept is an overarching learning process and outcome that encompasses multiple forms on college campuses including volunteerism (which may also be called community service), service-learning classes (coursebased civic engagement), community-based learning (including experiential activities and internships), and community-based research or engaged scholarship (undertaken by students as well as faculty) (Cress et al. 2015). Each of these methods usually begins initially as pedagogical approaches, teaching strategies, and inquiry paradigms for examining community issues. However, over time, teachers and students alike usually evolve their perspectives into more complex cognitive, affective, and behavioral avenues for critically understanding and addressing community challenges through experiences that intentionally examine, integrate, and reflect upon
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the symbiotic relationship between individual and community with respect to quality of life issues (Cress et al. 2013). Therefore, the ultimate aim of civic engagement (no matter the instructional or research mode) is to bolster the socioeconomic, environmental, political, and physical health of individuals and groups within communities (local, national, and global).
Historical Foundations Bowen (1977) articulated civic competence as a primary goal of higher education. In addition to cognitive learning and emotional and moral development, Bowen argued that practical competence is a primary outcome for students. He considered citizenship one area of practical competence, and provided a foundational description of citizenship competence that today informs the operationalization of civic engagement: understanding of and commitment to democracy; knowledge of governmental institutions and procedures; awareness of major social issues; ability to evaluate propaganda and political argumentation; disposition and ability to participate actively in civic, political, economic, professional, educational, and other voluntary organizations; orientation toward international understanding and world community; ability to deal with bureaucracies; and disposition toward law observance. As noted earlier, civic engagement may take the instructional form of service-learning. Various authors (Morton and Saltmarsh 1997; Stevens 2003) credit coining of the term “service-learning” to Sigmon (1979), although the origins of civic engagement can be traced to the community service of Jane Addams in bringing students to settlement houses to understand poverty. Additionally, Morton and Saltmarsh (1997) emphasize the contributions of John Dewey and Dorothy Day and their influence on modern conceptualizations of civic engagement and community-based learning. Finally, Stevens (2003) has called attention to the historical and contemporary roles of African-American educators and activists in promoting social change through civic engagement.
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In efforts to develop civic competence, civic engagement connects students with authentic situations, builds strong institutional relationships between schools and community organizations, and develops the competencies of citizenship and democratic participation. Moreover, effective civic engagement is premised upon reciprocal relationships between campuses and community organizations (Sandy and Holland 2006; Stoecker and Tryon 2009). According to Mitchell (2008), the presence of critical reciprocity in civic engagement is crucial not only for students’ acquisition of the academic and civic knowledge, skills, dispositions, and efficacious identity necessary for effective participation in democratic society, but is key to deconstructing systems of social injustice.
Pedagogical Approaches Colby et al. (2003) defined pedagogy as “all the things teachers do and ask their students to do to support students’ learning” (p. 141). Given the complexity of issues facing cities, nations, and the globe, the future livelihood of communities depends upon the ability of college graduates to make headway on even the most perplexing problems. Civic engagement connects and intersects learning and living in efforts toward leveraging more equitable communities. Examples of civic engagement, particularly in the form of service-learning, are found in virtually every academic discipline. A sociology instructor, for instance, might assign students to work in a homeless shelter to illuminate concepts such as social inequality or classism. In the sciences, a course in biology might analyze stream samples for an antipollution program. Or, an accounting program might send undergraduates to help lowincome high school families prepare their financial aid forms for college admission. In each case, the civic engagement experience is accompanied by reflection that deepens students’ understanding of the academic concepts as exemplified in actual community contexts. Further, Howard (1998) described forms of civic engagement such as community-based learning as a “counternormative pedagogy”
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(p. 21) because of the numerous ways in which it diverges from traditional classroom instruction. Civic engagement learning varies from traditional pedagogy in terms of epistemology, goals, degree of faculty control, learning processes, student contributions to their own learning, and critical reciprocity shared with community partners (Abes et al. 2002; Cress et al. 2013; Gottlieb and Robinson 2002). Another complication of community-based learning is whether social justice or social change is an intended outcome. Einfeld and Collins (2008) asserted, “an ideal democratic society is a socially just society” (p. 105). The social change perspective in community-based learning means that reflection leads to action on the problem addressed by service (Mitchell 2008). Similarly, a social justice approach uses community-based learning to empower students with the tools to question social structures and power dynamics to create a more just and equitable society, emphasizing the importance of learning for the purpose of taking action (Freire 1970; McLaren 2003; Wang and Jackson 2005). The alternative is what may be deemed the “charitable approach” in which students strive to meet an immediate need without necessarily seeking to understand or eradicate its root causes (Lewis 2004; Moely et al. 2008).
Participation Colleges and communities across the globe participate in various forms of civic engagement; those that are solely local or domestically focused as well as those that involve international collaborations and partnerships. For instance, the UNESCO group in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education has partners in Africa, Arab states, Asia, the Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Likewise, the Talloires Network is an international association of institutions committed to strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education. Specifically, their goal is to expand higher education civic engagement programs through teaching, research, and
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public service and includes such organizations as AsiaEngage, Arab University Alliance, Engagement Australia, and Service Learning Asia Network. Related, the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) boasts members from over 35 nations. In the United States, estimates vary as to the number or percentage of higher education students participating in civic engagement learning. According to Campus Compact’s annual survey – now reaching nearly 1,200 campuses – approximately one third of students participated in service, community-based learning, and civic engagement activities at their campuses (Cress et al. 2010). Largent and Horinek (2008) reported that 80% of community colleges offer community-based learning, and Musil (2003) claimed that 78% of students participate in a service experience as part of undergraduate education.
Research-Based Outcomes Civic engagement has been consistently characterized as having modest, but positive effects on students’ academic, personal, and civic development (Astin et al. 2000; Cress et al. 2010; Eyler and Giles 1999). A steady stream of scholarship has associated various civic engagement approaches with student engagement, academic achievement, intercultural competence, and other outcomes (Vogelgesang and Astin 2000). Furthermore, civic engagement improves grade point averages and academic skills, such as critical thinking and writing (Cress 2004). Gallini and Moely (2003) reported that community-based learning students demonstrated more engagement with academic content, greater interpersonal and community connection, and increased likelihood of persisting in school than their peers. The research indicates that through civic engagement, students improve their abilities to think critically, problem-solve, negotiate, and participate in democratic deliberation. The civic goal is more than simply learning how to express themselves verbally and in writing. Students are challenged to listen to a range of voices, to empathize with people different from themselves, and to
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compromise with others in the name of a common good that is often contested and tentative (Gray et al. 2000; Ward and Wolf -Wendel 2000). In sum, civic engagement develops civic competence which is critical to the successful functioning of pluralistic democracies (Stokamer 2011) and higher education institutions play a key role in sustaining civic engagement.
Cross-References ▶ Community Engagement in Higher Education ▶ Community Partnerships, Higher Education ▶ Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere ▶ Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship ▶ Higher Education and the Public Good ▶ Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of ▶ Intercultural Competencies and the Global Citizen ▶ Politics, Power, and Ideology in Higher Education ▶ Social and Public Responsibility, Universities
References Abes, E., G. Jackson, and S. Jones. 2002. Factors that motivate and deter faculty use of service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 9 (1): 5–17. Astin, A.W., L.J. Vogelgesang, E.K. Ikeda, and J.A. Yee. 2000. How service-learning affects students. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA. Battistoni, R.M. 1997. Service learning and democratic citizenship. Theory Into Practice 36 (3): 150–156. Bowen, H.R. 1977. Investment in learning: The individual and social value of American higher education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Boyte, H.C. 2008. Against the current: Developing the civic agency of students. Change 40 (3): 8–15. Cogan, J.J. 1999. Civic education in the United States: A brief history. The International Journal of Social Education 14: 52–64. Colby, A., T. Ehrlich, E. Beaumont, and J. Stephens. 2003. Educating citizens. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Colby, A., E. Beaumont, T. Ehrlich, and J. Corngold. 2007. Educating for democracy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cress, C.M. 2004. Critical thinking development in service-learning activities: Pedagogical implications for critical being and action. Inquiry, Critical Thinking and Higher Education 23 (1–2): 87–93.
Civic Responsibility Cress, C.M. 2011. Pedagogical and epistemological approaches to service-learning. In Democratic dilemmas of teaching service-learning: Curricular strategies for success, ed. C.M. Cress and D.M. Donahue, 43–54. Sterling: Stylus Press. Cress, C.M., C. Burack, D.E. Giles, J. Elkins, and M.C. Stevens. 2010. A promising connection: Increasing college access and success through civic engagement. Boston: Campus Compact. Cress, C.M., P.J. Collier, V.L. Reitenauer, and Associates. 2013. Learning through serving: A student guidebook for service-learning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities, 2nd ed, Expanded. Sterling: Stylus. Cress, C.M., S.T. Stokamer, and J. Kaufman. 2015. Community partner guide to campus collaborations: Strategies for becoming a co-educator in civic engagement. Sterling: Stylus. Dahl, R.A. 1992. The problem of civic competence. The Journal of Democracy 3 (4): 45–59. Dewey, J. 1916. Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The Free Press. Ehrlich, T., ed. 2000. Civic responsibility and higher education. Westport: Oryx Press. Einfeld, A., and D. Collins. 2008. The relationships between service-learning, social justice, multicultural competence, and civic engagement. The Journal of College Student Development 49 (2): 95–109. Eyler, J., and D. Giles. 1999. Where’s the learning in service-learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Gallini, S.M., and B.E. Moely. 2003. Service-learning and engagement, academic challenge, and retention. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 10 (1): 5–14. Galston, W.A. 2001. Political knowledge, political engagement, and civic education. American Review of Political Science 4: 217–234. Gottlieb, K., and G. Robinson (eds.). 2002. A practical guide for integrating civic responsibility into the curriculum. Washington, DC: Community College Press. Gray, M.J., E.H. Ondaatje, E.D. Fricker Jr., and S.A. Geschwind. 2000. Assessing service-learning. Change 32 (2): 30–40. Harkavy, I. 2006. The role of universities in advancing citizenship and social justice in the 21st century. Education, Citizenship, and Social Justice 1 (1): 5–37. Howard, J. 1998. Academic service learning: A counternormative pedagogy. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 73: 21–29. Keeter, S., C. Zukin, M. Andolina, and K. Jenkins. 2002. The civic and political health of the nation: A generational portrait. College Park: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. Largent, L., and J.B. Horinek. 2008. Community colleges and adult service-learners: Evaluating a first-year program to improve implementation. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 118: 37–48.
187 Lewis, T. 2004. Service-learning for social change? Lessons from a liberal arts college. Teaching Sociology 32 (1): 94–108. McLaren, P. 2003. Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education. Boston: Pearson Education. Mitchell, T. 2008. Traditional vs. critical service-learning: Engaging the literature to differentiate two models. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 14 (2): 50–65. Moely, B., A. Furco, and J. Reed. 2008. Charity and social change: The impact of individual preferences on service-learning outcomes. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 15 (1): 37–48. Morton, K., and J. Saltmarsh. 1997. Addams, Day, and Dewey: The emergence of community service in American culture. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 4 (1): 137–149. Musil, C.M. 2003. Educating for citizenship. Peer Review 4–8. Spring. Saltmarsh, J. 2005. The civic promise of service learning. Liberal Education 91 (2): 50–55. Sandy, M., and B. Holland. 2006. Different worlds and common ground: Community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 13 (1): 30–43. Sigmon, R. 1979. Service-learning: Three principles. Synergist 8 (1): 9–11. Stevens, C. 2003. Unrecognized roots of service-learning in African American social thought and action, 1890–1930. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 9 (2): 25–34. Stoecker, R., and E. Tryon (eds.). 2009. The unheard voices: Community organizations and servicelearning. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Stokamer, S.T. 2011. Pedagogical catalysts of civic competence: The development of a critical epistemological model for community-based learning. Dissertation, Portland State University. Verba, S., K.L. Schlozman, and H.E. Brady. 1995. Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vogelgesang, L., and A. Astin. 2000. Comparing the effects of community service and service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 7 (1): 25–34. Wang, Y., and G. Jackson. 2005. Forms and components of civic involvement. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 12 (3): 39–48. Ward, K., and L. Wolf -Wendel. 2000. Community -centered service learning: Moving from doing for to doing with. American Behavioral Scientist 43: 767–780.
Civic Responsibility ▶ Civic Engagement in Higher Education
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Civic University
Definition
Civic University ▶ Universities and Regional Development in the Periphery
Civic/Citizenship Education ▶ Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship
Civil War ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Liberia
Classification ▶ Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of
Collaboration ▶ Universities in the Age of Internationalization, Competition, and Cooperation
Collaborative Online International Learning in Higher Education Hans de Wit Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA
Synonyms Virtual exchange; Virtual mobility
Collaborative online international learning (COIL) is an online learning in an international setting, with interactive involvement of students and faculty from different international and intercultural backgrounds in and outside the classroom. Online international learning is mostly associated with distance education and massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, a more gradual digital addition to international teaching and learning is taking place with less attention. A survey by the European University Association (Gaebel et al. 2014) among European universities showed a strong interest in e-learning, in particular MOOCS, but joint inter-institutional collaboration in e-learning received limited attention. Only 8% (p. 47) said that e-learning was an opportunity to internationalize the curriculum. This ignores the important contribution that “virtual mobility,” “virtual exchange,” or “online intercultural exchange,” as it is named in Europe, or “collaborative online international learning” (COIL), as it is referred to in the United States, can have on internationalizing higher education. Whereas in distance education and MOOCs the teaching remains more traditional – simply using modern technology for a global form of delivery – virtual mobility and exchange, etc. use technology to develop a more interactive and collaborative approach to international teaching and learning, with interactions between students and between teachers both inside and outside the classroom. If one considers the divide between globalization and internationalization in higher education, distance education and MOOCs are more related to the first, while virtual mobility/virtual exchange/ COIL is more related to the second, with a strong focus on the internationalization of the curriculum and teaching and learning. And where at first glance MOOCs present this idea of being free but increasingly seem connected to the commercialization of higher education, COIL is more in line with the noncommercial, cooperative dimension of international higher education and with the development of internationalization of the curriculum and joint and double degrees (de Wit 2013).
Collaborative Online International Learning in Higher Education
In recent years, the terms “virtual mobility” and “virtual exchange” have emerged in documents of the European Commission as well as other European entities and institutions of higher education. This is in line with the decision of the European Commission to consider digital learning as a key dimension of its internationalization at home policy. Indeed, internationalization at home is one of the three pillars of the EU’s policy, published under the title “European Higher Education in the World,” in addition to international mobility of students and staff and strengthening of strategic cooperation, partnerships, and capacity building (European Commission 2013). Digital learning in the form of virtual mobility or virtual exchange relates to the increasing attention to forms of mobility other than physical mobility, exchange, and/or study abroad. It is connected to the appeal to pay more attention, in the context of the “internationalization at home” movement, to the large majority of students who are not mobile. The key question is how to make it possible for nonmobile students to experience an international dimension in their learning activities. Others see digital learning more as a means to realize international, collaborative experiences. This focus on the mobility dimension of online learning, as expressed in the name “virtual mobility,” ignores the two-way dimension of the concept, which is better expressed in the term “virtual exchange.” However, the potential of international online learning to be an integral part of the internationalization of the curriculum and teaching and learning, in which students and teachers interact with each other inside and outside the classroom, is an important added value. The terms “online intercultural exchange” and “collaborative online international learning” (COIL) combine the four essential dimensions of meaningful mobility: it is a collaborative exercise of teachers and students, it makes use of online technology and interaction, it has potential international dimensions, and it is integrated in the learning. The COIL movement in the United States can be considered to have started around 10 years ago in a small way, with a 1-day conference in 2007 at Purchase College in Westchester
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College. Since 2010, COIL is integrated in the international mission of the State University of New York (SUNY (www.coil.suny.edu). The COIL annual conference attracts an increasing number of participants from all over the United States and from abroad. What makes COIL such an important addition to the many forms of physical mobility and to the internationalization of the curriculum and teaching and learning? First, it provides opportunities for students – for instance, part-time students – who cannot or do not want to go abroad to have an international learning experience. Through the interaction with students and teachers from other countries, such students receive different perspectives on the subject they are studying and on the learning and teaching itself, which for them would otherwise be difficult to be exposed to. It allows, in line with the concept of internationalization at home, for access to international and intercultural exchange for all students, not only for the small number of students who can and want to be physically mobile. Secondly, COIL provides both the opportunity and the necessity for close work between students and teachers, an opportunity in many cases missed in physical mobility, where students and teachers may not engage meaningfully inside or outside the classroom. For example, in a joint minor program of one semester between the School of Economics and Management at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and universities in Paris and Barcelona, students work on real projects for businesses and organizations in the three cities. Projects may address such issues as how to increase access by younger people to museums in the three cities or how to improve student accommodations in the three cities. The students start the program with a 1-week visit to Amsterdam, where they get to know each other (including a homestay), their teachers, and the companies involved. The students then take classes and work together on assignments in small groups via social media and other online platforms. They come together again at the end of the semester for 1 week to discuss their results and compete for the best analysis. Students,
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Collection of Interdependent Institutions Devoted to Higher Education in Portugal
teachers, and companies are excited about the results and the interaction. This approach combines short study abroad with online learning. COIL is additionally meaningful because it emphasizes attention to the specific national and cultural approaches to the subjects being studied, as well as to the way particular subject matter is taught and learned. For example, in an online course on sports management involving the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and SUNY Cortland, the different ways top sports are developed and organized in the United States and Europe, as well as the different ways sports management is taught, came clearly to the forefront and made students think differently about the subject. Other factors that make collaborative online international learning an important alternative model for internationalization are the fact that it is less cost-intensive than physical mobility and that it may provide an incentive for nonmobile students to eventually go abroad, based on positive experiences with online intercultural learning (De Wit 2016, p. 78). Whatever it is called, virtual mobility or virtual exchange, online intercultural exchange, or collaborative online international learning, the model of virtual collaboration inside and outside the real and virtual classroom, is an important new form of internationalization of teaching and learning. At the same time, there are still challenges encountered in the development of COIL. Resistance of faculty, technological difficulties and disconnections, different time zones, assumed high support, and communication costs are some of the main ones. Exchange of practices is required to address those challenges and to enhance the opportunities. In that context, calls for a coherent strategy, grants, and more research on virtual exchange (O’Dowd and Lewis 2016; UNI Collaboration 2014), in the European context and elsewhere, should be seriously considered and acted upon.
References De Wit, Hans. 2013. COIL – virtual mobility without commercialization. University World News, Issue 274, 1 June 2013.
De Wit, Hans. 2016. Internationalisation and the role of online intercultural exchange. 2016. In Online intercultural exchange: Policy, pedagogy, practice, ed. Robert O’Dowd and Tim Lewis, 69–82. New York: Routledge. European Commission. 2013. European higher education in the world. Communication form the Commission to the European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic and Social committee and the Committee of the Regions. Brussels, 11.7.2013 COM(2013) 499 final. Retrieved from http://eur-lex.europe.eu/ LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri¼COM:2013:0499:FIN: en:PDF. Gaebel, M., V. Kupriyanova, R. Morais, and E. Colucci. 2014. E-learning in European higher education institutions. Results of a mapping survey conducted in October-December 2013. Brussels: European University Association. O’Dowd, Robert, and Tim Lewis. 2016. Online intercultural exchange: Policy, pedagogy, practice. New York: Routledge. UNI Collaboration. 2014. Position paper: Virtual exchange in the European Higher Education area, 2014. Retrieved from http://revistas.usc.es/export/ sites/default/gcompostela/en/descargas/COIL._Position_ paper.pdf.
Collection of Interdependent Institutions Devoted to Higher Education in Portugal ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Portugal
Collective Impact ▶ Community Partnerships, Higher Education
Collegiality in Higher Education Ted Tapper Oxford, the Collegiate University, Oxford, UK
Introduction Collegiality in higher education is best described as one of the ways in which universities have been organized to pursue their central goals of teaching
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and research. Having reviewed very briefly continental ideas of the university, in this entry, we will outline the idea of collegiality as an organizational strategy for pursuing teaching and research in higher education, why its evolution has been particularly associated with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Tapper and Palfreyman 2010), and how it came to penetrate more generally the English system of higher education. We will also explain why it has steadily declined and what has replaced it to enable universities to pursue their central purposes. This entry will conclude by considering what remains of the collegial tradition. The question is, “What place is there for collegiality as system change is driven increasingly by the pressures of the stateregulated market?” (Palfreyman and Tapper 2014: 212–234).
Collegiality as a Mode of Governance and Beyond As Cobban notes, “Paris must be regarded as the home of the university system in the sense that academic colleges of a kind arose there earlier than anywhere else” (Cobban 1975: 126). However, “at the Revolution the collegiate system as a whole fell with the other institutions of medieval France – never (like so much of the ancient regime) to reproduce itself under altered forms in modern times” (Rashdall 1936: 533). The Napoleonic and Humboldtian models of higher education then evolved to dominate continental Europe. Both models saw a close affinity between the needs of the university and the state with the former, particularly in France, associated with the training of elites, and the latter, especially in Germany, giving rise to the research university. Central to the English idea of collegiality is that institutional governance in higher education is the collective responsibility of its scholars – that is, as a body, they determine how they conduct their functions. Although it is the scholars who will determine the organization of knowledge, that is, what to be taught and to be researched, it is not the actual decisions that they reach that define collegiality but rather how they reach those decisions.
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Colleges and universities have the formal responsibility for undertaking teaching and research, and it is how they arrive at the actual decisions that determine how these functions should be performed that defines collegiality. For these decisions to be arrived at collegially, authority has to reside in the hands of the collective institutional membership. While higher education institutions may have an appointed leadership cadre of officials, collegiality means that they act within the boundaries determined by the general will of the collective membership. It almost follows on logically that for collegiality to be an effective form of governance, institutions must be small in size with a carefully selected membership that has been socialized into the acceptance of institutional goals and how they should function; the exemplar is the Oxbridge College. Continuity rather than change is the order of the day. There is a strong feeling that institutional membership not only implies institutional loyalty but also a strong respect for other members of the college community, that there is interpersonal collegiality as well as institutional loyalty. The college functions as a social as well as an academic organization, and its members not only undertake the core duties (teaching and research) associated with a university education but also have a commitment to preserving the long-term well-being of the college as well as making sure that it functions effectively on a daily basis. Historically, in England collegiality in higher education has been most closely associated with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. At the core of both universities is the presence of a number of privately endowed independent colleges which continue to be responsible for key academic functions. The colleges continue to control the admission of undergraduate students who will spend at least part of their undergraduate years residing in college. While much of the teaching is now undertaken, especially in the sciences, in university laboratories, college tutorials will invariably supplement that diet indeed may well be the critical teaching input for students in the arts disciplines and the social sciences. The consequence is that most faculty members have two bases – belonging to a university department and
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being a college fellow. Thus Oxford and Cambridge are collegiate universities in the sense that their membership (students and faculty) has dual identities, both of which are integral to defining their academic roles. While, thanks to reforms instigated in the nineteenth century, the authority of the university has expanded vis-a-vis the colleges, the colleges continue to retain critical functions, and full university membership is still dependent upon sustaining a college base. Furthermore, authority resides in the hands of the collective membership; it is not delegated to an elected leadership or diffused among a cadre of appointed officials. Self-governance means control by the collective body of fellows. The Oxbridge collegial tradition also came to permeate the British system of higher education at large. Although from 1919 onward British universities were increasingly dependent upon public funding, and thus vulnerable to state control, for much of their twentiethcentury history, state influence was mediated by the University Grants Committee (UGC) that showed considerable respect for institutional autonomy, and individual institutions were at liberty within broad confines to determine their own development. However, over time – due very much to their control of funding – governments began to determine ever more tightly the pattern of university development, to control the boundaries within which individual institutions could develop. There was a steadily tightening noose of state direction perhaps most clearly seen in the replacement of the UGC in 1988 by the funding council model of governance. Although in 1986, it was the UGC itself that implemented the research assessment exercises (RAEs) which made the public funding of core research activities dependent upon the evaluation of research outputs. It was the state, therefore, that came to control the understanding of research excellence, and it was impossible for any university to pursue one of its key functions without entering into a competitive exercise organized by the state apparatus. Inevitably such pressure would help to steer research activities and what fields of knowledge were likely to expand or decline.
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In the face of such pressure, universities became more bureaucratically organized, while an academically controlled senate may have still retained much of the formal control over future academic development, and the input of full-time officials (many of whom would be ex-academics) became stronger – raising questions, for example, about the performance of departments in the research assessment exercises and the changing patterns of student demand for degree programs – would inevitably become more influential. While universities may have retained a lot of their autonomy from the state, notwithstanding the growing dependence upon public funding, however, they have become more carefully managed institutions, sometimes even under the sway of dynamic leaders (the vice-chancellor acting as institutional savior). In addition, the cuts to the public funding of higher education, from the mid-1970s onward, were accompanied by a reassertion of the pressure to place the control of universities in the hands of their lay members, notably as seen in the 1985 Jarratt Report on institutional governance and also in the creation of the Committee of University Chairs. Donnish dominion was in decline. These changes in state pressure, and concomitant institutional organizational character, were reinforced by critical complementary developments within the academic profession itself. Historically the collegial tradition was built around the commitment of those who had devoted their careers to a combination of teaching and research, which were seen as complementary pursuits. Over time, however, it is clear that research output rather than teaching commitment became more important in shaping the trajectory of academic careers, above all in determining promotion to senior posts. Moreover, devotion to research generally necessitates more of a commitment to one’s discipline rather than to one’s institution.
Retreat to the Heartland? Given these developments, it is reasonable to argue that collegiality has in recent years retreated
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to its collegiate heartland and in particular into the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. It remains a very prestigious academic post to be a college fellow with responsibilities for admitting undergraduates, teaching them, supervising their progress, and helping to govern a college, which may be centuries old, have considerable independent financial resources, and be surrounded by a strong aura of prestige. Within British higher education, there are few more sought-after positions. Moreover, within both Oxford and Cambridge, although they have inevitably become more managed institutions led by a cadre of officials with powerful vice-chancellors, ultimate authority still remains in the hands of the assembled dons (Congregation at Oxford, the Regent’s House at Cambridge), and it is difficult to move things forward, to make positive changes, without their approval. At college level, dons steer the development of their individual colleges, so the collective body of academics is still critical to shaping university development, in particular into the departments. Within the universities the institutional structures will act collegially in the sense that all the formal membership will be invited to the meetings, receive the relevant documents, participate in the decision-making process, and help to make the pertinent decisions. Therefore, there is a formal continuation of collegiality in that sense, but how important these practices are in ensuring the maintenance of control over the policymaking process is another matter. Departments and research institutes tend to report to schools that fall under the auspices of academic areas which may then report to academic senates, university councils, the offices of pro-vicechancellors, and even to the vice-chancellor’s office. Decision-making is exercised within the context of a power hierarchy within which authority is circumscribed by a higher layer of institutional power that has become more centrally focused over time. There is no single gathering of dons as at Oxford and Cambridge, organized collegially, that ultimately controls the decisionmaking process. Within Oxford and Cambridge, there remains the threat of the exercise of collegial authority as at least a check on executive power and administrative action.
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Contemporary Pressures: The Rise of the Market and the State-Regulated Market Our analysis has claimed that collegiality in higher education was a self-generating development designed to ensure the effective organization of knowledge – to enable entwined institutions (colleges and universities) to function effectively while promoting the delivery of high class teaching along with a commitment to expanding research output. Ideally, collegially organized institutions commanded their own economic resources, which gave them at least a measure of latitude when facing pressures from the state and society. However, interestingly in England, even with the steady increase in public funding post1918, the collegial tradition in fact expanded as it came to embrace steadily the more recently founded civic institutions, and by the 1960s, formal lay control had given ground to what was popularly known as donnish dominion (Halsey 1992). Public funding did not go with state control, and collegiality was underwritten by the principle of university autonomy, and state and government pressure was filtered by the academically dominated UGC. Nonetheless, as the 1970s unfolded, and in the context of increasing financial parsimony, the UGC became less of a buffer between the universities and the state and more of a conduit of government policy; see Shattock (2012: 117–136). Regardless, we see the rise of the managed university increasingly responding to external political pressures driven by a combination of the wish to secure “value for money,” and to turn the universities into institutions committed to building “the knowledge-based economy” rather than dedicated to sustaining on their own terms the transmission and expansion of knowledge. In effect, the higher education funding councils, which between 1988 and 1992 replaced the UGC, were clearly designed, and in fact given the legal status, to promote government policy. Significantly, the instigation of the funding council model of governance just preceded the emergence of the market (in the form of student tuition fees, to be underwritten by income-contingent loans) as the main provider of funding for higher education
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institutions. But it is not a market which allows universities to determine their own fees but one that is highly regulated by the state for the parameters within which fees are charged are clearly determined by the state. Thus institutional policy-making is now driven as much, if not more, by the pressures exerted by the stateregulated quasi-market, rather than by the dictates of government policy. Can the collegial tradition survive in such a context? Could collegial decision-making be maintained if only profitable academic activities could be sustained? Alternatively, can a university organize its affairs collegially but, nonetheless, still impose rules that required ‘non-profitable’ areas of knowledge to be abandoned? One might anticipate, however, that it would be difficult to enforce such a rule for there would be a propensity for academics to protect one another’s preservation. But one can imagine rules that required “economically failing departments” to take action to revive their fortunes and restore their “profitability.” However, the current Higher Education and Research Bill, which has just completed its parliamentary journey in England, is designed not to create a higher education market but rather a state-regulated market. Higher education institutions that wish to increase their fees above their current levels will be required to conform to three government-imposed guidelines: to broaden the social range of their undergraduate admissions (to become more socially equitable) and to ensure that their student retention rates retain that equitability (which could possibly mean the implementation of strategies that ensure that their academically weaker entrants do not disproportionately fail) and that their students evaluate their academic experiences positively. Already the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) imposes the two former conditions upon universities in its review of their fees and access strategies. It is thus the third requirement that has given rise to most controversy as it requires students to take some responsibility for determining the academic quality of their courses and degree programs. It would weaken the authority of academics, and grant students, as consumers of the product, a say in
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evaluating academic quality, which could even lead to the closure of departments. Therefore, it is possible to sustain the idea of the collegial tradition in higher education within a context that makes institutions dependent upon market funding in the form of student fees. Although in such a situation, collegiality would most likely encourage self-defensive decisionmaking rather than be driven by a desire to enhance the organization of knowledge. However, it could be more difficult to preserve collegiality within the context of a state-regulated market, depending upon what aspects of institutional character that the state is using the market to shape. Historically the universities have determined what is to be taught and researched and more significantly how those tasks should be performed – they control the shape that high status knowledge takes as well as what is to count as high status knowledge. If academic authority is to be curtailed in this key field, it seems pertinent to ask whether collegial decision-making will continue to serve any real purpose.
Conclusion This entry has examined the collegial tradition in higher education with particular reference to its manifestation in England and more especially at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Thanks to the University Grants Committee’s acceptance of the principle of institutional autonomy, collegiality survived the infusion of public funding into the university system at large, including post-1919 the placing of the two premier collegiate universities on its grant list. However, the tradition now only survives in any recognizable form within the precincts of Oxbridge, and higher education policy is increasingly driven by the central government and the state with the development of universities becoming increasingly driven by becoming more bureaucratically organized and institutional policy determined more by full-time officials and a centralized leadership cadre than by the collective academic community.
Commercialization of Science, Higher Education
It is now the state-regulated market, rather than either the market or state per se – by tying future funding to regulations shaping access student retention and student evaluation of the universities’ organization of knowledge – that poses the greatest threat to the continuation of the collegial tradition. Interestingly, however, the Higher Education and Research Act that proposes these developments will apparently nonetheless require the new regulatory authority – the Office For Students – “to have regard to institutional autonomy in everything it does” (Morgan, Times Higher Education, 2nd March, 2017: 7). Should that be the case, then it will be an autonomy that is not defended by the sustenance of the collegial tradition because the legislative framework contains preconditions that prevent collegial control over its defining purpose which is collegiality and that is to determine the organization of knowledge.
References Cobban, A.B.. 1975. The medieval universities: Their development and organisation. London: Methuen. Halsey, A.H. 1992. Decline of donnish dominion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morgan, J. 2nd Mar 2017. UK higher education bill gets late amendments, 7. Times Higher Education. Palfreyman, D., and T. Tapper. 2014. Reshaping the university; the rise of the regulated market in higher education. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rashdall, H. 1936. The universities of Europe in the middle ages, volume 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shattock, M. 2012. Making policy in British higher education 1945–2011, 117–136. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Tapper, T., and D. Palfreyman. 2010. The collegial tradition in the age of mass higher education. Dordrecht: Springer Press.
Commercialization of Knowledge ▶ Innovation Studies in Higher Education Research
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Commercialization of Research ▶ Linking Innovation, Education, and Research
C Commercialization of Science, Higher Education Creso Sá Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
The commercialization of academic science is one of the key features in the development of higher education over the last 40 years. From a rather unusual and circumscribed activity viewed suspiciously by scientists for most of the twentieth century, commercialization of academic research is now widely promoted and celebrated. Universities now commonly highlight successful products stemming from academic research and spinoff companies created by faculty and students as institutional achievements. What does the commercialization of science entail, and how does it matter?
Defining Commercialization This discussion is about the deliberate efforts of universities and scientists to commercialize academic research. Hence, other colloquial uses of the term such as the claim that scientific activity as a whole is becoming more “commercial,” in the sense of being driven by shorter-term applications in industry, or that science is influenced by corporate sponsorship, are beyond the scope of this discussion. The commercialization of academic science comprises two main tracks, one consisting of patenting and licensing activities, and the other
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of start-up companies (Geiger and Sá 2009). Research commercialization is usually referred to as “academic entrepreneurship” as when involving university researchers, although the usage of the term varies in whether it encompasses both patenting and spin-off activity. Research commercialization also differs conceptually from technology transfer, as the latter involves a broader set of knowledge flows and activities beyond those revolving around universities’ exploitation of intellectual property rights. The two tracks through which science is commercialized are far from encompassing the full spectrum of university-industry linkages. Nor do they comprehend the multiple ways in which academic researchers interact with the commercial world. However, these two tracks have become focal points for policy makers and universities worldwide (Mowery and Sampat 2006). Governments want to see that public investments in science are generating economic pay-offs, and policy agendas stimulating and regulating the patenting of university research and the creation of start-up firms have become common across continents. Through these mechanisms, governments hope that universities will contribute to technological innovation and ultimately economic development.
The American Influence No country has been as influential internationally as the USA in articulating and exporting policy ideas and organizational models of research commercialization. This is not to say that universities elsewhere have not engaged in commercialization historically or that they blindly emulate American universities. Rather, the point is to highlight that the very constitution of the role of universities as agents in the commercialization of science, as commonly understood today, stems in large part from the US experience. Notably, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was the pioneering entrepreneurial university in early twentieth century, creating start-up firms and transferring technologies to companies in the Boston area (Etkowitz 2002).
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As a private institute of technology reliant on securing external support from various sources to survive, MIT had no qualms about engaging with industry and conducting applied research at a time these activities were frowned upon in academia. As a lower caliber private university relative to peer institutions that formed the academic elite in the early twentieth century, MIT sought support from industry and association with local business agendas as a way to gather the resources it needed to operate (Geiger 1993). The institute eventually raised its academic profile significantly as it prioritized academic quality, and it provided a prototype for the later development of academic entrepreneurship at Stanford University. Stanford’s symbiotic relationship with the growth of Silicon Valley has gained mythical proportions, and today one can read about it in popular magazines and opinion pieces as frequently as in the academic literature. Stanford’s success in commercializing research via licensing and spinoff companies, as well as working closely with industry, has been actively exported and eagerly imported around the world (Leslie and Kargon 1996). As much as experts frequently pontificate that “Silicon Valley can’t be copied” (Wadhwa 2013) because of the unique historical, cultural, and economic circumstances that shaped it over time, which has not yet deterred policy makers and university leaders from trying. Stanford has provided an inspirational example to those seeking to exert an impact on their surrounding economies – and also hoping to bring outsized revenues to universities from inventions and from spin-off companies. US government legislation and programs to stimulate research commercialization have been similarly influential internationally. The BayhDole Act of 1980 is perhaps the most cited piece of legislation related to the topic internationally, which has motivated similar policy initiatives elsewhere (Mowery and Sampat 2005). The act lifted restrictions on the patenting of inventions made through federally sponsored research and allowed universities to negotiate exclusive licenses with corporations. Subsequent legislation complemented this measure and helped create a patenting system that is more lenient on what
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could be patented, allowing for patenting claims on organisms and research tools, for example. Bayh-Dole reinforced and legitimated a trend toward university patenting that had been emerging with the rise of biotechnology and the engagement of pioneering institutions such as MIT and Stanford. Whether or not Bayh-Dole caused university patenting to take off in the USA, the act has been cited to justify or endorse legislation in other countries aiming at encouraging research commercialization (Mowery and Sampat 2005). Some of those have actually been different from Bayh-Dole, including laws allowing professor to own intellectual property or stipulating the creation of technology transfer organizations. In the realm of policy ideas, an indirect source of influence from the USA on the development of research commercialization comes from the large body of knowledge on science and innovation policy generated in the country. A variety of experts, professionals, and policy makers internationally draw inferences, form opinions, and advance positions based in part on this knowledge base (Pavitt 2001). Moreover, international organizations are powerful carriers of such ideas, not only disseminating but also endorsing and legitimating them to policy elites. The World Intellectual Property Organization, for example, diffuses models of intellectual property protection and commercialization in universities around the world, in countries as distinct as Belarus, Botswana Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Tunisia, and Sri Lanka (World Intellectual Property Organization 2016). The OECD, a long-standing proponent of innovation, regularly reviews and disseminates policy approaches toward research commercialization (OECD 2013). Ideas about the commercialization of science that are formed in large part based on the US experience are packaged and diffused as “best practices” through these organizations.
Private Knowledge and Commercial Interests The popularization of policy agendas emphasizing research commercialization around the world
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has cast a new light on the private appropriation and exploitation of knowledge. Traditionally, such activities were regarded as inappropriate and unacademic, and those interested in pursuing commercial applications were deemed as suspicious (Sá et al. 2013). Nonetheless, in settings where commercialization was supported, a new academic culture developed overtime, blending intellectual property considerations to the ethos of scientific discovery (Colyvas and Powell 2007). A set of social, organizational, and material practices emerged around the protection and commercialization of intellectual property rights. The now ubiquitous university technology transfer offices (TTOs) embody this trend. TTOs have disparate origins and configurations in different countries, but apart from these differences, these units are responsible for the management of intellectual property. Depending on the national intellectual property regime and institutional policy, TTOs may encourage or require academics to disclose inventions arising from their research that hold commercial potential. These units evaluate disclosures to determine which ones warrant an investment on their commercialization, employing both technical and commercial criteria. They need to determine whether the technology is developed enough – can a specific product or application be derived from it in a reasonable time frame? – and whether it has the potential to meet an actual market demand. Here market logics drive decision-making. Through this evaluation, TTOs decide on whether the university will pursue a patent on the invention, which comes at a cost, in addition to staff time and effort. Once a patent is granted, TTOs pursue companies that might be willing to license the invention. If successful in finding prospective licensees, TTOs negotiate licensing deals and then make sure that the terms are being followed. This is essentially a market-driven operation in principle, even if in practice TTOs often fail to be profitable or even self-sustainable. Across Europe and in Canada, for instance, governments frequently subsidize these units (Geuna and Rossi 2011; Fisher and Atkinson-Grosjean 2002). Some question whether this TTO-based model is optimal,
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given the known difficulties these units experience to fulfill their mandates as they are often underfunded and understaffed. Some see advantages in an inventor-based model, whereby the decision of whether and how to commercialize research findings rests with professors (Kenney and Patton 2009). The model of commercialization centered on the protection of intellectual property through TTOs is largely shaped after the features of the life sciences. The rise of the biotechnology industry in the 1980s provided a paradigmatic model for academic patenting in the USA, with potentially lucrative inventions arising from university laboratories that are closer to application and highly sought after by industry (Mowery et al. 2004). This result in universities seeking to protect as much intellectual property as they are able to, in hopes of securing an eventual “blockbuster” patent – a hugely lucrative invention that results in substantial licensing revenue. This pursuit of revenue creates problems for academic scientists who routinely collaborate with firms (Geiger and Sá 2009). When TTOs try to apply a strict patenting approach to these relationships, tensions surface. Firms are not willing to agree to extensive intellectual property claims on incremental contributions to their technologies, and faculty is focused on the longerterm relationship with their collaborators, which include other aspects such as providing opportunities for graduate students, gaining access to industrial problems, and obtaining research support. Market logic also guides the creation of startup companies to bring academic inventions to the marketplace (Sá and Kretz 2015). University professors or students may find a spin-off company around their own research, or other entrepreneurs may see potential in university-owned inventions and seek to commercialize it. Many countries that once prohibited professors from working in or owning a firm have reversed course: Legislation allowing professors to own intellectual property or join start-ups has been passed in European, Latin American, and Asian countries (Sá 2016). The amalgam of academic discovery and commercialization has become visible in the
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life sciences. University researchers file patents for both personal pecuniary interest and professional reasons (Powell and Owen-Smith 2002). Patents allow scientists to control their own research program against intellectual property claims of rival groups, whether in the case of using research tools or in pursuing knowledge on certain organisms of processes. Further, the dynamics of research in biotechnology involve an important role for research carried out in industry, which compels scientists to participate in research networks that cut across the academic and commercial worlds (Powell et al. 1996). Overall, patents and start-up companies are intertwined with cutting-edge research in the life sciences, rather than representing a departure from it. Commercialization has become a strategy through which scientists advance professionally and pursue their economic interests. The diffusion of research commercialization in universities has historically raised several concerns. Critics question the appropriateness and point to the possible unintended consequences of these activities in academia. The profit motive inherent to the commercialization process is often viewed as corrupting the public mission of universities (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004; Bok 2009). Moreover, specific issues arise when faculty members and graduate students engage in both academic and commercial pursuits, which sometimes overlap in the laboratory. Conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment have therefore entered the lexicon of higher education (Campbell et al. 1999), as universities have had to regulate the terms under which professors may get involved in spin-off companies and patenting and not neglect university obligations and academic duties. Another unintended consequence of the commercialization of science is the potential reinforcement of resource asymmetries across universities and of inequities across academic disciplines and university departments (Campbell et al. 1999). Benefits from commercialization flow disproportionally to universities and fields of science and technology that are more likely to generate inventions, reinforcing gaps between the haves and have-nots of academia.
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More broadly, criticism has mounted about what scholars see as an unwarranted focus on intellectual property protection, which poses increasing constraints on the free flow of research knowledge that can paradoxically slow down both science and innovation (Nelson 2004). The concern is that the growing number of patents on ideas, materials, and techniques that are important components of scientific activity may inhibit research advances and technological progress.
Conclusion The experience of the last quarter century has shown that the commercialization of science is far from an economic panacea to financially starved universities or profit-seeking ones. Extraordinary cases of commercial success give a false impression to the casual observer that fortunes are waiting to be made in each sponsored research program. However, the reality is that commercializing research requires painstaking effort and sustained investment. Very rare are the inventions that emerge from university laboratories that are close to ready to be sold in the marketplace. Instead, the majority of cases offer rather grim prospects to those seeking to pursue a commercialization path: Research discoveries need extensive development before they are ready to be brought to the marketplace; failure rates are high among start-up companies; and among the inventions that are worth being patented, few will ever generate any revenue. This is not to say that commercialization is a Sisyphean endeavor doomed to failure. Rather, the point is that the purpose of pursuing the commercialization of research for universities has to be broader than the expectation of generating near-term revenue. Universities should engage in these activities to ensure that relevant research discoveries reach society, as they are turned into useful products, processes, or solutions to pressing problems. This outlook provides a more reasonable and realistic justification for universities to make the long-term investment in seeing inventions through the tortuous commercialization process.
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Cross-References ▶ Entrepreneurial Universities ▶ Social Contract of Science, The ▶ Universities and Enterprises
C References Bok, Derek. 2009. Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Campbell, Teresa, Isabelle Daza, and Sheila Slaughter. 1999. Faculty and administrators’ attitudes toward potential conflicts of interest, commitment, and equity in university-industry relationships. The Journal of Higher Education 70 (3): 309–352. Colyvas, Jeannette A., and Walter W. Powell. 2007. From vulnerable to venerated: The institutionalization of academic entrepreneurship in the life sciences. In Sociology of entrepreneurship, ed. Martin Ruef and Michael Lounsbury, 219–259. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, Limited. Etkowitz, Henry. 2002. MIT and the rise of entrepreneurial science. London: Routledge. Fisher, D., and J. Atkinson-Grosjean. 2002. Brokers on the boundary: Academy-industry liaison in Canadian universities. Higher Education 44 (3): 449–467. Geiger, Roger L. 1993. Research and relevant knowledge: American research universities since World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geiger, Roger L., and Creso M. Sá. 2009. Tapping the riches of science: Universities and the promise of economic growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Geuna, A., and F. Rossi. 2011. Changes to university IPR regulations in Europe and the impact on academic patenting. Research Policy 40 (8): 1068–1076. Kenney, Martin, and Donald Patton. 2009. Reconsidering the Bayh-Dole Act and the current university invention ownership model. Research Policy 38 (9): 1407–1422. Leslie, Stuart W., and Robert H. Kargon. 1996. Selling Silicon Valley: Frederick Terman’s model for regional advantage. The Business History Review 70 (4): 435–472. Mowery, David C., Richard R. Nelson, Bhaven N. Sampat, and Arvids A. Ziedonis. 2004. Ivory tower and industrial innovation: University-industry technology transfer before and after the Bayh-Dole Act in the United States. Stanford: Stanford Business Books. Mowery, David C., and Bhaven N. Sampat. 2005. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and university-industry technology transfer: A model for other OECD governments? In Essays in honor of Edwin Mansfield, ed. Albert N. Link and F.M. Scherer, 233–245. New York: Springer-Verlag. Mowery, David C., and Bhaven N. Sampat. 2006. Universities in national innovation systems. In The Oxford handbook of innovation, ed. Jan Fargerberg, David C. Mowery, and Richard R. Nelson, 209–239. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
200 Nelson, Richard R. 2004. The market economy, and the scientific commons. Research Policy 33 (3): 455–471. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2013. Commercialising public research. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pavitt, K. 2001. Public policies to support basic research: What can the rest of the world learn from US theory and practice? (And what they should not learn). Industrial and Corporate Change 10 (3): 761–779. Powell, Walter W., Kenneth W. Koput, and Laurel SmithDoerr. 1996. Interorganizational collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly 41 (1): 116. Powell, W.W., and J. Owen-Smith. 2002. The new world of knowledge production in the life sciences. In The future of the city of intellect: The changing American university, ed. Steven Brint, 107–130. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sá, Creso M. 2016. Globalization, business, and the research enterprise. In Higher education, commercialization, and University-Business relationships in comparative context, ed. Joshua Powers and Edward P. St. John, 25–54. Norwalk: AMS Press. Sá, Creso M., and Andrew J. Kretz. 2015. The Entrepreneurship movement. The entrepreneurship movement and the university. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sá, Creso M., Andrew Kretz, and Kristjan Sigurdson. 2013. Techno-nationalism and the construction of university technology transfer. Minerva 51 (4): 443–464. Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wadhwa, Vivek. 2013. Silicon valley can’t be copied. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview. com/s/516506/silicon-valley-cant-be-copied/. Accessed 27 Jan 2016. World Intellectual Property Organization. 2016. Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP). Geneva: World Intellectual Property Organization. http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/cdip_17/ cdip_17_9.pdf. Accessed 27 Jan 2016.
Communicating Science Online, Higher Education Ana Delicado Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Synonyms Science communication blogs; Science communication in social network sites; Science communication in the internet
Communicating Science Online, Higher Education
Definition Communicating science online refers to the use of digital platforms by academics or higher education institutions for disseminating research results and engaging with different audiences. It covers the use of platforms such as websites, blogs, social networks, or YouTube for disseminating scientific content.
Background The use of various digital platforms for communicating science online is a fairly recent development and performing research on this issue is notoriously difficult, due to the swift pace of technological and social change associated with new media. As late as 2014, Gerber still noted that “the use of even the most common online tools is still a niche phenomenon in the scientific community” (Gerber 2014, 78), while Puschman described the widespread skepticism among the scientific community about the use of social media: “The current consensus among scientists appears to be that blogs and Twitter are somewhat interesting to promote one’s own research (to journalists and perhaps a few colleagues), and more broadly, one’s field (to potential students, the general public), but that the payoff is not always worth the time and effort” (Puschman 2014, 102). Though the internet has been in use across the world since the 1990s, with close connections to academia since the very beginning, it can be argued that its real potential for science communication has not been fulfilled until the emergence of Web 2.0, a widespread shift towards usergenerated content and online social networks (Brossard and Scheufele 2013). Borchelt (2008: 151) was among the first to point out the potential of the internet to foster symmetrical communication between universities and their publics: “The World Wide Web provides a number of platforms, from online discussion groups to chat forums to blogs, that allow real-time, person-to-person communication with members of the public valuable to an institution.” He nevertheless warned that “the commitment to symmetrical communication
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falls short if the organisation hears, but does not respond to, the concerns or issues of its public.” Gerber (2014) considers interactive online media as the driving force for the fifth stage of science communication. Science communication through the internet currently covers a wide array of formats and platforms, from science blogging to TED-talks, from Facebook pages to live tweeting from conferences, from podcasts to video-abstracts, from YouTube channels to discussion groups (Brossard 2013; Puschmann 2014; Davies and Horst 2016). In general, it fundamentally differs from most traditional means of communication for its ability to reach a huge audience (unbound by time and geographical constraints) with fairly low costs (Davis 2014). Content for online science communication is produced by a highly diversified roll of social actors: scientists, universities, research institutions, professional science communicators, journalists, citizens, activists, companies, civil society organizations. The ascendance of online science communication has also been marked by its popularity among the public, with several surveys showing that the internet has become the preferred source for science news and that the public expects scientists themselves to communicate science (Brossard 2013; Bik and Goldstein 2013; Gerber 2014; Davies and Horst 2016).
Research on Online Science Communication The literature in this field includes papers analyzing particular online communication platforms, such as science blogs (e.g., Puschmann 2014), science-specific social network sites such as Mendeley and Research Gate (Nentwich and König 2014), or online science videos (Erviti and Stengler 2016). Other papers focus on the representations of particular aspects of science and technology in online platforms, such as nanotechnology (Anderson et al. 2014). Other articles are eminently practice oriented. For instance, Bik and Goldstein (2013) list several online tools and resources for scientists and give advice for new users. Bultitude (2014) provides an overview of web-based channels for science
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communication, discussing their potential and limitations, explaining the main platforms and providing recommendations for their use, as well as pointing out the relevance of designing a communication strategy, deploying search engine optimization and monitoring tools. More recently, Carrigan’s (2016) book on social media for academics provides guidance on its use for publicizing research, engaging with students and the public, building networks, or managing online identities. Another body of work concerns the use of online science communication by universities. Bélanger et al. (2014) analyze the use of social media by universities in Canada as a tool for institutional branding, recruitment and engagement of students. Universities can encourage academics by providing blog hubs or space in their websites for online communication (Puschmann 2014; Davis 2014; Gerber 2014). This encouragement can be an effect of the new trend for including social impact in evaluation procedures. Altmetrics (nontraditional measurements), including indicators such as number of visualizations, likes, or shares, are increasingly being used to assess public engagement of researchers (Bik and Goldstein 2013). However, social media policies in universities can also include limitations to what and how researchers can communicate with the public. Murphy (2014) addresses controversies on the use of social media by academics, highlighting the risk of academic institutions supervising their staff and thus threatening academic freedom. An additional body of research concerns the risks and negative impacts of online science communication. Several authors point out that the rise of online science communication has been accompanied by (and is one of the causes of) the demise of science journalism, with many newspapers foregoing dedicated science reporters (Colson 2011; Brossard 2013; Brossard and Scheufele 2013; Gerber 2014; Davies and Horst 2016). Brossard (2013, see also Brossard and Scheufele 2013 and Anderson et al. 2014) also calls attention to the bias introduced by search engine algorithms based on user preferences, which cause self-reinforcing informational spiral and the risk that debates on emerging technologies are being skewed by the
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undifferentiation of news from opinions in science blogs and the tone of comments and tweets, affecting the perceptions and attitudes of readers. Brossard and Scheufele (2013) thus call for more research in the field of online science communication on issues such as the motivations for searching for scientific information online, the evaluation of scientific content online, and the impact on public knowledge and attitudes.
Cross-References ▶ Engaged University, The ▶ Factors Influencing Scientists’ Engagement
Public
References Anderson, A.A., D. Brossard, D.A. Scheufele, Michael A. Xenos, and Peter Ladwig. 2014. The “nasty effect:” Online incivility and risk perceptions of emerging technologies. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19 (3): 373–387. Bélanger, Charles H., Suchita Bali, and Bernard Longden. 2014. How Canadian universities use social media to brand themselves. Tertiary Education and Management 20 (1): 14–29. Bik, Holly M., and Miriam C. Goldstein. 2013. An introduction to social media for scientists. PLoS Biology 11 (4): e1001535. Borchelt, Rick E. 2008. Public relations in science: Managing the trust portfolio. In Handbook of public communication of science and technology, ed. M. Bucchi and B. Trench, 147–157. London: Routledge. Brossard, D. 2013. New media landscapes and the science information consumer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110 (Suppl 3): 14096–14101. Brossard, Dominique, and Dietram A. Scheufele. 2013. Science, new media, and the public. Science 339 (6115): 40–41. Bultitude, Karen. 2014. Web-Based Channels for Science Communication. In Communicating science to the public: Opportunities and challenges for the Asia-pacific region, ed. L. Tan Wee Hin and R. Subramaniam, 225–246. Dordrecht: Springer. Carrigan, Mark. 2016. Social media for academics. London: Sage. Colson, Vinciane. 2011. Science blogs as competing channels for the dissemination of science news. Journalism 12 (7): 889–902. Davies, Sarah R., and Maja Horst. 2016. Science communication: Culture, identity and citizenship. London: Palgrave Macmilan.
Davis, Lloyd Spencer. 2014. Outreach activities by universities as a channel for science communication. In Communicating science to the public: Opportunities and challenges for the Asia-pacific region, ed. L. Tan Wee Hin and R. Subramaniam, 161–182. Dordrecht: Springer. Erviti, M. Carmen, and Erik Stengler. 2016. Online science videos: An exploratory study with major professional content providers in the United Kingdom. JCOM Journal of Science Communication 15 (6): A06. Gerber, Alexander. 2014. Science caught flat-footed: How academia struggles with open science communication. In Opening science: The evolving guide on how the internet is changing research, collaboration and scholarly publishing, ed. S. Bartling and S. Friesike, 73–80. Heidelberg: Springer. Murphy, Maria Helen. 2014. The views expressed represent mine alone: Academic freedom and social media. SCRIPTed 11 (3): 210–228. Nentwich, Michael, and René König. 2014. Academia goes facebook? The potential of social network sites in the scholarly realm. In Opening science: The evolving guide on how the internet is changing research, collaboration and scholarly publishing, ed. S. Bartling and S. Friesike, 107–124. Heidelberg: Springer. Puschmann, Cornelius. 2014. (Micro)Blogging science? Notes on potentials and constraints of new forms of scholarly communication. In Opening science: The evolving guide on how the internet is changing research, collaboration and scholarly publishing, ed. S. Bartling and S. Friesike, 89–106. Heidelberg: Springer.
Community Colleges ▶ Non-university Higher Education
Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA
The prototype of community colleges in the United States can readily be found across the globe. US community colleges have come to
Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education
symbolize increasing access, broadening opportunity, and diversified pathways for youth and adults seeking postsecondary education. The US model of 2 years of college post-high school that is affordable and combines liberal, occupational/ vocational, career and technical education via an open-door concept is far-reaching with many countries utilizing community colleges as a tier in their educational hierarchies (Brint and Karabel 1989; Raby and Valeau 2009). Given the historical segmentation of opportunity to postsecondary education, arguably, the massification of US higher education can be credited to the American community college. The community college is a unique American invention with an emphasis on open access to higher education that made these institutions known as the People’s Colleges with the image of democracy’s doors (Beach 2012; Kelsay and Oudenhoven 2014). From the start, community colleges were rooted in democratizing higher education by challenging the notion that postsecondary education was for the elite and not the masses, which broke racial/ethnic and class barriers and provided entrée to those without other postsecondary opportunities.
Origins and Evolution of the Community College Desiring to assist high school students pursue baccalaureate degrees, J. Stanley Brown pushed for advanced placement courses that would transfer to nearby 4-year colleges/universities for his students. As principal of Joliet High School and later superintendent of Joliet High School District in Illinois, J. Stanley Brown along with William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, and other elite 4-year university presidents pushed for the alignment of the freshman and sophomore college years with secondary education (Beach 2012; Cohen et al. 2013). In fact, Joliet High School sparked the beginnings of the community college as the first and most successful high school-based community college (Witt et al. 1994) founded in 1901.
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During the early formative years (i.e., 1900–1930s), community colleges generally reflected high school needs, had a liberal arts and transfer focus, and were establishing an institutional identity as outgrowths of secondary education. This period of community college development was also marked by broadening the mission to provide more than general education. Two-year institutions offered accelerated pathways and transfer to 4-year colleges and universities while providing workforce training for the middle/semiprofessional occupations and community outreach. The community college expansion (mid-1940s–1960s) was marked by unprecedented growth in colleges across the country particularly after World War II and the Higher Education for American Democracy Report to President Harry S. Truman commonly referred to as the Truman Commission Report. The Truman Commission marked the first time in US history that a presidential directive to examine the American education system was charged. The Truman Commission reported on the state of higher education in the United States calling for an expanded role of community colleges summoning for a 4year college within commuting distance of nearly all Americans. The Truman Commission Report resulted in greater support in the late 1940s for 2year institutions, which raised the profile of community colleges in the higher education landscape especially with nearly half of all 18-year-olds being returning WWII soldiers. Therefore, this single report contributed to increasing access, firmly rooting community colleges, and fostering equity for decades to follow (Gilbert and Heller 2013; Witt et al. 1994). The community college expansion era produced over 450 new community colleges in the 1960s (Cohen et al. 2013). The 1960s was also a period marked by liberal state and federal politics, the civil rights movement, and greater emphasis on the professionalization of community college leadership and federal legislation such as the Vocational Education Act of 1963 that expanded funding to occupational education. The growth in occupational curriculum boosted 2-year terminal degrees as nimble and efficient means to
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advancement for those that desired postsecondary education but not baccalaureate degrees. Between the 1970s and 2000, other developments in community colleges such as remedial/ developmental education and adult and community/continuing education were on the rise. Overall student attendance continued to grow, and the diversity of students enrolling in community colleges became increasingly diverse. As a result, the institutional diversity of community colleges produced more institutional types (i.e., minorityserving 2-year institutions emerged beyond already established tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) or historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to include 2-year Hispanicserving institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) institutions, and predominantly Black institutions (PBIs)) (Aragon and Zamani 2002). Additionally, the institutional diversity among 2-year institutions produced divergent goals/missions in which classification models revealing the breadth, depth, and range of community colleges relative to access, enrollment, location, student demographics, etc. emerged (Cox and McCormick 2003; Hardy and Katsinas 2006).
quickly saw the value of community colleges as engines for innovation, retooling, workforce development, and getting Americans back to work in high-skill, high-demand, and high-wage occupations. Among the policies enacted by the Obama administration that bolstered community colleges within the higher education landscape include the American Recovery and Reemployment Act (ARRA) using the American Graduation Initiative (AGI) that sought to provide billions of dollars into community college programs to increase 2year institution graduation rates by five million by 2020 (Wood and Harrison 2014). However, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) with only $2 billion of the $12 billion sought by President Obama through AGI was authorized (Bragg 2014). All told, the Obama administration has raised the profile of 2-year institutions in many of their postsecondary education reform efforts from the White House Summit on Community Colleges in 2010 to the 2015 announcement of “America’s College Promise” calling for at least 2 years of postsecondary education for all citizens free at community colleges (The White House 2015).
Post-millennium: Toward Mass Access and Equitable Outcomes
Broadening Participation
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, community colleges have come full circle reminiscent of the 1940s when the Truman Commission emphasized them as centers for economic initiatives and a public good that “must prepare [their] students to live a rich and satisfying life, part of which involves earning a living” (President’s Commission on Higher Education 1947, pp. 6–7). While community colleges are often overlooked within the higher education landscape, the importance of the 2-year college sector has been acknowledged by President Obama as he positioned community colleges as a centerpiece of his college completion agenda. When President Obama entered office in January of 2009, he was met with the Great Recession – the largest US deficit and unemployment since the Great Depression. President Obama
Currently, the nation’s community colleges enroll over 12 million credit and noncredit students representing 45% of all undergraduates (American Association of Community Colleges 2016). A disproportionately higher number of students of color attend community colleges (i.e., 62% Native Americans, 57% Hispanics, 52% Blacks, and 43% Asian/Pacific Islanders are community college students) accounting for 46% of the enrollment at 2-year institutions of higher learning (American Association of Community Colleges 2016). Thirty-six percent of community college students are first-generation collegians, one-third of 2-year college students are Pell Grant eligible, 22% of attendees work full time, 40% work part time, and 62% are enrolled part time (American Association of
Community Colleges and the Massification of Higher Education
Community Colleges 2016). According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2015), during the 2013–2014 academic year, 46% of students who completed a bachelor’s degree enrolled at a community college during some point in the past 10 years. There is greater diversity among those attending community colleges with 2-year institutions of higher learning providing on-ramps to postsecondary education, further education, and gainful employment for scores of individuals. Community colleges are essential to the educational enterprise though often overlooked. Among the challenges, facing community colleges are navigating being seen as a gateway to and gatekeeper from opportunity depending on the source. This is due in part to the multiple missions, divergent students, varied educational backgrounds, community interests, and local economic and industry needs that 2-year institutions seek to meet (Dowd 2007). However, despite attempting to be all things to all people, this sector of higher education (like the students they serve) is not marginal but matters. By design, community colleges are novel and not generic given their distinctive role in the educational pipeline. They have and will continue to be different from their 4-year college/university counterparts and justly so as it is this uniqueness that renders them relevant in the communities they serve as they evolve to meet people where they are and provide the area with the necessities (basic and beyond) to the best of its ability. Today, like in their humble beginnings, community colleges hold an important place in mass higher education, sitting at an ideal intersection of social justice and educational change. Historically, ideologically, demographically, politically, and operationally, community colleges continue to bring postsecondary opportunity to broad segments of the populace. Community colleges from birth advanced a context of social change relative to who can, should, and will have access to postsecondary education. The next wave is significant change in moving beyond people entering college but ensuring that they exit with connected credentials to equitable educational outcomes and greater social mobility. The changes the American
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community college has undergone in its 115-year existence have yield profound results demonstrating that 2-year colleges are significant, sustainable social change engines that have opened higher education to the masses.
C References American Association of Community Colleges. (2016, February). Fast facts. Retrieved from http://www. aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Documents/AACCFactSheets R2.pdf Aragon, Steven R., and Eboni M. Zamani. 2002. Promoting access and equity through minority serving institutions. In Equity and access in higher education: Changing the definition of educational opportunity, Readings on equal education, ed. M.C. Brown, Vol. 18, 23–50. New York: AMS Press. Beach, J.M. 2012. Gateway to opportunity? A history of the community college in the United States. Sterling: Stylus Publishing. Bragg, Debra D. 2014. A perfect storm? President Obama, the great recession, and community colleges. In The Obama administration and educational reform, ed. E.M. Zamani-Gallaher, 93–118. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Brint, Steven, and Jerome Karabel. 1989. The diverted dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. New York: Oxford University Press. Cohen, Arthur M., Florence B. Brawer, and Carrie B. Kisker. 2013. The American community college. 6th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cox, Rebecca D., and Alexander C. McCormick. 2003. Classification in practice Applying five proposed classification models to a sample of two-year colleges. In Classification systems for two-year colleges, New directions for community colleges, ed. A.C. McCormick and R.D. Cox, Vol. 122, 103–121. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Dowd, A. 2007. Community colleges as gateways and gatekeepers: Moving beyond the access “saga” toward outcome equity. Harvard Educational Review 77(4): 407–419. Gilbert, Claire Krendl, and Donald E. Heller. 2013. Access, equity, and community colleges: The Truman Commission and federal higher education policy from 1947 to 2011. The Journal of Higher Education 84(3): 417–443. Hardy, David E., and Stephen G. Katsinas. 2006. Using community college classifications in research: From conceptual model to useful tool. Community College Journal of Research and Practice 30(4): 339–358. Kelsay, L.S., and B. Oudenhoven. 2014. Junior grows up: A brief history of community colleges. In Working with students in community colleges: Contemporary strategies for bridging theory, research, and
206 practice, ed. L.S. Kelsay and E.M. Zamani-Gallaher. Sterling: ACPA/Stylus Publishing. President’s Commission on Higher Education. 1947. Higher education for American democracy: Volume III, Organizing higher education. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Raby, Rosalind L., and Edward J. Valeau, ed. 2009. Community college models: Globalization and higher education reform. Dordrecht: Springer. The White House. (2015, January 9). Fact sheet – White House unveils America’s college promise proposal: Tuition-free community college for responsible students. Retrieved at http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/2015/01/09/fact-sheet-white-house-unveilsamerica-s-college-promise-proposal-tuitio?amp&& amp& Witt, Allen A., James L. Wattenbarger, James F. Gollattscheck, and Joseph E. Suppinger. 1994. America’s community colleges: The first century. Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges. Wood, J. Luke, and John D. Harrison. 2014. The 2020 American graduation initiative: A clear vision or dim view? In The Obama administration and educational reform, ed. E.M. Zamani-Gallaher, 119–139. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Community Engagement ▶ Civic Engagement in Higher Education ▶ Public Engagement in Higher Education
Community Engagement in Higher Education Kelly A. Ward Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA
Synonyms Civic engagement; Democratic education; Outreach; Public service; Service
Definition Community engagement is about institutions leaving behind notions of ivory tower ideals that
Community Engagement
separate campus and community and shift instead to integrated views where public spaces include knowledge and science and where institutions and their publics connect. Community engagement is a way for institutions and communities to reconsider how they interact to address larger needs that transcend an individual institution or one community. More permeable boundaries between campus and community where colleges and universities are at the center of community life and not on the edge of it allows for more engaged, responsive, interesting, and creative communities and postsecondary institutions.
Evolution of an Idea Community engagement is at once a mission and a set of actions. As a mission, community engagement is about connecting the resources of the university with the needs and resources of communities to address mutual needs. As a set of actions, community engagement encompasses the type of work faculty, staff, and students do to link campuses and communities (e.g., research focused on community organizations, students using service learning in their classrooms). Questions often asked about community engagement include: How is community defined? What is engagement? Engagement with whom? The responses to such questions can be broad depending on the context. In a mission statement, community typically encompasses all the communities served by an institution including local, regional, national, and international communities. In contrast, when a professor refers to his or her research as part of community engagement, this typically refers to specific communities – for example, connecting faculty through research with an international community (e.g., a professor from Scotland working with a community in Nepal) or students participating in a service learning class where they connect with youth in a local community based organization adjacent to campus. These examples help illustrate the ways that community engagement charts a course through overarching mission statements at the same time that community
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engagement is action based and guides direct activities. Community engagement is an outgrowth of the other related terms of service and outreach. As with many terms used in academic contexts, the difference in definition is one of nuance and has resulted in what Sandmann (2008) refers to as “definitional anarchy” related to community engagement and outreach. Words like community engagement, public outreach, community service, civic engagement, and social responsibility are usage and context dependent. Community engagement is a term that is used by higher education institutions as a way to reflect and comment on the relationships that higher education systems and institutions have with their respective communities (writ large and with particular communities). Historical Overview Community engagement as a mission was (and is) related to service roles of postsecondary institutions and the relationships they have with their respective home communities. Service refers to the work done on a campus to meet the needs of a community. Institutions do their part to contribute to a learned society. In this way, service can refer to the integral work institutions do to prepare graduates for progress in society or to prepare a work force in a particular vocational area or to meet the needs of particular communities. Historically, campuses and communities have always been connected although how and to what extent varies from community to community. Colleges and universities were closely tied to their local communities to recruit students, offer housing, and provide services for faculty and students ranging from food to health care. Institutions benefited from their communities to support, house, and feed students and faculty. Communities benefited economically in the exchange of services and they benefitted socially by having access to higher education for personal benefit and for the larger benefit of social progress. Having a campus in town was a sign of development and status. The public and governmental support for higher education grew out of a social covenant between institutions and the publics they served
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(Bender 1988). Partly as a result of post–World War II economics that shifted from social and public interests to private and corporate interests, what many refer to as neoliberal economics, the social covenant between higher education and related communities was compromised. Public support for higher education diminished and put a spotlight of accountability onto higher education that resulted in less synergy, reduced support, and suspicion between campuses and their respective publics. Regardless of how institutions are funded, the privatization and marketization of higher education comparable to other goods and services relationships, created a rift between campuses and communities. In response, institutions of higher education need to attain public support through increasingly competitive processes (e.g., lobbying for funding, competing for grant support). Although they manifest differently by setting, the trends are consistent internationally (Gibbons 1999). What the context of economic constraints meant and continues to mean for universities is a need to respond to public demands as a condition of funding and support. In the research realm, faculty have to engage in research that has clear outcomes that are linked to social needs as part of receiving funding. In the teaching realm, there is pressure for student curricular offerings and majors to be directly tied to career outcomes and gainful employment. The privatization of the exchange between higher education and communities created and contributed to a critique of higher education as self-serving. Visions of ivory towers have been enduring and represent ideals that separate campuses and their communities based on intellectual foundations. In contemporary settings, rifts between colleges and universities and their respective communities are often a result of a failure for campuses to deliver on goods perceived as promised or as a result of a failure for the public to support colleges and universities. The concept of community engagement in the contemporary university is a means for institutions to communicate more fully to their respective publics of what it is that universities actually do to support their communities. Community engagement also suggests reciprocity between
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institutions and communities in the exchange as a way to reduce the barriers created by economic constraints. Contemporary Issues Concerned that service was too passive as an interpretation of what institutions do to actually connect with their communities and that institutions had become increasingly disconnected from their communities, educational organizations and community leaders throughout the world have looked at ways to more clearly connect the resources of a campus with the needs of communities (again, writ large as stated in mission statements and in particular communities when it comes to activities and actions). The language of engagement is used to convey clearer lines of communication as well as synergy and reciprocity (Ward 2003). Throughout the past 30 years, there have been deliberate initiatives across the world to question how communities and campuses relate and to provide suggestions for improvement. Examples include the UNESCO group in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education (Tandon and Hall 2012), with partners in Africa, Arab states, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North American, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The mission of the cooperative is to promote linkages between postsecondary institutions to share resources and bridge knowledge between and among partner institutions and communities. Other examples include Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance (2008) and Campus Compact and the Carnegie Foundation in the United States whose work have helped to articulate principles, provide resources, and highlight key components related to delete connection and collaboration between higher education institutions and the communities they serve. Reports and related material from these initiatives typically focus on and encourage social responsibility, faculty involvement, and improved student outcomes related to civic participation, democracy, and community service. Faculty Work Community engagement is about integrating the teaching, research, and service of faculty to be more deliberately focused on
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meeting community needs. Faculty are key players to carry out community engagement missions and activities. Faculty need to actively participate in civic life as a means to fully realize goals for higher education institutions to prepare students for participation in a democracy (Hartley and Huddleston 2010). An international champion of all causes related to connecting campus resources with community needs was Ernest Boyer, an American scholar and leader of university reform to create greater synergy between campuses and communities. Although he talked frequently about the covenant between higher education and society, it was in his definitive work, Scholarship Reconsidered, where Boyer (1990) first synthesized thinking about faculty work and how the overemphasis on research was excluding service and teaching missions. Boyer was passionate about the need to connect the resources of the academy with the social needs in communities beyond the campus. Part of Boyer’s legacy was providing clear definitions of what it actually means for an institution and its faculty to be community engaged. Boyer’s work made clear how faculty can link with communities through their teaching, research, and service. Although Boyer was an American scholar, his conceptualizations of engagement and faculty work are recognized and have been built upon internationally by institutions and related collectives. Part of Boyer’s impact on the update and reconsideration of faculty work was the deliberate look at what it means for faculty to engage in service that is tied to meeting community needs and as part of larger faculty roles. Boyer’s legacy is that he named the problems associated with faculty being too focused on research that was insular and self-serving. Boyer was also critical of institutions that had narrow reward systems that failed to consider the totality of faculty work to include community perspectives. Boyer’s expanded model of scholarship gave language for faculty to explain their scholarly work across teaching, research, and service, underlying the need to tie the resources of campuses to the needs of communities. Boyer’s model also gave academic leaders language and guidance to
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provide direction for reward systems for faculty engaged in community work. Comparative Perspectives In the European context, community engagement as a concept resonates and is expanded to focus more on democracy and human rights (see for example the work of Hartley and Huddleston 2010). In Australia, community engagement is talked about in more local terms as a means to react to neoliberal policy contexts (Winter et al. 2006). Based on a review of literature related to community engagement, it is clear that the often-cited works of Boyer (1990), as well as other authors that have built on Boyer’s concepts, have played a key leadership role in articulating goals and visions for community engagement across different country settings and institutional contexts. Boyer’s work helps articulate a big picture vision that has been integrated and adapted to different global settings. The UNESCO project (2015) is also an example of international collaboration related to connecting campus and community in different country contexts. The UNESCO collaborative is focused on supporting intellectual cooperation to promote knowledge exchange and to share information across borders between countries and between institutions of higher learning and global partners. Areas of Critique As an umbrella term, community engagement can at times be too encompassing leaving critics fixated on what the term actually means instead of the action it is intended to carry out and the mission intended to realize. Community engagement can be too passive or limited in comparison to concepts like civic education or education for democratic citizenship – terms that suggest more educative value and connection. There is also an assumption embedded in community engagement, especially in the U S context, that service activities like volunteerism and service learning, will lead to outcomes associated with democracy and civic life when, in reality, the links are not always so direct (Hartley and Huddleston 2010). Another area of critique is related to the role of higher education versus the role of communities in
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enacting community engagement. Colleges and universities as the drivers in community engagement dialogues can still maintain power hierarchies and pursue self-motivated agendas at the expense of community needs. In response to such critique, reflection by students, faculty, and organizations is encouraged as a principle of good practice as a way to move from hierarchical community relationships to ones driven by social change, reciprocity, and partnership. To move away from top-down models of community engagement, it is helpful to think in terms of polycultural connections where multiple viewpoints and needs are considered as part of community engagement (Moore et al. 2009) or to ecological or multilateral approaches (Hartley and Huddleston 2010). An additional critique related to community engagement comes from the lack of institutional support to carry out community engagement related activities. For example, in African universities, community engagement is included in the priorities of many universities, but institutional and governmental support to recognize faculty for their work in communities is marginalized (Mugabi 2015). Ongoing structural support is necessary to realize community engagement missions and carry out community engagement initiatives. There is perpetual concern about keeping community engagement a priority in light of multiple demands on faculty and student time, varying institutional priorities, and seemingly perpetual fiscal stress. Conceptual Models Community engagement can be thought of in terms of phases or levels. There are two conceptualizations that are particularly helpful to guide readers in thinking about community engagement more generally. Hartley and Huddleston (2010) in their work about democratic citizenship that builds on ideas from the United States and Europe address the differences in partnerships embedded in democratic citizenship and those that are not. They articulate levels of partnership that can guide reflective thinking about campus and community relationships. Morton’s (1995) work is also a helpful metric for those engaged in work related to campus and community partnership that offers a way to think about work in
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communities that is organized not just for providing help and charity, but instead to foster thinking and action oriented to social change. Both of these models are examples of macroscopic conceptual views about community-oriented activities. The models can help guide faculty and student development activities as well as a way to describe the work taking place between campuses and their communities. Not all community engagement has the same means or end.
Next Steps Existing work of faculty, institutions, communities, and organizations (e.g., UNESCO) make clear that the concept of community engagement holds great promise as a means to shift from narratives of individualism within higher education to narratives of societal connection and commitment. An important component of furthering agendas related to community engagement is ongoing support. For community engagement to become and stay a central part of the important roles of colleges and universities, and not be perceived as a passing fad, it is vital for community engagement to be viewed not solely as a passive idea or a trite mention in a mission statement, but instead as a specific set of activities to be integrated into institutions. Given the important role of faculty in carrying out community engagement missions, it is important for reward structures and faculty job descriptions to clearly outline how community engagement is integrated into faculty work and part of promotion and recognition. Professional development related to community engagement is also important so that faculty are aware of how to integrate community-based work into their teaching, research, and service. Further, as institutions look to enact engagement, there must be support to shift from passive connections with communities to true community engagement where work is taking place that is reciprocal and mutually benefits institutions and communities. Engagement takes time and energy and for faculty and students to participate, there must be infrastructure in place and resources to support the work. Increasingly, research is rewarded given
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the promise of self-financial support for faculty through grants and contracts to support initiatives. For community engagement to be integrated into the fabric of faculty and institutional life, it must be rewarded as part of what faculty do in their classrooms, in their research, and in their outreach and connection to different communities.
Cross-References ▶ Civic Engagement ▶ Community Partnership ▶ Factors Influencing Scientists’ Public Engagement ▶ Public Engagement ▶ Public Engagement Measurement
References Bender, Thomas. 1988. The University and the city: From medieval origins to the present. New York: Oxford University Press on Demand. Boyer, Ernest L. 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Lawrenceville: Princeton University Press. Gibbons, Michael. 1999. Science’s new social contract with society. Nature 402: C81–C84. Hartley, Matthew, and Ted Huddleston. 2010. Schoolcommunity-university partnerships for a sustainable democracy: Education for democratic citizenship in Europe and the United States of America. Moore, Tami, Jocey Quinn, and Lorilee Sandmann. 2009. A comparative analysis of knowledge construction in community engagement. Paper presented at the international conference on lifelong learning revisited. Centre for Research on Lifelong, University of Stirling, Scotland, June 2009. Morton, Keith. 1995. The irony of service: Charity, project and social change in service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 2 (1): 19–32. Mugabi, Henry. 2015. Institutionalization of community engagement at African universities. International Higher Education 81: 21–23. Sandmann, Lorilee R. 2008. Conceptualization of the scholarship of engagement in higher education: A strategic review, 1996–2006. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 12 (1): 91–104. Tandon, Rajesh, and Budd Hall. 2012. UNESCO Chair on community based research and social responsibility in higher education, a framework for action 2012–2016. Victoria: University of Victoria. Ward, Kelly. 2003. Faculty service roles and the scholarship of engagement, ASHE-ERIC higher education report. Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Community Partnerships, Higher Education Winter, Alexandra, John Wiseman, and Bruce Muirhead. 2006. University-community engagement in Australia: Practice, policy and public good. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 1 (3): 211–230.
Community Outreach ▶ New Modes of Student Mobility, Work Experience and Service Learning
Community Partnership ▶ Community Partnerships, Higher Education
Community Partnerships, Higher Education David J. Maurrasse Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, New York, NY, USA
Synonyms Anchors institution; Asset-based community development; Collective impact; Community partnership; Institutional collaboration; Placebased initiatives
Definition Collective community ownership and responsibility that is built through collaborations among key stakeholder groups.
Universities as Anchor Institutions: US Case Study Globally, institutions of higher education are increasingly becoming more engaged and active participants in revitalizing their respective
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communities. The Talloires Network is an international coalition of 250 university members in 62 countries – representing a total of six million students (Holden 2012). The secretariat for the Talloires Network is based at Tufts University in the United States, a country where trends continue to show a rise of involvement among these institutions in strengthening local communities. The dynamics that have given rise to deepening the local engagement of universities are universal. An understanding of how institutions of higher education in the United States came to be known as anchor institutions expected to play an expanded role in their local communities and economies can be instructive in the geographical context shaping contemporary universities. As the United States has shifted economically over the last half century, universities and hospitals have become increasingly important assets to American cities. Whereas manufacturing firms, retail business, and other private or public companies were the most significant local employers in many localities and regions, in recent years, institutions of higher education and hospitals tend to be the most substantial local employers. These institutions are often referred to as “anchors” because of their permanence and physical and social ties to surrounding communities (Feldman 2014). The shift from older industries depending on substantial employees with low to moderate technical skills or formal training is a global economic phenomenon. In many cities, anchor institutions are magnets for economic development and urban or rural revitalization. Leading practitioners define anchors as “institutions that consciously and strategically apply their long-term, place-based economic power, in combination with their human and intellectual resources, to better the welfare of the community in which they reside” (Hodges and Dubb 2012). The Anchor Institutions Task Force defines “anchor institutions” as “enduring organizations that play a vital role in their local communities and economies.” Some examples of these institutions include churches, museums, libraries, performing arts facilities, as well as universities and their affiliated hospitals. Anchors have often been referenced as urban, but the notion of enduring
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local institutions transcends various geographical contexts. It is relevant in urban and rural settings, and across national boundaries. All communities experience economic transitions, and some form of capital flight. Anchor institutions are those entities that remain. And institutions of higher education tend to be designed to endure in their geographic settings. Beyond fulfilling their respective missions to educate, heal, cultivate the arts or provide other services, these institutions should also be considered economic engines for their cities (Feldman 2014). Institutions of higher education bring unique missions in this context. Like other anchors, they are employers, they own real estate, and they procure contractual work from firms. But their economic and physical capital rest alongside a particular blend of knowledge and human capital. Higher education-community partnerships have been challenged to harness all of these forms of capital. Not only can colleges and universities provide employment and procurement, they can leverage student volunteers and faculty research. Over recent decades, higher education/ community partnerships have evolved from mostly emphasizing students’ participation in the local community (with the encouragement of organizations such as Campus Compact) to greater recognition of the potential of research to address critical problems facing local communities (with support from entities such as the, now defunct, US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Outreach Partnership Centers program) to more recent efforts to purchase from local businesses and hire locally (as the University of Pennsylvania had pursued significantly, catalyzing similar behavior at other universities and colleges). Now it is much more likely that an effective higher education-community partnership is perceived as a comprehensive endeavor that taps students, faculty, facilities, human resources, and beyond. The field of higher education-community partnerships has influenced a broader discussion about the role of all anchor institutions in their neighborhoods, cities, and regions. A report from the Office of University Partnerships at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) features commentary from Barbara Holland, former
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Director at HUD, highlighting how anchor institutions can impact cities’ “resilience” which it defines as a “quality emerging from specific practices, including efforts focused on educational improvement, initiatives to improve residents’ quality of life and social well-being” (HUD 2013). As communities confront volatility and uncertainty, the stability of anchor institutions is seen as a source of potential strength that can be leveraged and extended to influence greater consistency of opportunity in communities. More recently, colleges, universities, and other anchor institutions have made conscious efforts focused on strengthening their local communities. Some strategies include: payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs), a payment by the anchor to the city in order to offset its tax exempt status; Community Benefit Agreements (CBA), a binding contract between an anchor and community members requiring the anchor to accommodate the interests and provide certain benefits to garner community support for a project; and local procurement of services through locally owned businesses. Albeit not without flaws, the growing popularity of anchor development strategies is a turn toward asset-based economic growth, rooted in the idea that cities and regions must develop human talent and cultural and commercial assets from within (Bartley 2014). While many colleges and universities around the world have come to embrace the idea that community involvement is a key part of their academic mission, it is equally important that institutions commit to engagement with their communities and work in partnership, not independently (Smith 2014). Therefore, given the growing popularity of anchor strategies, and the large public investments flowing to anchors, now is the time to define them in ways that ensure maximum community benefit. However, some institutions that we might categorize as anchors have not always acted as beneficent community partners (Bartley 2014).
US Examples Rutgers University–Newark is one of the three campuses encompassing Rutgers University,
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established in 1766 as the eighth oldest college in the United States. Located in the State of New Jersey, Rutgers–Newark is a diverse, urban, public research university that embraces its role with the community as an anchor institution. For the past 50 years, Rutgers–Newark has looked to expansively recruit talent and to engage urban partners with a plethora of participation endeavors that have had a ripple effect in the city of Newark and beyond. This is consonant with its vision of “Jersey Roots, Global Reach” which, based on its public mission, is fulfilled through engagement in three areas: research, education, and economic development (RBS 2017). As an anchor institution, Rutgers–Newark cannot be seen as “doing things to” or “bringing solutions to” communities in a one-way transaction; there has to be a very broad reach to a wideranging “community of experts” engaged in these partnerships (Cantor 2016). Thus, the University has excelled in establishing significant efforts to promote strong, safe, healthy neighborhoods and support the revitalization of Newark and other urban areas in New Jersey. Most notably, the creation of a department in 2001 focused on strengthening ties with the community – aptly renamed the Office of University-Community Partnerships (OUCP) in 2010 – was created to focus on three integral elements, one of greatest relevance being “community partnerships and engagement.” From this, various institution-wide community engagement initiatives were established. For example, The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CUEED) is dedicated to providing programs aimed at increasing the level of entrepreneurial activity in urban areas. In order to do this, CUEED offers the Entrepreneurship Pioneers Initiative (EPI) which provides firstgeneration entrepreneurs who have established businesses with training, individual counseling, peer counseling, and networking opportunities (OUCP 2013). Rutgers–Newark has formed very inclusive collaborations with numerous stakeholders to achieve many of its initiatives. One such example can be seen with the Rutgers Institute for Ethical Leadership which collaborates with nonprofits, local businesses, government entities, and
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university staff to bring together leaders within the community to engage in conferences, speaker series, and customized training and leadership development programs which serve to advance ethical leadership and strengthen civil society (OUCP 2013). The services include critical, long-term education and training on an individual level to nonprofit leaders from the mid-level to the executive. Wishing to tackle the challenges facing the local community in regards to cultivating programs in creative, visual, and performing arts, Rutgers–Newark began looking at specific factors and developing initiatives accordingly. These initiatives include: A Dance Symposium Series which partners with numerous local institutions to present performances by a broad array of artists, educational workshops, and access to these programs free of charge to a public audience; The Gallery at the John Cotton Dana Library exhibits displays from featured artists based in the greater Newark area; and additionally, the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School (HoLa) is an elementary school where Rutgers students fluent in Spanish serve as teaching interns and later receive credit within the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies (OUCP 2013). In all its endeavors, the aim of Rutgers–Newark is to co-create interventions on the ground with as much weight given to those who live the issues day to day as to those who teach it or research it (Cantor 2016). When the Health, Education, Advocacy, and Law (H.E.A.L.) collaborative, for example, works with medical students and residents in training programs at the intersection of poverty, health, and disability advocacy, they do so by deeply engaging community and patient groups in the problem-definition and intervention-treatment process, as well engaging State legislators and the legal community in writing progressive policies to strengthen client rights (Cantor 2016). Recently, under Rutgers 2014 Strategic Plan, there has been a greater focus on increasing local procurement. In fiscal year 2015, local procurement was 21.26% of Rutgers overall procurement spends (Rutgers 2017). In fiscal year 2016, it was, 24.45%, showing an increase of 15% (Rutgers 2017). Rutgers–Newark now is among a leading
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group of anchors focused on increasing local procurement. In this endeavor, Rutgers greatest challenge had been finding local vendors who have the capacity to produce the volume and/or quality of products/services that the university may need. Another challenge was making their local procurement priority better understood and embraced by their system-level organization. The motivation from the strategic plan continued into its emphasis on local hiring. In the fall of 2015, 170 employees of Rutgers–Newark were residents of Newark, whereas in the fall of 2016, that grew to 181 employees, a 6.5% increase (Rutgers 2017). To accomplish this, their human resources office had been working intensively with local organizations to increase local hiring for staff positions. Since the start of these initiatives, Rutgers– Newark continues to extend their outreach locally and consider ways to build capacity among local residents and businesses. Many anchors, understanding that their fates are closely tied to the health and well-being of the surrounding neighborhood and city, have devised broad development strategies that extend beyond their campuses in order to counter challenges such as those tackled by Rutgers–Newark (Ehlenz and Birch 2014). A successful example of other similar strategies is unfolding in Cleveland, Ohio, where the Cleveland Clinic, Case Western, the Cleveland Foundation, and other leading institutions have built an innovative partnership in the Greater University Circle district, called the Greater University Circle Initiative. One highly innovative feature of the Cleveland strategy began with a thorough analysis of the anchor institutions’ procurement policies, which revealed that some services, such as laundry and food service, could be re-localized in a way that generated new entrepreneurial opportunities. Thus, the Cleveland project leaders took the unorthodox step of seeding the Evergreen Cooperatives, a network of worker-owned cooperatives that now grow produce and provide industrial laundry services (Bartley 2014). For anchor institutions lodged in urban areas, engaging with and investing in local communities
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and businesses is in their best interest. A growing, thriving community also means a strengthened institution and vice versa. As a rule, how partnerships work should depend on the needs of the parties involved. Portland State University (PSU), for example, prioritized and tailored the university needs with specific types of partnerships based on the reciprocal needs of the community. At nearly 30,000 students, PSU has grown to become the largest public university in Oregon, yet because of limited resources in the state, its growth has been marked by partnerships – with the city and county, major local businesses, the local school system, the Oregon Health & Science University, and, in an area where bikes and rails rule, the local transit agencies (Carlson 2013). One of their latest deals involving several of those entities is a tax-increment-financing arrangement that will yield $169 million to redevelop some dilapidated and underutilized blocks in Portland State’s neighborhood over the next few decades. While the university gets some new and renovated buildings out of the deal, the city sees it as an opportunity for more development and jobs to serve an institution expected to grow to 50,000 students by 2035 (Carlson 2013). Another quickly growing institution which has recognized the importance of addressing community issues is the University of Pennsylvania where new departments were created including the Office of Government, Community, and Public Affairs and the Center for Community Partnerships (Now called the Netter Center for Community Partnerships). Routine violence in West Philadelphia between 1994 and 1996 brought about numerous robberies as well as the shooting and stabbing deaths of a student and faculty member and eventually led to the West Philadelphia Initiatives. These initiatives were a university-led, multipronged approach to restore and revitalize the neighborhood, as well as the campus and specifically sought to simultaneously address five critical areas: safety, housing, commercial and real estate development, economic development, and education (Harkavy et al. 2014). It involved significant cooperation among university, community, business, and government partners.
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Modeling after a similar strategy from the University of Pennsylvania, Northeastern University in Boston also took action by significantly increasing its local contracts for goods and services. The District City Councilor, Tito Jackson noted that he “wanted the growth of the university to mean something” to the constituents he served and so encouraged Northeastern to also set aside $2.5 million to seed an economic development fund that would allow local businesses to expand (Ross 2013). Roxbury-based Next Street Financial provided the technical assistance and is also identifying additional investments to grow the fund to $8 million. This will allow businesses to access funds to meet the demands of these additional contracts, such as more catering jobs on Northeastern’s growing campus. It will ultimately lead to the hiring of more local residents and increased revenue for more small businesses (Ross 2013).
Results: A Need for Transformation While PSU and Northeastern had impactful approaches, not all anchor strategies are as effective. There are countless examples of institutions that, despite having the best intentions, have found working with and for the benefit of their communities challenging. Anchors are inherently bureaucratic institutions with many layers of decision-making and leadership which lends itself to an inability to make timely, efficient policies. Further complicating matters, the best interests of an institution are not always aligned with the needs of the communities that surround them (Feldman 2014). Judith Rodin, former President of the University of Pennsylvania, candidly stated, “There were many times in which faculty legitimately said to me. . .: ‘Why are you building a supermarket? We need five more positions in the English Department.’ And that is a very real and very honest tension within” (Chan 2007). Matching the anchor and city’s mission is the challenge for engaging anchors in urban revitalization. At times, anchor leaders can find themselves unprepared or ill-equipped to think
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beyond their immediate needs. But successful partnerships in Boston and Portland prove that anchor strategies hold transformative potential when designed and executed properly – that is to say, when they are comprehensive, placebased, and institutionally embedded (Feldman 2014).
Future Directions Moving forward anchors should be intentional about generating shared university-community value and identifying opportunities to align university missions with those of other anchor institutions, government entities, and other community stakeholders (Ehlenz and Birch 2014).In other words, university-community engagement needs to be institutionalized and/or serve to advance the institutional mission. This will not only prevent impediments and loss of information from potential staff turnover, but also allow for community organizations to build lasting relationships. More importantly, institutionally embedded local engagement strategies ensure that goals are communicated and internalized across every institutional function by strong, results-oriented leadership. It is only when the academic programs, administrative units, facilities management personnel and governing boards are all working toward these collective goals that an anchor strategy will take root and bolster the surrounding community (Feldman 2014). Thus the key individuals who make community engagement happen are actively involved. With this in mind, there are other practices which would enable institutions to continue strengthening local neighborhoods and successfully engage with their communities. Institutions of higher education and their surrounding communities share mutual interests. The potential to identify mutually beneficial opportunities can drive collaboration between institutions of higher education and community partners. Additionally, the university-community relationship needs to be collaborative, not transactional (Smith 2014). This means the sharing of purpose and resources. Unfortunately, this also means acknowledging
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that CBAs and PILOTs can be flawed in their processes and can be admissions of failure to engage (Chan 2007). For example, CBAs may inevitably help certain people while leaving out others and on the other hand, the harvesting of PILOTs may not interrupt poverty, create jobs, or build wealth but instead result in adversarial relationships. For growth to occur, the city should offer credit for programs such as local business contracting and investment and additionally incentivize anchor investment through loan guarantees for community development funds (Democracy Collaborative 2014). These initiatives will help communities to grow alongside the institutions they surround. It is not only in the best interest of neighbors, but it will ultimately lead to stronger institutions as well (Ross 2013). Challenges facing higher education-community partnerships over the years include the ability to sustain, finance, and measure the results of these collaborative efforts. The increasing number of participants in these partnerships has led to the expansion of associations designed to help representatives in this field address some of these challenges. The Coalition on Urban Serving Universities, the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities, and the Anchor Institutions Task Force are examples of these types of formations. These partnerships have increasingly been challenged to demonstrate the results of their efforts. And many have concluded that demonstrable change requires institutions of higher education to work with other colleges and universities, other anchor institutions, philanthropy, government, and other significant local and regional partners in their external pursuits in the community. The Greater University Circle Initiative in Cleveland is one example of such an effort. But it reflects a growing trend in the field. The CASE initiative in Chicago, the Central Corridor Partnership in Minneapolis, and PHENND in Philadelphia all represent formations in which multiple anchors in a locality or region have combined resources to target priority needs in their geographical areas.
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Cross-References ▶ Civic Engagement ▶ Cross-Sector Collaboration
References Bartley, Aaron. 2014. The rise of the anchor institution: Setting standards for success. The Blog, “Business”. HuffPost. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aar on-bartley/the-rise-of-the-anchor-in_b_4589224.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2017. Cantor, Nancy. 2016. Anchor institutions and urban inequality. Rutgers University-Newark, Global Urban Futures Conference Speech. http://newark.rutgers.edu/ files/global-urban-future-conference-april-2016-ncant or.pdf. Carlson, Scott. 2013. Portland State U. Ties its fortunes to those of its Quirky City. The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Portland-StateU-Ties-Its/142881/. Accessed 11 Jan 2017. Chan, Sewell. 2007. When the Gown Devours the Town. City Room Blog: The New York Times. https://city room.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/when-the-gowndevours-the-town/?_r¼0. Accessed 27 Dec 2016. Democracy Collaborative. 2014. Policies for community wealth building: Leveraging state and local resources. The democracy collaborative. http://democracycollabo rative.org/sites/clone.communitywealth.org/files/down loads/PoliciesForCommunityWealthBuilding-Septemb er2014-final.pdf. Accessed 11 Jan 2017. Ehlenz, Meagan M., and Eugénie L. Birch. 2014. The power of Eds & Meds: Urban Universities investing in neighborhood revitalization & innovation districts. Philadelphia: Penn Institute for Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania. http://penniur.upenn.ed u/uploads/media/Anchor-Institutions-PRAI-2014.pdf. Accessed 27 Dec 2016. Feldman, Alex. 2014. More collaboration is better and other secrets of a successful Town-Gown relationship. Next City. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/universitiescommunity-successful-town-gown-relationships. Accessed 11 Jan 2017. Harkavy, Ira, Matthew Hartley, Rita A. Hodges, Anthony Sorrentino, and Joann Weeks. 2014. “Effective governance of a University as an Anchor Institution: University of Pennsylvania as a Case Study.” D 1-3. In Supplemental volume 2014-02, leadership and governance in higher education: Handbook for decisionmakers and administrators. Berlin: Raabe Academic Publishers. https://www.nettercenter.upenn.edu/sites/ netter_internal/files/Effective_Governance_of_a_Univer sity_as_an_Anchor_Institution-Raabe_Publishers.pdf. Hodges, R.A., and S. Dubb. 2012. The road half traveled: University engagement at a crossroads. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. 237pp.
Comparative Research, Higher Education Holden, Elisabeth. 2012. Anchor institutions and community revitalization: International dimensions of anchor institutions. Tufts University Blog. http://sites.tufts. edu/anchorinstitutions/. Accessed 18 Mar 2017. HUD, Office of University Partnerships. 2013. Building resiliency: The role of anchor institutions in sustaining community economic development. A report for HUD. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. http://www.huduser.org/por tal/publications/pdf/AnchorInstitutions.pdf. Accessed 18 Jan 2017. OUCP, Office of University-Community Partnerships. 2013. Community engagement at Rutgers-Newark: Building community together. Rutgers University – Newark. http://oucp.newark.rutgers.edu/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/Rutgers_Partners_Book_v19_09.06. 13_SINGLES.pdf. RBS, Rutgers Business School. 2017. About CUEED. Rutgers Business School, Newark and New Brunswick. http://www.business.rutgers.edu/cueed/about. Accessed 2 June 2017. Ross, Mike. 2013. Seeding University Communities. The Boston Globe. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/ 2013/12/23/seeding-universityneighborhoods/y6qK9d zVXoen3gIkZEoljP/story.html#. Accessed 27 Dec 2016. Rutgers. 2017. Where opportunity meets excellence: Strategic Plan 2014, Spring 2017 Update. Rutgers University – Newark. http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/sites/ default/files/ru-n_strategic_plan_update_spring_2017_ w-appendices.pdf. Smith, Sandy. 2014. University-Community engagement is a two-way street. Next City. http://nextcity.org/daily/ entry/university-community-engagement-eds-meds-an chors-cities. Accessed 27 Dec 2016.
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Comparative Analysis of Systems of Higher Education ▶ Varieties of Capitalism in Higher Education
C Comparative Research, Higher Education Anna Kosmützky International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Synonyms Cross-cultural research; Cross-national research; Intercultural research; International comparative research
Definition Within higher education, the catch-all term “comparative research” typically denotes inter- or cross-national or inter- or cross-cultural comparative research. For an overall terminology, this type of research is defined here as empirical research that collects data and/or carries out observations across national, geographical, and cultural boundaries in at least two of such entities, and systematically relates those entities in a comparative analysis.
Community-Based Learning
Core Characteristics
▶ Civic Engagement in Higher Education
Typically, studies that compare research objects in two or more social entities are seen as the “truly” or “genuinely” comparative studies. Comparative research can, however, also be comparative over time as well as cross-sectional. In fact, many studies are comparative without being internationally comparative in nature. They compare, for example, organizations within one higher
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education system, groups of students, types of higher education institutions, academic disciplines, or developments in different time periods. These types of comparative studies share essentially the same comparative logic: the combined and simultaneous observation of similarities and differences. Moreover, the same process of data collection and data analysis is carried out within a number of analytical units that are systematically compared. However, only international comparative studies collect data in different macro-social units (countries, cultures, systems, etc.). Furthermore, international comparative studies usually proceed simultaneously on at least two levels. Whereas the analysis proceeds at one or two within-system levels – the meso-level, e.g., higher education organizations, university boards or decision structures or the micro-level, e.g., academics at work, student experiences or curricula (Teichler 1996; Musselin 2000; Bleiklie 2014) – the explanation is usually situated at the macro-level (Ragin 1987; Hantrais 2009; Smelser 2013). Similarly, the comparative analysis of national higher education systems can be conceptualized as part of a larger or supra-level system, e.g., the European Union. Comparative studies also belong to a larger family of international, and global or transnational studies in higher education. Single-country studies are commonly included in this family, because they can contribute to the comparativist’s knowledge base through their country-specific analyses (e.g., Kogan 1996; Bleiklie 2014), particularly when they are published together with other single-country studies (e.g., under the umbrella of a comparative framework) in an anthology or joint report. Studies that compare units on a spatial scale below the country level, e.g., analyses of different (federal) states or regions of a country, are considered by some scholars to also belong to the comparative family and have been labeled as “home comparison.” Also, global and transnational higher education studies, which investigate transnational and world-spanning phenomena (and, e.g., focus on transnational or cross-border higher education), are part of the family (▶ Transnational Education (TNE)), although heir conceptual frameworks are usually not
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defined in terms of geographical boundaries. But they contribute to the comparativist’s knowledge base and belong to the family because they typically focus on international or cross-national diffusion processes. Such studies often consider themselves as an alternative to international comparative research and are explicitly formulated as a critique of its conditions (the autonomy of nations, cultures, or societies) and approaches (highlighting cultural specificities of countries) (Kosmützky 2015). Similarly, international higher education research, which is any research on international phenomena in and international properties of higher education (e.g., that focuses on international activities, developments, and movements) and encompasses studies without a comparative approach (Kuzhabekova et al. 2015), is a sibling of comparative research. However, only international comparative research is interested in identifying similarities and differences among different macro-social units (countries, cultures, etc.) and only this type of research typically deals with international comparative data and analysis (but, admittedly, there is a lot of overlap between the types belonging to family empirically). Comparative research is not a method by itself but utilizes established methods of quantitative and qualitative empirical social research and can therefore be described as a meta-method (Schriewer 2009). Based on previous typologies, Bleiklie (2014) has distinguished five approaches to international comparative higher education research: (1) single-country studies, (2) juxtapositions of two or few countries, (3) thematic comparisons, (4) identifying causal regularities, and (5) analyses on the basis of grand theories. To this typology one could add comparative studies with a focus on global and transnational developments and respective interrelations. Furthermore, international comparative studies differ with regard to the number of macro-social units that are included in the analysis: from small-N country comparisons that, e.g., include two or three countries to large-N studies that, e.g., include all 27 OECD countries or more countries worldwide. Another distinction of research approaches can be made between the individualizing and case-centered, ideographic comparative approach, which
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typically utilizes qualitative research methods, and the generalizing and variable-centered, nomothetic approach, which typically applies quantitative methods (Reale 2014; Välimaa and Nokkala 2014). There is a broad consensus that international comparative research has many benefits. International comparative perspectives are important in order to deconstruct narrow and often parochial national perspectives by illuminating intriguing differences and similarities among higher education systems, practices, and policies throughout the world. They provide the opportunity to reflect upon phenomena within a higher education system through the lens of other systems. Based on similarities and differences, international comparisons might also make more general patterns and regularities of phenomena visible on which theoretical assumptions can be built. By providing a picture of what happens/occurs elsewhere in the world, international comparative studies also foster the analysis of the growing international and global dimension of higher education (Teichler 2014). However, comparative research also has a particularly challenging and complex research design with an additional methodological dimension compared to noncomparative research. What makes international comparisons more challenging methodologically is, first, the comparative intellectual operation: the assertion of a (partial) sameness and simultaneous difference of research objects. Second, this research design is more complex methodologically because the analysis usually proceeds simultaneously on at least two levels (as mentioned above). Moreover, international comparative research is practically more complex and complicated. In practice, data is collected and compared in different (national, cultural, etc.) contexts and the data (and findings) have to capture both the peculiarities of all cases that are compared, while still being comparable (Kosmützky 2016).
Historical Roots Comparative research is historically rooted in the birth of modern disciplinary science of the late
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nineteenth century. Its emergence coincides with the intensification of cultural contacts and cultural comparison in European modernity and in the era of nation-states. The comparative methodology of the natural sciences, e.g., the classifications of comparative botany, zoology, paleontology, and anatomy, became a model for comparisons in the humanities and the later emerging social sciences. Scholars at that time believed that through exact description, surveying, and systematic classification, comparative social science research could become equivalent to the natural sciences experiment with the underlying notion of implementing a methodology as rigorous and precise as that of real experiments. Thus, international comparison has been labeled as quasi-experimental (Schriewer 2009). Based on this notion, comparative studies in the social sciences and humanities prospered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and comparative subdisciplines emerged within several humanities and social science disciplines (e.g., comparative politics, comparative education, comparative sociology, comparative economics, comparative anthropology, comparative psychology, comparative history). These subdisciplines were typically grounded in the work of the founding fathers of those disciplines (e.g., John Stuart Mills in politics, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber in sociology, Marc Antoine Jullien in education, Claude Levi-Strauss in anthropology, Alexis de Tocqueville in history). Their epistemic and methodological approaches to comparisons, as well as their preferred methods, have differed and still differ considerably (Schriewer 2009). Today, we still see a prevalence of nomothetic comparative approaches in comparative administration and politics and a tendency toward ideographic comparative approaches in comparative education. Because the interdisciplinary field of higher education comprises all of the abovementioned disciplines, comparative higher education research draws on all of these comparative traditions. Although comparative higher education research has systematically developed only from the 1960s onward, comparisons of higher education and higher education systems in the form of
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field reports and travel reports date back to the nineteenth century. As Jarausch (1985) points out there were numerous such reports, also sometimes published in scientific journals. A further step in the (pre-)history of international comparative higher education research is marked by Flexner’s book Universities: American, English, German, first published in the late 1930s (Flexner [1939] 1994). “Universities differ in different countries” was the starting point for his idiographic studies on the idea of a modern university in which he analyzes similarities and differences between the character and characteristics of the university in the three countries (ibid, 4).
Institutional Development Within and along with the field of higher education research, comparative research has developed continuously from the 1960s onward and has played an important role for its evolution (Teichler 1996). During the 1970s, following the first wave of university expansion in different countries, higher education research became an institutionalized field of studies in various countries around the world. Simultaneously, international comparative higher education research developed from descriptions of peculiarities and characteristics of national higher education systems to systematic analyses driven by concepts and variables and often included international networking (Jarausch 1985; Teichler 2000). Burton R. Clark was one of the pioneers of international comparative higher education research. He made international comparative research central to his research program to overcome parochial national perspectives. His seminal triangle of coordination (state – market – academic oligarchy) is based on an international comparative investigation of academic organization and governance (Clark 1983). Early initiatives for international networking within the emerging international higher education research community were stimulated by his “Comparative Higher Education Research Group” at the University of California, Los Angeles (Teichler 2000). Such networking initiatives were joined by larger ones, inside and outside the USA, until the end of
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the 1980s and early 1990s. They have led to several newly founded associations for higher education research, which explicitly devote themselves to the promotion of international comparative research. Examples are the European “Consortium of Higher Education Researchers” (CHER) (see ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers) (founded in 1988) and the Standing “Committee on International Higher Education” (CIHE) (founded in 1990) of the “Association for the Study of Higher Education” (ASHE) (see ▶ Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)). During the 1980s and 1990s, a growing awareness of national divergences and international convergences at different levels of higher education (policies and governance, institutional and organizational setting, learning and teaching, etc.) stimulated an interest in international comparative higher education research. Because of its focus on differences and similarities among national higher education systems, international comparative higher education research enjoyed a high reputation in policy advice and considerable attention by higher education policy makers. Supranational organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the World Bank; United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); and the European Union (EU) have played a major role in increasing the interest in comparative perspectives of national higher education systems (see ▶ Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research and ▶ Role of the World Bank Group in the Field of Higher Education Research). A plethora of comparative studies on higher education themes have been commissioned since the end of the 1980s, especially by these supranational organizations (Teichler 1996, 2014). Thus, higher education research in general, but comparative higher education research in particular, has been highly influenced by policy contexts from the very beginning. An additional growth of comparative higher education research from the mid-1990s onward has been spurred by the further (global) expansion of higher education systems, the establishment of a European higher education and research area, and comprehensive higher education
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reforms in many countries around the world. In Europe, particularly the Bologna Process and the reorganization of higher education governance, management, and funding stimulated comparative higher education research. Up to the 1990s, a so-called safari approach of comparative research had been pursued, which means that national research teams ventured into foreign countries to collect and analyze international data (Hantrais 2009). From the 1990s onward, international research teams with scholars from different countries and international research networks have become a more common mode of comparative research – in higher education research and beyond (Teichler 2014). International collaborative research is growing in popularity and its proliferation is driven by interrelated push and pull tendencies. The growth of collaborative comparative research has been pulled, e.g., by the aim to build international databases and work with internationally comparable data, and it has been pushed, e.g., by funding agencies and funding programs both at the national and supranational level, particularly by the European Union (Slipersæter and Aksnes 2008). But the move toward international team research also mirrors the internationalization and globalization of society itself. Furthermore, costeffective and fast worldwide travel opportunities, as well as new information and communication technologies (ICT), allow research teams that are geographically spread over continents and time zones to work together. However, the proportion of collaborative comparative higher education research cannot be quantified easily. Recent bibliometric studies, which offer at least a partial indicator, have shown for comparative higher education research that the proportion of international coauthored articles is already nearly twice as large compared to noncomparative higher education research (Kosmützky and Krücken 2014).
Current State Today, comparative research is one of the key methodologies in higher education research (Tight 2012) and has become a growing type of research in recent years. As bibliometric studies
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show, international comparative higher education research has been a small but steady research area since the 1990s. Journal articles that report results of international comparative research account for around 10% of the articles in international journals with an increase to 15% from 2004 onward (Kosmützky and Krücken 2014). International comparative research takes place in many different institutional settings: in university departments and research centers, in extramural research institutions, in private foundations and nonprofit institutions, in units for institutional research and development, etc. In a survey among 146 higher education research facilities around the world conducted for a “Worldwide Inventory,” more than 40% responded that international comparative and international higher education research is one of their five most important research areas (Rumbley et al. 2014). As Teichler pointed out at the end of the 1990s, higher education research has so far “not entered into the methodological debates on questions of comparison” (Teichler 1997, 164, translation A.K.). Methodological reflections of comparative research have taken place here and there since then, e.g., in final book publications of comparative research projects, which do not form a visible and coherent methodological discourse. More visible, but still sporadic, were special issues of one of the field’s major journals, “Higher Education” (▶ Higher Education Journals), devoted to comparative higher education research, which were published in 1996, 2000, and 2014. These special issues provide important reflections on methodological aspects and the challenges in the application of certain theories and methods (see for an overview of their topics: Kosmützky and Nokkala 2014). Another important resource and contribution to the development of international comparative higher education research are encyclopedias (like this one) which provide an overview of developments in different national higher education systems. Moreover, the book series “Theory and Method in Higher Education Research” (edited by Malcolm Tight and Jeroen Huisman) contributes to the methodological discussion of comparative higher education research. Furthermore, since 2008 the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) (founded in 1956) has a “Higher Education Special Interest
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Group” (HESIG) which provides a platform for dialogue on comparative and international higher education. Nevertheless, one can still agree with Teichler’s statement above, because methodological issues are still not being discussed actively and consistently and there is no codified knowledge base within the field, e.g., in the form of a handbook of comparative higher education research that comprises some ground rules and quality criteria. As a result, researchers engaged in comparative higher education research have to “re-invent the wheel” regarding methodological aspects and the application of methods in comparative contexts.
Future Challenges Three kinds of challenges have emerged in international comparative higher education research in recent years and are key to its development (see for a discussion: Kosmützky and Nokkala 2014): First, comparative research – in higher education and beyond – has to deal with the accusation of its methodological nationalism. The main point of this accusation can be summarized very briefly as follows: comparative research conceptualizes its macro-social units of comparison as closed “containers” or “boxes” and examines them isolated from larger contexts and, thus, contributes to unequal power relations. However, social conditions cannot be reduced (anymore) to forces within national “containers” because processes outside the “national container” are increasingly influential (e.g., through supranational organizations). Methodological nationalism can manifest itself in research questions and designs, theories, objects of investigation, as well as data collection and analysis (Shahjahan and Kezar 2013). Thus, comparative higher education research should become conceptually and methodologically more reflective and should expand its analytical scope toward new and emergent global and transnational realities in higher education and try to balance between national and global and transnational accounts in their research frameworks to avoid a methodological nationalism (Kosmützky 2015).
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Second, as mentioned above, international comparative research is seen as a promising approach in making sense of the complexities of higher education and the more and more globalized higher education world. At the same time, however, it is methodologically complex and practically complicated research. Comparative research projects often fail to achieve an actual comparison and merely result in a collection of mostly unconnected country cases or descriptions of similarities and differences without generalizations or explanations. Thus, the additional dimension of comparative methodology and the advancement of methods of data collection and data analysis utilized in comparative research – whether it is mixed-method approaches, advanced statistical techniques, or new data sources and ways of data collection – require more attention from scholars in the field. The intensification of the discussion at conferences, in journals, and with regard to Ph.D. education is desirable in order to develop some ground rules and quality criteria of comparative research within the field (Antonucci 2013; Kosmützky 2016). Third, as comparative collaborative research is growing in higher education research, it is very likely that many researchers will find themselves participating in (or maybe as principal investigator in charge of) an international collaborative team at some point in their careers. Thus, practical constraints and challenges related to international collaborative team research, e.g., its task-related complexity and social team diversity, need to be reflected more within the field. The social diversity of the international team members is a “two-sided medal” that can positively influence as well as hinder the comparative research process. On the one hand, the multiple perspectives and detailed contextual knowledge of the countries under investigation among the diverse team members make rigorous comparative research possible. On the other hand, the (cultural, academic, methodical, disciplinary, etc.) diversity of the team members increases social complexity and makes it more difficult to achieve shared perspectives and methodological precision (Brew et al. 2013; Kosmützky 2017). Thus, it is crucial to intensify the debate about the characteristics that contribute to a research team’s success (or failure) as the collaborative mode of research increases.
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The interdisciplinary field of higher education research itself may be too small to develop into a comparative subdiscipline (Teichler 2014), but an intensification of the discussion of epistemological, methodological, and practical questions (especially with regard to aspects of collaboration in international team research) seems essential for the future development of comparative higher education research. Due to its interdisciplinarity, higher education research is predestined to carry out a methodological reflection in dialogue with the comparative subdisciplines of its source disciplines (e.g., comparative education, comparative politics, comparative sociology) and other comparative research fields.
Cross-References ▶ Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Transnational Education (TNE) ▶ Role of the World Bank Group in the Field of Higher Education Research ▶ Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research
References Antonucci, Lorenza. 2013. Comparative research in higher education studies: Considering the different levels of comparison and emerging methodological challenges. In Theory and method in higher education research, ed. Jeroen Huisman and Malcolm Tight, vol. 9, 1–19. Bingley: Emerald. Bleiklie, Ivar. 2014. Comparing university organizations across boundaries. Higher Education 67 (4): 381–391. Brew A, Boud D, Lucas L, and Crawford K (2013). Reflexive Deliberation in International Research Collaboration: Minimising Risk and Maximising Opportunity. Higher Education, 66(1), 93–104. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10734-012-9592-6 Clark, Burton R. 1983. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Flexner, Abraham. 1994. Universities: American, English, German. Foundations of higher education. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
223 Hantrais, Linda. 2009. International comparative research: Theory, methods and practice. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jarausch, Konrad H. 1985. Comparing higher education – Historically? History of Education Quarterly 25 (1/2): 241–252. Kogan, Maurice. 1996. Comparing higher education systems. Higher Education 32: 395–402. Kosmützky, Anna. 2015. In defense of international comparative studies. On the analytical and explanatory power of the nation-state in international comparative higher education research. European Journal of Higher Education 5 (4): 354–370. Kosmützky, Anna. 2016. The precision and rigor of international comparative studies in higher education. In Theory and method in higher education, ed. Jeroen Huisman and Malcom Tight, 199–221. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Kosmützky, Anna. 2017. A two-sided medal. On the complexity of international comparative and collaborative team research. Higher Education Quarterly. https://doi. org/10.1111/hequ.12156 Kosmützky, Anna, and Georg Krücken. 2014. Growth or steady state? A bibliometric focus on international comparative higher education research. Higher Education 67 (4): 457–472. Kosmützky, Anna, and Terhi Nokkala. 2014. Challenges and trends in comparative higher education: Editorial. Higher Education 67 (4): 369–380. Kuzhabekova, Aliya, Darwin D. Hendel, and David W. Chapman. 2015. Mapping global research on international higher education. Research in Higher Education 56 (8): 861–882. Musselin, Christine. 2000. Do we compare societies when we compare national university systems. In Embedding organizations societal analysis of actors, organizations, and socio-economic context, ed. Marc Maurice and Arndt Sorge, 295–309. Amsterdam/Great Britain: John Benjamins. Ragin, Charles C. 1987. Comparative method: Moving beyond qualitative and quantitative strategies. Berkeley: University of California. Reale, Emanuela. 2014. Challenges in higher education research: The use of quantitative tools in comparative analyses. Higher Education 67 (4): 409–422. Rumbley, Laura, Philip G. Altbach, David A. Stanfield, and Ariane de Gayardon. 2014. A global inventory of research, training and publication in the field of higher education: Growth, diversity, disparity. In Higher education: A worldwide inventory of research centers, academic programs, and journals and publications, ed. Laura Rumbley, Philip G. Altbach, and David A. Stanfield, 23–33. Bonn/ Berlin/New York: Lemmens. Schriewer, Jürgen. 2009. Comparative education methodology in transition: Towards a science of complexity. In Discourse formation in comparative education, Comparative Studies Series, ed. Jürgen Schriewer, vol. 10, 3rd ed., 3–53. Frankfurt (am Main): Lang. Shahjahan, Ryad A., and Adrianna J. Kezar. 2013. Beyond the ‘national container’: Addressing methodological
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224 nationalism in higher education research. Educational Researcher 42 (1): 20–29. Slipersæter, Stig, and Dag W. Aksnes. 2008. The many ways of internationalisation. In Borderless knowledge, ed. Åse Gornitzka and Liv Langfeldt, vol. 22, 13–36. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8283-2_2. Smelser, Neil. 2013. Comparative methods in the social sciences. New Orleans: Quid Pro Books. Teichler, Ulrich. 1996. Comparative higher education: Potentials and limits. Higher Education 32 (4): 431–465. Teichler, Ulrich. 1997. Vergleichende Hochschulforschung. In Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft: Herausforderung, Vermittlung, Praxis; Festschrift für Wolfgang Mitter zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Christoph Kodron and Wolfgang Mitter, 161–172. Köln: Böhlau. Teichler, Ulrich. 2000. Higher education research and its institutional basis. In The institutional basis of higher education research: Experiences and perspectives, ed. Stefanie Schwarz and Ulrich Teichler, 13–24. Dordrecht/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Teichler, Ulrich. 2014. Opportunities and problems of comparative higher education research: The daily life of research. Higher Education 67 (4): 393–408. Tight, Malcolm. 2012. Researching higher education. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Välimaa, Jussi, and Terhi Nokkala. 2014. The dimensions of social dynamics in comparative studies on higher education. Higher Education 67 (4): 423–437.
Competition ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Historical Perspective
Competition in Higher Education Barbara Sporn Institute for Higher Education Management, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria
Definition and Meaning of Competition Classical readings of economics show that competition can be defined as follows: “Competition arises whenever two or more parties strive
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for something that all cannot obtain.” (Stigler 2008). Hence, competition defined an area where rivalry prevails for scarce resources. The historical development of competition is interesting for this contribution. In the beginning, competition was seen as a race for supplies of sellers and buyers. The logic become clear that the greater their number the fiercer their competition. Adam Smith defined resources as the key building block of competition between markets and industries. The major goal was to yield the most return on the resources applied. Later the idea of perfect competition emerged to emphasize the free flow of material, the consumer knowledge of resources, and the elimination of monopoly. Eventually, equilibrium should develop in a market. Schumpeter challenged this view and believed in creative destruction in order to spur change and innovation (Stigler 2008). Overall, competition has been a leading but also weakly defined concept that left enough room for interpretation for many fields. Starting with economics, it entered other (related) areas like business and management studies but also higher education. With the rise of new public management and the view of education systems as markets and institutions as organizations, competition was introduced as a concept in higher education practice (and research). In this area, competition has to be characterized as imperfect as different market rules (e.g., access policies, tuition levels, international regulations) diverge depending on specific types of colleges and universities in a differentiated market. In many systems around the world, HEIs have been facing unequal condition for competition that created challenges and opportunities.
Historic Roots of Competition in Higher Education Three ideas guide the development of competition and markets in higher education: neoliberalism, expansion, the market coordination through globalization. These trends have been more dominant in societies with a high percentage
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of public higher education and state spending. The US and Anglo-American model often served as a role model – sometimes criticized sometimes admired. In general, globalization helped to increase the dynamic of convergence and competition of national higher education systems and institutions (Marginson 2006). The rise of competition dates back to some three decades ago. In the early 1990s, governments around the globe have started to question public spending and the public good in general (Williams 1995). Budget constraints, less tax income, and heightened expectations from the public have led to well-known trends that have dominated the discourse in higher education research, i.e., new public management, the introduction of market principles in the form of academic capitalism, and the emergence of neoliberalism (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). Parallel to that, expansion of systems has been a dominant trend for decades. As Trow (Trow 2000) was describing, higher education went from elite to mass to universal education with rising numbers of students participating. On the one hand, policy reformists applauded this expansion. On the other hand, the financial consequences have been dramatic leading to tightened public budgets for higher education and skyrocketing student tuition fees. Those who contribute to the expansion (in many cases taxpayers) have claimed more accountability and impact from their colleges and universities. Thirdly, market orientation developed through globalization. The technological innovations, which led to the web, social media channels, and universal connectivity, triggered a transparent global market for programs, students and faculty. Mobility increased this dynamic even further and created pressure for national systems and higher education institutions to stay competitive. Student recruitment and faculty hiring have become major market activities of today’s universities. Different markets developed – for students at different levels, for faculty in general, for financial resources, etc. All these have changed the internal dynamic of institutions (Marginson and Rhoades 2002).
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Signs of Competition Competition in higher education created visible signs on at least three levels, i.e., micro, meso, macro. On the micro level of institutions of higher education, a couple of implementations occurred. Requirements for professional institutional leadership emerged as a consequence of competition accompanied by strategic planning and performance management. Universities and colleges started to analyze their organization based on a SWOT method (from consulting using a StrengthWeaknesses and Opportunity and Threat metaphor). The result has often been a revised profile that could be “communicated” to the market in order to attract better students and faculty to stay competitive. Performance in teaching and research started to be managed through incentives, objectives, and goals. The role of impact and employability of students has been key in that process. On the meso level, it is very interesting to observe the creation of so-called buffer organization, boards, and accreditation agencies to look after quality in higher education institutions. New public management offered new models to implement accountability by creating organizations that represent the interest of the “owners” of institutions but in a bipartisan fashion. Boards have become very common and their major role has been to translate market expectations to the universities. Accreditation agencies serve similar purposes as they define certain standards that have to be followed by the same types of institutions (Dill 1997). On the macro level of higher education systems, competition is even fiercer (Gibbons et al. 1994). The rise of the knowledge economy and digitalization led governments to investments in the innovative capacity of their national economies. Naturally, higher education – research and teaching – contribute a great deal to this ambition. Consequently, higher education systems have been assessed for their capacity to perform according to international standards and to be competitive. For that, national profiles of expertise, rankings, and funding mechanisms for public institutions serve as a tool for positioning. The public authorities show a high interest in
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attracting the best researchers and students in order to increase the innovative capacity of any nation. The spillover of university and college performance to the public sphere has become a top priority for many governments especially in Europe. Changes in the governance and funding are highly acceptable as long as visible results are gained.
Results of Competition Higher education through competition has changed its shape fundamentally (Marginson 2006). National borders have become obsolete with globalization leading to a worldwide flow of talent and ideas and universities as well as colleges perform locally, nationally, and internationally. Competition occurs hand-in-hand with cooperation depending on specific subfields. Although there are substantive differences between countries and regions, converging patterns seem to prevail. They effect institutional positioning, the war for talent, differentiation, customer orientation, and privatization. Institutional Positioning: Rankings and Accreditations Some higher education researchers have pointed out that competition led to the view of education as a “positional good” (Marginson 2006) where study places create social opportunities based on a ranking position. The ranking game has been prevalent for many years and offer orientation for young students and their families. At the same time, rankings distort the quality perception of the viewers as they focus merely on understanding of rank rather than a differentiated look at the institution and its offerings. Studies show that students are more impressed by academic prestige rather than measures of program quality. For example, students sometimes ascribe a ranking to institutions that do not really exit (Princeton Law School) but belong to a larger entity. Rankings can influence leadership behavior by designing programs and products according to what is being ranked. Still, although the ranking rat race has been criticized for decades, it still influences
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behavior of institutional managers and policy makers substantially (Hazelkorn 2015). A second sign of positional goods in higher education are accreditations. They are a more sophisticated form of quality assurance and include different areas of consideration. For example, in business schools, they play an important role for competition (see e.g. www.efmd.org). They rate certain areas like internationalization, business contacts, quality management, faculty management, and many more. Overall, the danger of both rankings and accreditation lies in converging – rather than diverging – forms of university and college organization with little consideration of social responsiveness and inclusion (Brown 2010). Faculty Hiring Another important sign of competition in higher education has to do with mobility of talent around the globe. Faculty has become very interested in moving between institutions and that way optimizing position and salary. It has become rather hard for universities to compete in this market especially given the salary differentials depending on certain field. For example, finance are among the best-paid professor worldwide. It is due to this competition for faculty that institutions of higher education have been burdened with extra costs of faculty recruitment (Scott 2009). Customer Orientation The students have been regarded as coproducers and part of the academic community. With more competition and market forces in higher education, a new form of customer orientation evolved. However, this notion has obvious limitations (Jongbloed 2003). Students need to earn their degree, they have less information about the expected outcome, and the value of education cannot be measured through immediate consumption but over a longer period of time. Hence, customer orientation in this context needs to be defined as service orientation of the organization. This implies that universities and colleges need to provide students with all the resources both physically and informationally that are necessary to
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complete a degree. They need special forms of IT (e.g., e-learning, electronic library) and faculty support. Altogether, it is most important to offer an efficient learning environment to students in order to stay competitive. Hence, the market metaphor needs to be adopted to fit well with the idiosyncrasies of higher education. Privatization Another result of competition is privatization (John and Fanghanel 2015). Given the pressure on state budgets for higher education, many reforms especially in Europe introduced private elements in the higher education market in order to meet challenges like access, quality control, finances, and differentiation. In this privatized and competitive market, students often pay high fees that help institutions to survive. Private donors contribute to the university as well and that way offer important support for the institution. A differentiated funding base helps the university or college in exchange to become more independent from one financial flow. An important aspect is the regulation of access as a sign of market forces and competition. Socially, access control puts many constraints on the choice for students. A balanced system that is differentiated regarding institutional types and privatized regarding financial income can make sure that enough students find the education product they desire. This way privatization and social balance can be combined on a national system level.
Dangers of Competition Academic Capitalism As has been pointed out, competition and marketization can cause capitalist behavior on the side of institutions of higher education as well as the overall systems (Teixeira et al. 2006). Three areas are especially affected by competitive forces, i.e., faculty, knowledge, and students. As Slaughter and Rhoades point out: “as colleges and universities become more entrepreneurial in a post-industrial economy, they focus on knowledge less as a public good than as a commodity
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to be capitalized on in profit-oriented activities” (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). These profits are gained by commodifying knowledge that is derived from Mode 2 research (Gibbons et al. 1994) and is being transferred to private industry. Especially, STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) areas are inclined to contribute to company profits and competitive advantage. Universities and colleges invest in these fields through additional resource allocation that often comes at a disadvantage for traditional fields especially in the humanities. Faculty hiring and the growth of administration are other areas under scrutiny. Employment has been shifting from full-time tenure to occasional adjunct appointments that put professors at risk. For institutions of higher education, this has meant more degrees of freedom to finance programs and research areas. At the same time, administrative personnel has been growing in order to cope and manage the increased environmental demands. Altogether, this has eroded the way faculty have been at the center of governance in colleges and universities (Rhoades and Sporn 2002). Cohesion and the Public Good A second danger of competition is the changing mission of institutions of higher education (Kezar et al. 2015). The social role has been disappearing and new forms emerged which promote impact, employability, and education as a commodity. The danger lies in the fact that societal well-being and the advancement of knowledge in society are no longer the driving forces for higher education policy reforms or institutions themselves. With increased competition, the danger exists that universities look more for partnership with industry rather than with society at-large to educate future leaders and provide avant-garde knowledge for societal advancement.
Opportunities of Competition Mobility The competition in higher education has led to a convergent pattern in higher education.
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Programs, faculty roles, student access look a lot more similar. Consequently, mobility increased of both student and faculty. Students are in the position to choose the best program, receive scholarship for studying, and can move freely in many parts of the world. The advantages are job opportunities that go beyond the traditional and national roots. Employers have internationalized as well and can offer jobs globally for students who are willing to move freely. Quality Quality is one of the major drivers of competition. In many countries, market and competitive systems have been introduced in order to improve institutional performance and to position colleges and universities internationally. For this, the prerequisites for success are the major market principles like free information, flow of capital and resources, clear governance structures, and sufficient degree of flexibility with decision-making at the institutional level. Policies of quality reform – especially in publically dominated higher education systems – emphasize the autonomy of institutions in order to meet a competitive market. Necessary instruments include performance contracts, enrollment management and access control, introduction of tuition fees, and the requirement for accreditation. Quality is translated into a continuous improvement effort at the institutional level. The consequence has been that structures and processes are constantly adapted to the need of internal and external constituencies (Dill 1997). Knowledge Transfer and Mode 2 Research Knowledge transfer has been the result of competitive forces in higher education as well. Academic research changed over the last decades and appears in different forms that can mainly be distinguished between Mode 1 and Mode 2. Mode 2 emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches that address a practical problem of society (Gibbons et al. 1994). This can be seen as an opportunity of competition and in this sense, more relevance is the main result of such endeavors.
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This type of research complements other changes in the education sphere and serves five important characteristics: production in the context of application; transdisciplinarity; diversity of sites and types of knowledge; reflexion; and new forms of quality control. Since its foundation in the 1990s, the concept of Mode 2 research and knowledge received much attention. Basically, it has been applauded for being closer to problems and issues modern society are facing. The approach to use different disciplines enables a much more comprehensive coverage of problem solving. The focus on reflexion creates the opportunity to address problems from a differentiated point of view. Taken together, this view of research enables universities and colleges to fulfill the expectation to create impact and stay relevant.
Concluding Remarks Competition in higher education creates market mechanisms that can be useful to improve overall system quality, enhance mobility and exchange and help to contain costs. At the same time, there are dangers of unreflected believe in market forces which need to be observed at all times. These include the freedom of colleges and universities to act on their own behalf, the tuition rise in some countries that make institutions unaffordable, and the changing nature of the good produced. As long as we are able to preserve the nature of a public good and avoid the move to a positional good, competitive forces can help to improve overall system and institutional performance.
References Brown, R., ed. 2010. Higher education and the market. London: Routledge. Dill, David D. 1997. Higher education markets and public policy. Higher Education Policy 10 (3–4): 167–185. Gibbons, M., C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott, and M. Trow. 1994. The new production of
Completion and Retention in Higher Education knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage. Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2015. Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. Springer. John, Peter, and Joёlle Fanghanel, eds. 2015. Dimensions of marketisation in higher education. Routledge. Jongbloed, Ben. 2003. Marketisation in higher education, Clark's triangle and the essential ingredients of markets. Higher Education Quarterly 57 (2): 110–135. Kezar, Adrianna, Anthony C. Chambers, and John C. Burkhardt, eds. 2015. Higher education for the public good: Emerging voices from a national movement. Wiley. Marginson, Simon. 2006. Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education. Higher Education 52 (1): 1–39. Marginson, Simon, and Gary Rhoades. 2002. Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: A glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education 43 (3): 281–309. Rhoades, Gary, and Barbara Sporn. 2002. Quality assurance in Europe and the US: Professional and political economic framing of higher education policy. Higher Education 43 (3): 355–390. Scott, Peter. 2009. Markets and new modes of knowledge production. In The changing face of academic life: Analytical and comparative perspectives, 58–77. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Slaughter, Sheila, and Larry L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Stigler, George J. 2008. In "Competition." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, ed. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume, 2nd ed. Basingstoke. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. 22 November 2017 http://www.dict ionaryofeconomics.com/article?id¼pde2008_C000261: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/97802 30226203.0279. Teixeira, P., B.B. Jongbloed, D.D. Dill, and A. Amaral. 2006. Markets in higher education: Rhetoric or reality? Vol. 6. Dordrecht: Springer. Trow, M. 2000. From mass higher education to universal education: The American advantage. Minerva 37: 1–26. Williams, Gareth L. 1995. The “marketization” of higher education: Reforms and potential reforms in higher education finance. In Emerging patterns of social demand and university reform: Through a glass darkly, 170–193. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
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Completion and Retention in Higher Education Cláudia S. Sarrico ISEG Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Universidade de Lisboa and CIPES Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Lisbon, Portugal
Synonyms Completion and retention measures in higher education are often used by governments and higher education institutions to assess study success, along with related dimensions such as progression, dropout, and time to degree. Definitions Policies and practices by governments and higher education institutions regarding study success often pursue the following objectives: Completion: to have students successfully complete their study program with a degree. Retention: to have students re-enrol in a study program until they complete their degree and to reduce the likelihood they drop out before completing their program; also to have students enroll in another study program of the same institution or transfer to another program in another institution to reduce the likelihood they drop out of higher education altogether. Progression: to have students successfully complete the courses they are enrolled in and progress to the next stage of their degree program. Dropout: to have students not to abandon higher education studies before completing a study program. Time to degree: to have students complete their study program within a reasonable time period. The Concept of Study Success Countries have encouraged growing numbers of people to participate in higher education, from
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traditional age-cohorts to more mature students. Mass participation is common throughout the globe. However higher participation rates do not translate neatly into attainment rates. Students need to complete their degrees for that. Massification brings diversity to the student body, which influences completion and retention (Quinn 2013). Naturally, some students will not be as well prepared or motivated to successfully complete. Institutions will likely need to offer more student support to increase student success. The preoccupation with student success relates to the efficiency of the system, as resources are seen to be wasted on students that do not complete. In addition, an important issue, as participation increases, cost-sharing tends also to increase, and equity issues remain a problem. Albeit conceptually easy to understand, often it is not easy to measure completion and retention. Whereas information on enrolment is commonly available, it is more difficult to identify those that have transferred to another degree program within the same institution, have transferred to another institution, or have abandoned higher education altogether. Completion rates are often calculated by noting the number of students who have successfully completed a program in a given year to the number that started the program at that institution some years before, taking into account the normal duration of the program of study. The problems arise in considering those that do not progress as expected, those that transfer to other programs or other institutions and that were in the initial entering cohort, the basis for the calculations. In addition, drop out can be overestimated if it does not take into account those that leave, but return later on. Another problem arises in systems that allow a lot of flexibility, where students can register for the credits they wish, and where students are allowed to take longer than the standard duration of the program. For these reasons, cross-sectional methods of calculation, which assume constant flows, are being substituted by recent developments in the use of true-cohort methods, which follow the individual student throughout their path in an institution or even a higher education system.
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The most commonly available international data on completion rates in tertiary education is published by the OECD in the Education at a Glance series, based on administrative data collected by countries’ statistical offices (OECD 2017). Another source of data for dropout rates is the OECD Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) survey. Unlike administrative data, PIAAC data is self-reported as drop-out for adults aged 20–54. Rates range from 33% for Italy to 16% for the UK. Self-reported rates are similar to administrative data for most countries, but there are exceptions: some countries have lower self-reported dropout rates. This can be indicative of longer time to degrees, i.e., people have taken longer to graduate, or that they dropout and then return later to complete their degrees (Schnepf 2017). These discrepancies in available data on completion and retention show how difficult it is to have accurate figures on the subject. If students take longer or transfer to other programs and institutions that may artificially inflate their noncompletion rates.
Factors that Affect Study Success Completion and retention can be influenced by a number of factors at the system, institutional, and individual level (Bowles and Brindle 2017). Countries have designed and implemented policies to promote student success at the system level, which have been more or less successful in steering institutional practices that make a difference (European Commission 2015). A lot of the studies on completion and retention come from the USA, where massification happened sooner and the discussion on student success has a longer history (Tinto 1987; Braxton et al. 2004). The issue seems to be less studied in Europe and other regions. Some countries have put in place policies to promote student success, through regulation, funding, information, and organizational
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initiatives to address systemic factors. In other countries, the issue is mostly left to institutions. System Factors Systems are very different in their structure, organization and governance. Many factors can contribute to completion and retention. In some countries, secondary school graduates have the right to enter higher education; others use selection by ability to most or some of their programs. In many countries, there are also alternative pathways to higher education in addition to the traditional secondary education diploma. Students with nontraditional pathways tend to perform less well, for a number of reasons: they may be less prepared, or have work and family commitments. Countries with strong policies on widening access, and improving equity of access, may see completion and retention adversely affected. Support in the choice process of a higher education institution and study program also varies. The capacity of students to change between programs, between institutions, or even subsectors of higher education (for instance between the university and the nonuniversity sector), using credit transfer systems allows the student to reorient their studies along their study paths. This flexibility can promote retention and completion, albeit often at the expense of time to degree. There is mixed evidence on the effect of financial support in completion and retention in higher education. If students do not have financial support they may not participate or, if they do, they may have to work to sustain themselves and/or pay tuition fees and this can negatively impact completion and retention. On the other hand, those that pay to study may have more motivation to complete their degree (OECD 2008). Institutional Factors Institutional factors are paramount to student success, as they directly affect the student experience and outcomes. How good a completion rate is has to do with the difference between expected and observed values (Astin 1997). Some institutions perform better, given their student population than
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others, pointing to institutional characteristics as explanatory factors (Moxley et al. 2001; Thomas 2002). As the diversity of students increases so does the need to increase student support. Measures in this respect can be very diverse and often start upstream higher education, with outreach activities in secondary schools and bridging courses. Once students register in higher education, support measures include remedial courses, summer courses, additional support outside class time by academic staff, or other more advanced students, in terms of mentoring and coaching activities addressing time management and study skills. Another set of institutional measures focus on the social integration of students, for instance by peer mentoring (Collings et al. 2014), especially for first generation students, for whom higher education settings may not be as familiar. These measures seem to be particularly important for first year students and for the successful transition into higher education and progression into the second year of studies. Systematic monitoring of student progress allows institutions to address problems as they arise and prevent them to become obstacles to retention and successful completion. Individual Factors Individual factors that affect study success are numerous, such as socioeconomic background, gender, ethnicity, disability, cognitive competence, motivation, educational pathway, and age. For conventional students, the factors which appear to be of central importance are student preparedness and compatibility of choice of program. In contrast, mature students are often forced into noncompletion because of external circumstances. Factors, such as wrong choice of course or subject, poor preparation, and lack of readiness and commitment, figure prominently in the reasons for noncompletion. These suggest the need for a closer examination of the information, recruitment, and selection processes. A substantial number of students are not well-informed about the nature and demands of the courses for which they apply. The mismatch between student
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expectations and reality is a key cause of problems for retention and progression (Ozga and Sukhnandan 1998).
Policies and Practices to Improve Study Success The available literature has focused more on the factors that affect study success than on the effectiveness of different policies and practices to improve study success. Still some ideas can be summarized (McInnis et al. 2000; Quinn 2013; European Commission 2015). A number of policies can be designed to improve study success. Funding is often a powerful mechanism used at system level. Funding can be targeted at certain groups of students deemed to be at risk, especially those from less privileged backgrounds. Funding can also be targeted at improving teaching and learning, and staff development to develop institutional capability to address a diverse body of students. In addition funding can be used for student financial support, and where that support is dependent on study progress and time to completion. Performancebased funding is increasingly making funding contingent on graduates and credits achieved. Another set of policies focuses on information about programs, and matching students with programs, and having adequate selection mechanisms to increase the preparedness and motivation of students toward the programs. Once students are in their programs, organizational measures, such as monitoring student attendance, progression, and reasons for noncompletion, in parallel to facilitating their social integration, commitment, offering counselling and academic support, are other institutional practices designed to improve retention and completion.
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education itself is not for them, at least at a certain point in their lives. There are examples of successful people that are higher education dropouts. Noncompletion in higher education does not necessarily equate with failure (McInnis et al. 2000). From a lifelong learning approach, the notion of completion and retention has less meaning. Participating in higher education but leaving without a degree may signify the attainment of intended goals, nonetheless, because skills have been obtained and labor outcomes realized, for instance. Many students return to higher education soon after leaving or sometime later, when it makes more sense for their life plan. It is thus necessary to investigate when noncompletion is a serious problem, especially for students from disadvantaged circumstances, and when it is not. Moreover, we need to make sure that the focus on completion, retention, and time to completion do not hamper learning outcomes and learning gain. Indeed, the debate on student success is moving from the emphasis on efficiency – getting more out of the system, towards effectiveness of higher education – making it better, both in terms of the quality of student outcomes and the equity of outcomes. Completion and retention, as well as progression, dropout and time to degree, are dimensions of study success. Other important and increasingly studied dimensions are graduate outcomes in terms of learning outcomes, learning gain, labor market outcomes, and social outcomes, and whether those outcomes are equally distributed among different graduate population groupings. If there are problems in terms of measuring completion and retention, measuring quality and equity of outcomes is even more difficult. However, big data and the use of learning analytics open further avenues in this respect.
Future Directions
Cross-References
Too much of a focus on completion and retention can be harmful. Some people discover that the program of studies they have enrolled in or higher
▶ Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education ▶ First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition
Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education
▶ Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education ▶ Student Retention in Higher Education, a Shared Issue ▶ Students’ Drop Out, Higher Education
References Astin, Alexander W. 1997. How “good” is your institution’s retention rate? Research in Higher Education 38 (6): 647–658. Bowles, Terence V., and Kimberley A. Brindle. 2017. Identifying facilitating factors and barriers to improving student retention rates in tertiary teaching courses: A systematic review. Higher Education Research and Development 36 (5): 1–17. Braxton, John M., Amy S. Hirschy, and Shederick A. McClendon. 2004. Understanding and reducing college student departure: ASHE-ERIC higher education report, volume 30, number 3. San Francisco: Wiley. Collings, Roz, Vivien Swanson, and Ruth Watkins. 2014. The impact of peer mentoring on levels of student wellbeing, integration and retention: A controlled comparative evaluation of residential students in UK higher education. Higher Education 68 (6): 927–942. European Commission. 2015. Dropout and completion in higher education in Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. McInnis, Craig, Robyn Hartley, John Polesel, and Richard Teese. 2000. Non-completion in vocational education and training and higher education. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Moxley, David, Anwar Najor-Durack, and Cecille Dumbrigue. 2001. Keeping students in higher education: Successful practices and strategies for retention. London: Kogan Page. OECD. 2008. Tertiary education for the knowledge society: volume 1 and volume 2. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. 2017. Education at a glance 2017. Paris: OECD Publishing. Ozga, Jenny, and Laura Sukhnandan. 1998. Undergraduate non-completion: Developing an explanatory model. Higher Education Quarterly 52 (3): 316–333. Quinn, Jocey. 2013. Drop-out and completion in higher education in Europe among students from underrepresented groups. Brussels: European Union. Schnepf, Sylke V. 2017. How do tertiary dropouts fare in the labour market? A comparison between EU countries. Higher Education Quarterly 71 (1): 75–96. Thomas, Liz. 2002. Student retention in higher education: The role of institutional habitus. Journal of Education Policy 17 (4): 423–442. Tinto, Vincent. 1987. Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Comprehensive Internationalization ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Emerging Economy Perspectives ▶ Internationalization of the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
Computer Age ▶ Global Higher Education, Digital Age
Computer-Assisted Learning ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education
Computer-Based Learning ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education
Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education Geraint Johnes Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, UK
In a competitive market, consumers exert discipline on producers, ensuring that the latter produce efficiently, meeting the former’s requirements as regards both quality and price. In the case of products that have the characteristic of being experience goods – where the quality of what is on offer can only be evaluated by sampling it, and where the product is bought infrequently – discipline of this kind is not well provided by the free market. While competition exists between producers, the information flows that enable this to
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produce an efficient outcome are highly imperfect. This is further complicated in the instance of higher education by the highly complex nature of universities – productive organizations that by definition convert numerous highly heterogeneous inputs into equally heterogeneous outputs. Good performance on one dimension of activity does not necessarily imply good performance on others. The imperfections of the market in this context have two pertinent implications: first, because markets work imperfectly, universities typically receive much of their income from the government; secondly, market disciplines cannot be assumed to operate in a way that guarantees that universities are efficient. Governments, as funders of higher education, have thus quite naturally developed an interest in how efficient institutions are, and how their efficiency can be enhanced. A key consideration in promoting efficiency is the scale of operation of the unit of production. Much production in higher education is nonrival; for instance, attendance at a lecture by one student does not preclude attendance by another. Higher education thus has the characteristic of a “club” good, and production of output of this kind is characterized by, often substantial, economies of scale. Efficient production requires that scale efficiencies should be exploited. Likewise synergies, or economies of scope, are likely to exist as universities draw upon a common pool of expertise to produce both teaching and research, and as overlap between academic disciplines offers advantages to locating the delivery of a multiplicity of subjects in one place. Equally important, however, is the requirement that production should be technically efficient. Technical efficiency implies that producers are producing on their cost curves; technical inefficiency implies that they are producing at higher cost than is achievable, given the scale of operation, and given quality (see the article “▶ Quality of Higher Education Systems” by R. Williams and G. de Rassenfosse, this volume.). Following early work by Farrell (1957) and Leibenstein (1966), two distinct approaches have emerged as means of evaluating technical efficiency. The first is the parametric, statistical, approach of stochastic frontier analysis (Aigner
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et al. 1977), in which the familiar line of best fit method used to estimate the parameters of a cost function is modified by the addition of an asymmetric error term to the regression equation; this shifts the cost function down so that it reflects the relationship between output and costs that would be observed for a producer that is technically efficient. The producer-specific values of this asymmetric error can then be retrieved using the method of Jondrow et al. (1982), providing measures of how efficient each producer is, relative to the best currently attainable performance. The second method eschews the statistical approach in preference of a nonparametric analysis – this is known as data envelopment analysis (Charnes et al. 1978). Linear programming methods are used to establish the production possibility frontier faced by each producer, subject to certain constraints. Importantly, this method allows the producer-specific weights on inputs and outputs to be chosen so as to maximize that producer’s efficiency score, subject to the constraint that, using those same weights, no other producer could achieve a score in excess of 100%. There are numerous variants of both stochastic frontier analysis and data envelopment analysis (Johnes 2004). State-of-the-art applications of stochastic frontier analysis often use panel data, accommodating unobserved heterogeneity across universities by estimating the model with either random parameters (Tsionas 2002) or latent classes (Greene 2005). Data envelopment analysis, meanwhile, has been extended to accommodate measures of scale efficiency (Banker et al. 1984) and to provide confidence intervals for the efficiency measures (Simar and Wilson 2004). The focus of the present article is on how these methods have been applied in the context of higher education. Rather than review the plethora of studies in existence, a small selection of recent papers typical of the literature is reviewed. Consider first applications of stochastic frontier analysis. A recent study focusing on higher education institutions in England is typical (Johnes and Johnes 2016). In this paper a stochastic frontier latent class model of university costs is developed. This involves estimation of a statistical expression in which costs (excluding “hotel”
Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education
costs such as residences and catering) are taken to be a function of teaching and research outputs. Teaching activity is disaggregated by broad subject area and by level of delivery (undergraduate versus postgraduate). Disaggregation by subject area is important, with studies typically finding that tuition in laboratory-based subjects imposes higher average incremental costs than in other subjects. Some studies (for example, Thanassoulis et al. 2011) address the costs of “third mission” activities including knowledge transfer and other services to society, in addition to the primary missions of teaching and research. Following the pioneering work of Baumol et al. (1982) and Cohn et al. (1989), a quadratic functional form is imposed in these analyses, thereby accommodating the possible existence of economies and diseconomies of both scale and scope. Thus the model is capable of rationalizing the shape of the higher education sector – why many institutions exist, why they typically produce multiple outputs rather than specializing, and why they tend to be large (with many thousands of students). By examining the asymmetric error term within each of the latent classes, the authors are able to evaluate the efficiency of each institution. This turns out to be high – with no institution achieving an efficiency score lower than 90%. Now consider applications of data envelopment analysis. Several recent studies have used this method to compare the efficiency of institutions of higher education across a number of countries. One such study is that of WolszczakDerlacz and Parteka (2011) who compare institutions across seven European countries by using a constant returns to scale model with three inputs and two outputs. The inputs are numbers of academic staff, student numbers, and total revenue; the outputs are the number of students graduating and the number of scientific publications. The findings suggest a high degree of variability in efficiency scores both within and across countries, with a mean score across all universities, countries, and years of some 65%. This is considerably lower than that found by Johnes and Johnes (2016) in the stochastic frontier study examined above – but it should be emphasized that that study concerns universities in just one country
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and makes allowance for unobserved heterogeneity. While the two main approaches considered above – stochastic frontier and data envelopment analysis – both allow measures of institutional efficiency to be obtained, they differ in detail. The former is a parametric technique that assumes that the weights attached to inputs and outputs are common across observations. This allows confidence intervals to be evaluated for those weights, making available the full range of tools of statistical inference. Where these weights can be interpreted as prices, and where the nature of the market is such that prices can reasonably be assumed constant across providers, this seems a sensible approach. The alternative, nonparametric, approach does not impose such a condition. Indeed, a major advantage of data envelopment analysis is that it allows comparison of providers that operate in ill-defined markets and that pursue different objectives from one another. This gives the method obvious appeal in the context of higher education research. A downside of this approach, however, is that it does not naturally lend itself to statistical inference. As noted earlier, the quality of provision is a key consideration when evaluating efficiency (Williams and Rassenfosse 2017). In particular, when comparing efficiency across time, it is critical that allowance should be made for qualitative changes that affect the integrity of output measures. The problem of grade inflation in the context of efficiency models has been examined by Johnes and Soo (2017). While the above examples show how efficiency can be evaluated, some important caveats should be made. First, regardless of the method used, efficiency is evaluated by reference to current practice. But the most efficient institutions may not be efficient in an absolute sense; greater efficiency may be feasible even within current constraints. Moreover, technological improvements should allow the frontier to shift over time, allowing efficiency gains to be made. Secondly, users should bear in mind the fact that the evaluation of efficiency necessarily involves making subjective judgements concerning which inputs and outputs should be included in the
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exercise. An ancient university, for example, might appear to be either efficient or inefficient depending on whether or not the cultural value of its historic buildings is considered as an output.
References Aigner, Dennis, C.A. Knox Lovell, and Peter Schmidt. 1977. Formulation and estimation of the stochastic frontier model. Journal of Econometrics 126: 21–37. Baumol, William J., John C. Panzar, and Robert D. Willig. 1982. Contestable markets and the theory of industry structure. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Banker, Rajiv D., Abraham Charnes, and William W. Cooper. 1984. Some models for estimating technical and scale efficiencies in data envelopment analysis. Management Science 30: 1078–1092. Charnes, Abraham, William W. Cooper, and Eduardo Rhodes. 1978. Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research 2: 429–444. Cohn, Elchanan, Sherrie L.W. Rhine, and Maria C. Santos. 1989. Institutions of higher education as multi-product firms: Economies of scale and scope. Review of Economics and Statistics 71: 284–290. Farrell, Michael J. 1957. The measurement of productive efficiency. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 120: 253–290. Greene, William. 2005. Reconsidering heterogeneity in panel data estimators of the stochastic frontier model. Journal of Econometrics 126: 269–303. Johnes, Jill. 2004. Efficiency measurement. In International handbook on the economics of education, ed. Geraint Johnes and Jill Johnes, 613–743. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Johnes, Geraint, and Jill Johnes. 2016. Costs, efficiency and economies of scale and scope in the English higher education sector. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 32: 596–614. Johnes, Geraint, and Kwok Tong Soo. 2017. Grades across universities over time. Manchester School 85: 106–131. Jondrow, James, C.A. Knox Lovell, Ivan S. Materov, and Peter Schmidt. 1982. On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model. Journal of Econometrics 19: 233–238. Leibenstein, Harvey. 1966. Allocative efficiency versus x-efficiency. American Economic Review 56: 392–415. Simar, Léopold, and Paul W. Wilson. 2004. Performance of the bootstrap for DEA estimators and iterating the principle. In Handbook on data envelopment analysis, ed. William W. Cooper, Lawrence M. Seiford, and Joe Zhu, 265–298. Boston: Kluwer. Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, Mika Kortelainen, Geraint Johnes, and Jill Johnes. 2011. Costs and efficiency of higher education in England: A DEA analysis. Journal of the Operational Research Society 62: 1282–1297.
Concerned Parties Tsionas, Efthymios G. 2002. Stochastic frontier models with random coefficients. Journal of Applied Econometrics 17: 127–147. Williams, Ross, and Gaétan de Rassenfosse. 2017. Quality of higher education systems. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Jung Cheol Shin and Pedro Teixeira. New York: Springer. Wolszczak-Derlacz, Joanna, and Aleksandra Parteka. 2011. Efficiency of European public higher education institutions: A two-state multicountry approach. Scientometrics 89: 887–917.
Concerned Parties ▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education
Consolidation ▶ Mergers and Consortia, Higher Education
Consortium of Higher Education Researchers Ulrich Teichler INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
The Foundation in 1988 In November 1988, about 50 scholars from about 20 countries attended the conference “Research on Higher Education in Europe – Approaches, Results and Future Perspective” (see Kehm and Musselin 2013; Teichler 2013a). The conference was arranged in Kassel (Germany) to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Centre for Research on Higher Education and Work (since 2006 named International Centre for Higher Education Research – INCHER-Kassel) of the Comprehensive University of Kassel (later named University of Kassel); it was supported by the Volkswagen
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Foundation. The major trending reports on six thematic areas presented were published in a special issue of the European Journal of Education (Neave and Teichler 1989). The participants were not only invited to be involved in the discourse on the state of research but also – in a letter signed by the local host Ulrich Teichler as well as Guy Neave and Frans van Vught – to consider the establishment of a research consortium in the area of higher education. Three reasons were underscored in the letter and the host’s introductory words. First, as the number of higher education researchers in many countries was too small to form a credible national platform of mutual critique and encouragement, regular communication on an international basis would be the most promising way of moving toward a consolidation of research. Second, as higher education researchers had mostly opportunities in the past to meet each other in higher education policy fora, e.g., OECD conferences, the creation of an own arena of communication could be essential to stimulate improvement of theories and methods. This might include discussions on the relationships between research on the one hand and on the other policy and practice, but from the perspectives and experiences of the researchers. Third, a focus on Europe was advocated in the invitation. This should strengthen the self-esteem of higher education researchers beyond the US-dominated international discourse at that time and to ensure a stronger emphasis to be put on issues which played an important role in this region: notably comparative research as well as research on macro-societal issues of higher education. Actually, however, the scholars founding CHER agreed to invite scholars from all over the world who like to join the discourse on higher education research with strong emphasis on these two features (see Teichler 2013b). The idea to establish a new international network of higher education researchers met with enthusiasm on 26 November 1988 in the 4 h foundation meeting. Maurice Kogan spontaneously put forward the name “Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER)” – a name in the English language with a French abbreviation, as he pointed out. Thus, the foundation of the CHER
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was initiated both by first-generation pioneers of higher education in Europe who attended and supported the founding meeting and by secondgeneration scholars who actually were the “founding fathers.”
C The Institutional Setting The founding members agreed that CHER should not became a “heavy” association with plenty of rules, high conference fees, and major coordination functions of collaborate research and publications. Preference was given to informal communication among friends stimulating a broad range of activities beyond its formal domain. There was not any intention to displace networks of higher education researchers already existing nationally or internationally, focusing on individual themes and disciplines or with a broad spectrum of themes. What was called for was a unique open forum of academically demanding discourse on concepts, methods, findings, and practical implications of higher education research across countries, disciplines, and thematic areas. Actually, CHER was an informal network at the beginning. In 1990, it became a formal membership organization approved under Dutch law (Kehm and Teichler 2013). The founders of CHER agreed that it should be an association of individual higher education researchers. Persons interested to become members were invited to provide some key information about their professional biography prior to be accepted as members. This should ensure that CHER does not become a broad association of persons interested in higher education but of persons really active in higher education research. This entry procedure, however, did not intend to limit the memberships to the “chosen few” as in the case of many academies. Actually, the numbers of members remained below 200 from about 30 countries, among them more than two-thirds from European countries (ibid.). The regulations of 1990 provided for a Board of Governors with seven persons. They were chosen by the members for a period of 4 years with a possible second period. Care was taken that at
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least one Board member was elected from outside Europe. The Board elects the Chairperson who is responsible for officially representing CHER. Actually, Ulrich Teichler (Germany), Oliver Fulton (UK), Alberto Amaral (Portugal), Christine Musselin (France), and Jussi Välimaa (Finland) held this position for at least 4 years or were chosen for such a period. The Secretary – in most instances also member of the Board – is responsible for administrative and organizational issues. This position was held for 4 or more years by Frans van Vught, Peter Maasen (both the Netherlands), Jürgen Enders, Barbara M. Kehm (both Germany), and Pedro Teixeira (Portugal) – supported by their respective hosting research institution. The relatively “light” and informal character of CHER was facilitated by the fact that major research units in Europe interested in comparative higher education research were willing to support CHER in various respects – hosting annual conferences, hosting the secretariat, supporting training courses for young scholars, etc.: notably the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) of Twente University (the Netherlands); the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel) of the University of Kassel (Germany); the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) in cooperation with scholars at other institutions in Oslo (Norway); and the Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), located near Porto and linked to various universities in Portugal. The formal activities of CHER centered around the annual meetings held in 16 different European countries during the first three decades. Major presentations have been published initially often in special issues in various higher education journals (European Journal of Education, Higher Education in Europe, Higher Education, and Higher Education Policy) or in individual books and since 2009 in the “Higher Education Research in the 21st Century Series” at Sense Publishers, Rotterdam (see the first volume edited by Clancy and Dill 2009). The enormous impact of CHER on the development of higher education research – both in Europe and among scholars worldwide
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interested in comparative analysis – goes far beyond the stimulating communication within the formal meetings. The networking activities elicited many collaborative research projects and many other activities among higher education researchers and their reference groups.
The Major Aims The initiative to found CHER was not just the spontaneous intention and casual activity of a few scholars knowing each other to form a club, but it was highly strategic. Various strategic ambitions were formulated from the outset (see the summary in Teichler 2013a). First, CHER should contribute to the identity of researchers on higher education vis-à-vis a previous fuzzy mix of higher education experts. Second, related to it, CHER should provide an arena of communication on academic theory and quality of higher education research protected from overwhelming links to higher education policy and practice. Third, communication across all disciplines involved and all thematic areas of higher education research should be thrived for. Fourth, CHER should ensure a sufficient size of a platform for communication among higher education researchers in the wake of the fact that the number of higher education researchers in most individual countries was too small for such an institutional basis. Fifth, CHER aimed to counteract an imbalance of international information, communication, and collaboration in higher education research caused by the historical advantage of higher education research in the USA, the dominant ties of higher education researchers across Anglo-Saxon countries, and the low international visibility of higher education research in the non-English-speaking countries. Sixth, CHER wanted to put an emphasis on comparative perspectives in the analysis of higher education and to stimulate the growth of comparative research. Seventh, CHER wanted to be a “light” association: no heavy body of regulations, no big and expensive conferences, and a room for open communication as well as stimulation of projects and publications without a strong involvement of the association as such.
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Strategic Explorations over the Years The Consortium of Higher Education Researchers turned out to be stable in its basic character. It continued to pursue the aims named above quite consistently. There were deliberations, however, over the years as regards somewhat different accentuation of these basic thrusts. For example, as visible in the founding process, views varied whether CHER should be a European or an international association. The former might have led to a higher thematic concentration and a more clear identity. But, as the one of the pioneers of higher education research, the American scholar Burton Clark, who attended many CHER meetings, pointed out in personal conversation, a “European-based international association” was a creative compromise, because this was a worldwide invitation to share features of higher education research favored in Europe but not limited to Europe. Actually, two countries from outside Europe (the USA and Australia) were among the ten most strongly represented in the CHER membership. Also, when CHER members edited the first two Festschrifts in honor of distinguished members – Ulrich Teichler and Maurice Kogan – they won about one third of the contributors from outside Europe, also from Japan, Mexico, and South Africa (Enders and Fulton 2002; Bleiklie and Henkel 2005). It is obvious, though, that CHER was primarily attractive for scholars from economically advanced countries and focused its theoretical and thematic activities correspondingly. In some respective discussions, the majority of CHER members felt that the inclusion of typical issues of higher education in mid-income and low-income countries would not be possible without a dilution of the foci primarily addressed so far. However, various CHER members were active in or aimed at improving the analysis of higher education in economically less privileged countries, as, for example, the strong role shows which CHER members played in the most visible forum of that kind – the one organized in 2001–2009 under UNESCO auspices (Meek et al. 2010). In addition, issues of membership were often discussed. It was obvious from the outset that
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CHER wanted to be a basis of communication among researchers with a really dominant research identity. The requirement to apply for membership and to be approved on the basis of a visible research profile had implications for membership, even though the approval decisions were not handled rigidly. “. . . CHER did not pursue a policy of winning as many members of possible. Rather, CHER wanted to be a network of scholars with similar identity . . .” (Teichler 2013b: 18). Total membership grew slowly and remained below 200. The annual conferences were viewed as meetings of members predominantly. Analyses of the CHER directories, in which basic information about the members’ academic profile were published periodically, suggest that certainly more than 80% of the CHER members had a prime academic function and about half held a professorial position (Kehm and Teichler 2013). The efforts of CHER of bringing together the leading higher education researchers had a clear impact on the conference programs in the initial decade. Substantial room was reserved for presentations and discussions among leading scholars. This provided for a successful scenery for ambitious and often controversial dialogues, as was documented, for example, in key presentations about the task of theory in higher education research (Clark 1996; Goedegebuure and van Vught 1996; Kogan 1996) or the role of international comparison (Teichler 1996). In subsequent years, however, this approach faded away in favor of the dominant approach across academic conferences: high numbers of short presentations by scholars in earlier career stages combined with some keynote speeches. This shift was necessitated by the fact that increasing numbers of universities provide subsidies for conference participation only under the condition that recipients are visible as presenters. The issue of membership was also linked to that of the breadth of approaches and disciplines (see Kehm and Teichler 2013). Among the higher education researchers highly visible in Europe over many years according to a recent overview, slightly less than half were CHER members (Teichler 2015). Most of those not being CHER members stood out with a
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dominant applied or policy-oriented approach or were highly active in associations striving for a stronger link between research and practice. In addition, higher education researchers based on some disciplines did rarely consider CHER as their place of identity. Obviously, higher education researchers in the domains of sociology, political sciences, administrative sciences, and macroeconomics feel most clearly at home in CHER, while those from education, psychology, business studies, law, and history are not so densely presented. A comparison of thematic interests of CHER members named in the membership directories of 1992, 2003, and 2013 shows that four themes played a major role all the time: (a) governance, management, and organization, (b) higher education policy and reform, (c) higher education system, and (d) quality and evaluation. Two other themes were also named by about one fifth each: (e) access, students, and graduates and (f) study programs, teaching, and learning. Additionally, two themes were frequently emphasized in recent years: (g) mobility and internationalization as well as the (h) academic profession. It is noteworthy as well that a substantial proportion of CHER members expressed interest in (i) the meta-theme of the situation of higher education research (Kehm and Teichler 2013). A comparison with thematic priorities in journals (see, e.g., Teixeira 2013) suggests that issues of students, teaching, learning, as well as funding of higher education are more strongly represented outside CHER. The themes of the annual CHER conferences were regularly discussed in the membership meetings a few years in advance. They reflected the current debates, the priorities of the conference hosts, as well as the perceptions of the members’ interests. No overarching perspectives came afore in these discussions. A look at the themes over the years, however, indicates some priorities (Kehm 2013): the inner fabric of higher education played a major role in the first decade of the CHER, while more attention was paid to the relationships between higher education and society in the second decade and additionally to economic aspects in subsequent years.
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External Links and Other Activities CHER was quite active in the initial years to initiate activities beyond its annual conferences. Various discussions about embarking into collaborative projects led eventually to the conclusion that such activities should remain in the hands of individual members and informal networks rather than under the official umbrella of CHER, because CHER projects could split members into the “chosen few” and “others.” Discussions about training of young scholars elicited the establishment of the “European Higher Education Advanced Training Course” (Kehm 2000; Westerhijden and Kozinska 2013) in the early 1990s. Though this course was viewed as a success, activities of this kind were not continued – reflecting the fact that various members wanted to embark a broader range of similar activities. CHER sought contact initially with other national and supranational associations of higher education researchers or with other higher education umbrella organizations interested. This was seen as a natural response to the existing close links of research to policy and practice (Amaral and Magalhaes 2013). This was in fact helpful in the initial years to make CHER as an association and CHER members and CHER activities widely known. Similarly, CHER initially sought contact to supranational actors of higher education policy. This had visible effects in the decision of UNESCO to support the participation of researchers from Central and Eastern European countries at CHER conferences during the period of political transition around 1990 as well as in the support by the European Commission of scholars from these countries wishing to attend the abovenamed training course in the early 1990s. Over the years, however, CHER did not take further steps in favor of such cooperation; the well-functioning networking activities among CHER members ensured that individual members reinforced such communication and included fellow CHER members in the resulting activities without any formal CHER involvement. In sum, CHER remained a small, select, loosely organized network with a small range of official core activities which aimed with the help
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of demanding academic discourse and a friendly environment to stimulate growth, quality enhancement, and a multitude of joint activities beyond national borders in the area of higher education research. Accordingly, the success of CHER would have to be measured outside its visible activities.
Impact The impact of an academic association in creating a network among scholars and in stimulating research projects and related activities cannot be measured easily. Observers of the development of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers since its inauguration in 1988, however, agree that CHER is a success story of stimulating demanding academic discourse and personal communication notably among higher education researchers in Europe who strive for higher academic standards and place a weight on a creative interaction between research and policy as well as practice. And the intention of CHER has worked as well to reinforce close ties between higher education researchers in economically advanced countries all over the world who have an interest in international comparison and in macro-societal issues of higher education. A single example might suffice to illustrate the close interaction among higher education researchers as well as their visibility. When the European Science Foundation decided to support reflections of the future of research and the future of the area addressed by research in select areas, five members of CHER presented a proposal “Higher Education Forward Look”: This was selected in 2006 as the best among more than 30 proposals in the area of humanities and social sciences and eventually led a major overview on the challenges for and the achievements of higher education research (Brennan and Teichler 2008). When the ESF decided in 2008 to support collaborative research among European research consortia in the area of humanities and social sciences, CHER members presented a proposal which eventually gained support among more than 20 applications and actually got momentum
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under the name “Higher Education and Social Change in Europe” (EuroHESC). Upon invitation to form research consortia in this thematic area, 23 proposals were submitted, among them four from CHER members; from 2009 to 2012, eventually four research consortia gained support, among them three from CHER members. The research activity within these four research consortia was demanding. And some projects led to highly visible publications (Kehm and Teichler 2013; Teichler and Höhle 2013; Fumasoli et al. 2015; Hoffman and Välimaa 2016). The participants and the evaluators of these projects varied in their assessments: Some praised the results, while others indicated that the expectations had been higher. Yet, this shows that CHER stimulates cooperation on a never-ending route toward enhancing higher education research.
References Amaral, Alberto, and Antonio Magalhaes. 2013. Higher education research between policy and practice. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 43–59. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Bleiklie, Ivar, and Mary Henkel, eds. 2005. Governing knowledge: A study of continuity and change in higher education – a Festschrift in honour of Maurice Kogan. Dordrecht: Springer. Brennan, John, and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 2008. Special issue: The future of higher education and the future of higher education research. Higher Education 56(3). Clancy, Patrick, and David D. Dill, eds. 2009. The research mission of the university: Policy reforms and institutional response. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Clark, Burton R. 1996. Substantive growth and innovative organization: New categories for higher education research. Higher Education 32: 417–430. Enders, Jürgen, and Oliver Fulton, eds. 2002. Higher education in globalising world: International trends and mutual observations. A Festschrift in honour of Ulrich Teichler. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Fumasoli, Taniana, Gaelle Goastellec, and Barbara M. Kehm, eds. 2015. Academic work and careers in Europe: Trends, challenges, perspectives. Cham: Springer. Goedegebuure, Leo, and Frans van Vught. 1996. Comparative higher education studies: The perspective from the policy sciences. Higher Education 32: 371–394. Hoffman, David M., and Jussi Välimaa, eds. 2016. Re-becoming universities? Higher education institutions in networked knowledge societies. Dordrecht: Springer.
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242 Kehm, Barbara M. 2000. The European higher education advanced training course. In The institutional basis of higher education research, ed. Stefanie Schwarz and Ulrich Teichler, 227–237. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Kehm, Barbara M. 2013. CHER annual conferences and changing topics. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 25–33. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kehm, Barbara M., and Christine Musselin, eds. 2013. The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kehm, Barbara M., and Ulrich Teichler. 2013. Organisational strategy and the profile of CHER members. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 35–41. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kogan, Maurice. 1996. Comparing higher education systems. Higher Education 32: 395–402. Meek, V. Lynn, Ulrich Teichler, and Mary-Louise Kearney, eds. 2010. Higher education, research and innovation: Changing dynamics. Kassel: International Centre for Higher Education Research. Neave, Guy, and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 1989. Research on higher education in Europe (special issue). European Journal of Education 24(3). Teichler, Ulrich. 1996. Comparative higher education: Potentials and limits. Higher Education 32: 431–465. Teichler, Ulrich. 2013a. Academically ambitious and relevant higher education research: The legacy of the consortium of higher education researchers. European Journal of Higher Education 3: 242–256. Teichler, Ulrich. 2013b. The initial objectives of CHER to form a professional organisation of higher education researchers. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 7–23. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Higher education research in Europe. In The European higher education area: Between critical reflections and future policies, ed. Adrian Curaj, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmi, and Peter Scott, 823–856. Cham: Springer. Teichler, Ulrich, and Ester A. Höhle, eds. 2013. The work situation of the academic profession: Findings of a survey in twelve European countries. Dordrecht: Springer. Teixeira, Pedro N. 2013. Reflecting about current trends in higher education research: A view from the journals. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 103–121. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Westerhijden, Don F., and Anna Kozinska. 2013. The European higher education advanced training course. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 61–67. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Contested Zones
Contested Zones ▶ Overlap Model of Roles and Tasks in University Organizations
Contingent Staff ▶ Non-tenured Teachers, Higher Education
Continuing Education ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, China
Convergence ▶ Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views
Cooperation ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Historical Perspective
Corporate ▶ Higher Education Research, UK
Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Higher Education for Sustainability
Corruption in Higher Education
Corruption in Higher Education Elena Denisova-Schmidt University of St.Gallen (HSG), St.Gallen, Switzerland The Center for International Higher Education (CIHE), Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Synonyms Academic dishonesty; Academic misconduct; Bribery; Cheating; Ethical challenges; Fraud; Lack of academic integrity In addition to the very common definition from Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization working on corruption worldwide, “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain,” corruption in higher education can also be defined as “the lack of academic integrity.” This definition applies for both types of higher education institutions – public and private – because they both offer education, which is a public good. Corruption might be both perceived and not; the differentiation in higher education is, however, less important: “when the institution is perceived to be corrupt the damage is already done, regardless of whether guilt is manifest” (Heyneman 2013, p. 103). Corruption in higher education might happen with or without student involvement, though both types can influence young people either directly or indirectly (Denisova-Schmidt et al. 2016a). Corruption with the students’ involvement might include various types of cheating, such as plagiarism and attending classes or sitting for exams on another student’s behalf (impersonation), as well as services, favors, gifts, informal agreements, or payments in exchange for admission, grades, advance copies of exams and tests, preferential treatment, graduation, and sham degrees (Denisova-Schmidt 2016a). According to the Wall Street Journal, cheating was widespread at many public universities in the United States in the 2014–2015 academic year –
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especially among international students. The Times of London revealed that almost 50,000 university students in the UK were caught cheating in the period between 2012 and 2015. Unauthorized grade changes, enrollment in sham classes, low reading skills among student-athletes at some universities in the United States, the resignation of high-profile politicians due to plagiarism in their Doctor of Philosophy theses German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg in 2011, Hungarian President Pál Schmitt in 2012, and German Education Minister Annette Schavan in 2013 just to name a few – museum exhibitions of paper ponies (cheat sheets) in Russia and Germany (see more in Denisova-Schmidt 2018b) are just a few recent examples that illustrate the magnitude of this phenomena (Bretag, 2016). Together with monetary and nonmonetary corruption, which might have happened at any other institution, corruption in higher education without the students’ involvement might also include violations of academic integrity, research misconduct, ignoring students’ misbehavior, favoritism in hiring and promoting of faculty and staff, selling admissions, manipulating accreditation, and creating degree mills (Denisova-Schmidt et al. 2016a). In 2015 the New York Times discovered a company offering fake online degrees all around the world. The company made tens of millions of dollars in estimated revenue each year. According to the newspaper, the organization had at least 370 high schools, universities, and accreditation bodies. Sdaxue.com reports that more than 400 phony colleges were operating in China (Denisova-Schmidt 2016a). Scholars gaining mileage by publishing bogus papers, bribing co-authors, paying ghostwriters, falsifying data, or even stealing papers submitted to them in reviews and publishing them as their own are no longer rare stories and can happen all over the world. Some researchers working on corruption in higher education have a more narrow definition of this term and tend to differentiate between “corruption” and “cheating.” Other scholars, however, have a broader definition and might consider universities taking a percentage of research grants provided by third parties as corruption. In any case, the term “corruption” has
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changed significantly over time. Access to higher education based on the students’ ascriptive attributes such as gender, race, or nationality have dominated the sector for many centuries. PhD students at medieval universities had to pay to get access to their public exam (to participate in their own defense or colloquium). The amount of the payment was very high at that time and many young people could not easily afford it (Denisova-Schmidt 2017). Plagiarism used to be considered less critical at least among authorities in the Weimar Republic, who deemed it “a purely scientific issue” (“rein wissenschaftliche Angelegenheit”). Accusations in plagiarism against Margarete von Wrangell (1877–1932) did not disturb her nomination to a full professorship (becoming the first female professor in Germany) in 1923. Her opponent, Paul Ehrenberg, provided many documents showing that her significant works published in German were partly based on publications written in Russian by Russian scholars “illicit paraphrasing” in the modern terminology (Denisova-Schmidt 2018a). Corruption is ambivalent and might be seen differently depending on the cultural context: a gift might be judged as a present or as a pragmatic offering with expectations in return; supporting a young colleague in his or her academic career might be viewed as a collegial gesture or it might be called favoritism; nominating the current rector of a university as a senior official in the Ministry of Education might be understood as a promotion or as a revolving-door affiliation. In spite of all the challenges, corruption in higher education is being studied (see the recent discussions in Sweeney et al. 2013; Chapman and Lindner 2016; IAU HORIZONS 2017). In addition to several studies applying qualitative and quantitative research techniques, a few experiments have been conducted on corruption in the educational sector (see more details in DenisovaSchmidt et al. 2015, 2016b). The results address the causality and hence are very helpful for educators and other practitioners. What can be done against corruption in higher education? Whistleblowing, social activism, and raising awareness of academic integrity might be successful remedy tools. Randomized seating during exams and tests or several versions of
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the same assignment (if possible) might prevent copying from a neighbor. Antiplagiarism software programs might help in detecting some types of plagiarism. Quick Response (QR) Codes on diplomas and certificates might thwart fake documents. Actions are also needed at the state level: The Australian Department of Immigration, for example, might cancel visas for international students involved in academic misconduct. Or in Russia, where the introduction of the Unified State Exam – the new university entrance examination – has significantly reduced bribery and other malpractices during university admissions. Corruption in higher education is not a new phenomenon. What is new is its increasing extent and the challenge to contain and prevent it in many academic systems. The massification of higher education, the insufficient state financial support, the growing competition between educational institutions at all levels, and the creation of improper dependencies among all actors involved in the higher education sector are the main reasons for the rising lack of academic integrity (Denisova-Schmidt 2016a, b, c).
References Bretag, Tracey. 2016. Handbook of academic integrity. Springer. http://www.springer.com/de/book/9789812 870971 Chapman, David W., and Samira Lindner. 2016. Degrees of integrity: The threat of corruption in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 41 (2): 247268. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.927854. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2016a. The global challenge of academic integrity. International Higher Education 87: 4–6. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2016.87.9494. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2016b. Academic dishonesty or corrupt values: The case of Russia. In Corruption in public administration: An ethnographic approach, ed. Davide Torsello, 105–137. Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785 362590.00012. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2016c. Corruption in Russian higher education. Russian Analytical Digest 191: 5–9. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2017. The Challenges of Academic Integrity in Higher Education: Current Trends and Prospects. CIHE Perspectives, No. 5. The Boston College Center for International Higher Education (CIHE). http://bit.ly/2sdLO8J. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2018a. Corruption, BRIC Universities and the effect on global higher education:
Cost Disease, Higher Education Causes, techniques and remedies. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming in 2018. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena. 2018b. Spargalka. In The global encyclopaedia of informality, Volume 2: Understanding social and cultural complexity, ed. by Alena Ledeneva. London: UCL Press 287. https://www.ucl. ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-ofinformality-ii Denisova-Schmidt, Elena, Martin Huber, and Yaroslav Prytula. 2015. An experimental evaluation of an anticorruption intervention among Ukrainian university students. Eurasian Geography and Economics 56 (6): 713–734. https://doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2016.1155467. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena, Martin Huber, and Elvira Leontyeva. 2016a. On the development of students attitudes towards corruption and cheating in Russian universities. European Journal of Higher Education 6 (2): 128–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/215 68235.2016.1154477. Denisova-Schmidt, Elena, Martin Huber, and Elvira Leontyeva. 2016b. Do anti-corruption educational campaigns reach students? Some evidence from two cities in Russia and Ukraine. Voprosy Obrazovaniia 1: 61–83. https://doi.org/10.17323/1814-9545-2016-1-61-83. Heyneman, Stephen P. 2013. Higher education institutions: Why they matter and why corruption puts them at risk. In Global corruption report: Education, transparency international, ed. Gareth Sweeney, Krina Despota, and Samira Lindner, 101–108. Abingdon: Earthscan by Routledge. IAU HORIZONS. 2017. Focus Corruption in higher education. 22 (1): 21–35. https://iau-aiu.net/IAU-Horizons Sweeney, Gareth, Krina Despota, and Samira Lindner. 2013. Global corruption report: Education. Transparency International. Abingdon: Earthscan by Routledge. https://www.transparency.org/gcr_education
Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Citizenship and Higher Education
Cost Disease, Higher Education Robert Archibald William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA
In many countries the cost of higher education has risen more rapidly than the inflation rate for the majority of the years since the end of World War II. Several explanations have been suggested for
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this phenomenon. Cost disease is one of the leading explanations. Cost disease focuses on the drivers of the unit costs of production. Unit cost of production depends on the cost of inputs and the ability of those inputs to produce output. Let W be the cost per unit of inputs, and let Q measure the output that can be produced by a unit of inputs. Given this notation unit, cost of production is: C ¼ W=Q: In most applications the focus is on the behavior of costs over time. In this case we need to put the equation in motion. The percentage change in the unit cost of production is given by: %DC ¼ %DW %DQ: As a first approximation, assume that input costs move at the same pace in all industries. This assumption is based on recognizing that all industries hire labor and other inputs in the same markets, so they should face the same input prices. The assumption ignores the fact that different industries hire different mixes of inputs, but we will ignore this complication for the moment. Given this assumption the percentage change unit costs of production will be higher in industries with slow productivity growth, lower values of %DQ, and lower in industries with higher productivity growth, higher values of %DQ. Cost disease refers to the behavior of costs in industries in which productivity growth is slow or nonexistent. In these industries, unit costs of production will grow much more rapidly than the unit costs of production in industries that experience more robust productivity growth. As a result costs in these industries will rise more rapidly than inflation because any price index measuring inflation will include prices of products from all industries, those with rapid productivity growth, and those with lagging productivity growth. Cost disease is usually invoked to refer to situations in which very low or nonexistent productivity growth is inherent in the industry in question. For example, cost disease was first discussed by William Baumol and William Bowen in a 1966 book on the economics of the
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performing arts. In many cases productivity growth is impossible in the performing arts. William Baumol (2012) gives this example, “It still takes four musicians nine minutes to perform Beethoven’s String Quartet in C minor, as it did in the nineteenth century” (William Baumol (2012), p. xviii). Since the performance takes the same number of people the same amount of time, there is no way to increase productivity, and costs that rise more rapidly than average is an inevitable result. In general productivity growth is lower in the provision of services than it is in the production of goods. Many services involve the active participation of the service provider, and any reduction in the time of the service provider is resisted by consumers because the reduction will adversely affect the quality of the service. Consider barbers as an example. People are not interested in going to the barber who gives the most haircuts in an hour. People are interested in getting a good haircut. Because of their lagging productivity growth, services are often said to suffer from cost disease. In the USA the price indexes for personal consumption show the effect of cost disease in services quite clearly. The price index for goods has increased by 4.4 times from 1947 to 2015. Over the same time span, the price index for services has increased 13.2 times.
Cost Disease in Higher Education Higher education is one of the many services people claim is afflicted by cost disease. In 1968, 2 years after the publication of the book on performing arts, one of its authors, William Bowen, applied cost disease to higher education. Many other commentators have followed his lead. (See William Bowen (1968) “The economics of the major private research universities,” Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, William Baumol and S. A. B Blackmon (1995), and Robert Archibald and David Feldman (2011).) The notion that slow or no productivity growth is inherent in higher education is controversial. This controversy is the major reason that cost disease is not emphasized in many explanations
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of the fact that higher education costs rise more rapidly than inflation. Data are quite clear that there has been little productivity growth in higher education. The question that is debated is whether this slow productivity growth is inherent or evidence of bad behavior on the part of institutions of higher education. Those who are inclined to the view that slow productivity growth is inherent point out that the technology used in the classroom has been quite stagnant since the advent of universities. Most teaching is accomplished by an instructor and a group of students who meet face to face. And while it is thoroughly possible to increase the number of students in the classroom, hence increasing productivity, institutions are not inclined to do this for fear of diminishing the quality of the learning experience for their students. In the USA this reluctance is reinforced by rankings of institutions that give higher ranks to colleges or universities that have small classes. This analysis suggests that until higher education finds a way of delivering the same quality instruction in a more efficient manner, cost disease will plague the industry. Those who are inclined to emphasize other factors suggest that the slow or nonexistent productivity growth in higher education is caused by inefficiencies in higher education that could and should be eliminated. Two examples give the flavor of the analysis. First, advocates of this point of view point to what they call administrative bloat, the increase in the number of administrators relative to the number of instructors. Second, they point to increases in amenities on campuses that increase costs without increasing output. Whether these apparent inefficiencies are the result of poor choices on the part of leaders in higher education is debatable. Similar changes can be found in many other parts of the economy. And the supposed excesses on campus may well enhance the quality of student experiences. The debate between these two views is important. If slow or no productivity growth is inevitable, then college costs that rise more rapidly than inflation are also inevitable. And this rapid rise in higher education costs is no one’s fault. Colleges and universities are afflicted with cost disease;
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they did not cause it. If slow or no productivity growth is the accumulation of bad decisions by colleges and universities, they should be forced to mend their ways. It is important to recognize that slow or no productivity growth whether inherent or the result of bad decisions is not the only reason college costs might rise more rapidly than inflation. It is quite thoroughly possible that the input prices faced by colleges and universities have risen more rapidly than the input prices faced by other industries in the economy. As Robert Archibald and David Feldman (2011) point out, since the workforces of colleges and universities rely much more heavily on highly educated labor than do the workforces of almost all other industries, a rise in wages of highly educated workers relative to less highly educated workers will be a source of rapid price increases in higher education no matter what happens to productivity. The increase in the wages of highly educated workers magnifies the impact of cost disease in Archibald and Feldman’s account of why higher education costs have risen more rapidly in the USA since 1980.
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The search for quality neutral, or perhaps quality enhancing, improvements in higher education is ongoing. There are those who think that distance education might be able to produce just what is needed. Others are worried that quality is being sacrificed in search of productivity. This trade-off will continue to be a major issue in higher education worldwide.
References Archibald, Robert B., and David H. Feldman. 2011. Why does college cost so much? New York: Oxford University Press. Baumol, William. 2012. The cost disease: Why computers get cheaper and health care doesn’t, xviii. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press. Baumol, William, and S.A.B.. Blackmon. 1995. How to think about rising college costs: A primer for planners about higher education’s ‘cost disease’ and its future effects. Planning for Higher Education 23: 1–7. Baumol, William, and William Bowen. 1966. Performing arts – The economic dilemma. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund. Bowen, William. 1968. The economics of the major private research universities. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Berkeley, CA
Consequences While cost disease does not fully explain the rise in college costs, it is a major contributor. As a result it adds to a major problem faced by higher education. When people observe the costs of higher education rising faster than the inflation rate, they are alarmed. The tendency is the suspect that something is wrong. In many instances this is the wrong reaction, and it can lead to bad public policy. The key driver of cost disease is slow productivity growth in higher education. The reason for this slow productivity growth is the recognition that enhanced productivity growth through things such as larger classes, more part-time faculty, and lower levels of research activity are likely to reduce the quality of education. This trade-off between productivity and quality is a critical issue. Unless there is a way around this trade-off, cost disease and the associated rising cost will not go away.
Cost-Effectiveness ▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education
Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education D. Bruce Johnstone Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA
The term cost-sharing has two connotations in connection with the financing of higher education. The first is a statement of fact: that higher education’s instructional costs as well as the costs of
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student living are perforce shared among the following parties: • Governments (or the general citizenry) via taxation, the confiscation of purchasing power via governmentally induced inflation, or in some countries by the exploitation of public assets such as the state sale of oil or minerals • Parents, from current family income, family savings, or future income via parental borrowing • Students, from savings, summer or term-time employment, or borrowing • Philanthropists, through past giving (e.g., endowment) or current giving Philanthropy is not yet a significant and widespread source of revenue for higher education other than in the United States and, to a lesser degree, in the constituent units of the United Kingdom, Canada, and a few other countries. According to the National Center for Education statistics, philanthropic support of higher education in the United States in 2013–2014 totaled some $37.7 billion. Public colleges and universities in America are increasingly successful in tapping this source of revenue, thus supplementing public revenue at the state level. At the same time, philanthropic giving in the United States, as in the few other countries where it is at all significant, is a substantial source of revenue especially to the already well-endowed, elite colleges and research universities, both private and public. Other than from the occasional and serendipitous gift from wealthy individuals or foundations (often for naming rights to a new building or laboratory), philanthropic giving to higher education in most countries – especially to public institutions, where the revenue shortfalls from government may be most severe – is both expensive to begin and requires a widespread culture of giving to colleges and universities that most countries do not yet enjoy. A further limitation, particularly limiting in low- and middle-income countries (where the need for revenue supplementation is often the greatest), is the fact that finance ministers are generally loath to forego the tax revenue that stimulates much philanthropic giving in the
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United States via the deductibility of charitable gifts from otherwise taxable income. At the same time, the idea of higher educational philanthropy continues to be attractive as a potential source of supplemental revenue due in part to its great significance in the United States (and increasingly in the United Kingdom) and in part simply because it is not a tuition fee and does not require an increase in taxes. Faculty and institutional entrepreneurship is another potential revenue source that is neither tuition fees nor taxation. Such entrepreneurship may be through externally supported research or training grants, renting spaces in university facilities, or providing nondegree courses and certificates in such popular subjects as English language, accounting, or information systems. However, such entrepreneurship is mainly feasible only for certain faculties and departments and may contribute little to a university’s core instructional expenditures. Moreover, these activities divert faculty from the primary activities of teaching and research. Finally, some would add businesses or corporations to the parties that can share the costs of higher education and supplement revenue from government or from families. .However, at least arguably, donations from businesses or corporations can be thought of as a form of philanthropy and borne either by the owners or the shareholders (and partially subsidized in some countries, as explained above, by the government through the deductibility of charitable donations from otherwise taxable income) or as an expense of doing business and borne in the end by the end consumers of the products of the business, which consumers are virtually indistinguishable from the general citizenry, or taxpayer. Thus, the principal bearers of higher educational costs in most countries tend to be some combination of governments (or taxpayers), parents, and students (the latter principally via student loans or deferred tuition fees). The second connotation of cost-sharing, then, refers to a nearly worldwide shift in the costs of higher education from being borne in most countries substantially – and the instructional costs in some countries even exclusively – by governments
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(or the general citizenry) to being shared by parents and students. This is the meaning attached in most countries to the often controversial idea of cost-sharing, that is, the politically and ideologically charged issue of tuition fees.
Forms of Cost-Sharing As a governmental policy to effect a shift of higher educational costs from governments to parents and/or students, cost-sharing can take any (or several) of quite different forms, including: 1. The beginning of tuition (where higher education was formerly free or nearly so): This would have been the case in China in 1997, the United Kingdom in 1998, or Austria in 2001. 2. The addition of a special tuition-paying track within public colleges and universities while maintaining free or nearly free higher education for the regularly admitted, state-supported students: Such a dual track tuition fee preserves the legal and political appearance of free higher education, which is particularly important (and is frequently enshrined in a constitution or a framework law) in formerly communist/socialist countries such as Russia and other countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, most of East and Central Europe, and East African countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania with their legacy of African socialism. 3. A very sharp rise in fees where a policy of public sector tuition fees already exists: A shift in the direction of greater cost-sharing requires that the rise in tuition be greater than the rise in institutional costs generally in order for the government’s, or taxpayer’s, proportionate share to be lessened, and the parent’s and/or student’s shares to rise. This has been the case most recently in England, which in 2012 raised the maximum allowable university tuition fee to some £9000 [$14,800]. It has also been the case for decades in most of the states in the United States and many of the provinces
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in Canada as state and provincial governments have failed to maintain their former shares of public university expenses, forcing tuition fees to fill in the gaps left by the failure of government funding to keep pace with the rising costs of higher education. 4. The imposition of user charges to recover the expenses of what were once governmentally or institutionally provided (and heavily subsidized) residences and dining halls: This has been happening in most countries, including virtually all the formerly communist/socialist countries, and notably and controversially most of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where subsidized living costs at one time absorbed the bulk of the government’s higher educational budgets. In the Nordic countries of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, where higher education remains “free,” the expenses to students are exclusively the expenses of student living, which are very high in those countries and which are shared neither by taxpayers nor (at least officially) by parents, but rather are borne mainly or entirely by the students, largely in the form of student loans (which costs are indirectly shared by the taxpayer in the form of repayment subsidies). 5. The elimination or reduction of student grants or scholarships: This is sometimes accomplished simply by “freezing” grant or loan levels, holding them constant in the face of inflation, which then erodes their real value. This began happening to the once generous cost of living grants in Britain (which were later abandoned altogether) and has happened to the value of the maintenance grants in most of the communist or socialist countries of the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe, and Asia, as well as many countries in Africa. 6. A shift in the predominate form of student assistance from grants to loans: This was the case in the United Kingdom, as reported above, and has been the case in the United States, where the federal need-based grants have not kept pace with increases in the costs of higher education to students, but the total volume of federally sponsored student loans (most of
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them subsidized and/or guaranteed) has risen dramatically. 7. An increase in the effective cost recovery on student loans: This can be accomplished through a diminution of the subsidies on student loans (similar to the diminution in the value of non-repayable grants) and might be accomplished through an increase in interest rates, a reduction in the length of time that interest is not charged, or a reduction in the numbers of loans for which the repayments, for any number of reasons, are forgiven. Or the effective cost recovery might be accomplished through a tightening of collections or a reduction in the instances of default (as in the United States in the 1990s) with no change in the effective rates of interest paid by those who were repaying anyway. 8. The limitation of capacity in the low fee or free public sector together with the official encouragement (and frequently some public subsidization) of a tuition-dependent private sector to absorb increasing portions of rising enrollment demand: A number of countries – notably Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and other countries in Latin America and East Asia – have avoided much of what would otherwise have been significant governmental expenditure on higher education by keeping a limited public sector (usually elite and selective) and shifting much of the costs of expanded participation to parents and students through the encouragement of substantial and growing private sectors of higher education. The public subsidization of private, demandabsorbing, higher educational institutions can be achieved in various ways, including providing land and infrastructure, subsidizing and/or guaranteeing loans for facilities or equipment, opening public student grant and loan programs to private sector students, and reducing or eliminating taxes on gifts or earned revenues of private institutions. Although cost-sharing may take on these different forms, the imposition of, and/or large increases in, tuition fees provides the greatest
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financial impact. This is because tuition fees, aside from the need to rebate some of the additional revenue in the form of grants or discounts to preserve accessibility, can be both financially significant and ongoing and can be designed to regularly increase, thus keeping pace with the inevitably rising per student costs of instruction as well as increasing enrollment demand. At the same time, tuition fees are also the most politically charged and ideologically resisted form of cost-sharing and thus have become a symbol of the conflict between those who believe that government must continue to provide higher education free of any charge as well as free from the pulls of such trends as corporatization and marketization – and those who accept the virtues of markets as well as the unlikelihood of their government coming up with sufficient and annually increasing revenue and who thus accept (in some cases reluctantly) the imperative of cost-sharing, especially in the form of tuition or user fees.
The Impetus for Policies of Cost-Sharing The impetus for this shift from governments to families is mainly a response to the worldwide phenomenon of higher educational costs and revenue needs – at both the institutional and the country or system levels – rising annually at rates considerably in excess of the ability (or the willingness) of most governments to annually increase public higher educational budgets. Underlying these rapidly increasing costs and revenue needs are two principal forces, which differ considerably among countries and regions. The first is the tendency of unit – or per student – costs to rise at rates that tend to track the rate of increase of wages and salaries in the larger economy, or, if there is any real growth in the general economy, at a rate of inflation plus. This is the so-called cost disease, or the phenomenon of the rising relative unit costs in the labor-intensive, productivity-immune (or at least productivity resistant) sectors of the economy, which includes symphony orchestras, schools, and universities. Accelerating this natural rate of unit, or per
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student, cost increases are other factors peculiar to most universities that further generate annual cost increases. These include, for example, the resistance of university faculty to supposedly less costly instructional methods such as e-learning or shortened degrees or the ubiquitous demand in universities worldwide for increasing technology that tends – in universities, as opposed to goods-producing industries – to add rather than lower costs. The other force behind the increasing costs of higher education at the country or system levels – and a force that is particularly evident in low- and middle-income countries – is a surging increase in the demand for higher education places. This increasing demand, in turn, is a function of three factors that vary greatly among countries. The first of these is demographics: specifically the growth over time in the number of youth within the conventional college or university age cohort (i.e., ages 18 through about 24). Some countries such as Italy, Germany, and other countries in Southern Europe, Russia, and Japan are experiencing demographic declines. Most countries, however, and nearly all low- and middle-income countries, are experiencing increases in their traditional university age cohorts. A second factor affecting enrollments is the increasing participation rate of this increasing university age cohort. Increasing participation, in turn, is a function of (a) rising enrollments at secondary levels, (b) changing employment opportunities and a perception of increasing competition for the fewer good jobs that will be enhanced by higher education, and (c) a heightened regard for social and economic mobility and justice that is leading to policies designed to increase higher educational participation, particularly among those traditionally less represented, such as ethnic and linguistic minorities, girls (in some cultures), or students from poor secondary schools or otherwise thought to be educationally disadvantaged. A final factor affecting enrollments in some countries is the increasing amount, or final level, of higher education per entering student. This, too, is an accelerating factor as first-degree graduates perceive a need for even higher levels of
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education to be competitive (e.g., the growth of MBAs and other professional master’s degrees) and as professions (especially licensed professions such as teachers and the nonphysician health professionals) endeavor to raise their stature and limit the numbers allowed to practice, thus limiting competition and enhancing status and remuneration. (This factor might be countered in the European Bologna region by the shortened (bachelors) first degree.) However, the growth of professional master’s degrees may counteract the continent’s shortened first degree – which change came not from the universities or their faculties but from the European ministries and does not yet seem to have significantly shortened the length of students’ study time on the continent of Europe. The principal impetus for the rise of costsharing policies, then, is the juxtaposition of these rising higher educational costs and revenue needs together with the increasing unlikelihood of public revenues rising annually commensurate with these rising costs and revenue needs. This unlikelihood may be due, particularly in middle- and low-income countries, to the equally surging – and oftentimes even more politically and socially compelling – competition from other pressing public needs, including elementary and secondary education, public health, and public infrastructure such as water treatment, roads, rural electrification, and housing. And in higher-income countries, and even those with declining demographics, which are experiencing lesser enrollment-driven pressures, the resistance to the increases in public revenues needed to meet higher education’s increasing costs and revenue needs may be due – in addition to competition from other public needs like health care and public pensions – to taxpayer resistance or simply to a sense that a country’s higher education system must improve its efficiency or effectiveness or both to warrant more public revenues. In any case the impetus for cost-sharing policies may be summarized as a consequence of these diverging trajectories, in most countries, of surging costs and revenue needs together with generally static governmental appropriations to public higher education.
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Rationale for Shifting Costs to Parents and Students From the section above, the major rationale for a governmental policy to shift some of the costs of higher education to parents and/or students is the sheer need for supplemental revenue to counteract the increasing austerity experienced by colleges and universities throughout the world. This austerity is felt especially in low-income countries that typically experience the most severe enrollment pressures in addition to weak tax structures and formidable queues of competing public needs. A principal objection to cost-sharing policies, unsurprisingly, is the need in most countries to maintain, and increase, access to all forms of postsecondary education – and the concern that increases in tuition and other fees could inhibit these access goals. Some opponents of tuition and other fees maintain that cost-sharing is simply a rationale for not raising taxes. However, raising taxes, particularly raising taxers progressively, that is, falling on the wealthy more than on those with lower incomes, as well as cost-effectively, that is, minimizing the expense of tax collection and the losses from tax avoidance, is difficult, and most middle- and low-income countries may be at or near a maximum tax effort (at least commensurate with an investment- and market-friendly economy). Equally significant to the unlikelihood of significant annual increases of public revenue to higher education is the aforementioned queue of competing public needs that are at least as compelling as the needs of public colleges and universities. By this rationale, the alternative in many countries to the revenue supplementation afforded by some cost-sharing is likely to some combination of greater overcrowding and loss of instructional quality, or continued capacity limitations in the public institutions. The consequence of the need to limit access to public universities is to divert increasing numbers – at least of those from families who can pay – to the higher tuition fee private institutions. And either eventuality is to the disadvantage of lowincome or rural or linguistically marginalized populations.
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The second rationale for tuition fees and other forms of cost-sharing, based less on need or expediency than on principle (however ideologically contested), is the notion of equity: the view that those who benefit should at least share in the costs. This principle is made more vivid and compelling by four observations. The first is that “free” higher education is actually paid for by all citizens, whether or not they know that they have been taxed (or have had their purchasing power effectively confiscated by inflation brought on by the government’s printing of money). Second, most taxes – public policies to the contrary notwithstanding – are collected through regressive, or at best proportional, taxes on sales, production, or individual incomes that cannot be otherwise hidden (or through the even more regressive governmentally induced inflation, as mentioned above). Third, a disproportionate number of the beneficiaries of higher education especially in low-income countries are from middle-, upper-middle-, and upper-income families who could and would pay at least a portion of the costs of instruction if they had to – thus demonstrating the private value to them of the higher educational opportunities. In this sense – again especially in low-income countries – the higher public subsidy required by a policy of low or no tuition can be said (at least by the proponents of cost-sharing) to resemble a transfer payment from the public treasury to middle- and upper-middle-class families. Fourth and finally, to the extent that there are potential students who would be excluded from higher education by the presence of tuition, a portion of the tuition collected can easily (at least in theory) fund the means-tested grants and loan subsidies that can (again, at least in theory) maintain and even enhance accessibility. A third rationale for cost-sharing in higher education is the neoliberal economic notion that a tuition fee – a price, as it were, on a valuable and highly demanded commodity – brings to higher education some of the virtues of the market. One such virtue is the presumption of greater efficiency: that the payment of some tuition will make students and families more discerning consumers and the universities more cost-conscious providers. The second virtue attributed to the
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market is producer responsiveness: the assumption that the need to supplement public revenue with tuition, gifts, and grants will make universities more responsive to individual and societal needs. A variation on this theme is directed at the alleged problem of academic malingering, that is, students alleged to be taking more years or more courses (or both) than are necessary or even useful merely or largely because the courses and sometimes even the living expenses are paid for and because the alternative may be either unemployment or an unappealing job out in the real world. Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States have responded in part by eliminating or reducing student aid after insufficient progress toward the degree, and some US states have begun charging the higher out-of-state tuition after so many “excess” credits. By the above rationales, cost-sharing, especially tuition and user fees, may be most compelling in countries that combine (a) a great austerity throughout their public sectors; (b) a steadily worsening austerity in public higher education, aggravated by the surging (and mainly unmet) demand for places; and (c) a current student population that is heavily skewed to children of parents who are themselves university educated and from upper-middle- and upper-income classes. Countries that may have the least need for additional cost-sharing would be those that combine (a) high per capita national income and a reasonably progressive and efficient tax system that provides abundant public, (b) well-funded public colleges and universities, and (c) near-universal higher education with few financial barriers to low-income families.
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of sharing – e.g., tuition fees, user fees, dual track or deferred fees, or the reliance on a demandabsorbing private sector – and the forms and sufficiency of financial assistance available to maintain accessibility in the face of whatever additional shift may be on the political able. Resistance to cost-sharing may take any or several of the following forms: Self-Interest Students and parents, regardless of ideology or even affluence, tend (understandably enough) to resist the first imposition of, or the later sharp increase in, tuition fees. Ideological Opposition Cost-sharing may be ideologically resisted, quite apart from family socioeconomic status or the ability to afford tuition fees – among those who view society to be the major beneficiary of higher education regardless of the demonstrably high private benefits received by the graduates and their families. Ideology and self-interest reinforce one another, and student opposition to cost-sharing, especially to tuition fees, can be a formidable political force, especially when allied with a general political opposition to a government pursuing businessfriendly, conservative, or neoliberal policies. (In this regard, opposition to tuition fees is frequently joined by faculty whose self-interest might be thought to be in favor of almost any supplementation of university revenues, but who oppose what they perceive to be the larger politically conservative or neoliberal higher educational agenda, including the embrace of shortcycle and other nonuniversity institutions, the curricular shift in favor of business and vocational subjects, and the attention and resources given over to commercialization and marketization.)
Resistance to Cost-Sharing Resistance to a shift in the higher educational cost burden from governments and taxpayers to students and families, particularly to tuition fees, is widespread. The extent and the rationales for opposition vary greatly depending on a country’s dominant political/ideological orientation, the rationales employed by the proponents of cost-sharing, its current configuration
Concern for Access and Affordability Akin to an ideological opposition, but raised as well by opponents of cost-sharing who may otherwise accept the principle that students and parents should bear some of the cost burden if they are financially able, is the opposition based on the notion that cost-sharing is fundamentally inimical to the principles of accessibility and equity. Obviously, this opposition is greatest in countries or
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regions where disparities in access are greatest, and especially where these reflect and reinforce other politically impermissible disparities related to, for example, ethnicity, home language, region, or rural as opposed to metropolitan location. Also, this kind of opposition is more formidable in countries or regions where financial assistance is demonstrably insufficient to enable college or university access – which extends to countries that have diminished grants or replaced nonrepayable grants with loans or attached such so-called merit criteria to financial assistance that it has become more of a prize for academic achievement or promise that a means of overcoming a family’s inability to afford ford the necessary expenses of a university education. Concern for the Potential (Some Would Say the Likely) Future Erosion of Financial Assistance This concern is that financial assistance, while possibly adequate for now to maintain accessibility in the face of rising fees, requires constant, and probably increasing, governmental appropriations to financial assistance that may well diminish over time or be replaced by student loans. (Note the recent history in the United States and England.) This view can be held by those who fully accept the theoretical rationales for costsharing, but who are concerned that the higher tuition fees are likely to remain, but the increases in financial assistance must compete annually with all of the other competing public needs. A related concern particularly in low-income countries endeavoring to supplement limited public revenues with hoped-for repayments from student loan programs is that governments quickly discover that the high cost of dispensing and servicing the loans plus the losses from oversubsidization and high rates of default can bring little revenue supplementation, greatly limiting the volume of needed new lending. Concern Over Rising Student Indebtedness Noting the increasing debt loads accompanying the shift of costs from governments and parents to students, a rising concern in many countries is not simply over tuition fees or even for accessibility per se but for the deleterious
Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education
effects of rising student indebtedness. These mounting debt loads are a rising concern in the United States, England, China, Australia, and elsewhere, including the Nordic countries (in spite of no tuition fees but a high volume of student loans). The concern in the United States, for example, is that high debt loads, sometimes exceeding $1,000,000, are plaguing not just lowincome students, but increasingly students who have gone on to advanced professional degrees in, e.g., law, medicine, business, and education, and destroying the credit of young adults, interfering with marriage and family plans, limiting home purchases, and turning professionals away from practicing in socially important but insufficiently remunerative venues and specializations such as public interest law or family medical practice in low-income regions of the country. Strategic Concerns Finally, there is a concern that the theoretical revenue supplementation from tuition and other fees may in practice do little either for improving the quality of instruction or for advancing access and affordability. This view can be held by those who fully accept the theoretical rationales for cost-sharing, but who are concerned that the supplemental revenue from an increase in tuition fees can just as easily permit a commensurate withdrawal of public revenue from higher education and a transfer to some other pressing public need – or to simply to enable a cut in taxes.
The Efficacy of Cost-Sharing Cost-sharing can supplement but never altogether replace governmental revenue for higher education. In all of its forms, the potentially additional revenue can enhance instructional quality, higher educational capacity, and targeted financial assistance and thereby increase accessibility and all of the public and private benefits thereof. But costsharing as governmental policy must be viewed in all of its forms: not simply as tuition fees, whether up-front or deferred, but also as the full or partial privatization of student living arrangements, the public encouragement and support of private
Credit Mobility
institutions, and the encouragement and partial subsidization of higher educational philanthropy. Cost-sharing as a governmental policy of shifting some financial support of colleges and universities from governments and taxpayers to parents and students has its several compelling rationales. But all of its forms – from full governmental funding of all instructional costs and living expenses to a full privatization of public instructional costs and student living arrangements – have limits, downsides, and unintended consequences. The financing of higher education remains socially and economically vital, yet increasingly costly to taxpayers, parents, and students alike. The resistance to tuition fees and other parentand student-borne expenses is real and can be vociferous and sometimes politically destabilizing. In the end, the efficacy of cost-sharing – that is, its ability to further the often conflicting needs of governments, institutions, students, and families all in the face of the high and rapidly rising costs of higher education – must be assessed alongside a country’s governmentally sponsored and funded programs of financial assistance; its array of public and private institutions; its configuration of universities, colleges, and short-cycle institutions; and its often volatile context of politics and ideologies.
255 Johnstone, D. Bruce. 2014. Tuition fees, student loans, and other manifestations of cost sharing: Variations and misconceptions. In The forefront of international higher education [A festschrift publication in honor of Philip G. Altbach], ed. Maldonado Maldonado, Alma Basset, and Roberta Malave, 235–244. Dordrecht: Springer. Johnstone, D. Bruce. 2007. Financial austerity, costsharing, and culture: Perspectives on comparative higher education. In Towards a cartography of higher education policy change [A festschrift publication in honor of Guy Neave], ed. Jürgen Enders and Frans van Vaught. Enschede: Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. Johnstone, D. Bruce. 2004. The economics and politics of cost sharing in higher education: Comparative perspectives. Economics of Education Review 20 (4): 403–410. Johnstone, D. Bruce. 2003. Cost-sharing in higher education: Tuition, financial assistance, and accessibility. Czech Sociological Review 39 (3): 351–374. Johnstone, D. Bruce, and Pamela Marcucci. 2010. Financing higher education worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Orr, Dominic, Johannes Wespel, and Alex Usher. 2014. Do changes in cost-sharing have an impact on the behaviour of students and higher education institutions? Evidence from nine case studies. A report prepared for the European commission. Schwarzenberger, Astrid, ed. 2008. Public/private funding of higher education: A social balance. Hanover: Higher education information system (HIS) [HochschulInformations-System GmbH]. Teixeira, Pedro, Bruce Johnstone, Maria Joao Rosa, and Hans Vossensteyn, eds. 2006. Cost-sharing and accessibility in Western higher education: A fairer deal? Dordrecht: Springer.
Cross-References ▶ Cost Disease, Higher Education ▶ Entrepreneurial University ▶ Philanthropy and Individual Donors in Higher Education ▶ Private Higher Education ▶ Privatization, Higher Education ▶ Revenue Diversification, Higher Education ▶ Tuition Fees, Higher Education
Country Knowledge Regime ▶ Values and Beliefs in Higher Education
Credential Inflation ▶ Diploma Devaluation, The Ins and Outs
References
Credit Mobility International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project Website. 2016. http://www.gse. buffalo.edu/org/IntHigherEdFinance. Accessed 10 Sept 2016.
▶ International Academic Mobility in Europe, Regional Perspectives
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Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere
Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere Henry Giroux McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic institutions and public spheres are being downsized, if not altogether disappearing. As these institutions vanish – from higher education to healthcare centers – there is also a serious erosion of the discourses of community, justice, equality, public values, and the common good (see, e.g., Harvey 2003, 2005; Brown 2005; Giroux 2008; Steger and Roy 2010). We increasingly live in societies based on the vocabulary of “choice” and a denial of reality – a denial of massive inequality, social disparities, the irresponsible concentration of power in relatively few hands, and a growing machinery of social death and culture of cruelty (see, for instance, on the rise of the racist punishing state, Alexander 2010; on the severe costs of massive inequality, Stiglitz 2012; on the turning of public schools into prisons, see Fuentes 2011). As power becomes global and is removed from local and nation-based politics, more and more individuals and groups are being defined by a free-floating class of ultra-rich and corporate power brokers as disposable, redundant, and irrelevant. Consequently, there are a growing number of people, especially young people, who increasingly inhabit zones of hardship, suffering, exclusion, joblessness, and terminal exclusion. This is all the more reason for educators and others to address important social issues and to defend higher education as a democratic public sphere. We live in a world in which everything is now privatized, transformed into commodities, and subject to the vicissitudes of the militarysecurity state (quoted in Silk and Andrews (2011)). All human activities, practices, and institutions are now subject to market principles. Public goods such as toll roads, libraries, and schools are privatized as the very idea of the common
good becomes an object of disdain (Brown 2011). As Wendy Brown observes, Far more than a challenge to government spending and regulation, then, neoliberal rationality challenges the very idea of a public good – from libraries to pensions, preserved wilderness to public pools, clean transportation to a healthy educated public. Neoliberal rationality also displaces democracy and equality as governing principles in provisioning goods like education; instead of advancing these principles, education becomes an individual means to an individual end, something individuals may or may not choose to invest in. (Ibid, Brown, “Neoliberalized Knowledge,” p. 119)
Consequently, under such circumstances equality, justice, and fairness as governing principles begin to disappear from the discourse of politics. This grim reality has produced a failure in the power of the civic imagination, political will, and open democracy (Honneth 2009). It is also part of a politics that strips society of any democratic ideals. The ideological script is now familiar: there is no such thing as the common good; market values become the template for shaping all aspects of society; the free possessive individual has no obligations to anything beyond his or her self-interest; market fundamentalism trumps democratic values; the government and, particularly, the welfare state are the arch enemies of freedom; private interests negate public values; consumerism becomes the only obligation of citizenship; law and order is the new language for mobilizing shared fears rather than shared responsibilities; and war becomes the all-embracing organizing principle for developing society and the economy (for an excellent analysis of contemporary forms of neoliberalism, Hall 2011; see also Harvey 2005; Giroux 2008). Given this current crisis, educators, artists, intellectuals, youth, and workers need a new political and pedagogical language for addressing the changing contexts and issues facing a world in which capital draws upon an unprecedented convergence of resources – financial, cultural, political, economic, scientific, military, and technological – to exercise powerful and diverse forms of control. If educators and others are to counter global capitalism’s increased ability to separate the traditional sphere of politics from
Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere
the now transnational reach of power, it is crucial to develop educational approaches that reject a collapse of the distinction between market liberties and civil liberties, a market economy and a market society. This suggests developing public spheres capable of constructing forms of moral and political agency willing to challenge neoliberalism and other anti-democratic traditions including the increasing criminalization of social problems such as homelessness, while resurrecting a radical democratic project that provides the basis for imagining a life beyond the “dreamworld” of capitalism. Under such circumstances, education becomes more than high-stakes testing, an obsession with accountability schemes, the reduction of research to an audit culture, an obsession with measurable utility, and a site for promoting conformity and training students for the workforce. At stake here is recognizing the power of education in creating the formative culture and the identities, dispositions, and capacities necessary to challenge the various threats being mobilized against the very idea of justice and democracy while also fighting for those public spheres, ideals, values, and policies that offer alternative modes of identity, social relations, and politics. In both conservative and progressive discourses, education is often reduced to a set of corporate strategies and skills to use in order to teach prespecified subject matter, one that defines the citizen as a consumer, schooling as an act of consumption, faculty as entrepreneurs, and students as customers. In opposition to the instrumental reduction of education to an adjunct of corporate and neoliberal interest – which has no language for relating the self to public life, social responsibility, or the demands of citizenship – critical pedagogy illuminates the relationships among knowledge, authority, and power (for examples of this tradition, see Nikolakaki 2012; Giroux 2011). For instance, it raises questions regarding who has control over the conditions for the production of knowledge. Is the production of knowledge and curricula in the hands of teachers, textbook companies, corporate interests, the elite, or other forces? Central to any viable notion that what makes higher education critical is, in part, the recognition that is always implicated in power
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relations because it offers particular versions and visions of civic life, community, the future, and how we might construct representations of ourselves, others, and our physical and social environment. Education is part of a broader struggle over knowledge, subjectivities, values, and the future. It is under a massive assault in Greece, the United States, and England because it is one of the few places left that is capable of educating students to be critical, thoughtful, and engaged citizens willing to take risks, stretch their imaginations, and most importantly hold power accountable. The consequences of turning universities into places that produce commodities represent the nightmare that neoliberalism defends as part of its methodical ruthlessness toward others, its hatred of democracy, and its fear of young people who increasingly realize they have been shut out of the language of democracy, justice, and hope. One of the most serious challenges facing teachers, artists, journalists, writers, youth, and other cultural workers is the challenge of developing a discourse of both critique and possibility. This means insisting that democracy begins to fail and political life becomes impoverished in the absence of those vital public spheres such as higher education in which civic values, public scholarship, and social engagement allow for a more imaginative grasp of a future that takes seriously the demands of justice, equity, and civic courage. Democracy should be a way of thinking about education, one that thrives on connecting equity to excellence, learning to ethics, and agency to the imperatives of social responsibility and the public good. Neoliberalism is a toxin that is producing a predatory class of the walking dead who are producing what might be called dead zones of the imagination, and they are waging a fierce fight against the possibilities of a world in which the promise of justice and democracy are worth fighting for, but the future is still open. The time has come to develop a political language in which civic values, social responsibility, and the institutions that support them become central to invigorating and fortifying a new era of civic imagination, a renewed sense of social agency, and an impassioned international social movement with a vision, organization, and
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set of strategies to challenge the neoliberal nightmare engulfing the planet.
Cross-Border Academic (Staff) Mobility
Cross-Border Education ▶ International Branch Campuses, Management of
References Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Brown, Wendy. 2005. Edgework. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brown, Wendy. 2011. Neoliberalized knowledge. History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History 1(1): 118–119. Fuentes, Annette. 2011. Lockdown high: When the schoolhouse becomes a jailhouse. New York: Verso. Giroux, Henry A. 2008. Against the terror of neoliberalism. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Giroux, Henry A. 2011. On critical pedagogy. New York: Continuum. Hall, Stuart. 2011. The neo-liberal revolution. Cultural Studies 25(6): 705–728. Harvey, David. 2003. The new imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Honneth, Alex. 2009. Pathologies of reason, 188. New York: Columbia University Press. Nikolakaki, Maria, ed. 2012. Critical pedagogy in the dark ages: Challenges and possibilities. New York: Peter Lang. Silk, Michael L., and David L. Andrews. 2011. (Re) presenting Baltimore: Place, policy, politics, and cultural pedagogy. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 33: 436. Steger, Manfred B., and Ravi K. Roy. 2010. Neoliberalism: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2012. The price of inequality: How today divided society endangers our future. New York: Norton.
Cross-Border Faculty Mobility ▶ Internationally Mobile Faculty, Comparative Perspectives
Cross-Border Higher Education ▶ Transnational Education (TNE)
Cross-Border Tertiary Education Collaborations in Emerging Countries ▶ International Higher Education Partnerships in the Developing World
Cross-Cultural Empathy ▶ Global Citizenship and Higher Education
Cross-Border Academic (Staff) Mobility ▶ Internationally Mobile Faculty, Comparative Perspectives
Cross-Cultural Research ▶ Comparative Research, Higher Education
Cross-Border Collaboration ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in North America
Cross-National Research ▶ Comparative Research, Higher Education
Cultural Capital, Social Class, and Higher Education
Cross-Sector Collaboration ▶ Social Partnership, Cross-Sector Collaboration
Cross-Sector Social Partnership ▶ Social Partnership, Cross-Sector Collaboration
Cultural Capital, Social Class, and Higher Education Rachel Brooks University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Over recent decades, the number of young people benefitting from higher education has increased considerably as the sector has expanded and “massified.” However, despite this shift, there remain – in many countries across the world – significant differences by social class in access to higher education. For example, of younger adults (i.e., those under 35), OECD data show that 23 % of those whose parents did not attain upper secondary education attained tertiary education themselves, compared with 65 % of their counterparts whose parents had also attained tertiary education (OECD 2015). Furthermore, students from more advantaged backgrounds are also more likely than their less advantaged peers to gain access to the most prestigious institutions (Boliver 2013). Moreover, differences, by social class, have been widely documented in relation to students’ experiences of higher education and their transitions from higher education into employment. In explaining these inequalities, which have endured despite the attempts on the part of governments across the world to “widen participation” among traditionally underrepresented groups, many scholars have drawn upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu, in particular, his concept
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of cultural reproduction, and the three forms of capital – economic, social, and cultural – which he identified. In his analysis, these forms of capital do not act independently of one another but are inextricably linked. Social class positions afford differential access to the three forms which, in turn, create different patterns of privilege and inequality. Economic capital is clearly important in relation to, for example, the ability of students and their families to afford tuition fees and travel to institutions that may be some distance from home and ensure a high-quality secondary education (to facilitate progression to higher education). Social capital has also been shown to play a key role. Indeed, Ball (2003) has distinguished between the social capital possessed by workingclass students, when making decisions about higher education, and by their middle-class peers. He argues that the former was “almost exclusively very personal and familial and offered fairly limited descriptive information and bland recommendations and rarely involved other adults and certainly not adults who could be of use in choosing and applying to higher education” (p.82). In contrast, that invoked by the middleclass students is described by Ball as “effective or operant, high volume social capital, that is, social capital realised through social networks providing direct support and relevant and valued resources” (ibid.). In this way, he suggests class differences are perpetuated. A large number of studies have focused on the role played by cultural capital. This, Bourdieu argued, can exist in three forms: an embodied state (e.g., long-lasting bodily and/or mental dispositions), an objectified state (e.g., cultural goods such as books and pictures), and an institutionalized state (e.g., academic credentials or qualifications awarded by educational institutions) (Bourdieu 1997). Bourdieu (ibid.) contended that educational institutions tend to reinforce social inequalities by failing to take account of the differing amounts of cultural competence possessed by their students and their differing levels of familiarity with the dominant cultural (i.e., their cultural capital). Firstly, this can be seen to affect access to higher education – informing decisions about whether or not to progress to higher
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education at all and, for those who do decide to go, the type of institution to which they should apply. Research has now documented clearly the different assumptions that are made by different class fractions (e.g., Brooks 2003). While young people from middle-class families typically do not consider any options on leaving school or college other than higher education, the decision-making processes of those from working-class backgrounds are often different. Research has shown how such students, who have no familial experience of higher education to draw upon, often view higher education institutions as alien spaces not suitable for “people like me” (Archer et al. 2003). When they do go on to higher education, they often seek out institutions that are believed to be more welcoming of students from less advantaged backgrounds (e.g., newer, lower-status institutions), or which are located locally, so enabling them to live at home and thus maintain their existing social networks. Indeed, higher education choices are often made within particular institutional circuits, which correspond closely to familial cultural capital. In the UK, for example, Reay et al. (2005) have argued that while privately educated students tend to dominate Oxford and Cambridge and middle-class students identify most strongly with older, civic universities, their working-class counterparts feel most at home in institutions that gained university status much more recently. Brooks and Waters (2009) have extended this analysis by adding a fourth circuit. Indeed, they argue that those from the most privileged backgrounds (across many nation states) choose within global circuits of higher education – often preferring to study at elite institutions abroad if they fail to secure access to highstatus universities at home. Experiences while at university can also be strongly differentiated by social class. Indeed, while higher education institutions clearly do offer the possibility for significant cross-cultural encounter, empirical research has shown that cultural capital can affect interactions between students – as well as how higher education is experienced more broadly. Keane (2011), for example, has shown how, in her research in an
Cultural Capital, Social Class, and Higher Education
Irish higher education institution, the nontraditional students were aware that they did not have access to the same cultural (or economic) capital as their middle-class counterparts. They were thus worried about being rejected as interlopers and, as a consequence, “refused to engage in friendship-building with “other” students” (p.455). For these students, Keane concludes, feeling subserviently positioned was a common experience. Similar findings have emerged from other countries. For example, Li (2013) has argued that students from less well-off, rural backgrounds often feel out of place at high-status Chinese universities when compared to their peers from urban areas – because of their lack of access to “legitimate” cultural forms and their exclusion (and self-exclusion) from high-status societies and social activities. In contrast, however, the working-class university students in Lehmann’s (2014) research in Canada came to distance themselves from the (working-class) friends they had left behind, often claiming that they were narrowminded and illiberal in their views. Lehmann suggests that higher education staff have to take some responsibility for these attitudes – because of the way in which many academics tend to elevate middle-class forms of cultural capital over others and deny value to working-class lives per se. Indeed, he contends that “rather than finishing university with a more critical understanding of the structural and cultural conditions of their former lives or those of their parents or old friends, the [working class] students have joined a middleclass chorus that renders working class knowledge and experience deficient if not pathological” (p.13). Social class and cultural capital also pattern transitions from higher education into employment. Although there are some important national variations, data from many countries indicate that the way higher education credentials are viewed is a subjective process and one that often advantages those in possession of middle-class (or elite) forms of cultural capital. For example, drawing on data from graduates in Hong Kong who had studied for their degree abroad, Waters (2006) has argued that the perceived value of the degree
Cultural Frames
depended largely on whether or not the graduate was a member of an exclusive network of “overseas” students and graduates. Within such networks (but not necessarily outside of them), an overseas qualification was seen to guarantee a wide range of embodied characteristics including fluency in English, an innovative approach to learning (rather than a commitment to rote learning), and better communication skills (by virtue of having a more “free and open” style). Waters (2006) thus concludes that the way in which cultural capital was recognized and valued was crucial in explaining transitions into employment, arguing that “the spatial proximity of a substantial cohort of overseas-educated graduates within the financial district of Hong Kong. . .enabled the easy exchange of participants’ cultural capital into economic capital” (p.187). Similarly, research on hiring practices in the USA has shown how the ways in which graduate employers defined and evaluated merit were strong skewed in favor of those from economically advantaged families who exhibited “appropriate” forms of cultural capital (Rivera 2015). Indeed, Rivera (ibid.) argues: . . .employers sought new hires who were not only capable colleagues but fun and exciting playmates. They distrusted resumes and often privileged their own personal feelings of comfort, validation, and excitement experienced during face-to-face interviews over identifying candidates with superior cognitive or technical skills. They did so not only to reduce uncertainty in a fast-paced, client-service environment but also to increase their personal enjoyment at work. In many respects, they hired in a manner more closely resembling the choice of friends or romantic partners than one resembling the rational model that sociologists typically posit. (p.270)
Thus, it appears that while higher education has ostensibly become more open and accessible, with over a third of young people now progressing to higher education in most countries across the world (an average of 40 % across OECD countries), inequalities by social class remain and continue to pattern educational decision-making and the experiences of those who do progress to higher education and route from higher education
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into the labor market. Cultural capital plays a key role in these processes of social reproduction.
References
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Archer, L., M. Hutchings, and A. Ross. 2003. Higher education and social class: Issues of exclusion and inclusion. London: Routledge. Ball, S.J. 2003. Class strategies and the educational market: The middle class and social advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Boliver, V. 2013. How fair is access to more prestigious UK Universities? British Journal of Sociology 64(2): 344–364. Bourdieu, P. 1997. The three forms of capital. In Education: Culture, economy, society, ed. A. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown, and A.S. Wells. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brooks, R. 2003. Young people’s higher education choices: The role of family and friends. British Journal of Sociology of Education 24(3): 283–297. Brooks, R., and J. Waters. 2009. A second chance at ‘Success’: UK students and global circuits of higher education. Sociology 43(6): 1085–1102. Keane, E. 2011. Distancing to self-protect: the perpetuation of inequality in higher education through sociorelational dis/engagement. British Journal of Sociology of Education 32(3): 449–466. Lehmann, W. 2014. Habitus transformation and hidden injuries. Successful Working-class University Students. Sociology of Education 87(1): 1–15. Li, H. 2013. Rural students’ experiences in a Chinese elite university: Capital, habitus and practices. British Journal of Sociology of Education 34(5–6): 829–847. OECD. 2015. Education at a glance 2015. Paris: OECD Publishing. Reay, D., M. David, and S. Ball. 2005. Degrees of choice. Social class, race and gender in higher education. London: Trentham Books. Rivera, L. 2015. Pedigree: How elite students get elite jobs. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Waters, J. 2006. Geographies of cultural capital: education, international migration and family strategies between Hong Kong and Canada. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31: 179–192.
Cultural Frames ▶ Research in Higher Perspectives
Education,
Cultural
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Cultural Intelligence
Cultural Intelligence
Curriculum
▶ Intercultural Competencies and the Global Citizen
▶ Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching ▶ Liberal Arts Education, Going Global
Cultural Understandings ▶ Research in Higher Perspectives
Education,
Cultural
Curriculum Internationalization
Cultural Viewpoints ▶ Research in Higher Perspectives
Education,
Cultural
▶ Internationalization of the Curriculum in the Disciplines, Critical Perspectives ▶ Internationalization of the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning
D
Data Management ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Europe
Decision Making Support ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Europe
Definitive Abandonment of Higher Education ▶ Students’ Drop Out, Higher Education
Degree Mobility ▶ International Academic Mobility in Europe, Regional Perspectives
Decision Support ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, North America
Decision to Leave Higher Education ▶ Students’ Drop Out, Higher Education
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education Stephen Machin1 and Gill Wyness2,3 1 Department of Economics and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London, UK 2 UCL Institute of Education and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London, UK 3 Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
Decision-Making
Synonyms
▶ Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education
Returns to higher education; Graduate premia; Private returns to higher education
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020 P. N. Teixeira, J. C. Shin (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8905-9
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Definition Measuring the wage returns to degree, by subject of degree, institution, and both subject and institution.
Introduction The positive relationship between higher education (HE) attainment and earnings is well documented (Card 1999; Blundell, Dearden, & Sianesi 2005). But given the rapidly increasing proportion of individuals pursuing HE across the developed and developing world, the type and quality of higher education that students obtain has become of growing research and policy interest (Altonji et al. 2015). Moreover, higher education sectors are becoming more marketized, with students and graduates expected to contribute a greater share of the costs of HE through tuition fees. As such it is important to understand whether the field of study or quality of institution chosen can deliver additional wage gains. This type of information is important for policymakers, potential employers, and practitioners, as well as for individual students themselves.
Variations in Earnings Payoffs to HE To date, the literature has shown a great deal of heterogeneity in labor market returns to degrees. A focus has been placed on changes over time as the earnings payoff to degrees has varied in some countries over time (Autor, Katz, & Kearney 2008; Machin & Wyness 2017), variations for workers with different demographics (e.g., for gender and race see Altonji & Blank 1999, Figueiredo 2017, and Chiswick 2017) and for institutional features of the HE system like subject of degree/major choice or institution attending. To study “degrees of quality” we focus on these last two, both separately and together. Subject of Degree/Field of Major In the UK, Walker and Zhu (2011) have reported evidence of considerable variation in returns
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education
across different degree subjects. While women enjoy large returns from all subject types, men experience very large returns from law, economics, and management degrees, but less so for science, technology, engineering, and maths degrees. Meanwhile degrees such as arts, education and humanities attract far lower returns. Understanding these differences is particularly important in the UK since students specialize right at the outset of university enrolment, and transfers to different programs are extremely rare (HESA 2016). The same is true in developing countries where students often face the widespread requirement to choose their area of specialization early in their course, and often once the choice is made institutions are relatively inflexible so that change is impossible (World Bank, 2000). However, in other places higher education is more general and students specialize later on in their degree. For example, in the USA, students pick a variety of subjects. But heterogeneity in returns by major is also apparent in the USA, where STEM and business majors attract the highest returns (Altonji, Arcidiacono, & Maurel 2016). Demand for STEM majors in particular is escalating in the USA, where jobs requiring STEM skills will grow at 1.6% annually in the 2008–18 decade versus 1% for other occupations, but where STEM graduates make up only 14% of graduates (in comparison to 42% in China, and 28% in Germany) (McKinsey 2012), perhaps explaining the high wage premium. Producing STEM graduates is also a growing issue in the developing world. Indeed India and China are projected to become dominant suppliers of STEM graduates – but there are concerns about the quality of STEM degrees in these countries (McKinsey 2012), again highlighting the need to understand whether such degrees really produce wage returns. One research challenge that immediately jumps out from this work is defining the appropriate counterfactual for evaluating the wage differential attached to a particular degree subject. Recent research in the area has, however, made significant methodological advances. Drawing upon rich Norwegian register data matched to university admissions, Kirkoboen, Leuven, and
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education
Mogstad (2016) ensure that wage differentials can be identified by exploiting Norway’s centralized admission process where discontinuities act to effectively randomize applicants near unpredictable admission cutoffs into different institutions and fields of study. In doing so, they pin down significant wage gains connected to different fields of study. College Quality Heterogeneity by institution is common throughout the world. In the USA in particular, there are a wide range of institution types – public, private, for-profit – emerging in response to demand. The same is true in developing countries, where rapid expansion in the demand for HE, in conjunction with a cash-strapped public sector, has resulted in the emergence of private colleges (World Bank, 2000). A small body of evidence reports evidence where wage returns vary according to quality of institution. Early studies in this area were very US centric and typically used measures of the ability of the student intake (usually SAT scores) as a proxy for quality, finding small positive effects (Brewer & Ehrenberg 1996). However, as documented by Black et al. (2005) and Black and Smith (2006), using a single measure of college quality can exert downward bias in the effects of college quality on wages due to increased presence of measurement error (though they nonetheless conclude that SAT score is the most reliable quality measure). The small number of studies from the UK and USA which uses multiple dimensions of quality also tends to find small positive effects of student entry scores. These studies typically estimate statistical regressions that look at the relationship between earnings and each dimension of quality (conditioning on a rich set of characteristics), and then, to account for issues of collinearity among these quality variables, also create quality indices (usually using factor analysis) based on their input measures. For example, Black and Smith (2006) use faculty salaries, freshman retention rates, and average SAT scores as their chosen quality measures. After conditioning on a rich set of characteristics, as well as years of schooling, they find largely
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positive significant effects for men and women. They also create a quality index based on the three measures of quality and find that college quality matters for the future earnings of men and women; specifically that going from the 25th to 75th quartile of the quality distribution increases wages by 7.2% for men and 3.5% for women. Similarly, Black and Smith (2006) and Hussain, McNally, and Telhaj (2009), the latter being a rare example of a UK-based study of the importance of quality, both use a similar set of quality measures in their studies, again regressing each dimension separately and then together, using two factor models, and models combining all dimensions of quality. Table 1 presents a comparison of the findings of these two studies. As can be seen, both studies come up with very similar findings – that quality matters for future earnings, though in the context of an estimated average return to higher education of 48% (Blundell et al. 2005) returns to quality are potentially quite low (the numbers in the table range from 5.6% to 8.0% of log(wages)). But what if a student’s decision to attend a particular university is driven by underlying factors which also affect their future earnings? For
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education, Table 1 Impact of college quality on earnings, comparison of studies
Factor combines faculty student ratio and the retention rate Factor combines faculty student ratio and total tariff score (mean SAT scores for Black and Smith) Factor combines retention rate and total tariff (mean SAT scores for Black and Smith)
Hussein, McNally, and Telhaj 7.24
Black and Smitha 8.00
(1.79) 6.52
(3.31) 6.10
(1.42)
(2.78)
6.35
5.60
(1.29)
(2.25)
Source: Hussain et al. (2009) a Coefficients and standard errors (in parentheses) multiplied by 100
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example, more ambitious students may choose the most selective university and may also do well in the labor market due at least in part to their ambitious nature. The studies thus far mentioned deal with this selection problem using selection on observables. That is to say, they attempt to control for these effects by conditioning on rich sets of variables, such as student ability measures and demographic characteristics. Dale and Krueger (2002) meanwhile present the first study using quasi-experimental methods to overcome this problem. Their method of adjusting for selection effects is to compare earnings of students who applied to and were accepted and rejected by a comparable set of institutions. They find that students who attended more selective colleges in fact do not earn more than other students, though they do find a positive internal rate of return from attending a college with higher resources, suggesting some role for college quality. A follow-up paper (Dale & Krueger 2014) which uses better data and longer term outcomes again shows that after accounting for selection effects there is a limited role for college quality, but that it does matter for the future earnings of students from ethnic minority backgrounds, those whose parents are poorly educated. A potential explanation is that selective colleges provide access to networks for these types of students. This supports work by Crawford, Gregg, Macmillan, Vignoles, and Wyness (2016) which concludes that returns to college are higher for students from more advantaged backgrounds, even after controlling for prior attainment, institution and subject. Subject/Field of Study and Institution The above literature tells us that in order to maximize their labor market returns, students should study subjects such as economics and law, and (at least for certain groups) they should attend a higher quality institution. But what about the interaction between the two? Should students study economics or law at Oxford or Harvard to get the best return? And which is the most important factor? Until recently, researchers had not broached this question, presumably due to data limitations.
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Generating a robust wage return for studying economics at Harvard, compared to economics at Yale, or maths at Columbia would require a large-scale dataset. However, a significant advance in this dimension is the availability of administrative data, which furnishes the analyst with data of sufficient magnitude to make these inferences. Britton, Dearden, Shephard, and Vignoles (2016) have made considerable advances by using tax and student loan administrative data to measure how the earnings of English graduates vary by institution, subject, and also by subject groupings within institution. Confirming the findings from the studies highlighted above, their analysis reveals considerable variation in earnings according to subject choice (with economics and law delivering the biggest gains, and arts degrees deliver earnings that are similar to nongraduates). As Figs. 1 and 2 show, they also confirm that institution itself matters for earnings, with male and female students studying at more selective UK institutions (e.g., Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics (LSE)) going on to earn considerably more than those studying at less selective institutions. For example, as Figs. 1 and 2 which show the distribution of earnings by higher education institution indicate, male and female graduates of the prestigious LSE are among the highest earners in the country. Moreover, even among the top 10% of earners in the country, there is variation in earnings by institution, with LSE graduates earning the most. Putting these two findings together, Britton et al. (2016). show there is an important interaction between institution and subject. Figure 3 highlights this, showing earnings by subject group and institution among earners in the 90th percentile. As the figure shows, not only do students at certain (usually highly selective) institutions earn more than others at less selective institutions, but those studying certain subjects at these institutions (notably law, economics, and management) can earn even more besides. This is a powerful finding and the first attempt in the literature to provide evidence of the importance of subject and institution combined.
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Degrees of Quality, Higher Education, Fig. 1 Higher education provider ranked on median annual earnings – females (Source Britton et al. 2016)
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education, Fig. 2 Higher education provider ranked on median annual earnings – males (Source Britton et al. 2016)
The Norwegian study of Kirkoboen et al. (2016) is also able to study the labor market impact of both subject of study and institution attended. In their analysis, they too report significant wage
differentials connected to both. However, the former are larger than the latter, which they attribute to individuals gaining wage premia by choosing fields in which they have a comparative advantage.
Degrees of Quality, Higher Education 350 300
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Degrees of Quality, Higher Education, Fig. 3 Graduate earnings by subject group and institution (Source Britton et al. 2016)
Conclusions
References
Evidence from a wide range of settings shows considerable heterogeneity in earnings differentials that accrue to different dimensions of higher education. In this (short) piece, we focus on subject/major and on institution attended, showing that there are significant differences in labor market outcomes connected to both. The use of very rich administrative data has become a key feature of the newer research in the area, with the work moving in the direction of testing the key question of selection effects. Put differently, does the significant earnings power of graduates in particular degrees and institutions arise from the subject and institution they graduated from, or the underlying factor that led them to choose this course in the first place? Offering evidence on this remaining piece of the quality puzzle is still for the most part missing, but with advances in the availability of large-scale datasets, some research has started to tackle this important research and policy question, with more expected in due course.
Altonji, J., and R. Blank. 1999. Race and gender in the labor market. In Handbook of labor economics, ed. O. Ashenfelter and D. Card. Amsterdam: North Holland. Altonji, J.G., P. Arcidiacono, and A. Maurel. 2015. “The Analysis of Field Choice in College and Graduate School: Determinants and Wage Effects”, ‘NBER Working Paper 21655. Altonji, J.G., P. Arcidiacono, and A. Maurel. 2016. The analysis of field choice in college and graduate school: Determinants and wage effects. In Handbook of the economics of education, ed. E. Hanushek, S. Machin, and L. Woessmann. Amsterdam: North Holland. Autor, D., L. Katz, and M. Kearney. 2008. Trends in U.S. wage inequality: Re-assessing the revisionists. Review of Economics and Statistics 90: 300–323. Black, D., and J. Smith. 2006. Estimating the returns to college quality with multiple proxies for quality. Journal of Labor Economics 24: 701–728. Black, D., K. Daniel, and J. Smith. 2005. College quality and wages in the United States. German Economic Review 6: 415–443. Blundell, R., L. Dearden, and B. Sianesi. 2005. Evaluating the effect of education on earnings: Models, methods and results from the National Child Development Survey. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 168: 473–512. Brewer, D., and R. Ehrenberg. 1996. Does it pay to attend an elite private college? Evidence from the high school class of 1980. Research in Labor Economics 15: 239–271. Britton, J., L. Dearden, N. Shephard, and A. Vignoles. (2016). How English domiciled graduate earnings vary with gender, institution attended, subject and socio-economic background. IFS working paper 16/06. London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Cross-References ▶ Inequality in Higher Education and the Labor Market ▶ Returns to Higher Education and Gender
Demography and Higher Education Card, D. 1999. The causal effect of education on earnings. In Handbook of labor economics, ed. O. Ashenfelter and D. Card. Amsterdam: North Holland. Crawford, C., P. Gregg, L. Macmillan, A. Vignoles, and G. Wyness. 2016. Higher education, career opportunities and intergenerational inequality. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 32: 553–575. Dale, S., and A. Krueger. 2002. Estimating the payoff to attending a more selective college: An application of selection on observables and unobservables. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117: 1491–1527. Dale, S., and A. Krueger. 2014. Estimating the effects of college characteristics over the career using administrative earnings data. Journal of Human Resources 49: 323–358. HESA. 2016. Non-continuation rates summary: UK performance indicators 2015/16, higher education statistics agency, Cheltenham, UK. Available at https://www. hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/performance-indicators/no n-continuation-summary. Last accessed 21 Mar 2017. Hussain, I., S. McNally, and S. Telhaj. 2009. University quality and graduate wages in the UK, CEP Discussion Paper No. 99, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London. Kirkoboen, L., E. Leuven, and M. Mogstad. 2016. Field of study, earnings, and self-selection. Quarterly Journal of Economics 131: 1057–1111. McKinsey Global Institute (2012) The world at work: Jobs, pay and skills for 3.5 billion people. McKinsey & Company. Walker, I., and Y. Zhu. 2011. Differences by degree: Evidence of the net financial rates of return to undergraduate study for England and Wales. Economics of Education Review 30: 1177–1186. World Bank, The. 2000. Higher Education in developing countries. Peril and Promise. The task force on Higher Education and Society. The World Bank, Washington D.C., USA.
Demand and Supply ▶ Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education
Demand in the Higher Education Market ▶ Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
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Democratic Education ▶ Community Engagement in Higher Education
Demography and Higher Education Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (Directorate for Education and Skills), OECD, Paris, France
What does demography have to do with higher education? At least three different things. Firstly, demographic trends in a country’s population or worldwide may have an impact on the size, cost, dynamics, and demographics of higher education systems and their outputs. Secondly, higher education systems have their own demographic trends: one can for example be interested in the size, composition, and dynamics of student, graduate, academic, and administrative staff populations within the sector for a variety of reasons. Finally, higher education has an impact on countries’ demographics: not only is educational attainment one of the criteria that is often studied in demographic studies, but the share of the tertiary educated group in a population can also have an impact on countries demographic trends as this influences birth and mortality rates, health, income, etc. Demography is concerned with both quantity and quality – two interrelated dimensions of populations that can be looked at from a variety of perspectives (age, sex, nationality, socioeconomic background, educational attainment, professional role, etc.). Number of strategic issues for higher education policy or the management of higher education institutions relate to these demographic dimensions: the size of higher education systems, the educational attainment of the population, the composition of the student and faculty bodies, all these factors relate in some way to the demography.
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What do we know about the relation between demographic trends and the demography of higher education? This entry will highlight some of these dynamics for three populations of interest to higher education: students, graduates, and faculty.
The Student Population Being able to forecast the student population and understand how it changes is a major challenge to education policy makers and institution leaders. It matters for expenditures, faculty recruitment, facility management, but also the academic supply of institutions and systems. All other things being equal, demography directly affects student enrolments in higher education because the size of younger age cohorts is a partial determinant of the number of students. Other determinants are the rates of entry to higher education, dropout (or study interruption) rates, the average length of study by student, the age distribution of students, student inbound and outbound international mobility, etc. Given that in OECD (and most other) countries, around 80% of students in higher education on average are aged less than 25, the relative impact of younger age cohorts has a major bearing on student enrolment levels. When the size of younger cohorts decreases, one may expect student enrolments to decrease, assuming all other things remain equal, and of course where young cohorts increase in size, one should expect an increase in the population of higher education students. Yet the relationship between demography – or more specifically the size of the younger age cohorts – and higher education enrolment levels is a complex one. Student numbers depend on the access (or entry) rates of different cohorts in the population at different ages and, therefore, on the distribution of admissions over time and the duration of studies irrespective of whether the latter result in dropout or a graduate qualification. Several factors may offset decreases in cohort size, such as an increase in rates of access to higher education or a change in the length of studies. Where the study structure remains
Demography and Higher Education
unchanged, enrolments may increase because of a fall in drop-out rates, making students staying longer on average in the system, because of a growth in part-time student enrolments or an increase in the general level of education. Access rates clarify and depend on several factors, including the proportion of persons with the qualifications required to enter higher education (the eligibility rate) and the proportion of those eligible who do indeed enroll, which may be governed by their own particular aspirations, incentives, and sometimes the number of places available. The actual proportion of entrants also depends, among other things, on the cost of higher education, the financial pressures confronting those otherwise eligible, pecuniary (and nonpecuniary) advantages that they hope to gain from higher education, and the length of their studies from an opportunity cost perspective. The distribution of admissions over time and the length of studies explain why student enrolment levels to some extent lag behind changes in the size of younger age cohorts. A big demographic change in the size of these cohorts will not have a noticeable impact on enrolment for several years. Consider a situation in which the number of young people decreases. When this decrease gets under way, young people in earlier, slightly older cohorts will still be entering higher education, and it will be several years before the succession of smaller cohorts finally affects the system (entering it gradually over a given period): this corresponds to the continued impact of past cohorts. The second reason for the time lag stems from possible changes in entry rates: even if all students were to enter higher education at the same time, which is far from the case, some cohorts (including the younger ones) could have greater access rates and weigh more than others in the system. Let us assume that 30% of a cohort enters the higher education system each year and that each student studies for 3 years. If cohorts increase before decreasing in size, the number of students will only begin to fall 1 year after the demographic change and at first no more than gradually before starting to follow the downward slope of the cohort curve. If entry rates are allowed to increase
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regularly by 2% during the first 5 years, from 30% to 40%, before being held constant in subsequent years, it is clear that 2 years will now elapse before any fall in enrolments is observed (Fig. 1). This simple example is intended merely to convey the persistence of the trends occurring over time. Real life is more complex: with sometimes longer courses of study, many different cohorts entering higher education over an extended period, and differing dropout rates, etc., these effects may be more sustained. To illustrate this point, some enrolment projection for the OECD area based on different scenarios can be presented (Vincent-Lancrin 2008a). They have mainly a heuristic value. According to the UN median demographic projections (2006 revision), the main international comparative source to follow demographic changes, the 18–24 age group was supposed to fall on average by 9% between 2005 and 2025 in the OECD area (while they would slightly increase – by 6% – for the world as a whole). The decrease was supposed to be gradual, with an increase of the 18–24 age cohort between 2005 and 2015, in 10 countries between 2005 and 2020, and in 7 between 2005 and 2025. Otherwise stated, in the median population scenario the younger cohorts were expected to decrease in size in 23 out of the 30 considered OECD countries over the period. Two scenarios on higher education enrolments were developed to assess the impact on tertiary education enrolments. A first “status quo” scenario kept entry and dropout rates frozen but
allowed gradual entry of each cohort until 28: according to this scenario, OECD countries would on average have 3% more students in 2015, with their numbers then falling back, but just gradually, to the same level in 2020 as in 2005, and then to 2% beneath the 2005 level in 2025. In the second, “trend” scenario, rather than freezing rates of entry to higher education at their 2004 level the rates were extrapolated linearly on the basis of the trends in each country between 2000 and 2004, with an 80% ceiling for entry rates. The evolution of enrolments thus depended on both the size of young cohorts and evolving entry rates. In comparison with the first scenario, the situation changes very markedly. On average, student enrolment levels in countries in 2005 would increase by 13% in 2015 and 2020, and by 14% in 2025. Even when the younger cohorts decrease in size, one may thus nonetheless experience a sustained increase of enrolments. Of course, this is not to say that the student population cannot decrease. In Korea and Japan, the conjunction of reduced young cohorts, of universal access to higher education, and relatively little entry or reentry of older people to higher education has led to a drop in tertiary education enrolments between 2005 and 2015. Both countries having reached “universal” higher education, the size of the young population becomes an important determinant of the size of the student population. These rates of increase are small compared to the growth of enrolments in BRICs countries. In
80000 75000
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Demography and Higher Education, Fig. 1 The lagging impact of demographic changes on student enrolment (Source: Vincent-Lancrin (2008a))
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China, an aging society with young cohorts decreasing in size, enrolments have increased from 5.5 million students in 2000 to 26.2 million in 2015. In India, where the size of the younger cohorts is still increasing, enrolments have increased from 8 to 23.7 million between 2000 and 2013. These two examples clearly illustrate that the rates of increase of the student population worldwide will clearly depend more on non-OECD countries in the coming decades, but also that in these countries, relatively low entry rates relative to OECD countries make the increase of the student population relatively independent from the size of young cohorts in the population. The student population is not a homogeneous body, and demographic lenses also allow one to look at student subpopulations and their evolution from a variety of perspectives: age, sex, social or minority background, level of education, field of study, type of study (part time or full time, face to face, or online), special needs, citizenship, etc. The evolution of the student population may actually depend on the dynamics of its subpopulations, for example, minority, female, or international students. In the United States, expected changes in the composition of the population, with a lower proportion of whites and an increase in minorities – and especially Hispanic minorities – among young people, seem to present the main demographic challenge for the system. In some US states, the majority of students are from a minority background. As relatively few Hispanics indeed enter higher education, an effective drive to increase their entry rates appears essential to maintain student enrolments and raise the percentage of tertiary graduates in the population. A similar example relates to gender. While men were numerically superior by far among students (and graduates) in higher education two or three decades ago, women are now in the majority in nearly all OECD countries. Men have continued to increase their access to higher education, but women have done so at much faster pace, so that gender inequality in higher education has reversed. The reversal of inequalities between the sexes can be attributed to educational, social,
Demography and Higher Education
economic, and demographic factors that are not expected to disappear in the years ahead (VincentLancrin 2008b). Yet there is still significant discrimination between the sexes in some academic subjects, so that the overall picture at the total enrolment level only gives us a partial view on the topic. Another, final example pertains to international (or foreign) students. The number of foreign students has more than tripled since the 1970s, and more than doubled in the OECD area from 2000 to 2015. In 2015, they represented on average about 10% of enrolments in an OECD country. In some countries, the share was much higher. This is clearly one major trend and changes in the composition of the student population in many countries. Yet, the share of foreign students in the total world enrolments has not increased much over the past decades – remaining at about 2–3% of total enrolments. The strong increase of foreign and international students in the student population of (mainly OECD) countries is due to a variety of factors, but mainly to the facts that the number of students in the world has significantly increased in the past decades, that most international students choose to go to an OECD country when they study abroad, and that most OECD countries are now encouraging the internationalization of their student body. Here, the evolution is partly due to what is happening abroad, reminding us of the interconnectedness of countries and their populations.
The Graduate Population One major reason for countries and individuals to invest in higher education lies in the individual and social benefits they get from higher education. Educational attainment is a typical dimension included in demographic, economic, and other social studies – and one of the major outcomes of interest for higher education policy. The educational attainment of a population is usually one of these typically slow demographic trends. Indeed, the educational attainment of a country’s population depends not only on how many higher (or tertiary) education students
Demography and Higher Education
graduate but also on how many have graduated over the past decades. As noted above, in most countries, higher education credentials are acquired when people are relatively young, and evolve only little afterwards in spite of lifelong learning. Raising educational attainment of one’s population will thus typically take decades. As higher education has significantly expanded over the past decades in most OECD countries, older cohorts usually have a lower educational attainment than the younger ones. On average, this difference in tertiary attainment between the 55–64 year-olds and the 25–34 year-olds is about 16 percentage points (OECD 2015). Where expansion has started early, for example, in the United States, there is less difference between the older and younger cohorts. Interestingly, while tertiary educational attainment seems to have risen everywhere, social standards can still be different. For example, tertiary educational attainment has plateaued in the United States: in 2014, 41% of the 55–64 yearolds had a higher education degree, against 46% for the 25–34 year-olds. Other countries such as Korea and Canada seem on a much steeper trajectory: 68 and 58% of their 25–34 year-olds have a tertiary education degree, so that they will have much higher tertiary educational attainment than the United States in a decade or two if trends continue. A country’s educational attainment does not merely depend on how many students access and complete higher education though. The stock of tertiary education graduates also depends on flows of tertiary education graduates in and out of the country. Migrants with tertiary educational attainment will increase the population educational attainment while migrants with lower qualification will decrease it; and emigration will also have a similar impact. Depending on the size of the country, its level of economic development, its political situation, or its immigration policy, migration flows may have a more or less important impact. Some countries may significantly rely on foreign graduates to cover the high skills needed for its scientific and managerial workforce (which typically represents a tiny share of the overall graduate skill needs).
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Because of the expansion of tertiary education in most countries, the population of tertiary education graduates has expanded globally. While tertiary education graduates have mainly been concentrated in OECD countries, this may change quickly. An important demographic consideration is the size of the age cohorts: because of the differences in size of the younger age cohorts in India and China compared to OECD countries, only a slight increase in higher education participation rates in these countries would be needed to inject into their economies the same amount of work performed by graduates in OECD countries (Willekens 2008). The graduate population can also be looked at from multiple perspectives: gender, citizenship, domain of graduation, and roles in the economy and society. One dimension that is important relates to degree level, for example, the share of doctors, masters, etc. Increasingly, it is possible that certificates, badges, and other forms of credentialing will become important alongside formal degrees and qualifications and thus lead to new perspectives on graduates (or what the graduate population means).
The Academic Population A third population is key to higher education: faculty. How does it relate to a country’s and its students’ demography? While it might be thought that the aging of academics broadly reflects aging among the population as a whole, Willekens (2008) demonstrated how the age pyramid of these staff depends above all on an employment system whose hallmark is tenure and on efforts to maintain a fixed student-teacher ratio. Rising student enrolments are conducive to a relatively stable age structure, whereas staff are collectively subject to rapid aging or rejuvenation if student numbers fall or level out. Aging in the academic teaching profession is not a function of aging among the general population; it is a consequence of the growth or shrinkage in student enrolments in an employment system typified by tenure.
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While it is aging in some countries and contains only a modest proportion of women, changes in the profession and the main challenges facing it are not so much the outcome of demographic trends, as symptoms of a more fundamental ongoing transformation: the diversification of the profession, the restructuring of the relations between academics and their institutions, along with the fact that the employment relations of academic staff are increasingly coming to resemble those of an employee/employer relationship, mean that the search for a consensus regarding the essential nature of the profession will be the top priority for the future. Despite the fact that major changes in the academic profession may have more to do with the way the profession itself develops than with demographic factors (Enders and Musselin 2008; Teichler et al. 2013), some demographic factors can be highlighted: an increased proportion of women and of foreign faculty, growth in staff, their differing status, and the emergence of an international market for academics increasing the importance of mobility, even though the profession remains conditioned by national circumstances. All these changes are typically the new characteristics that will allow studying the faculty population, its evolution, and the driver of these changes.
Concluding Remarks Other types of relationships between demography and higher education could be and have been analyzed (OECD 2008). For example, a 2005 international survey identified the cost of education as the primary reason for Japanese and Korean families to limit the size of their family, while this was much less important in the United States, France, and insignificant in Sweden (Yonezawa and Kim 2008). Another question is the willingness of an aging population to support public funding in higher education: while the research on this has mixed findings, the majority of studies support the idea that, all other things being equal, elderly people are less inclined to support educational expenditures (e.g., Cattaneo
Demography and Higher Education
and Wolter 2009; Brunner and Johnson 2016). Finally, another demographic way to look at populations is to follow “generations” rather than age cohorts and see how their attitudes and aspirations towards higher education shape the evolution of the system (Heller and D’Ambrosio 2008). Because demographic dynamics are usually slow and gradual, they are slow to reverse – which can be problematic if they have negative consequences on society. However, and this is an important point, this view should be qualified: demographic trends are often subject to unforeseeable turning points linked to political action or technological developments. This is true for demographic trends in society: political action or technological changes may suddenly transform well-established trends or patterns of conduct (Le Bras 2008). Two examples may illustrate this point, both related to political action. In 2011, Sweden introduced tuition fees for its non-EU international students. This led to a decrease by 33% of its total number of international students compared to 2010 and by 60% for those subject to the fee. Although the numbers are small, this clearly changed quickly the composition of its international student body and, more generally, the share of international students in its student population. In 2010, higher education institutions in England tripled their tuition fees: while this did apparently not affect much the entry of 18-year old students, it has led to a significant 20% decrease of older (and often part-time) student enrolments within the 2 years following the reform (DBIS 2014). The various policy responses to changes in the size of higher education systems may involve diversification of the student population, the faculty population, institutions and courses, or new cost-sharing arrangements. Yet far from being determined by demography alone, these policies will be part of a broader debate on subjects such as globalization, excellence, or an appropriate match between higher education and the labor market. As extrapolation of past demographic trends is not necessarily foolproof, it is always better to speculate about the future solely in terms of
Differences Between Higher Education Institutions
possible scenarios, which political action and individual strategies in particular may influence.
275 Yonezawa, A., and T. Kim. 2008. The future of higher education in a context of a shrinking student population: Policy challenges for Japan and Korea. In Higher education to 2030, volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Cross-Reference ▶ Expansion ▶ Mass Higher Education ▶ Massification ▶ Trends
Developed Countries
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▶ Private Higher Education in Developing Countries
References Brunner, E., and E.B. Johnson. 2016. Intergenerational conflict and the political economy of higher education funding. Journal of Urban Economics 91(C): 73–87. Cattaneo, A., and S. Wolter. 2009. Are the elderly a threat to educational expenditures? European Journal of Political Economy 25(2): 225–236. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) (England). 2014. National strategy for access and student success in higher education. London. Enders, J., and C. Musselin. 2008. Back to the future? The academic professions in the 21st century. In Higher education to 2030. volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing. Heller, D.E., and M.B. d’Ambrosio (eds.). 2008. Shockwaves and the implications for higher education. Edward Elgar and TIA-CREFF. Cheltenham. Le Bras, H. 2008. Are long-term demographic forecasts possible? Turning points and trends. In Higher education to 2030. volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD. 2008. In Higher education to 2030, volume 1: Demography, ed. S. Vincent-Lancrin. OECD Publishing, Paris. OECD. 2015. Education at a glance: 2015. OECD Publishing, Paris. Teichler, U., A. Arimoto, and W.K. Cummings. 2013. The changing academic profession. Major findings of a comparative survey. Dordrecht: Springer. Vincent-Lancrin, S. 2008a. What is the impact of demography on the size, budget and policies of higher education systems? A forward-looking approach for OECD countries. In Higher education to 2030. volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing. Vincent-Lancrin, S. 2008b. The reversal of gender inequalities in higher education: An on-going trend. In Higher education to 2030. volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing. Willekens, F. 2008. Demography and higher education: The impact on the age structure of staff and human capital formation. In Higher education to 2030, volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Developing Countries ▶ Private Higher Education in Developing Countries
Developing World ▶ Internationalization of Higher Emerging Economy Perspectives
Education,
Development ▶ Doctoral Student Socialization ▶ Institutional Fundraising, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Philanthropy and Individual Donors in Higher Education
Development, Supranational Institutions ▶ International Organizations and Asian Higher Education
Differences Between Higher Education Institutions ▶ Understanding Institutional Diversity
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Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education
History
Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education Dominique Vinck Institut des Sciences Sociales, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Synonyms Digital resources for the humanities; Humanities computing; Humanities informatics
Definition Digital humanities (DH) covers a set of disciplines that cooperate in order to study, edit, teach, and disseminate social and cultural heritage and dynamics thanks to digital tools. The most inclusive definition of the term “humanities” reflects both the human and social sciences (including media studies) and the corpuses and heritage they work on. The term “digital” refers to all the methods and techniques used to transform any object (text, sound, image, video or artefact) into digital data, the algorithms used to process these data (analysis, curation, conservation and edition) and the techniques used to render the results on a variety of media (visualization, 3D printing, acoustic immersion, electronic art, etc.). DH is an interdisciplinary field bringing together a community of scholars and practitioners (archivists, librarians, etc.). However, the definition and limits of DH are subject to lively debates, especially with respect to who is in and who is out. The most restrictive definition of DH refers to a community of people who like to make things (code, applications, prototypes, digital resources, etc.), including in a classroom, rather than devote their time to studying, reading, and writing. In this sense, DH differs from the research and teaching associated with the traditional humanities.
The crossroads where computer science met with the humanities dates back to the 1940s with Lexical Text Analysis, Text Encoding, Machine Translation, and Quantitative Sociology. In 2004, Schreibman et al. introduced the term digital humanities in order to capture the full range of new digital media (the web, social networks, video games, etc.) and create what people call today “the big tent” (the idea of bringing together researchers from various disciplines and viewpoints; this big tent approach is opposed to scientific specialization and cohesiveness). Since then, many research and teaching centers have been created. In northern countries, these were initially attached to English departments. It was said that “Digital Humanities will save the Humanities” because it would attract new students (digital natives) and publics, reconcile the two cultures (science and humanities), and engage new teaching. Indeed, DH programs involve much group work and assessment as part of projects. DH encourages edupunk, i.e., a “do-it-yourself” ethos involving self- and co-learning and a rebellious attitude to mainstream practices as well as action in favor of open access to culture, learning, data, scientific results, and tools. Today, DH is backed on a growing number of campuses by computer science departments, digital infrastructures, and big interdisciplinary and international research projects. This has also led to criticism. It is said that technology will take over from the humanities scholars; that the DH community is predominantly made up of white scholars from a few English-speaking countries; that DH cannot lead to good scientific results in human science; that DH has rarely stopped to reflect on the tools it is creating; that the ethos of collaboration is uncritical and neglects political questions relating to access, equity, ethnicity, gender, and language; and, finally, that the promise of DH is false: DH will not save the humanities after all. However, DH has established itself (Schnapp et al. 2008; Schreibman et al. 2004) as a recognizable academic field with international conferences, events, books, journals, and supporting
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institutions like the Office of Digital Humanities created by the US National Endowment for the Humanities. Today, research and teaching programs are visible and expanding across the world, and they are associated with cultural and historical transformation.
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Since 2013, the DH community has expressed a concern to broaden participation. Through different conferences and associations, scholars are seeking ways to become more inclusive of underrepresented countries and linguistic backgrounds.
Teaching Programs Diversity in Research and Publication The DH community mainly comprises scholars from the USA, Canada, and the UK. DH conferences, lists, associations, academic journals, and Twitter accounts are dominated by AngloAmerican scholars. DH conference organizers and reviewers are also predominantly from these countries and hold leadership positions. English is apparently the main language for DH publications whereas research reflects different types of cultural heritage. Research projects, scientific results, teaching, and publications in other countries have been largely invisible owing to the AngloAmerican predominance. However, since 2010, scholars from other European countries (e.g., France, Germany, and Spain), Latin America (a region that is very much involved in the DH community), the Arab world, Africa, Australia, and Japan have been gaining visibility. In fact, there are DH practitioners in these regions of the world, but they do not necessarily publish their results in English. The Italian Informatica Umanistica (Fiormonte 2012) has a long tradition, but this has been largely ignored by the Anglo-American hegemony. Some scholars (Clavert 2013) acknowledge this predominance but note that it is not representative of the very active French- or Spanish-speaking DH. Today, geographic and linguistic diversity genuinely exists in the DH field (Dariah 2016; Galina Russell 2014). Although English is the predominant language, this is because many scholars, who are not native English speakers, use it as a second language. Its use in the field as a first language is in fact marginal. Hence, the DH community working outside Anglo-American institutions is underrepresented.
Since 2000, many DH departments with graduate and postgraduate courses have been created. Initially, only a dozen or so came under the heading of DH. After a few years, the number of specialist courses, summer schools, Masters and Doctorates started to grow in the USA, Canada, Europe, but also in Latin America and Asia (e.g., the DH and Cultural Informatics program at Jadavpur University, India (http://sctrdhci.wordpress.com/)). DH teaching programs are developing, especially through modules offered in a variety of social sciences and humanities (SSH) departments. Most of these courses have only existed for a few years and do not cover all SSH disciplines. In some countries like France, the DH label is still rarely adopted. In the UK, the USA, Italy, and Spain, scholars in philology, linguistics, literature, and history were the first to develop DH. However, in French-speaking countries, major DH initiatives and programs were undertaken with social scientists (e.g., the Lausanne University master’s degree in DH focusing on the development of computing skills for SSH and reflexive thinking on digital tools (https:// www.unil.ch/lettres/fr/home/menuinst/master-etspecialisation/master-en-humanites-numeriques. html)). In a growing number of cases, the initiative to set up programs is being taken by computer scientists, data scientists, or engineers. This is the case of the EPFL (Lausanne) Master’s of Science in DH (http://master.epfl.ch/digitalhumanities), which covers data acquisition and analysis, audio and image processing, machine learning, pattern recognition, and data visualization, with a focus on cultural, historical, and social media corpora. Sometimes the teaching programs also cover art and design as in the case of the pan-Irish
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Digital Arts and Humanities (DAH) PhD program (http://dahphd.ie). Anglo-American departments can usually put together interdisciplinary courses and programs with no difficulty. The flexibility of the American higher education system has allowed courses in computer science for the humanities since the early 1970s. Sometimes, in order to reduce the cost of this training, they have linked teaching, research, and consultancy services as in the King’s College DH Department (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ artshums/depts/ddh/study/pgt/madh/index.aspx). In other countries, setting up interdisciplinary or interdepartment courses can be more difficult although many have succeeded: the MA in DH at the University College of London (UCL), the MA in digital technology applied to history at the French École nationale de Chartes, the program in informatics for SSH at Cologne University, the MA in Literatura en la Era Digital at the University of Barcelona, and the programs offered by the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute at the University of Glasgow. At the European level, a number of networks bring together universities involved in teaching DH: the MA in European Heritage, Digital Media and the Information Society (EUROMACHS), the European Digital Scholarly Edition Initial Training Network (DiXiT), and DARIAH TEACH where opensource and multilingual teaching materials are developed.
Teaching Focus The prominent aspect of DH teaching is learning to use information technology for the digitization of cultural heritage and its analysis. Since the 1990s in Italy, the university reform has made the teaching of information technology compulsory in all humanities disciplines. This has contributed to the development of the Italian DH. Sometimes, the teaching leads humanists to become technologists, designing tools to serve their own goals. Usually, very few SSH students are attracted to computer science when they start their undergraduate program. However, when they discover the
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relevance of computing to their discipline, some become interested in DH and either need to learn the basics of computing, even as late as when they undertake a PhD, or want to become technically competent in their first years at university (Spiro 2011). Generally, advanced students also like to learn from one other, exchanging their know-how about digital tools and their relevance to their discipline. The pioneering and rebellious style of DH, and its “do-it-yourself” ethos, has led to co-learning activities such as The Humanities and Technology Camp (THATCamp). Such camps are selfgenerated meetings bringing together technologists and SSH scholars but also librarians and archivists and cultural institution staff. Together, they learn how to integrate digital technology into their research, teaching, or cultural activities. They organize a variety of sessions: talk sessions to discuss topics such as online publishing, open access, games, academic blogging, etc.; teach sessions during which participants with different levels of expertise teach each other a specific skill or how to use a digital tool or digital research methods and engage in hands-on learning activities or share experience about specific know-hows; make sessions which are hands-on collaborative working sessions where participants actually produce something such as a piece of software, a preliminary analysis of a dataset, a best practices document; and, finally, demo or play sessions during which participants collaboratively explore new tools, resources, or prototypes. DH programs are characterized by this style of learning, which stimulates collaborative projects, linking theory and practice and mixing humanities, social science, computing and art and design, and allowing the participants to engage with social media. Many DH departments collaborate with public sector partners such as museums, archives, libraries and creative institutions. They work on their problems, resources and data and design solutions for the visualization and circulation of results. In Anglo-American countries, library and information sciences play an active role in the development of important digital platforms. Thus, DH has many driving forces. Humanities departments
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appear to be generally reluctant when it comes to setting up partnerships with the private sector, creative industry, and businesses, and yet big firms, like Google, have largely benefited from SSH research results (e.g., computational linguistics), developing resources and applications for the humanities and cultural heritage, and employing DH graduates. DH is producing a new HE community by bringing together scientists and practitioners from different fields. The boundaries of this new field are still under debate. Referring to a community of people who like to make things rather than studying, reading, and writing creates tension for traditional humanities research and teaching. The future of DH remains an open question.
Cross-References ▶ Distance Teaching Universities ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education
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Digital Resources for the Humanities ▶ Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education
D Dimensions of Sustainable Development in Higher Education Yvonne Fors and Henrik Holmquist Department of Quality Assurance, Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ), Stockholm, Sweden
Synonyms Higher education institutions (HEI); Quality assurance; Sustainable development
References Clavert, Frédérc. 2013. The DH multicultural revolution did not happen yet. http://www.clavert.net/the-digitalhumanities-multicultural-revolution-did-not-happenyet/. Accessed 29 Jan 2017. Dariah. 2016. European survey on scholarly practices and digital needs in the arts and humanities. Dariah-EU. DiMPO. Oct 2016. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo. 260101 Fiormonte, Domenico. 2012. Towards a cultural critique of the digital humanities. Historical Social Research 37 (3): 59–76. Galina Russell, Isabel. 2014. Geographical and linguistic diversity in the digital humanities. Literary and Linguistic Computing 29 (3): 307–316. Schnapp, Jeffrey, Todd Presner, Peter Lunenfeld, and Johanna Drucke. 2008. A digital humanities manifesto. http://manifesto.humanities.ucla.edu/2008/12/15/digitalhumanities-manifesto/. Accessed 29 Jan 2017. Schreibman, Susan, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth, ed. 2004. A companion to digital humanities. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. http://www.digitalhum anities.org/companion/ Spiro, Lisa. 2011. Knowing and doing: Understanding the digital humanities curriculum. NITLE Labs. https://digitalscholarship.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/ spirodheducationpresentation2011-4.pdf. Accessed 29 Jan 2017.
Definition Sustainable development has been defined by the United Nations as “. . .development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and planet. For sustainable development to be achieved, it is crucial to harmonize three core elements: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. These elements are interconnected and all are crucial for the well-being of individuals and societies. Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. . .” (http://www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/). In March 2016, the Swedish Higher Education Authority was tasked by the Swedish government to conduct an evaluation of efforts by Swedish universities and university colleges to
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promote sustainable development, pursuant to the provisions of the Higher Education Act (1992:1434). The provision, as introduced in 2006 in the first paragraph of Chapter 1, Section 5, read: In the course of their operations, higher education institutions shall promote sustainable development to assure for present and future generations a sound and healthy environment, economic and social welfare, and justice.
Background Sustainable Development and Higher Education When the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, submitted its final report in 1987, the expression sustainable development was introduced. It was defined as “a development to satisfy the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The action plan, Agenda 21, was adopted by 180 countries at the UN World Conference for the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. For the first time in a larger context, it was formulated that education is crucial for promoting sustainable development and improving the ability to solve environmental and development issues. The countries were encouraged to, among other things, support networks for environmental and developmental teaching within higher education. The following year, the UNESCO formed an international commission to reflect over education and learning in the twenty-first century (UNESCO 1996). In 2002, a new summit meeting was held, where the concept of sustainable development was recognized as an overarching principle for the work of the UN. All development must be sustainable, with an integrated approach to economic, social, and environmental aspects. The countries agreed that sustainable development should be integrated into the education system at all levels to lift education as one of the most important tools for achieving change (United Nations 2002).
An Empirical Example: Evaluating the Work of Promoting Sustainable Development in Swedish Higher Education Institutions The Swedish Higher Education Authority (Universitetskanslersämbetet or UKÄ) recently published a thematic evaluation on how Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs) work in promoting sustainable development in higher education. In 2006, it was introduced in the Higher Education Act as mandatory for Swedish universities and university colleges to promote sustainable development. The intention of this thematic evaluation was to provide a better understanding and enable a national comparison of how various higher education institutions work and achieved results after a 10-year period. Quality Assurance of Higher Education in the Form of a Thematic Evaluation The Swedish Higher Education Authority is a government agency with instructions to evaluate the quality of higher education and research, perform analysis, and monitor developments in the higher education sector. UKÄ is also responsible for official statistics about higher education and monitors compliance with laws and regulations among universities and university colleges (http://english.uka.se/). In March 2016, UKÄ was tasked by the Swedish government to conduct an evaluation of efforts by universities and university colleges to promote sustainable development, pursuant to the provisions of the Higher Education Act (SFS 1992:1434). The provision, introduced in 2006 stated that: “. . .higher education institutions shall promote sustainable development to assure for present and future generations a sound and healthy environment, economic and social welfare, and justice.” Ten years later, this work of Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs) has been evaluated by UKÄ. The decision to focus this thematic evaluation on the educational part of sustainable development efforts was inspired by Agenda 2030 and the 17 Goals to eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions. These goals are considered integrated and indivisible and balance the
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three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social, and environmental (http:// www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/developmentagenda.).
Methodology: Self-Evaluation and Assessment Panel The methodology applied by UKÄ in the thematic evaluation concerning the Swedish HEIs’ work in promoting sustainable development in higher education was somehow developed and adapted to the relevant theme but in general followed the method used in other evaluation activities within the national quality assurance system for higher education (http://english.uka.se/qualityassurance.html). It is a coherent system focusing on standard fulfillment and enhancement and follows the Standards and Guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG 2015: http://www.enqa.eu/index.php/ home/esg). A total of 48 Swedish HEIs were requested to perform a self-evaluation concerning different aspects, which in turn were peer-reviewed by an assessment panel of experts. On basis of the assessment panel and the self-evaluation, UKÄ could provide an overall assessment for each HEI. It also resulted in a national comparison, as well as feedback that highlighted good examples and identified areas where HEIs could benefit from development.
Outcome of the Evaluation The evaluation covered a wide range of institutions; everything from HEIs with around 30,000 students to individual education providers with approximately 10 students have been included. A primary conclusion of the evaluation was that approximately a quarter of the HEIs were considered having a well-developed process in promoting sustainable development within higher education, whereas the larger majority would
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benefit from some improvements. About half of the HEIs do have local overall goals for sustainable development in place. However, only a third were considered to perform systematic follow-up of these goals. Systematic mechanisms for followup, actions, and feedback within the evaluated aspects turned out to be a general weakness for the HEIs. Just over a third of the HEIs were considered able to demonstrate active work to ensure the educational competence of personnel in issues related to sustainable development. At a couple of the larger HEIs, online tool boxes were described as examples of material available for motivated teachers within education for sustainable development. Other examples include seminars, workshops, and networking. In isolated cases, sustainable development skills were said to have been a merit when recruiting new staff to the HEI. Smaller HEIs sometimes describe the lack of resources and time as posing a certain challenge. At the same time, many of the smaller HEIs offered in their self-evaluations many examples of good practices, where the importance of open dialogues among colleagues and students was noted. Organizational challenges in integration and support for sustainable development are also mentioned in several of the self-evaluations, not least in connection with the existence of a decentralized organizational structure. A large majority of the HEIs could give examples of programs or courses in which sustainable development has been integrated. However, since the HEIs were not asked to provide information about the proportion of students who may take part in these programs, this was not always specified. Still, some of the HEIs gave specific description, for example, if and how different lecturers collaborate on course content or whether the synthesis of different subject perspectives is left to the students to perform. Overall, the evaluation became more focused on describing the content rather than the approach. Didactic research, as well as the HEIs self-evaluations, demonstrate that the implementation process from research findings and policy to practice can be complicated.
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Sustainable Development in Education and Research The research area of education for sustainable development (abbreviated ESD in English) continues to be developed by researchers from all over the world. There are, for example, several dissertations which are published in the area each year. UNESCO, which has a particular responsibility for education within the United Nations, describes the field on the basis of what such education intends to achieve (http://en.une sco.org/themes/education-sustainable-developme nt/what-is-esd). Education for sustainable development empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity. It is about lifelong learning, and is an integral part of quality education. ESD is holistic and transformational education which addresses learning content and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment. It achieves its purpose by transforming society.
In general, educational research has shown that teaching for sustainability is pluralistic (Rudsberg and Öhman 2010). For example, it often involves working with real-life tasks in close collaboration with the surrounding community. It also means that in their study programs, students work with complex tasks in partnership with the business community, schools, or other parts of the community. In various professional programs, this connection is often natural, but even more theoretically oriented programs can collaborate with the local community, carry out field studies, or invite external lecturers. Student participation in designing high-quality programs is essential, which was emphasized in several self-evaluations from the HEIs. In pluralistic teaching, this participation is further developed. Not only do students have a more formal influence, they are also considered active co-creators of the teaching content and are essential to the implementation of the teaching process. Students can often contribute expertise and abilities that make teaching more relevant and meaningful for everyone involved, including the teachers.
An example of pluralistic teaching was also found in the self-evaluation from an artistic Swedish HEI, in which the students’ prior knowledge and competence were described as a resource and a foundation for practice-based teaching. The opportunity for educational staff as well as students to influence the program via practical experiences makes the program formative. From the self-evaluations, it was also generally noticed that while a smaller HEI may offer closer contact and continuous informal discussions with students, the larger HEIs often have better opportunities to allocate resources for specific types of collaboration. Integration of the Tree Dimensions of Sustainable Development There are several large universities and university colleges among the HEIs that have been considered to have a well-developed process in all aspect areas. A large HEI may, in many cases, offer a greater diversity of subject areas and several programs from which it can refer to positive examples. At the same time, the shorter pathways for decision-making at a smaller HEI can facilitate the process of incorporating sustainable development. There are also some smaller HEIs considered to have an overall well-developed process, especially if sustainable development is mentioned in the program’s degree objectives. The assessment panel noted several positive examples from teaching programs and engineering programs, where sustainable development in particular is included in the national degree objectives. Smaller HEIs focused on health care more often relate to the social dimension of sustainable development. Some of the HEIs with an artistic focus may instead have chosen to relate sustainable development to the role and responsibility of the designer in social change. This is a somewhat expected result considering their focused education area, however, is still a limitation from the description in the Higher Education Act. The concept of sustainable development is based on handling the three dimensions: the financial, social, and environmental conditions in an integrated way.
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The Importance of Clear Management A positive outcome in the review often seem to coincide with clear management and functions with well-defined responsibility for the overall integration of sustainable development, especially at larger HEIs. On the other hand, some of the smaller HEIs described the closeness within the organization to facilitate communication, actions, and implementation of sustainable development. However, a long-term support and a driving force from management were generally considered important factors for a fruitful result. There are examples from the Swedish HEIs of sustainable development activities that were initiated or ceased with the transitioning of a vice-chancellor or other key staff member with a pronounced interest in issues relating to sustainable development. These observations are in line with international research, which highlights the importance of management for the integration of sustainable development in higher education (Lozano et al. 2015; Leal Filho et al. 2017).
The Assessment Panel’s Conclusions and Recommendations to the Higher Education Institutions • Set clear goals and ensure that they are followed up. • Use the Higher Education Act’s definition and Agenda 2030 as starting points in work with sustainable development. • Guide the work with sustainable development in education away from solutions that only include specific subjects and structures in the HEI. • Create an organization for the promotion of sustainable development. • Highlight expertise about, and engagement with, sustainable development when recruiting leadership. • Create long-lived, well-supported structures and departments. Support skills enhancement for sustainable development. • Also include the pedagogic expression in work with sustainable development.
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• Create conditions for interdisciplinary collaboration on sustainable development. • Support student participation in sustainable development. • Support links to sustainable development in student degree projects. • Cooperate with other higher education institutions.
Outlook The purpose of the UKÄ’s evaluation is to contribute with knowledge and national comparisons of how the Swedish HEIs work with sustainable development and present the results that have been achieved so far. The evaluation may hopefully also have importance for the HEI’s future development and implementation work. However, since sustainable development is regarded as a continual, ongoing process, it should be emphasized that all HEIs are in need of continued development in their work to promote sustainable development regardless of the overall assessment received in the evaluation from UKÄ. An English summary of the report can be found on the UKÄ website (http://english.uka.se/aboutus/publications/reports–guidelines/reports–guide lines/2018-02-15-how-swedish-heis-work-in-pro moting-sustainable-development.html). The aim is to serve as feedback to the HEIs on development, possibilities, and good examples for their future work.
References ESG. 2015. http://www.enqa.eu/index.php/home/esg/. Accessed 5 Feb 2018. Leal Filho, W. et al. 2017. Identifying and overcoming obstacles to the implementation of sustainable development at universities obstacles to the implementation of sustainable development at universities. Lozano, R., K. Ceulemans, M. Alonso-Almeida, D. Huisingh, F.J. Lozano, T. Waas, et al. 2015. A review of commitment and implementation of sustainable development in higher education: Results from a world-wide survey. Journal of Cleaner Production 108 (Part A): 1–18.
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284 Rudsberg, K., and J. Öhman. 2010. Pluralism in practice: Experiences from Swedish evaluation, school development and research. Environmental Education Research 16 (1): 95. SFS. 1992. 2005:1208, Act on amendment to the Higher Education Act (1434). The Swedish Higher Education Authority. Quality assurance of higher education. http://english.uka.se/qualityassurance.html. Accessed 5 Feb 2018. UNESCO. 1996. Learning: The treasure within. Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO’s website. http://en.unesco.org/themes/educa tion-sustainable-development/what-is-esd. Accessed 5 Feb 2018. United Nations definition of sustainable development. http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/developme nt-agenda/. Accessed 5 Feb 2018. United Nations. 2002. Plan of implementation of the world summit on sustainable development. A/CONF.199/20: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/milesstones/ wssd. Accessed 5 Feb 2018.
Diploma Devaluation, The Ins and Outs Thierry Chevaillier2 and Marie Duru-Bellat1,2 1 IREDU and OSC, Sciences Po, Paris, France 2 Institut de recherche en éducation (IREDU), Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
Synonyms Credential inflation; Overeducation
Definition “Diploma devaluation” refers to the perception of a reduction in the value of diplomas and degrees. When the value of diplomas is assessed in the labor market, it may be affected by a mismatch between the qualifications required by the employers and the degrees produced by the education system. Such a mismatch may be transitory until educational institutions adapt to technological changes. It may be structural when the level of education becomes a tool for access to the best positions.
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The expression “diploma devaluation” carries a value judgment: diplomas in general, or at least some of them, have lost the value they used to have. We will first examine what it means and how it can be assessed. Then, we will make explicit the reasons why it is generally considered as a problem. Last, we will evoke the debates around this phenomenon and the policies that may be designed to counter it.
What Is It About? In most countries, wages and status attached to jobs are higher when employees have achieved long and prestigious studies, especially in higher education. Many theoretical models exist among economists to explain why education and degrees are valued on the job market. For the human capital theory (developed by Becker and Mincer in the 1960s–1970s), employers reward diploma because education enhances productivity of labor; each additional year of schooling should bring an increase in productivity, which should be rewarded by higher wages. For the signal theory (developed in the 1970s by Arrow and Spence), education does not directly increase productivity; rather it signals productivity potential, linked to rather unobservable dimensions, such as capacity to acquire new knowledge, capacity to sustain efforts, and so on (Spence, 1973). As no direct information on these dimensions is available to them, employers rely on degrees as signals of the value the employees have for them. In the competition for jobs, employers de facto rank job seekers in a queue, according to criteria they can observe such as degrees, even if they require other attributes or skills associated with training. In that frame, the value of education is relative and diplomas bring mainly a positional advantage, so that students’ interest is to stand the most ahead as possible in the queue. Whenever access to education is spreading, that will foster “credential inflation.” The word “inflation” suggests that the aggregation of individual strategies may result in the devaluation of diplomas held. As with monetary inflation, an increase in the number of education
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qualifications in the population would create a disequilibrium that would lower their economic value on the labor market and decrease the returns on education. The economic or sociological literature more generally refers to this disequilibrium as “overeducation.” Although, in the context of diploma devaluation, overeducation may be assessed at the macroeconomic level, it is also used at the microeconomic level to point to individuals that have more education than required by their actual or prospective occupation.
What Is Observed? While it would be inappropriate to provide figures concerning returns to higher education degrees since they vary both over time and across countries, some global trends may be sketched. In the USA, what is observed is a trend toward increasing returns associated with tertiary education (Goldin and Katz 2008). It is not the case in Europe, where divergent trends are noticed (Middendorf 2008; Leuven and Osterebeek 2011). In a majority of countries, such as Italy and France, returns are decreasing for the most recent cohorts, while the picture is not clear in countries such as the UK. Discrepancies across countries (and also variations along time) may be related to the quality of the match between educational expansion (often dramatic as in Europe in the 1980s–2000s) and the evolution of the job structure, generally characterized by an occupational upgrading. In any case, devaluation does concern more often students leaving school at the secondary level than after some higher education. In OECD countries, discourse about the incoming “knowledge economy” and the expected impact of education on growth have fostered policies of educational expansion. However, it is very difficult to assess precisely whether the growth of education – with a dramatic upsurge of HE degrees in some countries – did meet the promised economic growth (Brown and others 2011). What is admitted today is that above a certain threshold, notably when the adults’ literacy is already at a certain level, developing
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education further does not automatically produce significant economic benefits. OECD has recently expressed some doubt in this respect. In Education at a Glance (2006, p. 157), one reads: “crosscountry growth regressions assume that the impact of education is linear and constant across countries. However, research suggests that the assumption of constant growth effects of education across countries is unfounded. There is also evidence of diminishing effects on growth above an average of 7.5 years of education. This is well below the OECD average of 11.8 years in formal education.” However, this remains today a controversial issue. In most countries, the need for more educated employees is advocated in a context of skillbiased technological change. A model developed by Vandenbussche et al. (2006) has shown that skilled labor has a stronger effect on growth for countries closer to the technological frontier. At the same time, especially in a global economy, the job structures associated to theses technological requisites may vary across countries so that there may exist some mismatches between the structure of occupations and the distribution of educational skills and degrees. Devaluation is assumed whenever highly educated people fill jobs that were previously held by less qualified workers. But such a situation may reveal an authentic upgrading of the skills required for the job; in that case, the word “devaluation” is not appropriate, since the new match observed is justified. It is the result of an adjustment mechanism, drawn by the firms (to adapt to or speed up skill-biased technological changes) or by the students themselves. But in many case, it is hard to disentangle what would be a new suitable match and what would be a result of overeducation, i.e., an excess supply of high-skilled workers.
Why Is It a Problem? In any case, students pay the price of such mismatches. They need to get higher qualifications to access jobs previously held by less-educated persons. But, while the individuals’ experience of
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mismatch on the labor market increases their level of mistrust, they keep convinced of the utility of their educational investment, since their situation remains better than that of the less educated. That is because one needs to distinguish between the absolute and the relative value of diplomas. While the former is declining in most countries, the latter is generally preserved. This is easy to understand, as far as, at least, some part of the value of education on the labor market is positional and as the signaling value of a degree remains: gaining a higher degree always brings some relative advantage. The problem is precisely that the absolute devaluation of degrees goes along with the stability of the relative advantages they provide. This fosters a self-perpetuating trend: Individuals are caught in a trap compelling them to study further and further to get the same returns: This generates inflation and the correlative devaluation of diploma. Diploma devaluation raises both economic and societal problems. From an economic point of view, any mismatch is a waste of resources, and it is especially true concerning higher education when it is delivered by the state as a public good. Rather than being a source of efficiency, a rising level of education and a rising number of graduates may become a source of rigidity as they generate what sociologists as Collins (1979) called “credentialism”: Far from resulting from increasing skills requirements of jobs themselves, the steady growth in demand for higher levels of qualification in the labor market turns into a selfdefense strategy and a tool of social closure. Credential inflation becomes a strategy (or an “exclusionary tactics”) of the elite for preserving its advantages in accessing the best occupational careers. In that race, children of the most privileged groups are seeking higher and higher degrees to keep ahead, and, given their ability to select the best tracks, they maximize the benefit drawn from the degrees they achieve. For sociologists, at the overall level, this expansionary dynamic and the correlative devaluation of diplomas would explain why the expansion and democratization of education have not resulted in more social mobility (Hadjar & Becker 2009). It runs counter to the promise of education
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as a “great equalizer,” which is a serious difficulty in meritocratic societies (Bernardi & Ballarino 2016). In such societies, where merit is supposed to govern access to unequal positions, the “value” of degrees is crucial since diplomas are supposed to give an objective certification of individuals’ merit. Consequently, the strength of the ties between educational degrees and jobs is a benchmark of the equity of the whole process of social reproduction or, at least, of a fair allocation to positions. However, the ideal of an education-based meritocracy faces the fact that the process of social reproduction itself is intimately embedded in the structural frame of the job market and of its evolution. Actually, individuals, whatever their personal attributes, insert themselves in a society where “places” are predefined, and, even if education is a relatively effective way of accessing the best positions, the definition of these places themselves does not fundamentally arise from the operation of the educational system. Similarly, the educational system has no power upon the effective market value of degrees, which results from the structural distribution of jobs and the peculiar relationships that prevail between degrees and qualifications. If, as has been observed in many countries over the last decades, the expansion of the high end of the social structure has been slower than the production of suitable graduates, there should be an adjustment in the form of devalued credentials. This is an old story, since, as early as 1978, the French sociologist Bourdieu had written: “The entering into the race and competition for degrees of young people belonging to groups who were till now using school in a very moderate way has pushed those groups whose reproduction was mainly achieved by school to intensify their investment to maintain the relative scarcity of their degrees and so doing their position in the social structure, so that the degree and the system delivering it become the main stake in a competition which generates a broad and continuous growth of the demand for education and an inflation of degrees.” In the end, the overall intergenerational mobility remains unchanged. Moreover, when investigating the “effects” of the devaluation of diplomas, one should stress the relevance of the
Diploma Devaluation, The Ins and Outs
distinction between two levels: the macro- level at which structural factors determine the relationships between education and growth and the microlevel at which education determines the chances of having access to a given job. At this level, the difficulties faced by graduates generate true psychological problems, well known especially since the seminal paper of Burris (1983) on “The social and political consequences of overeducation.” He showed that while the feared impacts of overeducation on political ideology, such as increased leftism, were not so widespread (they were observed only in the most severe cases of overeducation), job dissatisfaction was much more common. In France, some research (DuruBellat 2006; Felouzis 2001) describes what is called a “deceived generation,” who, facing the gap between their diplomas and the real opportunities on the job market, is bound to adopt a disillusioned attitude, towards both work and political life, or even (although less widespread) a more offensive one leading to protest. This students’disillusion on entering the labour market stems also from their utilitarian behaviour: their main objective is no more to learn but only to get a certification necessary to find a job. This utilitarian attitude has also been observed in some poorer countries that have strongly developed higher education, and described as a ‘diploma disease’ (Dore 1997).
What Is to Be Done? In the face of these undesirable effects of diploma devaluation, the need for relevant policies is unescapable. However, there are controversies about the reality and the importance of this phenomenon. For a number of researchers, overeducation is overestimated and all in all a less serious phenomenon than commonly suggested (see for instance Büchel and others 2003): it is merely a short-run disequilibrium, occurring only in transitory phases, since employers always end up adapting their modes of production so as to exploit fully the human capital available. Moreover, apparent overeducation might conceal selection biases, if overeducated workers have lower abilities or less
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favorable attitudes. More broadly, overeducation might not be real, since the academic level guaranteed by degrees is weakening, due to less selectivity in access to higher education. Apparent overeducation might also merely conceal a redefinition of qualifications, incorporating new requirements not necessarily associated with diploma such as so-called “soft skills.” These are all relevant issues, which remain to be explored seriously, but, in the meanwhile, politicians have to make choices, and it is not straightforward. Although an attractive choice – often meeting consensus – would be to go on with educational expansion, it is obviously not an answer to the devaluation issue: it would only postpone the problems confronted by students when entering the job market and facing the associated inequalities. One should stress that social inequalities are not strictly dependent of the expansion of education. As early as 1973, the French sociologist Boudon predicted that educational inequalities might decline without any corresponding change in the structure of social inequalities. One may even consider that educational expansion serves mostly the private interests of those who want to stay ahead, without helping those who stay behind. A more satisfying policy may be to reinforce the vocational dimension of education at all levels. What is observed is that wherever such a dimension is lacking (in countries such a France), individuals are ranked in the file for jobs according to the length of their studies, so that a “logic of level” prevails: the more education you get, the more able you are supposed to be to fulfil the “best” jobs. In contrast, in countries where a logic of qualification prevails, the skills you possess entitles you to some specific jobs. It should be noted that the notion of qualification has a different meaning in these two cases. In their seminal work, Shavit and Müller (1998), confirmed recently by Di Stasio and others (2016), observed that “in occupational space, the value of a credential consists primarily in its scarcity and position in the hierarchy of credentials rather than it derives from the specific skills it represents.” So the prevalence of the “credential inflation” (and of the associated devaluation of diploma), a widespread phenomenon in the developed world, is
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bound to be higher in countries where a logic of “level” prevails upon a logic of qualification. However, it would be also conceivable, in a context in which qualifications required for jobs are bound to change continuously, to take the opposite stand by loosening the fit between degrees and jobs, and by considering it more important to warrant a high level of education to every student, leaving to the firms the training for the jobs. In this case, policies encouraging educational expansion would stay relevant but should give priority to an education oriented toward transferable and soft skills. In any case, the fact that today’s graduates are facing competition in a global labor market must be taken into account (Brown and others 2011). One should also take a broader view of education since, for individuals, it is not only an investment seeking returns on the labor market but also a consumption good that brings them satisfactions and an asset that will enhance their quality of life. For society, beyond being a source of economic growth, it is a tool for building social cohesion (Janmat and others 2013).
Disciplinary Cultures Duru-Bellat, M. 2006. L’inflation scolaire. Les désillusions de la méritocratie. Paris: Seuil. Felouzis, G. 2001. La condition étudiante. Paris: PUF. Goldin, C., and L. Katz. 2008. The race between education and technology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hadjar, A., and R. Becker, eds. 2009. Expected and unexpected consequences of the education expansion in Europe and the US. Bern: Haupt Verlag. Janmaat, J.G., M. Duru-Bellat, A. Green, and P. Mehaut, eds. 2013. The dynamics and social outcomes of education systems. London: Palgrave. Leuven, E., and H. Osterebeek. 2011. Overeducation and mismatch in the labor market, Handbook of the economics of education. Vol. 4, 3, 283–320. Amsterdam: North Holland. Middendorf, T. 2008. Returns to education in Europe: Detailed results from an harmonised survey, Ruhr Economic Paper, #65. OECD, 2006. Education at a Glance, OECD, Paris. Shavit, Y., and W. Müller. 1998. From school to work. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Spence, M. 1973. Job market signaling. Quarterly Journal of Economics 87 (3): 355–374. Vandenbussche, J., P. Aghion, and C. Meghir. 2006. Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital. Journal of Economic Growth 11: 97.
Disciplinary Cultures References Bernardi, F., and G. Ballarino, eds. 2016. Education, occupation and social origin. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Boudon, R. 1973. L’inégalité des chances. La mobilité sociale dans les sociétés industrielles. Paris: Colin. (English edition: Education, opportunity, and social inequality. New York: Wiley. 1974). Bourdieu, P. 1978. Classement, déclassement, reclassement. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 24: 2–22. Brown, P., H. Lauder, and D. Ashton. 2011. The global auction. The broken promise of education, jobs and incomes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Büchel, F., A. de Grip, A. Mertens, et al., eds. 2003. Overeducation in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Burris, V. 1983. The social and political consequences of overeducation. American Sociological Review 48: 454–467. Collins, R. 1979. The credential society. New York: Academic. Di Stasio, V., T. Bol, and H. Van de Werfhorst. 2016. What makes education positional? Institution, overeducation and the competition for jobs. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 43: 53–63. Dore, R. 1997. The diploma disease. London: Institute of Education.
▶ Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches, Higher Education
Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching Cristina Sin1,2 and Diana Soares1,3 1 CIPES – Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Matosinhos, Portugal 2 Agência de Avaliação e Acreditação do Ensino Superior (A3ES), Lisbon, Portugal 3 Catholic University of Portugal, Porto, Portugal
Synonyms Curriculum; Disciplinary epistemologies; Education; Knowledge
Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching
General Definition Disciplinary differences in university teaching are often analyzed through the hard/soft, pure/applied taxonomy. They concern curriculum content, epistemology, and organization of knowledge, teaching, learning, and assessment practices, as well as acquired generic skills and modes of research training. Disciplinary differences have been the object of research for several decades. Kuhn (1962) distinguished between disciplines with strong paradigms and those with weak or nonexistent ones. Biglan (1973), focusing on research, classified the disciplines in soft and hard (depending on the strength of disciplinary paradigm) and pure and applied (depending on the degree to which they are concerned with application). Becher and Trowler’s seminal book Academic Tribes and Territories (2001) looked into how disciplinary epistemology (based on Biglan’s typology) influences academic cultures, practices, and attitudes but mostly at the level of research. Disciplinary differences are, however, also reflected in teaching and learning (Neumann 2001; Neumann et al. 2002). For example, following research on students’ learning styles, Kolb (1981) developed Biglan’s typology further as follows: hard-pure (or abstract-reflective) disciplines which included natural sciences and mathematics; hard-applied (or abstract-active) disciplines included the science-based professions, particularly engineering; soft-pure (or concrete-reflective) disciplines included humanities and social sciences; and softapplied (or concrete-active) disciplines included the social professions like law, education, and social work. The hard/soft, pure/applied taxonomy has become a reference in higher education studies; hence, it forms the basis for the discussion of disciplinary differences in university teaching. However, subgroupings such as social sciences or humanities will sometimes be referred to. The discussion on disciplinary differences includes the following dimensions which are relevant to teaching practice and which have been the object of research: curricular content, teaching and learning, assessment, generic skills, and research
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training. The last one has been included to cover the education provision in postgraduate degrees. Notwithstanding the fact that disciplinary epistemologies and cultures influence teaching practices, one must avoid the danger of epistemological essentialism, that is, to assume a deterministic relation between knowledge characteristics of a discipline and academic practices (Trowler 2014). Instead, it must be acknowledged that a variety of factors, including social and individual ones, influence learning and teaching practices (Trowler et al. 2012). Additionally, disciplines are also becoming increasingly intertwined through more intense and frequent interdisciplinary research; therefore, traditional academic territories and tribal boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred (Krause 2012).
Curricular Content Becher and Trowler (2001) argue that hard disciplines are concerned with universals and quantities and are impersonal and value-free, while soft disciplines are concerned with particulars and qualities and are personal and value-laden. The former are convergent because they agree on theoretical and methodological questions within the discipline, while the latter are divergent as far as their epistemological territory and the methods to advance knowledge in the field are concerned. This is related to the strength of disciplinary boundaries and connectedness. According to Lattuca and Stark (1994), while the teaching of humanities and social sciences acknowledges the need for cross-fertilization with other disciplines and the connections with the external world, this connectedness is less relevant in the teaching of natural sciences. In this case, at the undergraduate level, it is the connections between principles and concepts within the field that are important; awareness that scientific phenomena are interrelated and have links with the social world only occurs at advanced study levels. These epistemological differences are reflected in the nature of curricular content. In hard fields, knowledge is linear and hierarchical, while in soft
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areas, it is nonlinear, open, and loose (Neumann et al. 2002). In hard disciplines, curricular coherence is the norm, that is, a sequential organization of knowledge and techniques; in soft disciplines it is a curricular diversity in terms of the field’s conceptualization, organization, and sequencing of knowledge (Lattuca and Stark 1994). Cole (1983) also reported that there is greater consensus on undergraduate curricula among educators in the natural sciences than in the social sciences. Having analyzed course content in various disciplines, Donald (1983) similarly found different knowledge structures: courses in hard disciplines were tightly structured, with highly related concepts and principles in a hierarchical relationship; social sciences courses were more loosely structured, represented through webs or clusters of concepts where certain key concepts acted as pivots or organizers for others; and humanities displayed open structures with little interdependence between concepts.
Teaching and Learning Epistemology and the organization of disciplinary knowledge in the curriculum translate into different approaches to teaching and learning. As reported by several authors (Braxton 1995; Donald 1983; Lattuca and Stark 1994; Neumann et al. 2002), in pure fields with strong paradigms, knowledge is taught systematically, gradually building up from more basic to advanced concepts. Especially at the undergraduate level, the focus tends to be on knowledge structuring and acquisition, which translates into “sequential learning” (Lattuca and Stark 1994) and an “allor-none learning pattern” (Donald 1983). In contrast, the presence of contending theories and multiple methodological perspectives in soft fields encourages a discursive approach to teaching, student participation, and generally, studentcentered methods (Braxton 1995). The greater need for dialogue in these disciplines is also evident in the larger amount of time spent on seminar teaching in social sciences and the humanities (Smeby 1996) and in the prevalence of face-toface class meetings where ideas are debated
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(Neumann et al. 2002). In natural sciences and medicine, most time is spent on laboratory work, exercises, and field trips (Smeby 1996), and largegroup lectures are common (Neumann et al. 2002). The variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives is probably the reason why it is more time-consuming to prepare teaching in soft disciplines, compared to natural sciences or medicine, for example. In the former, where syllabuses are controversial, it is difficult to use textbooks, whereas they are more common in the latter (Smeby 1996). Disciplinary paradigms also influence student learning: hard disciplines emphasize cognitive goals like logical reasoning and learning facts, principles, and concepts, while soft disciplines emphasize broad general knowledge, character and intellectual development, and critical perspectives (Braxton 1995; Neumann et al. 2002). Hardapplied areas emphasize integration and application of existing knowledge, while soft-applied areas emphasize development of reflective practice and lifelong learning (Neumann et al. 2002). In hard fields, learning implies memorization of facts and data and problem-solving abilities, while in soft fields, students must be able to interpret and evaluate ideas and actions and be competent in oral and written expression (Neumann et al. 2002). These patterns apparently influence students’ approaches to learning, as interdisciplinary differences have also been documented in this respect (Parpala et al. 2010). In general, students from natural sciences and applied sciences are more disposed to adopt a surface approach to learning, focused mainly on the factual memorization and the performance on the exams. In contrast, students in the humanities and social sciences are more inclined to adopt a deep approach to learning, as these study fields seem to encourage internal motivation, theoretical work, critical thinking, and intellectual growth for their students.
Assessment Disciplinary differences concerning student assessment methodologies are also evident when
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comparing hard-soft and pure-applied fields of study (Kwok 2004; Neumann et al. 2002). Neumann et al.’s (2002) analysis found that assessment in hard-pure curricula tends to be specific and focused on exam questions which rely mainly on the quantitative nature of knowledge. The emphasis is put on knowledge memorization and fact retention needed to the application of knowledge and to solving logical problems. Hence, the types of assessment most used are examinations, practical work, laboratory reports, numeric calculations, and multiple-choice quizzes (Jessop and Maleckar 2016). Conversely, in soft-pure fields, essay questions, short-answer questions, and oral presentations are key features of student assessment, perceived as a continuous and systematic process. The analysis and synthesis of course content is stressed (Neumann et al. 2002). In hardapplied programs, there is a preference for exam questions, especially problem-solving, simulations, and case studies (Neumann et al. 2002; Jessop and Maleckar 2016). Here, methodologies such as project-based learning or problem-based learning are particularly applied (Bell 2010). The emphasis is put on a practical competence, that is, the application of theory to practice and the factual understanding (Jessop and Maleckar 2016). In soft-applied programs, simulation case studies, project-based assignments, as well as students’ self- and peer-assessment become dominant. Assessment is focused on the personal growth of students and on the application of theory into practice. In sum, according to Jessop and Maleckar (2016) and Swarat et al. (2017), assessment in hard-pure disciplines tends to be more knowledge-driven, content-focused, cumulative and quantitative, and teacher-centered. In turn, soft-pure sciences are more language focused and tend to adopt more interpretive, divergent, critical approaches and are strongly aligned with a student-centered perspective (Swarat et al. 2017). Teachers of arts or humanities tend to use strategies to foster students’ participation and engagement, whereas those in natural sciences are more devoted to the structuration and organization of discipline content and knowledge (Krause 2012).
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Generic Skills Historically, generic attributes have been viewed as super-disciplinary, separated from the disciplinary content, being transversal and independent of scientific subjects. Several studies, however, conclude that the way they are conceptualized and taught is quite different depending on discipline (Brew 2008; Jones 2009). In each discipline, the same generic skill has a very particular construction and interpretation, even though there are some parallels between disciplines (Jones 2009). For instance, although critical thinking is perceived as a nuclear skill in a wide range of disciplines, the way this skill is put into practice differs substantially according to discipline (Soares et al. 2017). Interdisciplinary variations in students’ generic skill scores have also been found in the literature, suggesting that different skills may be enhanced through involvement in different study fields. As pointed out by Badcock et al. (2010), arts students, on average, tended to score highly on critical thinking and interpersonal understanding, engineering students scored highly in problemsolving, and science students performed better in written communication skills. Thus, learning environments and pedagogical practices in these different disciplines may be leading to differentiated skill development (for instance, the need for both report and argument writing in science may be explaining the higher score in written communication among science students). In the same line, Kwok (2004) showed the existence of differences in the university graduates’ perceptions regarding the types of developed skills, across Biglan’s (1973) categories. Graduates of soft fields described greater development of writing and oral communication skills than graduates of hard fields. In turn, graduates of applied courses reported a greater development of teamwork skills than graduates of pure fields.
Research Training The knowledge structures and the stage of development of disciplinary paradigms also
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account for differences in research training and supervision. Whereas hard fields with strong paradigms allow for a directed supervision model, the competing paradigms in soft disciplines make it more difficult to implement such a supervisory relationship (Smeby 2000). Soft areas characterized by divergent paradigms and interests comprise numerous distinct areas and topics, giving research students plenty of options to choose from. It is thus less likely their research will be related to the supervisor’s area of expertise, explaining why loose supervision is the norm. In contrast, in natural sciences students are often given research topics directly associated with the supervisor’s specialism (Smeby 1998). This is also reflected in the time spent on supervision per student: higher in natural sciences than in the humanities and the social sciences (Smeby 1996, 2000). Furthermore, Smeby (1996) and Becher and Trowler (2001) report that whereas in the arts supervision is commonly subsumed under teaching, in hard sciences it is integral to research, since students’ work makes a direct contribution to the department’s research effort. Research organization in the discipline also influences graduate education. According to Smeby (1996), in natural sciences and medicine, research education follows an apprenticeship model. It is common for students to work in a team alongside other students and staff members on common research tasks. Students’ work becomes an essential part of the common effort, creating a mutual dependency in the relationship between staff and research students: students get involved in real research, and staff have a genuine interest in the topic and progress, as results will contribute to their own research. This is a first step for socialization into the disciplinary paradigm. In contrast, both students and faculty members in the humanities and the social sciences work more independently (Smeby 1996). This was also related to research output. Teaching staff in the natural sciences and medicine who supervised many students published more than colleagues with fewer students, even after taking into account the effect of joint authorship. No correlations between the number of supervised students and
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professors’ productivity was noted in the social sciences and the humanities (Smeby 1996).
Cross-References ▶ Internationalization of the Curriculum in the Disciplines, Critical Perspectives ▶ Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education
References Badcock, Paul B.T., Philippa E. Pattison, and Kerri Lee Harris. 2010. Developing generic skills through university study: A study of arts, science and engineering in Australia. Higher Education 60 (4): 441–458. Becher, Tony, and Paul Trowler. 2001. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. 2nd ed. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Bell, Stephanie. 2010. Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas 83 (2): 39–43. Biglan, Anthony. 1973. The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas. Journal of Applied Psychology 57 (3): 195–203. Braxton, John M. 1995. Disciplines with an Affinity for the Improvement of Undergraduate Education. In Disciplinary Differences in Teaching and Learning: Implications for Practice, ed. N. Hativa & M. Marincovich, 59–64. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Brew, Angela. 2008. Disciplinary and interdisciplinary affiliations of experienced researchers. Higher Education 56 (4): 432–438. Cole, Stephen. 1983. The hierarchy of the sciences? American Journal of Sociology 89 (1): 111–139. Donald, Janet, G. 1983. Knowledge Structures - Methods for Exploring Course Content. Journal of Higher Education, 54(1): 31–41. Jessop, Tansy, and Barbara Maleckar. 2016. The influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: A comparative study. Studies in Higher Education 41 (4): 696–711. Jones, Anna. 2009. Redisciplining generic attributes: The disciplinary context in focus. Studies in Higher Education 34 (1): 85–100. Kolb, David A. 1981. Learning styles and disciplinary differences. In The modern American College, ed. A. Chickering, 232–255. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Krause, Kerri-Lee D. 2012. Challenging perspectives on learning and teaching in the disciplines: The academic voice. Studies in Higher Education 39 (1): 2–19.
Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches, Higher Education Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kwok, Matthew. 2004. Disciplinary differences in the development of employability skills of recent university graduates in Manitoba: Some initial findings. Higher Education Perspectives 1(1): 60–77. Lattuca, Lisa R., and Joan S. Stark. 1994. Will disciplinary perspectives impede curricular reform? The Journal of Higher Education 65 (4): 401–426. Neumann, Ruth. 2001. Disciplinary differences and university teaching. Studies in Higher Education 26 (2): 135–146. Neumann, Ruth, Sharon Parry, and Tony Becher. 2002. Teaching and learning in their disciplinary contexts: A conceptual analysis. Studies in Higher Education 27 (4): 405–417. Parpala, Anna, Sari Lindblom-Ylänne, Erkki Komulainen, Topi Litmanen, and Laura Hirsto. 2010. Students’ approaches to learning and their experiences of the teaching-learning environment in different disciplines. The British Journal of Educational Psychology 80 (Pt 2): 269–282. Smeby, Jens-Christian. 1996. Disciplinary differences in university teaching. Studies in Higher Education 21 (1): 69–79. Smeby, Jens-Christian. 1998. Knowledge production and knowledge transmission. The interaction between research and teaching at Universities. Teaching in Higher Education 3 (1): 5–20. Smeby, Jens-Christian. 2000. Disciplinary differences in Norwegian graduate education. Studies in Higher Education 25 (1): 53–67. Soares, Diana, Amanda Franco, and Diana Dias. 2017. Translating critical thinking skills to higher education practices. In INTED2017 Proceedings, 9195–9200. Valencia: IATED. Swarat, Su, Pamella H. Oliver, Tran Lisa, J.G. Childers, Binod Tiwari, and Jyenny Lee Babcock. 2017. How disciplinary differences shape student learning outcome assessment: A case study. AERA Open 3 (1): 1–12. Trowler, Paul. 2014. Depicting and researching disciplines: Strong and moderate essentialist approaches. Studies in Higher Education 39 (10): 1720–1731. Trowler, Paul, M. Saunders, and V. Bamber. 2012. Tribes and territories in the 21st century: Rethinking the significance of disciplines in higher education. London: Routledge.
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Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches, Higher Education Jussi Välimaa Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland
Synonyms Agent theory; Disciplinary cultures; Historical institutionalism; Institutional culture; New institutionalism; Rational choice institutionalism; Resource dependence theory; Sociological institutionalism; Systems of higher education
Definition Institutional perspectives focus on HEIs ar organisations and disciplinary perspectives focus on HEIs as cultural entities.
General Description This entry discusses the strengths and weaknesses of cultural and institutional approaches to higher education and higher education research.
Disciplinary Versus Institutional Approaches Universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) can be approached from two main perspectives. The first one defines HEIs as organizations with their formal structures and processes. The second one approaches HEIs from the perspective of academic communities and disciplinary cultures. These two perspectives not only reveal different aspects of HEIs as organizations and as cultural entities based on networks of academics and international epistemic traditions. These two perspectives also can be defined as organizing principles of HEIs where
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organizational aspect focus attention to HEIs as actors with their decision-making and resource allocation structures and processes, whereas teaching, research, and third mission activities of HEIs are rooted in international disciplinarybased academic cultures. These two organizing principles of HEIs also can be seen as dominant perspectives in higher education research. Burton R. Clark (1983) discussed in his classical book higher education as a system consisting of three different levels and defined HEIs as matrix organizations. According to Clark, vertical dimension describes HEIs as hierarchical organizations with different institutional levels, whereas the horizontal dimensions describe the orientation of academics toward international academic communities and disciplines. Becher and Kogan (1992) continued with this tradition by defining four levels in the national system of higher education. For Kogan and Becher, the levels were as follows: individual, basic unit, institution, and central authority (national level). Both Clark (1983) and Becher and Kogan (1992) define each of the levels as having their own norms, values and objectives, or external and internal normative and operational modes (according to Becher and Kogan 1992). Without going deeper into these traditional system models of higher education, it can be said that this tradition recognized HEIs as a part of a system of higher education with their own values, processes, and operational goals. This tradition also recognized that HEIs are not monolithic entities but consist of a variety of actors (both individual academics, operational basic units, and academic groups) which may have and do have different ideas of what a HEI should be doing. The system approach was further developed by Kogan et al. (2000, 20) when they suggested that each level of the system of higher education should be defined as a field of social action “where a field is an institutionalized area of activity in which actors struggle about something that is of importance to them.” This perspective challenged the traditional top-down or bottom-up reform strategies – and traditional reform analyses – which assumed that the implementation of a reform is a rational process where HEIs just
implement national policies or international policy initiatives. The system approach to higher education did not, however, pay much attention to the nature of differences, especially disciplinary differences, inside HEIs. It also paid little attention to historical developments of national higher education systems or HEIs. This traditional system approach has been challenged both by disciplinary cultures approach, which aims to understand different academic communities, and institutional approaches which aim to explain institutional behavior. These will be discussed below.
Disciplinary Cultures in Higher Education Research According to disciplinary cultures perspective, academic communities can be understood by focusing analysis on epistemic traditions and disciplinary cultures with their different theoretical foundations, methods of enquiry, and interests of knowledge. These differences are related, in turn, to different phenomena under investigation like human body (e.g., medicine) or to different phenomena in physical world (sciences) or to norms, values, and beliefs of human beings and their communities (e.g., in anthropology, history, sociology). It is easy to see that different phenomena investigated should be analyzed by using different theoretical and methodological approaches in order to understand or explain them. These differences between epistemic traditions and academic disciplines have developed over the history of scientific research. According to Wilhelm Dilthey, the main dividing line goes between sciences aiming to explain phenomena in nature with the help of general laws and abstractions, whereas epistemic traditions interested in human behavior seek to understand social phenomena. This traditional distinction was further strengthened by C.P. Snow who claimed that there can be found two worlds in universities, those of humanities (or literary intellectuals) and sciences, which did not communicate with each other (Snow 1959). Snow’s simplified and
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provocative argumentation gave, in turn, one of the starting points for Tony Becher’s book “Academic Tribes and Territories – Academic enquiry and the cultures of disciplines” (1989) which has become one of the milestones in the study of disciplinary cultures in higher education research. Becher’s book has been a seminal study because it introduced the categories of “hard” and “soft” interests of knowledge which are, in turn, related to the methods of enquiry. “Soft” refers to disciplines (such as sociology) which use interpretative methods of enquiry (like analyses of interviews or interpretations of texts) in order to understand human behavior, whereas “hard” disciplines (such as physics) explain natural phenomena with the help of theories – the laws of nature – and normally use quantitative methods in their empirical analyses. The second cultural dimension is the nature of research which Becher describes as the difference between “pure” and “applied” research. “Pure” refers to disciplines which derivate their research topics from theories, whereas “applied” refers to disciplines which take their research topics mainly from real-life problems and issues. Becher also paid attention to social dimensions of academic communities by making a distinction between urban and rural modes of research containing different patterns of communication and publishing research outcomes. “Urban” researchers (typically physicists) work in international research teams and have big networks of colleagues, whereas rural academics (like historians) work often alone and aim to publish books. Becher also paid attention to social cohesion of academic communities maintaining that there can be found both convergent and divergent disciplinary communities (Becher and Trowler 2001). Combining these categories we can see that inside academia there can be found four main categories: “hard pure,” “hard applied,” “soft pure,” and “soft applied.” These categories have proved to be useful heuristics for higher education research because they help to pay attention to disciplinary-related differences in academic work (individualistic vs. team work), communication and publishing (articles vs. books), and funding of research (STEM fields vs. social
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sciences) thus helping to see the dimensions of differences inside HEIs. However, these categories are less useful as criteria for categorizing disciplines empirically because they are more like ideal types (in the Weberian sense) than empirical descriptions. In addition to disciplinary cultures, higher education institutions have been analyzed as organizational cultures (Tierney 1988; Tierney and Lanford 2018). When analyzing universities as cultural entities, researchers should pay attention to six main issues. According to Tierney, these are as follows: (1) the mission of a HEI, because mission statements describe the core activities of HEIs; (2) environments of HEIs both in terms of geography, architecture, and digital communication; (3) socialization of students and staff into the values of the HEI; (4) information: what is information, who has it, and how is it disseminated?; (5) strategy of HEI by paying attention to official and actual strategies; (6) leadership by analyzing both formal and informal leaders in a HEI under investigation. The strength of this perspective is to pay attention to higher education institutions as complex cultural entities. This perspective also makes it easier to understand that HEIs have remarkable differences in their goals, structures, and processes even though all HEIs have many similarities as for their basic tasks of teaching, research, and third mission activities. The study of institutional cultures comes close to the perspective of disciplinary cultures because both of these approaches emphasize the nature of HEIs as cultural entities consisting of different academic communities and institutional actors with their different definitions on the purposes and objectives of higher education. In this regard, these perspectives do not assume HEIs as actors per se but see HEIs as consisting of many actors, communities, and interest groups.
Institutional Perspectives to Study HEIs A popular perspective to study HEIs as institutions and organizations in higher education research is opened by new institutional (or neo-institutional) research. This approach is
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based on the assumption that every field of organizations can be defined as an institutional field because one can find similar processes of homogenization among organization in the given field. In their classical study, Dimaggio and Powell (1983, 147) asked: what can lead organisations, after becoming an institutional field, to adopt a common set of patterns, characteristics and specific behaviour, leading them to be increasingly homogenous? They explained organizations’ tendency to imitate other organizations by identifying three main processes of isomorphism or mimetic processes which forces units to resemble each other. These processes of imitation have been defined as follows: coercive, mimetic, and normative (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, 150). According to Powell (2007, 2): “Coercive factors involved political pressures and the force of the state, providing regulatory oversight and control; normative factors stemmed from the potent influence of the professions and the role of education; and mimetic forces drew on habitual, taken-forgranted responses to circumstances of uncertainty” (Powell 2007, 2). In more details, the existence of a common legal environment affects many aspects of an organization’s behavior and structure (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). In addition, organizations do not compete only for resources and/or clients, but they also compete for political power and legitimacy in their field. This can be called as competitive isomorphism. All of these mechanisms are usually used as factors which explain adoption because according to Greenwood et al. (2008, 7): “Coercive isomorphism occurs because organizations are motivated to avoid sanctions available to organizations on which they are dependent. Normative isomorphism occurs because organizations are motivated to respect social obligations. And mimetic isomorphism occurs because organizations are motivated by their interpretation of others’ successful behavior.” New institutionalism is, however, not a monolithic research approach. In order to see the differences under the umbrella concept of new institutionalism, Hall and Taylor (1996) have divided it into three main schools of thought: the
rational choice institutionalism (associated with the economic institutionalism), the historical (or comparative) institutionalism, and the sociological (or organizational) institutionalism. These will be described briefly below. Rational choice institutionalism is rooted in rational choice theory. This academic perspective applies economic models to the study of institutions. Rational choice theory assumes that actors are rational and therefore make decisions in terms of their utility. However, sociological research has shown that this is not necessarily the case. According to Diogo (2014, 155) “rational choice institutionalism assumes that institutions are created by utility-maximizing individuals with clear intentions.” One of the theoretical approaches utilized in rational choice institutionalism is agent theory which aims to describe ubiquitous agency relationship, where one entity (the principal) delegates work to another entity (the agent), who performs that work. However, Kivistö (2007) has shown that this approach does not fit well with higher education research because it does not capture well the wide range of other than economic aspects influencing governmentuniversity relationships. During the last decades, neoliberal ideology and New Public Management have supported rational choice school of thought by advocating that organizations must make rational choices in order to aim for efficiency and high performance. In HEIs, this view has supported managerialism and the need to compete in an increasingly global scale. Researchers in historical institutionalism are interested in explaining HEIs with the help of their history. Most historical institutionalists also see that HEIs are path dependent meaning that contemporary and future actions of HEIs depend on past experiences and decisions made. In other words, contemporary decisions are limited by choices and decisions made in the past. Path dependence perspective also is helpful in explaining why policy continuity is more probable than policy change. Furthermore, according to Gornizka (1999) resources dependency theory aims to analyze the rationale on how organizations make active and rational choices to manage
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their dependency on those parts of the environment that control vital resources (Gornizka 1999, 7). According to Thelen (1999), historical institutionalists agree with rational choice scholars that actors operate in a strategic manner. However, historical analysis helps to understand why certain goals, policies, ideas, and so forth are emphasized over others and why there are different national responses to similar challenges. According to this school of thought culture, society and organizational identity are important for the institutions and therefore on the behavior of their actors. Therefore, HEIs are not only affected by the strategic calculations of individuals but also their basic preferences and identity (see Hall and Taylor 1996). According to Hall and Taylor (1996), sociological institutionalism defines institutions broadly, including not only rules, procedures, and norms but also the symbols, cognitive schema, and moral patterns that guide human action, establishing a systemic relationship between individuals and institutions. Sociological and historical institutionalisms pay particular attention to the contexts which help to shape policy change, mediate between actors, and alter conditions in which decisions are reached. Sociological institutionalism also emphasizes the importance of a structure over agency. In historical and sociological institutionalism, however, human action is more context-driven and goal-driven than in rational choice institutionalism, where context matters less. In addition, from a sociological perspective, “(. . .) culture is extremely important because it contains the bedrock cognitive similarities that cause people to share perceptions of the world around them. (. . .). Therefore, culture is one of the most important driving forces behind the institutionalisation of human behaviour” (Aspinwall and Schneider 2000, 8). A more recent approach based on actorcentered institutionalist approach has been utilized in the higher education field when analyzing policy networks and multilevel and multiactor governance reforms like the Bologna Process (e.g., Witte 2006). This perspective combines rational choice theory with new
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institutionalism and aims to explain policies and policy outcomes from intentional actions of interdependent actors. This approach acknowledges that intentional actors are shaped by their institutional settings. The concept of “network” is used here in order to describe how informal institutional settings help to overcome collective action problems and transaction costs of negotiations (Kersbergen and van Waardern 2004; Witte 2006; Diogo 2014). Palmer et al. (2008) have noted, however, that new institutionalism as a theoretical framework has problems in explaining the connections between organizational contexts and organization’s internal social dynamics. This makes new institutionalism theoretically weak for analyzing internal dynamics of organizational change because it does not help to understand and explain, for example, why some HEIs implement radical changes, whereas others do nothing despite the fact that they have experienced same institutional pressures. This is where the approaches of disciplinary cultures and institutional cultures can be a useful as intellectual perspectives because they reveal different rationalities and communities functioning inside HEIs. All the academic traditions discussed above aim to explain either how HEIs function or how they are related to their societal contexts. However, they approach two main organizing principles of HEIs (disciplines and academic communities vs. hierarchies and formal organization) from different intellectual perspectives. As for higher education researchers, one of the main challenges is to find a balanced combination utilizing different theoretical approaches. The main rational for this kind of eclectic argument is the fact that HEIs consist both of academic communities and formal organizations which all have different relationships with their surrounding societies and international academic communities.
Cross-References ▶ Institutional Culture in Higher Education
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References Aspinwall, M., and G. Schneider. 2000. Same menu, separate tables: The Institutionalist turn in political science and the study of European integration. European Journal of Political Research 38 (1): 1–36. Becher, T. 1989. Academic tribes and territories. The intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Bury St Edmunds: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Becher, T., and M. Kogan. 1992. Process and structure in higher education. 2nd ed. London/New York: Routledge. Becher, T., and B. Trowler. 2001. Academic tribes and territories. Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. Clark, B.R. 1983. The higher education system. Academic organisation in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dimaggio, P.J., and W.W. Powell. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–160. Diogo, S. 2014. Changes in Finnish and Portuguese higher education governance: Comparing responses to the Bologna process and new public management. Dissertation, Universidade de Aveiro. Gornizka, Å. 1999. Governmental policies and organisational change in higher education. Higher Education 38 (1): 5–31. Greenwood, R., C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, and R. Suddaby. 2008. Introduction. In The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism, ed. R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, and R. Suddaby, 1–46. London: Sage. Hall, P., and R. Taylor. 1996. Political science and the three new institutionalisms. Political Studies 44 (5): 936–957. Kersbergen, K., and F. van Waardern. 2004. ‘Governance’ as a bridge between disciplines: Cross-disciplinary inspiration regarding shifts in governance and problems of governability, accountability and legitimacy. European Journal of Political Research 43: 143–171. Kivistö, J. 2007. Agency theory as a framework for the government-university relationships. Tampere: Tampere University Press. Kogan, M., M. Bauer, I. Bleiklie, and M. Henkel. 2000. Transforming higher education. A comparative study. London/Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Palmer, D., N. Biggart, and B. Dick. 2008. Is the new institutionalism a theory? In The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism, ed. R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, and R. Suddaby, 739–768. London: SAGE. Powell, W. 2007. The new institutionalism. In The international encyclopedia of organization studies, 769–780. London: SAGE.
Discovery and Development of New Products Snow, C.P. 1959. The two cultures and the scientific revolution, The Rede lecture 1959. New York: Cambridge University Press. Thelen, K. 1999. Historical institutionalism in comparative politics. Annual Review of Political Science 2: 369–404. Tierney, W.G. 1988. Organizational culture in higher education: Defining the essentials. Journal of Higher Education 59 (1): 2–12. Tierney, W.G., and M. Lanford. 2018. Institutional culture in higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, eds. Jung Cheol Shin, Pedro Nuno Teixeira. Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media Witte, J. 2006. Change of degrees and degrees of change: Comparing adaptations of European higher education systems in the context of the Bologna process. Doctoral Dissertation. Center for Higher Education Policy Studies: University of Twente.
Discovery and Development of New Products ▶ Innovation Studies in Higher Education Research
Distance Education ▶ Distance Teaching Universities
Distance Higher Education Institutions ▶ Distance Teaching Universities
Distance Teaching Institutions ▶ Distance Teaching Universities
Distance Teaching Universities
Distance Teaching Universities Sarah Guri-Rosenblit The Open University of Israel, Raanana, Israel
Synonyms Distance education; Distance higher education institutions; Distance teaching institutions; Open universities
Definition Distance teaching universities are higher education institutions that provide academic studies to off-campus students scattered in diverse locations both within national boundaries and beyond.
Introduction Millions of students study today in different-type distance teaching institutions throughout the world (Bates 2015; Garrett 2016; Guri-Rosenblit 2016). Higher education institutions offering studies through distance teaching methods vary enormously in how they were initiated, the clienteles that they aim to serve, how they are funded, and the kinds of programs they offer. Distance education as a form of higher education offered by universities exists since the second half of the nineteenth century. The University of London is considered to be the first university to offer distance higher education (Bell and Tight 1993). The University of London opened in 1858 all of its nonmedical examinations, from matriculation level upwards, to candidates anywhere in the world. The University of South Africa (UNISA) is held to be the first full-fledged autonomous distance teaching university (DTU). Established
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in 1873 as the University of Cape of Good Hope, it was based on the model of the University of London as an external examining board. It started teaching at a distance in 1946, after all of its eleven constituent colleges had gradually developed into autonomous degree granting institutions. In 1962 it was officially established as a DTU through a government decree (Boucher 1973). The establishment of the UK Open University (UKOU) in 1969 constituted a landmark occasion, one that gave distance education a new legitimacy and opened up new prospects. The UKOU has inspired the establishment of many large-scale DTUs worldwide. The emergence of the digital technologies in the 1990s encouraged a growing number of traditional campus-based universities to offer online courses and degrees to offcampus students, as well as boosted the foundation of many new online providers, both private and public (Allen and Seaman 2015; Bates 2015; Bates and Sangra 2011; Branch et al. 2015; Garrett 2016). Distance teaching at university level is provided nowadays through a variety of higher education institutions. The most prominent modes of distance teaching institutions until the 1990s were the single-mode distance teaching universities, the dual-mode universities that teach concurrently on- and off-campus students, and the extensions in US universities. The digital technologies have prompted the emergence of many new distance education providers. Some are totally new institutions while others are operated by veteran campus-based universities. A few are public institutions whereas many are for-profit private ventures. The major modes of universities offering distance higher education are briefly outlined below.
Single-Mode Distance Teaching Universities Most of the large single-mode DTUs were established in many national jurisdictions since the early 1970s, following the model of the
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UKOU. The establishment of the UKOU in 1969 marked a new era in distance higher education and gave rise to a new brand of DTUs. Many heralded the new DTUs as the most important development in higher education in recent decades, as a radical challenge to the concept of a university, as a new species of university, and as one of the marvels of higher education (Daniel 1996; Garrett 2016; Guri-Rosenblit 1999, 2016; Holmberg 1986; Keegan and Rumble 1982; Perraton 2000; Perry 1977; Reddy 1988; Rumble and Harry 1982). One conspicuous characteristic that distinguishes most of these universities from their early predecessors is their being a product of a top-down governmental planning to fulfill national missions. The main mission of the autonomous large-scale DTUS has been to broaden access to higher education by offering high-quality education at a lower cost, particularly to second-chance students, who for a variety of reasons could not have attended a traditional university. There are currently over thirty single-mode DTUs in various parts of the world (Guri-Rosenblit 2016). The single-mode DTUs are treated in the relevant literature as a generic group, but they differ from each other in many respects (Guri-Rosenblit 1999, 2016). Some are operating as national universities, while others function on a limited provincial level. Few of the DTUs adopted an open admission policy (like the UKOU, Athabasca University in Canada, The Open University of Israel), while most others require the same entry requirements as their conventional counterparts. Some are huge mega universities teaching millions of students whereas others teach a few thousand students. Indira Gandhi National University is considered to be the largest university in the world, teaching in 2014 over 4 million students. The Open University of China had in 2014 over 2.7 million students and Anadolu University in Turkey – 1.9 million students (Guri-Rosenblit 2016). Most of the huge single-mode DTUs are still based mainly on printed materials, satellite, or radio and television broadcast, while a few operate as online universities. Many of the veteran DTUs are based on the industrial model of producing printed self-study
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materials, while others use the mass media as their main delivery method. For instance, The Open University of China that was established in 1979 as China Central Radio and TV University, and has been renamed as The Open University of China in 2012, uses to this date the mass media as its main delivery method, and so does The Open University of Japan, which was established in 1981 as The University of the Air, and has been renamed in 2007 as the Open University of Japan. One of the main areas in which the singlemode distance teaching universities, based on the industrial model of the UKOU, choose to excel is the development of high-quality study materials, produced by teams of experts and designed to stimulate and improve self-study (Bates 2015; Daniel 1996; Guri-Rosenblit 1999; Holmberg 1986). The well-articulated study materials have been used extensively not only by the DTUs’ students but also by many students at conventional universities. The production of such courses is most expensive. But they are developed by a small number of academics and studied by large numbers of students. The simple underlying formula of these DTUs’ is – as the number of students increases, the cost per student decreases (Daniel 1996; Peters 1983, 1994). The establishment of new single-mode DTUs has slowed down since the mid-1980s. A few new single-mode universities were established in the 1990s, like the Universidad Oberta de Catalunya (The Open University of Catalonia) that was founded in 1994, and operates as an online university. Many single-mode DTUS have incorporated online provision into their instructional system in the last two decades (Conole 2014; Guri-Rosenblit 2010).
Dual-Mode Universities Dual-mode universities constitute a leading model in distance education provision. Dualmode universities teach simultaneously on-campus and off-campus students, and usually the same admission requirements apply to both categories of students. The underlying idea
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behind the dual-mode model is that the same curricula can be offered to both on- and offcampus students through appropriate channels of communication. Before the digital era, this model has been activated mainly in Australia and in Canada, as well as in several Eastern European countries (Guri-Rosenblit 1999). Distance education at university level has a long history in Australia and in Canada due to the vastness of their lands and the huge distances between different cities and inhabited areas. The sheer size of these two countries has turned the provision of distance teaching from elementary to tertiary level education to a must. Australia has deliberately decided not to establish a single-mode distance teaching university, but rather to distribute responsibility for distance education provision between different campus universities. In 1989, eight national distance education centers were established in leading Australian universities. Many Canadian universities offer various forms of distance education to part-time adults since the end of the nineteenth century. Canada operates both a single-mode DTU (Athabasca University) and dual-mode distance teaching universities. In the former Soviet Union, hundreds of departments within conventional universities offered correspondence education since the 1920s (GuriRosenblit 1999; Peters 1983). Nowadays, the new digital technologies enable any campus university to reach out to students outside its residential campus, and offer online courses to both off-campus and on-campus students. The new technologies have prompted many higher education institutions to enter the “distance education business” at various levels of experimentation and application. The digital technologies have actually turned the dual-mode provision into a leading model in most higher education systems worldwide, as many conventional universities decided to adopt the advanced technologies for reaching out to students outside their campus boundaries (Baggaley and Belawati 2007; Bates 2015; Bates and Sangra 2011; Branch et al. 2015; Guri-Rosenblit 2010, 2016; Latchem and Jung 2010; Paul 2014).
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Extensions University extensions are mainly an American model (Rasmussen 1989). The foundation of a correspondence program at Illinois State University in 1874 can be taken as the start of distance education at university level in the USA. The University of Chicago under William Harper offered the first university sponsored correspondence course in 1891, and the University of Wisconsin offered an extension course in 1892 (GuriRosenblit 1999). Many university extensions have been initiated by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. The extension movement purported to aid in diffusing useful and practical information on a variety of themes among the people of the United States by the landgrant universities. Currently, most of the American universities, including many of the leading research universities, have an extension division, providing courses for adults in a large variety of subjects (Allen and Seaman 2015; Bradburn 2002). Some extensions have turned into autonomous universities, like the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) that constitutes currently the largest public DTU in the USA. It has been established in 1920s as an extension of The University of Maryland. In 1970 UMUC has become an autonomous DTU granting academic degrees from bachelor to PhD.
Blended-Mode Universities An important impact of the digital technologies has been the initiation of the blended mode in higher education, in which face-to-face encounters are combined with online teaching for campus students. The blended mode can be activated at a course level (some of the lectures are provided face-to-face and some online) or at a program level (some of the courses are taught face-to-face and some are offered online). In the last two decades many campus-based universities, as well as new for-profit providers of distance higher education, offer a blend of face-
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to-face interaction with online provision. Many higher education institutions employ nowadays the digital technologies in their instructional system (Allen and Seaman 2015; Bates and Sangra 2011; Guri-Rosenblit 2010; Paul 2014). Also, many DTUs employ the blended mode by enabling their distant students to meet in face-toface tutorials.
New Online Providers The digital technologies have prompted the emergence of many new distance education institutions offering mainly online programs and degrees. The new distance education providers constitute a diverse group. Some are totally new institutions, while many are operated by veteran campusbased universities. Some are public institutions whereas many others are for-profit private ventures. Some are offering a whole range of academic degrees, whereas many provide a limited number of professional diplomas and continuing education courses. Some are stand-alone fully accredited universities, such as Phoenix University, which is the largest private DTU in the USA, or Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, which from its outset was founded as an online university. Others are based on partnership between several universities like The Western Governors University that was established 1997 by the governors of 19 US States (Guri-Rosenblit 2010). The massive open online courses (MOOCs) phenomenon is a recent development in distance education. MOOCs were first introduced in 2008 and emerged as a popular mode of learning since 2012. A MOOC is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problems sets many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs were initiated by elite American universities, and now many universities around the world are following suit (Guri-Rosenblit 2016; Lewin 2013; Pappano 2014). In Europe
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the MOOCs movement is led by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU). EADTU has initiated in January 2014 the HOME project that stands for Higher Education Online: MOOCs the European Way. The aim of HOME is to develop and strengthen an open network for European cooperation on open education in general, and MOOCs in particular. UKOU has initiated in 2012 the FutureLearn venture which is a MOOC platform that it owns as a commercial subsidiary and develops courses with 72 academic institutions and specialist organizations. The open educational resources (OER) movement has also gained momentum in the last decade, and is led both by DTUs and conventional universities (Garrett 2016; Guri-Rosenblit 2016). The open-source movement provides an illuminating example of collaboration among a growing number of higher education institutions. It holds a special promise for DTUs and other distance education providers. It has the potential to reduce the costs of developing high-quality materials, to bridge over the digital gap between developing and developed countries and between poor and rich, and to assist in ensuring quality.
Future Trends The major challenge facing today DTUs, particularly the single-mode large-scale DTUs, is the growing competition from conventional universities, the corporate world and new ventures offering currently courses and programs online. In a large survey conducted recently by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education on the state of DTUs in the Commonwealth, Richard Garrett concluded that DTUs must prove nowadays their relevance, since the boundaries between distance and campus universities are blurred, and the competition between diverse distance education providers is likely to grow (Garrett 2016). In spite of the growing competition, DTUs still hold a huge potential for accommodating growing numbers of diverse student clienteles in the future. By their very nature, DTUs can expand widely
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and be most flexible in catering to the needs of a wide range of heterogeneous student clienteles. As demand for higher education surges worldwide, the DTUs mission of accessible, highquality provision of higher education at a lower cost, as compared to campus universities, still holds an immense relevance. It seems that DTUs will accommodate in the future growing numbers of professionals aiming to update their knowledge during their career cycles, as well as lifelong learners wishing to acquire new knowledge and new skills in a plethora of domains. Lifelong learning has become today the leitmotif and dominant slogan for most higher education systems worldwide (Bates and Sangra 2011; Guri-Rosenblit 2010, 2016). Lifelong learning forms the cornerstone of the idea of a learning society which encourages its citizens to study on an ongoing basis, and which should result, among other things, in the enrichment of the social fabric and in a collective well-being of any given society. Bates and Sangra (2011) claim that lifelong learning has become critical for the economic development of the knowledge-based economies, and they predict that lifelong learning for professional update will grow immensely in the future and will be at least as great as the market for students leaving high school for university and college studies. DTUs by their very nature are inclined to create a closer interface with labor markets and the corporate world. From the outset, many DTUs have appealed to professional groups, such as teachers, nurses, engineers, technicians, and public employees, and have designed a variety of programs geared toward professional upgrading. Several DTUs have redefined throughout the years their initial priorities in order to meet changes in labor markets and societal demands. Furthermore, international students will constitute in the future a growing component of the student body of distance education providers. Policy makers of DTUS will have to pay more attention to ways of taking up and adapting to diverse international markets, by translating study materials, finding suitable personnel to run special programs designed for transnational students and
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designing appropriate support systems. It is most likely, that DTUs will become most noticeable in the future among the leading universities that promote globalization, international networks, and collaborative projects in higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education
References Allen, I., and J. Seaman. 2015. Grade level: Tracking online education in the United States. Babson: Survey Research Group. Baggaley, B., and T. Belawati, eds. 2007. Distance education technology in Asia. Lahore: Virtual University of Pakistan. Bates, A.W. 2015. Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning for a digital age. Victoria: Open Textbook Project. Bates, A.W., and A. Sangra. 2011. Managing technology in higher education: Strategies for transforming teaching and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bell, R., and M. Tight. 1993. Open universities: A British tradition? Buckingham: The Society of Research into Higher Education/The Open University Press. Boucher, M. 1973. Spes in Arduis: A history of the University of South Africa. Pretoria: UNISA Press. Bradburn, E.M. 2002. Distance education instruction by postsecondary faculty and staff at degree-granting institutions. NCES 2002-155. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Branch, J., P. Bartholomew, and C. Nygaard, eds. 2015. Technology enhanced learning in higher education. Faringdon: Libri. Conole, G. 2014. The use of technology in distance education. In Online distance education: Towards a research Agenda, ed. T. Anderson and O. ZawackiRichter, 217–235. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press. Daniel, J.S. 1996. The mega-universities and the knowledge media. London: Kogan Page. Garrett, R. 2016. The state of open universities in the commonwealth: A perspective on performance, competition and innovation. Burnaby: Commonwealth of Learning. Guri-Rosenblit, S. 1999. Distance and campus universities: Tensions and interactions. Oxford: Pergamon Press/International Association of Universities.
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304 Guri-Rosenblit, S. 2010. Digital technologies in higher education: Sweeping expectations and actual effects. New York: Nova Science. Guri-Rosenblit, S. 2016. Distance higher education in the digital era: Challenges and prospects. Distance Education in China 6: 16–25. (in Chinese). Holmberg, B. 1986. Growth and structure of distance education. Beckenham: Croom Helm. Keegan, D., and G. Rumble. 1982. Distance teaching universities at university level. In The distance teaching universities, ed. G. Rumble and K. Harry, 15–31. London: Croom Helm. Latchem, C.R., and I. Jung. 2010. Distance and blended learning: Opening up Asian education and training. Abingdon: Routledge. Lewin, T. 2013. Universities abroad join partnership on the web. New York Times, 6 March. Pappano, L. 2014. The year of the MOOC. The New York Times, 18 April. Paul R. 2014. Organization and management of online and distance learning. In Online distance education: Towards a research Agenda, ed. T. Anderson and O. Zawacki-Richter, 175–196. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press. Perraton, H. 2000. Open and distance learning in the developing world. London: Routledge. Perry, W. 1977. The open university. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Peters, O. 1983. Distance teaching and industrial production. In Distance education: International perspectives, ed. D. Sewart, D. Keegan, and B. Holmberg, 95–113. London: Croom Helm. Peters, O. 1994. Distance education and industrial production: A comparative interpretation in outline. In Otto Peters on distance education, ed. M. Keegan, 107–127. London: Routledge. Rasmussen, W.D. 1989. Taking the university to the people: Seventy-five years of cooperative extension. Ames: Iowa University Press. Reddy, G.R., ed. 1988. Open universities: The ivory towers thrown open. New Delhi: Sterling. Rumble, G., and K. Harry, eds. 1982. The distance teaching universities. London: Croom Helm.
Diversification in Higher Education ▶ Privatization and Diversity in Higher Education
Diversity ▶ Widening Access to Higher Education
Diversification in Higher Education
Diversity and Higher Education Kimberly Griffin1 and Jeni Hart2 1 College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA 2 Office of Graduate Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
Synonyms Heterogeneity; Inclusion; Multicultural; Pluralism; Social justice
Definition The representation and inclusion of individuals from a broad range of cultural, physical, and psychological categories within postsecondary education, with a particular emphasis on those who are historically underserved or underrepresented.
What Is Diversity? Colleges and universities have come to embrace the notion of diversity. For example, many include diversity as part of their institutional mission. Campuses often include a “diversity course” for students as a requirement to graduate. Advertisements for faculty and professional staff positions ask applicants to include a statement on their philosophy of diversity. There are also campuses that evaluate how faculty engage with diversity as a criterion for promotion and tenure. However, there is a general lack of clarity in regard to the definition of diversity and what is meant when the term is used. The dissenting opinion by Clarence Thomas in the US Supreme Court decision of the affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger, (2003) further reinforced the amorphous definition of diversity, stating that diversity is a “certain appearance, from the shape of the desks and tables in its classrooms to the color of the students sitting in them.” Simply stated, diversity refers to difference and how much individuals and groups
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from different backgrounds and social identity groups are present, are engaging, and feel supported in a campus community. Most often, conversations about diversity focus on the representation and inclusion of historically marginalized groups. The term diversity is perhaps most often used in reference to numerical representation. Thus, to some extent, we can assess campus diversity by counting the number of individuals from various social identity groups on campus. For example, we can look at campus demographics and determine whether or not an environment is diverse by the percentage of students, faculty, staff, and administrators embracing different racial/ethnic identities, faith traditions, or sexual identities. In the same way, we can look at demographics across the postsecondary sector to elucidate compositional or numeric diversity; in this way, diversity is not only an institutional consideration but a consideration throughout higher education. For example, we use the US context and race, ethnicity, and gender to demonstrate the current status and need for increased diversity in postsecondary education. In 2014 (the most recent year data were available at time of writing), 58.3% of US resident undergraduate students identified as White (NCES 2015). By 2044, the US Census (Colby and Ortman 2015) projects that over half of all Americans will identify with a racial or ethnic category other than White, non-Hispanic. This projection suggests that US postsecondary education will also become increasingly more racially and ethnically diverse, beginning with the undergraduate student population. Of course, presenting aggregated numeric data oversimplifies diversity in higher education. This demographic portrait fails to account for how student, faculty, staff, and administrative populations differ across institutional types or within specific disciplines. In addition, there is no consideration for individuals’ intersectional and interlocking identities. It also does not consider campus climate and systemic issues of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression that we discuss in more detail below. However, it does establish a foundation upon which diversity can be further explored.
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Although not numerically representative of the US population at large, undergraduate students are more diverse than other campus groups. In fact, regarding race and gender, undergraduate students are more diverse than graduate students; who are more diverse than nontenure track faculty; who are more diverse than tenure-track assistant professors; who are more diverse than tenuretrack associate professors; who are more diverse than tenure-track full professors; who are more diverse than campus leaders, such as department chairs, deans, provosts, and presidents and chancellors (Hill et al. 2016; NCES 2015). Regarding women, many argue that this inverse relationship between diversity and “prestige” is a pipeline problem (e.g., there are not enough women with degrees or experience to reach parity). However, women have been the majority of college students since the 1970s and now make up the majority of graduate students. Although there has been some numerical progress among certain populations, campuses have much work to do in regard to cultivating the actionable dimensions of diversity that the Association of American Medical Colleges (2013) refers as Diversity 3.0. Growth in diversity in higher education is predicated on colleges and universities establishing a campus climate that is welcoming and inclusive. The importance of campus climate cannot be underestimated; a welcoming and inclusive climate for all should result in increased diversity not only for racially and ethnically minoritized individuals and women but also among many other identities, including those who identify as gender nonconforming; individuals with disabilities; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer individuals; those from low-income backgrounds; nonnative English speakers; and individuals born outside the United States to name a few.
Expanding the Definition While counts and percentages can provide a numerical snapshot of an environment, there are questions that require deeper consideration of how populations are counted and what measures
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would actually indicate that a campus is diverse. Chang and Yamamura (2006) offer a review of ten measures to assess levels of diversity, which include the diversity range, or difference between the most and least well-represented group, and the dissimilarity index, which is a more complex measure of segregation. They found that although many of these measures are correlated with one another, they are conceptually distinct, and scholars and practitioners alike must be mindful of how they choose to represent the numerical diversity in their campus communities. Diversity goes beyond numbers, incorporating action and the quality of the educational experience on campus. Baez (2004) argued that we must consider how diversity is operationalized and who benefits from it. Considering diversity in this way centers issues of power, oppression, and privilege, rather than numeric representation. Numbers matter, but having a campus community that is committed to confronting oppression and discrimination to create a climate where historically underrepresented and underserved people feel welcomed is most critical. Along these lines, the Association of American Colleges and Universities released a report that defined diversity as representing “a set of campus-based educational activities designed to include students from all backgrounds and to enhance the educational experiences of all students” (Garcia et al. 2001, p. 2). Gurin et al. (2002) and Milem (2003) also offered conceptualizations of diversity that include the integration of diversity-related initiatives, or activities in and outside of the classroom that address the experiences of marginalized populations or provide opportunities to develop cultural competence. Thus, diversity goes beyond being an adjective or descriptor for a campus community to a verb – actions that an institution is taking to address the experiences and support students, faculty, and staff from marginalized backgrounds, creating inclusive campus communities where all can learn.
Who Is Included? Diversity, as Ahmed (2012) argued, is a transnational concept; however, the ways in which it is
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manifested is local. Who and which groups have been excluded or included will vary across contexts, creating distinctive understandings of what diversity means across environments. For example, diversity in the United States has historically focused on race, ethnicity, and gender, expanding in recent decades to include sexual identity, religion, and physical ability. In India, conversations about diversity largely address language, religion, and caste. In Brazil, diversity conversations and affirmative action policies primarily focus on Afro-Brazilians and those from low-income backgrounds. Australian diversity and equity policies address the needs of aboriginal students, those from low-income backgrounds, and students from rural areas. To unpack diversity, we will again rely primarily on examples from the United States, the local context of the authors. As institutions began to attend to issues of diversity in the 1970s and 1980s, campus initiatives focused on increasing access and meeting the needs of students from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in higher education, specifically Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans (Smith 2009). Institutions also have emphasized the importance of including women in higher education, and they have been central in the diversity discourse. Although women comprise over half of all undergraduate and graduate students, diversity initiatives continue to work toward increasing their representation in the sciences, professoriate, and leadership positions. Demographic shifts, increased attention to multiple marginalized social identity groups, and legal challenges led to broader conceptualizations of diversity as higher education entered the twenty-first century. Although many campuses continue to embrace a definition of diversity that includes race/ethnicity and gender, an expanded understanding of marginalization and oppression has pushed institutions to add sexual orientation and identity, physical ability, class, and religious background (Smith 2009). Some have pushed discussions of diversity even further, making it synonymous with any kind of difference in background, perspective, or upbringing. In this conceptualization, a campus can be diverse based on students’ geographic origin, skills and talents, academic interests, and political perspectives.
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As the definition of diversity has gotten increasingly broad, some note that it has lost its power and meaning. Although perhaps more inclusive in its recognition that all have unique contributions to make to a college or university community, the perspective that “each person is diverse” dilutes the concept of diversity. Such a perspective diminishes the realities (both historical and current) of racism, sexism, genderism, heterosexism, homophobia, able-ism, classism, xenophobia, and other experiences of oppression and discrimination. Further, by understanding diversity in this way, the goals of diversity are no longer about promoting social justice, inclusion, equity, and opportunity. Rather, the sentiment suggests that having freckles or writing left-handed can be as important to learning and living in a global society as being Black or transgender, or understanding and eliminating racism and genderism.
Working for Diversity As the concept of diversity has expanded, some question about its relevance and value (Chang 2005). Some wonder whether intentional efforts to increase diversity compromise institutional quality, as they assume programs that target those from underrepresented backgrounds are also less qualified or unqualified, employment, promotion, and/or tenure. Some also argue that these efforts put individuals at risk of failure because they are not well-matched for the institutions they are attending or at which they work, because the material is too rigorous, and expectations are too high. It is important to note, however, that ample social science evidence shows that programs aimed to increase diversity do not sacrifice institutional quality (Smith 2009). For example, students generally perform better and are more likely to be retained at more selective institutions than those they may be overqualified to attend (Alon and Tienda 2005). As the US Supreme Court has considered the continued need and constitutional basis for raceand gender-based admission policies, there has been little support for arguments that highlight the role these policies play in promoting equitable
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outcomes and social justice. Rather, the Supreme Court has supported the “diversity rationale,” which focuses on how diverse campus communities promote learning and enhance students’ abilities to engage across difference in a global society. Consistent with this argument, a generation of scholars has found that exposure and opportunities to engage with those from different racial and ethnic backgrounds result in positive learning outcomes (e.g., see antonio et al. 2004; Chang et al. 2006; Gurin et al. 2002; Milem 2003). In addition to the diversity rationale, there are many other reasons why institutions and their communities engage in diversity work. For example, some work toward diversity goals because of a social and/or moral obligation. On the surface, this is noble; however, if this is the primary motivation, long-term goals, including those consistant with the diversity rationale, tend to be unattainable. Specifically, other motivations may take precedence over time. For example, when budgets decline, diversity programs often are among the first to be cut. In addition, doing diversity work as a moral imperative is premised on those with privilege “helping” those who are less fortunate, which reaffirms the chasm between those with power and those who are oppressed (Johnson 2006). Others work toward diversity goals, or do diversity work, because it is best for the organization. With this approach, diversity is understood as a way to stay competitive for the best faculty, staff, and students. This “business case” for diversity is compelling because it should lead to greater efficiencies and productivity as well. However, one of the shortcomings of this approach is that the goal becomes less about diversity and more about the bottom line. The importance of diversity can get lost when operating from this perspective. In addition, like the moral case, the focus tends to be on short-term outcomes, not long-term changes (Johnson 2006). Instead, Johnson (2006) argued that to be successful in doing diversity work and achieving diversity goals, individuals should have a personal investment in diversity; individuals must understand the systemic nature of oppression and privilege and what role they play in
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perpetuating or interrupting the system that seeks to marginalize, tokenize, and create barriers for true diversity. Approaching diversity goals in this way is difficult and can create discord and discomfort. However, to achieve success, diversity work should not be about managing conflict and dissent (i.e., diversity management). If it is, power and oppression are overlooked, negating what the true goals of diversity should be (Ahmed 2012).
Cross-References ▶ Inequality in Higher Education ▶ Merit and Equality in Higher Education Access ▶ Stratification in Higher Education
References Ahmed, Sara. 2012. On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham: Duke University Press. Alon, Sigal, and Marta Tienda. 2005. Assessing the “mismatch” hypothesis: Differences in college graduation rates by institutional selectivity. Sociology of Education 78(4): 294–315. antonio, anthony lising, Mitchell J. Chang, Kenji Hakuta, David A. Kenny, Shana Levin, and Jeffrey F. Milem. 2004. Effects of racial diversity on complex thinking in college students. Psychological Science 15(8): 507–510. Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). 2013. Assessing institutional culture and climate: Webcast supplemental guide. Washington, DC: AAMC. Baez, Benjamin. 2004. The study of diversity: The “knowledge of difference” and the limits of science. The Journal of Higher Education 75(3): 285–306. Chang, Mitchell. 2005. Reconsidering the diversity rationale. Liberal Education 91(1): 6–13. Chang, Mitchell J., and Erica Yamamura. 2006. Quantitative approaches to measuring student body diversity: Some examples and thoughts. Higher Education in a Global Society: Achieving Diversity, Equity and Excellence 5: 369–386. Chang, Mitchell, Nida Denson, Victor Saenz, and Kimberly Misa. 2006. The educational benefits of sustaining cross-racial interaction among undergraduates. The Journal of Higher Education 77(3): 430–455. Colby, Sandra, and Jennifer Ortman. 2015. Projections of the size and composition of the U.S. population: 2014 to 2060: Population estimates and projections. Current Population Reports. https://www.census.gov/content/ dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p25-1143. pdf. Accessed 16 May 2016.
Diversity and Leadership in Higher Education Garcia, Mildred, Cynthia Hudgins, Caryn McTighe Musil, Michael T. Nettles, William E. Sedlacek, and Daryl G. Smith. 2001. Assessing campus diversity initiatives: A guide for campus practitioners. Understanding the difference diversity makes: Assessing campus diversity initiatives series. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges & Universities. Grutter v. Bollinger. 2003. 123 S. Ct. 2325. Gurin, Patricia, Eric Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin. 2002. Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes. Harvard Educational Review 72(3): 330–367. Hill, Catherine, Kevin Miller, Kathleen Benson, and Grace Handley. 2016. Barriers and bias: The status of women in leadership. Washington, DC: American Association of University Women. Johnson, Allan. 2006. Privilege, power, and difference. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw Hill. Milem, Jeffrey F. 2003. The educational benefits of diversity: Evidence from multiple sectors. In Compelling interest: Examining the evidence on racial dynamics in higher education, ed. M. Chang, D. Witt, J. Jones, and K. Hakuta, 126–169. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). 2015 Spring. Fall enrollment component. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/2015menu_tables. asp. Accessed 3 June 2016. Smith, Daryl G. 2009. Diversity’s promise for higher education: Making it work. Baltimore: JHU Press.
Diversity and Leadership in Higher Education Adalberto Aguirre Jr. Department of Sociology, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
The movement of people across global contexts has brought people into contact from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The contact between diverse populations has resulted in organizations, such as educational organizations, implementing practices that open their institutional climate to change in the organizational culture (Mazur 2010). In some cases, the contact between diverse populations has resulted in racial and social justice discussions regarding higher education, such as South Africa (Aguirre and Martinez 2003b; Banks 2008). To accommodate
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change in the organizational culture requires the implementation of leadership practices that lead for diversity. For example, leadership practices that lead for diversity value multicultural differences and motivate organizational members to regard the social capital brought by diverse populations as vital to organizational change and survival (Aguirre 2008). My purpose in this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for discussing the nexus between diversity and leadership practices in higher education. While the conceptual framework discussed in this paper focuses on institutions of higher education in the United States, the proposals presented are designed to be generalizable to institutions of higher education in other global contexts and their desire to be inclusive organizations. The proposals outlined in this paper are guided by the questions: What type of leadership practices transition the institutional climate in higher education to address diversity initiatives? What type of leadership practices transform the institutional climate in higher education into an inclusive community for diversity initiatives? While the term diversity is used in higher education to refer to multiple types of communities based on cultural, racial, ethnic, religious or sexual identity characteristics, I limit the use of the term in this paper to racial and ethnic minority communities, or persons of color. In this paper, I use the term leadership practices to identify actions and/or initiatives in higher education that seek to implement strategic planning models to alter the institutional climate for the inclusion of diversity. A caveat is in order before proceeding with a discussion regarding the nexus of diversity and leadership in higher education. For the purpose of conceptual clarity, and to avoid definitional confusion, I propose the following: diversity is a social force associated with the life experiences of racial and ethnic minority persons that are absent from mainstream institutions in U.S. society, especially higher education. The absence of these life experiences from higher education is a direct result from the positioning of racial and ethnic minority communities on the margins of U.S. society (Aguirre and Turner
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2011). Unsurprisingly, a discussion of diversity initiatives in higher education too often finds itself mired in social justice arguments that reinforce the exclusionary context for diversity in higher education rather than broadening the boundaries in higher education to be inclusive of diversity. Leadership is traditionally described in the organizational literature as a form of power nested in the personal qualities of a leader to elicit voluntary compliance from followers (Etzioni 1965) or as a person’s ability to influence followers to do something that is required or experience sanctions from non-compliance (Steers and Black 1994). One can observe from these two definitions that leadership involves the capacity to get persons to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. Implicit in these two definitions is that there is a high degree of homogeneity among organizational members that facilitates a shared understanding for the expression of power. In contrast, diversity is a social force that challenges homogeneity in organizational culture. The challenge for diversity leadership is to develop a leadership capacity from the synergistic relationship between diversity and leadership to promote diversity as an emergent dimension in organizational structure.
The Context for Diversity in U.S. Higher Education Ever since the introduction of the term diversity rationale by Justice Powell in his opinion regarding Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, allowing the use of race as one factor in university admission policies, diversity has been portrayed as a threat to the principles of merit that undergrid higher education (Aguirre and Martinez 2003a). Justice Powell’s opinion called for the structuring of higher education to meet the challenges posed by increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S. population. The increasing numbers of racial and ethnic minority students were soon knocking on the door of higher education and demanding that it transform itself into an inclusive learning community (Aguirre and Martinez 2014). However, the institutional
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climate in higher organization has been resistant to efforts focused on transforming higher education into an inclusive institution, as can be observed in Hopwood (1998), Fischer I (2013), and Fischer II (2016). According to Alger (1997: 20), diversity in higher education has “become an end in itself, rather than a means to a greater educational end,” and because “universities have failed to establish the fundamental link between diversity and their educational missions”. Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke was more than just a call to diversify university admissions, it was also a call for institutions to develop a leadership capacity for structuring higher education into an inclusive learning community. Instead of becoming a vehicle for transforming higher education, diversity leadership faced a hostile institutional climate in higher education (Aguirre and Martinez 2006). To support the push for diversity initiatives in higher education they had to be buttressed by government programs and the establishment of diversity units, such as campus diversity officers, to monitor the implementation of diversity initiatives (Evans and Chun 2014; Palmer et al. 2013; Wilson 2013). The dilemma for diversity leadership was finding legitimacy in a hostile institutional climate resistant to change. If the institutional climate in higher education is hostile to diversity initiatives efforts, how then can higher education develop a leadership capacity that leads for diversity? How do leadership practices in higher education respond to diversity?
Diversity Leadership as a Concern for Higher Education Diversity has social capital implications for higher education. If one conceptualizes diversity as a means to an end for building and promoting an inclusive community in higher education, then diversity is important to higher education because it challenges higher education to implement institutional policies and organizational practices that promote a civic culture inclusive of diversity (Butler 2000; Checkoway 2001). Regarding the social capital implications of diversity to higher
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education, the inclusion of diversity in higher education’s institutional climate has the potential of transforming higher education into an inclusive learning community. An inclusive learning community that encourages social contact between diverse (e.g. sex, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.) participants in higher education in order to extend the networks available in society vital to building the social and institutional fabric of society (Beem 1999; Putnam 1995). According to Baez (2000: 44), “only through an education that emphasized diversity could individuals understand the world, recognize inequities, and gain the tools needed to remedy those inequities.” As a result, the incorporation of diversity into the institutional climate of higher education challenges a structural arrangement in society that reinforces the position of diverse populations at the margins of society (Campbell 2000). How may one conceptualize the framework for diversity leadership in higher education? Let’s start by treating diversity leadership as a practice that functions at both organizational and personal dimensions in higher education’s institutional climate. As such, the principles features of diversity leadership are (a) its potential to engage persons in practices that identify them with diversity initiatives, and (b) its potential to change the institutional climate (e.g. values, beliefs, perceptions, etc.) by implementing diversity initiatives into the organizational culture (Aguirre and Martinez 2006). The engagement of persons with practices that seek to implement diversity initiatives into higher education’s goal attainment processes socializes persons to share a vision or a mind-set of what needs to change in the institutional climate. In particular, the implementation of diversity initiatives into higher education’s institutional climate situates diversity leadership to lead for changes in institutional perceptions, beliefs, or values that resist the inclusion of diversity goals. Diversity leadership thus empowers organizational members in higher education with a shared vision or mind-set that change is necessary for the inclusion of diversity initiatives in the institutional climate. This conceptualization of diversity leadership is consistent with observations in the organizational literature that describe leadership as
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coping with change, defining the direction of change, and engaging persons in the change process (Eddy and Murphy 1997; Elton 1992; Kotter 1990). An obstacle to practicing diversity leadership in higher education is the absence of effective leadership practices in the organizational culture of higher education that legitimate diversity (Evans and Chun 2014; Palmer et al. 2013; Wilson 2013). The absence of effective leadership practices has resulted in a perception that diversity is another word for affirmative action or social justice in higher education (Aguirre and Martinez 2014; Myers 1997; Ramirez 2000). While the former term links diversity to external practices mandated by socio-legal decisions and the latter term links diversity with efforts to attain equitable venues for the presence of minority persons, I argue that diversity stands alone as a vehicle to change the institutional climate in higher education from an exclusionary one to an inclusive one. Unsurprisingly, the confusion that arises from the association of diversity with affirmative action and social justice in higher education, especially after Hopwood, has increased resistance in higher education’s institutional climate to diversity initiatives.
Practicing Diversity Leadership An audience of stake holders in higher education that are often identified as potential change agents for diversity initiatives are minority or faculty of color (Aguirre 2000; Abdul-Raheem 2016). Minority or faculty of color are situated organizationally to enable them to create and maintain mentoring and recruiting networks for minority faculty that can serve to promote leadership roles for minority faculty (Ebbers et al. 2000; Hoops 2001; HR Reporter 2001). As participants in higher education’s institutional climate minority faculty are positioned to participate in the construction of institutional strategic plans that include diversity initiatives. As agents for diversity in higher education minority faculty have the potential of promoting diversity initiatives in the organizational culture of higher education as
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nested in the social reality that defines organizational behavior. The research literature on minority faculty argues that while minority faculty could serve as potential change agents for promoting diversity initiatives in higher education, they are constrained by the obstacles they face regarding their participation in the institutional climate (Aguirre 2000, 2010). According to the research literature, minority faculty face significant obstacles in their career advancement, their inclusion in strategic planning, and participation in leadership roles in higher education (for example, see: Cintron et al. 2002; Dade et al. 2015; Diggs et al. 2009; Turner and Gonzalez 2008). As a result, a general observation made in the research literature is that minority faculty are located at the periphery of the institutional climate in higher education. Unsurprisingly, Contreras (1998: 151) asks the following question, “Can faculty of color become viable authoritative agents of leadership in a superficial multicultural academe?” Contreras proposes the notion of leading from the margins as a possible strategy for minority faculty. While leading from the margins recognizes that minority faculty are marginalized in higher education’s institutional climate, it does not prevent the utilization by minority faculty of institutional resources and networks, such as research focused activities, to collectively enhance their presence and identifiability in higher education. In this sense, the collective promotion of diversity can be utilized to lead for change in mainstream decision making and participatory contexts in higher education (Aguirre 1987; Turner and Myers 2000). The goal of diversity leadership is to change organizational practices, such as the distribution of power and privilege, that serve as obstacles to the practice of diversity leadership. However, instead of focusing on the situating of minority faculty in the institutional climate of higher education, one can focus on the synergistic association between diversity and leadership. The synergistic association between diversity and leadership is based on the conceptualization of diversity as a social force for promoting change in the structuration of higher education and
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leadership as an institutional practice for nesting diversity in the social relations that promote participation in the institutional climate. While the synergistic association between diversity and leadership can be perceived as an ideal type association between diversity and leadership, it nevertheless serves as a framework for conceptualizing leadership practices and diversity in higher education.
Synergism Between Diversity and Leadership For illustrative purposes I will outline two frameworks for conceptualizing the association between leadership and diversity: (1) leadership practices for diversity, and (2) diversity for leadership practices. The principal difference between the two frameworks is that leadership practices for diversity seek to transform the institutional climate to an inclusive one for diversity while diversity for leadership practices transition the institutional climate to appropriate the identifiability of diversity. Comparatively speaking, the first framework illustrates the use of leadership practices to transform the institutional climate to be inclusive of diversity initiatives while the second framework illustrates the use of leadership practices to appropriate diversity into the institutional climate (Aguirre and Martinez 2002). A cautionary note regarding the two frameworks: the frameworks are heuristic tools for understanding a process, not the specification of a method for defining the association between leadership practices and diversity. For the purpose of illustrating each of the frameworks I will discuss the leadership practices associated with each framework along three dimensions: research, academic, and educational. Leadership Practices for Diversity Within this framework leadership practices promote diversity initiatives as a vehicle for transforming core elements – such as, perceptions, attitudes and values – in the institutional climate. A central focus of the leadership practices is to transform an exclusional institutional climate to
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an inclusionary one for diversity. Each dimension can be conceptualized as follows regarding leadership practices for diversity. Research Leadership practices for diversity promote building institutional capacity that will give presence to minority faculty in the institutional climate by implementing research networks that will enhance their contribution to the knowledge building process of the organization. For example, research networks can be established to promote the study of diversity and its contributions to society, serve as a clearinghouse for generating research funding, and provide mentorship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate minority students. Academic Leadership practices for diversity focus on transforming the institutional climate by empowering minority faculty as change agents for diversity. For example, sponsorship activities can be developed for minority faculty to participate as stakeholders in governance activities that define and shape academic work. Minority faculty can be agents for diversity by promoting competing mind-sets into governance activities that shape institutional policies that sort and select who occupies leadership roles, such as president of the academic senate or chairpersons of standing academic committees. Educational Leadership practices for diversity implement curricular changes in the institutional climate to reflect the emergence of diversity in society’s social fabric. For example, the implementation of a multicultural curriculum augments the educational mission of higher education by exposing faculty and students to world views that illustrate how diversity shapes society and multicultural life experiences. The intent is to transform a curriculum nested in a Eurocentric or Westernized social reality that excludes diversity initiatives. Diversity for Leadership Practices Diversity for leadership practices seek to transition the institutional climate to address diversity
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issues; that is, appropriate diversity into the institutional climate. As with all major initiatives in higher education, these leadership practices attempt to position the institutional climate to make strategic gains in its efforts to show its receptiveness of diversity initiatives. Research Diversity for leadership practices seeks to increase the institutional climate’s awareness of diversity initiatives. As such, the institutional climate utilizes diversity issues to show its readiness to accommodate them. Regarding the research mission of higher education, sponsorship activities for minority faculty can be utilized to increase their participation in the acquisition of valued resources, such as research funding. The leadership practices transition the institutional climate to increase contact between minority faculty and other stakeholders in the expansion of opportunities for research production. That is, the institutional climate is prepped to increase its familiarity with diversity, e.g. minority faculty and diverse communities. Academic Diversity for leadership practices promote proactive responses in the institutional climate to diversity initiatives. As such, the leadership practices transition the institutional climate from one of neglect to one of accommodation. For example, the accommodation of diversity in the institutional climate is facilitated by the creation of diversity identifiable offices, such as Vice Chancellor for Diversity & Affirmative Action. These offices promote the image of an institutional climate that welcomes diversity, without necessarily altering the exclusion of minority faculty from core decision-making activities in the institutional climate. Educational Diversity for leadership practices introduce into the institutional climate the perception that diversity is an emergent social force in society. Collaborative activities, for example, can be promoted with organizations and/or legislative bodies outside of higher education, and the institutional
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climate, to alter the curriculum to respond to diversity initiatives by offering learning opportunities, such as internships or community-based classes. The intent of the leadership practices is to enhance the institutional climate’s response to diversity as a valued thread in society’s social fabric.
D A Contrastive Analysis How the institutional climate of higher education responds to diversity initiatives depends on its investment in changing the organizational culture of higher education. Institutions of higher education that change the organizational culture through the infusion of new resources for strengthening the inclusion of diversity initiatives in the institutional climate and the re-allocation of existing resources to support an infrastructure for promoting diversity initiatives are positioned to support leadership practices for diversity. The utilization of resources to promote diversity initiatives and changing resource allocation practices are vital to measuring a higher education’s inclusion of diversity initiatives in the institutional climate. In contrast, institutions of higher education that utilize resources to appropriate diversity initiatives into the institutional climate do so in order to create a perception that diversity initiatives are being addressed (e.g. observable motives). The purpose of diversity for leadership practices is to facilitate the institutional climate’s response to diversity initiatives in such a manner that it appears to be responding to diversity but not structuring organizational strategies that transform the institutional climate to be inclusive of diversity. While diversity for leadership practices are able to facilitate higher education’s pursuit of observable motives regarding diversity initiatives, the leadership practices do not produce measureable results for evaluating the institutional climate’s inclusion of diversity initiatives. Institutions of higher education that promote leadership practices for diversity are more likely than institutions utilizing diversity for leadership
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practices to result in the inclusion of diversity initiatives in the organizational culture and institutional climate because diversity and inclusion are promoted as a unified practice. That is, diversity and inclusion have a synergistic relationship that attains actualization with the transformation of higher education. By comparison, institutions of higher education that utilize diversity for leadership practices simply construct stages for the presentation of diversity initiatives in the institutional climate. However, these leadership practices are not successful in changing the institutional climate to be inclusive of diversity initiatives because diversity and inclusion are treated as separate practices. Institutions of higher education that utilize these practices for addressing diversity initiatives are at risk of creating competing goals for diversity and inclusion in the institutional climate.
Concluding Remarks Diversity has deep roots in the history and culture of American society, and as a result, a tenacious hold on its social fabric. Institutions of higher education have not been very responsive to the issues raised by rapidly growing diverse communities in the United States (Adserias et al. 2016). Higher education’s response to diversity initiatives is not unexpected given that it is relatively conservative about changing its institutional practices. In a certain sense, the institutional climate in higher education has neglected its educational and social responsibility to respond to diversity initiators (Karkouti 2016). In order to understand how higher education may respond to diversity initiatives I have discussed two conceptual frameworks for examining the association between leadership and diversity. My purpose has been to use the frameworks as heuristic tools for examining the type of leadership practices higher education can utilize in its response to diversity initiatives. By contrasting the two frameworks I have discussed how the institutional climate in higher education responds to diversity depends on its decision to
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either transform or transition the organizational culture. As so often happens with essays like this one, several, if not many, questions are not answered. Someone may ask, “Is it possible to employ a hybrid framework in addressing diversity initiatives that utilizes the best practices of the two frameworks?” It is beyond the scope of the discussion in this paper, and perhaps not a choice one would make. For one thing, a hybrid framework requires the construction of a conceptual framework that depicts change as a dynamic process yet with measured outcomes over time. In this context, diversity initiatives only serve to accommodate organizational practices and not a catalyst for changing them. As such, the institutional climate could determine which time frame would be the tipping point for deciding that diversity initiatives had received sufficient attention. As a result, diversity initiatives are not actualized in the institutional climate; instead, they are relegated to being the quiet and unwelcome visitor in the institutional climate. While the discussion in this paper has focused on faculty in higher education, the observations offered in this paper extend to making the campus more inclusive of minority staff and students. For example, the degree to which minority faculty feel they are part of curricular decisions and the institution’s pedagogy will affect their social relations with students, which in turn, foster a sense of belonging and inclusiveness among students (Hurtado and Alvarado 2013; Egalite and Kisida 2016). The inclusion of minority faculty into the core activities of the institution will have a similar effect on staff members’ identification of themselves within the institution. One particular approach institutions of higher education may utilize is to include the diverse community of faculty, staff and students into their mission statements. The frameworks, transitional and transformative, outlined in this paper challenge institutions to make inclusive diversity for faculty, staff and students as either a transitional phase in the organizational culture or a transformative change of the organizational culture.
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Finally, I hope the discussion in this paper will motivate higher education to regard diversity leadership as a passionate plea for changing the organizational culture, and removing the resistance in the institutional climate to its inclusion. Diversity leadership offers the best hope to higher education for removing the stigma of diversity leadership as a threat to organizational culture. Diversity leadership is a change agent in higher education for removing obstructionist and exclusionary practices that erase the presence of diverse populations, and condemns them to silence. Diversity leadership’s effectiveness will be determined by higher education’s ability to respond energetically and emotionally in its commitment to change the organizational culture to be inclusive of diversity. However, to date, higher education’s inability to be passionate in its response to diversity continues the exclusion of diverse populations.
References Abdul-Raheem, J. 2016. Faculty diversity and tenure in higher education. Journal of Cultural Diversity 23: 53–56. Aguirre, A., Jr. 2010. Diversity as interest-convergence in academia: a critical race theory story. Social Identities 16, 763–774. Adserias, R.P., L.J. Charleston, and J.F.L. Jackson. 2016. What style of leadership is best suited to direct organizational change to fuel institutional diversity in higher education. Race Ethnicity and Education 20: 315–331. Aguirre, A., Jr. 1987. An interpretative analysis of Chicano Faculty in Academe. The Social Science Journal 24: 71–81. Aguirre, A., Jr. 2000. Women and minority Faculty in the Academic Workplace: Recruitment, retention, and academic culture, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report. Vol. 27., Number 6. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Aguirre, A., Jr. 2008. Diversity, social capital and leadership practices: Building inclusive learning organizations. International Journal of Management and Decision Making 9: 526–542. Aguirre, A., Jr., and R.O. Martinez. 2002. Leadership practices and diversity in higher education: Transitional and transformational frameworks. Journal of Leadership Studies 8: 53–62.
315 Aguirre, A., Jr., and R.O. Martinez. 2003a. The diversity rationale in higher education: An overview of the contemporary legal context. Social Justice 30: 138–152. Aguirre, A., Jr., and R.O. Martinez. 2003b. The postcolonial university: Racial issues in south African and American institutions. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies 12: 1–12. Aguirre, Jr., A., und R.O. Martinez. 2006. Diversity leadership in higher education. ASHE Higher Education Report, v. 32 no. 3. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Aguirre, A., Jr., and R.O. Martinez. 2014. Closing the gap: Affirmative action in higher education, the utilization of the diversity rationale, and select examples of legal challenges between 1995 and 2002. In Affirmative action, ed. J.A. Beckman, vol. I, 159–178. Denver: Praeger. Aguirre, A., Jr., and J. Turner. 2011. American ethnicity: The dynamics and consequences of discrimination. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. Alger, Jonathan. 1997. The educational value of diversity. Academe 83: 20–24. Baez, B. 2000. Diversity and its contradictions. Academe 86: 43–47. Banks, J. 2008. Diversity, group identity, and citizenship education in a global age. Educational Researcher 37: 129–139. Beem, C. 1999. The necessity of politics: Reclaiming american public life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Butler, J. 2000. Democracy, diversity, and civic engagement. Academe 86: 52–56. Campbell, A. 2000. Cultural diversity: Practising what we preach in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education 5: 373–385. Checkoway, B. 2001. Renewing the civic mission of the American research university. Journal of Higher Education 72: 125–158. Cintron, L., J. Cintron, and C. Canton, eds. 2002. The politics of survival in academia: Narratives of integrity, resilience, and success. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Contreras, A.R. 1998. Leading from the margins in the ivory tower. In The multicultural campus: Strategies for transforming higher education, ed. Leonard A. Valverde and Louis A. Castenell Jr., 137–166. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Dade, K., C. Tartakov, C. Hargrave, and P. Leigh. 2015. Assessing the impact of racism on black faculty in white academe: A collective case study of African American female faculty. The Western Journal of Black Studies 39: 134–146. Diggs, G., D. Garrison-Wade, D. Estrada, and R. Galindo. 2009. Smiling faces and colored spaces: The experiences of faculty of color pursuing tenure in the academy. Urban Review 41: 312–333. Ebbers, L., G. Gallisath, and V. Rockel. 2000. The leadership institute for a new century: LINCING women and minorities into Tomorrow’s community college
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316 leadership roles. Community College Journal of Research & Practice 24: 375–383. Eddy, J., and S. Murphy. 1997. 21st century leadership practices needed for higher education. Education 117: 327–331. Egalite, A., and B. Kisida. 2016. The many ways teacher diversity may benefit students. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Elton, L. 1992. Research, teaching and scholarship in an expanding higher education system. Higher Education Quarterly 46: 252–268. Etzioni, A. 1965. Dual leadership in complex organizations. American Sociological Review 30: 688–698. Evans, A., and E. Chun. 2014. The department chair as the engine of diversity transformation. Academic Leader 30: 4–8. Hoops, S. 2001. Minority faculty in high demand; Texas deans try a variety of ways to find non-Anglo law professors. Texas Lawyer (March 26), p. 40. HR Reporter. 2001. New president adds diversity in leadership roles at Boise University. (March 23), p. 4. Hurtado, S., and A. Alvarado. 2013. Diversity in teaching and learning: Affirming students as empowered learners. Diversity and Democracy 16: 1–12. Karkouti, I.M. 2016. Professional leadership practices and diversity issues in the U.S. higher education system: A research synthesis. Education 136: 405–412. Kotter, J. 1990. What leaders do. Harvard Business Review (May–June), pp. 103–111. Mazur, B. 2010. Cultural diversity in organizational theory and practice. Journal of Intercultural Management 2: 5–15. Myers, S.L., Jr. 1997. Why diversity is a smoke screen for affirmative action, Change 29, 24–32. Palmer, R., J. Wood, and D. Spencer. 2013. Diverging interests: Balancing racial diversity and race-sensitive policies across state higher education systems. Journal of Black Studies 44: 406–425. Putnam, R. 1995. Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy 6: 65–78. Ramirez, S. 2000. The new cultural diversity and title VII. Michigan Journal of Race & Law 6: 107–179. Steers, R., and S. Black. 1994. Organizational behavior. 5th ed. New York: Harper Collins. Turner, C., and J. Gonzalez. 2008. Faculty of color in academe: What 20 years of literature tells us. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 1: 139–168. Turner, C., and S. Myers. 2000. Faculty of color in academe: Bittersweet success. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Wilson, J. 2013. Emerging trend: The chief diversity officer phenomenon within higher education. The Journal of Negro Education 82: 433–445.
Doctoral Education ▶ Doctoral Studies in Europe
Doctoral Education
Doctoral Student Socialization Catherine M. Johnson1, Kelly A. Ward2 and Susan K. Gardner3 1 Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USA 2 Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA 3 University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA
Synonyms Development; Graduate professionalization; Professional identity; Training
Definition The most widely used definition of doctoral student socialization refers to the process as one in which an individual interacts, integrates, and learns the values, skills, attitudes, norms, and knowledge to effectively take part in a group (Merton et al. 1957; Brim 1966; Bragg 1976; Baird 1990; Weidman et al. 2001; Austin 2002; Weidman and Stein 2003). The internalization of membership happens informally and formally, ultimately resulting in integration, role commitment to the member group, and role acquisition in the chosen group or organization. Doctoral student socialization takes place throughout the graduate career and facilitates the students’ integration into professional, department, and disciplinary networks, thereby socializing the student to graduate school and to the chosen professional pathway.
Historical Aspects Socialization theory is a common and valuable theoretical framework for understanding and shaping research on graduate students’ professionalization in all its complexity (Antony 2002; Austin 2002; Clark and Corcoran 1986; Gardner 2007; Weidman et al. 2001). The frequency of the use of socialization theory as a theoretical framework to research graduate students’ experiences
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can be attributed to its sociological foundations. The application of socialization theory to understand graduate studies can be traced to Merton’s (1957) work on reference group theory and the sociology of medical education. In this research, medical students’ attitudes toward their studies, faculty, patients, medical profession, and specialization were empirically investigated (Merton et al. 1957; Merton 1957). Socialization is defined by Merton et al. as “the processes through which [a person] develops [a sense of] professional self, with its characteristic values, attitudes, knowledge and skills ... which govern [his or her] behavior in a wide variety of professional situations” (1957, 287). In relation to higher education, Bragg (1976) emphasized the crucial role the socialization process plays in learning, “because it is the socialization process that allows education to achieve its goals.” (p. 3). The socialization process comprehensively engages all aspects of learning, both affective and cognitive. Building upon Brim’s (1966) work and specific to graduate education, Weidman et al. (2001) defined socialization as “the processes through which individuals gain the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for successful entry into a professional career requiring an advanced level of specialized knowledge and skills” (p. iii). As the degree process comes to completion, students should be able to answer these questions, “(1) What do I do with the skills I have learned? (2) What am I supposed to look like and act like in my professional field? and (3) What do I, as a professional, look like to other professionals as I perform my new roles?” (p. 6). How one acts, how one perceives the profession and one’s place in it, and how one are regarded by others in the field upon entry is critical as graduate students learn to mold themselves to the expected role and behavior patterns of the profession and learning is internalized (Austin and McDaniels 2006, 400).
Key Principles and Concepts Over the last 50 years, socialization theory has been adapted in many ways to explain the
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professionalization process of doctoral students. Theoretical arguments about doctoral student socialization range from sociology and the modernist perspective to postmodern interpretations from higher education scholars (Merton 1957; Tierney 1997). In the frequently cited monograph on graduate student socialization, Weidman et al. (2001) adopted the sociological idea of role acquisition theory to theorize on graduate student socialization. They adapted the four stages of passage to role acquisition originally described by Thornton and Nardi (1975), which include anticipatory, formal, informal, and personal stages, for the graduate school context. At each stage students engage in the academic culture, assume greater academic responsibility, and experience increased academic identity and commitment for the roles and responsibilities associated with the profession. The stages involve core elements including knowledge acquisition, investment, and involvement whereby students become more active and engaged in their roles and responsibilities as graduate students and as emerging experts in the chosen academic field or discipline. These elements of engagement can occur throughout the students’ academic and social experiences. Further, students can reside in multiple stages at any one time during their education depending on the students’ level of understanding, cultural learning, skill development, and role expectations and familiarity. A central concept of doctoral student socialization concerns organizational aspects of professionalization including occupational or professional settings, such as time and place and where the work/training occurs.
Disciplinary Influences As graduate students adjust to their current role in a department and institution, they are also in training for their future roles in a specific field with its own cultural norms, values, and habits of mind. Even though a large portion of the literature grasps doctoral student socialization as a “monolithic enterprise,” there is significant
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variation regarding how doctoral students experience the socialization process (Gardner 2007). There are distinct disciplinary differences in the ways socialization transpires and developmental aspects to consider. Empirically based studies on doctoral education discuss and disaggregate the distinct differences across disciplines and social groups to better describe the socialization processes in doctoral education across disciplines and time to degree (Gardner 2007; Golde 1998). Socialization can vary significantly by whom is being socialized, who is doing the socialization, and in what setting. Although socialization may occur at the institutional and departmental levels of an organization, the department and discipline may be the most influential context of graduate student socialization as it is the primary locus for where the students’ experiences occur (Golde 2005; Gardner 2010a, b; Austin et al. 2012). The academic department establishes the disciplinary context where implicit and explicit norms are expressed and programmatic opportunities are created to facilitate students’ socialization into the profession. This locus of control at the departmental level may pose an additional challenge for students in graduate education who may be part-time students and are therefore not well integrated into the departmental culture or for students who may have interdisciplinary degree programs spanning multiple cultures. Several studies have shown that inadequate socialization may be associated with graduate student attrition (Gardner 2007; Golde 1998; Lovitts 2001). There are many other seminal studies that have explored the issue of graduate student socialization in the context of researcher independence (Gardner 2008), disciplinary context (Gardner 2007, 2010c), professional service (Ward 2010), and preparation of future faculty (Austin 2002). This line of research holds much promise as socialization has been characterized as a nonlinear, dynamic, interactive process (Ward 2010; Kraus 2012) that can occur at multiple levels and within distinct contexts in graduate education (Gardner 2007).
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Future Directions A major area of critique in the current literature on graduate student socialization is that the process has not accounted for individual student differences (Antony 2002), and has been underexplored for culturally diverse students and other student subpopulations (Gardner 2007). In looking at power relationships, equity issues race/ethnicity, gender, and citizenship/internationalization may also be at play and merit further attention (Gopaul 2011; Gardner and Gopaul 2012; Felder et al. 2014). Future research needs to more fully consider how identity and intersectionality of one’s multiple identities shape doctoral student socialization.
References Antony, James Soto. 2002. Reexamining doctoral student socialization and professional development: Moving beyond the congruence and assimilation orientation. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, 349–380. Dordrecht: Springer. Austin, Ann E. 2002. Preparing the next generation of faculty: Graduate school as socialization to the academic career. The Journal of Higher Education 73 (1): 94–122. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2002.0001. Austin, Ann E., and Melissa McDaniels. 2006. Preparing the professoriate of the future: Graduate student socialization or faculty roles. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, vol. XXI, 397–456. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4512-3_8. Austin, Ann E, Kevin Kruger, Susan K Gardner, and Pilar Mendoza. 2012. On becoming a scholar: Socialization and development in doctoral education. Sterling : Stylus Publishing, LLC. Baird, Leonard L. 1990. The melancholy of anatomy: The personal and professional development of graduate and professional school students. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, vol. 6, 361–392. Dordrecht: Springer. Bragg, Ann Kieffer. 1976. The socialization process in higher education. ERIC/Higher Education Research Report No. 7. Publications Department, American Association for Higher Education. Brim, Orville G. 1966. In Socialization after childhood, ed. Stanton Wheeler. New York: Wiley. Clark, Shirley M., and Mary Corcoran. 1986. Perspectives on the professional socialization of women faculty: A case of accumulative disadvantage? The Journal of Higher Education 57 (1): 20–43. https://doi.org/ 10.2307/1981464. Ohio State University Press.
Doctoral Studies in Europe Felder, Pamela Petrease, Howard C. Stevenson, and Marybeth Gasman. 2014. Understanding race in doctoral student socialization. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 9: 21–42. Gardner, Susan K. 2007. ‘I heard it through the grapevine’: Doctoral student socialization in chemistry and history. Higher Education 54 (5): 723–740. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10734-006-9020-x. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Gardner, Susan K. 2008. What’s too much and what’s too little?: The process of becoming an independent researcher in doctoral education. The Journal of Higher Education 79 (3): 326–350. https://doi.org/10.1353/ jhe.0.0007. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Gardner, Susan K. 2010a. Contrasting the socialization experiences of doctoral students in high- and lowcompleting departments: A qualitative analysis of disciplinary contexts at one institution. The Journal of Higher Education 81 (1): 61–81. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/jhe.0.0081. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Gardner, Susan K. 2010b. Keeping up with the joneses: Socialization and culture in doctoral education at one striving institution. The Journal of Higher Education 81 (6): 728–749. https://doi.org/10.1353/ jhe.2010.0013. Ohio State University Press. Gardner, Susan K. 2010c. Faculty perspectives on doctoral student socialization in five disciplines. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 5: 39+. Gardner, Susan K., and Bryan Gopaul. 2012. The part-time doctoral student experience. International Journal of Doctoral Studies 7: 63. Informing Science Institute. Golde, Chris M. 1998. Beginning graduate school: Explaining first-year doctoral attrition. New Directions for Higher Education 101: 55–64. https://doi.org/ 10.1002/he.10105. Golde, Chris M. 2005. The role of the department and discipline in doctoral student attrition: Lessons from four departments. The Journal of Higher Education 76 (6): 669–700. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2005. 0039. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Gopaul, Bryan. 2011. Distinction in doctoral education: Using Bourdieu’s tools to assess the socialization of doctoral students. Equity & Excellence in Education 44 (1): 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2011. 539468. Kraus, Amanda. 2012. Engaging theories and models to inform practice. In Stepping up to stepping out: Helping students prepare for life after college: New directions for student services, ed. Jill Parker and George S. McClellan, vol. 138, 13–27. Hoboken: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20003. Lovitts, Barbara E. 2001. Leaving the Ivory Tower: The causes and consequences of departure from doctoral study. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Merton, Robert King. 1957. Social theory and social structure. Glencoe: Free Press. Merton, Robert King, George G. Reader, and Patricia L. Kendall. 1957. In The student-physician:
319 Introductory studies in the sociology of medical education, ed. Columbia University. Bureau of Applied Social Research. Cambridge: Published for the Commonwealth Fund by Harvard University Press. Thornton, R., and P. Nardi. 1975. The dynamics of role acquisition. American Journal of Sociology 80 (4): 870. https://doi.org/10.1086/225897. Tierney, William G. 1997. Organizational socialization in higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 68 (1): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/2959934. Ward, Kelly A. 2010. Doctoral student socialization for service. In On becoming a scholar: Socialization and development in doctoral education, ed. Susan K. Gardner and Pilar Mendoza. Sterling: Stylus. Weidman, John C., and Elizabeth L. Stein. 2003. Socialization of doctoral students to academic norms. Research in Higher Education 44 (6): 641–656. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026123508335. Weidman, John C, Darla J Twale, and Elizabeth Leahy Stein. 2001. Socialization of graduate and professional students in higher education: A perilous passage? ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 28.3:1–118.
Doctoral Students, Doctoral Candidates ▶ Graduate Education Developments in an International Context
Doctoral Studies in Europe Thomas Jorgensen European University Association, Brussels, Belgium
Synonyms Doctoral education; Doctoral training; Graduate education (US); PhD studies; Postgraduate education (UK)
Definition Doctoral studies are training through independent research under supervision aiming at creating new knowledge, leading to a doctoral degree, most
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commonly the PhD degree. Holders of a doctoral degree are expected to, among other things, have the “ability to conceive, design, implement and adapt a substantial process of research with scholarly integrity” according to the Dublin Descriptors (EHEA 2017).
Doctoral Studies as Academic Apprenticeship While the title has existed since the Middle Ages, the present model of doctoral education spread from the German-speaking countries to the rest of the world during the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and remained stable as training first and foremost for a career in academic research. This common model has resulted in a fairly uniform understanding of doctoral studies across the globe with slight variations. Doctoral studies have traditionally been conducted as an academic apprenticeship where the doctoral candidate or early stage researcher (in many countries the term “student” is seen as unfitting for this stage of independence) works independently but under the supervision of an experienced researcher to produce new research results. These results are to be challenged by senior researchers, who evaluate if the work lives up to the standards and rigor of the field and is sufficiently original.
The Knowledge Society In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the pure apprenticeship model with little institutional interference in the relation between supervisor and supervisee came increasingly under pressure, leading to a push for more professional structures such as doctoral schools. The decades before and after the Millennium were marked by the political and economic discourse of the knowledge society and the idea that economic growth depend on knowledge and innovation. This discourse was accompanied by dramatic growth in public and private investments in research and development. As part of this development, the number of doctorate graduates also rose, particularly in 2000–2010.
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This was part of a global development, as emerging markets aimed at moving up the value chain towards more knowledge-intensive products. Attention to doctoral studies also grew in the developing world, although from very low starting points (Jorgensen 2012; van’t Land 2011). Career perspectives have changed for researchers as growth in the numbers of doctorate holders have widely outpaced growth on the academic labor market, and – simultaneously – private sector research spending has risen faster than public spending. Doctoral studies still lead to significantly better careers and higher employment rates, but these careers tend to be much more diverse and only a very limited number of graduates can expect life-long careers in academic research. The large majority will enter nonacademic positions in the private and public sector. This development has put into question the adequacy of a pure apprenticeship model with training and acculturation in and for the academic world.
Professionalization of Doctoral Studies Management The response to these developments from the side of Europe’s universities was to increase the professionalism in the management of doctoral studies. Through the years of reforms during the Bologna Process and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area, higher education institutions in many systems gained more autonomy and professionalized their overall management, for example, through quality management systems. In doctoral studies, European universities established doctoral schools as management units and saw the development of this field as an institutional, strategic priority. Outside Europe, institutional responsibility for doctoral studies had often rested with the Graduate Dean, particularly in the United States, but also for instance in Australia. The European system developed a more diversified approach with doctoral schools either at the program of faculty level, or a combination of these with a central, more strategic unit (European University Association 2014, p. 6). Doctoral education was no longer a fully private relation between
Doctoral Studies in Europe
supervisor and supervisee, but institutions took action and responsibility to for example ensure the quality of supervisors, provide career guidance and skills provision for nonacademic jobs, define and monitor key performance indicators such as time to degree, and lay out a strategy for developing provision overall. The term “doctoral education professional” emerged to define managers and administrators specializing in this area (see the Professionals in Doctoral Education (PRIDE) Project, www.pride-network.eu/).
New Challenges Importantly, this professionalization did not overturn the classical core of doctoral studies, original research under supervision. Although doctoral candidates would have more systematic offers of transferable skills courses and mobility options, the daily work in the laboratory or library would be little different from earlier generations. In all systems, supervisors still have large discretionary power to manage their doctoral candidates. There are large differences between the various disciplines in terms of this daily work. In the humanities, the doctoral candidate will often work in a highly individual manner and meetings with the supervisor are arranged at certain, at times long, intervals. In the experimental sciences, doctoral candidates will often be part of a team that works closely together in the laboratory. With the increased importance of “big science” involving extensive international collaborations and large infrastructures (e.g., astronomy or high-energy physics) the possibility for doctoral candidates to individually produce knowledge is somewhat more limited. Such discrepancies result in various interpretations of what an “original” contribution should consist of (Clarke and Lunt 2014). Recently, the debate on and establishment of more professional structures for doctoral education has moved onward, focusing on how to tackle substantive challenges through the newly established doctoral schools. These challenges are closely connected to the change in the way research is conducted (European University Association 2016).
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Digitalization, including use of big data and especially open access to data and publications, is important for doctoral education. At the middle of the 2010s, universities find themselves in a situation where the generation of supervisors have not necessarily more experience than their “digital native” supervisees. At the same time, universities are developing infrastructure and policies for open access, which need to be part of the training of early stage researchers. There is also an issue about communication of research and the use of social media for this, which needs to be addressed in doctoral studies. Research ethics and integrity is another challenge, which has gained importance through the 2010s. There have been a number of scandals regarding research ethics as well as a general concern about reproducibility and validity of results, partly due to the performance pressure on researchers. This has led to greater attention to how new researchers are trained in matters of ethics and integrity and how this is integrated in doctoral studies both in terms of formal training and the daily research work. As a third challenge, the increasingly global nature of research has had a very visible impact on doctoral studies. In knowledge-based economies, especially in the USA and Europe, international recruitment of doctoral candidates is essential to retain the talent base. In the European Union (EU), for example, 24% of doctoral candidates come from non-EU countries (European Commission 2015, p. 26). Moreover, doctoral candidates are often more mobile and thus an important part of international research collaborations, going from one country to another on longer or shorter visits. This brings challenges regarding the integration of international researchers in the home university, as well as equipping doctoral candidates with the intercultural skills to work in a global setting.
Non-PhD doctorates Another issue accompanying the growing diversity of researcher careers is the appearance of doctorates that differ from the traditional PhD,
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notably professional doctorates. These are mostly known in the Anglophone world, the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia, as doctorates that are closely related to a professional practice, and often targeted at professionals who want to gain an academic perspective on their work. Professional doctorates are well established in the fields of education and management, while other disciplines are skeptical about the degree. Industrial doctorates, importantly, are in the vast majority PhD degrees, which happen to be done in collaboration with a nonacademic partner. They are normally assessed with the same procedure and criteria as PhDs done exclusively in an academic environment.
Doctoral Training van’t Land, Hilligje. 2011. The changing nature of Doctoral Studies in sub-Saharan Africa. Paris: IAU. http:// iau-aiu.net/sites/all/files/IAU_Final_Report_Doctoral_ Programmes_in_Africa.pdf. Accessed Dec 2016.
Doctoral Training ▶ Doctoral Studies in Europe
Document Verification ▶ Refugees in Tertiary Education, European Policies and Practices
References Clarke, Gill, and Ingrid Lunt. 2014. The concept of ‘originality’ in the Ph.D.: How is it interpreted by examiners? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 39: 803–820. European Commission. 2015. European Research Area. Facts and figures 2014. Brussels: European Commission. European Higher Education Area (EHEA). An overarching framework of qualifications for the EHEA. https:// www.ehea.info/cid102059/wg-frameworks-qualificati on-2003-2005.html. Accessed Aug 2017. European University Association. 2014. Europe’s Universities: Main drivers in achieving the European Research Area. Brussels: EUA. http://www.eua.be/Libraries/ publications-homepage-list/EUA_ERA_Publication_04_ 14_web.pdf?sfvrsn¼4. Accessed Dec 2016. European University Association. 2016. Doctoral Education – Taking Salzburg forward. Implementation and new challenges. Brussels: EUA. http://www.eua.be/ Libraries/publications-homepage-list/Doctoral-Educa tion_Taking-Salzburg-Forward. Accessed Dec 2016. Jorgensen, Thomas Ekman. 2012. CODOC – Cooperation on Doctoral Education between Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. Brussels: EUA. http://www.eua. be/Libraries/publications-homepage-list/EUA_CODOC_ web. Accessed Dec 2016.
Double Degree Programs ▶ Partnerships and Joint Programs in Higher Education, Management of
Drivers of Higher Education Enrolment ▶ Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
Dual Degree Programs ▶ Partnerships and Joint Programs in Higher Education, Management of
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EAIR
Introduction
▶ EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
The rise of research into higher education has its roots in government decisions to move elite toward mass higher education (Neave, 2003). Higher education institutions are engaged in meaningful activities related to different stakeholder expectations caused by major policy movements and system changes. Today, higher education institutions are influenced by government and other stakeholder groups and engaged in managing complexity between system regulations and institutional realities (Huisman et al. 2015). The link between these two, namely macro and meso levels, is institutional autonomy, defined by national higher education systems and routed by institutions (Klemenčič and Brennan 2013). Various autonomy concepts led not only to differentiation between systems and institutions (Estermann et al. 2011) but also to the development of additional sub arenas of change like quality assurance, funding, staffing and career progression, and many others in higher education. The concept of differentiation is grounded in the implicit and explicit knowledge about these arenas and at the end about the institutions. This knowledge can be understood as the institutional intelligence (Terenzini 2013). The smart use of organizational knowledge in strategy formation and implementation helps institutions to position themselves in a more and more competitive
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society Attila Pausits Centre for Educational Management and Higher Education Development, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria European Higher Education Society (EAIR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Synonyms EAIR; European higher education society
Definition EAIR, The European Higher Education Society, is an international association for higher education researchers, practitioners, students, managers, and policymakers.
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020 P. N. Teixeira, J. C. Shin (eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Higher Education Systems and Institutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8905-9
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environment (Pritchard et al. 2016). This evidence-based acting is not only important in policy making but also in strategy development at meso level. Therefore, institutional intelligence grows into a significant factor in higher education development. Institutional researcher as a profession within higher education institutions became relevant – driven by massification – as new public management and institutional autonomy reached higher education. The shift from government to governance or from administration to management has changed institutional processes and practices. In order to facilitate these changes, new higher education professions evolved (Cummings and Teichler 2015) and additional tasks and responsibilities have to be fulfilled within higher education institutions. Those new professions led to new identities and new professional associations as well as other initiatives, e.g., international projects (Maassen and Pausits 2013). The following chapter describes the meaning and function of institutional research and gives some insights about the evolutionary journey and mission(s) of an European association dedicated to institutional research. The chapter covers almost 40 years of “EAIR – The European Higher Education Society” (EAIR) form the beginning to today’s association. This chapter discusses not only the journey, notion, and changing role of institutional research as well as its impact, but also pays credits to engaged scholars and colleagues. Of course, this overview can’t mention all those enthusiastic people helping EAIR to move forward but at least try to demonstrate the broad, international, and scholarly well embeddedness of this association in academia, administration, and management over the years. EAIR services and structures might also help to gain understanding about a well-established association at the cross-road of research, policy, and practice. Institutional Research as a Concept External conditions largely shape management and decision-making challenges at higher education institutions. As a response to this contingency, perspective institutional research practices entered the field of higher education
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
(Peterson 2003). In contrast to higher education research (Teichler in this publication), these practices have a strong focus on institutional intelligence. Terenzini (2013) describes institutional research as organizational intelligence by addressing three different aspects. First, the role of data collection, analysis, and mining as a technical layer of institutional research is important to understand processes and practices and their impact. Second, based on that data and analysis, an organizational embeddedness has to be ensured to connect results with colleagial, bureaucratic, and political arenas and settings. The third competence to develop institutional research is contextual intelligence, where organizational culture and institutional DNA are reflected and findings are translated into responsive results. Institutional research aims to gain understanding of higher education institutions as organizational formations and actors. Calderon and Webber stated that “the nature of institutional research work is that it is about the institution and for the institution” (Webber and Calderon 2015). As part of higher education research, institutional research has developed over the last four decades into a recognized field of scholarship and practice. Indicators of its development are not only institutional (sub)units but professional, national, and international networks as well as academic associations across the globe (Reichard 2012). In contrast to higher education research traditions, institutional research has a strong applied and actionable research component. Its major goal is to assist decision-making inside institutions and policy development on international (European), national (federal), or regional (local) level. Institutional planning, decisionmaking, and policy formation are the key purposes of institutional research activities (Botha and Muller 2016). The “costumers” of institutional research practices are higher education executives, deans/directors, heads of departments, and leading academics but also higher education researchers. Besides the institutional researcher offices also other higher education professionals, e.g., quality assurance officers; research support officers; teaching and learning support staff; and staff working in
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
finance, human resources, and facilities management departments, are important peers, analysts, and contributors to institutional research. The formation of institutional research activities including staff depend on the tradition, culture, and structure of the institution and the influence of the system (Webber and Calderon 2015). Those groups habitually work institutional needs oriented, often in short cycles and under pressure. Institutional researchers have less freedom to decide their own research agendas and questions (Botha and Muller 2016). They work less theorydriven and seldom published in scholarly recognized publications (Huisman et al. 2015). Most probably these are the reasons why colleagues in that field in Europe do not see themselves as researchers but rather higher education professionals (Klemenčič and Brennan 2013). As institutional research results are mostly not publicly available, these are often published as “grey literature” (Botha and Muller 2016) and the authors have no academic credentials. These groups fulfil in Europe rather reporting tasks to meet governance procedures and stakeholder expectations. It is obvious that based on institutional autonomy and a diverse European Higher Education Area, institutional research has been interpreted in practice differently and led to different “identities” by those who conduct institutional research. If we look at the literature, not surprisingly, the foundation of institutional research comes from USA. Even though tasks related to institutional research are as old as higher education institutions, offices at higher education institutions exist only since the 1950s (Webber and Calderon 2015). However, a conceptual discussion on the roles and responsibilities of institutional research started 30 years later in the late 1980s and 1990s on the purpose, function, and mission (e.g., Freeman and Simpson 1980; Peterson 1999 and Volkwein 1999) and then a decade later a second wave of academic reviews on services and roles of individuals has been conducted (e.g. Delaney 2009; Leimer and Terkla 2009; Reichard 2012; Webber and Calderon 2015). These cycles have also clear implication on the mission, history, structures, and services of EAIR.
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Mission, Vision, and the Origins As already mentioned, institutional research as a set of organized procedures and practices was implemented in the USA much earlier than in Europe. Therefore, there is no big surprise that EAIR as an association has its roots in the USA. In order to develop the profession further, the American Institutional Research (AIR) association has been established in 1965 to understand the nature of the emerging field as task and to respond to the need of its members (Peterson 2003). In the founding year of EAIR in 1979, institutional research was a well-developed field and recognized management (support) function in USA. At that time, AIR reported growing numbers of its membership, had a well-run annual forum, and counted a number of regional associations as its satellites (Begg and Belanger 2003). AIR identified Europe as a source to get more members and forum participants. However, AIR had no knowledge about the state of the art in institutional research in Europe nor a strategic focus and experience on becoming an international association (Begg and Belanger 2003). In 1979, AIR, under the presidency of F. Craig Johnson and under the leadership of its International Activities Subcommittee chaired by Charles Bélanger, made an effort to organize the “First AIR European Forum” in Paris and got support from Claude Cossu from Université de Paris 1, Sorbonne, as well as other European colleagues attending the San Diego Forum at that year. EAIR had a similar evolutionary approach like AIR just 25 years later and with the major strategic advantage of a “big sister.” The association started with a small but enthusiastic group of people attending AIR, who realized that a separate organization back in Europe might serve better the developments in Europe, would give more freedom to address different issues and would be easier to set their own agenda and finally to attract more European attendees. The first forum at Sorbonne attracted 26 participants including 21 Europeans, half of them from administration and another half academics and directors of institutional research (Begg and Belanger 2003). During the first years, the forum was still under the organizational umbrella of AIR, and on the shoulders of few
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contributors with little personal and financial support, it was a rather informal and small event. Individual contributions and the role of the forum chair as trend setter for quality standards and further developments are mentioned by historical witnesses as drivers in this early stage of the association, for example, the Uppsala Forum in 1982 as a landmark event. The reason why to leave AIR was intended as a way ahead, was mainly because institutional research functions were carried out at that time in USA more specialized and compartmentalized than in Europe. For example, in the 1980s, AIR payed more attention to technology at institutional research offices, while themes at the European forums were broader and participants more divers. Further to that AIR had no financial capacities to carry on with a European satellite organization. However, EAIR copied in many aspects the “big sister” and choose the same pathway. In 1985, EAIR began with a campus-based office and used a strategic cooperation with one higher education institution, the University of Twente. The creation of EAIR’s own identity is most probably closely connected with the establishment of a temporary, part-time secretariat at the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies at the University of Twente (CHEPS) with Peter Maassen as a new incoming researcher at CHEPS and EAIR secretary general. In light of the mentioned delay of 25 years between the two associations’ lifespan, an attached but separate association seemed to be the right step forward in 1989. The increasing numbers of forum participants in the forthcoming forums, the secretariat at CHEPS, and at the end a legal constitution for a new association called “European Association for Institutional Research” led to a separation. EAIR has established itself as a collegial association within higher education with focus on the relationship between research, policy, and practice in higher education in Europe. EAIR has developed from its roots as a European “version” of AIR, widening its sphere of interest to policy at all levels, institutional, national, and international. In 1989, EAIR became an independent membership organization registered in the Netherlands.
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
Although the initials refer to institutional research, EAIR formally added in 2009 under the chairmanship of Kari Hyppönen “The European Higher Education Society” to its logo and then appended the strap-line “Linking Research, Policy and Practice.” This reflects the direction that EAIR has taken: it crosses boundaries between types of activities and seeks to cater for a mix of researchers, lecturers, students, administrators, managers, and policy-makers. Crossing boundaries means sharing best policy and management practices, learning from peers as well as exchanging and reflecting upon research findings.
The Organization of EAIR The structure of EAIR, in line with external regulations, reflects the mission of the association. The Executive Committee is, together with the Annual General Meeting, the main decision-making body. It consists of nine members who are elected by EAIR members for a three-year term of office. A Steering Committee is responsible for business in the interim between regular Executive Committee meetings. The Chair, the Vice-Chair, the Secretary, and the Treasurer undertake special functions and responsibilities within the Executive Committee. The President of EAIR is nominated and appointed by the members of the Executive Committee for a three-year term of office, and has an honorary and consultative role in respect of the Association. Seven years after its inception, the secretariat moved to the University of Amsterdam in 1997. This institutional cooperation especially to the use university premises lasted until 2015. Today the EAIR office has its own office and has no institutional affiliation in terms of its facilities or any other services. The secretariat supports the Executive Committee and manages membership issues, the annual Forum, and other activities around the association. Over the years, EAIR has expanded considerably and currently has nearly 400 members from 50 different countries all over the world, including Africa, South America, Asia, and Australasia. EAIR members work in higher
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
education institutions, primarily but not exclusively in Europe – either in university administration or in academic departments with particular research interests in management issues. EAIR is also of relevance to policy makers in governmental ministries and policy units. EAIR holds its annual Forum always at the end of August or beginning of September. EAIR presidents Sir William Taylor (1990–1992), Jan Karel Gevers (1992–1994), Marianne Bauer (1994–1997), Ulrich Teichler (1997–2001), Guy Neave (2001–2003), José-Ginés Mora (2004–2007), Kari Hyppönen (2007–2010), Mantz Yorke (2010–2013), Ellen Hazelkorn (2013–2016), and Bjørn Stensaker (2016–) have been esteemed representatives of the association but also embody the diverse population of EAIR members and their links to associations like CHER, HEIR, and others too. This underlines prominently the integrative and international nature of the association. The same goes for the chairman position of the association. First chairs with AIR affiliation and mandate were Charles Bélanger (1979–1982), William L. Tetlow (1982–1983), Martha Mayo (1983–1985), and Poul Bonde (1985–1989). Then, from 1990 onward, EAIR chairpersons were Leonard Kail (1990–1992), Michael Wright (1992–1995), Kari Hyppönen, (1995–2000), Roddy Begg (2000–2001), Bente Kristensen (2001–2004), Lee Harvey (2004–2008), Bernard Longden (2008–2009), Stephan Laske (2009–2010), Jeroen Huisman (2010–2016), and Attila Pausits (2016–). The same is true for executive committee members, forum chairs, Tertiary Education and Management (TEAM) editors and coeditors, as well as distinguished members of the association. Most probably the success of EAIR relies on three pillars. First, institutional research is an important aspect for higher education institutions with increased autonomy and therefore it is key to get international experiences and knowledge in that field. Second, a professional nonprofit organization with lean structures, professional secretariat, and highly committed colleagues and volunteers in different functions at their own institutions also willing to invest time and energy for
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their EAIR tasks. And finally, the international network links to national and international institutional research associations as important prerequisite of a global balance and position between research, policy, and practice. These pillars are crucial to offer and support the services of the association to its members and to a broader community. The Forum EAIR’s annual Forum is the most prominent event for its members and other participants. In 2018, EAIR celebrates its 40th anniversary forum at the Central European University in Budapest. The forum – starting with 21 participants in 1979 – became one of the major events in Europe’s higher education conference calendar. At each of the last years’ Forums, around 300–400 participants followed more than 100 presentations under the brand “linking research, policy and practice”; they got meaningful insights in recent higher education debates and connected to policy makers, practitioners, and researchers. The following table shows the coverage of different groups at the forum (Table 1). From the beginning, EAIR has an integrative attitude. Following Teichler’s classification (Schwarz and Teichler 2000), the Forum invites researchers representing a field of studies in the academic discipline dedicated to higher education
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society, Table 1 Background of EAIR participants 2008–2015 (Updated from Huisman et al. 2015) Academic
21%
Management (including managers with policy functions Administration
27%
Quality Others
7% 8%
37%
Lecturers, professors, principals, emeriti, PhD students Rectors, deans, university board members, managers Controllers, office manager, administrators, institutional researchers Quality assurance Economics, business, computing, editors, communication
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(e.g., academics with research focus on higher education) as well as institutional researchers with a strong focus on institutional applications and decision-making, and furthermore, reflective practitioners with a particular interest in higher education (e.g., managers, politicians, and civil servants). Huisman et al. highlighted in an earlier analysis (Huisman et al. 2015) that about 15–20% of all participants can be identified as “traditional” institutional researchers. Therefore, EAIR has a strong institutional research focus, but in the same time connects different groups engaged and responsible in and for higher education development. Tertiary Education and Management EAIR publishes, since 1995, a journal called “Tertiary Education and Management.” TEAM is an international peer-reviewed journal which follows the mission of EAIR and intends to build an enhanced connection of research, policy, and practice by addressing contemporary issues in teaching and learning, higher education management, and governance. As an interdisciplinary and internationally orientated journal, TEAM covers research contributions on main developmental trends and practices, and addresses current and future challenges in higher education. As an international journal, papers in TEAM are written and relevant for a polygonal and global audience. A good example is a paper in the very first issue “Leadership and Innovation in Universities from Theory to Practice” by Burton R. Clark (Clark 1995). This was one of a series of presentations at EAIR Forums made by Burton R. Clark. At the beginning, TEAM served as a kind of Forum proceeding including mainly high-quality Forum papers. With this TEAM was one of the main channels to make the mentioned “grey literature” more recognized for a broader audience. TEAM is supported and guided by an Editorial Board of senior practitioners and researchers in the field of higher education. In order to ensure the quality of the journal, papers are evaluated through blind review. In the forthcoming of TEAM, there were several publisher involved, e.g., Kluwer and Springer. Today TEAM is published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. The editors starting by
EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
Roddy Begg in 1995, followed by editors and coeditors like Barbara Kehm, Jeroen Huisman, Barbara Sporn, Bjorn Stensaker managed TEAM in a more and more competitive and business like environment. Today Malcom Tight as the editorin-chief with a large group of academics and higher education professionals around the world shape the journal for the better. In 1999, TEAM was in the 4th quartile for both Education and Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management journals. According to Scopus and for the first time in 2015, TEAM was in the 1st quartile for these two fields. This means that the journal is in the top 25% by citation among all journals in those fields. This represents recognition of the quality and interest on the articles published in TEAM. Outlook and the Way Ahead Today institutional research has reached a professional level that can be realized in the number of fellows with institutional research-related tasks as well as the number of publications available. However, institutional research needs further attention and development in Europe. As long as reporting is the most dominant task and institutional research is rather segmented between units inside higher education institutions as well as not recognized as an important research function EAIR’s mission remains to connect research with practice and to gain visibility for its impact on higher education development. In essence, professionals equipped with the overall knowledge of a comprehensive understanding of higher education developments and the uniqueness of the specific institutional context, and analytical skills are in charge of collection, analysis, and operational reporting of data and information. These higher education professionals understand the institutional context and information and are the enabler of an effective strategic planning (Botha and Muller 2016). Most probably never before was this group of people more important in higher education development. Further need for better positioning, the degree of stratification and competition will take advantage from the knowledge, skills, and competences of this group. On the other hand, EAIR is the missing link between
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the different groups involved in higher education development. This unique mission makes EAIR a vital partner and underlines the importance of this association in Europe. However, as MIT professor, Alan Kay pointed out “the music is not in the piano.” Even though EAIR’s mission, structures, and procedures have been in place for a long time, it is the association’s members including researchers and practitioners who bring things to life and hence define together the future of the association.
Cross-References ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Europe ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Latin America ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, North America ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Southern Africa ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers, Europe
References Begg, Roddy, and Charles Belanger. 2003. EAIR in the making. In The dialogue between higher education research and practice, ed. Rody Begg, 15–30. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Botha, Jan, and Nicole Muller. 2016. Institutional research in South African higher education: Intersecting contexts and practices. Matieland: African Sun Media. Clark, Burton R. 1995. Leadership and innovation in universities from theory to practice. Tertiary Education and Management 1: 7–11. Cummings, William K., and Ulrich Teichler. 2015. The relevance of academic work in comparative perspective. New York: Springer. Delaney, Anne M. 2009. Institutional researchers’ expanding roles: Policy, planning, program evaluation, assessment, and new research methodologies. New Directions for Institutional Research 143: 29–41. Estermann, Thomas, Terhi Nokkala, and Monika Steinel. 2011. University autonomy in Europe II. The scorecard. Brussels: European Association of Universities.
329 Freeman, Thomas M., and William A. Simpson. 1980. Using institutional data to plan academic programs – A case history. New Directions for Institutional Research 28: 27–55. Huisman, Jeroen, Peter Hoekstra, and Mantz Yorke. 2015. Institutional research in Europe: A view from the European association for institutional research. In Institutional research and planning in higher education: Global contexts and themes, ed. Karen L. Webber and Angel J. Calderon, 58–70. New York: Routledge. Klemenčič, Manja, and John Brennan. 2013. Institutional research in a European context: A forward look. European Journal of Higher Education 3: 265–279. Leimer, Christina, and Dawn G. Terkla. 2009. Laying the foundation: Institutional research office organization, staffing, and career development. New Directions for Institutional Research 143: 43–58. Maassen, Peter, A.M., and Attila Pausits. 2013. Higher education management programmes in Europe. In The development of higher education research in Europe, Higher education research in the 21st century series, ed. Barbara Kehm and Christine Musselin. New York: Springer. Peterson, Marvin W. 1999. The role of institutional research: From improvement to redesign. New Directions for Institutional Research 104: 83–103. Peterson, Marvin P. 2003. Institutional research and management in the U.S. and Europe: Some EAIR-AIR comparisons. In The dialogue between higher education research and practice, ed. Rody Begg, 31–44. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Pritchard, Rosalind M.O., Attila Pausits, and James Williams, eds. 2016. Positioning higher education institutions: From here to there. Rotterdam: Sense Publisher. Reichard, Donald, J. 2012. The history of institutional research. In The handbook of institutional research, ed. D. Howard Richard, W. McLaughlin Gerald, and E. Knight William, 3–21. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Schwarz, Stefanie, and Ulrich Teichler. 2000. The institutional basis of higher education research: Experiences and perspectives. Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publisher. Terenzini, Patrick T. 2013. “On the nature of institutional research” revisited: Plus c¸a change . . .? Research in Higher Education 54: 137–148. Volkwein, Fredericks J. 1999. The four faces of institutional research. New Directions for Institutional Research 104: 9–19. Webber, Karen L., and Angel J. Calderon. 2015. Institutional research and planning in higher education: Global contexts and themes. New York/London: Routledge.
Earnings Premiums ▶ Returns to Higher Education and Gender
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Eco▶ Higher Education for Sustainability
Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand Creso Sá1 and Carla Sá2 1 Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada 2 Universidade do Minho, NIPE and CIPES, Braga, Portugal
Synonyms Demand in the higher education market; Drivers of higher education enrolment; Economics of higher education demand; Factors influencing participation in higher education; Student response to economic incentives
Definition Individual or private demand for higher education is the desire of high schoolers to receive postsecondary education, which is driven by economic factors such as future labor market returns, price, and financial aid, among others. It can be defined either at the collective/aggregate level or at the individual level, and it has been proxied by application and enrolment decisions and rates.
Economic Theory Many factors affect the net benefits and costs of participating in higher education and thus impact the decision to receive postsecondary education. Demographic factors related to the baby boom were first considered, but the emphasis has been put on the economic drivers of the demand for
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higher education opportunities, namely, preferences, returns, and costs. The expected returns of college education include both its monetary benefits through a higher profile of lifetime income and its social and intellectual benefits. On the one hand, the decision to attend higher education can be seen as a human capital investment. The amount of education individuals undertake depends on how the expected future returns compare to both the direct and the opportunity costs (e.g., foregone earnings) of a longer stay in the educational system (see Teixeira and Le Chapelain 2019, on human capital and higher education). On the other hand, it can also be viewed as a current consumption choice, determined by the intended nonpecuniary returns to education, which the individual is aware of when making educational choices (Alstadsæter 2010). Higher education attendance generates many experiences that frequently give reason for students to classify the time they spend in college as the happiest years of their lives. It is usually a time plenty of opportunities to meet people, to consume activities young people enjoy, from sports to cultural and leisure events, or to move to a different city. The joy of learning new things can also motivate students to go further in education. But information asymmetries and the individuals’ desire to signal their productivity to future employers can also be viewed as a determinant of the students’ decision to continue their studies. In this context, education works as a screening or filtering device. The screening or signalling theory asserts that there is a selection effect at work: participation in higher education is restricted to the more capable students, who also happen to be more productive; this is subsequently useful information for future employers (see García-Aracil and Albert 2018, on signalling and credentialism in higher education).
Empirical Determinants of Demand These theories have set the stage for an extensive empirical research into the economic drivers of higher education demand. The potential benefits
Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
and costs involved in the high schoolers’ decision process has been broadly defined and empirically tested. Differences in labor market outcomes for college graduates and high school graduates have been shown to be an influential factor of demand. The findings on the financial returns to higher education are quite well established. Empirical studies have found a positive effect of relative wages on the student’s likelihood of attending postsecondary education. Students’ expectations on the subject specific future earnings determine their choices among majors as well, although in some cases the effect is found to be low suggesting that nonpecuniary factors may play an important role in education choices (Beffy et al. 2012). The behavior of students is sensitive to other labor market signals such as employment prospects. Expected future unemployment for higher education graduates reduces the returns to education, and consequently, the demand for higher education programs. Current unemployment may also play a role in this decision process, with poor employment prospects reducing the opportunity cost of continuing in school and retaining youngsters in the educational system. The impact of unemployment on student enrolment appears, however, to be weak in some studies (for instance, Canton and de Jong 2005, for the Netherlands). Tuition and fees are usually the most important direct costs students and their families face when attending higher education. Due to its major role in determining student decisions, higher education price has received considerable attention in empirical work, which, in general, shows that human capital investments are more likely when costs are lower. Namely, a negative effect of tuition fees on enrolment behavior has been found, which has been observed even among high aptitude students (Avery and Hoxby 2004, for the USA). Nevertheless, depending on how the tuition costs compare with the future labor market benefits, the enrolment elasticity with respect to tuition fees maybe weak and insignificant (Canton and de Jong 2005). Apparently, in the USA, the role of price may be falling over time (Long 2004).
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Important effects of financial constraints on education participation decisions are a common result in empirical studies. Household income and parents’ education are the usual channels through which such effects work. Several studies have documented differences on the demand for postsecondary education by household income. Family income effects, however, appear to vary across studies, countries, and over time. Small differences in college attendance by family income among the Americans are documented by Carneiro and Heckman (2002). In contrast, Belley and Lochner (2007) concluded for a remarkable increase in the effect of family income on college attendance rates (particularly among the least able), even after controlling for family background and ability. In Germany, parental income has been shown to significantly and positively determine transitions to tertiary education; nevertheless, the magnitude of the effect has been decreasing over time and the impact is stronger in West than in East Germany (Riphahn and Schieferdecker 2012). Educational attainment of parents is sometimes used either to proxy this income effect or to capture the independent positive influence it has on youngsters’ decisions to attend higher education (e.g., Nguyen and Taylor 2003). Cameron and Heckman (1998) made an important contribution to the understanding of the household income effects, by distinguishing between short-run effects (i.e., an income effect on the resources required to finance the higher education attendance) and long-run effects (i.e., better family resources are associated with better educational environments since the very beginning of the formative period, which foster children cognitive and noncognitive skills and determine their future educational performance and decisions). In their study, they found that when controlling for long-term effects, the short-term financial constraints have rather weak impact on the decision to invest in tertiary education. Instead, long-term effects of parental education on child’s ability seem to be very relevant for continuing in school. The availability of channels of support to relieve the financial burden of higher education
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for families is also a major determining factor of participation. The amount of financial aid, either in the form of grants or scholarships, may cover at least part of the cost of college education and induce into college (e.g., Dynarski 2003, for the USA; Flannery and Donoghue 2013, for Ireland; Nielsen et al. 2010, for Denmark). In particular, the net price facing lower-income students have negative significant effects on their enrolment behavior. Student financial aid has been moving from a system of relying on grants to one dominated by loans (see Chapman 2018, on student loans). The increasing importance that student loans have in financing higher education has been shaping the participation decision of students who are averse to borrowing. Depending on the country context, restrictions on student loan and aid programs may apply and families may have to turn to the private market. In some cases, the family credit score may make it cheaper to borrow in the private market. Economists have long recognized the potential effect of credit constraints on education investment, but there is no consensus in empirical results. Carneiro and Heckman (2002) find a positive but small effect of family income on college attendance decision among Americans; nevertheless, the effect is due more to early life education resource disadvantages than to the presence of credit constraints. When a causal relationship between borrowing constraints and higher education demand is established and results are less confounded by the wealth effects, evidence that credit constraints affect college enrolment emerges (Sun and Yannelis 2016). Previous empirical studies have also found a series of individual characteristics to be relevant. Gender differences in higher education participation often show up. The enrolment gender gap in favor of females found in most OECD countries has mostly been attributed to gender differences in noncognitive skills, job opportunities and returns, future plans, and parental influence. Race differentials determine differences in college enrolment. In the USA, ethnic minority students have a much higher probability of enrolling in public 4-year college (compared to Whites) than would be expected on the basis of their family
Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
background and other characteristics (Nguyen and Taylor 2003). Although receiving less attention, family structure effects on enrolment decisions have been found; living in non-intact families make individuals less likely to attend college. Several studies have included proxies for individual talent (e.g., test scores) and have concluded that the higher the students’ talent, the more likely they attend postsecondary education. The impact tends to be stronger when looking at academic programs’ choices. Higher education participation differences by socioeconomic background appear to reduce when achievement in secondary education is accounted for, suggesting that previous school performance is among the most important factors in explaining postsecondary education participation (Chowdry et al. 2013). Individual characteristics have been combined with institutional features within education demand models in order to examine how institutional attributes might best be altered in an attempt to increase enrolments. The type of secondary school attended may determine how likely the student is to enroll in higher education. Students attending a private high school are more likely to proceed their studies (Nguyen and Taylor 2003), although the effect may vary with the structure of the educational system. The educational track, the academic quality of the institution, and the plans of peers appear to have a positive effect as well (see Wolniak and Ballerini 2019, on peer effects). The lack of encouragement and approval from friends and family may pose a behavioral barrier to college participation. Pursuing higher education may involve a significant migration decision by students. A number of studies have shown that distance to higher education institutions may act as a deterrent to attendance because of transaction costs (Sá et al. 2006, for the Netherlands). In general, one would expect that the longer the distance to higher education institutions, the higher the financial and social costs of the decision. Students have to bear direct financial costs in case they have to move away from their parental house or commute. But there are also search costs if looking for a new house, the forgone economies of scale associated with the fact
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of living with the family, and the emotional costs related to the family and friends network. In some cases, the discouragement distance effect is found to vary across types of higher education institutions (Alm and Winters 2009). Apparently, the distance effect has decreased in importance over time, in the USA (Long 2004). In the UK, geographical distance has been found to have little or no impact on the enrolment decision, but it seems relevant to the choice among higher education institutions (Gibbons and Vignoles 2012). The distance deterrence effect seems not to apply to Irish students’ participation decision, in general, but it has an unquestionable negative effect for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and low ability students (Cullinan et al. 2013). Spiess and Wrohlich (2010) conclude that distance to the nearest university affects the choice of German students of enrolling in university.
Conclusions and Future Research Worldwide higher education demand has significantly increased over the past decades. Rapid technological changes, which made getting a higher education diploma almost mandatory to ensure access to a variety of jobs, combined with the expected monetary (but also social and intellectual) benefits of studying further, have fostered the demand for postsecondary education. According to the economic literature, demand is also determined by the employment prospects, the costs that families have to bear (including tuition and fees), family income, financial constraints, gender, race, family structure, talent, school characteristics, and distance, although its impact may vary across countries and over time. Due to the immediate policy relevance, the study of the determinants of higher education demand will likely continue ranking high in the research agenda. Accelerated technological advancement is changing the employment landscape. The education and skills required for future high-paying jobs continue to increase, and the existing inequalities in higher education participation may prevent many people from accessing to (better) jobs. Policymakers have to ensure that
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more people can pursue these opportunities, which requires a better knowledge on determinants of higher education participation and other related choices. Future research may develop along several directions. The increasing demand for qualified workers puts some pressure on broadening the access to higher education, while widening participation has been accompanied by increasing inequality in access and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are still underrepresented in higher education. Differences in participation decisions based on socioeconomic background have long been explained by financial motives, but, according to recent studies, there is also a potential lack of information that may be shaping individual education choices, especially among lower income students. Further studies targeting the causal relationship between information and enrolment are needed to inform policy measures targeting the reduction of inequalities in higher education participation based on relevant and appropriate information provision. The recent recession and the financial crisis came as a shock to higher education in most countries. It did happen in a complex context of increasing tuition pricing and of declining number of students (especially in the European countries). As a result, economic and financial aspects of higher education were brought back to the center of the public debate. The discussion of student and family responses to financial crisis, already initiated, may shape the higher education candidates’ decision process, in the near future, and deserves attention. A growing line of research has suggested that psychological factors may pose barriers to careful analysis of individual decision-making. Research in developmental psychology and neuroscience suggests that youngsters are more presentoriented than adults, and, as such, they have difficulties at evaluating decisions with long-term consequences (Lavecchia et al. 2016). The understanding of the complexity of higher education investment would benefit from the inputs of compartmental economics as psychological factors may play a substantial role in higher education enrolment decisions.
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References
England. Regional Science and Urban Economics 42: 98–113. Lavecchia, Adam, Heidi Liu, and Philip Oreopoulos. 2016. Behavioral economics of education: Progress and possibilities. In Handbook of the economics of education, ed. Eric Hanushek, Stephen Machin, and J. Ludger, vol. 5, 1–74. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Long, Bridget. 2004. How have college decisions changed over time? An application of the conditional logistic choice model. Journal of Econometrics 121: 271–296. Nguyen, Anh, and Jim Taylor. 2003. Post-high school choices: New evidence from a multinomial logit model. Journal of Population Economics 16: 287–306. Nielsen, Helena Skyt, Torben Sørensen, and Christopher Taber. 2010. Estimating the effect of student aid on college enrollment: Evidence from a government grant policy reform. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2: 185–215. Riphahn, Regina, and Florian Schieferdecker. 2012. The transition to tertiary education and parental background over time. Journal of Population Economics 25: 635–675. Sá, Carla, Raymond Florax, and Piet Rietveld. 2006. Does accessibility to higher education matter? Choice behaviour of high school graduates in the Netherlands. Spatial Economic Analysis 1: 155–174. Spiess, C. Katharina, and Katharina Wrohlich. 2010. Does distance determine who attends a university in Germany? Economics of Education Review 29: 470–479. Sun, Stephen, and Constantine Yannelis. 2016. Credit constraints and demand for higher education: Evidence from financial deregulation. Review of Economics and Statistics 98: 12–24. Teixeira, Pedro, and C. Le Chapelain. 2019. Human capital, higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. P. Teixeira and J. Shin. Dordrecht: Springer. Wolniak, Gregory, and Victoria Ballerini. 2019. Peer effects, higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. P. Teixeira and J. Shin. Dordrecht: Springer.
Alm, James, and John Winters. 2009. Distance and intrastate college student migration. Economics of Education Review 28: 728–738. Alstadsæter, Annette. 2010. Measuring the consumption value of higher education. CESifo Economic Studies 57: 458–479. Avery, Christopher, and Caroline Hoxby. 2004. Do and should financial aid packages affect students’ college choices? In College choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it, ed. Caroline M. Hoxby, 239–299. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. Beffy, Magali, Denis Fougère, and Arnaud Maurel. 2012. Choosing the field of study in postsecondary education: Do expected earnings matter? Review of Economics and Statistics 94: 334–347. Belley, Philippe, and Lance Lochner. 2007. The changing role of family income and ability in determining educational achievement. Journal of Human Capital 1: 37–89. Cameron, Stephen, and James Heckman. 1998. Life cycle schooling and dynamic selection bias: Models and evidence for five cohorts of American males. The Journal of Political Economy 106: 262–333. Canton, Erik, and Frank de Jong. 2005. The demand for higher education in The Netherlands, 1950–1999. Economics of Education Review 24: 651–663. Carneiro, Pedro, and James Heckman. 2002. The evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. Economic Journal 112: 705–734. Chapman, B. 2018. Economics of student loans. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. P. Teixeira and J. Shin. Dordrecht: Springer. Chowdry, Haroon, Claire Crawford, Lorraine Dearden, Alissa Goodman, and Anna Vignoles. 2013. Widening participation in higher education: Analysis using linked administrative data. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 176: 431–457. Cullinan, John, Darragh Flannery, Sharon Walsh, and Selina McCoy. 2013. Distance effects, social class and the decision to participate in higher education in Ireland. Economic and Social Review 44: 19–51. Dynarski, Susan. 2003. Does aid matter? Measuring the effect of student aid on college attendance and completion. American Economic Review 93: 279–288. Flannery, Darragh, and C. Donoghue. 2013. The demand for higher education: A static structural approach accounting for individual heterogeneity and nesting patterns. Economics of Education Review 34: 243–257. García-Aracil, Adela, and Cecília Albert. 2018. Signalling and credentialism, higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. P. Teixeira and J. Shin. Dordrecht: Springer. Gibbons, Stephen, and Anna Vignoles. 2012. Geography, choice and participation in higher education in
Economic Models and Policy Analysis, Higher Education Gareth Williams Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
Introduction In broad terms, economists have three distinct but linked interests in higher education policy and management: its contribution to economic growth
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and social progress through the provision of wellqualified people and new research, its distributional effects on income and various forms of capital, and the finance of universities and colleges. This entry is concerned primarily with the third, the funding of higher education institutions and how resources are used. Johnstone and Marcucci (2010) ask “Who pays and who should pay?” Equally important questions are “how do they pay, how should they pay, and how is the money used?” These are critical issues in understanding the economics of universities and colleges. Answers are partly empirical and partly ideological. Higher education needs resources, and mass higher education which has been achieved in many countries and is a policy aim in most others needs considerable resources which must be found somehow. During the twentieth century, general taxation administered by national and state governments became the dominant source of finance all over the globe. Adam Smith was the first economist to write at any length about the finance of higher education institutions. He identifies three ways in which “institutions for the education of youth” may receive their income. The first was by donations from charitable or other non-state sources. Second, the institutions can be subject to and by implication financed by what Smith calls “an extraneous jurisdiction” by which he means mainly the state. Third, they may depend on the “fees or honoraries of the scholars.” His view on the first was that: the endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished more or less the necessity of application in their teachers. Their subsistence . . . . . is evidently derived from a fund altogether independent of their success and reputation in their particular professions’. If the university teacher ‘is naturally active and a lover of labour, it is in his interest to employ that activity in any way from which he can derive some advantage rather than in the performance of his duty from which he can derive none. . . . . . . In the University of Oxford the greater part of the public professors have for these many years given up altogether, even the pretence of teaching. (Smith 1776, p. 2)
Smith was no less scathing about the implications of an “extraneous jurisdiction”:
335 If the authority to which he {the college teacher) is subject reside not so much in the body corporate of which he is a member, as in some other extraneous persons - in the bishop of the diocese, or the governor of the province: or perhaps some minister of state it is not indeed in this case very likely that he will be suffered to neglect his duty altogether. All that such superiors, however, can force him to do, is to attend upon his pupils a certain number of hours, that is, to give a certain number of lectures in the week or in the year. What those lectures shall be must still depend upon the diligence of the teacher; and that diligence is likely to be proportioned to the motives which he has for exerting it. An extraneous jurisdiction of this kind, besides, is liable to be exercised both ignorantly and capriciously. . .. . .. . ... Whoever has attended for any considerable time to the administration of a French university must have had occasion to remark the effects which naturally result from an arbitrary and extraneous jurisdiction of this kind. (ibid)
Unsurprisingly, Smith’s preference was for the third source of university finance (dominant in Scotland when he was writing), in which: the salary makes but a part, and frequently but a small part, of the emoluments of the teacher, of which the greater part arises from the honoraries or fees of his pupils. The necessity of application, though always more or less diminished, is not in this case entirely taken away. Reputation in his profession is still of some importance to him, and he still has some dependency upon the affection, gratitude, and favourable report of those who have attended upon his instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in no way so well as by deserving them, that is, by the abilities and diligence with which he discharges every part of his duty. (ibid, p. 3)
Despite all that has been written about the finance of higher education institutions in the past three or four decades and the enormous changes in higher education between 1776 and 2017, Smith’s three models, philanthropy, state regulation, and the market, still have an uncanny resonance though the comments on Oxford and on French universities seem rather harsh in the light of regulatory reforms that have taken place since 1776 and particularly since 1970. There is a great deal of evidence that highly educated people on average earn more than those less educated (e.g., OECD 2016; Table A6(i)). This may be because intrinsic ability is correlated
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with educational achievement or because the acquisition of higher education increases an individual’s ability to earn a higher income or some combination of the two. In either case, the higher subsequent earnings may reflect the whole of the benefits that the education brings (physicians are paid to cure illnesses, engineers to make equipment that makes life easier, and so on), or it may be that in addition highly educated people also bring additional benefits to other people over and above those for which they are paid for. These “external benefits” have been recognized at least since 1895 when the Cambridge economist, Alfred Marshall, in arguing for public subsidy of education, extolled the social benefits to be derived from educating talent to the greatest extent possible:
economists and policy makers is to determine the balance between the two. How should the costs be shared between individual beneficiaries and the generality of taxpayers through the state? There are six liked policy issues in determining the funding of higher education, all a mixture of positive and normative economics:
We may then conclude that the wisdom of expending public and private funds on education is not to be measured by its direct fruits alone. It will be profitable as a mere investment, to give the masses of the people much greater opportunities than they can generally avail themselves of. For by this means many, who would have died unknown, are enabled to get the start needed for bringing out their latent abilities. And the economic value of one great industrial genius is sufficient to cover the expenses of the education of a whole town; for one new idea, such as Bessemer's chief invention, adds as much to England's productive power as the labour of a hundred thousand men. Less direct, but not less in importance, is the aid given to production by medical discoveries such as those of Jenner or Pasteur, which increase our health and working power; and again by scientific work such as that of mathematics or biology, even though many generations may pass away before it bears visible fruit in greater material wellbeing. All that is spent during many years in opening the means of higher education to the masses would be well paid for if it called out one more Newton or Darwin, Shakespeare or Beethoven. (Marshall 1895, Book IV, Ch VI, p. 26)
If all the “benefits” go to the possessors of higher education, it is reasonable to expect them to pay for it, either as they receive it or out of their subsequent higher earnings. If there are also external benefits to society as a whole, there is a strong case for the costs to be shared between the individual students and the wider society. Empirical evidence on individual earnings and qualitative evidence of social welfare show that there are both direct individual and external social benefits from higher education. The problem for
1. Who should pay for the universities and colleges that provide higher education? 2. How should the payments be made? 3. How should the living expenses of students be met while they are studying? 4. How should the amount of income of higher education institutions be determined? 5. By what financial mechanisms should the institutions receive their income? 6. How can efficient use of resources be encouraged?
A Historical Overview For the half century after the end of the Second World War, higher education was seen in most countries as a state responsibility, and most of its finance came from public funds. In the United Kingdom in 1961, “some 90 per cent of expenditure on teaching, research and administration is met from public funds” (Robbins 1963, p. 199). The figure was similar or even higher in most continental European countries. The provision of higher education, like primary and secondary education and most other public services, was seen as a collective responsibility. There were two primary rationales for this approach. One, in keeping with the general ideological climate of the postwar years, was that nobody with the potential to benefit from advanced study should be prevented from doing so because of inadequate household income. The other was that there were “external economies”, in particular that a nation as a whole benefitted if leading positions in society and the economy were held by the ablest members of their generation, regardless of their family background. Meritocracy was considered to be a more efficient way of filling such positions than various forms of nepotism that were the main alternative.
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There were two main models by which these public funds were allocated to universities and colleges. In one, mainly the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, autonomous universities were each allocated an unhypothecated lump sum, the size of which was determined mainly as an incremental increase from the previous period (5 year cycles in the case of the United Kingdom): they were allowed to spend it as they wished in accordance with their legal status as charities. Such financial autonomy enabled universities to be very similar to Adam Smith’s endowment model: it gave considerable power to senior academic staff. However, despite some evidence of self-interest being served, for example, through the generous granting of lifetime tenured appointments and through seeking personal career advancement by research success rather than teaching students, there was little evidence of Adam Smith’s worst fears being realized. Indeed, the system was widely admired as putting academic freedom and scholarship at the heart of higher education governance (see, e.g., Berdahl 1959). The alternative method of allocating public finance to universities, in many continental European countries and in many US state systems, was for universities and colleges to be treated like other publicly provided services and have their annual budgets specified on a line-by-line basis by the relevant government departments (see chapter ▶ “Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe” by Sursock). There were usually discussions between the university and the government before the budget was finalized, but once allocated, the budget had to be spent as specified. This was close to the second Adam Smith model with the “minister of state” having considerable influence on the work of universities. Both these systems worked satisfactorily when higher education was making relatively small claims on resources, and it was for the most part politically uncontentious. But both models were subject to severe strain in the later 1970s following a slowing of economic growth resulting from global oil crisis. The postwar welfare state ideology began to be questioned, partly because it was
becoming less affordable and partly because it was coming to believed that it hampered economic growth. Higher education began to be affected in the early 1980s, largely because of the general economic and ideological changes that were affecting many categories of public expenditure but also because expansion was resulting in higher education making more politically salient claims on national budgets. In addition, some economists and sociologists were beginning to point out that the main beneficiaries of higher education were young people from relatively affluent families and at least some of the money spent on higher education was a transfer from comparatively poor households to the betteroff members of society. Autonomous universities with internal bargaining for resources found it difficult to cope at a time when funding was not increasing and any introduction of a new course or research area required a reduction in the cash available for some existing activities and thus damaged some existing vested interests. In the United Kingdom, the pressures were felt particularly severely in the early 1980s when economic failures elsewhere in the economy resulted in a Conservative government committed to reducing public expenditure, and universities were required to take their share of the expenditure cutbacks. One particular problem was the lifetime security of tenure then enjoyed by the majority of university academic staff. About two-thirds of university expenditure was on salaries; reducing total spending without releasing some tenured staff with legally solid lifetime employment contracts was almost impossible. The result was that in 1988, the Education Reform Act made such lifetime contracts subject to the same employment law as those in other occupations. Redundancy, or lack of sufficient demand for the specialism of a particular professor, became a legally enforceable justification for dismissal. Line-by-line budgeting arrangements experienced similar difficulties: the bureaucratic procedures were too rigid to cope with change when it was not politically possible simply to find additional money for desirable innovations. In the 1990s and 2000s, several counties began the
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process of shifting the responsibility for internal allocation of funds away from state administrations toward the universities (Neave and van Vught 1991; also chapter ▶ “Evaluative State, Higher Education, The” by Neave. These tensions led to a growing interest in the sources and mechanisms of finance of higher education institutions and a questioning of whether state subsidy of institutions was the most appropriate way of paying for it. The pressures were most obvious in the Soviet Union and other planned economies of Eastern Europe where economic difficulties throughout the economy resulted in reductions in resources for bureaucratic higher education institutions (Kwiek 2008; chapter ▶ “Bureaucracies and Ministries, Higher Education” by Moscati and Marra. Although there is a burgeoning literature on the topic, the basic economic issues are straightforward. If higher education is funded predominantly from public funds, it means that it is being paid for ultimately by taxpayers, many of whom will not be receiving the direct benefits. This led to literature exploring the private and wider social benefits of higher education. Many tried to show why it may be justified for public funds to be used to pay for an activity that benefits only some members of the public (e.g., McMahon 2002). Johnstone and Marcucci (2010) in their internationally comparative study of the finance of higher education systems examined the balance between the individual and social benefits:
planned economy in 1991. Governments questioned the increasing resource demands of higher education when there was considerable evidence that the direct benefits in the form of higher lifetime earnings were being enjoyed mainly by individual graduates. The idea of “cost sharing” (Johnstone and Marcucci 2010) became prominent in the literature. At the same time, the rising costs of higher education resulted in questions being asked by politicians about the efficiency of universities and colleges and how this was affected by the mechanisms by which they received their funding. These were often similar to Adam Smith’s concerns 200 years earlier. There was a growing belief that if universities received their income directly through the number of students they taught and the quality of their teaching and research, this would encourage them to use their resources more efficiently in the interests of their “customers” rather than in advancing the careers of their teachers. However, fees paid directly by students and their families run into the difficulty that many potential students with the ability to succeed in higher education are prevented from doing so because of lack of family resources. The policy problem is to find forms and mechanisms of finance that are acceptable to general taxpayers, equitable to students and potential students, ensure that there are adequate numbers of trained people in essential occupations, and which encourage efficiency in the use of resources. For further discussion of the issues of market mechanisms in higher education, see chapter ▶ “Market Mechanisms, Higher Education” by Dill. There is the added complication that higher education imposes two kinds of expense on the economy: the direct costs of teaching and research and the living costs of students while they are studying. There is also income forgone when people are studying rather than producing goods or services: in practice these can be considered to approximate to the students’ living costs. There are different ways by which public funds contribute to these two types of higher education cost. Sometimes tuition is free but students’ living costs are the responsibility of themselves and their
Universities, supported by the state have been heavily subsidised because of the high perceived public value . . .. . .. . . Some of this public value has been the obvious need for trained professionals and civil servants, but much of it stems from a conviction that a highly educated citizenry . . .. . . is necessary to sustain a liberal democratic society. Part of the public value of higher education reflects a perceived need for research to support the economy, the military, and, at least in more affluent countries the advancement of knowledge for its own sake. (p. 10)
Such rationales came under scrutiny as a result of global expansion of higher education but also because of wider ideological changes about the role of the public sector of the economy, of which the most dramatic was the collapse of the Soviet
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families; in other cases, some or all of both tuition and student living costs are met out of public funds. In Russia since 1991, and some other countries, the balance between private costs and benefits has been met by having two groups of students. One group, usually selected on the basis of merit scholarship, receives free tuition and often maintenance grants while they are studying. This number is limited by government decisions about what is desirable and affordable from a public policy point of view. Universities are able to recruit in addition fee-paying students who receive no support from public funds for their fees or their living expenses (Johnstone and Marcucci 2010). There are incentives for students to do well in their studies because scholarship holders can lose their scholarships if they do not make satisfactory progress while some fee-paying students can be awarded scholarships if they do particularly well. A more frequent solution, especially in the Americas and in several Asian countries, is for there to be separate public and private institutions of higher education (Altbach 2009). In the former, all students are eligible for at least some public support for their tuition and sometimes contributions to their living expenses: in the latter, all students pay fees, and their families meet their living costs, though some may be eligible for scholarships and bursaries funded either by the university or from public funds. Some of these issues are further discussed in the chapter on privatization by Morphew and Young (chapter ▶ “Privatization, Higher Education”). From the last decade of the twentieth century onward, changes in political ideology and pressure on public funds have led to widespread increases in the funding of a substantial part of higher education costs by loans to students repayable after graduation. Johnstone and Marcucci (2010) identify Australia, Canada, Chile, China, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, and the United States as countries where repayable student loan schemes were in operation in the early years of the century (see also chapter ▶ “Privatization, Higher Education” by Morphew and Young). Fifteen years
later, there are many more. Although there have been variations of detail, the essence is that a significant proportion of the income of universities and colleges comes from student fees, but the cost of the fees, and sometimes a contribution toward students’ cost of living, is available from public funds for all who require it, and in return they incur a debt which has to be repaid later out of their subsequent higher than average income. Repayment of the loans becomes a major policy issue. Not all graduates, including those in some socially desirable occupations, earn high salaries after graduation, and default is often a problem, especially if the loans are of a “mortgage type” in which the graduate must carry on making repayments until the loan is fully repaid (see Dynarski 2014). Started by Australia in the 1980s, “income contingency” has become an increasingly popular solution. Repayment is dependent on the income of the graduate. In Australia repayment is through a graduate surcharge on the graduate’s income tax: in England it is a debt which must be repaid at a fixed rate until the debt is paid off, so long as the graduate is receiving an above-average income.
Economics of Student Loans Student loans are a means of transferring the costs of higher education away from taxpayers in general and away from current household incomes onto the higher incomes that graduates are considered likely to earn in the future. In some ways, this is an accounting device. In economic terms, the expenditure on higher education, like all expenditure, must come from current national income and is therefore a cost to today’s productive generation. However, funds lent to students are an asset to the lender, whether the state or private financial institutors, which is expected to yield returns for the lender in the future. In accounting terms, it is investment rather than consumption, and the investor acquires an asset in the form of the debts owed by each cohort of students. However, except for a few very able and selfconfident students, it is not an investment that is attractive to either private borrowers or lenders
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because future earnings of any individual student are not at all certain. It has always been possible for some of the very able and ambitious young people to find sponsorship from an employer, but when the majority of the population is able to enter higher education, most will be unable or unwilling to obtain a private loan or subsidy because of the riskiness of the venture. Loan schemes need to be devised in which the risk is shared among cohorts of students. This focuses attention on equitable and efficient ways of securing repayment of the loans. One possibility is for the more successful graduates to repay more than the cost of their own education in order to meet the unrepaid loans of their less successful contemporaries. This is politically unattractive and unless it is compulsory has the practical problem of persuading the most promising students from joining the scheme because they are the people most likely to be able to obtain private loans of favorable terms. Some US universities attempted to arrange such schemes in the 1980s but were unsuccessful for this reason. For an excellent brief review of the economics of student loans in the United States, see Dynarski (2014). Another way of achieving this in principle is a graduate tax. Under such a scheme, advocated by some economists, a surcharge sufficient to cover the costs of higher education is added to the income tax of graduates (Glennerster 1968; Glennerster et al. 2003). This was seriously considered by politicians in the United Kingdom (Browne 2010) and also in Ireland in the 1990s and early twenty-first century as the easiest and most equitable way of transferring all, or part, of the costs of higher education to those who directly benefitted from it. Since the tax surcharge is a lifetime commitment, the high-earning graduates repay more than the cost of their education, while those who do not receive substantial benefits in lifetime earnings do not repay the costs. In principle at least it is possible to calculate a level of graduate tax in which the overpayments exactly balance the underpayments so there is, in the long term, no cost to members of society who do not have higher education. However, practical and political difficulties prevented it from being
taken beyond the stage of discussion. One difficulty from the point of view of the universities is that a tax would be collected along with general government taxation and there would be no guarantee that it would be earmarked for higher education. In particular, there would be no benefits for any specific university that was particularly successful in educating high-earning graduates. Another problem was that students from outside the country could not be part of the scheme so would have to pay fees up front; but more seriously there would be an encouragement for national graduates to emigrate and avoid the taxation. Those toward the right of the political spectrum find it unappealing that high-earning graduates should continue to pay the tax surcharge long after they had reimbursed the costs of their own higher education. The Australian scheme of graduates repaying the costs of their studies through the tax system is sometimes described as a graduate tax. It is in reality simply a way of repaying the individual’s own loan through the tax system, since payments cease once the amount borrowed has been repaid. The only alternative to individual lifetime responsibility to repay the money borrowed, or collective responsibility through some form of graduate tax, is for the cost of unrepaid loans to be met out of general public expenditure. This is the scheme that has become increasingly common during the present century. It raises its own economic issues. While the debts incurred by students can be considered a corresponding asset to the lender if they are expected to repaid, the amount likely to be defaulted cannot be so considered. It is a loss to the lender. If the lender is the state, the loss can be met in two ways. One is for general taxation in the future to be higher than it would otherwise have been. The other is for the loans to be bundled up in one or more packages and sold to financial institutions at a discount. The discounted price is based on the finance house’s estimate of the likely total amount that will be repaid. The amount by which the loan bundle is discounted represents the immediate current cost to general taxpayers. In the United States, “much of the capital and loan origination is provided by the private banking sector, which in turn sells
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much of its student loan portfolio to private secondary markets” (Johnstone 2005 p 21). In the United Kingdom, sale of graduate debt obligations to private financial institutions, at a price to be determined by the market, started in 2017 (Johnson 2017). One way or another unrepaid loans are a cost to the lender and this must be taken into account when loan schemes are introduced. The terms of student loans and their repayment raise the fundamental question of the purposes of higher education. The rationale for tuition fees financed by income contingent loans is that the benefits of higher education, both individual and social, derive largely from the fact that it enables graduates to become more productive, and this is reflected in their higher earnings, and hence yields a positive rate of return analogous to other capital investments. The policy literature on higher education of the past two decades makes it clear that the economic growth this higher productivity permits has become an important driver of policy in many countries (Holland et al. 2013; Kruss et al. 2015; Valero and Van Reenen 2016). However, if many graduates are not earning enough to repay the cost of their higher education and much of the cost is still met out of general taxation, the economic growth rationale is called into question for at least a significant part of the expenditure. There are three possible economic answers to this dilemma. One is to restrict the number of students until the majority of those who graduate have incomes sufficiently high to cover their costs. Politically this is a nonstarter in nearly all countries. A more practicable possibility is for higher education institutions to become more efficient and reduce their costs (without reducing quality). There have been many studies investigating how to do this, especially in the United States (e.g., Callan and Finney 2002). In recent years, there has been considerable expansion of low-cost commercial establishments in several countries (Altbach and Levy 2005). Sometimes this is explicit government policy as in England. “Competition between providers in any market incentivises them to raise their game, offering consumers a greater choice of more innovative and better quality products and services at lower cost. Higher education is no exception” (BIS
2015, 2016, p. 8). Information technology provides opportunities for cost reduction. Open universities which were originally based on television and video technology provide one example of successful degree courses being available at considerably reduced costs. More recently “massive open online courses” (MOOCs) are showing some success in reducing costs of at least parts of higher education courses (Zhenghao et al. 2014). Experience so far is that such solutions have had limited success in changing the nature of mainstream higher education. This is partly because academic staff, like any other group of workers, resist change when it is likely to affect their remuneration or working conditions. However, there is a more fundamental reason: higher education is in many ways a “Veblen” good, that is, its perceived quality and hence its desirability are related to its price. In the absence of other reliable quality measures, lowcost courses are seen as being of lower quality. In higher education, there is also the fact, not much studied so far by economists, that much of the benefit, both immediate and after graduation, derives from interactions between students. Networks of students from more affluent households usually manage to achieve adult lives that are more economically and socially successful than those from less-advantaged backgrounds. Higher education serves purposes other than economic success. There are both external benefits, indirect benefits to those who are not graduates, and nonmonetary benefits, advantages other than those for which there is a financial reward. This is explored in detail in Marginson (2016). It goes beyond a simple economic analysis of higher education policy.
References Altbach, P. G. (1999). Private Prometheus: Private higher education and development in the 21st century. Westport: Information Age Publishing Altbach, P.G., and D.C. Levy. 2005. Private higher education: A global perspective. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Berdahl, R.O. 1959. British universities and the state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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342 BIS. 2015. Policy paper: 2010 to 2015 government policy: Access to higher education. (UK government, London). BIS. 2016. Success as a knowledge economy: Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice. London: BIS. (UK Government Cm 9258). Browne, J. 2010. An independent review of higher education funding and student finance. London: HMSO. Callan, P.M., and J.E. Finney. 2002. State policies for affordable higher education, chapter 5 of a national status report on the affordability of American Higher Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Dynarski, S. 2014. An economist’s perspective on student loans in the United States, ES working paper series. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Glennerster, H. 1968. A graduate tax. Higher Education Review 1 (1): 26–38. Glennerster, H., S. Merrett, and G. Wilson. 2003. A graduate tax revisited. Higher Education Review 35 (2): 25–40. Holland, D., I. Liadze, C. Rienzo, and D. Wilkinson. 2013. The relationship between graduates and economic growth across countries, BIS research paper 110. London: Department of Business and Skills. Johnson, J. 2017. Government assets sale: Written statement. London: House of Commons Written Statement. HCWS458 London. Johnstone, D.B. 2005. Higher educational accessibility and financial viability: The role of student loans. Paper prepared for the World Report on Higher Education: The Financing of Universities and presented to the International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education, Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI) Barcelona, Spain, 2005. Johnstone, D.B., and P.N. Marcucci. 2010. Financing higher education worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Jones, B.D., and J.A. Vedlitz. 1988. Higher education policies and economic growth in the American States. Economic Development Quarterly 2: 78–87. Kruss, G., S. McGrath, I. Petersen, and M. Gastrowa. 2015. Higher education and economic development: The importance of building technological capabilities. International Journal of Educational Development 43: 22–31. Kwiek, M. 2008. Accessibility and equity, market forces, and entrepreneurship. Higher Education Management and Policy 20(1): 1–22. Marginson, S. 2016. Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. McMahon, W. 2002. Education and development: Measuring the social benefits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neave, G.R., and F. Van Vught. 1991. Prometheus bound: The changing relationship between government and higher education in Western Europe. Oxford: Pergamon. OECD. 2016. Education at a glance. Paris: OECD.
Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education Robbins. 1963. Committee on higher education: Higher education: Report of the committee appointed by the Prime Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord Robbins 1961–63, Cmnd. 2154. London: HMSO. Smith, Adam. 1776. An enquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations: Book V: On the revenue of the sovereign or commonwealth: Chapter I: On the expenses of the sovereign or commonwealth: Part III: On the expense of public works and public institutions: Article II: On the expense of the institutions for the education of youth. Valero, A., and J. Van Reenen. 2016. The economic impact of universities: Evidence from across the globe. NBER Working paper no. 22501. Zhenghao, C., B. Alcorn, G. Christensen, N. Eriksson, D. Koller, and E.J. Emanuel. 2014. Are MOOCs worth the effort? Harvard Business Review, September 2014.
Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education Ben Jongbloed Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Synonyms Decision-making; Demand and supply; Human capital theory; Markets in higher education
Definition The study of choices that affect demand and supply of human capital.
First: Some Definitions A definition of the economics of education is the study of choices affecting the stock of human capital. Human capital refers to the abilities and qualities of people that make them productive (see, e.g., Schultz 1961; see ▶ “Signalling and Credentialism, Higher Education”). Knowledge is the most important of these, but other factors, such as an individual’s attitudes (e.g.,
Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education
punctuality), skills (e.g., planning skills), or state of health, also matter. Education contributes to the stock of human capital: it increases the skills, knowledge, and understanding embodied in people. As part of education, higher education refers to the teaching, research, applied work, and outreach activities (e.g., social services activities of universities) that take place in higher education institutions (HEIs). Human capital is a stock that, like physical capital, depreciates when skills become outdated. Choices about human capital are made by individuals as well as collectives of individuals in private and public organizations (including governments). In the economics of higher education, the key issue is to understand, analyze, and improve performance in higher education at various levels: the system, the organizational (e.g., university) level, and the individual (e.g., student, academic, researcher, manager) level. To understand how people make their choices and how they interact, economists have outlined a number of principles, some of which are particularly relevant for the study of higher education. An important principle is that people, in facing trade-offs, respond to incentives. This principle shows up in the theory of human capital (Becker 1975) that looks at issues of productivity and educational decision-making. At the individual level, a key question is whether a person should decide to start a program in higher education. Human Capital theory is the classic theory explaining this decision of whether, what, and where to study. Equally, at the policy level, national authorities have to make choices about how much public resources to invest in (higher) education – in the different categories of students and institutions, programs, and disciplines. Decisions related to how goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed often take place on a market – being a structure that facilitates the exchange of goods and services between parties (i.e., the buyers and sellers) (see ▶ “Market Mechanisms, Higher Education”). Markets are often held in place through rules and customs. This touches on another principle of economics (see Mankiw 2014), namely, that
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markets usually are a good way of organizing economic activity. A major topic of debate – in higher education and elsewhere – is how much a given market can be considered to be a “free market,” that is, free from government intervention. Before we discuss the role of the government in the higher education market, we turn to the issue of the nature of the good that is provided on the higher education market.
E The Nature of Higher Education: Information Asymmetries and Peer Effects In economic terms, higher education is an experience good (Van Vught and Westerheijden 2012). Experience goods are products and services whose value can only be only be determined by consuming or experiencing them. Experience goods are typically purchased based upon reputation and recommendation, since physical examination of the good is of little use in evaluating its quality. One may also argue that higher education is a credence good: a product, such as vitamins, whose value can never really be known with certainty. To a large degree, the value of a credence good is often a matter of trust (Trow 1996). Both experience goods and credence goods tend to experience less price competition due to the fear that a low price may indicate unobservable problems or a lack of quality. Because of this, the “sellers” of higher education (e.g., universities) typically have a competitive advantage over the buyers, and there is considerable room for consumers to be taken advantage of in such cases. Since there are no obvious measures of its quality, clients (say, students) tend to judge the quality of higher education on its cost and see a higher cost as indicating a higher quality. In some ways, higher education is like a luxury good where higher costs drive higher demand. Experience goods and credence goods stand in contrast to the textbook case of “search goods,” whose quality is readily observable prior to purchase. Consumers can easily verify the price of a search good and evaluate alternatives offered by other providers.
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This discussion reflects one of the key issues in higher education: students do not have perfect information about the nature of the product and its price (see ▶ “Information Issues, Higher Education Markets”). This information asymmetry is one of the reasons why the market for higher education fails. A market fails when the interaction between supply and demand does not to deliver an efficient outcome – defined as a situation where no one can be made better off without someone else being made worse off. To correct market failure, a public policy intervention may be justified (see below). The public policy could require providers of higher education to publish more information on the quality of their programs, in particular how well higher education is contributing to human capital formation in terms of skills and learning outcomes. However, for many students their choice of degree program, let alone their decision to enroll in higher education as such, is not based on the classical human capital model that makes students’ decisions to invest in higher education depend on a comparison of the education’s costs and benefits over one’s lifetime. A rational individual would decide to invest if the returns to an additional year of education are greater than the costs (including foregone earnings). This model presupposes that education raises an individual’s productivity and, consequently, her/his future earnings. While part of the criticism on this model is that educational outputs – in particular the nonmonetary outputs – cannot be measured properly, the key issue is the causal link between higher education and individual productivity. This link is questioned by proponents of the screening theory (Stiglitz 1975) that argue that education is associated with increased productivity but does not cause it. According to the screening theory, productivity is the result of natural ability, and employers use educational attainment as a means of identifying the workers who are most productive (Arrow 1973). Despite this, there have been many economic studies that have calculated the individual (i.e., private) returns to higher education (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2004), focusing solely on the financial returns (see ▶ “Degrees of Quality, Higher Education”).
Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education
Where standard economics portrays individuals as rational agents who are self-interested and seek to maximize their personal utility, behavioral economics (Kahneman and Tversky 1979) explains why people often seem to make irrational decisions. It focuses on the emotional and social aspects of the decision process, explaining phenomena like debt aversion and the role of information. Behavioral economics has been applied to the area of student choice to explain how students react to changes in tuition fees or student financial aid (e.g., Vossensteyn 2005). Earlier studies of student price responsiveness (e.g., Leslie and Brinkman 1987; Heller 1997) had pointed at significant differences among student income groups in the strength of the relationship between prices and levels of student enrolment. These studies have shown that information problems disproportionally affect students from less well-off backgrounds and that student price responsiveness is couched in information problems. The case for government intervention therefore will strongly rest on equity grounds, ensuring that an individual’s educational opportunities will not depend on her/his socioeconomic position. Related to the government intervention in the students’ decisions to invest in higher education and the nature of higher education is the issue of the absence of a true price. While many students pay a tuition fee, the fee is not a true price in the sense of bearing a relation to the production cost of the service provided. Higher education providers, largely being nonprofit organizations, do not charge a cost covering price, due to the fact that the government is subsidizing the provision of higher education. The subsidy is awarded because it is believed that higher education produces many spill-over benefits to society (Marginson 2011). Societal benefits include, among other things, facilitating technological progress and boosting economic growth (see ▶ “Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries”). Other benefits, which are more debatable and more difficult to quantify, include a reduction of criminal activity, a more informed public debate, better informed judgments with respect to health, and more sophisticated voting behavior.
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Economic theory states that the level of the government subsidy should depend on the nature and size of the societal benefits that follow from investments in higher education (Barr 2001). Since there is no reliable measurement of the output of higher education and the size of the societal benefits, most governments base their subsidies on more qualitative grounds, often resorting to rules of thumb. For instance, the government grants for higher education providers are often heavily based on previous support levels or a relatively simple funding formula that features some normative cost per student. In addition, most governments heavily regulate the charging of fees to students, often setting a uniform fee across all programs. This implies that, unlike for ordinary search goods, tuition fees cannot act as signals of product quality differentials across programs and as such cannot assist students in making informed choices or, indeed, choices that are in line with an allocation that is optimal from a societal point of view. Another characteristic of higher education involves the way it is produced. Higher education is characterized by a “customer-input technology” (Rothschild and White 1995), meaning that in the production process for high quality academic education it is students (i.e., the customers) that, to a significant degree, educate other students. The quality of the education that students receive therefore will heavily depend on the quality of the students’ fellow students. HEIs that wish to provide the highest quality will – as far as they can – carefully select their students. These “peer effects” show up regularly in studies of higher education quality (Winston and Zimmerman 2004) and are an important issue for HEIs that look for ways to improve student success in times of increasing heterogeneity in the student population.
Markets in Higher Education: The Role of the State In ordinary competitive markets for goods and services, it is the price mechanism that helps achieve the balance between the quantity demanded by consumers and the quantity
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supplied by the producers. However, in higher education there is no set of prices that help students make their decisions on what education to “buy” or that assist education providers to decide whether it is worth providing a particular quantity of education services. The absence of differential prices is one of the effects of government intervention in the higher education “market.” Governments still pay the greater share of educational costs and traditionally issue a large number of rules and regulations about degrees, funding, access, quality, institutional management, personnel matters, and other areas. Yet, there often is a great deal of disappointment among politicians and the general public about the effects of the educational policies, with some even speaking of government failures (Wolf 1988). In particular from the 1990s onwards, policymakers have introduced market-type mechanisms in the higher education sector (see ▶ “Market Mechanisms, Higher Education”). Many governments have turned to deregulatory policies and privatization schemes as a means to “free and facilitate” markets (Weimer and Vining 1999) in order to strengthen student choice, to increase the quality and variety of the services offered and to speed up innovations in teaching and research. At the same time, by emphasizing competition and introducing performance-related funding mechanisms, marketization policies are aimed at increasing the efficiency in the sector, making institutions and students more aware of the consequences of their decisions in terms of costs and benefits. Competition presupposes some degree of autonomy for HEIs (and their students and academics) and having the freedom to choose (and move) in order to realize one’s ambitions. The expectation is that when students can “vote with their feet” in choosing their preferred program, higher education providers are encouraged to pay more attention to their clients. On the same note, allowing HEIs to engage in revenue-generating activities makes them look more intensely at their environment, their clients, and at undertaking innovative activities. In recent decades, many reforms were introduced in the mechanisms for the public funding of education and research in HEIs. Incremental
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allocation approaches, based primarily on history (e.g., previous years’ allocations), have been replaced by performance-based methods and contract approaches (Jongbloed and Lepori 2015; see ▶ “Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe”). Many countries introduced performance contracts of some sort as methods for driving part of the public funding granted to a HEI (Jongbloed and Vossensteyn 2016; see ▶ “Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in Europe”). These contracts are agreed between individual HEIs and their relevant funding authority and specify an institution’s objectives. The funding authority may attach financial consequences to the realization (or nonrealization) of the agreed performances. In other words, countries have moved towards more market-type mechanisms in resource allocation, and their HEIs are increasingly behaving as strategic actors, competing on markets for resources and students (Teixeira et al. 2004). According to economic theory, competition is supposed to contribute to more resource efficiency and quality. In academic research, there are various forms of competition, namely, a competition to attract the best researchers and PhD candidates, to attract prestigious research grants, and to reach a higher position in the global university rankings. It is felt that a system where researchers compete for funds by means of submitting bids to national and international research councils is the key to excellence in research (OECD 2014). A study on reforming European universities (Aghion et al. 2009) noted a positive effect of competition for research grants on university output, stating that excellence requires resources, autonomy, and incentives (see ▶ “Competition in Higher Education”). While the New Public Management paradigm that swept across the public sector in the 1980s suggested that higher education and research could be managed through (public) markets (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000), there remains considerable debate on the degree of competition and the extent and type of regulation required, given the specific characteristics of research and higher education (Jongbloed and Lepori 2018). For instance, competition may provoke additional
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regulation if there is a risk that it has unintended outcomes in terms of duplications or unduly low degrees of innovation. One cause of market failure may be a limited number of education suppliers that use their collective market power to protect their market share against new private providers entering the higher education market. On the one hand, new education providers will somehow have to be regulated if there is a risk that they take advantage of their students, offering education of inferior quality. On the other hand, government regulation may encourage new providers to enter the market. Therefore, there is an ever-present dynamic in higher education policymaking, where in parts of the system the traditional interventionist role of the government may reappear, while in other areas governments encourage competition and merely act as facilitators to promote student learning and the relevance and excellence in research. One other characteristic of the market in higher education is that it is dominated by public providers whose managers are not driven by profit maximization. Even existing private providers of higher education will often be nonprofit organizations, meaning that whatever financial surplus they create will be invested back into their organization. Students that are not very well informed about the quality of the education they receive are less likely to trust for-profit providers and will prefer nonprofit providers (Winston 1999). As in other nonprofit organizations, the managers in a typical HEI will use any financial surplus that is generated to support activities that cannot pay for themselves but that do contribute to the overall goal of the HEI. This cross-subsidization phenomenon is the essence of HEIs as multiproduct nonprofit organizations. Some authors (e.g., James 1978, 1990) have argued that HEIs crosssubsidize research with education resources, producing undergraduate education at a profit and using the surplus to cover the costly but preferential research activities. Due to its nonprofit status, profit-maximization is precluded as a tenable goal in higher education. Instead, economists often assume that HEIs seek to maximize prestige (Clotfelter 1996), creating a class system of HEIs and an “arms race.”
Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education
This view of market behavior in higher education gives rise to several implications about education production. HEIs that have large proportions of high quality students will tend to use a technology that takes advantage of peer effects and emphasizes student interaction, such as the use of residential colleges or smaller course sections. In HEIs where student quality does not play as big a role, the institution will shift its emphasis to technologies focusing less on student interaction like larger course sections and more vocationally oriented curricula. The larger prestige stemming from research is often seen as one of the reasons why some universities are believed to deliver a poor quality education to their students, with some prestigious universities even teaching their undergraduates in large course sections (Winston 1999). At the other extreme, there may be HEIs that have preferences for teaching smaller classes, employing an inefficiently large amount of labor, but delivering a better quality. This trade-off between quality and efficiency is one of the ever-present dilemmas in higher education. With the ever increasing student numbers in higher education and the tighter public budgets, some governments seek to find a way out of the dilemma by introducing performance-based funding models (Jongbloed and Vossensteyn 2016; Estermann et al. 2013). This is but one example of governments trying to curb crosssubsidization by encouraging HEIs to spend more resources on their students. Quite a few countries have made at least part of the public funds for their HEIs dependent on measures of performance – either by including performance indicators (e.g., student completion, quality of scientific output) in a funding formula or by introducing some sort of performance contract to reward HEIs for performance. Performance-based funding is expected to enhance efficiency and quality, for instance, in the case where research grants are given to the best researchers (Hicks 2012). Existing literature and evidence collected on the basis of individual case studies, however, suggests that there is no clear evidence of a direct relationship between performance-based funding and quality, productivity, and efficiency in higher education.
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Causality is difficult to prove (Jongbloed and Vossensteyn 2016). This points to some of the following, still unresolved issues around the financing of higher education: How should public funds for higher education be made available to HEIs and their students, and how much should we spend on them from public and private sources? When it comes to the role for the government in the higher education market, Barr and Crawford (2005) argue that “the days of central planning have gone.” They state that a mass higher education system requires differentiation – in quality, in funding and in pricing. This means a greater reliance on markets, that is, on decentralized decision-making by students and providers of higher education. In such a system, it is the market that should decide on total spending, while the government decides on public spending. In the authors’ view, the role for government is to act as a facilitator in providing loans and grants, in promoting access and ensuring quality, and in regulating the extent of competition. Governments will thus be constantly looking for the most cost efficient, yet least intrusive type of approach, adapting their policy interventions to the needs of their societies. In doing so, they are to some extent experimenting in trying to find an effective design of their policies – making costbenefit analyses in situations of scarcity – thus applying the lessons of economic theory.
Cross-References ▶ Competition in Higher Education ▶ Degrees of Quality, Higher Education ▶ Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries ▶ Information Issues, Higher Education Markets ▶ Market Mechanisms, Higher Education ▶ Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in Europe ▶ Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe ▶ Signalling and Credentialism, Higher Education
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References Aghion, Philippe, Mathias Dewatripont, Caroline Hoxby, Andreu Mas-Colell, and André Sapir. 2009. The governance and performance of research universities: Evidence from Europe and the US. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Arrow, Kenneth. 1973. Higher education as a filter. Journal of Public Economics 2: 193–216. Barr, Nicholas. 2001. The welfare state as piggy bank: Information, risk, uncertainty, and the role of the state. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barr, Nicholas, and Ian Crawford. 2005. Financing higher education. Answers from the UK. London/New York: Routledge. Becker, Gary. 1975. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Clotfelter, Charles. 1996. Buying the best: Cost escalation in elite higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Estermann, Thomas, Enora Pruvot, and Anna-Lena Claeys-Kulik. 2013. Designing strategies for efficient funding of higher education in Europe. DEFINE report. Brussels: European University Association. Heller, Donald. 1997. Student price response in higher education: An update to Leslie and Brinkman. Journal of Higher Education 68: 624–659. Hicks, Diana. 2012. Performance-based university research funding systems. Research Policy 41: 251– 261. James, Estelle. 1978. Product mix and cost disaggregation: A reinterpretation of the economics of higher education. Journal of Human Resources 13: 157–186. James, Estelle. 1990. Decision processes and priorities in higher education. In The economics of American Universities, ed. Stephen Hoenack and Eileen Collins, 77–106. Buffalo: State University of New York Press. Jongbloed, Ben, and Benedetto Lepori. 2015. The funding of research in higher education: Mixed models and mixed results. In Handbook of higher education policy and governance, ed. Jeroen Huisman, Manuel Otero, David Dill, and Harry de Boer, 439–462. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jongbloed, Ben, and Benedetto Lepori. 2018. Higher education funding in the context of competing demands for government expenditure. In Handbook on the politics of higher education, ed. Brendan Cantwell, Hamish Coates, and Roger King. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Jongbloed, Ben, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2016. University funding and student funding: International comparisons. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 32: 576–595. Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47: 263–291. Leslie, Larry, and Paul Brinkman. 1987. Student price response in higher education: The student demand studies. Journal of Higher Education 58: 181–204.
Economic Returns Mankiw, Nicholas. 2014. Principles of economics. Andover: Cengage Learning. Marginson, Simon. 2011. Higher education and public good. Higher Education Quarterly 65: 411–433. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 2014. Promoting research excellence. New approaches to funding. Paris: OECD. Pollitt, Christopher, and Geert Bouckaert. 2000. Public management reform: A comparative analysis. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Psacharopoulos, George, and Harry Patrinos. 2004. Returns to investment in education: A further update. Education Economics 12: 111–134. Rothschild, Michael, and Lawrence White. 1995. The analytics of pricing in higher education and other services in which customers are inputs. Journal of Political Economy 103: 573–586. Schultz, Theodore. 1961. Investment in human capital. American Economic Review 51: 1–17. Stiglitz, Joseph. 1975. The theory of “screening,” education, and the distribution of income. American Economic Review 65: 283–300. Teixeira, Pedro, Ben Jongbloed, David Dill, and Alberto Amaral, eds. 2004. Markets in higher education. Rhetoric or reality? Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Trow, Martin. 1996. Trust, markets and accountability in higher education: A comparative perspective. Higher Education Policy 9: 309–324. Van Vught, Frans, and Don F. Westerheijden. 2012. Transparency, quality and accountability in higher education. In Multidimensional ranking. The design and development of U-multirank, ed. Frans van Vught and Frank Ziegele, 11–23. Dordrecht: Springer. Vossensteyn, Hans. 2005. Perceptions of student priceresponsiveness; a behavioural economics exploration of the relationships between socio-economic status, perceptions of financial incentives and student choice. Enschede: University of Twente, CHEPS. Weimer, David, and Aidan Vining. 1999. Policy analysis: Concepts and practice. London: Taylor & Francis. Winston, Gordon. 1999. Subsidies, hierarchy, and peers: The awkward economics of higher education. Journal of Economic Perspectives 13: 13–36. Winston, Gordon, and David Zimmerman. 2004. Peer effects in higher education. In College choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it, 395–424. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wolf, Charles. 1988. Markets or governments: Choosing between imperfect alternatives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Economic Returns ▶ Returns to Higher Education and Gender
Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education
Economics of Higher Education Demand ▶ Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education Gregory M. Saltzman Department of Economics and Management, Albion College, Albion, MI, USA
Synonyms MOOCs
Definition MOOCs are distance-learning courses that use the Internet to transmit lectures and assignments. “Massive” means that they are designed to serve tens of thousands of students at a time. “Open” means that no tuition is charged and no admissions officers screen potential students. Many MOOCs include interactive exercises and machine-graded assignments and tests. Some are stand-alone courses for students in widely scattered locations, while “blended” or “hybrid” courses combine online and face-to-face components. MOOCs and other forms of online education have grown rapidly, especially at less selective and prestigious colleges and universities (McPherson and Bacow 2015). MOOCs gained considerable attention in fall 2011, when a free online course on artificial intelligence offered by Stanford University drew 160,000 students (Pérez-Peña 2012). Several MOOC firms, such as Coursera, Udacity, and edX, offer universitylevel MOOCs. They provide software platforms that handle user registration, allow instructors to
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upload course content, permit students to access course content, and manage communication among instructors and students. Often, professors at prestigious universities deliver MOOC lectures and help develop interactive assignments. The “disruptive innovation” model has often been applied to MOOCs (Christensen et al. 2011). In this model, technological advances allow new firms to enter the market, offering low-quality but low-priced goods or services to customers who had previously been priced out of the market. Eventually, new firms improve quality and take away customers from older firms that continued to focus on high quality but high price. Christensen claimed that MOOCs are a disruptive innovation with the potential to transform higher education, chiefly because MOOCs have lower costs than face-to-face instruction in campus settings. Though many MOOCs have focused on helping students get jobs, Christensen predicted that MOOCs will eventually also provide “18-year-old high school graduates . . . an out-of-home transition to independent adulthood” (Christensen et al. 2011, 40). In nations with mature higher education systems, MOOCs may pose a competitive threat to established institutions. In low-income nations, MOOCs may make higher education affordable to many students for the first time and may provide convenient access to instructional materials developed at leading universities in other nations. Even in wealthy countries, concerns about affordability of higher education motivated interest in MOOCs. Higher education shares some characteristics of live performing arts, which suffer from Baumol’s cost disease: their costs continually increase because labor market competition from other industries forces them to raise wages by more than their own productivity growth (Baumol and Bowen 1966). “MOOCs are the higher education counterpart to an orchestral performance on television, sacrificing face-to-face interaction between the performer and the audience but cutting unit costs” (Saltzman 2014, 23). A study found “some evidence that colleges are charging lower prices for online coursework” (a broader category including MOOCs), so that technology may be making higher education more affordable (Deming et al. 2015, 500).
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MOOCs have substantial initial development costs. Still, they allow universities to avoid duplication of effort and to realize economies of scale, as the cost of preparing lectures and assignments can be spread over a many students. Subcontracting lecture and assignment preparation to a MOOC is in some ways similar to subcontracting food service in university cafeterias to an outside vendor. MOOCs may eventually become like “a super-textbook: lectures, exercises, quizzes, and grading all available on a tablet with artificial intelligence routines guiding students to lectures and exercises designed to address that student’s deficiencies” (Cowen and Tabbarok 2014, 521.) The claim that MOOCs are a disruptive innovation rests on their allegedly near-zero marginal cost (the incremental cost of providing instruction to one additional student). Extremely low marginal costs would allow a few big MOOC providers to take over the higher education market, causing faculty employment cutbacks at many existing universities. But marginal costs of MOOCs may remain well above zero, for several reasons. First, interaction with live instructors is needed to motivate many students to complete a course, so that a hybrid model with local instructors may be more realistic than a pure MOOC. Second, computer grading of MOOC assignments may not suffice. Computers can provide immediate feedback on some quantitative assignments or on multiple-choice exams, but many doubt that machine grading can replace humans in assessing the meaning (as opposed to grammar and word usage) of essays. Third, many university students expect a variety of services besides courses, such as athletic programs, extracurricular activities, student affairs services, career guidance and placement, academic advising, and, often, a residential campus experience. Providing local instructors, human grading of essays, and services other than courses raises marginal cost of education well above zero, even if MOOCs are employed. If MOOCs are free, then how can they cover their initial development costs and non-zero marginal costs? Grants from MIT and Harvard
established edX, and foundations assisted Khan Academy (an organization similar to a MOOC provider that has developed instructional videos for primary and secondary education). But Coursera and Udacity are for-profit enterprises. Several business models for MOOCs have been proposed. First, MOOCs could cease to be open and could charge for content. Second, they could charge for complements for MOOC services, such as certification of completion, diagnostics, tutoring, and collaborative group learning. Third, MOOCs could charge other parties besides students who benefit from the education provided, such as governments, employers, or universities (Dellarocas and Van Alstyne 2013). “MOOC analytics can provide information on student qualifications and improve the hiring process. Digital learning platforms generate substantially more detailed insights into prospective employee behaviors than transcripts” (Ibid., 26). Employers might be willing to pay for referrals from a MOOC that has identified applicants who have demonstrated skills that employers need. The open nature of MOOCs can pose both pedagogical and legal challenges. Instructors must teach “students of differing and unknown abilities (including familiarity with the language in which the class is taught) working in widely ranging environments” (Haber 2014, 47). Inclusion of assigned readings in a MOOC can also raise intellectual property issues: MOOC students may not be enrolled in a university that has licensed access to assigned readings, and a MOOC that is free to students may lack funds to pay royalties for readings (ibid., 58–60). A “commitment to educational research and experimentation may. .. [be] the most important distinction between MOOCs and other forms of online learning” (ibid., 87). MOOC platforms facilitate randomized trials of educational methods because they collect data about the process and outcome of learning at low cost (Belleflamme and Jacqmin 2016). Some careful studies of educational outcomes for online instruction have been completed. Figlio et al. (2013) randomly assigned students in a large introductory microeconomics course either to live lectures or to watch the same lectures
Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education
online. For some student groups, differences in educational outcomes between the live lecture and online groups were statistically insignificant. But males, previously low-achieving students, and Hispanics performed better on the tests when they watched lectures live. Bowen et al. (2014) randomly assigned students on six university campuses either to a traditional statistics class with 3 h per week of face-toface instruction or to a hybrid statistics class with a high-quality MOOC including both video lectures and interactive exercises with machineguided learning. Unlike Figlio et al., Bowen et al. found no statistically significant differences in educational outcomes between the traditional class and the hybrid MOOC. Banerjee and Duflo (2014, 514) noted that the “main problem that MOOCs face is that few users actually complete the class.” They taught a MOOC on the economics of global poverty. Their MOOC had an enrollment deadline, but it was not enforced. They found that students who enrolled even 1 day after the deadline received significantly worse grades than those who enrolled on time. The course material became available a few days after the deadline, so that enrolling 1 or 2 days late did not affect when students could access the course materials. Banerjee and Duflo therefore attribute the lower grades of students who registered a little late to lower levels of self-discipline and focus among these students than among those who enrolled on time. Their study suggested that MOOCs may need to be modified to reduce the harmful effect that the shift from traditional classes to MOOCs has on disorganized students. MOOCs will provide access to education to students in remote locations, those unable to take classes during normal hours, and those unable to afford a traditional university education. They may be especially useful in nations with poor transportation systems but decent wireless data transmission infrastructure. MOOCs also provide leading universities a way to extend their brands by becoming content providers to MOOCs. Predictions of near-zero marginal costs for MOOCs are exaggerated, so that MOOCS may not devastate traditional suppliers of higher education. But
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hybrid MOOCs, where local instructors engage students, are likely to have a growing role in higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Completion and Retention in Higher Education ▶ Cost Disease, Higher Education ▶ Distance Teaching Universities ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education ▶ Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities ▶ Online Programs and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) ▶ Widening Access to Higher Education
References Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. 2014. (Dis)organization and success in an economics MOOC. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 104: 514–518. Baumol, William J., and William G. Bowen. 1966. Performing arts, The economic dilemma; A study of problems common to theatre, opera, music and dance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Belleflamme, Paul, and Julien Jacqmin. 2016. An economic appraisal of MOOC platforms: Business models and impacts on higher education. CESifo Economic Studies 62: 148–169. Bowen, William G., Matthew M. Chingos, Kelly A. Lack, and Thomas I. Nygren. 2014. Interactive learning online at public universities: Evidence from a sixcampus randomized trial. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 33: 94–111. Christensen, Clayton M., Michael B. Horn, Louis Soares, and Louis Caldera. 2011. Disrupting college: How disruptive innovation can deliver quality and affordability to postsecondary education. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. Cowen, Tyler, and Alex Tabarrok. 2014. The industrial organization of online education. American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 104: 519–522. Dellarocas, Chrysanthos, and Marshall Van Alstyne. 2013. Money models for MOOCs. Communications of the ACM 56: 25–28. Deming, David J., Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Noam Yuchtman. 2015. Can online learning bend the higher education cost curve? American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 105: 496–501. Figlio, David, Mark Rush, and Yin Lu. 2013. Is it live or is it internet? Experimental estimates of the effects of online instruction on student learning. Journal of Labor Economics 31: 763–784.
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352 Haber, Jonathan. 2014. MOOCS. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McPherson, Michael S., and Lawrence S. Bacow. 2015. Online higher education: Beyond the hype cycle. Journal of Economic Perspectives 29: 135–154. Pérez-Peña, Richard. 2012. Top Universities test the online appeal of free. The New York Times 18: A15. Saltzman, Gregory M. 2014. The economics of MOOCs. In The NEA 2014 almanac of higher education, ed. Harold S. Wechsler, 19–29. Washington, DC: National Education Association.
Economics of Student Loans Bruce Chapman Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Economics of Student Loans
loans (ICL) in which collection of debt depends on the future income of the debtor. Australia implemented the first national ICL in 1989, and this was followed by the adoption of similar ICLs in New Zealand (1991), England (1998), Ethiopia (2001), Hungary (2001), Thailand (for 2006 only), South Korea (2011), and Japan (2017). Countries currently undergoing legislative reform toward an ICL system include: Colombia, Brazil, and Japan. The most important transformation of student loan arrangements, away from TBRL and toward ICL, is now fully underway. This chapter explains the conceptual basis for these reforms, and examines recent advances in statistical methodology that are encouraging the governments of other countries to follow these leads. Empirical evidence from a large number of countries concerning the consequences of both TBRL and ICL is presented and analyzed.
Introduction and Background The University of Bologna, considered to be the first official university, was established in the late eleventh century, and scholars in need of finances were offered loans. The arrangements were not formalized as a student loan system until 1240, when the bishop of Lincoln did so using money from Oxford University. Many other universities followed suit, but it took until 1951 for the government of Colombia to initiate the world’s first national student loan scheme, known as ICETEX, which is still in (faltering) operation. Over the 1960s and beyond, these arrangements became commonplace and today the higher education financing systems of the vast majority of countries are underpinned by a student loan scheme. Until 1989, these student loan systems were all characterized by the collection of debt over a given time period, and are known as timebased repayment student loans (TBRL). However, around 30 years ago, there began a quiet revolution internationally in higher education financing policy, in two respects: The introduction of tuition in place of previously “free” public sector universities, which has encouraged an even more widespread use of student loans; and, a movement involving the adoption of income contingent
Toward Cost-Sharing in Higher Education In many countries in the past, and in a minority of European countries at present, (Including Germany, Sweden, and Denmark) students were/ are allowed to enrol in public sector higher education free of charge, which means that taxpayers subsidize 100% of the direct costs. In some countries, students are provided with means-tested income support grants, (Such as Australia and, until recently, England) and in the others, loans of different types are available for living expenses (Such as in Canada, New Zealand, England, and the United States). In a situation in which the costs of higher education are paid by the government, students face no up-front costs, and the difficulties associated with obtaining credit from banks, explained fully below, are not critical to participation; however, so-called “free” higher education has become distinctly unfashionable over the last 25 years, with a significant number of countries replacing zero-tuition policies with charges on the direct beneficiaries, the students/graduates, including Australia (1989), New Zealand (1991), and England (1997) (For analysis of so-called “costsharing,” see Teixeira et al. (2008).)
Economics of Student Loans
There are two reasons for the introduction of tuition in public sector universities over the last several decades in many countries. First, governments have generally sought to increase the number of university places and, in a world of fiscal parsimony, have required new sources of revenue to allow this to happen. Second, policymakers have increasingly recognized that a no charge university system is regressive, since such an arrangement is funded by all taxpayers (the majority of whom are not university graduates), delivering benefits to students who are more likely to have come from higher-income family backgrounds and who receive on average considerable private rates of return to the investment (For documentation of these points for Australia and the United Kingdom, see respectively Chapman (2014) and Barr (1989)). These arguments have underpinned the case for a contribution from students and, in combination with the general agreement concerning the existence of positive social spillovers from higher education (see Chapman and Lounkaew 2015), a taxpayer subsidy as well (Barr 1989; Chapman 2006). An important question then arises: Is there a role for government beyond the provision of the subsidy?
Why Are Student Loans Necessary? What would happen if there was no higher education financing assistance involving the public sector? That is, a government could simply provide the appropriate level of taxpayer support to higher education institutions and then leave market mechanisms to take their course. Presumably, this would result in institutions charging students up-front on enrolment for students’ contribution to the payment of the service. However, there are major problems with this arrangement, traceable in most instances to the potent presence of risk and uncertainty. The essential point is that educational investments are risky, with several sources of uncertainty (Barr 1989; Palacios 2004; Chapman 2014) that are: (i) Enrolling students do not know fully their capacities for (and perhaps even true interest in) the higher education discipline of their
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initial choice. This means that they cannot be sure that they will graduate; in Australia, for example, around 20–25% of students end up without a qualification. (ii) Students will not be aware of their likely relative success in the area of study. This will depend not just on their own abilities, but also on the skills of others competing for jobs in the area. (iii) Even if students know the value of an investment based on current returns, there is uncertainty concerning the future value of the investment. The labor market – including the labor market for graduates in specific skill areas – is undergoing constant change; what looked like a good investment at the time it began might turn out to be a poor choice when the process is finished. (iv) Many prospective students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, may not have much information concerning graduate incomes, due in part to a lack of contact with graduates. These uncertainties are associated with important risks for both borrowers and lenders. The important point is that if the future incomes of students turn out to be lower than expected, the individual is unable to sell part of the investment to refinance a different educational path. For a prospective lender, a bank, the risk is compounded by the reality that in the event of a student borrower defaulting on the loan obligation, there is no available collateral to be sold, a fact traceable in part to the illegality of slavery. Furthermore, even if it were possible for a third party to own and sell human capital, its future value might turn out to be quite low taking into account the above-noted uncertainties associated with higher education investments. It follows that, left to itself – and even with subsidies from the government to cover the presumed value of externalities – the market will not deliver propitious higher education outcomes. Prospective students judged to be relatively risky, and/or those without loan repayment guarantors, will not be able to access the financial resources required for both the payment of tuition
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and to cover income support. Markets left alone cannot deliver equality of educational opportunity because those without collateral – the poor – will be unable to participate. These capital market failures were first recognized by Friedman (1955) who suggested as a possible solution the use of a graduate tax or, more generally, the adoption of approaches to the financing of higher education involving graduates using their human capital as equity. The notion of “human capital contracts” developed from there and is best explained and analyzed in Palacios (2004). In the absence of the widespread availability of such human capital contracts, governments in almost all countries intervene in the financing of higher education. There are currently two major forms that this intervention takes: TBRL and ICL. The former is now examined in section “Student Loans: TBRL” and the latter in section “Student Loans: ICL.”
Student Loans: TBRL A possible solution to the capital market problem associated with the funding of higher education is used in many countries, such as the United States, Canada, and Japan. It involves the institutions charging up-front fees but with TBRL for both tuition and income support being made available to students on the basis of means testing of family incomes. Public sector support usually (e.g., in Canada) takes two forms: the payment of interest on the debt before a student graduates, and the guarantee of repayment of the debt to the bank in the event of default. Arrangements such as these are designed to facilitate the involvement of commercial lenders, and the fact that they are internationally a common form of government financial assistance would seem to validate their use. This form of assistance seems to address the capital market failure problem for lenders, since with this approach banks do not need borrowers to have collateral because the public sector assumes the risks and costs of default. However, solving the problem of the provision of finance from the perspective of the banks is not the end of the
Economics of Student Loans
story – TBRL raise two problems for borrowers (students). They are that loans requiring repayment on the basis of time rather than capacity to pay are associated with both default risk and the prospect of future financial hardships related to borrowers’ repayment difficulties. These issues are now considered in turn. All forms of bank loans have repayment obligations that are fixed with respect to time and are thus not sensitive to an individual’s future financial circumstances. This raises the prospect of default for some borrowers, and this means damage to a graduate’s credit reputation and thus eligibility for other loans, such as for a home mortgage (Barr 1989; Chapman 2006). Thus, in anticipation of potential credit reputation loss, some prospective students may prefer not to take the default risk of borrowing because of the high potential costs. The possible importance of this form of “loss aversion” is given theoretical context in Vossensteyn and de Jong (2004). There is a distributional issue here, related to the evidence concerning which students actually default. Dynarski (1994) uses the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study for the United States and finds strong evidence that experiencing low earnings after leaving formal education is a strong determinant of default. Importantly, borrowers from low-income households and minorities are more likely to default, as are those who do not complete their studies. An important implication of these findings is that some poor prospective students might be averse to borrowing from banks and thus choose not to enrol because of the risk of default; there is little empirical evidence available on this issue. Even so, it would be an exaggeration to suggest that students with bank loans have no alternative other than to default in circumstances in which they are unable to meet their repayment obligations. In the United States, for example, borrowers have some limited potential to defer loan repayments if they are able to demonstrate that their financial situation is unduly difficult, and in some cases this might lead to loan forgiveness (However, only a maximum accumulation of 3 years is allowed). But there would generally be
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no expectation that TBRL repayment takes into account capacity to repay. There is some evidence related to the costs to governments of defaults from TBRL, which is often defined by the percentage of borrowers who fail to maintain repayments in any given financial year. Chapman and Lounkaew (2017) document these for the systems in the United States, Canada, Thailand, and Malaysia, with the default incidence ranging from around 15–25% for the United States and Canada to about 50% in Thailand and Malaysia. There is little doubt that defaults are the major cost to governments in countries with relatively low graduate incomes and less than fully functioning administrative systems. And it is these costs to governments that explain why TBRL are rationed and typically are available to only around half of the prospective student population. (Rationing has the additional consequence for access of prospective students who are ineligible for loan assistance because their family incomes are too high but who are unable to secure financial assistance from within their household). A related, and arguably the biggest, problem for students with TBRL concerns possible consumption difficulties associated with repayment obligations that are fixed with respect to time, which, by definition, are not influenced by a borrower’s capacity to pay. If the expected path of future incomes is variable, a fixed level of a debt payment must be associated with a relatively high variance of disposable (after debt repayment) incomes. To help understand the importance of the issue, we can define the repayment burden (RB) in period t as RBt ¼
Loan repaymentt Incomet
ð1Þ
RBs are the critical issue associated with TBRL because the higher the proportion of a debtor’s income that needs to be allocated to the repayment of a loan, the lower will be disposable income for any given income. And lower graduate debtor disposable incomes have the two TBRL problems: repayment hardship and nontrivial default probabilities. Critically, whereas ICLs
have RBs set at a maximum by law, RBs for TBRL are unique for each individual borrower and can in theory be close to zero for high-income debtors and well over 100% for very-low-income debtors. There is by now considerable empirical analysis of RBs associated with TBRL for many different countries (see, e.g., Chapman (2013), Chapman and Sinning (2014), Chapman and Doris (2016), Nascimento (2016), Serna (2016), Barr et al. (2016)), including with respect to Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Germany, Ireland, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States. An important and innovative aspect of this empirical work is that the calculation or simulation of RBs for graduates has been done across different parts of the graduate earnings distribution by age and sex, which allows the impact of student loan repayment obligations to be revealed for the whole of the graduate income distribution by age and sex, a major improvement over previous analyses which focused on RBs at the means of the graduate income distributions. From this literature, the results show that graduates in the bottom 25% of graduate incomes in a particular year will have particularly high RBs in developing countries, as examples: 60–85% in Vietnam; in Indonesia, from around 30% in a relatively-high-income area (Java), to around 85% in a relatively-low-income area (Sumatra) and. However, even in developed countries, graduates in the bottom 25% of graduate incomes can face high RBs, as examples: ranging from 50–60% for public sector lawyers in the United States (Barr et al. 2016); 70% for East German women (Chapman and Sinning 2014); and around 25–40% for Irish women and men, respectively (Chapman and Doris 2016). These estimates reveal that TBRL are universally associated with very high RBs for lowincome young graduates and thus raise the likelihood of significant problems of consumption hardship, and a concomitant high minority of prospective students facing defaults. Default, it should be emphasized, is very expensive for debtors because of the associated effects on individuals’ credit reputations (Chapman 2006). These points suggest consideration of the
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alternative higher education financing option, ICLs, in which, by design, RBs cannot be an issue, because the RBs for ICLs are set by law as part of the design of such systems. The costs and benefits of ICLs are now considered in detail.
Student Loans: ICL The essential difference between ICLs and TBRL is that the income contingent variety serves to protect former students who earn only low incomes; capacity to pay is an explicit feature of the approach, with RBs set at a maximum proportion of income; in Australia, New Zealand, and England, for example, these are 8, 9, and 10%, respectively. As a result, ICLs offer a form of “default insurance,” since debtors do not have to pay any charge unless their income exceeds the predetermined level and never more than the sorts of proportions documented. Effectively, ICLs offer a form of consumption smoothing since there are no repayment obligations of the loan when incomes are low, and a greater proportion of income is remitted to repay the debt when incomes are high. Thus, these features of an ICL are very different to a TBRL, where RBs can be very high implying both consumption hardship and loan default. The removal of repayment hardships and the related advantage of default protection with an ICL thus resolve the fundamental problems for prospective borrowers inherent in TBRL. While repayment hardship for graduates is much less an issue for ICLs than for TBRL, nonrepayment of loans implies government costs for both loan types. An important point is that for both ICL and TBRL, government is the insurer of last resort with taxpayers implicitly covering unpaid debt of ICL and the defaults costs of TBRL. With the Australian ICL, calculations reveal that unpaid debt is of the order of 15–18% of total loan outlays. A significant further point is that the protections of an ICL could particularly matter for both default probabilities of borrowers and loan revenues for governments in times of recession. That is, if there are poor short-term employment
Economics of Student Loans
prospects at the time of graduation, such as was the case for many countries during 2008–2010, this can mean both high defaults and low loan repayments for systems with TBRL. The default issue is avoided with an ICL. As well as the non-repayment costs of ICLs, their administrative costs must also be considered. As emphasized by Stiglitz (2014), it is an advantage of ICLs that they can be collected inexpensively, a feature he has labelled “transactional efficiency.” The Australian Tax Office estimates put the collection costs for their ICL at less than 3% of yearly receipts, and to this figure, Chapman (2006) adds an estimate of the compliance costs for universities and comes up with a total administration cost of less than 5% of yearly receipts. Estimates of the costs of collection for the ICL operating in England are very similar (Hackett 2014), and even lower with respect to the Hungarian ICL (Berlinger 2009). The reason for this transactional efficiency is that the collection mechanism simply builds on an existing and comprehensive employer withholding as a proportion of salary, and is thus essentially a legal public sector monopoly. This is a critical feature of most countries’ public sector administration systems and implies that the collection of ICL is a straightforward process for many countries. There are other jurisdictions in which ICL collection would be unlikely to be made operational, for example, sub-Saharan Africa. In considering any loan scheme, its implications for the composition of enrolments must be taken into account. The introduction of both tuition and ICL, from systems of no-charge, makes it possible to explore the consequences of this type of system on access. Considerable research has now been done with respect to the implications of the Australian ICL, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), with the main findings being (i) The introduction of HECS was associated with aggregate increases in higher education participation, but this is the result of additional places being provided by the government.
Economics of Student Loans
(ii) HECS did not result in decreases in the participation of prospective students from relatively poor families, although the absolute increases were higher for relatively advantaged students. (iii) While there was a small decrease in the aggregate number of applications after the system was made less generous in 1997, there were no apparent decreases in commencements of members of low socioeconomic groups, except perhaps with respect to a small number of males for courses with the highest charges (Karmel 1997). In summary, it can be concluded that there have been few consequences for the accessibility to higher education of students from relatively disadvantaged backgrounds of the Australian ICL, at least as represented by enrolments. This might have also happened with other financing approaches, of course. When discussing ICLs, it must be emphasized that such schemes differ importantly with respect to some key collection parameters and other policy features. One important parameter variation is in respect of interest rates, the approaches to which vary widely. The Hungarian system has close to no interest rate subsidies, whereas the New Zealand arrangement has a zero nominal rate of interest, implying very high interest rate subsidies. A second source of variation lies in the first income levels after which repayment is required, known as the earnings threshold. This threshold lies at about the level of mean earnings in Australia and England, but at about half of median earnings in New Zealand. Moreover, repayment rates and the income bases to which these rates apply differ substantially. These and other issues of ICL design are considered in detail in Barr et al. A final design issue for both ICL and TBRL relates to the need to minimize the potential for non-repayment from debtors going overseas. One (likely very ineffective) approach to this issue would be to involve the cooperation of other governments in the collection of the debt. However, as suggested by Chapman and Higgins (2013) and now instituted in New Zealand, a system can be designed that puts a legal obligation on a debtor
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going overseas to repay a minimum amount of their obligation each year in which they are away. The Australian government recently legislated an obligation for ICL debtors to submit payments in line with their incomes outside Australia, but it is too early to judge the success or otherwise of this new arrangement.
Conclusion There has been a radical yet quiet change in international reforms to higher education financing over about the last 25 years, reforms that are still underway. As well as the introduction of tuition in countries in which there were previously no charges, the most significant change has taken place with respect to the nature of student loan system from time-based to income contingent collection. This chapter was motivated by the goal of explaining, from a conceptual basis, the economics of higher education and its role in an understanding of the international reforms described. The major point is fairly clear and is that if designed and collected properly, ICLs are a superior student loan system to the more conventional TBRL, essentially because the former offer insurance against financial hardship and thus default. It should not be a surprise that the international transformation of higher education financing has taken the clear directions apparently over the last 25 years.
Cross-References ▶ Concepts of Efficiency, Higher Education ▶ Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education ▶ Economic Models and Policy Analysis, Higher Education ▶ Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education ▶ Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities ▶ High Participation in Higher Education, Implications for Funding ▶ Pricing in Higher Education ▶ Tuition Fees, Worldwide Trends
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References Barr, Nicholas. 1989. Student loans: The next steps. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. Barr, Nicholas, Bruce Chapman, Lorraine Dearden, and Susan Dynarski. 2016. Reforming US College loans: Lessons from Australia and England. Paper presented to the ANU/Tongji University conference, Higher education financing mechanisms: Concepts and international practice, Tongji University, Shanghai, October. Berlinger, E. 2009. An Efficient Student Loan System: Case Study of Hungary dina. Higher Education in Europe, 34(2): 257–267. Chapman, Bruce. 2006. Government managing risk: Income contingent loans for social and economic progress. London: Routledge. Chapman, Bruce. 2013. Higher education financing and inequality: The critical role of student loan scheme design – Illustrations from Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. In Human capital formation and economic growth in Asia and the Pacific, ed. Wendy Dobson, 79–102. London: Routledge. Chapman, Bruce. 2014. In Income contingent loans: Theory, practice and prospects, ed. Timothy Higgins and Joseph E. Stiglitz. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Chapman, Bruce and Aedin Doris. 2016. Reforming Ireland’s high education financing system. Paper presented to the ANU/Tongji University conference, Higher education financing mechanisms: Concepts and international practice, Tongji University, Shanghai, October. Chapman, Bruce, and Timothy Higgins. 2013. The costs of unpaid higher education contribution scheme debts of graduates working abroad. Australian Economic Review 46 (3): 286–299. Chapman, Bruce, and Kiatananthan Lounkaew. 2015. Estimating the value of externalities in higher education. Higher Education 70: 767–785. Chapman, Bruce and Kiatanantha Lounkaew. 2017. Student loan design loans for higher education financing: Conceptual issues and empirical evidence. Paper presented at the International Economics Association Congress, Mexico. Chapman, Bruce, and Mathias Sinning. 2014. Student loan reforms for German higher education: Financing tuition fees. Education Economics 22: 569–588. Dynarski, M. 1994. Who defaults on student loans? Findings from the national postsecondary student aid study. Economics of Education Review 13: 55–68. Friedman, M. (1955), Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Hackett, L. 2014. HELP from down under? University Alliance working paper, London, UK. Joseph E. Stiglitz (2014), “Remarks on Income Contingent Loans - How Effective are they at Mitigating Risk?”, in Bruce Chapman, Timothy Higgins and Joseph E. Stiglitz (eds), Income Contingent Loans: Theory, policy and prospects, Palgrave McMillan, New York.
Economy Karmel, P. (1997), “Policy perspectives on higher education financing: A comprehensive program of national national scholarships”, Discussion Paper No. 360, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra. Paulo Nascimento. 2016. Higher education financing for Brazil. Paper presented to the ANU/Tongji University conference, Higher education financing mechanisms: Concepts and international practice, Tongji University, Shanghai, October. Palacios, Miguel. 2004. Investing in human capital. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Juan Felipe Serna. 2016. The Colombian higher education loan reform debate. Paper presented to the ANU/Tongji University conference, Higher education financing mechanisms: Concepts and international practice, Tongji University, Shanghai, October. Teixeira, P.N., D.B. Johnstone, M.J. Rosa, and H. Vossensteyn, eds. 2008. Cost-sharing and accessibility in higher education: A fairer deal? Dordrecht: Springer. Vossensteyn, Hans and Jan de Jong. 2004. Cost sharing in higher education in the Netherlands. CEIP working paper series.
Economy ▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education
Education ▶ Disciplinary Teaching
Differences
in
University
Education for Democratic Citizenship and/or Culture ▶ Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship
Education Philosophy ▶ Liberal Arts Education, Going Global
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Definition
Educational Standards ▶ Quality of Higher Education Systems
Educational Technology ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education
E-learning is broadly defined as the use of electronic technologies in teaching and learning. But rivalrous views of e-learning as a technological artifact, a mode of delivery learning, a multidomain transformation of teaching and learning, or an apocalyptic “new wave” affect its use and success in higher education, because they define among others the attributes of effectiveness, use of research and theory, the benefits, the quality and measures of quality, and the choice of technologies to use.
Effectiveness
Introduction
▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education
Although e-learning is broadly comprehended as the use of electronic technologies in teaching and learning that involves instructional delivery and achieving educational or training needs and objectives, many definitions coexist that arise from the dominant paradigm of the practitioners or advocates and include e-learning as a:
Efficiency ▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education
E-Learning in Higher Education James K. Njenga Department of Information Systems, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, Cape Town, South Africa
Synonyms Computer-assisted learning; Computer-based learning; Educational technology; ICT for education (ICT4E); ICT for learning; Instructional technology; Learning technology; Online learning; Technology-enhanced learning (TEL); Webbased learning
(a) Technological artifacts: The technology used in e-learning is central to the definitions which emphasize the technological artifacts used to deliver learning or instructional materials (See for example Liaw et al. 2007; Macpherson et al. 2004; Wagner et al. 2008). These technologies are seen to include the Internet, computers, handheld devices, audio- and video devices, radio broadcast, interactive TV, and satellite broadcast among others. Following this argument, the attributes of the technology that would enable high-quality learning experience are extolled. These attributes include ubiquity, interoperability, interactivity, modularity, and support for different media and content among others. (b) Mode of educational delivery: This view often contrasts the face to face (traditional) and e-learning (modern) and blended learning (mix of traditional and modern). In this view, e-learning is seen as an extension of the pace, space, time, and sequence of learning using the technologies from the traditional setup
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(Bolldén 2016; Gros 2016; Sinclair et al. 2016). Here, synchronous or asynchronous delivery of learning or instructional material is discussed – usually to define the spatial and temporal distances between the provider of the learning content, the content, the learning facilitator, and the learner. It also focuses on the design of the learning spaces and contexts – which includes adaptation to personalized learning environments (Gros 2016). (c) The transformation process: This is multidomain and seeks to use “tools, techniques, theories, and methods” to efficiently and effectively impact all aspects of learning while at the same time transforming education systems and practices for the better of society (Luppicini 2005) – (See also MacKeogh and Fox 2009). In this view, there is more drive for scientific certainty and reliability that allows for predefined processes and systems that improve the educational outcome and processes through the use of e-learning (Latchem 2014). (d) Prophetic/apocalyptic discourse: E-learning is presented as a “new wave” of learning strategy that should be adopted to avoid obsolesce of the teaching and learning, and of the higher education institutions (see Turner and Stylianou 2004). This view gives e-learning some mystic powers that promises progress and success in higher education regardless of whether it contributes to the teaching and learning processes, and the achievement of the educational and learning outcomes within higher education (Njenga and Fourie 2010). Recently, the focus has been more on the learning and less on the technology which is also explained by the nomenclature that adopts “learning” at its core (e.g., computer-assisted learning, online learning, web-based learning, ICT for learning, computer-based learning, learning technology, technology-enhanced learning (TEL)).
Key Issues As with the many views of e-learning, there are also a number of key issues facing researchers and
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practitioners in the field of e-learning in higher education. These issues include the effectiveness of e-learning in higher education, the role of theory and practice in e-learning, the dwindling gap between formal and informal learning as well as the vast amount of information available, the developments in the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and the push towards more personalized learning experiences in e-learning among others. Effectiveness and measures of effectiveness of e-learning remain as an issue broadly because of the various views of e-learning (Noesgaard and Ørngreen 2015) and the need to move from comparing e-learning with face-to-face offering. The shift from the comparison is informed by the fact that differences in “effectiveness” of e-learning compared to the face-to-face provision could be attributed to the instructional design and pedagogic principles used in both, and not necessarily as a result of the differences in the delivery methodology. In fact, studies on these differences are either inconclusive or contradictory. As broad as the measures of e-learning effectiveness are, there seem to be some consensus that the effectiveness of e-learning and its measures should cover aspects of technology, pedagogy, characteristics of e-learning, the learning process, individual students’ learning, and the teachers’ perspectives. In addition, when measuring these aspects there should be awareness of their complexity and interrelatedness. For example, even using the best instructional and pedagogical strategies in the development of an e-learning course requires an appropriate choice of technology or the delivery process to ensure the course’s effectiveness. Despite the developments in the field of e-learning in terms of theory and practice on one hand, and the available technologies on the other, the general acceptance, adoption, and use of e-learning in higher education is still a challenge if the amount of research in these topics is something to go by. In addition, although the many studies have increased understanding on the factors of e-learning acceptance and adoption in higher education, the complexity alluded to earlier explain why no universal factors can be identified. Indeed, the diversity of the factors of sustaining the
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adoption of e-learning arise from: (a) the evolving and dynamic sociotechnical systems at play, and in some instances, as mentioned below, some parts of these systems evolve faster or in different directions from others; (b) the diversity of definitions which presents a potential ambiguity of goals or outcomes of both research on adoption of e-learning, and the use of e-learning which seems to always create a chasm among the interrelated sociotechnical elements of technology, pedagogy, and the higher education organizations and their stakeholders; (c) the pressures to adopt e-learning could be coming from different sources, some with interests that are not in line with the academic or educational interests in higher education, or coming from the ambiguity in the goals or outcomes. In addition to the difficulties of eliciting institutional-specific factors of e-learning adoption from the diversity of factors, there are also challenges in determining factors of quality in e-learning. Indeed, coming up with evaluationspecific processes that deal with the aspects of the e-learning being evaluated is difficult. A lot has been done on the processes of quality evaluation – often focusing on e-learning stakeholder satisfaction, e-learning technology evaluation, and organizational goals or outcomes, while there is very little that combines the other quality indicators that involve the technology, the organization, and the pedagogy and theory together. In addition, any form of evaluation of e-learning would be incomplete or insufficient without a holistic evaluation of the educational outcome or goal. That is, in doing quality evaluation of e-learning, the focus should be on much more than specific processes, but also on the cumulative activities and experiences that lead to the realization of the educational goal or outcome. Consequently, and for higher education, there is no meaningful evaluation of e-learning without an evaluation of the other processes that cumulatively contribute to the intended educational outcome (Inglis 2008). Some of the educational outcomes could be the learners’ overall experience – but where the transformative view of e-learning is used, the goal could be transformation and change in society. With this, an additional complexity of time is introduced.
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E-learning in HE has been attributed to the blurring of the difference between formal and informal learning. This has its proponents in the constructivists’ view of learning, where the informal networks created using electronic means are used to access tacit knowledge from peers – by relating what they are learning with their past experiences through a social construction process. This is further reinforced by the notion that e-learning use is predicated by reflection and development of technological consciousness that is formed and shaped by exposure to technology, and not where e-learning alone shapes consciousness. That is, there needs to be a dialogic approach on how the achievement of educational and learning outcomes should shape e-learning technologies and not leaving technological developments to shape e-learning use in higher education. Consequently, these demands a move towards an understanding of the extent of informality contingent on the social media and its effects on the overall achievement of the teaching and learning goal in higher education. The emergence of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) with their offer of free access to open educational resources has seen extensions of course offering beyond the traditional university settings (Kinshuk et al. 2016). While reporting on their success is varied, they do offer some distinct lessons of higher education. First, educators are able to mine useful information on students’ access of the MOOCs which they are using to improve the MOOCs. Secondly, MOOCs present a very good opportunity for down schooling where potential university graduates would enroll in the MOOCs in preparation for attending university or even where lower level educators would enroll to better prepare their learners for university later. However, there are still a number of concerns key among them the quality of the MOOCs, their economic viability, measuring of learning outcomes for optimal support of the intended learning objectives (Manca and Ranieri 2016), as well as questions of credentials and access to prestigious alumni networks that are offered by traditional universities’ brick and mortar education. Somewhat, and in contradiction to the MOOCs move, is the push for personalization and
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adaptation of learning materials and contexts to match an individual’s needs (Gros 2016). The proponents of this view claim that there cannot be a one size fits all and future e-learning content designs should support and guide individual learners in their learning process. While learning is best when it is contextualized and individualized, some of the benefits touted for e-learning in higher education will largely remain unrealized due to resources and expertise challenges and also because of the inherent challenges of articulate each learner’s individual needs.
Future Directions There are arguments that social media concepts and initiatives derive from social networking like connected MOOCs (cMOOCs) are bridging the alumni and networking gap in e-learning. More focus now is on how the use of technology promotes the connections and relationships among the different stakeholders and also among the stakeholders and learning resources (Scott et al. 2016). Indeed, the widening and varying information and learning resources, and expertise available in the social media could prove to be valuable if fully exploited (Manca and Ranieri 2016). Despite the high use of social media among university-age people, there are still concerns about the sophistication required for meaningful educational use (Greenhow and Lewin 2016). More research and practice is required to inform and build a case for social media concepts and tools in achieving educational goals or outcomes. There have been advances in students’ assessments and learning assessments made possible by e-learning – including increased range of assessments, automatic grading and feedback, the mix of assessment technologies, and students-assessmentcontent interactions. In addition, effective assessments in e-learning have potential of providing both students and teachers the experience and opportunity to collaboratively identify, and device mechanisms of meeting learning needs. Viewed this way, assessments form part of creating effective and motivating learning (Gikandi et al. 2011). Despite
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these advances, the e-learning assessments require an amount of sophistication to ensure that an individual’s higher level cognitive and affective skills and applicability of the knowledge across contexts are measured (Kinshuk et al. 2016). Therein lies the challenge due to among others the efforts and digital literacies required by both students and educators; concerns of plagiarisms, validity, and reliability; and the lack of sophisticated assessment technologies to match these requirements (Gikandi et al. 2011). As long as these concerns remain, higher education should continue looking for both theoretical and technological solutions to overcome them. The advances in theory and practice of teaching and learning have not been in tandem with the speed of e-learning technologies (Falloon 2016). Indeed, there is need to develop theory on how social media among other revolutionary technological innovations can be used in a learning situation. However, this is realistically unlikely as the rate of learning and educational theory development lags desperately the speed of electronic innovations. Acknowledging that technology is ubiquitous and perhaps focusing on achieving education and learning outcomes would help to mitigate the risk of, as well as, to reduce the lag between theory development and technological development. Certainly, seeing technology on one side, and education and learning on the other as a co-created and inseparable duality could aid in reducing their complexities. Of course, the assumption here is that technology, and learning and education are both ways of searching for meaning and meeting human needs. Research on e-learning should therefore focus on creating meaning of (a) the development and use of the technologies, (b) the development of learning and education, and at the same time (c) the advancement of the theory of e-learning. Most of the research and proposition for the use of e-learning has focused on the technology aspects (using models for example the technology acceptance model, unified theory of acceptance, and use of technology among others), with very little focus on the intended educational outcome of the use of e-learning. The view of these propositions often assume that either the technology is an artifact or a set of neutral entities for achieving
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learning independent of the social context and process of use. Even though the intentionality and perception measures in some of these models could imply a focus on the educational outcome, the view of technological assumptions on e-learning trumps e-learning’s view as a means to an educational outcome that is socially constructed. To magnify the effect of technology on the achievement of the educational outcome, more efforts should now be geared on the promotion of reflection on how the technology influences education, and also how the educational society can influence the technologies in use (Kirkwood 2014). That is, continued attainment of educational goals in the use of e-learning requires an understanding of what these goals are, and more importantly which technologies and in what configurations the technologies can be used in attaining these goals, and the theoretical explanations informing the processes. Kirkwood (2014) suggests a move to academic development programs for HE educators that emphasizes on the how teaching and learning should happen through e-learning rather than the what should be taught. That is, the sole reason of using e-learning in HE should be to improve learning and therefore the discussion on e-learning should be on new pedagogical approaches necessitated by technologies, or using pedagogical approaches to shape the technologies and their use. All these should take place in higher education within the limitations of among others funding, inadequate understanding of the impact of e-learning, insufficient information literacy, time, resources, rapid technological and social changes, extent/scope of use of e-learning, and the fears of unnecessary control and surveillance on the use of technologies. The success of e-learning initiatives in higher education is pegged on the right and well calculated focus simultaneously overcoming these limitations.
Cross-References ▶ Digital Humanities in and for Higher Education ▶ Distance Teaching Universities
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References Bolldén, Karin. 2016. The emergence of online teaching practices: A socio-material analysis. Learning, Media and Technology 41 (3): 444–462. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/17439884.2015.1044536. Falloon, Garry. 2016. Researching students across spaces and places: Capturing digital data ‘on the go’. International Journal of Research & Method in Education 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2016.1219983. Gikandi, J.W., D. Morrow, and N.E. Davis. 2011. Online formative assessment in higher education: A review of the literature. Computers & Education 57 (4): 2333–2351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004. Elsevier Ltd. Greenhow, Christine, and Cathy Lewin. 2016. Social media and education: Reconceptualizing the boundaries of formal and informal learning. Learning, Media and Technology 41 (1): 6–30. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/17439884.2015.1064954. Gros, Begoña. 2016. The design of smart educational environments. Smart Learning Environments 3 (1): 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-016-0039-x. Inglis, Alistair. 2008. Approaches to the validation of quality frameworks for e-learning. Quality Assurance in Education 16 (4): 347–362. https://doi.org/10.1108/ 09684880810906490. Kinshuk, K., Nian-Shing Chen, I-Ling Cheng, and Sie Wai Chew. 2016. Evolution is not enough: Revolutionizing current learning environments to smart learning environments. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 26 (2): 561–581. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s40593-016-0108-x. Kirkwood, Adrian. 2014. Teaching and learning with technology in higher education: Blended and distance education needs ‘joined-up thinking’ rather than technological determinism. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning 29 (3): 206–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2015.1009884. Latchem, Colin. 2014. BJET Editorial: Opening up the educational technology research agenda. British Journal of Educational Technology 45 (1): 3–11. https://doi. org/10.1111/bjet.12122. Liaw, Shu-sheng, Hsiu-Mei Huang, and Gwo-dong Chen. 2007. Surveying instructor and learner attitudes toward e-learning. Computers & Education 49 (4): 1066–1080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2006.01.001. Luppicini, Rocci. 2005. A systems definition of educational technology in society. Educational Technology & Society 8 (3): 103–109. MacKeogh, Kay, and Seamus Fox. 2009. Embedding. Elearning in a Traditional University: Drivers and Barriers Electronic Journal of E-Learning 7 (2): 147–154. Macpherson, Allan, Meg Elliot, Irene Harris, and Gill Homan. 2004. E-learning: Reflections and evaluation of corporate programmes. Human Resource Development International 7 (3): 295–313. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/13678860310001630638. Manca, S., and M. Ranieri. 2016. Is Facebook still a suitable technology-enhanced learning environment? An
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364 updated critical review of the literature from 2012 to 2015. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. https:// doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12154. Njenga, James Kariuki, and Louis Cyril Henry Fourie. 2010. The myths about e-learning in higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology 41 (2): 199–212. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2008. 00910.x. Noesgaard, Signe Schack, and Rikke Ørngreen. 2015. The effectiveness of e-learning: An explorative and integrative review of the definitions, methodologies and factors that promote e-learning effectiveness. The Electronic Journal of E- Learning 13 (4): 278–290. Scott, Kimberly S., Keeley H. Sorokti, and Jeffrey D. Merrell. 2016. Learning ‘beyond the classroom’ within an enterprise social network system. The Internet and Higher Education 29: 75–90. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.12.005. The Authors. Sinclair, Peter M., Ashley Kable, Tracy Levett-Jones, and Debbie Booth. 2016. The effectiveness of Internetbased e-learning on clinician behaviour and patient outcomes: A systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies 57: 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijnurstu.2016.01.011. Elsevier Ltd. Turner, Walter L., and Antonis C. Stylianou. 2004. The IT advantage assessment model: Applying an expanded value chain model to academia. Computers & Education 43 (3): 249–272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu. 2003.10.007. Wagner, Nicole, Khaled Hassanein, and Milena Head. 2008. Who is responsible for e-learning success in higher education? A stakeholders’ analysis. Educational Technology & Society 11 (3): 26–36.
Elite Higher Education Jane Kenway1 and Adam Howard2 1 Monash University, Melbourne, Australia 2 Colby College, Waterville, ME, USA
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Terms of Endearment In Keywords (2014), Williams offers an etymology, of the term “elite,” dating it back to the mid-eighteenth century. He shows how it was first associated with the elect, that is, those formally chosen by god. Theology linked the elect to the aristocracy. He says “elect was often indistinguishable from ‘best’ or ‘most important”’ (pp. 13–14). With the changing social circumstances of the nineteenth century and the declining power of the aristocracy, other explanations about “distinction and discrimination” surfaced. The concept ruling elite arose in opposition to that of ruling class. It provided an ideological warrant to justify their rule, again along the lines of the best, the wisest, and the cleverest. Such beliefs about eliteness echo through the university sector and have become common sense. Elite universities are those considered the very best of all universities usually nationally and, normally now, globally. They are viewed as the “top tier” of the “top tier,” the crème de la crème – superior, distinctive, distinguished, and exceptional. Most are extremely wealthy. And thus, predictably, they largely serve the wealthy. Entry is commonly considered the pinnacle of success – a guaranteed path to wealth, power, and ruling class membership. Even so, what it means to be an elite university is constantly in the making. A historically informed political, spatial, and sociocultural imagination is necessary if we are to properly understand how elite universities claim and maintain their cachet. Without such imaginations, academic studies may wittingly or unwittingly underwrite the status of such universities.
Synonyms Producing Eliteness Exclusive universities; Top-tier universities; Wealthy universities; Prestigious universities
Definition
Certain universities are produced, as elite, through a range of practices and discourses, which include, but also exceed, those associated with higher education politics and policy.
Considered the very best and most prestigious universities nationally and, increasingly, globally that largely serve the wealthy.
Statements of Status Conventional perceptions of such universities’ prestige have usually developed over extended
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time as each university has accumulated its considerable resources and reputation and consolidated its powerful connections and thus its power. Social and political histories clearly illustrate this. But other types of history matter most to elite universities. These include institutional hagiographies – and there are many of these. Their conventional story line is about great institutions staffed by, and producing, great minds which go on to do great things. Another type of institutionboosting history involves narratives about institutional minutiae and its symbolism. These invent tradition in order to claim an extended and exalted heritage. Literary and popular cultural representations also contribute to such institutions’ allure. Over time they have been represented in novels, poems, and songs, on stage and on radio, in film, television, and in even computer games. And then there are the commentaries on such texts by scholars of these genres. These are accompanied by constant media enthrallment and reportage and by glamorized tourist promotions. No matter how unsophisticated, nuanced, or even critical, such texts are invariably involved in the mythmaking that helps to sustain the fascination and drawing power of these institutions. Remarkably, two little sets of elite universities have a world-recognized nomenclature to signal their cache – “Oxbridge” and “the Ivy League.” They are the aristocracy of the university sector. Their carefully calibrated, and protected, “brands” are globally potent. Metric Positioning Clearly, national higher education politics and policies are also involved in constituting elite universities and, over time, have conducted their own classification and framing exercises. These make clear which of its own universities the nation state wishes to anoint as the elect. And, such rankings are regularly and faithfully reported in various media outlets. However, since 2003 such national state-based classification systems have been disrupted by the activities of the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, by QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd and by Times
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Higher Education via Thomson Reuters Corporation. The latter “is known for its research platform Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Knowledge, which concentrates another aspect of academic performance evaluation in the hands of New York based multi national information company” (Jons and Hoyler 2013, p. 45). These bodies have turned university rankings into a prosperous, hyperactive industry with an array of advertising spin-offs. And they have taken such rankings globally – even though, as Liu (2009) points out, the Shanghai rankings were originally intended to assist China to develop “world-class” universities and to launch them on the global stage. At the same time, they have provided new terms of endearment to describe the best of the best in the world. In short, they upscaled notions of the elite university and, in so doing, have spectacularly enhanced the eminence of long-standing elite universities. To clarify, these days, a university’s eliteness is not just documented but also accentuated, annually, by three main global ranking exercises – the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, the QS World University Ranking, and the Times Higher Education World University Ranking. The latter two currently operate in partnership with Elsevier. This is a highly profitable, multinational information, and technology company that publishes a large number of academic journals and also hosts the online citation database Scopus. These ranking exercises involve the production of global, as well as national and regional, league tables of universities and of various universityrelated matters (Larsen 2017). Accordingly, the much debated notion of “world-class” universities has emerged. However, it is not entirely clear which universities are actually considered world class and, among them, which might be considered elite. In 2016 Shanghai ranked 500 universities, the Times Higher Education ranked 800, and QS ranked 700 (with a number of others listed but not ranked). Because they comprise a small percentage of higher education institutions worldwide, those named in all such lists might be understood as world class, even elite if the term is used loosely. But then tiers immediately emerge in
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the reportage and reception of such league tables – the top 100, the top 50, the top 20, and the top 10. Questions then arise about the stability of such tiers over time. If we understand elite universities, strictly, as the “top tier” of all these “top tiers,” then perhaps they can be defined as those universities consistently in the top ten. Those included in each ranker’s top ten have varied very little over time, but those allocated the pinnacle position do change. Even so, those thus nominated do vary a little between rankers. However, the Shanghai is considered the most elite in its performance measures due to its primary emphasis on “objective” data about research activity and intensity. As a result of such ranking exercises, the universities that are now considered elite within the nation state are usually those that are consistently counted in the top 100 in these global league tables. And notably, the state’s power to decree a university’s status is diminished, as it must share such power with these, not entirely disinterested, largely capitalist enterprises. Predictably there is much debate about the performance indicators, weightings, and methods of such exercises and thus of their conclusions. It is now commonplace, almost obligatory, to acknowledge that, even despite their different methods, world university rankings are based on a narrow set of data. Douglass (2016) explains that they “are biased toward the sciences and engineering, biased in their focus on peerreviewed journals published mostly in English, on the number of Nobel laureates and other markers of academic status, and tilted toward a select group of largely older universities that always rank high in surveys of prestige” (p. 3). It is now also well recognized that rankings reinforce the advantage of institutions in those regions, countries, and subnational locations that are positioned at the global economic core – the global North essentially and its established economic centers. As Jons and Hoyler (2013) powerfully demonstrate, economic geography matters enormously – although it matters somewhat differently in relation to different ranking organizations and methods. A location’s, country’s, and region’s wealth is a primary determinant of the
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number of elite, and world-class, universities each contains. It is widely accepted that the USA has the highest number of such universities, followed by the UK. This is now a somewhat hackneyed, though correct, observation. Leading to much greater research excitement is the recent emergence of highly competitive universities in various other countries in Europe and Asia. This is usually attributed to highly funded government initiatives designed to quickly bolster them (e.g., Japan’s Super Global Universities Project and Germany’s Excellence Initiative). One reason for such interest in Asia particularly is the implications for the demand from Asia for world-class and elite universities in the so-called West. Global rankings are highly political, and even despite criticisms of them, universities obsess about them, adjust their strategic plans in relation to them, and tactically deploy them, and related fluctuations, to advance their common causes in national higher education policy circles. But such rankings are also deployed differentially. Elite universities have often formed small, but powerful, cabals designed to sustain and further their elitist agendas, pushing for greater regulatory freedom or enhanced funding as a reward for their success, for example. Their overall aim is to ensure that dominant ideas about a university’s worth remain the ideas of the dominant universities. Elite universities conventionally look in the mirror and, on the basis of what they see, and drawing on the hegemonic power that they exercise, try to ensure that they continue to be the ones to define what it means to be the best. Market Mania A university’s prestige, however it is produced, is central to current hyper-competitive global, regional, and national university markets. Whatever the market’s scale, demand keeps rising and, along with this, the higher education sector keeps expanding and further diversifying. Some call this expansion “massification.” This is because, in earlier times, there were few universities, which, by definition, were all elite educational institutions. Their clients and products were usually from the privileged and powerful classes.
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Many such old universities continue to be seen as elite and as standard bearers of quality – the best, the wisest, and the cleverest. This is in contrast with the mass of newer universities, presumably serving “the masses,” where quality is often regarded as suspect and which thus must be monitored by their institutional superiors through the state. However, it is worth noting that the concept “massification” taps into discredited “classical school” elite social and political theories from the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Europe (e.g., Mosca 1939; Pareto 1968). These theories proclaim that an elite/masses, ruling/ ruled division is a preferable way of ordering modern societies. In its assertion that elites have superior qualities and in its restricted notion of democracy, such thinking mimics feudal ideas of fixed social hierarchy. Such views reverberate through massification discourses about elite and mass higher education. This is but one example of the manner in which academic studies can implicitly underwrite the eliteness of certain universities. But, universities, worldwide, vary considerably in their identities, offerings, financial and other resources, reputations, and catchments. It is thus more apt, and less elitist, to talk of the highly differentiated, and deeply stratified, higher education sector in which those with capitals, in the Bourdeusian (Bourdieu 1986) sense, most readily accrue further capitals. Market mania has led universities to try to distinguish themselves from each other and to distance themselves from “lesser” institutions. All universities want to be seen as “the best” at something, anything. The concept “best in class” is emerging. Currently, many individual universities aspire to be the best in particular ways, in certain fields and activities, and in their locality, nation, or region. Chase and flight are often the order of the day, as those with less power and prestige seek to emulate those with more and as those with more seek to protect and distance themselves from such “pretenders.” Countries are also involved in emulation. For example, China once looked to emulate elite universities in the USA and the USA once looked to emulate leading German universities (Jons and Hoyler 2013).
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But not all universities are emulating the old elite institutions. Take the recent example of India and China. They are rapidly developing their own high-end, higher education institutions. Each is “investing heavily in university systems and high tech and science infrastructure,” and along with American companies, “they are opening up engineering facilities and laboratories” and seeking to develop “high tech global metropolises” in particular regions (Smith and Favell 2006). In response to such pressures “from below,” elite universities have employed particular strategies in order to retain their national and global status (Palfreyman and Tapper 2009). These strategies include working more closely with their national governments to ratchet up the “arms race” of educational exclusivity, employing their vast resources to maintain their status in the top echelons of the world-class educational rankings, and forming partnership with other elite universities to block other institutions from overtaking their historic and current power and prestige. Interestingly, this “arms race” has also led them to try to become more accessible to diverse groups of students.
Access Anxieties and Reassurances Of course there are critical studies of elite universities. A common focus, over time, has been on “access”: on who gains it, how so, and how might access processes alter so that these universities are more open in class, race, religious, and gender terms. In the UK, the lack of social mobility has attracted considerable research and policy interest. Elite universities have been encouraged to alter their admission criteria (e.g., Sutton Trust 2016). More generally, elite universities currently purport to diversify their student bodies for the purpose of “open[ing] up the educational opportunities they offer to a wider range of students in an effort to promote equity and social mobility” (Aries 2013, p. 2). Despite the claim that elite universities serve as engines of social mobility, Guinier (2015), for example, argues that the merit systems controlling
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the admission practices in the USA are functioning to select the already advantaged. In fact, she describes the admission process to US elite universities as a “lottery,” that is, “stacked in favor of the Adonises of our world, the children of the wealthy” (p. 10). Even though Ivy League universities in the USA are increasingly racially diverse and more open to women, for example, their students are simultaneously richer. As Khan (2011) notes, “Harvard’s ‘middle income’ is the richest 5 percent of our nation” (p. 6). Across the globe, elite universities continue to be places, mainly, for the wealthiest students. At China’s prestigious Peking University, for example, a student from the poorer Anhui Province has a one in 7826 chance of gaining admission, while the odds are one in 190 for a wealthier student from Beijing (which is 0.5 percent) (Wong 2012). Although elite universities in China and elsewhere are becoming more selective, they are still placing wealthier students at a considerable advantage in the admissions race. Winning the admissions race to elite universities is characterized largely as a frenzied process (Weis et al. 2014). Years before students actually enter tertiary education, their lives are consumed with becoming competitive in the everincreasingly selective admissions game. The surge in applications over the past decade has pushed the acceptance rates at elite universities, across the globe, drastically lower. Other critical studies consider such institutions’ cultures and, for instance, how they cope with the minority presence of “outsiders” within (Lee 2016) and indeed how outsiders experience such cultures. International students are the most recent outsiders within. Also, scholarly and media attention is increasingly paid to student subcultures of stress, victimization, and violence (e.g., Deresiewicz 2014; McVeigh 2015; Scelfo 2015). And, much literature focuses on what Mills (1956) calls the “power elite” and what others call the ruling class. It considers the overrepresentation among such groupings of graduates from elite universities, the graduates’ smooth paths to membership, and the manner in which their Others are either excluded or very selectively recruited (e.g., Rivera 2015; Zweigenhaft and
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Domhoff 2006). Clearly these institutions are class activists as well as gatekeepers. Over the years, credentials from an elite university promise and deliver more earning potential than credentials from less prestigious institutions (e.g., Brewer et al. 1996; Dale and Krueger 2002). A degree from an elite university matters for wealth accumulation perhaps more, now, than in the past. Several scholars even claim that elite universities are becoming little more than funnels into the ranks of the high-finance industry (e.g., Deresiewicz 2014). Elite universities offer students access to powerful networks, which, along with the high-quality education they receive, enables them to directly escort their graduates to positions of power and influence (Wai 2014).
Possible Future Inquiries “Academic capitalism” is the term that Slaughter and Leslie (1997) coined to refer to the aggressive manner in which public research universities in the USA are adopting market and quasi-market behaviors. Slaughter and Rhoades (2009) update this analysis, link it to the “new economy,” and unpack the increasingly complex circuits of production, circulation, and consumption involved. Interestingly, in this context, elite universities have, somehow, managed to present themselves as above the fray and as centers of almost effortless excellence. Future research might consider how academic capitalism is manifest inside elite universities specifically and if and how this differs according to location. Explorations of their particular links to and activities within contemporary national/global higher education power assemblages would also be fruitful. Much is made in the elite university literature about the elite university/ruling class nexus. But the focus is too national. If we are to fully comprehend the class work that elite universities now do, serious attention needs to be paid to the emerging body of scholarship on the “transnational capitalist class” and the “transnational capitalist state” (Robinson 2004). This rescales and reconfigures debates about elites, class, capitalism, and the nation state. It implicitly invites us to consider
Elite Universities
how elite universities are implicated in global and transnational class structures, relations, and formation. If scholars in higher education, with a political, spatial, and sociocultural imagination, accept this invitation, we will no doubt learn a great deal about how elite universities are implicated in current relations of ruling.
Cross-Reference ▶ Cultural Capital, Social Class, and Higher Education ▶ Private Higher Education ▶ World-class Universities
References Aries, E. 2013. Speaking of race and class: The student experience at an elite college. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of capital. In Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, ed. J. Richardson, 241–261. New York: Greenwood Press. Brewer, D.J., E. Eide, and R.G. Ehrenberg. 1996. Does it pay to attend an elite private college? Cross cohort evidence on the effects of college quality on earnings, NBER working paper series, paper. Vol. 5613. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Dale, S.B., and A.B. Krueger. 2002. Estimating the payoff to attending a more selective college: An application of selection on observables and unobservables. Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4): 1491–1526. Deresiewicz, W. 2014. Excellent sheep: The miseducation of the American elite and the way to a meaningful life. New York: Free Press. Douglass, J.A., ed. 2016. The new flagship university: Changing the paradigm from global ranking to national relevancy. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Jons, H., and M. Hoyler. 2013. Global geographies of higher education: The perspective of world university rankings. Geoforum 46: 45–59. Khan, S. 2011. Privilege: The making of an adolescent elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Larsen, M. A. (2017) Internationalization of Higher Education: An Analysis through Spatial, Networks, and Mobilities Theories, Palgrave Macmillan, US. Lee, E.M. 2016. Class and campus life: Managing and experiencing inequality at an elite college. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Liu, N.C. 2009. The story of academic rankings. International Higher Education 54: 2–3.
369 McVeigh, K. 2015. Tops universities fail to record sexual violence against students. The Guardian, May 24. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/educa tion/2015/may/24/top-universities-fail-record-sexualviolence-against-students-russell-group Mills, C.W. 1956. The power elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Mosca, G. 1939. The ruling class. New York: McGraw-Hill. Palfreyman, D., and T. Tapper. 2009. Structuring mass higher education: The role of elite institutions. New York: Routledge. Pareto, V. 1968. The rise and fall of elites. New York: Arno Press. Rivera, L.A. 2015. Pedigree: How elite students get elite jobs. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Robinson, W.I. 2004. A theory of global capitalism: Production, class, and state in a transnational world. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Scelfo, J. 2015. Suicide on campus and pressure of perfection. New York Times, July 27. Retrieved from http:// www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/stresssocial-media-and-suicide-on-campus.html Slaughter, S., and L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2009. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Smith, M.P., and A. Favell, ed. 2006. The human face of global mobility, international highly skilled migration in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific, Comparative urban and community research. Vol. 8. New Brunswick: Transaction Press. Sutton Trust. 2016. Research brief: Oxbridge admissions, February 11. Retrieved from http://www.suttontrust. com/ Wai, J. 2014. Investigating the world’s rich and powerful: Education, cognitive ability, and sex differences. Intelligence 46: 54–72. Weis, L., K. Cipollone, and H. Jenkins. 2014. Class warfare: Class, race, and college admissions in top-tier secondary schools. Chicago: University of Chicago. Williams, R. 2014. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. London: Fontana. Wong, E. 2012. Test that can determine the course of life in China gets a closer examination. New York Times, June 30. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/ 01/world/asia/burden-of-chinas-college-entrance-testsets-off-wide-debate.html?_r¼0 Zweigenhaft, R., and G.W. Domhoff. 2006. Diversity in the power elite: How it happened and why it matters. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
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Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education Simon Marginson Centre for Global Higher Education, Linacre College, Oxford University, London, UK
Definitions In 1973 the University of California Berkeley sociologist Martin Trow published an essay titled “Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education.” It became perhaps the most influential single work written on modern higher education. Trow (1973) identified a “broad pattern of development of higher education” in “every advanced society” (p. 1). Higher education was growing from an “elite” system enrolling less than 15% of the school leaver age group to a “mass” system with 15–50% and then a “universal” system with over 50%. Higher education was “universal” at 50% because at that stage it was necessary to enter higher education for the full exercise of effective citizenship. Trow also noted that in relation to individual institutions, in what he called the “universal” phase, elite higher education continued alongside mass and universal forms. For the most part, Trow’s distinctions remain helpful. However, in the more conventional understanding of “universal,” the term refers to systems with the entire school leaver age cohort. Some countries are now approaching that level of participation. Moreover, to treat 50% participation as “universal” in 1973 suggests a certain complacency, given that in the United States women, students from poor families, and nonwhite families were substantially underrepresented. Accordingly, in this entry, systems with over 50% of the age cohort are referred to as high-participation systems (HPS) rather than “universal.”
Trow’s Three Phases of Higher Education For Trow (1973) “elite,” “mass,” and “universal” higher education were seen both as historical
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stages and as practices that existed alongside each other in the present. As stages of higher education, they were the basis of a prescient narrative about the changing character of higher education. The purpose of higher education shifted from “shaping the mind and character of the ruling class” (elite) to preparing a larger group in professional and technical skills (mass) and to preparing the whole population in “adaptability” to social and technological change (universal), when higher education took in all of society and its autonomy was diminished. “Distinctions between learning and life become attenuated” (Trow 1973, p. 8). Access shifted from a privilege (elite) to a right (mass) and to an “obligation” (universal) for at least middle-class families and ultimately for everyone (pp. 1–2 and pp. 5–20). In the elite phase, the student enters directly after school; in the mass phase, some delay entry “until after a period of work or travel”; in the universal phase, “there is much postponement of entry” and broken attendance, and vocational training and mixed work/study modes constitute a larger proportion of higher education. “Emphasis on ‘lifelong learning’ is compatible with a softening of the boundaries between formal education and other forms of life experience” (Trow 1973, pp. 9–10). The curriculum moves from a “highly structured” program based on mandatory intellectual or professional requirements in the elite phase to a choice-based modular structure in the mass phase and to the breakdown of sequencing, structure, and assessment requirements in the universal phase “where no single conception of higher education obtains” (p. 8). The pedagogical relationship between student and teacher moves from personal mentoring designed to shape individual development in the elite phase, for example, the Oxford college, to formal instruction in large classrooms in the mass phase with emphasis on the transmission of skills and knowledge, to displacement of the student-teacher relationship in the universal phase amid correspondence programs, “video cassettes and TVs,” the “computer, and other technological aids” (p. 9). Trow anticipates the later tendency to attenuation of mass education, though the reduction in teaching intensity by diverse means. Student community is also attenuated. Fragmented
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populations of unlimited size have merely nominal connections, no longer united by frequent association, values, or identity (pp. 10–13). The internal governance of HEIs is much changed. Elite institutions are run by small homogenous groups inside and outside the university, with part-time amateur academic leaders served by a handful of administrative staff. In the mass phase, the elite leadership of HEIs is increasingly affected by interest groups and democratic pressures inside and outside the sector. Academic administrators are full time and university bureaucracy grows at pace. In the universal phase, financial managers and specialist services flourish, and HEIs function within external relations and the public media space, where academic values and processes appear archaic and are habitually questioned (pp. 13–15). Massification has ambiguous implications for institutional diversity. On one hand, there is potential for greater diversity. Elite systems “tend to be highly homogeneous,” with small institutions resembling each other that share strong notions of membership, clear boundaries between institution and society, and (“at least in their meritocratic phase”) high standards. Mass systems are comprehensive and more diverse in functions and standards, with institutions of up to 40,000 students and fuzzier and permeable external boundaries. Amid universal access, there is greater natural diversity and the dissolution of standards and boundaries, though administrative standardization of units and functions is enhanced (p. 16). However, the corporatization of internal university organization, together with imitating behavior by the institutions themselves, tend to reduce the potentials of horizontal diversity of institutional type, mission, and educational approach (pp. 51–52). In relation to the vertical stratification of systems, Trow states that “in a mass system, elite institutions may not only survive but flourish” (p. 19). The development of mass higher education does not necessarily involve the destruction of elite institutions or parts of institutions, or their transformation into mass institutions. Indeed, elite forms of higher education continue to perform functions that cannot be performed as well by mass higher education. (Trow 1973, p. 15)
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Yet in the process of massification issues of social equity is also transformed. Student selection proceeds from the primary use of the criterion of academic merit in the elite phase to programs designed to create social equality of opportunity in the mass phase and then to open access in the universal phase, because “social inequalities show everywhere a stubbornly persistent effect on educational achievement” (Trow 1973, pp. 23–24). As the system expands the new goal of equality, policy is “to achieve a social, class, ethnic, and racial distribution in higher education reflecting that of the population at large” (p. 45). However, “the growth in student numbers at university” tends to be “largely made up of an increase in the proportion of middle class students, who almost everywhere are the first to take advantage of increases in educational opportunities of every kind and at every level.” It is especially difficult to achieve social equality in relation to entry into elite institutions, because of the association between educational requirements and middle-class culture. Social advantage is “stubbornly persistent” in meritocratic selection (p. 24). Sensing the tension between social mobility and social reproduction in a “democratizing” system (Trow 1973, p. 45), Trow believed that potential mobility should be regulated within a steeply tiered system, siphoning off popular demand into the lower tiers without disturbing the position of middle-class families within the reproduction of an unequal social order. “The establishment of different sectors of higher education, reflecting the status hierarchies in the larger society, is a more effective way of using higher education to buttress rather than undermine the class structure” (p. 25). This was and is unattractive to egalitarians, but in the American context, again proved prescient. In all mass-to-universal systems as they have emerge, there is unresolved struggle between those who see more democratic participation in higher education as a vehicle for building social equality and solidarity, along Nordic lines (Välimaa 2011), and perhaps believe a classless educational meritocracy is within reach and those who mobilize the instruments of educational competition and meritocratic selection so as to maintain existing patterns of exclusion and familial
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reproduction, thereby reducing the “universal” in universal higher education. Trow’s essay also explains the tendency of higher education systems to grow. As he sees it, expansion is ultimately driven by family aspirations to maintain and improve social position. This leads him to two insights. First, because there is no limit to aspirations for social betterment through education, there will be “continued popular demand for an increase in the number of places in colleges and universities”. “It seems to me very unlikely that any advanced industrial society can or will be able to stabilize the numbers” (Trow 1973, p. 40). Because growth is not driven by economic demand for graduates, it is not governed by economic scarcity. Despite “loose talk about graduate unemployment or of an oversupply . . . it is still clear that people who have gone on to higher education thereby increase their chances for having more secure, more interesting, and better paid work throughout their lives.” As more people enter higher education, it not only becomes “a symbol of rising social status” (p. 41); nonparticipation becomes an individual deficiency to be explained. Graduate unemployment is not a problem due to the “educational inflation of occupations.” Graduate jobs move down the occupational scale. As graduates increase, they displace those without college, sometimes enriching the jobs. “What mass higher education does is to break the old rigid connection between education and the occupational structure” that prevents graduates from taking what were nongraduate jobs. Graduates can “seek employment without loss of dignity wherever the jobs may exist” (pp. 42–43). Trow’s second insight is that government policy ultimately has to follow social demand for higher education, rather than social demand being a function of policy or funding. Government is under ongoing pressure, especially from middle-class families, to facilitate the growth of higher education until saturation is reached, using both expanded supply and financial support for participation. This was going to happen not only in California but in all jurisdictions, Trow states (pp. 5–6, p. 40). It was a bold prediction given that in 1973 governments outside the United States
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were often more concerned to create demand for higher education than follow it and were enamored of “manpower planning,” as it was called, using rates of return and employment data to plot a rational fit between education and the labor markets (or so they hoped). Yet in the long run, Trow’s notion of government behavior and the socially led character of participation growth have proven correct. Trow knew something of the pitfalls of comparison but he saw his argument as a universal script. Though the essay was correct about universal growth and perceptive on generic developments, he did not get it wholly right. For example, he underestimated the constraints on diversity in expanding systems and the extent of national variations.
The Tendency to Growth in Statistical Terms In 1971, just before Trow’s essay was published, only 19 countries had reached 15%, Trow’s “mass” higher education level. By 2013 there were 56 world higher education systems with an enrolment of 50%, and no less than 110 systems had reached Trow’s “mass” level of 15% or more (World Bank 2016). Only about 50 higher education systems, less than one quarter, mostly very poor, were still below the 15% mark. Between 1970 and 2013, population multiplied by 1.93 and real GDP by 3.63, but enrolments in higher education grew by a factor of 6.12. The growth of higher education has accelerated. Between 1972 and 1992, the worldwide gross tertiary enrolment ratio (GTER) moved modestly from 10.1% to 14.0%. (The numerator of the GTER is the total enrolment in 2-year programs and above; the denominator is the school-leaver age cohort in the national population.) In the next two decades, the worldwide GTER was more than doubled, growing by almost one percentage point a year and reaching 32.0% in 2012. In 2014, across all countries one in three young people entered higher education, three in four across Europe and North America (UNESCO 2016; World Bank 2016). Notions that only some people
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are capable of higher education are fading. Recurring concerns about “overeducation” and graduate unemployment do not halt growth. As Trow (1973) predicted, graduates move down the occupational scale, displacing nongraduates, so that the earnings and status advantages of degrees are maintained (Schofer and Meyer 2005; Teichler 2009). When systems reach GTERs of 50% or more, they keep growing toward 100%. Between 1992 and 2012, the GTER increased markedly in each world region except Central Asia. Between 2000 and 2012 alone, the GTER rose by at least 18% in 32 countries. In or before 2012, it exceeded 50% across all of Western and Eastern Europe, North America, much of Latin America, and all East Asia except China. Nations with GTERs above 50% in 2012 included middle-income Albania, Armenia, Barbados, Bulgaria, Iran, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, and Thailand. By 2012 the GTER reached 90% in each of South Korea (98.4%), Canada, United States, Finland, Belarus, and Australia. In Cuba, Denmark, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, and Ukraine, it had passed 75%. The United States long had the highest GTER in the world but is now behind South Korea and Canada. There are still gaps. In countries with very low per capita incomes, most states lack the necessary capacity and time horizon to mount large-scale tertiary systems. Between 1992 and 2012, the GTER in sub-Saharan Africa doubled, but in 2012 it was below 15% in all systems for which data were available. However, the GTER is now climbing in South Asia. In India between 1992 and 2013, it rose from 6% to 24%. In China the GTER was 30% in 2013 (UNESCO 2016). The government target is 40% by 2020.
Explanations for the Expansion of Participation What drives this ubiquitous expansion to highparticipation systems of higher education and beyond? It is often assumed that the number of higher education students is just a function of state
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policy. It is true that in most systems, governments control the number of subsidized student places in public higher education institutions and sometimes also in private institutions. In 2012 governments funded 69% of the costs of public and private tertiary institutions in the OECD countries (OECD 2014, p. 236). Also, government policy and funding are highly visible at the time when national systems move to the mass higher education phase. The state funds the necessary infrastructure and also any research programs. However, states seem to be less instrumental once the dynamic of participation growth has become entrenched, so that it becomes increasing more difficult for families to stay out of higher education. After 15% is reached, significant falls in participation are unusual. Nowhere in the world, once the HPS dynamic is released, does any state secure a lasting reversal of growth, despite the cost pressures of expansion (though there are many cases of states shifting part of the cost to families and students). The public policy world favors explanations in which states routinely facilitate the economy. In the standard narrative about higher education, expansion is shaped by government and/or market forces in response to the need for educated labor, human capital. In this narrative, higher education expands more or less in step with growing demands for graduate knowledge, skills, and certified professional competences. Economic demand is signaled in the labor markets by wage returns to marginal productivity (Becker 1964). Students are said to choose courses on the basis of graduate employability and earnings. According to this narrative, people (or governments on their behalf) invest in education, in terms of time, income forgone, and tuition, to the point where the lifetime returns to degree holders equal the costs of investment. Since the 1960s the human capital theorization, which has been the subject of tens of thousands of empirical studies, has held center stage. Economists acknowledge that higher education can lag behind economic need and can over-provide graduates (“credentialism”), but they believe that in the longer run higher education tends to equilibrium with economic demand. If it does not, then there must be a flaw either in the
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higher education itself or in government enrolment policy. However, sociologists who look closely at the motors of participation do not agree. In a historical review, Schofer and Meyer note “the rapid expansion of higher education in the 1960s does not coincide with especially large historical changes in occupational structures, job skill requirements, or labour market demands that would create a need for massive expansion of higher education”. Since the 1960s, the apparent association between economic growth and the growth of participation has been weaker than in that first human capital decade (Schofer and Meyer 2005, pp. 900, 916). Comparative data suggests a moderate association between economic growth and the growth of student numbers. This does not mean that the expansion of higher education is driven by the economy: causality could be reversed. Note also that the surge in participation is associated with a broad range of economic growth rates. Between 2000 and 2012, economic growth spans from China at 10.1% per annum, where the GTER rose 18.9%, to Portugal at 0.2% per annum, where the GTER rose by 21.3% (World Bank 2016). Trow’s (1973) argument that growth is driven by social demand for position and it is this factor – rather than particular economic configurations or growth rates – that countries have in common looks more convincing than explanations based on the state as driver or the economy as driver. However, nations must achieve both the initial state-funded infrastructure and a certain level of development and modernization, especially growth in the urban middle class, to trigger social demand to mass higher education levels. Urban growth appears closely associated with the growth of participation (Marginson 2016a).
Diversity and Stratification in High Participation Systems Teichler distinguishes between vertical and horizontal diversity in higher education systems (Teichler 1996, p. 118). Vertical diversity distinguishes HEIs by “quality, reputation and
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prospective status of graduates”. Horizontal diversity refers to “the specific profile of knowledge, style of teaching and learning, problem-solving thrust”. Horizontal diversity may also relate to mission, governance, or internal organizational culture. In this book the term “diversity” refers to horizontal variety in higher education. “Stratification” is used for the vertical dimension. Teichler also notes that the weightiest distinction between different HEIs derive from comparisons of research intensity, which are vertically differentiating. Research standing affects mission and is so important in higher education and so readily measured – for example, in competitive funding rounds and rankings – that the research/nonresearch distinction always has implications for status position (Teichler 2008, pp. 351–352). What happens to diversity and stratification as systems grow? van Vught (2008) argues that two factors shape diversifying behavior by higher education institutions: the level of uniformity in the systemic environment, especially state-driven homogenization and the influence of academic norms and values which also encourage homogenization (p. 162). He notes that government regulation can facilitate diversity on a planned basis, citing Hong Kong as his example (p. 165). To explain tendencies to conformity in higher education, van Vught deploys Darwinian competition, resource dependency theory, and the institutional isomorphism perspective, which imagines that “the survival and success of organisations depends upon taking account of other organisations in the environment” (p. 161). Why is it that when free to determine their own strategies institutions prefer to imitate each other rather than innovate in response to consumer students? Because higher education is a “good experience,” students can judge its quality only after they have been enrolled (p. 167). Institutions are driven not by consumers but by competition with each other for prestige. As participation has expanded, it is likely that diversity between types of institution has diminished rather than increased. In part this is because of competition on the basis of a single model of high prestige university, in an environment in which rankings have become increasingly
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important (Hazelkorn 2015). Some nonuniversity sectors have been redesignated as universities, and in many countries the number and range of specialist institutions has declined. There has been partial convergence, in most countries, toward the large multipurpose multidisciplinary research “multiversity” (Marginson 2016c). Correspondingly, diversity inside the large multipurpose institutions has tended to increase. As higher education systems grow, they also become increasingly stratified, unless government steps in to modify the tendency to stratification as it does in in the Nordic world. The tendency of growth to foster stratification is inherent in the structural dynamics of highparticipation systems. All mass and highparticipation higher education systems tend toward bifurcation – the binary division of the system into separate and opposing subgroups that together constitute an interdependent system. The first subgroup is the elite, high-demand HEIs that relate to students as “selecting” institutions because they have an excess of applications over places. The second subgroup of HEIs are the lower demand, lower value mass institutions that are “selected” by students. Stratification is enhanced by growth because elite places become more scarce as higher education expands. The tendency to elite/nonelite bifurcation within systems is associated with the absolute scarcity of socially valued places. Many HEIs are a mix between the two ideal types, but the natural dynamics of higher education systems pull HEIs toward one type or the other. There is a range of positions, from almost pure “selecting” or “selected” HEIs to middle-sector types poised in an unstable manner between the two. Every institution can be calibrated on the grid between eliteselecting HEIs and mass-selected HEIs. The expansion of participation advances the boundary of inclusion in each country, moving down the socioeconomic hierarchy and taking in geographical regions and members of ethnic groups previously underrepresented or excluded. Equity in the form of social inclusion is enhanced. However, tendencies to stratification are magnified by features common (though not universal) in systems, including intensified social competition
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for the most valuable student places, variable tuition charges, and/or inter-institutional competition. Though the quality and extent of tendencies to stratification is always affected by systemspecific conditions, as participation expands in the high-participation systems phase, the meanings of social inclusion change. First, the social cost of nonparticipation increases as systems expand to 50% participation and beyond, except in Nordic-type systems with robust alternative pathways and compensating mechanisms. Those who do not participate in higher education, whether that is voluntary, circumstantial or imposed, are less well-off than nonparticipants had been when participation was at 15–20% in the early stages of mass higher education. Even though with expansion the average value of graduate credentials tends to fall, as they become increasingly numerous, the absence of credentials, networks, social literacy, confidence, and credentials becomes a growing disadvantage. A shrinking proportion of labor market positions are accessible to those without qualifications. In high-inequality societies, which typically exhibit high private returns to graduates relative to nongraduates, as in the US, the penalties of exclusion from higher education are further magnified. Second, in a high-participation system with more than 50% of the age group, the primary question about social equity shifts from access to higher education to the stratification of opportunities in higher education and “access to what kind of higher education?” In “elite” systems in Trow’s (1973) sense, every place carries a reward, and equity turns on inclusion/exclusion. In highparticipation systems, with a continuing elite subsector, the binary structure becomes ternary: (1) high-value inclusion, (2) low-value inclusion, and (3) exclusion. Nominally, as the GTER approaches universality, equity as social inclusion meets equity as social group equality. When all groups are fully included, underrepresentation vanishes. But only if inclusion is defined in terms of the system as a whole. With most families in higher education but opportunities stratified by educational structure and family financial capacity, families are very aware of the hierarchy. There
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are also continuing issues at the boundary of inclusion and in relation to social mobility, especially for low socioeconomic status and immigrant families, rural students, students from underrepresented ethnic and cultural groups, students with disabilities, and others. Because in the high-participation phase the growth of participation is associated with enhanced stratification, and intensified competition at key transition points, all else being equal (i.e., without compensatory state policy) the expansion of participation is associated with a secular tendency to greater social inequality in the distribution of educational outcomes, meaning the positional opportunities opened up by higher education. Socially advantaged families are normally best placed to access the highest value opportunities. Further, as participation expands, new opportunities are more likely to be taken up by families with superior capacity and resources to compete. There is rarely improvement in social access to selective institutions, especially highly selective ones, and in at least some systems expansion seems to be associated with reduced social equality in access to the highest demand places. Overall would-be egalitarian reformers face a more difficult task than at a lower level of participation (Shavit et al. 2007; Lucas 2009; Marginson 2016b). However, there are continuing differences between systems in system structure and political economy, and the manner in which growth dynamics play out. Some systems are unitary, with one mission, the research and teaching university. There are binary systems with two missions, as in Germany and the Netherlands. Some systems use classifications to sort different missions, as in the United States and China. Private sectors play various roles. In some countries, private HEIs are the main medium of growth, for example, Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, India and the Philippines, while in Poland the 1990s growth of the private sector is reversing. There are also divergent arrangements concerning student fees and financing. In most systems, the household carries part of tuition costs. Some systems use income-contingent tuition loans, which softens the direct inequitable impact of costs by
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postponing repayment until the means are available (Chapman et al. 2014). In Australia and the United Kingdom, the income contingent repayment structure has enabled enrolment growth to coincide with high tuition. In some HPS, such as the Nordic systems and Germany, tuition is free and financed from general taxation. Average fees exceed US$10,000 per year in English-speaking countries but are below $2000 in most of Europe (OECD 2014, pp. 260–76). In East Asia, a universal culture of educational achievement sustains majority private costs in Korea and Japan, and there is considerable investment in extra learning outside school hours even in poor families. In some but not all systems, and to varying extents, governments use financial incentives to foster the extension of participation to marginal, indifferent, and underrepresented social groups. These differences between HPS in institutional mission, classification and financing have implications for variation in the extent and forms of stratification within systems.
Future Directions Once a nation reaches a threshold level of GDP of approximately $5000 US per capita, there seems no end to the process of growth in rates of participation. Within a generation it is likely that more than half of all young people will enter some kind of higher education, at 2-year diploma level or above, as was the case in primary education a century ago. Higher education has become as important in forming people and social relations as churches and local communities in earlier times. It has become preeminent as a social differentiator and allocator. Maintaining a higher education system is now one of the core duties of states, like airports and roads, clean water, and a viable banking system. But what kind of society is a highparticipation society, in which HPS higher education is the norm? All else being equal, the movement toward near universal higher education constitutes more capable human agents, formed in common systems of learning, on a massive scale. This
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conditions many other changes. Higher education is associated with better health outcomes (McMahon 2009), though it is unclear to what extent graduates’ culturally advanced and longer-lived human agency derives from their higher education or their social backgrounds. It provides generic and specific understanding, social and scientific literacy, and above all it enhances self-efficacy. The graduate is less tightly gripped by fate than the nongraduate – more at ease with knowledge, information, and other reflexive tools; more creative and lucid in communication and cross-cultural relations; more adept dealing with governments, corporations, and markets; better at planning family and household, financial management, and security; and more proactive, flexible, and productive at work. The spread of higher education within and between countries also changes the relational social environment. Experience of higher education is associated with a higher propensity to trust others, possibly because education forms people in a homogenizing intellectual and professional culture. Higher education is also associated with relatively advanced facility in information and networked communications technologies (OECD 2014, pp. 46–47). The full implications of highparticipation higher education are unclear. However, there is no doubt that it constitutes a major change in human affairs.
References Becker, G. 1964. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chapman, B., T. Higgins, and J. Stiglitz. (Eds.). 2014. Income contingent loans: Theory, practice and prospects. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Hazelkorn, E. 2015. Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. 2nd ed. Houndmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Lucas, S. 2009. Stratification theory, socioeconomic background, and educational attainment: A formal analysis. Rationality and Society 21: 459–511. Marginson, S. 2016a. High participation systems of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education 87 (2): 243–270. Marginson, S. 2016b. The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: Dynamics of social
377 stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education 87 (2): 243–270. Marginson, S. 2016c. Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing. McMahon, W. 2009. Higher learning greater good. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2014. Education at a glance, 2014. Paris: OECD. Schofer, E., and J. Meyer. 2005. The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review 70: 898–920. Shavit, Y., R. Arum, and A. Gamoran (Eds.). 2007. Stratification in higher education: A comparative study. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Teichler, U. 1996. Diversity in higher education in Germany: The two-type structure. In The mockers and the mocked: Comparative perspectives on differentiation, convergence and diversity in higher education, ed. V.L. Meek, L. Goedegebuure, O. Kivinen, and R. Rinne, 117–137. Oxford: Pergamon. Teichler, U. 2008. Diversification? Trends and explanations of the shape and size of higher education. Higher Education 56(3): 349–379. Teichler, U. 2009. Higher education and the world of work: Conceptual frameworks, comparative perspectives, empirical findings. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Trow, M. 1973. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. Berkeley: Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2016. UNESCO Institute for Statistics data on education. http://data.uis.unesco.org/. Accessed 31 July 2016. Välimaa, J. 2011. The corporatisation of national universities in Finland. In Universities and the public sphere: Knowledge creation and state building in the era of globalization, ed. B. Pusser, K. Kempner, S. Marginson, and I. Ordorika, 101–119. New York: Routledge. van Vught, F. 2008. Mission diversity and reputation in higher education. Higher Education Policy 21 (2): 151–174. World Bank 2016. Data and statistics. http://data. worldbank.org/indicator/all. Accessed 31 July 2016.
Employment ▶ Academic Careers
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Engaged Research ▶ Public Engagement in Higher Education
Engaged Scholarship ▶ Civic Engagement in Higher Education
Engaged University, The Lorraine McIlrath National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
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and the diversity that exist through concepts, manifestations, and practices. This is a very brief and general tour of the engaged university with signposts to other sources for a more in-depth understanding. The tour is presented under five themes commencing with The Engaged University which briefly commences with the historical foundations toward a recent movement centering on university engagement that has evolved despite utilitarian pressures; the next theme of Engagement – Terms, Concepts, and Practices explores some of the many associated terms, concepts, and practices and diversity therein; the theme of Engagement as Evidence and Practice will explore some wide-ranging university commitments and manifestations relating to the three pillars of the university, namely, teaching and learning, research, and service; and finally, Conclusion offers some challenges as well as opportunities for the future.
Introduction The President of Ireland’s recent call to higher education, systems, institutions, and governing structures begs us to consider the implications of a utilitarian versus an engaged university ethos and practice when he recently stated, “we must confront an erroneous prevalent perception that the necessary focus of higher education must be on that which is utilitarian and immediately applicable” (Higgins 2016). He asks us “not forget that it is through the encouragement of creative and free thinking that our universities acquired their status in the past, and correctly claim it today, as unique institutions that accept the responsibility of enabling and empowering citizens to participate fully and effectively at all levels of society” (Higgins 2016). He goes on to refocus our attention on “the role of the university in enabling citizens to develop the intellectual tools to address the great challenges of our time, which include questions of development and global poverty, of climate change and sustainability, and of conflict and displacement, is one which is vital” (Higgins 2016). This entry is situated within this foundational context and it casts some light on the broad landscape of the engaged university that illustrates both the recent growth of the engaged university
The Engaged University As others within this encyclopedia have noted, the democratic, civic, and engaged roles of higher education have become eclipsed by other, perhaps competing, concerns that align with economic values and imperatives underpinned by neoliberal and utilitarian aspirations (chapters ▶ “The Idea of the University: Renewing the Great Tradition” by Barnett; chapter ▶ “Critical Higher Education: Rethinking Higher Education as a Democratic Public Sphere” by Giroux). Utilitarian language and aligned practices such as “global marketplace,” “knowledge economy,” “world-class research,” “measurement and performance,” and “high-quality researcher” (Gonzalez-Perez et al. 2007) have seemingly seeped into normative higher education culture with a focus on students as clients of the academy and external bodies as purchasers of knowledge, among other competing concerns. However, in the last two decades, there have been both a discourse and practice that returns many universities to their original historical purpose, and as Higgins says, “correctly claim it for today” (2016), namely, to educate for community engagement and to democratize or share
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knowledge that contributes to community and society. Watson et al. (2011) have likened this purpose to original DNA with an indelible imprint forever on the evolution of universities. There is plenty of contemporary evidence to suggest that this DNA is now evolving into a steady global movement whereby universities are, through mission statements and practices, embedding an engaged role within community and society (Watson et al. 2011). A number of national and international university networks have sprung up over the last two decades to articulate, advocate, support, and develop the engaged university as a normative and mainstream mode. Some of these include the Talloires Network, an association of over 400 university presidents, compelled to refute the idea of university as “ivory tower, where academics pursue knowledge in relative isolation from the communities in which they are embedded” (Hollister et al. 2012, p. 83) and toward a new paradigm “committed to strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education” (Hollister et al. 2012, p. 81). Other regional and national networks include SAHECEF (South African Higher Education Community Engagement Forum) established to develop a broad typology of community engagement in South Africa; Campus Engage which is the national Irish network to promote and support civic engagement in Irish higher education institutions overseen by presidents of Irish universities; and the Ma’an Arab University Alliance in the Arab World which are just three out of a recent global explosion of university associations centered on community engagement.
Engagement: Terms, Concepts, and Practices Engagement and the engaged university is a concept that is gaining increased attention within the academic literature (Holland and Gelmon 1998; Hollander and Saltmarsh 2000; Watson et al. 2011). However, there exist a diversity of terms, concepts, and practices and debates surrounding university engagement and consensus in terms of meaning and interpretation have
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proved difficult. Some argue for a common understanding so as to develop platforms for discussion (Wynne 2009), while others note that diverse understandings must prevail given our vast and varied contexts, histories, systems, and legacies (Salmat 2010). According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word engage in its earliest interpretations from the word gage was “to pawn or pledge something,” “to do something,” “enter into a contract,” and more recently to “involve oneself in an activity” (Oxford Dictionary 2016). Today we have ample evidence of universities pledging, doing something, and involving themselves in many activities underpinned by many terms and concepts. Cuthill’s (2011) recent literature review revealed 48 keywords relating to community–university engagement that go on to incorporate a broad range of concepts and practices. In general, from his analysis, despite terminological diversity, all denote a movement toward engagement as a renewed vision of participative democracy and a commitment to the creation and democratization of knowledge among and across society. This is indeed positive as at the heart of this work, democratic values such as mutuality, reciprocity, equal participation, and status while being cognizant of power dynamics and coproduction of knowledge all underpin the engagement terrain. Some of these terms and concepts include public engagement as defined by the UK’s National Coordinating Center for Public Engagement (NCCPE) as “the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. Engagement is by definition a two-way process, involving interaction and listening, with the goal of generating mutual benefit” (NCCPE 2016). This is becoming a widespread activity among universities with research indicating that UK universities are embracing public engagement (Duncan et al. 2014). The USA-based Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning has adopted community engagement as the preferred term and conceptualizes it as the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources
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380 in a context of partnership and reciprocity . . . to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good. (NERCHE 2016)
Engagement according to the Association of Commonwealth Universities (2001) is an orientation rather than just an initiative that requires universities to demonstrate that they are useful through “strenuous, thoughtful argumentative interaction with the non-university world in at least four spheres; steering universities’ aims, purposes and priorities; relating teaching and learning to the wider world; the back and forth dialogue between researchers and practitioners; and taking on wider responsibilities as neighbours and citizens” (ACU 2001, pi). There are common features and values within the above-described terms and concepts, but each is nuanced in some way, and it is through individual university mission and practice that see the vast range of approaches.
Engagement as Evidence and Practice These terms and concepts evidence themselves in many university mission statements throughout the world. For example, Harvard College’s central mission is to “educate citizen and citizen-leaders” for “society” (Harvard 2016); the oldest university within the Western world, the University of Bologna being cognizant of its “high social and moral responsibilities,” aims to offer an environment for the “full education of its citizens,” not just graduates (University of Bologna Strategic Plan, 2013–2015, p. 16); and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin continues to be “inspired by the conviction that the pursuit of knowledge engages and forms all human faculties and so contributes greatly to the humanization of society” (HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin 2016). In turn many of these university mission statements are enacted by way of strategic plans and then implemented by way of institution-wide manifestations that align with three-core mission of universities, namely, teaching and learning, research, and service.
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Again there is great breadth in terms of manifestations and at times a confusing array of terms and concepts associated. Some of these include service- or community-based learning as a pedagogical approach that aligns with the teaching and learning mission of the university and broadly speaking “promotes student attainment of knowledge, values, skills and attitudes associated with civic engagement through a structured academic experience within the community” aiming to “bring reciprocal benefits to both the student and the community partner, and the sharing of knowledge across community-university boundaries” (McIlrath 2012, p. 139). However, there is again a great diversity in this pedagogy with a dizzying array of terms, definitions, and understandings ranging from charitable models of engagement to more active or critical models in orientation or a blend of all (see McIlrath et al. 2014 for a global perspective). In terms of the research mission, many universities have developed communityengaged or community-based research approaches with Bivens’ et al. (2015) noting the central role of academics within this domain; “[C] ommunity-based research and communityuniversity research partnerships focus more on the role of academics and the knowledge production capacities of universities as a means to creating social and structural change” (Bivens et al. 2015, p. 8). As before, there exists a huge array of research methodologies, methods, underpinning values, models of partnership, and coordinating infrastructures ranging from full participation of community partners as coresearchers to research conducted by academics on identified community needs or gaps (see Hall et al. 2015 for a global perspective). The service mission has given rise to huge diversity in terms of practice with manifestations such as student volunteering programs, outreach activities in community or in-reach with the community attending or leading events on campus, pro bono advice to community and society, the sharing of physical resources with community, hosting of knowledge or arts festivals, or partnership on cultural events; these are just a few examples. Some conflate all of these manifestations into one domain, that being the third mission, however,
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again there is great debates if all these activities should be deemed third as this ranks them as last conceptually and thus less important in terms of university priorities with others preferring an imbuing or infusing of all three university pillars with engagement. While positional debates continue, there is broad agreement within the literature that the aims, objectives, manifestations, and practices of engagement need to move from the periphery to the core of the university that influences everything that the university does as an institution.
Conclusion What we can say is that there is a growing movement internationally of universities placing engagement at the heart of the university through mission, strategy, and practice responding to the needs and challenges presented within community and society despite utilitarian pressures. There are many and diverse interpretations and approaches toward engagement with the literature documenting the depth in variety and understandings, while many universities develop their own conceptions and practices that resonate with their context and culture. However, there is more to be done. What are missing in many regions are higher education policy, legislation, and funding to both enact and buttress engagement, as well as strong leadership to act as a beacon in terms of guiding engagement mission. This merits further investigation at national, regional, and global levels and has been discussed elsewhere. There are many challenges facing the movement, but it is Higgins eloquent call to universities “as unique institutions” and enacting their role in “enabling and empowering citizens to participate fully and effectively at all levels of society” that should cause us to reflect and consider university standing in community and society as active and positive contributors to huge questions such as “development and global poverty, of climate change and sustainability, and of conflict and displacement” (Higgins 2016). This should parallel the utilitarian stream and focus if not totally override it.
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Cross-References ▶ Universities and Regional Development in the Periphery
References Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). 2001. Engagement as a core value for the university. https:// www2.viu.ca/integratedplanning/documents/Engagem entasacorevalueoftheuniversity.pdf. Accessed 3 July 2016. Bivens, Felix, Johanna Haffenden, and Budd Hall. 2015. Knowledge, higher education and the institutionalization of community-university research partnerships. In Strengthening community university research partnerships: Global perspectives, ed. Budd Hall, Rajesh Tandon, and Crystal Tremblay, 5–30. Victoria: University of Victoria and PRIA. Cuthill, Michael. 2011. Embedding engagement in an Australian. Metropolitan Universities 22(2): 21–44. Duncan, Sophie, Paul Manners, and Caroline Wilson. 2014. Building an engaged future for UK higher education – Summary report from the engaged futures consultation. Bristol: NCCPE https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/ sites/default/files/publication/engaged_futures_summary_ report_final.pdf. Accessed 3 July 2016. Gonzalez-Perez, Maria-Alejandra, Iain Mac Labhrainn, and Lorraine McIlrath. 2007. The civic purpose and avowed mission of higher education institutionsdiversity or uniformity? International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities & Nations 7(2): 187–198. Hall, Budd, Rajesh Tandon, and Crystal Tremblay. 2015. Strengthening community university research partnerships: Global perspectives. Victoria: University of Victoria and PRIA. Harvard College. 2016. Harvard College mission, vision and history. https://college.harvard.edu/about/history. Accessed 22 June 2016. Higgins, Michael D. 2016. Speech by President Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland at the EUA Annual Conference 7th April 2016. http://www.president.ie/en/ media-library/speeches/speech-by-president-michael-dhiggins-eua-annual-conference. Accessed 11 April 2016. Holland, Barbara A, and Sherril B. Gelmon. 1998. The state of the “Engaged Campus”: What have we learned about building and sustaining university-community partnerships?. AAHE BULLETIN 51: 3–6. Hollander, Elizabeth L, and John Saltmarsh. 2000. The engaged university. Academe 86(4): 29. Hollister, Robert M., John P. Pollock, Mark Gearan, Janice Reid, Susan Stroud, and Elizabeth Babcock. 2012. The talloires network: A global coalition of engaged universities. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 16(4): 81–102.
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382 Humboldt University Berlin. 2016. Mission statement – Aims and principles. https://www.hu-berlin.de/ en/about/humboldt-universitaet-zu-berlin/missionstatement/standardseite. Accessed 22 June 2016. McIlrath, Lorraine. 2012. Community perspective on university partnership – prodding the sacred cow. In Higher education and civic engagement, 139–154. Palgrave Macmillan US. McIlrath, Lorraine, Catherine Bates, Kenneth Burns, Ann Lyons, Emma McKenna, and Pádraig Murphy. 2014. Emerging policy and practices on community-based research – perspectives from the Island of Ireland. In Higher education and community-based research, 101–116. Palgrave Macmillan US, NCCPE. 2016. What is public engagement? https://www. publicengagement.ac.uk/explore-it/what-public-eng agement. Accessed 12 July 2016. NERCHE. 2016. How is community engagement defined? http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_con tent&view=article&id=341&Itemid=92#CECdesc. Accessed 12 July 2016. Oxford Dictionary. 2016. Engage. http://www.oxforddic tionaries.com/definition/english/engage#engage. Acce ssed 15 May 2016. Slamat, Jerome. 2010. Community engagement as scholarship: A response to Hall. South African Council on Higher Education (CHE). Community engagement in South African higher education. Kagisano 6: 104–114. University of Bologna. 2016. Strategic plan (2013–2015). http://www.unibo.it/en/university/who-we-are/strategicplan. Accessed 22 June 2016. Watson, David, Robert Hollister, Susan E. Stroud, and Elizabeth Babcock. 2011. The engaged university: International perspectives on civic engagement. London: Routledge. Wynne, Rhonda. 2009. The civic role of universities: General concepts and Irish practices. Unpublished EdD thesis, University of Sheffield.
Englishization ▶ Language and Internationalization of the Higher Education Curriculum
Enrolment in Tertiary Institutions ▶ Access to Higher Education in Europe, Trends
Englishization
Enrolments and Graduates ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, South Africa
Entrepreneurial Leadership in Higher Education Michael Shattock UCL Institute of Education, London, UK
Defining Entrepreneurialism and Leadership The two words “entrepreneurial leadership” encompass concepts which scholars have traditionally found it hard to define. The origin of the word “entreprenour” is medieval French where the “entrepreneur” was, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a person who rented out a concert hall or theater for a live performance taking the financial risk that an audience would buy a sufficient number of tickets to make it profitable. However, in a comprehensive literature survey, published in 2002, Andretsch found “little concensus about what actually constitutes entrepreneurial activity” (Andretsch 2002) although an EU Green Paper in the next year argued that the common characteristics of entrepreneurialism were “a readiness to take risks and a taste for independence and self realisation” (CEC 2003). So-called entrepreneurial universities understand the idea of financial risk but must also be conscious of risk to reputation and to the academic risks of embarking on innovative academic developments or research programs which are entrepreneurial in that they run the risk of failure. Leadership in higher education has equally become a subject of intensive research but has also produced few definitive conclusions: a large-scale research project, funded by the UK Leadership Foundation, seemed to discount
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institutional leadership and concluded that “much of what could be considered academic leadership is not provided by people in management positions. Instead leadership arises through engagement with influential colleagues within one’s own academic discipline” (Bolden et al. 2012).
Entrepreneurialism in Higher Education The concept of entrepreneurialism in higher education began with Clark’s Creating the Entrepreneurial University: Organisational Pathways of Transformation (Clark 1998). Previously, the word “entrepreneurial” had a somewhat pejorative stigma in higher education but Clark wanted to use a word stronger than “innovative” to describe universities that were seeking to break out of the constraints imposed by a reliance on restrictive state funding systems. He saw entrepreneurialism as generating nonstate resources, encouraging greater collaboration with external bodies, including industry and commerce, and reinforcing academic performance by cross subsidies and by widening the research and teaching agendas from outside a state-funding envelope. These ideas were not universally welcomed by scholars concerned about the dangers of commercialism coming to dominate universities and by the fear that universities would lose their freedom to act in their traditional role as critics of society. Slaughter and Leslie’s Academic Capitalism (1997) and Marginson and Considine’s The Enterprise University (2000) offered powerful critiques of giving such apparent priority to resource accumulation. Marginson and Considine defined the “enterprise university” as having the first three of Clark’s five characteristics of the entrepreneurial university, the strengthened steering core, the expanded development periphery, and the diversified funding base but lacked the enhanced academic heartland and the integrated entrepreneurial culture. Nevertheless, the desirability of growing university funding outside state sources became increasingly attractive to university managements following reductions in public funding in the USA and the UK and by moves all over continental
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Europe to devolve budgets from ministries to the universities themselves, thus encouraging much greater managerial autonomy. In almost all systems, the most obvious way to generate new funding was to exploit the market for foreign students paying high tuition fees. In the UK and Australia, and to a lesser extent the USA, this was extended to include establishing overseas campuses, sometimes stand-alone but more often in collaboration with a local institution, appointing local commercial student recruitment agents, and entering into extensive accreditation/validation arrangements with foreign non-university partners. In continental Europe universities increasingly offered masters courses in English to compete for foreign students with Anglophone countries. The growing market for Chinese students gave considerable stimulus to the process. In a decade from the publication of Clark’s book the globalization of higher education had taken place, international competition was stimulated by league tables, and entrepreneurialism had become a mainstream university activity. Shattock’s Entrepreneurialism in Universities and the Knowledge Economy (Ed 2009) shows how the transformation has spread.
Leadership Ideas about university leadership went through a similar transformation. In the 1950s heads of universities were thought of as administrators and in the UK there was a self-serving joke, told on academic social occasions, of a vice-chancellor looking into a mirror and asking “I am evil but am I a necessary evil?” By the late 1980s UK vice-chancellors were being described as chief executives and in 2000 a Leadership Foundation was established to offer training and research into university leadership. By 2010 many UK vice-chancellors and some continental European rectors were adding the title of president in emulation of US universities where leadership had always been a quality required in the heads of universities. There can be little doubt that ideas about leadership have hardened in all universities over the years as the size, complexity, and
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financial risks have grown. For many critics this has led to a growth of managerialism which has changed the conditions of academic life. Two influential studies on leadership cast light on this difficulty. The first is Collins’ From Good to Great (2001), a study of leadership in Fortune 500 companies where leadership is argued to have taken companies into a different league achieving cumulative stock returns of more than 6% over stock market levels in a period of 15 years. The second is Birnbaum’s How Academic Leadership Works (1992) based on a 5-year study comprising 400 interviews with US university presidents and academic leaders. The two studies intersect and divide. Both are critical of the charismatic leader who achieves success while present in post but leaves an inadequate structure to sustain it when he or she departs the scene; both believe in understated leadership which emphasizes the qualities of the institution and colleagues rather than his or her own characteristics. Collins makes a point of showing that the leaders of the successful companies that his research identified were personally self-effacing but, on the other hand, were consumed by ambition and single mindedness for the company’s success. Where the studies divide, however, is Birnbaum’s recognition of universities’ loosely coupled character (Weick 1976) and his approach is accordingly much more collegial. He accepts the importance of organizational culture and quotes Schein (1985) that culture controls leadership more than leadership controls culture and that university leaders need to take account of institutional cultures in conceiving institutional strategies. Birnbaum would not have endorsed Collins’ ‘Hedgehog Concept’ of concentrating the company only on what you believe you can be ‘the best in the world’ at, a strategy which, while not unknown in universities, cannot be reconciled with the multifunctional objects of a university and which implies a single minded, top down, managerialist view of excellence. Birnbaum, on the other hand, seeks a shared rather than an imposed vision that “provides a sense-making lens through which the leader’s substantive ideas can be assessed and understood” (Birnbaum p. 26). In his world “The leader’s vision is more
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a symbol of having listened to and respected the views of others than an expression of the leader’s goals” (Birnbaum p. 26). Bryman, in a comprehensive literature review written 15 years later than Birnbaum, echoes this view and lists 11 characteristics of good leadership in higher education none of which support a top down managerialist position (Bryman 2007). He concludes by suggesting that good leadership in a university environment includes creating a context in which academics can fulfil their potential and which fosters a collegial climate.
Entrepreneurialism and Innovation Entrepreneurialism and innovation are concepts which have become seriously entangled. Innovation has become a shorthand description for research. The recognition that research, preponderantly scientific research, is a key component of the modern economy has led governments to create what they describe as innovation policies. For example, the UK research councils have been merged under a body entitled Innovation UK even though much of the research that is funded will, as before, be of a fundamental character, and innovative only in the sense that it is original and opens up new fields of scientific interest. Partly this must be attributed to the popularization of literature about “entrepreneurial science” (Etzkowitz 2002, 2008) and partly because government policies, across the world, have sought to incentivize the commercialization of science in universities through spin out companies and the exploitation of intellectual property in the hope of replicating Silicon Valley or the growth of science-based industries around Cambridge in the UK. Shattock (2009), however, argues that entrepreneurialism in research need not necessarily be simply about generating economic resources but can include developing new creative ideas and new lines of thinking, or the building up of research teams funded from a variety of sources to establish new centers of intellectual enquiry which may be innovative but which have no financial outturn at all. Such forms of academic entrepreneurialism are worlds away from that of the
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commercial entrepreneur, or indeed from the idea of the Triple Helix, developed by Etzkowitz, but are embedded in the culture of research universities.
Entrepreneurial Leadership in the Modern University Entrepreneurial leadership in the modern university has moved on from the period of Clark’s research: entrepreneurialism has become routinized. Emery and Worton, writing from the experience of growing transnational education at University College, London, explicitly balance innovation with risk. Their incentives are not monetary but international reputation, acting as a supply chain for foreign students and research collaboration opportunities. At the same time, they take care to establish the business case for their ventures, adopt a risk-based options appraisal approach to them, and measure the investment required for each venture before embarking on it. Entrepreneurialism is no longer inspirational opportunism but requires a wellordered business sense and a financial plan (Emery and Worton 2014). Universities have recognized that Clark’s “diversified funding base” is an essential prerequisite of financial and academic security. Entrepreneurialism can take many forms: it is not limited to developing a foreign student market but can involve large centrally led ventures like establishing a science park, building an arts center, or growing a conference trade but can include developing degree programs in close concert with local employers to address local market needs and other forms of local engagement. It can involve being proactive in promoting spin out companies based on university research and in the pursuit of patents and licenses. But it can also be seen in the way a university encourages its academic community to be adventurous in research and teaching, investing in unorthodox or unproven research ideas, or creating academically enterprising new courses and trusting to their intellectual content to create a market. As Finlay observes, people are entrepreneurs not organizations (Finlay 2004);
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universities need to provide space for “intrapreneurs” to flourish as in some companies (Kirby 2003), not to crush them with bureaucracy and regulation. University leadership in these circumstances requires a great deal more than the ability to assess a business plan for a new development. In the first place, leadership must be distributed and dispersed not concentrated in a tight central group: deans, heads of departments, directors of research centers and of academic programs must be fully engaged and a climate in which new initiatives can thrive must be created. In the second, universities are not monocultural and, as Finlay argues, there is a danger that an institutional organizational culture, as implied by Clark, becomes vested in a leadership group: every university can claim a variety of organizational cultures, generally based in disciplinary formations, and a key to successful entrepreneurial leadership is to recognize the differences and play to their strengths. We do not have to agree with Bolden et al.’s argument that academic leadership and academic management are best kept separate (Bolden et al. 2012) to accept that the modern academic leader must create the climate where individual innovation can flourish as well as possess the business sense and implementation skills to seize and carry through major institutional initiatives. The modern university represents a linked array of mixed economies each of which may require a different strategy to flourish in a marketized environment. The success of an entrepreneurial university is represented by the cumulation of these strategies.
References Andretsch, D.B. 2002. Entrepreneurialism: A survey of the literature. Brussels: CEC. Birnbaum, R. 1992. How academic leadership works. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Bolden, R., J. Gosling, A. O’Brien, K. Peters, M. Ryan, and A. Haslam. 2012. Academic leadership: Changing conceptions, identities and experiences in UK higher education. London: Leadership Foundation. Bryman, A. 2007. Effective leadership in higher education. London: Leadership Foundation.
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386 Clark, B.R. 1998. Creating the entrepreneurial university: Organisational pathways of transformation. New York: Pergammon. Collins, J. 2001. Good to great. London: Random House. Commission of the European Communities (CEC). 2003. Entrepreneurship in Europe. Brussels: CEC. Emery, V., and M. Worton. 2014. Challenges to the leadership of transnational education in higher education: balancing risk and innovation London: Leadership Foundation. Etzkovitz, H. 2002. MIT and the rise of entrepreneurial science. Abingdon: Routledge. Etzkovitz, H. 2008. The Triple Helix: University-industrygovernment innovation in action. Abingdon: Routledge. Finlay, I. 2004. Living in an “Entrepreneurial” university. Research in Post-Compulsory Education 9: 417–433. Kirby, D.A. 2003. Entrepreneurship. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Marginson, S., and M. Considine. 2000. The enterprise university: Governance and reinvention in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schein, E.H. 1985. Organisation and leadership. New Jersy: Wiley. Shattock, M.L., ed. 2009. Entrepreneurialism in universities and the knowledge economy. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press. Slaughter, S., and L.L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Weick, K. 1976. Educational organisations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 21: 1–19.
Entrepreneurial Universities ▶ Linking Innovation, Education, and Research
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“capitalization of knowledge” is at the heart of the entrepreneurial academic mission, linking universities to users of knowledge more tightly and establishing the university as an economic actor in its own right. As research produces useful benefits as a byproduct of investigation, academic entrepreneurship is endogenously generated from the logic of scientific discovery (Ahmad et al. 2013). As responsibility for local and regional development takes hold globally as an academic task, knowledge is interrogated for its potential to create jobs in arts festivals as well as technology start-ups (Etzkowitz 2015). An “academic revolution” made research an academic mission in the nineteenth century (Jencks and Riesman 1968); a “second academic revolution” is making economic and social development an academic mission, broadening the university’s research and teaching focus. As each new mission becomes part of the university, it provides a new source of support for the previous mission and influences how it is carried out (Table 1) (Brander 2006 and Etzkowitz 2002). The key elements of an emergent entrepreneurial university include (1) the organization of group research, (2) the creation of a research base with commercial potential, (3) the development of organizational mechanisms to move research out of the university as protected intellectual property, (4) the capacity to organize firms within the university, and (5) the integration of academic and business elements into new formats such as university-industry research centers. The first two elements are within the framework of the research university; the third is part of the transition from the research to entrepreneurial academic
Entrepreneurial University Henry Etzkowitz Science Technology and Society Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
An academic institution that combines teaching, research, and entrepreneurship to various degrees is a common emergent phenomenon, with profound implications for the academic role and the university’s role in society (Etzkowitz 1983). The
Entrepreneurial University, Table 1 Expansion of university missions Teaching Preservation and dissemination of knowledge New missions generate conflict of interest controversies!
Research First academic revolution Two missions: teaching and research
Entrepreneurial Second academic revolution Third mission: economic and social development; old missions continued
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models; fourth and fifth elements are special features of the entrepreneurial university.
Stages and Phases of Academic Entrepreneurship There are three stages and phases to the development of the university as an entrepreneur, with each modality building upon the other, in a usual but by no means necessary order. In an initial phase (University Entrepreneur One), the academic institution takes a strategic view of its direction and gains some ability to set its own priorities, either by raising its own resources through donations, tuition fees, and grant income or through negotiations with resource providers. This is the sense in which entrepreneurial university is used by Burton Clark in his analysis of European universities extracting themselves from virtually total ministry control down to the number of students that may be recruited in each discipline (Clark 1998). The ability to set a strategic direction is only the first step toward an entrepreneurial university, the necessary but not the sufficient condition. The second step is a commitment to seeing that the knowledge developed within the university is put to use, especially in its local region. This can take a variety of forms, including developing internal capabilities for technology transfer and commercialization of research to playing a collaborative role in establishing a strategy for knowledge-based regional economic development and participation in initiatives to implement that strategy. In a third phase (University Entrepreneur Three), the academic institution takes a proactive role in improving the efficacy of its regional innovation environment, often in collaboration with industry and government actors. Although these phases were identified as taking place sequentially in the development of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), nonlinear and even reverse sequences may be identified, for example, in the experience of the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden which took off from phase three. Thus, the transition to the entrepreneurial
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university can also take off from a teaching as well as a research-oriented school. MIT and Stanford took up entrepreneurship early on as part of their institutional DNA, while other schools have embraced it only recently in response to peer pressure and policy measures. MIT’s 1862 founding date may be taken as the starting point of the entrepreneurial academic model, much as the 1805 date of the founding of the University of Berlin represents the take-off of the research university model. The formation of firms out of research activities at MIT and Harvard took place as early as the late nineteenth century in the fields of industrial consulting and scientific instrumentation (Shimshoni 1970). These sporadic instances of faculty entrepreneurship and university commercialization of knowledge have been synthesized into an academic model that is becoming as potent in its influence in the early twenty-first century as the late nineteenth-century Humboldtian synthesis of research and education. Collecting a multiplicity of private donors and public supporters, and generating income from the knowledge the university produces, is an emergent strategy for academic independence that originated in the USA and spread globally. This practical approach is coupled with an ideology, carried over from the Enlightenment thesis, that unfettered investigation guided by researchers’ imagination will produce the most useful practical and public benefits. Such a university is relatively independent of its stakeholders but always subject to a degree of influence from them that is moderated by their diversity and rules of engagement specifying appropriate behavior. The basis for the success of entrepreneurial science in the twentieth century in contrast to its failure to take off in an earlier era can be traced to two main factors, internal and external. First there was the development of the university as a complex organization from a simple community of students and teachers of the early nineteenth century, where professors like Joseph Henry with heavy teaching duties worked out the basic principles of telegraphy but saw no route to invention, let alone innovation. Occasionally, there were cases like Samuel Morse’s success with telephony, assisted with a salary advance and a
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leave of absence, but these were idiosyncratic instances. Entrepreneurial academic role models like Fred Terman at Stanford and Vannevar Bush at MIT, his PhD supervisor, created nuclei of technology commercialization in electrical engineering at these universities in the prewar (Gillmor 2004). In the postwar era, supported by increasing government funds, academic scientists created research groups that sped up the research process, systematically producing a proliferation of findings, including some with commercial potential. Academic growth was accompanied by the development of sources of support for commercialization, including public and private venture capital, state government programs to support research commercialization, and firms seeking advanced technology. An entrepreneurial academic dynamic was set in motion around MIT and Stanford that led other countries, regions, and universities to attempt to replicate the process. University involvement in regional economic development is long standing as an academic mission of a special class of universities. What is new is that this mission has been generalized across the tertiary academic sector (Laperche 2002).
Universities assume an entrepreneurial role and identity due to perception of opportunity, civic duty, and external pressures. Impetuses also include loss of industry in New England, Singapore, and Finland and perception of opportunity in the USA and Europe. Financial stringency in China, Brazil, and the UK in the 1980s and its converse about the provision of munificent resources in Germany to support academic research have both been impetuses to academic entrepreneurship. The Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro took an entrepreneurial turn in the face of loss of research funding from Brazil’s former military regime in the 1980s (Etzkowitz et al. 2005). Financial stringency, rather than inducing a “steady state” in the research system (Ziman 1993), ironically increases academic entrepreneurial activity and even expands the academic system as new campuses, like the University of California, Merced, are founded, at the behest of local interests, to specifically pursue this objective. Stringency is thus an overlay on diversification of local economies as an impetus to establish new campuses, like the University of California, San Diego, during the economic upturn of the 1950s.
The Impetus to an Entrepreneurial University
Varieties of Academic Entrepreneurialism
Academic entrepreneurship arises from the university’s nature as a producer of novelty, a phenomenon that is encouraged by such basic features as its high rate of flow through of human capital in the form of students who are a source of potential inventors. Entrepreneurial potential is an academic attribute even before it is manifest, due to the potential for combustion of ideas and people, lacking only a “carburetor” of an entrepreneurial role model or training program to create a controlled ignition. Whereas a full-time faculty devoting their careers to disciplinary pursuits was the epitome of the ivory tower research university, an entrepreneurial university faculty has a mix of cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and internal and external commitments (Kruytbosch and Messinger 1968).
The entrepreneurial university is a global phenomena arising in widely differing societies, emerging in the USA and Sweden as a democratic expression of response to economic decline and in China as an authoritarian response to the challenge of economic growth (Jones-Evans and Klofsten 1977; Zhou and Peng 2008). It is also a new development model. International aid agencies, like Sweden’s SAREC, that formerly focused on spreading basic education now include university development in their portfolio. Even as ratings schemes increase pressures to conform to traditional academic models, the impetus to assume new roles and relationships places academia in a “creative tension” with itself and with its stakeholders (Douglass 2014). Project Genesis at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de
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Janeiro and the Masters Program in Entrepreneurship at Chalmers University in Sweden have demonstrated that individuals of various cultural and social backgrounds, as well as groups, can successfully be trained as entrepreneurs (Etzkowitz et al. 2005). Entrepreneurial academic transition strategies include transformation of mission of existing universities, merging specialized schools to create a new entity and starting a new university from scratch. When traditional universities, like the University of Helsinki, are slow to adapt, their transition may be speeded by introducing new competitors, like Aalto created through merger of a group of previously unrelated specialized schools and given an entrepreneurial overlay and mission. Academic entrepreneurship has become part of regional economic and social development strategy. Motivated by the promise of clusters of spinoff firms, enhancing regional and national competitiveness, policy makers seek to draw out unrealized potential from academia. Even the University of Chicago, a school so committed to theoretical elucidation that it did not include engineering in its academic remits until the recent establishment of a bioengineering center, has created an entrepreneurial hub to facilitate faculty and student start-ups, coincidentally or not with the Emmanuel Rahm, Chicago’s mayor having made economic development from the city’s academic resources a focus of his administration. Traditional academic institutions are under increasing pressure to adapt to the exigencies of knowledge-based innovation. A traditional ivory tower institution “Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)” in Seoul, founded in 1398, agreed to a temporary takeover by the Samsung Corporation “because they realized they had lost internal capacity to raise the competitiveness of the school to the top. . . and compete on traditional as well as entrepreneurial criteria” (Cho 2013). Whereas academic institutions in colonial and newly independent countries were tasked with training a new administrative elite, they now have a key role in economic and social as well as political development. For example, the University of Singapore identifies itself as an
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entrepreneurial university, with entrepreneurship training programs and formation of new enterprises from its research and education activities a top priority (Wong et al. 2007). The Singaporean entrepreneurial academic transition was fundamentally driven by the loss of its high-tech manufacturing industries, which the city-state had relied upon as an economic driver, to lower waged venues (McKendrick et al. 2000). Not too long ago, the USA was an anomaly in having a legal framework that gave universities ownership of the intellectual property generated by government funded research. In succeeding years, most European and an increasing number of Asian and Latin American countries, most recently India, have switched to such a regime to encourage universities to be more entrepreneurial. Once peculiar to a few schools, the entrepreneurial academic paradigm has spread to virtually everywhere where universities are found or may be founded for this purpose (Wong 2007; Caspar 2007). Indeed the OECD (2003) has created a scoring mechanism, allowing schools to evaluate how far they have proceeded in the transition to an entrepreneurial university model.
Beyond the Ivory Tower Debate has emerged within and without academia over the university’s entrepreneurial role. Some object to increasing the closeness between the institutional spheres on the grounds that involvement with firms will unduly shape the direction of academic research. Others are concerned that the research direction of academic science will be distorted when scientists become involved in the commercialization of their own research. Still others fear that universities will come under the control of firms that establish joint research projects on campus. It is argued that time-consuming involvement in external projects will divert faculty members from their traditional academic tasks (conflict of commitment) and that having a pecuniary interest in the commercialization of their research will compromise academic integrity (conflict of interest). This is why some believe that strong boundaries must be maintained between
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academia and industry, as the latter’s commercial values will inevitably subsume the former’s intellectual independence (Readings 1996; Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Bok 2003; Mowery et al. 2004; Shapin 2008). Alternatively, boundaries may be structured as inclusionary mechanisms, facilitating and regulating interaction with the external world rather than as strictly defensive mechanisms, keeping the world at bay (Etzkowitz and Champenois In Press). A charitable and eleemosynary institution, dependent upon government, industry, and private donors, is transforming itself into an entrepreneurial entity that graduates organizations as well as individuals, renewing the productive base of society even as it largely retains and even increases its previous sources of support. While still small in scale, if not in scope, a new academic model is emerging from its chrysalis.
Cross-References ▶ Universities and Regional Development in the Periphery
References Ahmad, N., et al. 2013. Revealing an open secret: Internal challenges in creating an entrepreneurial university from the lens of the academics. International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences 1(1): 2357–2787. Bok, D. 2003. Universities in the marketplace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Brander, G. 2006. Humboldt revisited: The institutional drama of academic identity. Bergen: University of Bergen. Caspar, S. 2007. Creating Silicon Valley in Europe: Public policies towards new technology industries. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cho, Myung-Hwan. 2013. Corporate helix model: Triple Helix network for developing countries – Case study of Samsung Corporation. http://www.biginnovationcen tre.com/Events/Triple-Helix-Conference/Papers/Inter active-Universities Clark, B. 1998. Creating entrepreneurial universities. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Douglass, J. 2014. The new flagship university: Changing the paradigm from global ranking to national relevancy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Entrepreneurial University Etzkowitz, H. 1983. Entrepreneurial scientists and entrepreneurial universities in American academic science. Minerva 21(2–3): 198–233. Etzkowitz, H. 2002. MIT and the rise of entrepreneurial science. London: Routledge. Etzkowitz, H. 2015. Making a humanities town: Knowledge-infused clusters, civic entrepreneurship and civil society in local innovation systems. Triple Helix Journal. Etzkowitz, H., and C. Champenois. In Press. From boundary line to boundary space: The creation of hybrid organizations as a Triple Helix micro-foundation. Technovation, In Press. Etzkowitz, H., J.M.C. de Mello, and M. Almeida. 2005. Towards meta-innovation in Brazil: The evolution of the incubator and the emergence of a triple helix. Research Policy 34(4): 411–424. Gillmor, C. Stewart. 2004. Fred Terman at Stanford: Building a discipline, a university, and Silicon Valley. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Jencks, C., and D. Riesman. 1968. The academic revolution. New York: Doubleday. Jones-Evans, D., and M. Klofsten. 1977. Technology innovation and enterprise: The European experience. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kruytbosch, Carlos, and Sheldon Messinger. 1968. Unequal peers: The situation of researchers at Berkeley. The American Behavioral Scientist 11: 33. Laperche, B. 2002. The four key factors for commercialising research: The case of a Young University in a region in crisis. Higher Education Management and Policy 14(3): 149–175. McKendrick, D., R. Doner, and S. Haggard. 2000. From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and competitive advantage in the hard disk drive industry. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Mowery, David, Richard Nelson, Bhaven Sampat, and Arvids Ziedonis. 2004. Ivory tower and industrial innovation: University industry technology transfer before and after Bayh-Dole. Stanford: Stanford University Press. OECD. 2003. Turning science into business: Patenting and licensing at public research organisations. Paris: OECD. Readings, B. 1996. The university in ruins. Cambridge: Harvard University. Shapin, S. 2008. The scientific life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shimshoni, D. 1970. The mobile scientist in the American instrument industry. Minerva 8: 59–89. Slaughter, S., and L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wong, Poh Kam (ed.). 2007. Academic entrepreneurship in Asia. Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar. Wong, P.K., Y.P. Ho, and A. Singh. 2007. Towards an entrepreneurial university model to support knowledge-based economic development: The case of the National University of Singapore. World Development 35(6): 941–958.
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Zhou, C., and X. Peng. 2008. The entrepreneurial university in China: Nonlinear paths. Science and Public Policy 35(9): 637. Ziman, John. 1993. Prometheus bound: Science in a dynamic steady state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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From a critical perspective, equity in higher education is the recognition that institutional racism (and sexism) is an entrenched characteristic of colleges and universities that has to be dismantled with strategies that are color conscious (Appiah and Gutmann 1998), informed by critical race theory (Bonilla-Silva 2014; Crenshaw 1995; Delgado and Stefanic 2001), and systemic. From an accountability perspective, equity in higher education is the attainment of proportional representation of historically marginalized groups in terms of access, retention, degree completion, and participation in enriching programs, experiences, and activities that build students’ academic and cultural capital.
Equality Defining Equity ▶ Merit and Equality in Higher Education Access
Equity ▶ Merit and Equality in Higher Education Access ▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education
Equity in Higher Education Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux, Jason Robinson and Estela Mara Bensimon Center for Urban Education, Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Synonyms Fairness; Justice; Parity
Definition The term equity in higher education has a critical dimension and an accountability dimension.
Equity refers to the concept of moral fairness. A common objective of social and economic policy, the term “equity” is often used to describe the fair distribution of resources, opportunity, or liability among individuals and groups (DesJardins 2002; Stone 2012). Determining whether a distribution is equitable is an inherently value-laden assessment because “fairness” is relative (Stone 2012). As a result, conversations about equity in higher education can be fraught with controversy, despite near universal agreement that postsecondary educational systems should function in fair and just ways in the pursuit of democratic ideals (Labaree 1997). A classic example of the contested nature of equity from the field of higher education pertains to the distribution of monetary aid to students to offset college costs. Some may view merit-based aid – financial support awarded on the basis of a student’s individual accomplishments and achievement – as inherently fair. However, others might see merit-based aid policies as unfair due to the imperfect and arguably racially and culturally biased measures of individual academic achievement often relied upon to make such decisions, such as standardized test scores (Zwick 2007). Critics of merit-based aid policies also raise legitimate questions about the extent to which these measures of achievement actually measure an
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individual’s knowledge and cognitive abilities versus the degree to which that individual benefitted from the unequal distribution of social, economic, and educational opportunity by race, class, etc. These critics argue that because merit-based distributions of financial aid reward the already advantaged, they are unfair and, thus, inequitable. In practice, state governments, higher education institutions, and private organizations that award financial aid most often use a mixture of meritbased and need-based approaches to navigate the contested nature of equity in this circumstance. Nevertheless, the above example about financial aid illustrates the complex questions about equity that permeate higher education. Equity and equality. Though sometimes used interchangeably, equity and equality are distinct concepts (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; DesJardins 2002; Dowd and Bensimon 2015; Stone 2012). Equality is synonymous with “sameness” and uniform treatment; whereas, equity is concerned with “fairness” and just treatment. From a rational perspective, equal treatment is, by definition, fair. However, approaching distributive problems from a critical perspective recognizes that equal treatment is often unfair and can actually exacerbate existing inequalities introduced by oppression, discrimination, exclusion, and opportunity denial. For example, a study of economics female and male faculty who were granted family leave and had their tenure clock extended showed that the ostensibly gender-equal policy in fact put men at a greater advantage. Men used the extra year to amass even more publications disadvantaging women even more because the greater productivity of the men raised the tenure bar for women (Wolfers 2016).
Horizontal, Vertical, and Outcome Equity There are three primary forms of equity that are pursued via higher education policy: horizontal equity, vertical equity, and outcome equity. Horizontal equity is the principle of “equal treatment of equals,” while vertical equity is the idea of “unequal treatment of unequals” (DesJardins 2002; Dowd and Bensimon 2015; Stone 2012).
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Drawn from economic theory, horizontal and vertical equity are related to the Rawlsian concept of justice as fairness: “All social primary goods – liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and the bases of self-respect – are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any or all of these goods is to the advantage of the least favored” (Rawls 1971, p. 303). In the context of higher education, horizontal equity (i.e., equal educational resources to those with equal need) is generally accepted as a valid principle to guide policymaking (DesJardins 2002; Dowd and Bensimon 2015). However, policies that pursue vertical equity (i.e., greater educational resources to those with greater needs) are more controversial, particularly when those policies aim to address the greater needs introduced by structural racism and past discriminatory practices (Dowd and Bensimon 2015). The ongoing challenges to race-conscious college admissions policies are a prime example of this. More recently, discussions around equity in higher education have broadened to include the concept of outcome equity, which focuses on educational outputs rather than just inputs (Dowd 2007, 2003; Dowd and Bensimon 2015). According to this principle, higher education is said to be equitable if members of different racial, gender, and socioeconomic groups have about equal chances of reaching relevant educational outcomes (Levin 1994). Achieving outcome equity requires the allocation of unequal educational resources in whatever manner is needed to produce equal access and outcomes (outputs) (Dowd 2007, 2003). Equity in higher education is characterized by (1) equity in access across stratified tiers of higher education, (2) equal successes of all students across the many types of programs and credentials within those tiers, and (3) equity in access to the myriad forms of deep and engaged learning that prepare students for today’s workforce and society (Witham et al. 2015, p. 8). Thus, equity in higher education includes aspects of horizontal, vertical, and outcome equity. Equity versus diversity. The focus on equal outcomes distinguishes equity from the concept of diversity in higher education (Bensimon 2005). The diversity agenda has focused primarily on
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access and inclusion. Diversity efforts emphasize increasing the numerical representation of historically underrepresented students within higher education, encouraging students to interact across racial, ethnic, cultural, and other forms of difference and promoting intercultural understanding (Chang 2005; Gurin et al. 2002). Campuses seeking to increase diversity might ask themselves, “in what ways can we attract more students of color to our campus?” or “in what ways can we increase students’ understanding of cultural, racial, and ethnic differences?” (Bensimon 2005, p. 6). While diversity is a valuable objective toward which to strive, focusing on diversity alone will not redress the persistent inequities in higher education outcomes experienced by minoritized populations. There are many racially diverse institutions at which African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans experience lower retention and completion rates than their White and Asian peers (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Dowd and Bensimon 2015). In these cases, equity ought to be the central focus of institutional improvement efforts. Institutions pursuing equity are guided by questions such as, “in what ways can we improve the educational outcomes of historically underrepresented students?” or “in what ways can we – as faculty members, dean, and counselors – be more accountable for the outcomes of historically underrepresented students?” (Bensimon 2005, p. 6). Critical reflection on equity-focused questions, like the preceding, can lead to new knowledge about the ways in which institutional structures, policies, and practices can be “remediated” to create equity in higher education (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Dowd and Bensimon 2015).
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being deliberately conscious in action and policy of the sociohistorical contexts of educational attainment, and reframing inequities in terms of the institutional practices that perpetuate patterns of stratification rather than assuming that those patterns are the result of deficits in the abilities or aspirations of racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic groups (Bensimon 2007; Bensimon and Harris 2012; Witham et al. 2015). Researchers at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California came up with the term as a counter-schema to deficitminded explanations that practitioners resort to when they see evidence of unequal educational outcomes. Practitioners tend to rationalize lower rates of graduation, credit accumulation, representation in STEM fields, and other outcomes by blaming it on students’ cultural, motivational, educational, and aspirational deficits. In contrast, equity-minded individuals recognize that stratified patterns of college access and outcomes are rooted in the previous and ongoing exclusionary practices and racism in higher education. Equityminded individuals are also conscious of the ways in which higher education practices, policies, expectations, and norms tend to place the responsibility for redressing inequities on members of marginalized groups instead of on the institutions and practitioners that have a professional responsibility to remedy equity gaps (Bensimon and Malcom 2012). Rather than viewing inequalities as predictable and natural, equity-minded individuals allow for the possibility that they might be created or exacerbated by taken-for-granted practices and policies. Equity-mindedness is the ability to link unequal educational outcomes to structures and practices that others see as neutral and act to transform them (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Dowd and Bensimon 2015).
Equity-Mindedness The principle of relocating the cause of disparities in educational outcomes to institutional structures and policies rather than imagined deficits of students is central to the principle of “equitymindedness” (Bensimon et al. 2007; Bensimon and Harris 2012). Equity-mindedness is more than simply being aware of inequities or being “equity aware.” Equity-mindedness requires
Creating Equity Through Equity-Minded Practice and Policy Creating equity in higher education requires that faculty, staff, institutional leaders, and policymakers engage in their practice in equity-minded ways (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Dowd and Bensimon 2015). Equity-minded
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practice and policymaking involve the examination of data disaggregated by race/ethnicity and calls for practitioner-led inquiry (Bensimon and Malcom 2012). Examining disaggregated student outcome data enables practitioners, institutional leaders, and policymakers to develop awareness of inequities in educational outcomes and allows them to come to view race-based educational inequities as a problem of practice rather than a problem of student deficiencies (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Felix et al. 2015). Inquiry involves critical reflection on educational practice and policy, which permits institutional actors and policymakers to see the contradictions between their espoused values of fairness, justice, and care and the manner in which their current practices reproduce and further inequalities experienced by students from marginalized groups (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Dowd and Bensimon 2015). The characteristics of equity-minded practitioners. Faculty and staff who aim to engage in equity-minded practice demonstrate specific behaviors and characteristics. In addition to being willing to examine student outcome data disaggregated by race and ethnicity, equityminded faculty and staff attribute patterns of racialized unequal educational outcomes to the history of exclusion, discrimination, and educational apartheid experienced by minoritized groups – not to individual students. Related to this, equity-minded faculty and staff have respect for the aspirations and struggles of students who are not well served by the current educational system. They also possess an awareness that beliefs, expectations, and practices assumed to be neutral can produce outcomes that disadvantage marginalized populations. As a result, equityminded practitioners also believe in the fairness of allocating additional college resources to students who have greater needs due to systemic shortcomings of our educational system in providing for them. Faculty and staff who are equity-minded also recognize that eliminating institutional racism within higher education requires intentional critical deconstruction of structures, policies, practices, norms, and values assumed to be race neutral (Bensimon and Malcom 2012; Bensimon 2007; Witham et al. 2015).
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Equity-minded higher education reform. Equity-minded practice, as implemented by individual higher education practitioners, can narrow racialized equity gaps. However, eradicating systemic inequities will also require that higher education reform and change efforts make equity a central priority. Equity-minded higher education reform efforts strive to provide clarity and specificity in language, equity goals, and measures of effectiveness. Such equity-enhancing change efforts view higher education institutions, policies, and practices as the “sites” of change and improvement rather than exclusively focusing on students. In addition, equity-minded higher education reform is designed to accommodate differences in the context of students’ learning – not to treat all students the same. Enacting equity requires a continual process of organizational learning through the disaggregation of data by race/ethnicity and by questioning the assumptions about the relevance and effectiveness of current practices. Finally, equity-minded higher education reform and change efforts do not relegate equity to the margins; instead, equity is enacted as a pervasive institution- and system-wide principle (Witham et al. 2015). Crafting equity-minded higher education policy. Creating equity in higher education also necessitates that policymakers are intentional about reviewing existing policies to determine the extent to which they are equity enhancing and that they develop new policies with equity in mind. Equity-minded policies position the participation and success of students from racial, ethnic, and indigenous communities historically underserved by higher education as a state and institutional responsibility. In addition to using specific language to clearly identify who benefits from the policy and who is excluded, equity-minded policies do not rest upon biased or stereotypical assumptions about students within them. Equityminded policies that mandate data collection and reporting require that those data be disaggregated by race throughout the planning, implementation, and evaluation stages. Policymakers who aim to craft equity-minded policy should ask themselves whether the policy could cause disproportionate impact to specific groups based on other factors
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related to educational disadvantage, such as attendance patterns, residential versus nonresidential, participation in advanced college-prep curricula, etc. Finally, equity-minded policies make a compelling evidence-based case for equity on the basis of economic well-being, demographic shifts, and/or moral imperative in order to speak to a broad base of stakeholders across sectors (Center for Urban Education 2016).
Whither Equity in Higher Education? Despite decades of well-intentioned efforts to increase postsecondary educational access for historically marginalized and underrepresented populations, equity in higher education remains an elusive goal. Paradoxically, equity gaps in terms of postsecondary degree attainment have remained and, in some cases, widened even as minoritized student enrollment within US higher education has grown markedly (Witham et al. 2015). This paradox of increasing access and decreasing equity is related to several factors, including the movement away from compensatory higher education policies, the waning emphasis on race as a primary dimension along which inequity is perpetuated, and the failure of higher education practitioners and policymakers to engage in educational practice, reform, and policymaking in equity-minded ways (Dowd and Bensimon 2015). In the USA, equity as a concept and ideal was the focus of the Civil Rights Movement, and it was advanced through a variety of policies and programs aimed at leveling the playing field for racial and ethnic groups that had been excluded from higher education through Jim Crow policies and admissions policies that, under the guise of merit, perpetuated a separate and unequal educational system (Hacker 2003). In the 1960s, the rationale for racial equity was moral, and it resulted in compensatory policies based on a liberal view of educational reparations to Blacks (and added later Hispanics, Native Americans, and women). The major policies produced in the Civil Rights reform were affirmative action and need-based federal and state financial
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aid programs. Well into the late 1970s, colleges and universities pursued equity, particularly racial equity, by focusing on race-based access and programs that directed resources to targeted racial and ethnic groups as well as women. The equity movement in higher education was severely weakened by a series of legal rulings that determined the consideration of race in admissions was only justifiable as a rationale for diversity (Ledesma 2015). With the continuing legal challenges to policies of reparation for past injustices as well as the belief among Whites that the problem of race is behind us, higher education has replaced equity with diversity as the goal. Instead of elevating the remediation of racial injustices as the primary objective, higher education’s pursuit of diversity qua diversity turned race into one of many “cultural identities” that contributed to diversity (Berrey 2011). Straight talk on race is uncomfortable for higher education leaders, faculty, as well as policymakers. Great efforts are made to talk about it without actually naming race specifically (Pollock 2005). More recently the confluence of events and issues where race figures prominently are helping to bring back racial equity into focus. The educational attainment goals to increase the percentage of college-educated adults cannot be achieved without an increasing number of students of color going to and finishing college. In states in the West and East with growing non-White populations, racial equity in higher education has become an economic and human capital imperative. Presently, the rationale for racial equity is what critical race theorists posit as interest convergence (Crenshaw 1995; Delgado and Stefanic 2001). More college-educated people of color will protect the standard of living of Whites, and it will ensure the financial viability of associated social services such as social security, retirement funds, healthcare, and so on (Myers 2008). An agenda for racial equity that is driven by the exigencies of the economy and workforce does not meet the critical or accountability criteria in the equity definition provided in this entry. An economic and labor justification for racial equity focuses on efficiency and productivity. The
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concern is not about dismantling institutionalized racism (critical definition) but about producing credentials that prepare the growing non-White population for the jobs of the future. Moreover, the concern is not about attaining proportionality (accountability) in access, completion, and enrichment activities. The focus is on non-White students earning some kind of degree – a certificate, an associate’s, or baccalaureate – and not whether they are overrepresented in certificates that lead to low-paying jobs, or whether they are overrepresented in segregated community colleges, or whether they are underrepresented among transfers to selective universities, or whether they are underrepresented among STEM graduates. Though equity is increasingly identified as a shared goal of higher education practitioners, leaders, institutions, and policymakers, it continues to be a highly contested concept. Equity in higher education is contextually determined, its meaning and nuances shaded by the local social, historical, cultural, and political contexts. Though the present discussion of equity in higher education emphasizes racial equity due to the unique sociohistorical context of the USA (the context of the authors), in other regions or nations, other dimensions of identity (e.g., linguistic, cultural, religious, etc.) may act as the basis for which postsecondary educational opportunity is granted or denied. Nevertheless, the conceptual foundations of equity in higher education presented here are informative and applicable across the globe.
Cross-References ▶ Diversity and Higher Education ▶ Inequality in Higher Education ▶ Stratification in Higher Education ▶ Widening Access to Higher Education
References Appiah, K. Anthony, and Amy Gutmann. 1998. Color conscious: The political morality of race. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Equity in Higher Education Bensimon, Estela Mara. 2005. Equality as a fact, equality as a result: A matter of institutional accountability. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Bensimon, Estela Mara. 2007. The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship of student success. Review of Higher Education 30(4): 441–469. Bensimon, Estela Mara, and Frank Harris III. 2012. The mediational means of enacting equity-mindedness among community college practitioners. In Confronting equity issues on campus: Implementing the equity scorecard in theory and practice, ed. Estela Mara Bensimon and Lindsey Malcom, 216–246. Sterling: Stylus. Bensimon, Estela Mara, and Lindsey Malcom. 2012. Confronting equity issues on campus: Implementing the equity scorecard in theory and practice. Sterling: Stylus. Bensimon, Estela Mara, Robert Rueda, Alicia C. Dowd, and Frank Harris III. 2007. Accountability, equity, and practitioner learning and change. Metropolitan 18(3): 28–45. Berrey, Ellen C. 2011. Why diversity became orthodox in higher education, and how it changed the meaning of race on campus. Critical Sociology 37(5): 573–596. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2014. Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Center for Urban Education. 2016. Policy Review Protocol for Equity-Minded Policy Practices. Center for Urban Education: University of Southern California. http:// cue.usc.edu. Chang, Mitchell J. 2005. Reconsidering the diversity rationale. Liberal Education 91: 6–13. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1995. Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: New Press. Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefanic. 2001. Critical race theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press. DesJardins, Stephen L. 2002. Understanding and using efficiency and equity criteria in the study of higher education policy. In In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, vol. XVII, 173–219. Doredecht: Springer. Dowd, Alicia C. 2003. From access to outcome equity: Revitalizing the democratic mission of the community college. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 586(1): 92–119. Dowd, Alicia C. 2007. The community college as gateway and gatekeeper: Moving beyond the access ‘saga’ to outcome equity. Harvard Educational Review 77(4): 407–419. Dowd, Alicia C., and Estela Mara Bensimon. 2015. Engaging the race question: Accountability and equity in U.S. Higher Education. New York: Teachers College Press.
European Union (EU) Felix, Eric R., Estela Mara Bensimon, Debbie Hanson, James Gray, and Libby Klingsmith. 2015. Developing agency for equity-minded change. New Directions for Community Colleges 172: 25–42. Gurin, Patricia, Eric Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin. 2002. Diversity and higher education: Theory and impact on educational outcomes. Harvard Educational Review 72: 330–367. Hacker, Andrew. 2003. Two nations: Black & white, separate, hostile, and unequal. New York: Scribner. Labaree, David F. 1997. Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal 34: 39–81. Ledesma, María C. 2015. Walking the diversity rationale talk: A call to institutions. In Affirmative action and racial equity: Considering the Fisher case to forge the path ahead, ed. Uma M. Jayakumar, Liliana M. Garces, and Frank Fernandez. New York: Routledge. Levin, Henry M. 1994. The necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving educational equity. In Outcome equity in education, ed. Robert Berne and Lawrence O. Picus, 167–190. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Myers, Dowell. 2008. Immigrants and boomers: Forging a new social contract for the future of America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Pollock, Mica. 2005. Colormute: Race talk dilemmas in an American school. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rawls, John. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Stone, Deborah. 2012. Policy paradox: The art of political decision making, 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Witham, Keith, Lindsey E. Malcom-Piqueux, Alicia C. Dowd, and Estela Mara Bensimon. 2015. America’s unmet promise: The imperative for equity in higher education. Washington: Association of American Colleges & Universities. Wolfers, Justin. A family-friendly policy that is friendliest to male professors. New York Times, June 24, 2016. Zwick, Rebecca. 2007. College admissions in the twentyfirst-century America: The role of grades, tests, and games of chance. Harvard Educational Review 77(4): 419–429.
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Europe ▶ Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece)
European Commission ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Western Europe
European Community (EC) ▶ Good Governance and Higher Education ▶ Role of the European Union in the Field of Higher Education Research
European Economic Community ▶ Role of the European Union in the Field of Higher Education Research
European Higher Education Society ▶ EAIR: The European Higher Education Society
European Research Area Ethical ▶ Higher Education for Sustainability
▶ Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece)
Ethical Challenges
European Union (EU)
▶ Corruption in Higher Education
▶ Good Governance and Higher Education
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Evaluation ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Peer Review, Higher Education
Evaluative State, Higher Education, The António M. Magalhães1,2 and Amélia Veiga1,2,3 1 Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal 2 Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), Porto, Portugal 3 Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE), Porto, Portugal
Synonyms Governing by instruments; Political coordination
Definition Political coordination of higher education based on appraising procedures and instruments. The concept of Evaluative State was coined by Guy R. Neave (1988) in the journal article “On the cultivation of quality, efficiency and enterprise: an overview of recent trends in higher education in Western Europe, 1986–1988” and refers to the creation of evaluation mechanisms for teaching and research as a form of state regulation of higher education systems and institutions. In the 1980s, in Western Europe, in the context of the changing relationships between governments and higher education systems and their institutions, the Evaluative State emerged on the basis of the assumption that (i) the deregulation via markets is to be promoted by the state itself and (ii) the self-regulation of institutions enhances performance and accountability. The basic assumption
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is that the more autonomous institutions are, the better they respond to changes in their organizational environment (Amaral and Magalhães 2001; Magalhães et al. 2013b), and the better they perform (Aghion et al. 2009; Ritzen 2011). In this context, while states promoted novel regulatory instruments, namely, those related to evaluation, the rise of the “Evaluative State” emerged in the political discourse on higher education governance. Governments were to regulate the system while claiming that they were leaving regulation to market-like mechanisms and to institutions’ self-regulation. The trend toward the Evaluative State is contingent to national contexts, and its chronology, conditions, and circumstances vary across the world. It has been identified as a central feature of higher education governance, namely, in Britain, Norway, Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, and beyond Europe in Australia (Harman 1998) and in the USA (Dill 1998). In spite of this variance, the establishment of semiautonomous agencies, instrumentalities, and procedures is relatively clear, as pointed out by Neave (2012) in revisiting the concept of the Evaluative State in the book The Evaluative State, Institutional Autonomy and Re-engineering Higher Education in Western Europe: The Prince and His Pleasure. The Evaluative State has been promoting neoliberalism and New Public Management (NPM) in higher education. The developments of these approaches and the increased technicality of the governance and management instruments have enhanced the managerial structures and processes within European HEIs (Bleiklie and Kogan 2007). As argued by Neave: One of the most significant achievements – indeed, an indispensable condition for re-defining the relationship between Nation and University these two decades past, has been the setting up of a powerful, relatively precise and detailed instrumentality over and above that control and oversight traditionally exercised through legislative and legal procedures. (Neave 2008, p. 10)
Neave also argued that this increased instrumentality in higher education was the main driver for the reforms undertaken in the sector. “The new
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instrumentality was the vehicle for reforms ranging from the rise of ‘remote steering,’ the replacement of a priori input based financing by a posteriori allocation related to institutional output” (Neave 2008, p. 60). This has induced the elaboration of instruments based on performance indicators that spread all over Europe and beyond.
The Rise of the Evaluative State Following from Neave, two stages of the development of the Evaluative State can be pointed out. In the 1980s, the Evaluative State took the first steps, and quality and organizational efficiency were the key issues fueling policy drivers in higher education regulation (Neave 1988). Governments assumed the Evaluative State features, on the one hand, by increasing institutions’ autonomy and self-governance and, on the other hand, promoting a deeper interference in the regulation of higher education by means of instruments of “remote steering.” The relationship between institutions and their environment became subject to an “evaluative” approach, apparently contrary to the rhetorical claims of the majority of governments to set higher education freer from state control. Claims of autonomy and self-regulation increasingly assumed centrality in the discourses regarding higher education systems and institution governance. The enhancement of the institutions’ autonomy and selfgovernance aimed at allowing institutions to compete under market regulation. Therefore, with the aim of implementing governance models that might adequately respond to competitive, everchanging environments, institutional autonomy was widely assumed as the regulation instrument to politically steer public systems and institutions. While there is a wide consensus about the attribution of autonomy to higher education institutions and about the need to increase selfgovernance, there was also the perception that autonomous institutions competing under market conditions might deviate from convergence with the government’s objectives or the public good. As governments needed to guarantee that their
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goals were actually pursued, they reinforced their regulation frames using the contractual relationships, which are “governed” by the state. This transformed the relationship between the state and higher education institutions not weakening or diminishing in extension and in intensity the state regulation. Ultimately product control ultimately became process control. In Western Europe, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were front-runners in developing features of the Evaluative State associated with the influence of New Public Management approaches to higher education governance. The orientation toward market (de)regulation was a pragmatic answer to the need to transfer resources to other welfare areas such as health and social security, rather than an option determined by the inner virtues of the market as a regulation instance (Neave 1995). Yet, the market also appears as the ideological building block of the rising of the Evaluative State. Institutional autonomy goes hand by hand with the formalization, for instance, of accreditation mechanisms, which have been reinforced by European governance focusing on the area of evaluation. Other developments were associated with quality assurance mechanisms to prioritize appropriate instrumentality to ensure the response of the higher education systems to external demands. Examples can be found, for instance, in the United Kingdom, where “there is no single model. Institutions address their responsibilities through their procedures for the design, approval, monitoring and review of their programmes and the assessment of students’ learning” (United Kingdom 2009, p. 17), or in Italy, where the government promoted the establishment of internal quality assurance systems to provide statistical support for decision-making processes (Italy 2009), while in the Netherlands, the accreditation system foresaw the “introduction of an institutional audit, which comprises a review of the institutional internal quality assurance system” (The Netherlands 2009: 18). According to Neave (2016), the second stage of the Evaluative State is based on two key dimensions: (i) the internal refinement of operational
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procedures and (ii) the definition of ownership. The internal procedures of evaluation entailed a detailed and systematic review of individual higher education institutions. Along with regulated autonomy, accountability appeared as a fundamental political instrument in reconfiguring the relationship between government and higher education. Accountability is increasingly becoming the “data display” of institutions for it supposedly translates the worth of institutions or systems into economic and financial terms. Performance of higher education institutions is at the core of the second stage of the Evaluative State promoting benchmarks or standards of expected performance. This is in line with the policy driver enacted by the European Commission that explicitly assumes that “Competitive funding should be based on institutional evaluation systems and on diversified performance indicators with clearly defined targets and indicators supported by international benchmarking for both inputs and economic and societal outputs” (European Commission 2006, pp. 7–8). The proliferation of quality assurance agencies across Europe corresponds to an “agencification” trend (e.g., Pollitt et al. 2005) with impacts on the definition of ownership of the evaluation structures and processes. This is a major issue as the question of ownership marked the transition from first to second stage of the Evaluative State. Relocation of ownership entailed the refinement of assessment procedures subsequently placed in agencies expected to develop a “semiautonomous position between the state and the institutional level. They hold an intermediary position in the principal-agent relationship between governments and higher education institutions thus creating a more complex picture in terms of the transparency of the whole national governance arrangement” (CHEPS 2007, p. 14). The Evaluative State reconfigures the contract between state, society, and higher education, redistributing the authority between higher education institutions and the state and increasing the “weight of the instrumentality that the Prince via the Evaluative state has brought to bear on higher education” (Neave 2012, p. 59). This instrumentality referred to as “proceduralism” (Neave 2012,
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p. 18) combines expertise, autonomy, and specialization of tasks justified on the basis of an apparent consensus around operational procedures and shared common administrative practices. “Proceduralism” is central in more regulation by autonomous regulatory agencies (independent from ministries) based on the assumption that they will improve regulatory performance (Pollitt et al. 2005). This new regulatory model can be seen in action in other sectors of public administration.
From a Pragmatic Dynamics to an Ideological Overlay The appropriation of autonomy, accountability, and evaluation by neoliberal discourses and practices promoted the consolidation of the Evaluative State. As underlined by Neave, “The grafting of an ideological overlay onto the ostensibly pragmatic tasks of ‘diagnosing’ institutional performance and recommending ‘treatment’ is itself the outstanding feature in the dynamic construction of the Evaluative State” (2016, p. 2). This shift from a pragmatic and problem-solving strategy to an ideological stance enforced and legitimized the move of the Evaluative State from an operational dynamics into a normative regulation mode. As a normative regulation mode, the Evaluative State disseminated across Western Europe at different rates and paces, feeding the shift from governing to governance (Neave 2012). Governance is about political management of rule systems, both formal and informal, which drive values and norms affecting actors and constellations of actors’ behaviors and attitudes (Hall and Taylor 1996; Kjaer 2010). The shift from governing to governance challenged both the formal authority and legitimacy of government and the pragmatic dynamics of structures and processes of the Evaluative State. Simultaneously, new actors (e.g., European institutions, semiautonomous agencies) by disseminating common legitimating policy discourses on higher education and research policies intruded in the relationship between state and higher education institutions (Magalhães et al. 2013a). Therefore,
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the Evaluative State expanded its scope beyond quality assessment and quality assurance, influencing education, research, and service to society. In other words, by bringing evaluation into the core of political regulation and by impinging on the nature of the political processes, the Evaluative State transformed evaluation and its instrumentality into a regulation and coordination mode.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Good Governance and Higher Education ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education ▶ Market Mechanisms, Higher Education ▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education
References Aghion, P., Dewatripont M., Hoxby, C. M., Mas-Colell, A., and Sapir, A. 2009. The governance and performance of research universities: evidence from Europe and the U.S. (Vol. Working Paper 14851). National Bureau of Economic Research. Amaral, A., and A. Magalhães. 2001. On markets, autonomy and regulation the Janus head revisited. Higher Education Policy 14 (1): 7–20. Bleiklie, I., and M. Kogan. 2007. Organization and governance of universities. Higher Education Policy 20 (4): 477–494. CHEPS. 2007. The extent and impact of higher education governance reform across Europe – Final report to the Directorate-General for Education and Culture of the European Commission (Vol. 1). Retrieved from Enschede. https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/ 5146370. Dill, D. 1998. Evaluating the ‘Evaluative State’: Implications for research in higher education. European Journal of Education 33 (3): 361–377. European Commission. 2006. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament – Delivering on the modernisation agenda for universities: education, research and innovation. Retrieved from Brussels. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/ legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM:c11089. Hall, P.A., and R.C.R. Taylor. 1996. Political science and the three new institutionalisms. Political Studies 44 (5): 936–957. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996. tb00343.x.
401 Harman, G. 1998. Quality assurance mechanisms and their use as policy instruments: Major international approaches and the Australian experience since 1993. European Journal of Education 33 (3): 331–348. Italy. 2009. National report 2007–2009. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/Documents/National_ Report_Italy_2009.pdf. Kjaer, P. 2010. Between governing and governance: On the emergence, function and form of Europe’s postnational constellation. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Magalhães, A., A. Veiga, F. Ribeiro, S. Sousa, and R. Santiago. 2013a. Creating a common grammar for European higher education governance. Higher Education 65 (1): 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734012-9583-7. Magalhães, A., A. Veiga, S. Sousa, F. Ribeiro, and A. Amaral. 2013b. Governance and institutional autonomy: Governing and governance in Portuguese higher education. Higher Education Policy 26: 243–262. Neave, G. 1995. The stirring of the prince and the silence of the lambs: Changing assumptions beneath higher education policy, reform, and society. In Emerging patterns of social demand and university reform: Through a glass darkly, ed. D.D. Dill and B. Sporn, 54–71. Oxford: Elsevier. Neave, G. 1988. On the cultivation of quality, efficiency and enterprise: an overview of recent trends in higher education in Western Europe, 1986–1988. European Journal of Education 23 (1/2). Neave, G. 2008. From Guardian to overseer: Trends in institutional autonomy, governance and leadership. In Reforma do Ensino Superior: Quatro Temas em Debate, ed. A. Amaral, 45–70. Lisboa: Conselho Nacional de Educac¸ão. Neave, G. 2012. The evaluative state, institutional autonomy and re-engineering higher education in Western Europe: The prince and his pleasure. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Neave, G. 2016. Evaluative state, nation state: A last hurrah? Paper presented at the comparative education beyond the numbers: Local contexts, national realities and transnational processes, Lisbon. Pollitt, C., C. Talbot, J. Caulfield, and A. Smullen. 2005. Agencies – how governments do things through semiautonomous organizations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ritzen, J. 2011. A framework for scoring the empowerment of universities in the EU member states. Paper presented at the University policy for strengthening competitiveness and social cohesion, Maastricht. The Netherlands. 2009. National report (The Netherlands) 2007–2009. Retrieved from http://www.ond.vlaande ren.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/links/National-reports2009/National_Report_France_2009.pdf. United Kingdom. 2009. National report (United Kingdom) 2007–2009. Retrieved from http://www.ond.vlaande ren.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/links/National-reports2009/National_Report_France_2009.pdf.
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Evidence-Based Approach to Decision Making
Emergence of Excellence Schemes
Evidence-Based Approach to Decision Making ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Europe
Excellence Framework ▶ Excellence Schemes, Higher Education
Excellence Schemes, Higher Education Ricardo Biscaia CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies, Porto, Portugal ESTGA-UAveiro and ESS-IPPorto, Porto, Portugal
Synonyms Excellence framework; Funding for excellence
Definition of Excellence Schemes In the context of higher education (HE), an excellence scheme or program refers to funding programs launched by national governments in which large amounts of money are directed at several universities in the national HE system with the purpose of raising their level to “excellent.” While most of the funding programs, competitive-based funding projects in teaching and research, and even basic funding can be directed for “excellence” purposes, excellence schemes are distinguished from those by the high selectivity of the institutions involved and the large amounts of funding directed at these institutions.
The main motivation for the existence of excellence schemes comes from the greater international competition between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). At the teaching/student level, the increased mobility of students and the expansion of English as a universal second language have led to a more globalized demand for higher education, with universities and governments using this opportunity to increase enrolments. At the research level, better communication technologies, easier access to articles and research publications, and the same spread of the English language have also led to increased competition and to a growing awareness of the performance of other universities – owing to the development and extended use of bibliometric tools for the evaluation of research. Universities want to attract the best students and the best staff in order to extend their national presence in the knowledge market (Hazelkorn 2007) and to become a “world-class university” (▶ “World-Class Universities”). Another factor that fueled the international competition for “excellence” was the emergence and establishment of University Global Rankings, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University Rankings, in 2003, and Times Higher Education Ranking, in 2004, the latter being the most relevant. This trend has been exacerbated with the creation of new rankings such as U-Multirank. In the first wave of rankings, European and Asian universities underperformed compared to their North American counterparts, which might be considered an essential motivation for the appearance of these excellence schemes, especially in Europe (Saisana and d’Hombres 2008). Rankings became so relevant that universities included the objective of increasing their position or appearing in rankings in their institutional mission statements (Boulton 2011; ▶ “University Rankings, National and International Dynamics”). Unsurprisingly, achieving better relative positions in these league tables is also explicitly stated as a goal in the design of the excellence schemes (Hou 2011). Although excellence schemes are all about the promotion of excellence in a small number of universities within a country, and given that it is
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not possible to actually fund for excellence every HEI in a country for efficiency and budgetary reasons – excellence schemes cannot be disassociated from other underlying objectives that governments might have when funding these institutions. Firstly, excellence schemes increase the competitive behavior between different HEIs in the system, in line with the trends of increased competition that governments are willing to promote, in the form of project-based funding or formula funding (▶ “University Rankings, National and International Dynamics”). Secondly, they challenge the egalitarian concept that universities should be treated equally, by explicitly giving higher amounts of funding to institutions with a higher potential. Finally, they promote a certain degree of elitism in the systems, stratifying the position of researchers, teachers, and students.
Historical and Current Status of Excellence Schemes “Excellence schemes” started in Asia in the late 1990s (Hou et al. 2012). China, in 1998, launched a scheme called “985 Project,” which had the goal of bringing ten Chinese universities into the Global Rankings (Jian-Ping 2006; Xuefei 2011). In South Korea, the “Brain 21” program aimed at “cultivating global leaders” in 69 funded HEIs starting on 1999 (Shin 2009; Byun et al. 2013). Based on the previous East Asian experiences, Japan launched the Centers of Excellence (CoE) program in 2002–2007 with the goal of funding world-class research units within the system (Yonezawa 2007), followed by the Global 30 Program (Hou et al. 2012). In Taiwan, the “50 Billion Program” (2006–2015) aimed at ranking 1 of the 12 funded universities into the global top 100 position. All of these schemes had very significant amounts of funding involved. Similar schemes appeared a little later in Germany and France. In Germany, the Excellence Initiative started in 2006 with two different periods, 2006–2011 and 2012–2017. Thirteen universities had, at some point during the process, earned the label of excellent university (see Kehm
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2006, for more information on the scheme). In France, the Excellence Initiative started in 2010, with the expectation of lasting 10 years. Eight conglomerates (in which universities were included) were selected in 2011 and 2012, with the objective of creating poles that are capable of competing with the largest universities in the world. In Russia, the “5-100 – Russian Academic Excellence Project” had the goal of bringing 5 universities to the top 100 of the rankings and selected 15 universities in 2013 out of 54 applications (Gazizova et al. 2016). Other smaller attempts of exclusive funding to a few universities have been launched in Canada, Hungary, Norway, and Poland.
Potential Outcomes and Concerns Given the heterogeneity of excellence schemes in different countries and their specificities, the identification of advantages and disadvantages in these systems is an exercise that needs to be treated with caution. Nevertheless, in the systems that have experienced these excellence schemes, some positive and negative outcomes have been observed. Regarding the positive outcomes, an increase in the external and internal visibility of the system has been noted. The external visibility is identified after an increase in the number of international students and staff in the period of duration of the different programs. The internal visibility increased because it provided the system with some reference institutions for businesses and students to interact with (Kehm 2006). Additionally, there seemed to be increased communication between HEIs and the government and HEIs and businesses. The former is viewed as a positive outcome because it raised the awareness of governments toward universities’ funding challenges. The latter bridged the research goals of universities and businesses, increasing the applicability of research in the real economy. Another important positive outcome refers to an increased diversity within HEIs and the overall system. Due to the efforts that HEIs had to make to craft their strategies focusing on their strengths and weaknesses,
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different profiles in each HEIs might have emerged as a result of the scheme. Regarding the negative outcomes, the main criticism targets the within-system inequality generated between the selected and non-selected institutions. Other than the two-tiered system the scheme generates, it is believed that this inequality might be self-reinforcing, as the selected institutions would have an advantage in terms of attracting the best staff and the best students, both in terms of their reputation and of financial possibilities, and even favoring HEIs that had already some advantages in the past (Gallagher 2011). Of course, in some sense, this inequality is desirable, as it provides important incentives for the institutions involved and the remaining HEIs in the system (Hicks and Katz 2011). Another important outcome is the loss of autonomy that HEIs might face with the implementation of an excellence scheme. Governments may use the “excellent” status as a tool to steer universities into crafting research projects and agendas close to the government’s interests, for instance, by leading institutions to perform more basic research, as in Germany, or by promoting increased links between universities and industries (▶ “Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education”). Another source of concern refers to the time that HEIs spend to prepare the submission for the excellence schemes and the evaluation of schemes after the label was attributed. In spite of the claims for increased diversity, the scheme could also result in some loss of diversity, leading HEIs to change their institutional profiles but in a homogeneous manner (Flink et al. 2012). For example, in the South Korean experience, the excellence scheme did increase the number of research outputs in the following period but with different growth rates not that different from Asian competitors such as Japan or China (Shin 2009). Last but not least, there are also concerns regarding the “exit strategy,” that is, the way HEIs should prepare to phase out the funding and keep the staff and projects that started, while the scheme lasted. Since it is not credible that governments will keep funding HEIs at this level
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permanently, governments and HEIs should be held responsible for finding the best solution for the scheme to have a lasting effect on the system after the funding is terminated.
Conclusions: The Future of Excellence Schemes While it is certain that rankings and global competition between HEIs have come to stay in the global paradigm of higher education, the same cannot be said about excellence schemes. Excellence schemes fit in the logics of increased international competition but require from policymakers some degree of courage – to face the egalitarian status quo that governments (should?) have toward the distribution of funding between different HEIs in a given system – and significant amounts of funding available for the sector. Therefore, it is not clear whether such funding schemes will appear in a consistent manner in the future. From the researchers’ point of view, assessing the effects of excellence schemes is not an easy task. Each scheme and selected HEIs have different specificities, making it very hard to identify common patterns between all of them. Additionally, the number of schemes is not that high, giving researchers few experiments compared to, for instance, the case of performance-based funding (▶ “Performance-Based Funding”). Finally, some of the meaningful information regarding the schemes and their subsequent effect on HE may be hidden in the so-called Gray Literature of government reports, not always accessible or available in English.
Cross-References ▶ Competition in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education ▶ Performance-Based Funding ▶ University Rankings, National and International Dynamics ▶ World-Class Universities
Expansion of Higher Education, OECD Countries
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References
Exchange Boulton, Geoffrey. 2011. University rankings: Diversity, excellence and the European initiative. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 13: 74–82. Byun, Kiyong, Jae-Eun Jon, and Dongbin Kim. 2013. Quest for building world-class universities in South Korea: Outcomes and consequences. Higher Education 65 (5): 645–659. Flink, Tim, Jan-Christoph Rogge, Simon Roßmann, and Dagmar Simon. 2012. Angleichung statt Vielfalt: Deutsche Universitäten auf der Suche nach Profil. WZBrief Bildung 22. Gallagher, Michael. 2011. The role of elite universities in national higher education and research systems, and the challenges of prosecuting the case for concentrating public investment in their development in Australia. In Paths to a world-class university: Lessons from practices and experiences, ed. Nian Cai Liu, Qi Wang, and Ying Cheng, 29–66. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Gazizova, Alfia, Valentina Panfilova, and Oksana Makarova. 2016. Towards excellence in Russian higher education institutions. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies, July Special Issue: 580–587. Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2007. The impact of league tables and ranking systems on higher education decision making. Higher Education Management and Policy 19 (2): 87–110. Hicks, Diana, and Sylvan Katz. 2011. Equity and excellence in research funding. Minerva 49: 137–151. Hou, Angela Yung-Chi. 2011. Quality assurance at a distance: International accreditation in Taiwan higher education. Higher Education 61: 179–191. Hou, Angela Yunc-Chi, Martin Ince, and Chung-Lin Chiang. 2012. A reassessment of Asian Pacific excellence programs in higher education: The Taiwan experience. Scientometrics 92: 23–42. Jian-Ping, Long. 2006. Raising investment efficiency of large scale instrument and equipment on the 985 project. Experimental Technology and Management 3: 045. Kehm, Barbara. 2006. The German “Initiative for excellence” and the issue of ranking. International Higher Education 44: 20–22. Saisana, Michaela, and Beatrice D’Hombres. 2008. Higher education rankings: Robustness and critical assessment. JRC Scientific and Technical Reports, European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scient ific-and-technical-research-reports/higher-education-rank ings-robustness-issues-and-critical-assessment Accessed 3 Dec 2016. Shin, Jung Cheol. 2009. Building world-class research University: The brain Korea 21 project. Higher Education 58: 669–688. Xuefei, Chen. 2011. Ideal orientation policy-making: Analysis on “985 Project” policy process. Chinese Education and Society 44 (5): 8–18. Yonezawa, A. 2007. Japanese flagship Universities at a crossroads. Higher Education 54: 483–499.
▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Historical Perspective
Exclusive Universities ▶ Elite Higher Education
Expansion ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil
Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (Directorate for Education and Skills), OECD, Paris, France
Higher education has expanded during the twentieth century and is continuing to do so, both in the OECD area and worldwide. In 1900, there were about 500,000 higher education students worldwide, representing about 1% of the school-leaver age cohort (Schofer and Meyer 2005). In 2015, there were about 250 million students in the world. Most of the expansion happened after 1960, first in the OECD area, then in non-OECD countries, but the trend is still ongoing in most OECD countries. In 2014, based on recent graduation trends, on average 36% of young people across OECD countries were expected to graduate from tertiary education at least once before the age of 30 (OECD 2016).
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These figures are a good illustration of the expansion of higher education: increasing numbers of people entering and graduating from higher education expanded higher education infrastructures to host them, but also, perhaps, brought a gradual change in the social norms (or expectation) about higher education attendance. At some point, expansion will stop, either because access to higher education will have become universal (as is largely the case for primary and secondary education in most OECD countries) or will have reached a point of “maximal” expansion (given its noncompulsory nature for young adults). This is Martin Trow’s idea that universal higher education system corresponds to a saturation point in terms of entry (Trow 2010). After illustrating the expansion of higher education in the OECD area through a few indicators, the entry will discuss its drivers and point to some of its challenges.
Measuring the Expansion of Higher Education The expansion of higher education in the OECD area can be demonstrated through several indicators: the population’s tertiary educational attainment, entry and enrolment rates in tertiary education, and graduation rates. All these indicators relate the expansion to the overall population of a country or to the “typical” age group that usually enrols in higher education. The numbers of tertiary education students, of graduates, of faculty and staff, and of institutions represent other indicators of expansion. Absolute population numbers matter as they give an indicator of the challenges of managing the expansion of higher education for policymakers and other higher education stakeholders. However, given that demographic phenomena mediate the relationship between relative and absolute indicators, relative indicators are closer to the idea of expansion. If the size of cohorts increases, there could be an increase in student numbers even when participation rates in higher education remain stable, and there is arguably no expansion or, on the contrary, a decrease in student numbers could
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follow a decrease in the size of cohorts, even if participation in higher education continues to increase (see ▶ “Demography and Higher Education”). Using one type of indicator or the other really depends on the issues one wants to address. Population’s tertiary educational attainment is a powerful indicator of the expansion of higher education. Comparing it across different age cohorts tells us whether and how quickly the completion of higher education has expanded over time. It gives the best historical overview of actual expansion (or lack thereof). Typically, younger cohorts have greater tertiary educational attainment than the older ones, which demonstrates the expansion of tertiary education over time. Older people completing a first higher education degree also contribute to the expansion of higher education though. But most people complete their first higher education degree when they are young. However, the educational attainment of a cohort older than 35 does usually not increase by more than a few percentage points over time. In a world where people’s international mobility has increased, the expansion of a country’s higher education system may not be adequately captured by its population’s educational attainment: in principle, the indicator could be distorted by strong imbalances between, on the one hand, the stock of students who graduated in a country and now live abroad, and, on the other hand, the stock of people who graduated abroad and now live in the country. In practice, these migration flows of tertiary educated people are usually too small to make a difference, except perhaps in small countries with strong migration flows. Another caveat is that educational attainment does not capture the fact that people may re-enter tertiary education several times during their life – another feature of the expansion of higher education that affects student numbers to some extent. In 2015, on average 35% of the 25–64 years old population of an OECD country held a tertiary education degree. Forty two percent of the 25–34 years old cohort of an OECD country had a tertiary education degree, against 26% for the 55–64 years old cohort. The 16 percentage-point difference between the two cohorts clearly highlights
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Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries, Fig. 1 Tertiary educational attainment of different age groups in OECD countries (2015). Note: Countries are ranked in decreasing order of the difference
between the educational attainment of the younger (25–34) and older (55–64) age cohorts. Korea is the country where the difference between the younger and older cohort is the greatest, and Israel, the lowest (Source: OECD Education Database)
the expansion of higher education over the past 30 years. Figure 1 shows the differences across OECD countries in the scope of expansion and the overall levels of tertiary educational attainment. In 2015, countries with the most tertiary educated 25–34 years old population were Korea (69%), Japan (60%), and Canada (59%). Those with the lowest levels of tertiary educational attainment were Mexico (21%), Italy (25%), Chile (27%), Turkey (28%), and Germany (30%). Figure 1 also shows that Korea is by far the OECD country where there has been the greatest expansion of higher education in the past 30 years, with an increase by 51 percentage points of the share of its tertiary educated population. In Poland, Ireland, Luxembourg, France, Slovenia, Japan, and Portugal, there is a 20–30 percentagepoint difference between the share of tertiary educated people in the younger and older cohorts. Conversely, in Israel, Germany, Finland, the United States, Estonia, and Mexico, the increase in the share of tertiary graduates between the younger and older generations has been lower than 10 percentage points. The latter have the higher education systems that have expanded the less over the past 30 years.
One should of course consider the starting points as well when interpreting these data. Canada has one of the most tertiary educated young cohorts, but educational attainment has increased less than the OECD average. This is probably partly due to an already high starting point. In the United States, there has been little expansion in the past 30 years, but the country still has a large share of tertiary educated people: its higher education expanded before most other OECD countries. In Finland and Estonia, there has been relatively little change, but the share of tertiary education graduates in the population is at the OECD average. Finally, Germany is an interesting example where there has been relatively little expansion of tertiary education and the share of tertiary educated people is below the OECD average. In this case, this is because Germany has a so-called dual training system: a significant share of its youth pursues its studies in “post-secondary nontertiary” programs, that is, programs that are considered to be below higher education level (but still after secondary school). Figure 2 presents an indicator of the speed of expansion of higher education over the past 10 years. The comparison with Fig. 1 shows where the expansion is slowing down (e.g.,
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France with a 23 percentage point increase in the past 30 years against 5 in the past 10 years) and where it may be restarting (e.g., the United States, with a 7 percentage point increase in the past decade against 5 over the past 30 years). In countries where attainment has become very significant (e.g., Korea), expansion will have to slow down, although we do not know yet what the threshold for “universal” higher education is. Figure 2 also shows that expansion has continued in the past decade and that the 25–34 years old cohort has increased its educational attainment in every single OECD country between 2005 and 2015 and by 10 percentage points on average. The expansion of higher education is still on-going in the OECD area. Entry rates are another indicator giving a sense of how expanded higher education systems are. Entry rates represent the percentage of an age cohort that is expected to enter a tertiary program over a lifetime. In 2016, it was estimated that 61% of young domestic adults in OECD countries would enter tertiary education at least once during their lifetime if current patterns of entry continue, and 51% if only domestic students younger than 25 are considered (OECD 2016). This estimate is based on the number of new entrants in 2014 and the age distribution of this group.
Entry rates allow for decomposition by degree level and give us additional information compared to educational attainment: some 18% of young adults across OECD countries are expected to enter short-cycle programs; on average 59% of young people will enter a bachelor’s program during their lifetime, although the rate varies widely across countries. Around 23% of students across OECD countries are expected to enter a master’s program over their lifetime, and 14% of domestic students are expected to enter such programs before the age of 30. Finally, 2.5% of young people will enter a doctoral program over their lifetime, and 0.9% of all domestic students are expected to do so before the age of 30. The expansion of higher education thus mainly concerns the first levels of higher education: short cycles and bachelor’s degrees (OECD 2016).
Drivers of the Expansion of Higher Education How far may the recent expansion of higher education in the OECD area reasonably be expected to continue? Continued expansion is in fact beset by many uncertainties. While countries such as Japan or Korea demonstrate that virtually universal participation in higher education is possible,
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entry rates in other countries such as the United States have changed little in recent decades so that it is not unreasonable to suppose that some other countries might experience the same kind of stability. Continued expansion presupposes that the individual demand, partly shaped by political, economic, and social conditions, will continue with the same outcomes in the decades ahead, though possibly for other reasons. There are at least three different ways to think about what shapes the expansion of higher education and could shape its continuation over the next decades: economic, sociological, and political drivers come into play. First, as of 2017, the political will to pursue the expansion of higher education systems exists in most, if not all, OECD countries. Many of them (such as Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, or the United States) have set themselves the goal of broadening access or increasing the educational level of their adult population – often aiming to ensure that half an age group or more are either enrolled in or graduate from higher education. Several countries where a cap on first year enrolments existed removed it in the past years: this was for example the case in Australia in 2012 and in the United Kingdom in 2015. This political will is shaping public policies as well as the strategies of higher education institutions and of individuals. It suggests that the provision of higher education will not be rationed but rather encouraged in the decades to come. This trend can be seen as a political response to the economic and social demands for higher education as politicians try to meet the demands of their electorate, but also shape policies that meet the perceived needs of their country’s economy and society. From a country perspective, there are several reasons to invest in higher education. A simple one is that more educated people are supposed to have a higher productivity, and thus make the economy more competitive. A second reason is that economic growth in current OECD economies relies increasingly on innovation, which is both more easily produced and absorbed by tertiary educated people. Finally, changes in most OECD economies have favored (and might continue) to favor the most educated people:
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economists refer to the phenomenon as “skillsbiased technical change.” The share of jobs that require more education and are better paid has increased over time (Stiglitz and Greenwald 2015; Goldin and Katz 2009). From an individual perspective, holding a higher education degree still pays off. On average, tertiary education graduates earned 55% more than upper secondary education graduates in 2014; they were more likely to be part of the workforce and less likely to be unemployed (in 2014, 6.9% of tertiary educated people were unemployed on average in the OECD area, against 10% and 9.2% for general and vocational upper secondary graduates) (OECD 2016). While this might change in the future, the expansion of higher education has not led yet to diminishing advantages for tertiary education graduates in the OECD area: these have remained very stable in the past two decades. For example, in 2004, tertiary educated people earned 55% more than upper secondary education graduates on average. There are therefore strong economic incentives for people to graduate so as to increase their employment prospects and further their chances of earning a good living. (Moreover, not graduating may come at a penalty as the earnings of the less educated people have actually decreased over time in real term in some countries (e.g., the United States).) The benefits of higher education are not just economic though: participation in higher education is associated with many individual and social benefits such as the acquisition of knowledge and skills, social prestige, social capital, cultural capital, health, longevity, etc. Students and their families also respond to individual and social incentives that are not directly related to labor market and earning prospects. The common sociological explanation challenging the “economic” one just consists of broadening people’s incentives: returns measured by income or employment criteria are replaced by social prestige, occupational position (as some occupations may be more prestigious than others even though they yield similar income), etc. While they may not care about income, families and students participate in higher education to reach positions that
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are associated with greater social prestige in their community (see Marginson 2016 for a summary of some of the social arguments). Expansion of higher education is correlated with economic development. While the argument above assume that individuals respond to economic or social incentives that lead them to be more educated, one could argue that the direction of causality also goes the other way around. In affluent countries, people and societies can afford the “luxury” to invest in higher education and to fuel a social demand for it. Higher education could be sought after as a means of selfrealization, regardless of the social and economic benefits it may lead to. Finally, the expansion of higher education in the OECD area may by its very process turn participation in higher education into a new social norm, and families and students may just participate in higher education because it has become the standard and “reasonable” thing to do for middle class children who are eligible. This trend may just be the result of peer effects and imitation – or a new stage of the social division of labor. There are some critiques to the expansion of higher education: it is sometimes depicted as “over-education” or “degree inflation.” Two observations usually support this critique. First, in some countries, like France, there has been a decline over time of the returns to higher education. A high educational attainment has benefited some cohorts more than others. Even in the United States, where this decline has not been observed, whether higher education yields enough individual returns is sometimes questioned given the financial investment that students have to make to pay for their studies. This decrease in returns mainly relates to the state or the structure of the economy: there are more vacancies at certain times than others and especially in managerial positions (more room at the top). A second, related observation points to the increase in education credentials required for similar jobs over time, which is sometimes interpreted as an “overskilling” of the working population. This is particularly the case where official skill classification frameworks for jobs exist: usually negotiated between employers and trade unions to guarantee
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workers some rights and levels of compensation, these classifications can arguably not be considered to set a more accurate level of required education for a job than what is observed in the labor market. Usually, the required credentials and the job content actually evolve at the same time. While falling returns over time or increase in education requirements for a given job can fuel the perception of over-education, as long as the economic and noneconomic returns to tertiary education are (significantly) higher than those to upper secondary education, people have indeed an interest to become tertiary educated. And changes in this gap may come from a relative fall of the returns to upper secondary education, not necessarily from an absolute increase of the returns to tertiary education.
Expansion of Higher Education: Selected Policy Issues The expansion of higher education systems raises a series of policy issues for countries. How shall the expansion of systems be funded? What kinds of institutions and programs shall meet the diversified demand of a wider student population? How to keep the expansion open and inclusive for all those interested in participating? How to preserve the quality or at least a minimum level of quality when higher education provision expands? What role shall research play in expanded higher education systems? All these questions are multifaceted as they relate to equity, access and completion, curriculum, teaching, learning, quality, and cost-efficiency. Here is a quick overview of issues related to expansion and how OECD countries have addressed them in the past decades: • Teaching and learning. One difficulty for teaching and learning in expanded systems comes from the different levels of academic preparation of students when they enter higher education. Students also have more diverse interests. Compared to a restricted higher education system catering to elite students, who are usually at the top of the distribution of
Expansion of Higher Education, OECD Countries
learning outcomes in a country, the expansion of higher education makes it more difficult for all students to complete their studies in a reasonable time frame. One big challenge is thus to design programs and support systems for students who are less well academically prepared, and also to use teaching methods that are both effective and affordable. This may entail to give faculty relevant professional development, which is rarely done. • Research. The expansion of higher education has also led to a massification of the research output. The mere increase in the faculty population induced by the expansion has multiplied countries’ research output. However, research is also a major driver of cost in higher education, so one issue for policymakers is to preserve research quality while containing overall research costs. Most countries have developed a targeted research policy based on some level of concentration of research funding to some institutions or to the competitive access to research funds by higher education faculty. • Cost and funding. Another dimension of the expansion of higher education systems is the cost borne by states and public authorities. The funding tradition in most OECD countries is to have a strong public subsidization of higher education. This is true for research, but also for education. As of 2017, most European OECD countries still funded the bulk of the studies of their students. There was a more balanced cost sharing in the United States, while Asian OECD countries and Chile left students and their families bear most of the cost of their higher education. As the expansion of higher education drives costs up for the public purse, new forms of targeted public support have been put in place, with targeted grants for less affluent students, the emergence of loans rather than grants or direct subsidization, and, sometimes, the coexistence of a subsidized and nonsubsidized sector, either within the public system or through public and private provision. • Inequity. Inequity is a major concern for all higher education systems, both in terms of access and completion. Sources of inequity
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are multiple: the academic preparation (and eligibility) of different groups, the affordability of higher education, the aspiration to enter higher education, discrimination against certain groups, but also the cost of higher education to students and families from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In most OECD countries, the expansion of higher education has led to a reduction of inequalities of access: students coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or minority groups are more likely to participate in an expanded than in an elite higher education system. The gaps between socioeconomic groups have also tended to diminish, even though there may be some counterexamples (Breen et al. 2009; Shavit et al. 2007; Vincent-Lancrin 2008). This is of course not to say that the levels of inequity have become acceptable. While inequity of access matter, there is stronger awareness that there are also inequities of completion. Moreover, inequity also concerns the access to the different levels of higher education (there is usually more social inequity in the higher levels of higher education) and the access to the most prestigious institutions or programs. • Quality. Just because of the increase of the number of institutions and programs, quality becomes more difficult to control and to assure as systems expand. The nature of quality also diversifies as systems expand and diversify. Most higher education institutions have put in place internal mechanism to improve the quality of their education. In recent decades, most countries have also put in place external quality and/or accreditation procedures that higher education institutions receiving or willing to receive public funding have to undergo. This way of mitigating quality risks by assuring a minimum level of quality is one major trend in higher education in the past decades (Lewis 2009). Whether it is spontaneous or shaped by higher education policies, the division of labor between institutions and programs is a key response to the expansion of higher education. It allows one to
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address in a differing way student demand and preparation, teaching and research, quality, and cost. All higher education systems have a diversity of institutions, be it officially recognized or not. Unitary systems have one official type of institutions (e.g., England), which does not imply they have no diversity; binary systems have two types, usually universities, specialized in general academic domains, and more applied institutions, often offering shorter vocational courses (e.g., Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, etc.); diversified systems have many different types of higher education institutions and tracks, although at a certain level of generality they can be considered as binary systems (e.g., France and the United States) (Vincent-Lancrin 2008). Studying in vocational programs and institutions is usually shorter and cheaper than in the academic general programs, both for the students and for the public authorities that may subsidize these institutions. One reason is that these institutions are less research-intensive. The division of labor between institutions also mirrors different interests and levels of academic preparation in the student population, which become more diverse as higher education expands. The elite model based on the studies of general academic knowledge is not replicable at a large scale as institutions have to adapt to both students’ interests and academic preparation. The emergence of a large private higher education sector in some countries can also be interpreted in the light of the expansion of higher education. Here again, private higher education institutions offer a way to meet the social demand at a lower public cost. While some systems have prestigious private higher education institutions that were created before the expansion of their systems, several countries where the public funding to higher education has not increased as quickly as the demand for higher education have seen a rise in their private offering. This is particularly true in some countries where the quick rise of private provision has been described as “demand-absorbing” (Altbach and Levy 2005; Levy 2013).
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The division of labor between higher education programs can also be observed within higher education institutions and not just at the institution level. This makes it even more complex but highlights the importance of this phenomenon to understand the implications of the expansion of higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Demography and Higher education ▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education ▶ High Participation in Higher Education, Implications for Funding ▶ Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical ▶ Mass Higher Education ▶ Students and Higher Education Expansion
References Altbach, P., and D. Levy, eds. 2005. Private higher education: A global revolution. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Breen, R., R. Luijkx, W. Müller, and R. Pollak. 2009. Nonpersistent inequality in educational attainment: Evidence from eight European countries. American Journal of Sociology 114 (5): 1475–1521. Goldin, C., and L. Katz. 2009. The race between education and technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levy, D. 2013. The decline of private higher education. Higher Education Policy 26: 25–42. Lewis, R. 2009. Quality assurance in higher education – Its global future. In Higher education to 2030. volume 2: Globalisation, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing. Marginson, S. 2016. The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: Dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education 72: 413–434. OECD. 2016. Education at a glance 2016. Paris: OECD Editions. Schofer, E., and J.W. Meyer. 2005. The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review 70 (6): 898–920. Shavit, Y., R. Arum, and A. Gamoran. 2007. Stratification in higher education: A comparative study. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Stiglitz, J., and B. Greenwald. 2015. Creating a learning society: A new approach to growth, social progress and development. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Expected Results
considers briefly a number of practical issues that need to be addressed to ensure successful implementation. The discussion draws extensively on the author’s earlier writings, particularly Ziderman (2002, 2004, 2013); these may be consulted for a fuller treatment of the issues presented in this entry. Valuable discussions, particularly from an international perspective, are provided in Johnstone and Marcucci (2010) and in the collection edited by Ziderman and Bevc (2009).
▶ Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education
Loans Scheme Objectives
Trow, M. 2010. Twentieth-century higher education: Elite to mass to universal. Edited by M. Burrage. Baltimore: JHU Press. Vincent-Lancrin, S. 2008. What is the impact of demography on the size, budget and policies of higher education systems? A forward-looking approach for OECD countries. In Higher education to 2030. volume 1: Demography, ed. OECD. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education Adrian Ziderman Bar-llan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Definition A student loans scheme is a framework for providing students with loans to meet all or part of institutional fees and/or living expenses. It is usually set up and subsidized by the government. Repayment obligations are deferred until the student enters the labor force and is able to repay the loan out of (presumably) enhanced earnings.
Introduction Over 70 countries have carried out governmentsponsored student loans, though with differing records of success. Given the considerable diversity in the design, practice, and overall efficacy of schemes, the following discussion focuses on five central issues that must be addressed in evaluating a current scheme or setting up a new one. These are the objective of the loans scheme, its initial funding source, the financial viability, justification for government subsidy of loans schemes, and method of repayment collection. A final section
Government-sponsored student loan schemes may be established for diverse reasons. Identifying the underlying objective of a particular loan scheme is important because this will influence the design and operation of the scheme as a whole, as well as its financial sustainability. Three separate objectives have underscored loan schemes around the world (Ziderman 2002): these are cost-sharing, social targeting, and student independence. In practice, at a given point of time a particular loan scheme may incorporate more than a single objective. Cost-Sharing Cost-sharing is the central objective of many loan schemes. Cost-sharing (or, greater cost recovery), where a larger and significant share of the costs of university education is shifted onto the main beneficiaries of university education – students and their families – is the dominant path that is pursued for revenue augmentation, given the dramatic and continuing expansion of student enrollments unmatched by public expenditures on higher education in many countries. Student loans may be a necessary ingredient for greater cost-recovery (and enhanced university income) because they facilitate, by making more acceptable, the raising of tuition fees to realistic levels; in fewer cases, cost-sharing takes the form of charging for hitherto highly subsidized dormitory and living costs. The evidence of high private rates of return to university education investments and rising
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university costs has strengthened the argument for the introduction, or raising, of student tuition fees. Loans enable student borrowers to avoid up-front payments for higher education (whether for tuition fees or living expenses) by delaying payment, which will be rendered in manageable installments out of enhanced earnings after graduation. State intervention is necessary because banks are loath to make commercial loans to students to finance tuition fees because of the higher risk, lack of collateral and the nebulous nature of the human capital asset that the loan will generate. In Singapore, the 1988 university tuition fee rises were accompanied by subsidized loans equivalent to about half the value of the new tuition fees. And in the early 1980s, large tuition fee increases in Chile were accompanied by the introduction of student loans administered by the universities. Social Targeting Social targeting is explicitly and directly concerned with increasing the participation in higher education of the poor and of other marginal groups. Where targeted specifically at disadvantaged groups, it is argued that loan schemes (particularly where substantially subsidized) may lead to greater access of the poor, thus contributing to social equity. While the cause of low access of the poor is multifaceted (and a full discussion is beyond the scope of this entry), financial constraints play a role. There is now a broad consensus on the need to offer clear financial incentives to potential students who are poor, not only to overcome the burden of fee payment and living expenses but also to offset both parental resistance to reductions in family income and the fear that the benefits of the educational process may not be sizeable. While the traditional, and most effective, method of enhancing the educational access of the poor has been through the provision of means-tested grants to cover tuition fees (where schooling is not free) and often, living expenses as well, a widespread grant scheme is likely to be unduly expensive. The use of loans, proactively targeted on the poor, offers a method that may both increase access for the poor and reduce, or at least contain, public expenditure on student
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support over the longer term. To be effective in increasing the higher education access of the poor, loans may need to be made available under “softer” lending conditions. Student Independence Thirdly, the student independence objective underlies loan schemes in a number of wellestablished schemes in Western Europe. The objective of loan provision in this case (usually covering living expenses only, because tuition fees historically have been minimal, though in some cases now rising significantly) is to ease student financial burdens during study; these burdens may be present even for better-off students. Financial pressures, which may have negative effects on a student’s academic performance, can be mitigated by the broad availability of student loans for fees (if in place) and living expenses. Loans for this purpose could be made broadly available, to more affluent as well as poorer students, as long as these loans are not unduly subsidized. Eligibility, and the extent of loans support, is determined by parental income in most loan schemes. A very different approach is taken in a number of, mainly Nordic, countries which base student support on the concept of student financial independence; student entitlement to loan support is based on student, not parental, income. Loan Scheme Objectives: Country Examples Table 1 provides a matrix of selected loans schemes, in which loan scheme coverage is mapped against loan scheme purpose (i.e., the three types of loan models, outlined above). The cost-sharing model is exemplified, principally, by the veteran Australian scheme. Second, the social targeting model is illustrated by five UNESCOsupported Asian case studies (Ziderman 2004). The third, student independence, model is typified by a cluster of European countries where typically no tuition fees are charged and loans cover living expenses only. Scheme Objectives and Expectations A clear distinction in objectives and expectations may be drawn between cost-sharing and the other two models (Table 2). Cost-sharing is
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Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education, Table 1 Loans scheme objective and coverage: country examples
Loans scheme coverage Tuition fees only
Loan scheme objective Model 1 Cost-sharing Australia Thailand (ICL)a
Hong Kong (LSFS)d Korea (MoE)e
Living expenses only
Tuition and living expenses
Model 2 Social targeting The Philippines
England New Zealand
China South Africa Thailand (SLS)f
Model 3 Student independence Hong Kong (NLS)b Korea (GECP)c Denmark Finland Hungary Norway Sweden Canada
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Thailand: Income contingent loans Hong Kong: nonsubsidized scheme c Korea: Government Employees scheme d Hong Kong: subsidized scheme (LSFS) e Korea: Ministry of Education scheme f Thailand: student loans scheme (SLS) Source: Ziderman (2013) b
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education, Table 2 Student loans schemes: objectives and expectations
Expectations Facilitate increased tuition fees Generate additional university funding Loans restricted to public universities High subsidy levels Loans confined to a target group
Loan scheme objective Cost-sharing Model Social targeting model Yes No Yes No Yes No No Probably No Yes
Student independence model No No No No No
Source: Ziderman (2013)
concerned with facilitating tuition fee increases and in generating funding for the university sector; it has constituted the major rationale for the spread of student loan schemes in industrialized countries. The other two objectives are not concerned with augmenting university funding, but are wider in scope, with a clear social perspective. Loan schemes aimed at cost recovery would be restricted to universities in the public sector; in meeting the other two objectives, in principle, loans should, be available to students enrolled in public and private universities, on an equal basis. Most loan schemes are highly subsidized, mainly because they are offered at below-market interest rates; however, in most cases, such subsidization cannot be justified (loan subsidization is dealt with subsequently).
While the aim should be near full loan recovery, loan schemes targeted on the poor may constitute an acceptable exception, in order to encourage them to borrow.
Loan Scheme Funding Source In most government-sponsored student loan schemes, initial loan capital is supplied by the government, usually to a national loan agency, which is responsible for the administration of the loan scheme, including loan allocation to students and repayments collection. This is the practice in the Australian and the English loan schemes. In addition, interest subsidies and default guarantees are provided by the government.
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However, the government can avoid these expenditures if the scheme is funded by external institutions, though such loans are still generally subsidized and guaranteed by the government. External financing can be supplied in two main ways: through commercial banks (and other financial institutions) which finance student loans from their own funds or through a specialized student loan agency which finances loans by recourse to borrowing from the capital market (usually through the issuance of bonds). Student loan regimes financed by the banking system are in place in such diverse settings as India, China (state commercial banks), Korea (the Ministry of Education scheme), and formerly, in Canada. A major problem with this approach – the need for state guarantees against payment default – is illustrated by the Canadian experience of commercial bank loan funding over the three decades from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. A 100% repayment default guarantee considerably reduced the incentive for lending banks to seek out recalcitrant borrowers and enforce repayment; default rates were unacceptably high. In mid-2000, the government assumed responsibility for loan scheme funding. While lending through a national student loan agency is usually funded by government, in some national loan schemes these agencies finance student loan activities through borrowing from the money and capital markets. Fixed interest bonds, tradable on the stock exchange, are issued by the student loan agency; in this process of “securitization,” the issued bonds are secured by the future stream of loan repayments. A student loan agency can tap the private financial markets in another way – by selling large bundles of student loan agreements to a secondary lender (such as a bank or insurance company), at a discount. In this way, the loan agency receives the stream of future repayment as an upfront payment (minus the discount to cover the risk borne by the secondary lender). Such arrangements, familiar in home mortgage markets, can provide capital for additional loans, with a reduced need to call on state support.
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education
Financial Viability One common element to almost all governmentsponsored loan schemes is that they are highly subsidized. Unlike commercial loans, a sizeable proportion of the total loan outlay by the loan body, be it government department, loan scheme authority, or commercial bank, will not be received back in repayment. A sizeable and sustained gap between disbursements and recovery implies continuing governmental financial support if the scheme is to remain viable. A number of factors militate against full recovery of loans: these may be divided into two groups. First, there are built-in (particularly, interest rate) subsidies, incorporated into the design of the loan scheme. And second, there are inefficiencies in running the scheme, in terms of substantial repayment default and high administration costs. Repayment Ratio: The Perspective of the Borrower Lending conditions in virtually all governmentsponsored loan schemes are “softer” than those on regular commercial loans; this difference represents a subsidy received by the student, in the sense that the borrower is not required to pay back the full value of the loan received. These conditions include zero or below-market interest rates on the loan, periods in which no interest is levied on outstanding debt (both during study and in grace periods after study completion) and repayments not linked to the rate of inflation. In addition, there are the costs of running the scheme – those for administration and repayment default – that may not be passed onto student borrowers. This is the case also where loan capital is provided, not by government, but by nongovernmental funding sources such as the banking system; here there is a need for ongoing government guarantees against default, in addition to interest rate subsidies. The loan repayment ratio measures how much of a loan an average borrower is required to repay: it is defined as the ratio of required repayments to the loan size received, both measured in terms of
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education
present values. The hidden grant ratio (how much of the loan does not need to be repaid) is equal to 100% minus the repayment ratio. Loans Recovery Ratio: The Overall Perspective Loan recovery focuses more widely on the scheme as a whole, rather than on the individual borrower. It is concerned with the question of how much of the total outlays of the loan scheme (total loans disbursements plus all other costs, including administration) will be recovered through loans repayment. The loan recovery ratio of a loans scheme is measured by the ratio of total (discounted) repayments received by the scheme, to total (discounted) outlays. Thus, if some borrowers defaulted, the recovery ration would fall (due to a decline in total repayment receipts), but the individual borrowers required repayment ratio would remain unchanged. Clearly, the recovery ratio is always lower than the repayment ratio, because the latter takes no account of the probability of repayment default and does not include general administration costs. Thus, even if student loans were not subsidized, and the individual student was required to repay the loan in full, not all of the sums loaned by the scheme would be recouped by the loan authorities. The extent of such a shortfall would be dependent on the level of administrative efficiency under which the loan scheme is run. Thus, overall loan recovery of a loans scheme takes account also of administrative costs that are not passed on to the student borrowers and the extent of repayment default. In some schemes, an additional element affecting the recovery ratio is the provision for canceling individual repayment obligations (“forgiveness”) for such reasons as low graduate earnings which fall below a designated income threshold, disability, death, academic performance (South African, Norwegian and Dutch schemes) and the encouragement of graduates to enter skills-shortage occupations (Korean Ministry of Education Scheme for Engineering graduates) or to practice in underserved geographical areas (teachers and doctors in the Unites States).
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Repayment and Recovery Ratios: International Comparisons How large are these gaps across countries in practice? This issue was probed for 44 loan schemes in 39 countries (Shen and Ziderman 2009). Many loan schemes were shown to exhibit sizeable built-in subsidies accruing to student borrowers. The distribution of repayment ratios across the 44 schemes is shown in Table 3. Thirteen schemes (about 30% of the sample) have relatively high repayment ratios, in excess of 80%. However, most schemes contain large built-in hidden grants: the repayment ratio in 18 schemes (over 40% of the loans schemes examined) is less than 60%. The average repayment ratio is 61% (so that, on average, borrowers are required to repay only about 60% of the value of the total loan received). Overall loan recovery is considerably lower. No scheme has a loan recovery ratio exceeding 80%. Only five programs (above 20% of the sample) display recovery ratios higher than 60%, for the most part loan recovery is not high; 80% of the schemes display recovery ratios of 60% or less. In a third of the cases, loan recovery does not rise above 20%. Overall, the average recovery ratio is 39%. There are two noteworthy points emerging from these results, both dispelling prevalent myths about the financing of loan schemes. The first relates to the shortfall from full recovery in virtually all government-sponsored loans (and the very heavy losses in some). The widely held view that loan schemes can act as a revolving fund which, once capitalized, will finance themselves through repayments of earlier loans, is not consonant with the facts. There are, however, a few notable exceptions; for example, in Hungary, there is no general interest subsidy, except for a grace period during study. The second point relates to the supposed dominant role played by repayment default and high administrative costs in accounting for low loans recovery. As the bottom section of Table 3 shows, design factors (particularly built-in interest subsidies) are more important in accounting for recovery loss. The average repayment ratio is 61%, representing a hidden grant (a loss to the scheme)
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Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education, Table 3 Repayment and recovery ratios: international comparisons Number of schemes Recovery ratio (with Repayment default and ratio administration costs) 13 0
Ratio Above 80% 61–80% 13 5 41–60% 8 11 21–40% 7 2 20% or 3 8 less Total 44 26 number of schemes Average repayment ratio: 61% (Average hidden grant: 39%) Average recovery ratio: 39%
Source: Shen and Ziderman (2009)
of some 40%. The inclusion also of default and administration costs will clearly reduce recovery, but the recovery ratio falls by only a further 22% points. The question whether such large interest rate subsidies can be justified is now addressed.
Justifying Student Loans Subsidies In loan schemes where either cost recovery or student independence constitutes the central objective, the case for heavy built-in student loan subsidies is not strong. In both of these cases, the intended effect of student loans is to reduce the financial burden on students during study and to delay fee payment (through borrowing) until after graduation, when payment is more readily made from the expected enhancement of earnings. The aim should be near-full loan recovery; in these cases, the level of built-in subsidy is often excessive in practice. It is only where loan schemes are aimed directly at social targeting that a clearer case for sizeable built-in subsidies can be made. To be effective in increasing the education access of the poor, loans may need to be substantially subsidized through low interest rates. But such subsidies, as noted above, will entail considerable budgetary costs. Since a grant offers a
stronger and more direct incentive for access than does a (partially) repayable loan, the apparent advantage of loans over grants is less clear-cut. This highlights a central conundrum in loan policy: at what level of built-in loan subsidy, does a grant become a more cost-effective instrument for helping the poor than a subsidized loan (with hidden grants)? This suggests that in country settings where state budgets are constrained, a more appropriate financial aid program for the poor is likely to involve a combination of both loans and grants, with a relatively larger overt grant element for the very poor. This is the practice in the LFS Hong Kong scheme, in England and in many other loan schemes. In the comparative UNESCO study of loan schemes in South East Asia – in China, Hong Kong, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand (Ziderman 2004) – most schemes were shown to conform to the social targeting model, aimed at greater participation of the poor. Yet the evidence did not indicate any high degree of success in increasing the university access of the poor. A number of essential conditions for success were lacking. These include a sufficiently high level of individual support to cover necessary expenses, a broad coverage of poor students to achieve national impact, and careful and deliberate loan targeting so that loans do indeed reach the poor and other disadvantaged groups. In sum, the levels of built-in subsidies, resulting in low repayment ratios, are often excessive. High subsidies may be either unnecessary (cost-sharing and student independence models) or not very effective in practice in achieving objectives (social targeting). Since the level of built-in subsidy is determined by government, subsidies may be reduced, as appropriate, by government decision. However, vested interests may militate against these desirable changes.
Repayment Collection Mortgage Loans or Income Contingent Repayment? Mortgage-type loan repayment is the common standard for loan schemes in most countries.
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education
Loan repayment is made over a specified time period, usually in fixed periodic repayments; a designated interest rate and a maximum time horizon are employed to calculate the fixed periodic repayments. The higher the rate of interest that is set and the shorter the repayment period, the greater will be the monthly sum required as repayment. More recently, a number of mainly industrialized counties, including Australia, New Zealand, and England, have employed income-contingent repayment schemes. Periodic loan repayment obligations are not fixed but are determined as a proportion of the graduate’s income in each period; collection is usually entrusted to the income tax authorities because information on individual incomes is required. One advantage of mortgage-type loans, from the perspective of the lender, is the ease in ascertaining individual borrower monthly repayment obligations, which are time-invariant; thus, the stream of total repayment receipts is fairly well known in advance. However, a regime of fixedlevel repayments may impose a heavy burden on new graduates in the initial years following graduation, given low starting salaries and the reality of graduate unemployment, particularly in many developing countries. A heavy repayment burden will encourage repayment default. A much touted benefit of income-contingent repayment is that the repayment obligation is lower in the earlier repayment years. Yet, in practice, a number of measures may be employed, within mortgage loan repayment procedures, to obviate the emergence of heavy repayment burdens; some of these are standard practice, others could be adopted with ease. These measures include the introduction of a period of “grace” following graduation, a longer repayment time horizon and graduated repayment schedules, as in Venezuela (smaller earlier annual repayments and larger later repayments). And repayment deferral may be made available to borrowers on an individual basis in cases of financial hardship, where income falls below a designated low income ceiling. There are two necessary conditions for successfully implementing a system of income contingent repayment: information on graduates’ current income and the institutional capacity to
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effect repayment collection. Usually, both functions are performed by the tax authorities, as in the Australian scheme. The participation of the tax authorities in collection can be effective only where “pay-as-you-earn” systems (taxes are deducted by employers, at source) are widespread and effective; these mechanisms are insufficiently well developed or too over-burdened in many countries to be adopted for this purpose. There is now an emerging consensus that incomecontingent repayment schemes may be appropriate only in more industrialized economies. Repayment Burden There is now a considerable literature reflecting the concern that many student loans schemes may saddle graduates with an inordinately heavy loan debt. But the approach adopted here is not concerned with the total size of the loan debt facing a student on graduation (nor with the perception of prospective students about this debt), but rather with the extent to which repayment of the loan does, in practice, constitute a financial burden. The repayment burden falling on the borrower each year may be measured by the required annual loan repayment expressed as a percentage of annual income. In the case of income-contingent repayment schemes, this percentage is defined by the conditions of the loan. In the case of the Hungarian loan scheme, this stands at 6%; in South Africa scheme repayment varies between 3% and 8% depending on annual income, in New Zealand at 10% and in the current scheme in England at 9%. Since the repayment percentage out of income is built into income-contingent schemes, the repayment burden may, by design, be kept within acceptable limits and is the same for all borrowers. Further, low income earners and the unemployed are protected by a minimum income threshold for repayment. With mortgage-type loans, the situation is very different. While all borrowers repay the same annual amount, the repayment burden is inversely related to income, so that the repayment burden falls over the repayment horizon. The measurement of the repayment burden, for each year of repayment, may be related to estimated average
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graduate income for that year; the repayment burden will fall, over time, as real incomes rise. The size of the repayment burden will depend not only on graduate annual incomes and loan size, but also on the size of loans subsidies and the length of the repayment horizon. High levels of state subsidy in the Thai Student Loan Scheme (SLS) imply a low repayment ratio of only 21% and moderate annual repayment obligations. Consequently, the repayment burden is very light: some 2.5% for males and, because of their lower earnings, 3.5% for females. But such estimates are misleading, because they do not show the considerably higher repayment burdens borne on average by low-earning graduates. The repayment burden for graduate borrowers falling in the lowest decile of earners may be as much as four times greater. Low earners may be protected from excessive repayment burdens by the introduction of sufficiently high income repayment thresholds, as is common in income-contingent schemes.
Loan Scheme Implementation: Some Practical Issues The foregoing discussion focused on five central issues that need to be addressed in evaluating an existing loans scheme or setting up a new one. However, these are finally resolved, a loans scheme will flounder unless due attention is accorded to a number of practical issues; these include the following. Consider Policy Alternatives Prior to the introduction of a loans scheme, or the major reform of an existing one, policy makers should weigh the advantages (and disadvantages) of available alternatives to loans schemes, which may be better able to secure the same objectives. Such an analysis may indicate that such measures be introduced in concert with a loans scheme to strengthen its effect or, if deemed preferable, to provide an alternative solution.
Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education
Achieving National Impact In some countries, loans schemes remain small in coverage (mainly due to insufficient available funding but also perhaps to such shortcomings as inadequate marketing). They therefore reach only a small percentage of the category of students for whom the scheme is intended. The small total size of the scheme limits its efficacy in achieving the national objectives as set for the loans scheme in question. Adequacy of Loan Size Individual loans should be of sufficient size to meet the defined needs of students, whether for educational costs, living expenses, or both. Three elements are required to ensure the adequacy of individual loans size: availability of sufficient total loans scheme funding, information on students’ financial needs (probably via surveys of student expenses), and equitable distribution policies. Reducing Default It is noted above that over-heavy repayment burdens will lead to repayment default. But in parallel, measures should be implemented to penalize repayment evasion. Requiring a co-signature as guarantor may be helpful, but often little more than lip service is given to guarantor provisions. More effective measures may include legal action against defaulters or their guarantors, barring access to further credit, and moral pressure through the publication of the names of inveterate defaulters. In parallel, measures to inculcate a more positive attitude towards repayment could be developed; universities would play an important role in this regard. Learning from International Experience Policy reform in the field of student loans, as in other areas, should be guided by international experience. However, instant “institutional borrowing,” in adopting a blueprint based on a particular country’s successful practice, is inappropriate given inevitable differences in institutions, administrative capabilities, and socio-cultural norms.
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education
Rather, a more eclectic approach is indicated, in terms of drawing careful lessons from a wide range of international experiences, through scrutinizing what has worked well and under what conditions.
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External Quality Assurance in Higher Education Bjørn Stensaker Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Cross-References ▶ Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education
Synonyms Accreditation; Assessment; Audit; Evaluation
References Johnstone, D.B., and P.N. Marcucci. 2010. Financing higher education worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Particularly Chapters 6 and 7. Shen, Hua, and A. Ziderman. 2009. Student loans repayment and recovery: International comparisons. Higher Education 53 (3): 315–333. Ziderman, A. 2002. Alternative objectives of national student loan schemes: Implications for design, evaluation and policy. The Welsh Journal of Education 11 (1): 37–47. Ziderman, A. 2013. Student loans schemes in practice: Global perspectives. In Student financing of higher education: A comparative perspective, International studies in higher education series, ed. D.E. Heller and C. Callender. New York: Routledge. Ziderman, A, and M. Bevc (Eds.). 2009, Financial support to students through student loans, European centre for higher education (CEPES) [Special issue]. Higher Education in Europe, 34(2). Ziderman, A., and International Institute for Educational Planning. 2004. Policy options for student loan schemes: Lessons from five Asian case studies. Paris: UNESCO.
Experimental Higher Education ▶ Alternative Higher Education
Expert Examination ▶ Peer Review, Higher Education
Definition External quality assurance is a term used to describe a wide variety of undertaken at institutional and/or program level by agencies external to higher education institutions
Introduction External quality assurance (EQA) is a term that increasingly has been introduced in higher education systems all over the world (Westerheijden et al. 2007b). While the earliest forms of EQA, external accreditation, were established in the USA over a century ago (Ratcliffe 1996), the massive buildup of EQA systems was introduced from the mid-1980s, and a number of countries are continuing to establish such systems even today (Dill and Beerkens 2010). There are several driving forces behind this development, but in general, national authorities have been a key actor initiating and organizing EQA schemes. These different EQA schemes are typically the key responsibility of quasiindependent national quality assurance agencies that operate through delegation by national authorities. The big exception to this picture is the USA, where external quality assurance is self-organized through a range of regional and disciplinary accreditation bodies (Ratcliffe 1996; Harvey 2004; Dill and Beerkens 2010).
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However, there are also an increasing number of nongovernmental organizations that have taken responsibility for developing more supra- and international EQA arrangements and concepts (Rosa et al. 2011). Hence, there are currently a range of public- and privately owned EQA schemes in higher education operating both in and across national systems (Stensaker and Maassen 2015). The procedures of EQA are still based on a rather common approach and tend to include – in addition to an independent agency conducting and overseeing the process – an initial stage where the target of the EQA process is conducting what is often known as a self-evaluation, a follow-up stage where the external agency performs an evaluation taking into account the information from the self-evaluation, and a subsequent reporting stage where the outcomes are made known to the general public (van Vught and Westerheijden 1994). This general EQA process can still be varied in a number of ways, including whether it is voluntary or mandatory for institutions to participate, the extent to which an EQA is systematically applied to the sector and the frequency of this process, and finally, the consequences such a process may have for those being evaluated.
Purposes of External Quality Assurance Empirical research has demonstrated that EQA is an activity that can be linked to many different purposes, including to (Dill 1995; Brennan and Shah 2000): • Ensure accountability • Change the governmental steering of higher education • Improve the quality of higher education provisions • Inform students and employers about the quality of the educational provision • Enhance competitiveness between institutions nationally and internationally • Check quality of new providers in the higher education sector • Assign status to institutions
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education
The list above is far from exhaustive, and other purposes may be added. However, a key discussion with respect to EQA is whether the main purpose of this activity should be directed at accountability (control) or development (improvement) (Thune 1996; Stensaker 2008). This issue is often directly linked to governmental ideas and approaches concerning how higher education should be steered, the level of trust in the sector, and the level of autonomy given to the sector (Stensaker and Maassen 2015). Although the general trend is for EQA to be increasingly associated with external accountability, there are still many examples of national and international EQA arrangements that try to combine accountability and improvement in their operations.
Different Forms of External Quality Assurance What purpose EQA is given is often closely linked to the forms of EQA that are implemented. Hence, in systems where control, competitiveness, and status are high on the agenda, there is a tendency toward launch EQA arrangements where accreditation is a key activity. In systems where purposes are tilted more to improvement, other forms of EQA are more popular including audits and more tailored evaluation schemes. Key forms of EQA include: • Accreditation – which is an EQA procedure aimed at providing a yes or no answer to the question whether a given higher education institution or a given educational offering are above a defined academic threshold (see also Harvey 2004; Stensaker 2011). • Audit – which is an EQA procedure intended to oversee the internal quality assurance procedures in place at a given institution or in a given educational offering. Normally, audits are used at institutional level and are often meant as a support to the institutional leadership in further development of the university or college (see also Dill 2000; Jennings and Cameron 2013; Shah and Nair 2013; Lange and Singh 2013).
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education
• Assessment – which is an EQA procedure intended to analyze the output, the results, or academic performance of an educational offering. Often, such outputs are focused on what students know or have learnt as a result of their study (Frederiks et al. 1994; Palmer 2013). • Licensing – which is an EQA procedure that enables an institution or specific educational offerings the initial right to admit students (Kis 2005). Normally, a license is given for a limited time and is an EQA procedure which is often combined with later accreditations, audits, etc. For more detailed information regarding EQA concepts and definitions, see also: http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/ glossary/#l. While the different forms of EQA may be seen as mutually exclusive, it should be noticed that the label given to specific EQA arrangements often hide a variety of practices which may blur the difference between the forms when in operation. A noticeable difference is not at least noticeable between some public and private EQA arrangements. For example, while the term accreditation may be used by both public and private accreditation schemes, it is normally only the public ones that have legal implications and direct funding consequences. Private accreditation schemes are more related to the acquirement of status and later usage in institutional profiling, marketing, and branding exercises. Private accreditation agencies may also operate across national borders, a practice public EQA agencies are more rarely involved in (Stensaker and Maassen 2015). However, in many regions around the world, attempts are currently being made to develop regional standards and guidelines that can be used and applied by EQA agencies regardless of their public or private status. A typical example can be found in Europe where regional standards on EQA (ESG – European Standards and Guidelines) (and of other aspects of quality assurance) have been developed as part of the Bologna process.
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Effects and Impact of External Quality Assurance Effects and impact of EQA can in principle be traced to the system as well as to the institutional level (Westerheijden et al. 2007a; Stensaker et al. 2011; Leiber et al. 2015). Typical system level effects can be related to the transformation of how higher education institutions are governed, to perceptions about how a given higher education system is performing, and to processes of diversification in the institutional landscape (Stensaker 2008). However, most studies have been focused on how EQA have affected higher education institutions, and in general, three dimensions are often highlighted as key outcomes of EQA. Centralization EQA is often found to be associated with internal power shifts in institutions, especially from lower to higher levels. As higher education institutions are increasingly held responsible for the quality of teaching and learning output, the central level at institutions has often build up their own quality systems (Bilen 2010; Manatos et al. 2017), either voluntary or as a result of mandatory requirements (Bollaert 2014). This has led to stronger vertical control and the perceived need for institutional oversight of internal operations (Williams 2012). The establishment of vertical reporting systems and student evaluation systems and the buildup of institutional performance systems are often part of this development (Stensaker 2008). Professionalization EQA is also often found to be a key driving force behind the increased professionalization of universities and colleges (Stensaker 2008). This professionalization is both related to the increased specialization of the administration and the tendency for a more professional academic leadership associated with teaching and learning (Westerheijden et al. 2007b). However, increased professionalization can also be noted in the ways and forms educational offerings are designed and operating where technology-based information systems are being used to assess the performance and educational outcomes. A more unfortunate
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effect of EQA is the transformation of existing and established “quality practices” into written rules, regulations, and procedures which sometimes lead to what some have characterized as increased bureaucracy and unnecessary red tape (Newton 2000). Stakeholder Involvement As part of the process of implementing EQA, it is typical that evaluations undertaken include a range of stakeholders, either as part of the EQA exercise or as targets for the information and outcomes of EQA. Typically, students, private sector organizations and industry, employers, and representatives of the civil society are invited to participate in EQA processes – as evaluators or by providing information to those evaluating. This stakeholder involvement can be said to have diverse effects including the potential increased power external interests might have on higher education but also possible improved relationships and a more mutual understanding between higher education institutions and the larger society (Stensaker et al. 2011). For students, which in some parts of the world have been excluded from participating in the formal processes related to assessing quality and institutional performance, EQA can be seen as one of the most important measures for boosting their influence in the sector (Palmer 2013; Vukasovic et al. 2015). One of the key debates with respect to the impact and effects of EQA has been whether the above noticed developments also have significantly reduced the power and influence of academic staff and teachers with respect to how educational offerings are designed and implemented (Barandiaran-Galdós et al. 2012; Cardoso et al. 2016). Several studies have suggested that academic staff in some contexts and institutions is experiencing a lack of freedom with respect to their teaching and increased control of their work (Newton 2000, 2002). In some countries and institutions, this tendency has been sought to overcome by attempts to engage the academic staff in EQA processes and to initiate and stimulate to “quality cultures” aligning EQA requirements and institutional traditions and characteristics (Harvey and Stensaker 2008). There
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education
are few empirical studies that convincingly demonstrate whether such quality cultures can be developed by design.
The Current Development of External Quality Assurance EQA is an activity that continues to develop and where quality assurance agencies tend to expand their “tool-box” from focusing on one form of EQA to combining different forms of EQA in a larger portfolio of procedures. As part of the globalization and growing internationalization of the higher education sector, EQA is changing accordingly, and a number of countries – especially in Europe – are currently allowing foreign and private EQA agencies to operate inside their national borders and where the decisions made are increasingly accepted by national authorities. As such, one can argue that there is a trend toward an emerging competitive joint market for EQA providers and EQA buyers. However, EQA is also facing increasing competition from the emergence of various university ranking systems and performance indicator systems which also claim to provide information of the quality of teaching and learning. Due to the simplistic ways in which results are displayed in such ranking and performance indicator systems, they can pose a real challenge to EQA which tend to display their outcome in less accessible and more discursive forms. In more mature higher education systems where EQA have operated for a number of years, there is also a tendency to experiment with more risk-based approaches to EQA where institutions that have documented their commitment to quality assurance are given more discretion and are rewarded by being exposed to a leaner EQA processes (Massaro 2010). These institutions have also often developed their own internal quality systems (Bilen 2010; Pratasavitskaya and Stensaker 2010; Manatos et al. 2017) and are arguing that the need for EQA is decreasing. However, as the maturity of and challenges facing higher education systems and institutions are diverse, EQA are in different stages in
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education
different countries and regions globally. This suggests that the complexity of EQA will continue to rise in the years to come and that issues of mutual trust across national borders will be one of the key issues EQA will have to face (Stensaker and Maassen 2015). Whether is it possible to establish and gain acceptance for global standards for EQA is yet another question.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability ▶ Governance ▶ Management ▶ Peer Review
References Barandiaran-Galdós, M., M. Ayesta, A. CordonaRodríguez, J.J.M. del Campo, and J. OlaskoagaLaurrauri. 2012. What do teachers think about quality in the Spanish university? Quality Assurance in Education 20 (2): 91–109. Bilen, C. 2010. Total quality management in higher education institutions: Challenges and future directions. International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management 5 (4): 473–492. Bollaert, L. 2014. A manual for internal quality assurance in higher education. Brussels: EURASHE. Brennan, J., and T. Shah. 2000. Managing quality in higher education. An international perspective on institutional assessment and change. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press. Cardoso, S., M. Rosa, and B. Stensaker. 2016. Why is quality in higher education not achieved? The view of academics. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 41 (6): 950–965. Dill, D.D. 1995. Through Deming’s eyes: A cross-national analysis of quality assurance policies in higher education. Quality in Higher Education 1 (1): 95–110. Dill, D.D. 2000. Capacity building through academic audits: Improving quality work in the UK, New Zealand, Sweden, and Hong Kong. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 2 (2): 211–234. Dill, D.D., and M. Beerkens, eds. 2010. Public policy for academic quality. Dordrecht: Springer. Frederiks, M.M.H., D.F. Westerheijden, and P.J.M. Weusthof. 1994. Effects of quality assessment in Dutch higher education. European Journal of Education 29 (2): 181–200. Harvey, L. 2004. The power of accreditation. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 26 (2): 207–223.
425 Harvey, L., and B. Stensaker. 2008. Quality culture: Understandings, boundaries and linkages. European Journal of Education 43 (4): 427–442. Jennings, J., and J. Cameron. 2013. Reflections of the effectiveness of four cycles of external quality audits in New Zealand universities. In External quality audit. Has it improved quality assurance in universities? ed. M. Shah and C.S. Nair, 53–66. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Kis, V. 2005. Quality assurance in tertiary education: Current practices in OECD countries and a literature review on potential effects. Paris: OECD. Lange, L., and M. Singh. 2013. External quality audits in South African higher education: Goals, outcomes and challenges. In External quality audit. Has it improved quality assurance in universities? ed. M. Shah and C.S. Nair, 147–168. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Leiber, T., B. Stensaker, and L. Harvey. 2015. Impact evaluation of quality assurance in higher education: Methodology and causal designs. Quality in Higher Education (special issue) 21 (3): 288–311. Manatos, M.J., C.S. Sarrico, and M.J. Rosa. 2017. The integration of quality management in higher education: A systematic literature review. Total Quality Management 28 (2): 159–175. Massaro, V. 2010. Cui Bono? The relevance and impact of quality assurance. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 32 (1): 17–26. Newton, J. 2000. Feeding the beast or improving quality? Academics’ perceptions of quality assurance and quality monitoring. Quality in Higher Education 6 (2): 153–163. Newton, J. 2002. Barriers to effective quality management and leadership: Case study of two academic departments. Higher Education 44 (2): 185–212. Palmer, N. 2013. Scope, transparency and style: Systemlevel quality strategies and the student experience in Australia. In External quality audit. Has it improved quality assurance in universities? ed. M. Shah and C.S. Nair, 221–246. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Pratasavitskaya, H., and B. Stensaker. 2010. Quality management in higher education. Towards a better understanding of an emerging field. Quality in Higher Education 16 (1): 37–50. Ratcliffe, J.R. 1996. Assessment, accreditation and evaluation in the US. Quality in Higher Education 2 (1): 5–19. Rosa, M.J., S. Cardoso, D. Dias, and A. Amaral. 2011. The EUA institutional evaluation programme: An account of institutional best practices. Quality in Higher Education 17 (3): 369–386. Shah, M., and C.S. Nair. 2013. External quality audit. Has it improved quality assurance in universities? Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Stensaker, B. 2008. Outcomes of quality assurance: A discussion on knowledge, methodology and validity. Quality in Higher Education 14 (1): 3–13. Stensaker, B. 2011. Accreditation of higher education in Europe – Moving towards the US-model? Journal of Educational Policy 26 (6): 757–769.
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426 Stensaker, B., and P. Maassen. 2015. A conceptualization of available trust-building mechanisms for international quality assurance of higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 37 (1): 30–40. Stensaker, B., L. Langfeldt, J. Huisman, and D.F. Westerheijden. 2011. An in-depth study on the impact of external quality assurance. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 36 (4): 465–478. Thune, C. 1996. The alliance of accountability and improvement: The Danish experience. Quality in Higher Education 2 (1): 21–32. Van Vught, F.A., and D.F. Westerheijden. 1994. Towards a general model of quality assessment in higher education. Higher Education 28 (3): 355–371.
External Quality Assurance in Higher Education Vukasovic, M., J. Jungblut, and B. Stensaker. 2015. Students perspectives on quality in higher education. European Journal of Higher Education 5 (2): 157–180. Westerheijden, D., V. Hulpiau, and K. Waeytens. 2007a. From design and implementation to impact of quality assurance: An overview of some studies into what impacts improvements. Tertiary Education and Management 13: 295–312. Westerheijden, D., B. Stensaker, and M.J. Rosa, eds. 2007b. Quality assurance in higher education: Trends in regulation, translation and transformation. Dordrecht: Springer. Williams, P. 2012. Quality assurance and leadership. Journal of the European Higher Education Area 4: 1–22.
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Fachhochschulen ▶ Non-university Higher Education
Factors Influencing Participation in Higher Education ▶ Economic Determinants of Higher Education Demand
Factors Influencing Scientists’ Public Engagement Fabienne Crettaz von Roten University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
In science communication, the model of “public engagement” has replaced the “deficit model” as a solution to improve a relationship between science and society perceived as problematic. Public engagement was described as a means of restoring public trust in science and in scientific institutions, by encouraging scientists to leave the ivory tower and to engage in a two-way relationship with society. However, there are different approaches to “public engagement” which relate to different fields of academic study (i.e., policy studies, higher education studies, sociology of science, science communication). This entry, focused on the last one, will offer a discussion of the historical background for science- and technology-oriented public engagement and of the studies which analyzed scientists’ public engagement. What do we know about factors influencing those behaviors?
Background Synonyms Civic engagement; Public engagement
Definition Scientists’ public engagement can be defined as the actions undertaken by scientists to communicate their research results and interact with the publics outside the university or science sector.
In most countries, the emergence of the so-called public mistrust problem was generally linked to specific scientific events and stakeholders of science governance, as documented by many scholars. For example, in the UK, the 1996 mad cow disease and the 2000 report “Science and Society” of the House of Lords played a central role (Irwin 2009), whereas in Switzerland the triggering factor was the 1998 Gene Protection initiative.
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The Swiss example provides a good illustration of this so-called public mistrust problem. The role of Switzerland in biomedical research was preeminent in the late 1990s, but enough signatures were collected among the citizens to vote on an initiative that would end this kind of research. In a general climate mostly unfavorable – expressed among others by the findings of polls taken before the vote – the initiative created intense public debates about biotechnology. In reaction, for the first time in Swiss history, almost 5,000 scientists and physicians demonstrated in the streets of Zurich, Geneva, and Lugano for the freedom of scientific research and increased their visibility in the public sphere by participating in the debate. Finally, the initiative was rejected by 67% of Swiss voters on June 7, 1998. Given the heated nature of the debate and the possible impact of future initiatives related to science, the Science and Society Foundation was created at the federal level to foster public engagement. This foundation is in charge of the Swiss science festival (2001, 2005, and 2009) and of other engagement practices. This can be explained at two levels. Firstly, scientific institutions’ system of social control decreed the rules for PE activities: the who (i.e. old male, ordinary professors) and the what (i.e. to improve the public image of science) of PE. Secondly, because media and science communication practitioners tends to principally contact scientists depending on their status and gender, thus reinforcing the structure of the academic profession and the domination of a happy few. Scientists have always been visible in the public sphere (Goodell 1977), but mainly with the aim to educate and inform the public, not really to listen to public inputs. In the turning point of the 2000s, the discourse around the relationship between science and society shifted from public deficit of scientific knowledge that needs to be solved by (one-way, top-down) public outreach (PO) activities to a lack of trust of science by citizens that needs to be solved by (two-way, bottom-up) public engagement (PE) activities. The PE concept was grounded in various theoretical frameworks, such as deliberative democracy, technology assessment, new knowledge
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production, or institutional theory (Einsiedel 2008). In this two-way relationship, we do not consider one undifferentiated public but various publics that have different backgrounds, concerns, and needs and that can endorse different roles in different contexts (i.e., citizen, consumer, patient, member of organized interests, stakeholder). A proliferation of engagement processes emerged to meet these various publics which have an active role as they can question a scientific issue, give their preference on a scientific issue, and contribute to the production of knowledge and/or political decisions. Public participation seeks to improve the quality of political decisions and makes citizens fall more in line with those decisions. A new type of PE called upstream engagement has been proposed that involves interaction at an early stage in the innovation process with citizens to avoid them facing a fait accompli.
Research on Scientists’ Public Engagement Literature related to PE emerged which covered theory, practice, and evidence, among the latter academic scientists are an important category for assessment. A few empirical studies have tried to measure their level of public engagement and to identify significant factors related to scientists’ PE perceptions and behaviors. These studies, either based on survey, interviews, focus group, or participant observation, have nowadays been realized in different countries (the UK, France, the USA, Switzerland, etc.) and in different scientific domains (initially only for the natural science, some studies involved also the social sciences), but they fail to provide a definite picture of the phenomenon. One problem lies in the fact that they measure public outreach and public engagement activities together: most scientists performed both types of activities since one model did not supersede the other (Irwin 2009). Focusing on different activities along the continuum between low and high public involvement, school conferences, participation in open days or science café, collaboration
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with NGOs, organization consensus conference, or national hearings exercise, to name a few (for an overview of common forms of public engagement, see Besley 2010) , they cannot generally differentiate factors influencing POE from those influencing PE. The terms PE and POE are used interchangeably in the remaining part of this entry. As with many studies on an issue, they differ also on the population studied, timeframe, variables introduced as potential explanatory factors, and so on, making it difficult to compare their results. The diversity of factors included in the studies arises from the different theories mobilized by researchers, for example, sociology of organization, sociology of work, theory of planned behavior, and so on.
Key Factors Affecting Public Engagement These studies have found that scientists engage in PE activities more often than is generally expected but with great heterogeneity among scientists, i.e., a pyramidal distribution with a small group of scientists performing a wide range of activities, whereas a large group of scientists doing (quasi) none. Among the range of activities, scientists choose more outreach (one-way) than engagement (two-way) formats. Some argue that there is a gap between scientists’ practice and rhetoric about the type of interactions with the publics. Finally as a self-reported behavior, scientists’ responses may be influenced by social desirability, both on the level and on the type of activities. Various factors have been identified to explain these differences in scientists’ practices, some at the individual-level and others at the organizational-level, some represent the context – personal, cultural, and structural – in which a scientist is called to do PE activities, and others represent aspects that may mediate the effects of the former. Individual-Level Factors A first bunch of factors stem from scientists’ characteristics – status, age, and gender. Most studies reported more engagement among scientists with
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a higher status – either measured by a more or less detailed qualitative variable of status or by the number of years in research – or older scientists. Some studies reported less, others more engagement among female scientists. This calls for the control of these three factors in any analysis. Some researchers have reported the influence of scientists’ personality traits (i.e., extraversion, openness to experience, narcissism may favor PE activities) and of scientists’ values (i.e., democratic values, openness, empathy, responsibility, community involvement). More generally focused on the process of communication, scientists feeling efficient, in particular being equipped to fulfill it, and accepting the lack of control over the PE process, may be more willing to perform PE activities. Finally, some researchers have described a positive relationship between scientific productivity and PE activities: scientists doing PE tend to perform better academically than those doing none and vice versa. Organizational-Level Factors The pattern of PE activities differs a lot among disciplines. On one side, a scientist might perceive more or less political nature in his discipline, and more or less societal interest (by way of comparison, biotechnology, and mathematics), which might influence his view of the importance of engagement and therefore engagement behavior. On the other side, each discipline has its own culture of PE and may consider PE more or less compatible with professional culture. The relation between a discipline and PE may vary from country to country, due to the political system (e.g., direct democracy of Switzerland allows initiatives concerning scientific issues, such as biotechnology or nuclear energy) or due to the pressure to legitimate the spending of public funds or another pressure such as the strong mobilization of activists. Inside an institution, the situation of a discipline can prompt deans to foster public engagement: increased visibility helps to secure social support and public legitimacy. These aspects can increase or decrease the willingness of scientists to participate in POE activities.
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Some organizational contexts are indicators of the degree to which the institutions value public engagement and therefore affect scientists’ PE: communication training, communication autonomy, rewards for PE activities (in terms of time, money, career), and injunctive norms (due to a clear orientation of an institution or to a positive orientation of peers and entourage). In the presence of a public relation (PR) service, its effect may be contradictory: either mediator that favors scientists’ PE or restrictor of autonomy of scientists which may discourage PE (lack of behavioral control). The importance of PR can be seen as a possible division of labor between the administration and scientists, the latter focusing on research and the former being in charge of PE. However, the division of labor also takes place between scientists. Some researchers have noted that these variations were very similar to the distribution of other resources in the scientific community, highlighting a new aspect of the Matthew effect (Merton 1968) and of the Matilda effect (Rossiter 1993): most of the scientists who do PE are males at the very top of the academic hierarchy. This can be explained at two levels. Firstly, scientific institutions’ system of social control decreed the rules for PE activities: the who (i.e. old male, ordinary professors) and the what (i.e. to improve the public image of science) of PE. Secondly, because media and science communication practitioners tends to principally contact scientists depending on their status and gender, thus reinforcing the structure of the academic profession and the domination of a happy few. Mediator Factors The theory of planned behavior states that positive attitudes toward PE increase the likelihood to perform PE activities. Attitudes in that theory translate in the classical incentives and barriers of PE activities mentioned by scientists: among the former, the improvement of the relationship with society, an increased legitimacy, and recruitment of future students and, among the latter, time and money constraints, lack of communication skills, lack of recognition by institutions, peer pressure, and fear of being misunderstood by the
Faculty
publics. In this model, past PE behavior is a good predictor of current level of engagement and of future willingness to engage (the creation of a virtuous circle). The results presented in this entry indicate what may favor scientists’ PE activities, but say nothing about its outputs, in particular its impacts on governance. It is possible that some scientists carry out a few specific activities that have a very high impact, whereas frequent forms of activities can have a negligible impact. There is “insufficient systematic reflection on what all this activity has achieved” (Stilgoe et al. 2014, p.5).
Cross-References ▶ Women in Science Communication
References Besley, John. 2010. Public engagement. In Encyclopedia of science and technology communication, ed. Susanna Hornig Priest, 45–50. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Einsiedel, Edna. 2008. Public participation and dialogue. In Handbook of public communication of science and technology, ed. Massimiano Buchi and Bryan Trench, 173–184. London: Routledge. Goodell, Rae. 1977. The visible scientists. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Irwin, Alan. 2009. Moving forwards or in circles? Science communication and scientific governance in an age of innovation. In Investigating science communication in the information age: Implications for public engagement and popular media, ed. Richard Holliman et al., 3–17. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Merton, Robert K. 1968. The Matthew effect in science. Science 159 (3810): 56–63. Rossiter, Margaret. 1993. The Matilda effect in science. Social Studies of Science 23: 325–341. Stilgoe, Jack, Simon Lock, and John Wildson. 2014. Why should we promote public engagement with science? Public Understanding of Science 23: 4–15.
Faculty ▶ Academic Profession, Higher Education ▶ New Public Management and the Academic Profession
Federal States, States and Local Policies in Higher Education
Fairness ▶ Equity in Higher Education ▶ Merit and Equality in Higher Education Access
Faith-Based Internationalization ▶ Identity and Internationalization in Catholic Higher Education
Family Academic Capital ▶ First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis
Family Cultural Capital ▶ First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis
Federal States, States and Local Policies in Higher Education Alberto Amaral CIPES, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
Federations and Confederations Salamon (2002) has introduced the concept of “new governance” or “new negotiated governance” to characterize a new and more complex form of public policy, where there is an increasing role of diverse actors, multiple aims, and issues which challenge the state’s capacity of direction and make governance more difficult. At the same time, higher education systems are becoming
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more and more intricate due to a number of developments such as massification, increasing diversity, internationalization, etc. The level of complexity of governance may increase substantially with multi-level governance, as is the case with countries that are federations. A federation or federal state is characterized as a political entity composed of several constituent units, each of them exercising self-rule in some areas while the federal institutions exercise the shared powers in others. Ronald Watts argues, “authority within the political system is constitutionally dispersed among constituent governments rather than being derived from one government devolving power upon another level of government” (1991: 7). This means that both levels of government derive their authority from a written “contract embodied in a constitution and in that sense are of equal constitutional status” (1991: 7). Watts has identified a number of states in many regions of the globe that are or claim to be federations, such as US and Canada in North America; Mexico, Argentine, and Brazil in South America; Switzerland and Germany in Europe; Australia, India, and Malaysia in Asia and the Pacific; and Nigeria in Africa and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. There are also a number of other countries that not being formal federations share some of the characteristics of federations, such as Belgium, Spain, Italy, UK, China, South Africa, etc. A federation tries to combine the advantages of larger and smaller political units. Larger units have advantages in economic terms (a large market), political influence, or defense. Smaller political units are better to accommodate diversity (Watts 1991) and heterogeneity such as ethnic, language, and cultural specificities. In a federation, tensions may arise between the federal level and its constituent units. These tensions result from the federal role of ensuring the development of an efficient and dynamic modern state and economic wellbeing and the regional role of protecting cultural diversity and the quality of life. In general, there is in every federation an institution responsible for solving disputes and conflicts of power between the different levels of
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government. This institution takes the form of a Supreme Court or Constitutional Court, an exception being Switzerland where disputes are decided by referendum. A confederation is distinct from a federation. In a confederation “the central institutions are ultimately subordinate politically to the constituent units and derive their authority from the approval and consent of the constituent units” (Watts 1991: 7). A good example of a confederation is the European Union although more recently it has been incorporating some characteristics of federations (e.g., some rules relate to the use of a common currency or the presence of a European Court of Justice). The European treaties regulate the allocation of power to the institutions of the Union and those that remain under the exclusive purview of the member states. In a confederation, the center unit does have neither a fiscal nor an electoral bases (Stanford 2014), which might explain the sense of lack of democracy experienced by European citizens. The authority of the center is delegated (not always on a permanent bases) by the member units, which may have veto power in a number of matters.
The Joint Decision Trap As referred before, in a federation or confederation there is a fundamental document – a constitution or treaty – which regulates the allocation of power between government levels, which can only be changed by consent of the constituent units. In general, decisions at central level are made by unanimous consent of the units or at least by qualified majority vote. This may result in political inefficiencies or even paralysis, namely, when the component units are very heterogeneous, and this was designated by Scharpf (2006) as “the joint decision trap” (JDT). Scharpf argues that the quality of public policy deteriorates when lower levels of governments have a decisive say in national policy-making. When lower levels have acquired outright veto positions, then paralysis is likely to set in. An example was the 1987 Constitutional amendment in Canada,
which failed to be ratified by two of the provincial legislatures within the time limit of 3 years. Another example was the failed attempt to implement a European Constitution when it was rejected by national referenda in France and the Netherlands. The basic problem is that the unanimity decision rule gives veto power to all participants; therefore, whenever a participant feels that a proposed change of policy has a negative impact on its interests, it will oppose the change using its veto power. The JDP shows the difficulty of changing policies without the consent of all participants. As we live in a world in permanent change, this situation may create an increasing mismatch between continuation of policies and the new needs of a dynamic environment, gradually worsening the quality of public policy. Examples of situations requiring change are the unification of Germany or the inclusion of new EU members, which created additional heterogeneity. There are possibilities of avoiding, at least partially, the effects of the JDP. In the Nordic countries (Blom-Hansen 1999: 60), governments can pursue policy goals through parliamentary means or intergovernmental corporatism (dealing directly with interest organizations such as trade unions), which puts pressure on decision-making authors for constructive cooperation with the central government trying to reach a compromise. In EU, the JDT does not apply to the supranational-hierarchical mode in which the Commission, the European Court of Justice, or the European Central Bank are able to exercise policy-making functions without involvement of politically accountable actors in the Council or the European Parliament. In principle, the Community method might force a member state to implement measures it is vehemently opposed to. However, this possibility was mitigated through the Luxembourg Compromise: “where. . . very important interests of one or more partners are at stake, the Members of the Council will endeavor. . . to reach solutions which can be adopted by all the Members of the Council while respecting their mutual interests and those of the Community” (EEC Council 1966: 5).
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Other possibility of avoiding the JDT in the EU would be to move from unanimous or qualified majority vote to single majority vote. However, this would not be feasible for decisions violating salient preferences in the Member States (Sharpf 2006: 857), as it would erode the legitimacy of European institutions. And differentiated integration is used, allowing member states to have different rights and obligations with respect to some common policy areas (Veiga et al. 2015).
Varieties of Federations There are a large variety of federations, which may present different characteristics. One difference is the degree of social homogeneity (e.g., same or different languages, same or different religions, similar or diverse levels of wealth). Federations are also different in institutional structure depending on the size, number, and heterogeneity of its members. In some federations, there is almost no overlap in areas of responsibility of the central government and the constituent units while in others there are large areas of formally concurrent jurisdiction. There are also differences in the level of symmetry of the jurisdiction of the component members. Some federations are parliamentary in nature while others are presidential or have a collegial executive. There is also a distinction between “hard federalism” and “soft federalism” (Smith and Wood 1991). In hard federalism, the national government holds most of the power, while soft federalism regions have substantial power in many areas such as health, education, etc. These different characteristics will obviously influence the way federations relate with their higher education systems.
Higher Education in Federations In general, education falls under the remit of the constituent units, and even more so when there are different languages and cultures. This was traditionally also the case of higher education, which plays an important role in developing local culture
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and distinctive traditions and history, and this makes the case for intervention of the constituent units. With the emergence of the knowledge society and the increasing importance of higher education in contributing to the capacity of nations to compete in the new global economic world, there has been a trend for increasing intervention of the federal level in higher education (Jungblut and Rexe 2017). However, the relative weight of the power exerted by each of the two government levels varies from one extreme of hard federalism to the extreme of soft federalism and very diverse situations are to be found in different federations. To clarify the diverse situations of the relation between the federal and the state or provincial level, a number of examples will be presented. United States The case of USA is an example of soft federalism. The tenth amendment to the US Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people”. For 176 years, the USA had no federal legislation on higher education. It was only in 1965, as part of the Great Society social agenda of President Lyndon Johnson that the Higher Education Act became law, authorizing the federal government to provide financial assistance to students. The Act goes through a reauthorization process every 5 years. The Act created an arrangement known as the Triad, based on the principle of distinct and mutually exclusive roles of its components, which are the federal government, the states, and the private accreditation organizations. The federal government is responsible for student aid and also finances research. State governments issue licenses to institutions that operate in the state. They also promote cooperation and collaboration among state institutions of higher education. Private, nonprofit, voluntary, nongovernmental membership associations of higher education institutions are responsible for accreditation of institutions and programs. Despite several attempts to increase the role of the federal government and the successive
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periodic reauthorization processes, this system of self-governance and self-regulation by institutions and accrediting organizations, with quality being assured without government intervention, has remained without much change until today (Eaton 2007). Canada In Canada, constitutional arrangements give their provinces exclusive jurisdiction over HE policy processes. Canada’s federalism, given its constitutional design, communities with different language and/or religion, and inter-governmental institutions is classified as segmented federalism (Capano 2015). In this highly decentralized federation, Canada does not have a ministry or federal department of education or a national system responsible for program and/or institutional accreditation. The primary coordination mechanism is the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), a voluntary national body created in 1967, whose decisions are made through consensus, thus de facto the principle of unanimity. CMEC does not have a formal representation of the federal government, and so far provincial governments have refused to give the federal government a permanent seat and to transform CMEC into an institution of intergovernmental cooperation. The main instrument available for federal governments is the power of the purse. The federal government transfers funds to the provinces, but these funds cannot be earmarked, as this would be considered an intrusion into provincial competencies. However, the federal government can finance student grants and research, establish a program to compensate universities for the indirect costs of research and a Post-Secondary Infrastructure Fund, as less constitutionally contested mechanism to gain some influence over higher education. The high level of autonomy of universities facilitated this process. Therefore, although the Provinces kept higher education policy under their purview, they could not oppose the effect of increased research funding over higher education (changed priorities, cross subsidization of research, etc.).
Germany In Germany, the constitution calls for the equality of living conditions across the federation (Braband 2004). Decisions on important issues are expected to be the result of balanced negotiation between all stakeholders, and in higher education a minimum of homogeneity is expected as a requisite to mobility and equality of education and employment opportunities. The constitution defines which areas are competences of the federal government, which areas are competences of the Länder, and which ones are overlapping competences of both levels. The Bundestag (Federal Assembly) represents the nation as a whole. The other legislative chamber is the Bundesrat (Federal Council) formed from members of the Länder and its consent is required for a large number of laws and for constitutional amendments. There is a third level of federalism, which ensures the horizontal cooperation between the Länder. This is the Conference of the Länder Heads of Government and at a lower level there are conferences of equivalent ministers of the different Länder. Both the Bundesrat and the Conferences represent territorially-based interests. This complex structure creates conditions for the JDT. In the 1980s and the 1990s, there were frequent reform deadlocks and the overturn of legal initiatives by the Constitutional Court (abolition of the habilitation in 2004 and student fee ban in 2005). The German constitution gave the Länder a central role in higher education. However, in 1969 a constitutional amendment gave the federal government responsibility for defining the general principles of higher education (structure of the curricula, university admissions, membership of governing bodies, academic recruitment, and careers). However, between the late 1990s and 2006, following a period of legislation deadlock, federal legislation and a constitutional reform transferred almost all powers in higher education back to the Länder. This reform was not accompanied by a reform of the fiscal system and soon the Länder realized they had no money to implement the higher education reform.
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The 2006 constitutional amendment reduced the number of laws needing the approval of both chambers, to decrease the blockage opportunities. The federal government was able to increase its intervention by using the fiscal resources, funding research, and launching a number of programs such as the Excellence Initiative to promote research excellence in universities. Therefore, the federal government, by using its funding capacity was allowed to intervene with the agreement of all Länder. Australia The Australian federation was established in 1901 with three levels: Commonwealth, state, and local. However, as argued by Smith and Wood (1991: 95) “there has been a deliberate move from ‘soft federalism’ to ‘hard federalism’”, one reason being the economic crisis and the need for a better educated work force. The Australian Constitution (section 51) considers higher education the responsibility of provinces and states. In 1974, the federal government used an interpretation of section 96 of the Australian Constitution to get hold of almost total responsibility for funding higher education while eliminating student fees (this would last for 14 years). Section 96 allows the Parliament to grant financial assistance to any state for an initial period of 10 years after the establishment of the Commonwealth and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provides. In the early 1980s an economic crisis allowed the federal government to initiate a set of reforms of neo-liberal connotation, including higher education, which was considered key to the nation’s interests. This reform strategy was known as “corporate federalism”, which suggests a move towards a more cooperative tone in the Australian federalism and greater coordination by the Commonwealth. In the late 1980s there were substantial changes, namely, the abolishment of the binary system through a compulsive amalgamation system (1988), the establishment of a new Department of Employment, Education and Training (1988), and the reintroduction of student fees with a value of 20% of tuition costs.
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From 1996, university funding suffered progressive cuts while student fees were increased. Cuts occurred in 1996, 1998, and 2000 and student fees increased to 32% of tuition costs. In 2005, universities were allowed to enroll up to 35% of domestic students on a full-fee payment basis. In 2009, the federal program “Transforming Australia’s Higher Education System” provided additional funding for higher education and established the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. In 2004, new changes were introduced: funding for teaching was reduced by 20%, the cap on student fees was removed, and earlier payment was established for student loans, the savings being earmarked for nonuniversity higher education. Therefore, in Australia, despite the provisions of the Constitution the federal government was able to play an increasing role in higher education by taking over responsibility for financing the system thus reducing the role of the states and their coordinating agencies. The high level of autonomy of universities made this change easier as institutions can deal directly with the federal government. Switzerland Switzerland is a multicultural agglomeration of minorities speaking four different languages and has developed into a federal state of 23 cantons. Successive constitutional amendments have reinforced the federal power although the cantons retain a considerable sphere of activities, namely, in the fields of education and culture. The division of responsibilities between the federal government and the cantons is a contested issue since article three of the Swiss constitution states that “the cantons. . . exercise all rights which are not entrusted to the federal power.” Article 63.2 allows the federal government to set up higher education institutions and to participate in the funding of cantonal universities. Today there are 10 universities run by cantons and two technical universities (Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology), directly dependent on the federal government. The structure of the higher education system was kept quite stable until the end of the 1990s,
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with a clear separation of powers between the federal government and the cantons. In 1968, a federal law (LAU) was passed defining the federal financial aid to universities, establishing the Swiss University Conference (CUS) and redefining the Swiss Science Council (CSS). Perellon (2001: 212) argues the central funding was counterbalanced by a relative loss of power of the cantons and “the history of the Swiss HE policy since then has been that of a continual back-and-forth between federal ambitions for greater control and cantonal resistance to losing prerogatives.” A revision of the LAU was passed by Parliament in 1999 proposing the transfer of some federal and cantonal prerogatives in favor a renewed CUS. The federal parliament did that by adopting the new act, and the cantonal parliaments confirmed their agreement in the October 2000 Concordat. The acceptance of a Convention of Co-operation followed, establishing the new governance structure of the system. These changes increased the coordination of the system and created a national Agency for quality assurance and accreditation. A new federal Act was passed by the Federal Parliament in September 2011. It establishes in the first article that the Confederation works with the Cantons to coordinate, maintain the quality, and ensure the competitiveness of the entire higher education sector in Switzerland. It clearly defines the federal powers, defines the coordinating bodies, includes provisions of the cooperation agreement with the cantons and defines rules for funding and accreditation.
Conclusions The governance of higher education systems in federations and confederations is made complex by the existence of more than one level of government. The structure of federations may lead to legislative blockage and is open to change due to tensions in the distribution of power between the different levels of government. Apparently, in higher education, there is a recent trend to promote the power of the federal government relative
to that of their units, using in many cases the federal financial resources and taking advantage of the autonomy of universities. The fact that the federal government is responsible for the economy of the nation allied to the increasing relevance of education in the knowledge society may explain this trend.
Cross-References ▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Policy ▶ Multi-Level Governance, Higher Education ▶ Policy Implementation in Higher Education ▶ Policy Instruments in Higher Education
References Blom-Hansen, Jensen. 1999. Avoiding the “joint-decision trap”: Lessons from intergovernmental relations in Scandinavia. European Journal of Political Research 35 (1): 35–67. Braband, Gangolf. 2004. Federalism and higher education policy. A comparative study of Canada and Germany. PhD thesis presented at Queen’s University, Belfast Capano, Giliberto. 2015. Federal strategies for changing the governance of higher education: Australia, Canada and Germany compared. In Varieties of governance. Dynamics, strategies, capacities, ed. Giliberto Capano, Michael Howlett, and M. Ramesh, 103–130. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Eaton, Judith. 2007. Institutions, accreditors, and the federal government: Redefining their appropriate relationship. Change 39 (5): 16–23. European Economic Community Council (EEC Council). 1966. Luxembourg compromise. Luxembourg: EEC Council. Retrieved 12 July 2017 from http://www. eurotreaties.com/documents.html. Jungblut, Jens, and Deanna Rexe. 2017. Higher education policy in Canada and Germany: Assessing multi-level and multi-actor coordination bodies for policy-making in federal systems. Policy and Society 36 (1): 49–66. Perellon, Juan-F. 2001. The governance of higher education in a Federal System: The case of Switzerland. Tertiary Education and Management 7 (2): 211–224. Salamon, Lester, ed. 2002. The tools of government: A guide to the new governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Scharpf, Fritz. 2006. The joint-decision trap revisited. Journal of Common Market Studies 44 (4): 845–864. Smith, Robert, and Fiona Wood. 1991. Higher education in federal systems: Australia. In Higher education in
Field of Higher Education Research in Latin America federal systems. Proceedings of an international colloquium held at Queen’s University, ed. Douglas Brown, Pierre Cazalis, and Gilles Jasmin, 95–124. Kingston, Ontario: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s University. Stanford University. 2014. Federalism in stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy. Retrieved 12 July 2017 from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/federalism/. Veiga, Amélia, António Magalhães, and Alberto Amaral. 2015. Differentiated integration and the bologna process. Journal of Contemporary European Research 11 (1): 84–102. Watts, Ronald L. 1991. The federal context for higher education. In D. Brown, P. Cazalis, G. Jasmin, (Eds.), Higher education in federal systems. Proceedings of an international colloquium held at Queen’s University, ed. Douglas Brown, Pierre Cazalis, and Gilles Jasmin, 3–23. Kingston, Ontario: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s University.
Field of Higher Education Research in Latin America Imanol Ordorika1,2 and Roberto Rodríguez-Gómez1 1 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City, Mexico 2 University of Johannesburg (UJ), Johannesburg, South Africa
Synonyms Higher education in Latin America as a field of studies; Research on higher education in Latin America; Studies about higher education in Latin America
Definition The characteristics, practices, activities, and areas of knowledge about higher education in Latin America.
Introduction Research and studies about higher education in Latin America have changed profoundly since the
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1990s. Thirty years ago, José Joaquín Brunner’s (1988) review of the field pointed at the preeminence of social and historical studies – rooted in the disciplines of history, sociology, political science, and economics – over organizational, administrative, and institutional approaches. Brunner argued at the time that sociohistorical perspectives were at a crossroads, not having produced innovative knowledge in the field. On the other hand, he reasoned that organizational approaches, developed to facilitate an understanding of change and institutional adaptation, were primarily suited for analyzing colleges and universities in highly developed and industrialized countries. In the end, after evaluating the impact of external and internal approaches in the field, he concluded that the strengths of one perspective were the weaknesses of the other. Furthermore, it became clear that neither approach was able to advance a full understanding of change in higher education without including elements from the other (1988).
Growth and Consolidation Patterns At the end of the second decade of this century, the field of higher education in the region is characterized by four noteworthy patterns. First, there has been significant growth in all types of academic publications about higher education – books, articles, and book chapters – in which an increasing number of Latin American specialists have analyzed the realities and transformation processes within regional higher education systems and institutions. Since the turn of the century, in particular, academic journal publications, from authors within Latin America, have increased substantially, both in regional (Scientific Electronic Library Online, SciELO) and global (Scopus and Web of Science) indexed journals. Searches conducted in these databases produced the following results: 14,000 articles in 500 journals in SciELO, more than 16,000 articles in 160 journals in Scopus, and more than 4000 publications in 100 journals in Web of Science. A second pattern reveals the varied levels of analysis, addressed by Latin American scholars,
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including international comparative studies, systemic and thematically focused regional inquiries, and national and institutional research and case studies. There is also a growing degree of disciplinary and thematic specialization, which is reflected in the research on specific educational, demographic, social, political, economic, and cultural problems related to contemporary higher education in the region. At the same time, an important accomplishment in the field has been the growing convergence toward the most relevant international debates in higher education represents. Third, the basic conditions for research production, and its degree of international circulation, have improved significantly. Research centers and graduate programs devoted to educational research have been created in each country, primarily within public universities. There are also a host of new academic journals specializing in education and higher education – like the Revista Argentina de Educación Superior (2008, Argentina), Revista Colombiana de Educación Superior (2008, Colombia), Revista Iberoamericana de Educación Superior (2010, Mexico), and Revista Brasileira de Ensino Superior (2015, Brazil) – and institutional research projects and units have been set up in order to inform higher education assessment and planning processes. Among the latter are the Seminario de Educación Superior (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 2003), the Centro de Estudios sobre Universidad y Educación Superior (Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina 2016), and the Instituto de Gestión y Liderazgo Universitario (at the InterAmerican Organization for Higher Education 2002). Finally, academic work on higher education has been professionalized, favorably impacting research practices, data organization and analyses, and the originality of results. A fourth pattern is the considerable diversity and consistency in the themes and topics addressed in higher education studies in Latin America. The aforementioned three sources of literature, which are analyzed more thoroughly in the next sections of this chapter, reveal a high level of coherence in the most relevant research areas.
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These patterns are more a consequence of changes in Latin American higher education than effects of the endogenous evolution of knowledge within the field. Latin America is not a homogeneous region in terms of its social and economic development nor in its government systems and political orientation. In spite of differences, many similar processes and problems can be identified. Among the most relevant changes in the region are sustained undergraduate and graduate enrollment growth; regional deconcentration of public and private provision; institutional diversification; establishment of evaluation, accreditation, and quality assurance systems; competition for public subsidies and competitive funding mechanisms; renewed emphasis on technical and vocational tertiary education; the expansion of distance education and the use of information technologies; increasing private and transnational investment in HE; incentives for international mobility of students and collaborative research; attention to governance and coordination of national systems and institutions; and the reorganization of science, technology, and innovation systems.
Thematic Diversity and Consistency For the purpose of this study, three distinct and relevant types of publications in the field were selected in order to identify the most recurrent areas and topics of research. First, the titles, abstracts, keywords, and bibliographies of edited book and chapter publications for the UNESCO Regional Conferences on Higher Education (Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior, CRES) in 1996, 2008, and 2018 were reviewed. That process was replicated with the six volumes published by the UNIVERSIA– CINDA research project on higher education in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries (Espacio Iberoaméricano del Conocimiento, EIC). The final step involved examining the body of articles on higher education published in journals indexed by the SciELO regional database.
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UNESCO Regional Conferences on Higher Education The restoration of democracy in the late 1980s and the identification of economic and social development challenges, in the context of the emerging process of globalization, created new demands for the reorganization of higher education, science, and technology systems throughout Latin America. In many countries, there were intense debates over the best ways to address problems of limited enrollments, quality, and the relevance of higher education in the region (Yarzábal 1997; Rodríguez-Gómez 1998). These discussions extended to the 1996, 2008, and 2018 conferences that have brought together the largest and most prominent gatherings of regional scholars and public higher education leaders and have assembled a collection of high-quality and relevant research on higher education in Latin America, every 10 years.
CRES 1996 Starting in 1995, the UNESCO Regional Center for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRESALC) organized a series of conferences in preparation for the upcoming World Higher Education Conference (WHEC-98) in Paris in 1998. In total, more than 20 preparatory meetings were held in different countries. These discussions yielded a series of academic publications that were gathered into 11 edited volumes. They covered five broad topics: pertinence; quality, institutional assessment, and accreditation; management and financing; knowledge and the use of new information and communication technologies; and international cooperation (Caló 1996; Crespo and Yarzábal 1996; Didriksson 1995; García Guadilla 1996; Pallán Figueroa 1996; Tellería Geiger 1996; Trindade and Luce 1996; Tünnermann 1996; Yarzábal 1996a, b; Wainex 1996). The first UNESCO Regional Conference on Policies and Strategies for the Transformation of Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (Conferencia Regional de la UNESCO sobre
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Políticas y Estrategias para la Transformación de la Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe, CRES 1996) took place in Havana, Cuba, in 1996. Delegates approved a joint Declaration about Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES 1996) which included specific proposals that were presented during the preparatory meetings. This document constituted a key foundation for academic debates regarding the problems of Latin American higher education and helped orient public policymakers within the region (Didriksson and Yarzábal 1997; Tünnermann 2008).
CRES 2008 In 1998, UNESCO transformed CRESALC into the Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC). The second Regional Conference on Higher Education (Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior, CRES 2008) took place in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in June 2008. The conference was jointly organized by IESALC and the Colombian National Ministry of Education. Four edited volumes were published in preparation for the conference (Gazzola and Didriksson 2008; Mato 2008; Schwartzman 2008; Tünnermann 2008; García Guadilla and Rodríguez Cruz 2008), gathering the most renowned regional specialists in the field around the most relevant and pertinent topics. A final edited volume (Tünnermann 2008) included chapters that reflected the discussions in each of the 11 round tables. The conference also approved a final Declaration of the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean and an Action Plan of the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (CRES 2008).
CRES 2018 The 2018 Regional Conference on Higher Education (Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior, CRES 2018) will take place in June in
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Córdoba, Argentina. It will be organized by IESALC, the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and the Argentine Ministry of Education. The Conference will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1918 student movement for university reform (Reforma de Córdoba). The movement was a major watershed and shaped Latin American higher education throughout the century, with the establishment of autonomy, shared governance, academic freedom, and a strong commitment to societal transformation. CRES 2018 has been organized along seven thematic lines: higher education as part of the education system, cultural diversity and interculturality, internationalization and regional integration, the role of higher education in addressing social challenges, scientific and technological research and innovation, the strategic role of higher education in sustainable development, and the centennial of the Córdoba Reform movement, toward a new manifesto of Latin American higher education (CRES 2018).
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challenges faced by higher education in the Espacio Iberoamericano del Conocimiento, institutional platforms of HE systems, access and opportunities for students, faculty, advanced human capital formation, financing, government and management, and quality assurance. They include reports for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela (Andorra, Spain, and Portugal are also included in the country reports). These are written by country specialists and they include statistical and documentary national information. The project also includes special topics reports on science and technology development (Santelices 2010); quality assurance (Lemaitre and Zenteno 2012); and university industry partnerships, innovation, and knowledge transfer (Barro 2015).
Research on Higher Education in SciELO Academic Journals Universia–CINDA Project In 2006, the Universia network (Red Universia), sponsored by the Spanish bank Santander, and a large group of Iberian and Latin American universities established a joint research project with Chile’s Interuniversity Development Center (Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo, CINDA). This project is framed by Universia’s drive to create an Iberian-American area of knowledge with the participation of Spanishand Portuguese-speaking countries from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula (Espacio Iberoamericano del Conocimiento), along the lines of the European Higher Education Area. The Universia–CINDA project has generated periodic revisions of the state of higher education in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries which constitute the largest collection of systematic comparative studies in the region. The 2007, 2011, and 2016 reports have been published in three volumes (Brunner 2007, 2011, 2016) addressing the following issues:
A review of the body of articles on higher education in the SciELO database represents a good approach to the variety of areas comprising research in the field today. That said, an exact classification of articles based on content is a complex task, given the “fuzzy borderlines” between themes (Teichler 2015) and the multiple issues addressed within each article. Despite such challenges, 14 broad knowledge areas were identified through a search within titles, keywords, and abstracts. These knowledge areas coincide, to a large extent, with relevant institutional transformation and policy guidelines, and they also reveal university actors’ major concerns and interests. According to the number of articles, three of these areas receive prime attention in the literature: faculty and the academic profession; students and their conditions; and reflections about science, technology, and innovation. A second tier of publications encompass topics such as politics and policy, reform and change, and quality
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assessment and evaluation. A third grouping includes research on autonomy, government and governance, social movements and conflict, social inequality, gender, and student enrolments and access to HE. Two smaller assortments focus on multiculturalism and diversity and internationalization. Each of these areas in turn includes a range of specific topics: 1. Faculty and the academic profession: with labor and career issues (employment, the nature of academic work, and academic careers), teaching activities, faculty assessment, faculty unions and organizations, and income and benefits (wages, merit pay, and health problems) 2. Students and their conditions: addresses the difficulties of access to HE; social differences; race and gender inequality and discrimination; academic trajectories and graduation rates; scholarships and other support structures; and student movements, struggles, and conflict 3. Science, technology, and innovation: branches into three main topics: scientific research and academic scholarship; science teaching and graduate studies; and applied research, economic development, and innovation (links to production and business, including patents) 4. Politics and policy: issues about power, autonomy, government, democracy, conflict, struggle, and political parties 5. Reform and change: focuses on topics such as politics and policy, administration and management, modernization, autonomy, and the Córdoba reform of 1918 6. Quality assessment and evaluation: of faculty, institutions, and academic programs and also looks at overall notions of quality (only a small number talk about excellence), testing, performance indicators, accreditation, and international rankings 7. Autonomy: including its relations with students, faculty, power and politics, the state, financing, government, quality assurance, and accreditation 8. Social movements and conflict: in particular student movements, faculty, interaction with the state and government, and unions
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9. Inequality: regarding students, access, gender, faculty, on issues of quality, affirmative action, and participation and the relation between HE and inequality 10. Gender: students; gender studies; faculty; participation; feminism; theory; identity and discourse; careers and trajectories; curriculum; and abuse, harassment, and other types of sexual violence on campus 11. Government and governance: includes specific references to power; politics and policy; administration and management; conflict, movements, and protests in HE; university autonomy; and internal democracy 12. Student enrollments and access: social, racial, and gender inequalities among students; scholarships and support services; admission policies and affirmative action; indigenous peoples and multiculturalism 13. Multiculturalism and diversity: indigenous peoples and institutions, students, diversity, language, curriculum, and access 14. Internationalization: student and faculty mobility, student migrations, transnational institutions, cooperation and collaboration, and curriculum
Concluding Observations This review of Latin American literature on higher education reveals significant growth and diversification trends. The field of higher education in the region today converges with the main international debates, as well as international mainstream production guidelines and methodologies (see Teichler’s (2015) observations about HE in Europe). This observation, however, has to be qualified. Latin American scholarship maintains a permanent focus on the relations between higher education and science and technology with the region’s social, political, and economic problems. This explains the continuing relevance of political and social perspectives about systems and institutions and their actors (Marginson and Ordorika 2011; Ordorika 2003).
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The field has been enriched by new studies regarding the quality and pertinence of higher education and scientific research. These include student and faculty evaluation, program accreditation, internationalization, and new digital technologies for learning, among others. Different approaches have also emerged toward analyzing government and administration in higher education. Relatively new themes of institutional change, educational innovation, research networks, and science and technology transfers are now being addressed. Finally, research into the social dynamics of higher education has also been improved with the use of innovative socioeconomic, gender, race, and cultural inequality perspectives. In contrast to Brunner’s 1988 observations, the field has evolved, acquiring more theoretical, methodological, and thematic plurality and diversity. As new generations of scholars are incorporated into regional universities and research centers, it would be expected that growth and diversity will consolidate and that new theoretical approaches, methodologies, and themes will further enrich the field of higher education in Latin America.
Cross-References ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Latin America ▶ Comparative Research, Higher Education ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Africa ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Asia ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, China ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Europe ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, France ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, India ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Russia ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, North America ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America
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▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Colômbia ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Costa Rica ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, El Salvador ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Guyana ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Honduras ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Lao People’s Democratic Republic ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Mexico ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Paraguay ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Peru ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Suriname ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Uruguay ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Venezuela ▶ Historical Perspective, Research in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Latin America ▶ International Organizations and Latin American Higher Education ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Studies in Latin America ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Latin America and the Caribbean ▶ Latin American University Tradition, The ▶ Public Funding, Latin America ▶ Research in Higher Education, Cultural Perspectives
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▶ Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research
References Barro, Senén, ed. 2015. La transferencia de I+D, la innovación y el emprendimiento en las universidades. Santiago: CINDA. Brunner, Jose Joaquín. 1988. Notas para una teoria del cambio en los sistemas de educacion superior. Santiago: Flacso. Brunner, Jose Joaquín, ed. 2007. Educación Superior en Iberoamérica: Informe 2007. Santiago: CINDA. Brunner, Jose Joaquín, ed. 2011. Educación Superior en Iberoamérica: Informe 2011. Santiago: CINDA. Brunner, Jose Joaquín, ed. 2016. Educación Superior en Iberoamérica: Informe 2016. Santiago: CINDA. Caló, Leonardo, ed. 1996. Los nuevos escenarios universitarios ante el fin de siglo. Montevideo: AUGM. CRES. 1996. Declaración de la Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe 1996. IESALC. http://www.unesco.org/education/ educprog/wche/havdecs.html. CRES. 2008. Declaración y plan de acción de la Conferencia Regional de América Latina y el Caribe 2008. IESALC. http://www.unesco.org.ve/documents/ DeclaracionCartagenaCres.pdf. CRES. 2018. Conferencia Regional de Educación Superior 2018: ejes temáticos. .IESALC. http://www.cres2018. org/ejes-tematicos. Accessed 10 Apr 2018. Crespo, Manuel, and Luis Yarzábal. eds. 1996. La integración de América del Norte y la educación superior. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO. Didriksson, Axel, ed. 1995. La UNESCO frente al cambio de la educación superior en América Latina y el Caribe. México: Memorias del Seminario UNAM/ UNESCO. Didriksson, Axel, and Luis Yarzábal. 1997. El cambio de la educación superior y la cooperación internacional: las propuestas de la UNESCO. In Políticas pu´blicas y educación superior, ed. Alejandro Mungaray and Giovana Valenti, 343–362. México: ANUIES. García Guadilla, Carmen. 1996. Situación y principales dinámicas de transformación de la educación superior en América Latina. Caracas: CRESALCUNESCO. García Guadilla, Carmen, and Agueda María Rodríguez Cruz. 2008. Pensadores y forjadores de la universidad latinoamericana: pensamiento universitario latinoamericano, Colección Intramuros. Serie Académica. Caracas: UNESCO-IESALC: Bid & Co.: CENDES.
443 Gazzola, Ana Lúcia, and Axel Didriksson. 2008. Tendencias de la educación superior en América Latina y el Caribe. Caracas. UNESCO-IESALC. Lemaitre, María José, and María Elisa Zenteno, eds. 2012. Aseguramiento de la calidad en Iberoamérica. Santiago: CINDA. Marginson, Simon, and Imanol Ordorika. 2011. ‘El central volumen de la fuerza’ (The hegemonic global pattern in the reorganization of elite higher education and research). In Knowledge matters: The public mission of the research university, ed. Diana Rhoten and Craig J. Calhoun. New York: Columbia University Press. Mato, Daniel. 2008. Diversidad cultural e interculturalidad en educación superior: experiencias en América Latina. Caracas. UNESCO-IESALC. Ordorika, Imanol. 2003. Power and politics in university governance: Organization and change at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. New York: Routledge Falmer. Pallán Figueroa, Carlos, ed. 1996. Calidad y cooperación internacional en la educación superior de América Latina y el Caribe. México: ANUIES-CSUCACRESALC-UNESCO. Rodríguez-Gómez, Roberto. 1998. La integración latinoamericana y las universidades, Colección UDUAL. México: UDUAL. Santelices, Bernabé. 2010. El rol de las universidades en el desarrollo científico y tecnológico. Santiago: CINDA. Schwartzman, Simon. 2008. Universidad y desarrollo en Latinoamérica: experiencias existosas de centros de investigación. Caracas: UNESCO-IESALC. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Higher education research in Europe. In The European Higher Education Area: Between Critical Refelections and Future Policies, ed. Adrian Curaj, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmi, and Peter Scott, 815–847. Cham: Springer. Tellería Geiger, José, ed. 1996. Educación superior con miras al Siglo XXI. Cochabamba: CEUB. Trindade, Helgio, and María Beatriz Luce, eds. 1996. Mundac¸ a e desenvolvimento da universidade publica na América Latina. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO. Tünnermann, Carlos. 1996. La educación superior en el umbral del Siglo XXI. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO. Tünnermann, Carlos. 2008. La Educación superior en América Latina y el Caribe: diez an˜ os después de la Conferencia Mundial de 1998. Cali: Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Wainex, José, ed. 1996. La educación superior como responsabilidad de todos. Caracas: CRESALCUNESCO. Yarzábal, Luis, ed. 1996a. Bases para la transformación de la educación superior en América Latina y el Caribe. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO. Yarzábal, Luis, ed. 1996b. La transformación universitaria en vísperas del tercer milenio. Caracas: CRESALCUNESCO. Yarzábal, Luis. 1997. Informe del director del CRESALC. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO.
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Field of Higher Education Research, Africa Yann Lebeau School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Synonyms African higher education studies; Institutionalization of HE research in Africa
Definition Academic Research activities and outputs with a focus on higher education developments in Africa.
Introduction Initiated and funded by international organizations and non-African funders, the field of African HE research was largely shaped outside the continent over the past five decades. A bibliographic search carried out for this project using Scopus, Goggle Scholar, and African Journals OnLine (AJOL) revealed that with the exception of South Africa, the institutionalization of HER in African universities did not begin until the late 1990s despite growing numbers of publications, reports, and pamphlets on the subject from the 1980s. Our focus in this paper in on this process of institutionalization and development of a field on the continent. Research produced outside Africa is also reported, but only for its structuring impact on HER on the continent.
Dependencies, Externalities, and the Possibilities of a Field Social science research agendas are never too distant from dominant policy agendas, particularly in the field of international development,
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and this is where research on higher education in Africa starts in the early 1960s. To find a place in the “catch up” strategy adopted for the “developing” world by international organizations, universities would have to be “developmental” (Coleman 1986). This was in substance the message addressed to newly independent African countries at the UNESCO Conference on the Development of Higher Education in Africa, held in Tananarive in 1962: African universities must reflect the needs of the African world by providing African society with men and women equipped with skills that will enable them to participate fully and usefully in the economic and social development of their continent. (UNESCO 1963)
Existing universities, established by colonial powers, became the targets of nationalist projects and international cooperation alike, seeking to force them into state-led agendas of modernization and social change and away from their inclination towards broad liberal education, international recognition, and elite reproduction. Yet the colonial origin of universities also meant that for most African academic staff and students, excellence in matters of higher education and research continued to be built upon external references (Samoff and Carrol 2004; Lebeau and Mills 2008). These postcolonial dependencies and externalities also stimulated a donor-led expertise on higher education development, which hindered for decades to come, the intellectual and institutional development of an autonomous field of HER on the continent. Any discussion of the field of higher education in Africa must therefore take place within this backdrop of postcolonial research and policy dependency (Zeleza 2002; Boshoff 2009).
“Silence, on développe”: Controlled Research Agenda in the “Development” Age The most comprehensive reviews of the research literature on higher education in Africa produced by Saint (2004) and Teferra and MaldonadoMaldonado (2003) both reported difficulties to
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access the knowledge produced on the continent prior to the 1990s, particularly in non-English speaking countries. This is not to say that no “local” research accompanied in the early developments of HE, but in the absence of consolidated research networks and dedicated publications, HER by African scholars often remained unpublished (beyond locally distributed working papers) or untranslated. Up until the 1980s, the lack of safe spaces for the social sciences in increasingly authoritarian environments (Mkandawire 1997) also meant that a lot of the research on HE realities in Africa remained commissioned and controlled by donors who often dictated questions and methodologies (Samoff and Carol 2004; Lebeau and Mills 2008). Such research was typically carried out by expatriate experts with limited knowledge of the context or by local academics with no expertise in this type of research. In those circumstances, research on higher education remained predominantly focused on the modernization mission assigned to universities by States, donors, and international organizations, barely questioning the ambitious mission assigned to universities in economic growth, and as cementers of Africa’s identity. A search on the published literature for the period 1960–1980 using Scopus with keywords “higher education” and “Africa” returned few publications classified as “social science,” all produced by researchers affiliated to universities outside the continent. They were typically published in journals such as “African Affairs,” with topics related to the role of universities in “development” and in “elite formation” dominating until the late 1970s, when issues of cost and rates of return began to take precedence. An embryonic research field made of African and non-African scholars emerged towards the end of the period, drawing on social change and dependency theories. Although often more informed by experience and ideological posture than by rigorous empirical research, these studies began to address issues such as the role of higher education credentials in the new social stratification of societies. Personal diaries and ethnographic accounts of the working culture at newly
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established universities also contributed to a growing challenge of the consensual discourse on the mission of the developmental university.
The 1980s: International Policy Twists, Universities in Crisis, and the Temporary Divorce Between Policy and Research The fortune of African universities and of higher education in the developmental strategy for Africa changed dramatically from the late 1970s. In this section, we will try to show how the shift has been instrumental in the generation of a more structured field of HER in Africa. To cut a long story short, States, international donors, and academics themselves had become increasingly skeptical of the role of universities in development (Coleman 1986; Cloete 2012). The use of government monies in higher education and the support to public universities was being questioned by the World Bank who had become the most influence international agency on educational policies in Africa (Banya and Elu 2001; Samoff and Carrol 2004; Lebeau and Sall 2011). So the same reliance on human capital theory that had promoted universities to the status of “engine of development” was now branding them as “luxury ancillary’ because equations showed higher rates of return for primary education. From the late 1980s onwards, when its structural adjustment programs began to adversely affect the quality of higher education (Banya and Elu 2001) the World Bank introduced new cost- sharing and cost-recovery strategies as a response to a crisis it had contributed to aggravate (World Bank 1994). But these approaches did not depart fundamentally from the Bank’s mistrust in public universities (Mamdani 2007) and led to further deregulation and the massive growth of private higher education (Aina 2010). A period of at least 15 years following the imposition of drastic conditionalities to new World Bank and IMF loans and support saw enrolment figures stagnating across the continent, and a massive brain drain of academics developing towards North America and the South Africa. Media reports, testimonies, and research reports on African universities of the early 1990s depict a
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state of dereliction, obsolescence, and in some cases violence (e.g., Federici, Caffentzis and Alidou 2000). Benefitting from a consolidation of the field in Western countries (Altbach 2014), research on higher education in Africa becomes more rigorous and more diverse from the early 1990s, in contrast with the consultancy model dominating the earlier period. Along with large numbers of studies funded by the World Bank, empirical studies, including qualitative case studies, are beginning to emerge on the international publication scene. A Scopus search for the period 1980–1995 reveals a change in focus, authors, and publications from the previous period. Experts directly employed or commissioned by the Work Bank (Saint, Mingat, Tan, Psacharopoulos, Salmi) dominate the 1980s with publications on the financing of higher education in Africa, but broader questions about the relevance of universities are being asked by an increasingly diverse pool of authors (still primarily affiliated to non-African universities). Themes such as quality versus quantity or gender issues and questions of equity in participation are also surfacing, particularly towards the end of that period, marked by a surge of South African literature. The impact of structural adjustment policies remains underreported until the mid-1990s, and the theme rarely reaches Higher Education journals, but overall the broadening of the research scope is undeniable. In terms of sources, the top three most frequent research publications are Higher Education, International Journal of Educational Development, and Compare which signals (1) the persisting domination of the development paradigm and (2) the emergence of “higher education in Africa” in mainstream HE publications. By the mid-1990s the field is dominated by journal articles, and Africa (but rarely specific African countries) begins to feature more systemically in comparative studies. Although their fortune is not dissimilar, English and non-English speaking countries are unequally covered by the literature. Unsurprisingly, a field largely established in Western English speaking countries and essentially linked to African English speaking countries continues to project a
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truncated picture of the African HE reality to the rest of the world. Lusophone and French-speaking countries are better covered by the research literature in French which appears primarily in African studies and Development journals in France, Canada, and Switzerland. A focus on the theme of universities and development dominates, but issues such as the prospects of research development at African universities and the status of the French Language as instrument of neocolonial domination are raised too. The end of the period is marked by two important events: The return of HE at the heart of the development rhetoric in Africa, and the supremacy of South Africa over academic publishing. The field is more clearly identifiable outside the spheres of “development” and “area studies” with funding available, increasing numbers of Africabased authors and even specialist publications. Yet the exogeneity characterizing the immediate postcolonial era continues to challenge the establishment of a HER field in Africa.
Turn of the Century and Beyond: “Revival” and (South) Africanization of the Field By the turn of the century, the picture of the continent in terms of enrolment rates and institutional landscapes is very uneven but the overall situation is pretty bleak by international comparison (Banya and Ely 2001; Varghese 2016). A change of philosophy signaled by the 1994 World Bank report and calls from across the continent and beyond for bringing back higher education at the core of development strategies (Lebeau and Sall 2011; Cloete 2012) led to some serious soul searching (see TFHE 2000) and to a policy “revival.” Interestingly, research seems to have this time informed this “revival,” led again by international organizations (Shahjahan 2012). As had been the case in previous periods, the renewed interest came with funding from bilateral donors and international foundations (essentially North American). The money invested into new projects, supplemented by funding for research
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and impact evaluation, boosted the research field while maintaining decisive ties with donor agendas (Samoff and Carrol 2004). The embryonic social science literature on African universities had developed into a vibrant body of literature, now published in HE and other social sciences journals on the continent and elsewhere. More significantly, from the late 1990s and into the 2000s a series of initiatives involving African and non-African institutional partners began to build a research capacity in Higher education studies through fellowships for new researchers, methodological support, and a range of initiatives geared towards a better understanding of the circumstances of African Universities and HE systems (see Glossary). The Scopus analysis for the period 1995–2017 reveals two significant leaps, one at the start of the 2000 decade and another one 10 years later. The first one can be safely attributed to the surge of South Africa in the social science publication arena generally, and its leading position in authoring about HE in Africa (not just South Africa), and to the renewed interest of international development agencies in African HE. For the period 1995–2010, the top ten universities of affiliation of published authors are South African institutions. This is where the epicenter of the consolidated African HE field is now firmly established. These publications cover a wide range of topics from equity in access policies (institutional and governmental) to community engagement, including large numbers of articles on teaching and learning matters and some on research activities and the internationalization of HE. Outside South Africa, Africa-based authors are primarily found in Kenya and Nigeria where a pool of authors is now beginning to appear regularly, often in coauthored publications with colleagues based in Europe and North America. For the period 2010 to date, the South African domination of the field is unchallenged with the first non-South African university of affiliation ranked 17th (Makerere University in Uganda) in the Scopus sample. “Teaching and learning” is now the leading topic across the continent, followed by general discussions of “quality,” institutional governance, privatization, and
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internationalization. Africa (actually sub-Saharan Africa) features in a number of comparative studies but still primarily as a region with a set of common challenges. For the entire period 1995–2017 the stranglehold of HE and Education Journals over the field is confirmed, with very little published in International Development journals, mainstream Sociology, or in African studies journals. Three notable exceptions to the trend observed above are worth a mention: • The North African literature on HE: Publications about the region appear in English, French, and Arabic in a large number of regional and European journals. Beyond the common HE topics, issues related to academic freedom, brain drain, Islamic radicalization, institutional governance, language of instruction, and institutional strategies of internationalization are common. The grouping of the subregion with the Middle East by international organizations also means that funding programs and comparative projects involving it tend to be oriented outside the continent. • The non-English speaking published literature, appearing essentially in French-speaking international and local publications, is very diverse in its range of topics (including the politics of HE, youth transitions and the sociology of student experience, impact of civil wars, and political instability on demand for education, etc.). This literature is spread across subjects and sources and does not form a field in Altbach’s terms, but reveals the importance of universities as institutions of socialization and of the higher education sector on political makeups and social mobility processes. • The amount of publication returned from the Scopus search may therefore reflect a trend towards a certain mainstreaming of the “higher education studies” published in English, but it does not provide an accurate account of the academic production by African scholars based in Africa. A large number of unpublished monographs and working papers, as well as numerous articles published in nonindexed African Journals (many of whom can
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be accessed from the AJOL portal), continue to illustrate the dynamism and relatively weak institutionalization of the field.
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Glossary of Key Africa-Based Organizations and Initiatives in African HE Research AAU
Conclusion Philip Altbach (2014) identifies “Higher education studies” as a recognizable academic field of study, developing “standard accoutrements” such as “journals, publishers that focus on higher education, Web sites, national and international conferences, research centres and organizations, and others” (p. 1308). The expansion of HE in most African countries, its diversification, its internationalization, and its challenges have all contributed to the establishment of such ingredients, including some postgraduate taught and research courses in higher education, particularly over the past 20 years. However, with the exception of South Africa, none of these proved strong enough to structure “a field” in any country. In many countries, this is a reflection of the low level of institutionalization of the social sciences more generally resulting from decades of brain drain, lack of funding and government support, erratic performance of scientific journals, frequent upheavals, and government interference (Mouton 2010). It is also a reflection of the powerful externalities still governing higher education developments and obstructing the consolidation of national research capacity and research communities in Africa. South African HE research units have initiated and strengthened existing initiatives on the continent, by multiplying networking initiatives, training programs, and research collaborations with African partners (often already familiar with the HER field and opportunities more globally). These undoubtedly contributed to the perennation of Africa-based programs and journals, but did little to expand the horizon of an African HER field increasingly attuned to the HER mainstream paradigms but oblivious of the diversity of realities, challenges, and interests of the continent.
AHERO
AJOL
CHET
Association of African Universities, headquartered in Accra, Ghana, was founded in 1967. The Association launched the Study Programme on higher Education in Africa in 1993, a research-based program supported by bilateral donors that produced dozens of monographs and produced methodological innovation in research on African HE realities. https://www.aau. org/ African Higher Education Research Online is an open access archive of texts that focus on the study, practice, and governance of higher education in Africa. AHERO is administered by the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. http://ahero.uwc.ac.za/ African Journals OnLine Based in South Africa (initiated by INASP, Oxford, in 1997). AJOL is a portal to African Research publications. In 2017, it hosts the content of over 500 peerreviewed journals from 31 African countries. https:// www.ajol.info/ Centre for Higher Education Transformation is a nongovernmental organization located in South Africa that undertakes research and capacity development projects. CHET’s research areas include differentiation, HE and democracy, HE and development, governance, knowledge production, performance indicators, postsecondary education, and university engagement. It publishes the
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CODESRIA
EAISHED
HERANA – Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa
African Higher Education Open Data. Its major current Africawide initiative is the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA, see below). www. chet/org Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa Pan-African research organization headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, since 1973. Its aim is to promote, facilitate, and disseminate research within the social sciences throughout Africa (including North Africa). The CODESRIA hosts 10 social science journals including the Journal of Higher Education in Africa (JHEA). It has initiated several multinational research programs on higher education policy and governance covering a large number of countries. Most of these studies are available in open access on the organization’s website. www.codesria.org East African School of Higher Education Studies and Development Makerere University. Established in 2006 to assist in building human resources capacity in the areas of higher education policy, planning and management, university pedagogy, and research. http:// eaihesd.mak.ac.ug/ Initiated and coordinated by CHET. The research component of HERANA is investigating the relationships between higher education and development in the African context, with a specific focus on economic and democratic development. HERANA is connecting eight network universities in
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JHEA
Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana, Uganda, Mauritius, and Kenya. HERANA is funded by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Kresge Foundations and the Carnegie Corporation. International Journal of African Higher Education is a peer-reviewed open access journal launched in 2014. Published by INHEA, based at University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, IJAHE is providing policy analysis on a range of higher education issues in Africa, and also some comparative perspective. International Network of Higher Education in Africa hosted by University of KwazuluNatal, South Africa. INHEA was established in 2003 as a resource for scholars, experts, practitioners, policy makers, funders, students, and others engaged in research and development focused on Africa. http://www.inhea.org/about/ Journal of Higher Education in Africa/Revue de l’enseignement supérieur en Afrique) Launched in 2003 by the Center for International Higher Education (Boston College, USA) and the CODESRIA. Hosted by the CODESRIA since 2006. Publishes articles in English and in French.
Cross-References ▶ African University Traditions, Historical Perspective ▶ Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview ▶ Role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Field of Higher Education Research
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References Aina, Tade Akin. 2010. Beyond reforms: The politics of higher education transformation in Africa. African Studies Review 53 (1): 21–40. Altbach, Philip G. 2014. The emergence of a field: Research and training in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 39 (8): 1306–1320. Banya, Kingsley, and Juliet Elu. 2001. The World Bank and financing higher education in sub-Saharan Africa. Higher Education 42 (1): 1–34. Boshoff, Nelius. 2009. Neo-colonialism and research collaboration in Central Africa. Scientometrics 81 (2): 413–434. Cloete, Nico. 2012. Higher education and economic development in Africa. In Effects of higher education reforms, Higher education research in the 21st century series, ed. Peter Maassen, Monika Nerland, Rómulo Pinheiro, Bjørn Stensaker, Agnete Vabø, and Martina Vukasović, vol. 4. Rotterdam: SensePublishers. Coleman, James S. 1986. The idea of the developmental university. Minerva 24 (4): 476–494. Federici, Silvia, Ousseina Alidou, and George Caffentzis. 2000. A thousand flowers: Structural adjustment and the struggle for education in Africa. Trenton: Africa World Press. Lebeau, Yann, and David Mills. 2008. From ‘crisis’ to‘transformation’? Shifting orthodoxies of African higher education policy and research. Learning and Teaching 1 (1): 58–88. Lebeau, Yann, and Ebrima Sall. 2011. Global institutions, higher education and development. In Handbook on globalization and higher education, ed. Roger King, Simon Marginson, and Rajani Naidoo, 129–147. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Mamdani, M. 2007. Scholars in the Marketplace. The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005: The Dilemmas of Neo-Liberal Reform at Makerere University, 1989–2005. African Books Collective. Mkandawire, Thandika. 1997. The social sciences in Africa: Breaking local barriers and negotiating international presence. African Studies Review 40 (2): 15–36. Mouton, Johann. 2010. The state of social science in subSaharan Africa. In International Social Science Council world social science report: Knowledge divides, 63–67. Paris: UNESCO. Saint, William. 2004. Bibliography on higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank. http:// siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGTOPTEIA/ Resources/SSA_Higher_Ed_Biblio_7.pdf. Accessed July 2017. Samoff, Joel, and Bidemi Carrol. 2004. Conditions, coalitions and influence: The World Bank and higher education in Africa, A paper prepared for the annual conference of the comparative and international education society Salt Lake City, 8–12 March 2004. http://
Field of Higher Education Research, Asia www.eldis.org/vfile/upload/1/document/0708/DOC17 679.pdf. Accessed 10 July 2017. Shahjahan, Riyad A. 2012. The roles of international organizations (IOs) in globalizing higher education policy. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, 369–407. Dordrecht: Springer. Teferra, Damtew, and Alma Maldonado-Maldonado. 2003. Bibliography on higher education in Africa. In African higher education: An international reference handbook, ed. Damtew Teferra and Philip G. Altbach, 651–682. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. TFHES (Task Force on Higher Education and Society). 2000. Higher education in developing countries: Peril and promise. Washington, DC: World Bank. UNESCO. 1963. The development of higher education in Africa: Conclusions and recommendations of the conference on the development of higher education in Africa, Tananarive, 3–12 September 1962. http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001428/142840eb. pdf. Accessed 10 July 2017. Varghese, N.V. 2016. What changed after “Peril and promise”? An analysis of higher education in developing countries. International Journal of African Higher Education 3 (1): 97–112. World Bank. 1994. Higher education. The lessons of experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2002. The politics of historical and social science research in Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies 28 (1): 9–23.
Field of Higher Education Research, Asia Futao Huang Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
Synonyms Japan, Korea and China; Study in tertiary education, continuing education, further education
Definition Providing an overview of the emergence and development of higher education research in Asia and conducting case studies of Japan and China, focused on the status of higher education research, relevant research institutes and centers,
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and publications of higher education research, and recent changes and trends.
Introduction Since the 1990s, there has been a rapid expansion of higher education in Asia, particularly evident in East Asia (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2014). Meanwhile, more and more countries in the region have implemented various policies and strategies to improve the quality and international competitiveness of their national higher education systems, including building world-class universities. However, while academic publications in this field are becoming more common, compared to both North America and Europe less emphasis is placed on higher education research. Particularly evident is the relative lack of international publications and international collaborative research conducted by higher education researchers across the region at large. This study attempts to present an overview of higher education research in Asia, focusing on East Asian countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. The study begins with a review of literature and an introduction to the background of higher education research in the region. The second section discusses the development of higher education research in Asia, mainly based on case studies of East Asian countries. The third section summarizes the main characteristics of higher education research in Asia and considers some contemporary problems.
Literature Review and Context Historically, the emergence of modern higher education in almost all Asian countries was modeled on Western ideas. Even after WWII, the shaping and development of higher education in the region was still significantly impacted by Western ideas and patterns. In general, the British model exerted a profound influence on formative processes and changes in India, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Restructuring higher education systems in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan was
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significantly impacted by US ideas and academic norms. Meanwhile, the establishment of modern higher education systems in socialist countries like China, Vietnam, and Mongolia since the late 1940s was heavily influenced by the former Soviet ideology and its conventions. Further, there are several countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. The higher education systems in these countries are characterized by strong Islamic values and culture. Since the late 1980s, impacted by new drivers such as globalization, privatization, marketization, massification, constrained public budget, advancement of information technology, and growing international competitiveness, higher education has been facing diverse and numerous challenges. Noticeable challenges and crises include financial pressures, performance and accountability measures, declining academic power, balancing equity and quality, achieving mass higher education and forming world-class universities, and so forth. In Asia, challenges facing higher education have been affected not only by common factors mentioned above, but also by the regional and national implications of various drivers. These include the incorporation of national and public universities, diversifying missions and functions of higher education institutions, increasing emphasis on research activities of universities, and competition for excellence and world-class universities (Huang 2006). When viewed more broadly in comparison to countries in North America and Europe, many countries and systems in East and Southeast Asia are distinguished by their huge growth in higher education, marketization, decentralization, and privatization of higher education, and the increased effects of globalization on higher education (Huang 2011). For example, for the last two decades, many countries in Southeast and East Asia have moved from previously elite systems to massification. During the process, private higher education has been the fastest-growing sector of higher education. Government promotion of private providers in higher education and the growth of private higher education are much more significant in Asia than in other regions of the world (Levy 2010).
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Among earlier studies of higher education research in Asia, Horta and Jung (2013) represent an early systematic attempt to research this topic. They examined publications from 38 specialized journals of higher education over the past three decades and found that while the quantity of higher education research publications in the region had expanded, as a proportion of the sum of global publications it had remained stationary. In response to increasing challenges in Asian higher education systems, they suggested that the higher education research community in Asia needed to be expanded and include more regional and international collaborations. In 2014, they expressed similar sentiments and revealed that the vast majority of higher education research in Asia is conducted in East Asia, especially in highly developed higher education systems such as Japan and China. Therein, research is generally limited to few universities and relied upon few core researchers. Further, higher education research in Asia has become more closely linked to English-speaking countries, but less regionally integrated (Horta and Jung 2014a). In a further study, Horta and Jung (2014b) analyzed higher education research in Asia since the 1980s, based on internationally indexed publication data, focusing on research approaches and themes. They claimed that research themes were grouped into two general approaches in line with theoretical expectations on the organization of higher education research: (1) teaching and learning approach and (2) policy approach. They found these approaches to be equally represented in both specialized and nonspecialized journals, but emphasis on the two approaches varied according to different years. In 2018, Jung’s team published Higher Education Research in Asia: History, Development and Future (Jung et al. 2018). This book presents the evolution of higher education research in Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Macau, Taiwan, Mongolia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, in terms of both the number of researchers and publications and the diversity of research themes and methodologies. It addressed issues concerning identification of higher education research in
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these countries in terms of researchers, research institutes, academic programs, national journals, and relationships with government. The book also discussed challenges facing Asian higher education research and put forward suggestions of how to deal with these challenges.
Development of Higher Education Research Higher Education Research at the Regional Level Although regionalization moves began as early as the 1960s in South East Asia, it was mainly driven by political factors. With respect to educational collaboration, the South East Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), a regional intergovernmental organization, was established in 1965. Although it also deals with higher education issues, no systematic and academic research was conducted in higher education. In recent years, the SEAMEO has carried out numerous joint projects with East Asian countries, particularly China, Japan, and South Korea, and also collaborations with European organizations and many individual countries in Europe, in a wide range of fields of education, including higher education. In addition to the official regional organizations, various summits, policy dialogues, and task forces have been organized in the region. The establishment of the Regional Institute for Higher Education and Development (RIHED) in 1970, the ASEAN Ministerial meeting in 1971, the Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development in 1993 and the ASEAN University Network in 1995 all clearly illustrate the impetus by South East Asian countries towards the regionalization of higher education. In East Asia, the most recent effort of this kind was the launch of the Campus Asia Project in April 2010 aimed at facilitating regional mobility of students, faculty, and researchers and developing further collaboration in higher education (Huang et al. 2013). There is little doubt that less activities of higher education research have been carried out at the regional level. Even among the few activities
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across the region, still the countries and societies in East Asia and Southeast Asia seem to play more prominent and central roles than any other countries. For example, since 2013, academics and researchers of higher education from Asian countries, mostly from East Asian and Southeast Asian countries, have organized annual conferences in the name of HERA (Higher Education Research Association) in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia. Different from both North America and Europe, there is no official professional or academic association or society of higher education across the region. These efforts are considered as one step to establish a regional professional association of higher education like Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in 2019. Concerning international research in higher education within the region, as early as 1992, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong participated in the first international survey of the academic profession which was supported by the Carnegie Foundation. In 2007–2008, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong took part in the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) project and worked with other 13 countries from North America, Europe, and Latin America. As a follow-up to the previous two research projects on the academic profession, RIHE organized the Changing Academic Profession in Asia (CAPA) project in 2010. By adopting similar questions from the two previous surveys and adding several new items, as of 2012–2014, eight Asian research teams carried out their national surveys with a similar questionnaire. They include Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Participating country teams agreed on a common sample design and data collection instrument, but implemented in their local languages. The project has yielded a dozen research papers and five books contributed by team members. Since 2015, a new project investigating the Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society (APIKS) project has been launched, and more Asian countries and societies, such as China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, have been engaged in the project.
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Last but not least, despite very few English journals focusing on higher education in Asia, since 2000, efforts have been made in South Korea, Japan, and China to publish at least three peer reviewed journals in English. They include Asia Pacific Journal of Education which was produced by the National Institute of Education, Singapore in 1996, Asia and Pacific Education Review by the Education Research Institute at Seoul National University, South Korea in 2000, Higher Education Forum by RIHE at Hiroshima University, Japan in 2006, and International Journal of Chinese Education by the Institute of Education at Tsinghua University, China in 2012. Further, researchers from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have also co-edited a book series of Knowledge Studies in Higher Education and Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance with Springer. All these have inevitably stimulated regional collaboration in higher education research and improved the academic influence of higher education research in Asia worldwide. Case Studies Due to lack of relevant data of higher education research in Asia prior to WWII, this chapter focuses on analyzing its development since its conclusion. However, because of massive differences existing in the rate at which higher education research has been conducted in individual Asian countries, information on higher education research in some countries such as China and Japan can be traced back to the early 1950s. For example, soon after the end of WWII higher education research had already started in Japan, although almost all research was conducted at the individual level based on personal observations. In China, it emerged in the early 1950s when China tried to introduce the former Soviet patterns into China. Whereas it has not been officially researched or taught as a subject or an independent field of study in other countries even nowadays like Mongolia and Cambodia. As for the status or position of higher education research compared to other disciplines or areas of study, it seems that higher education was not recognized as an independent discipline of study
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in any Asian countries or societies prior to the early 1980s. It was only accredited as an independent discipline of study in China in 1983. But strictly speaking, even today higher education in China is not treated as an independent discipline in the same manner as other educationrelated disciplines such as sociology of education. In relation to research institutes or centers of higher education research across the region, it appears that research institutes or graduate schools of higher education in both Japan and China enjoy far more regional and international reputation than any other countries or societies in the region. There are two main reasons for it. One is that both countries established national-level research institutes of higher education much earlier than other Asian countries. The other is that both countries have far more numbers of higher education researchers than other countries or societies in the region. For example, the Japanese government founded the national Research Institute for Higher Education (RIHE) in Hiroshima University as early as 1972. It is the first institute in which higher education research was specifically conducted. Since 1972, it has developed into an institute with multiple functions. Currently, first, it is a national and international center for research in higher education. It has the largest number of full-time faculty and researchers of higher education in Japan, who conduct research in a wide variety of themes and areas. In addition, it has over 550 associate researchers both within and outside Hiroshima University. Further, it hosts annual study meetings, which address various important topics of higher education in a variety of academic, policy, international and comparative, institutional, and empirical perspectives. In addition to these associate researchers, they also attract researchers and administrators from different parts of Japan every year. In contrast to other domestic institutes or centers, RIHE has been actively undertaking international research projects with the OECD, UNESCO, and others, such as international surveys on the academic profession, graduate programs for higher education, including at the Ph.D. & M.Ed./M.A. levels, and research information centers. It functions
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as a research network for higher education nationally, regionally, and internationally. It serves as the center for the study and analysis of internal reform and development and actively participates in faculty development activities and training courses for young faculty members. Currently, hundreds of Japanese universities have established centers or institutes of higher education, or similar organizations on campus, however, almost all of them are involved in institutional research and coordinating the development and provision of liberal arts education, carrying out faculty development activities, and implementing institutional evaluation, as well as other practical activities, rather than advanced academic research (RIHE 2018). In China, the first specialized institute of higher education research is the Research Unit of Higher Education Science, Xiamen University. It was established in May 1978 and then changed to the Institute of Education. Authorized by the Ministry of Education in February 1984 and accredited by the Committee on Degrees of the State Council, the Institute was the first in China to set up a master’s program in Higher Education on January 13, 1984, and a doctoral program in higher education on July 28, 1986. On July 22, 1988, the institute was authorized by the then State Education Commission as the national-level key discipline of Higher Education (it is equivalent to the Center of Excellence in some other countries). The Higher Education program of the Institute was listed as a key discipline of China’s 211 Project in 1996. It has made efforts in promoting higher education research, fostering innovative development of higher education in China, and maintaining the institute’s leadership in China and working towards more transparency in the world (IHE 2018). In terms of publications of higher education research in Asia, similar to other regions, there was a rapid expansion of publications in international journals across Asian countries between 1980 and 2015. At the same time, there are large differences between individual countries within the region (Horta 2018, pp. 15–36). Like other disciplines, China has been a leader in increasing research output, though other countries also
Field of Higher Education Research, Asia Field of Higher Education Research, Asia, Fig. 1 Changes in publications on higher education in Japan in 1949–2014. (Source: Database of CiNii with author’s modifications)
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4500
4203
4000 3500
3431
3000 2500 2000 1500
1202
1000 500 0
19
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1949−1959 1960-1970 1971-1981 1982-1992 1993-2003 2004-2014
showed impressive gains. For example, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Malaysia exhibited rapid growth in international publications over the period. According to the database of CiNii (Citation Information by National Institute of Informatics in Japan), approximately 10,000 pieces of publications relating to higher education, including research papers, theses, conference proceedings, notes, research project reports, etc., were found. The first article is about Research in the Placement of Higher Education Institutions, which was published in 1949 in Japanese (Cyuou kyouiku kenkyujyo 1949). Figure 1 shows changes in publications on higher education in Japan from 1949 to 2014. Apparently, there was a consistent and rapid expansion of higher education research publications in Japan from 1949 to 2014. Compared to only 19 pieces of works in the period of 1949–1959, the number of publications rose to 4,203 in 2004–2014. Although no complete data for 2018 were included in CiNii at the time of writing, the number of publications on higher education research in the period of 2015–2018 alone already reached about 1,300. In terms of main themes of this research, the majority of publications focused on just a few thematic clusters. For example, higher education research in Japan has been more engaged in conducting research in issues in relation to features of Japanese higher education. As Table 1 reveals, the largest numbers of publications are about private universities in Japan, followed by female students, university
Field of Higher Education Research, Asia, Table 1 Main titles in relation to higher education research Top 1 Top 2 Top 3 Top 4 Top 5 Top 6 Top 7 Top 8
3670 2929 2200 1427 1012 574 549 462
Top 9 Top 10 Top 11 Top 12 Top 13 Top 14 Top 15
433 426 294
Private University Female student University research University management Undergraduate education Higher education policy US higher education and university Chinese higher education and university Comparative higher education Higher education reform
278
Internationalization of higher education Asian higher education
189
French higher education
150
British higher education
116
Korean higher education
Source: Data from CiNii database with author’s modifications
research, university management, and undergraduate education. The main reasons behind this are that: first, the proportion of private universities and junior colleges accounts for over 70% of the total number of universities, which accommodate the largest proportion of female students; second, the vast majority of Japanese faculty members show much higher preference in research than
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teaching; third, due to a huge number of private universities and junior colleges and the incorporation of national universities and local public universities in 2004, much more effort is being devoted in the study of university management; and finally, because the most important mission of higher education is providing undergraduate education in private universities and colleges, accompanied by an increased emphasis on reforms on undergraduate education since the early 1990s, the number of publications on this topic has also expanded.
Conclusion The development of higher education research in Asia is strongly and directly regulated and affected by government, in contrast to North America and Europe. Moreover, even in a developed country like Japan, it is more concerned with practical issues of higher education and also changes over time. Further, remarkable differences exist in higher education research in relation to the status of higher education research, scale and organization of higher education research, and international publications and collaborative research in higher education across the region. Although a great deal of progress has been accomplished in recent years, the quality and international reputation of higher education research in Asia cannot be enhanced and make a greater contribution to higher education research worldwide if a more favorable research infrastructure and higher-level research capacity cannot be built, and researchers in the region do not participate in the international community more actively.
Cross-References ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Asia ▶ Higher Education Expansion in Asia and the Pacific ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, Asia
Field of Higher Education Research, Asia
▶ International Organizations and Asian Higher Education ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research in East Asia
References Cyuou kyouiku kenkyujyo. 1949. Koutou kyouiku kikan no haichi monadi ni kansuru kenkyu (Research in Placement of Higher Education Institutions). Kyouiku kagaku kenkyu [Research in Education Science] 1(3/4): 46–56. Cyuou kyouiku syuppan. (In Japanese). Horta, H. 2018. Chapter 2 higher-education researchers in Asia: The risks of insufficient contribution to international higher-education research. In Researching higher education in Asia; history, development and future, ed. J. Jung, H. Horta, and A. Yonezawa, 15–36. Singapore: Springer. Horta, H., and J. Jung. 2013. Higher education research in Asia: A publication and co-publication analysis. Higher Education Quarterly 67 (4): 378–419. Horta, H., and J. Jung. 2014a. Does a higher education research community exist in Asia? The International Higher Education 74: 11–12. Horta, H., and J. Jung. 2014b. Higher education research in Asia: An archipelago, two continents or merely atomization? Higher Education 68 (1): 117–134. Huang (2006). Incorporation and University Governance. Higher Education Management and Policy 18 (2): OECD, pp. 35–49. Huang (2011).The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Japan’s Higher Education, Higher Education Policy Vol. 24, pp. 275–283. Huang, F., U. Teichler, and J.F. Galaz-Fontes. 2013. Chapter 8. Regionalization of higher education and the academic profession in Asia, Europe and North America. In The internationalization of the academy: Changes, realities and prospects, ed. F. Huang, M. Finkelstein, and N. Rostan, 145–181. Dordrecht: Springer. IHE (Institute of Higher Education). 2018. Retrieved from https://ihe.xmu.edu.cn/jyyjy_en/2018/0315/c16818a3338 16/page.psp. Accessed 12 Nov 2018 Jung, J., H. Horta, and A. Yonezawa. 2018. Higher education research in Asia: History, development and challenges. In Researching higher education in Asia; history, development and future, ed. J. Jung, H. Horta, and A. Yonezawa. Singapore: Springer. Levy, D.C. 2010. East Asian private higher education: Reality and policy. Washington, DC: World Bank. RIHE. 2018. What is RIHE? Retrieved from http://rihe.hiro shima-u.ac.jp/en/about_rihe/establishment/. Accessed 3 Dec 2018 UNESCO Institute for Statistics. 2014. Higher education in Asia: Expanding out, expanding up. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Field of Higher Education Research, China
Field of Higher Education Research, China Huang Futao Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
Synonyms Continuing education; Further education; Study in tertiary education; University and college
Definition Providing an overview of the emergence and development of higher education research in Chinese higher education, focused on publications of higher education research, its publications by source of funding, by research institute, and topic from 1949 to 2017 and its changes and trends.
Introduction Changes to the landscape of higher education research in China have varied considerably throughout different phases of development of its higher education system. Underlying these changes is the assumption that higher education is seen as a fundamental means of producing higher-level talent for the state, training professional manpower, contributing to modernization and economic growth, and bolstering the socialist construction of China. With the implementation of the reform and open-door policy in the late 1970s, and especially the advancement of the internationalization of China’s higher education in recent years, higher education research in China has become involved in more and more debates which are internationally or globally relevant. However, compared to many Western countries, and even neighboring Japan, it is still more closely and directly affected by changes in
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its domestic political, economic, and social systems. Therefore, higher education research in China displays striking features that are reflective of its national character. This study attempts to present an overview of higher education research in China from both historical and quantitative perspectives. The study discusses major characteristics of higher education research in China in different phases by using publicly available publications data. The data are mainly concerned with publications of higher education research, its publications by source of funding, research institutes, and by topic from 1950 to 2017. Subsequently, it presents the key issues and challenges facing higher education research in China. The study concludes by summarizing the striking features of higher education research in China.
Emergence and Changes in Higher Education Research Review of Literature Prior to the 2000s, the most comprehensive study of higher education research in China is the book entitled Higher Education Research in China for 50 Years (1949–1999), which was published in 1999 (Chen 1999). Chen’s study analyzes the historical development of the field, key theoretical advances, and the main issues Chinese higher education research faced in the latter half of the twentieth century. It points out that important achievements and progress have been made in higher education research in China over the past 50 years, especially since the implementation of the reform and open-door policy in 1978. According to Pan and Li (2009), the history of higher education research since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (New China) in 1949 could be practically divided into four phases, characterized by changing research focuses, symbolic events and the emergence of research outcomes, microcontexts of higher education research, and other factors. Wang and Liu’s research outlines the growth of higher education research institutes in mainland China, from their history through to their current
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development, and also provides an overview of these institutes’ roles and functions, as well as their future developmental trends and challenges (Wang and Liu 2014). Hu and Chen (2017) outline how higher education research in China developed as a well-recognized independent academic field in its unique national and historical context. Their research indicates that the rise and formation of higher education as a research field in China was closely related to the substantive growth of the higher education system itself. Higher education research in China is characterized by a strong institutional basis, an obvious orientation toward policy and practice at the macro- and microlevels, and support from and legitimization by a strong state. Knowledge production in the field is currently characterized by being increasingly outward-looking continued support from the state. Changes and Trends There are various approaches to analyzing changes in higher education research in China; however, analyzing changes in publications of higher education research, its publications by source of funding, research institutes, and by topic based on publicly available data from 1950 to 2017 can largely suggest the most important characteristics of higher education research in China. China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) is a publicly available online database providing the most comprehensive information on academic publications. It includes almost all publications made in academic journals, major news outlets, doctoral theses, conference proceedings, research and conference reports, commentaries, notes, etc., in Mainland China. By entering the key phrase 高等 教育研究 (higher education research in Chinese) in the web portal of CNKI (http://kns.cnki.net/ kns/brief/default_result.aspx) as of 4 October 2018, 84,206 pieces of higher education research
were found between 1950 and 2018. However, not all data from publications made in 2018 are included in the CNKI at the time of writing and as such the present study only analyzes publications on higher education research in the CNKI between 1950 and 2017. There is no doubt that higher education research was already conducted before the establishment of the New China in 1949; however, no publications made prior to 1949 were included in the database making detailed analysis of these early papers impossible from the CNKI dataset. It is also notable that higher education research was not present in the database every year. For example, there was no evidence of published higher education research in 1955, 1960, 1961, 1963, 1965, and 1967–1974 when the Cultural Revolution occurred and almost all higher education institutions were abolished or closed. The prevalence of higher education research has varied over time. As Table 1 shows, in 1950 there were eight articles and reports in the field of higher education. This declined to only three articles in 1975, but since 1975, there was a rapid growth in the published higher education research. As many as 3,891 articles were included in the database in 2017 alone. With respect to the source of funding for higher education research papers, Fig. 1 reveals that the majority of research funding allocated between 1950 and 2017 came from the central government, including various central-level agencies and departments, as well as research and academic councils, followed by research funding from individual provinces (20%). Interestingly, the Ford Foundation and a tiny amount of research grant from authorities in Hong Kong also contributed to higher education research in China. However, provincial level funding distribution is not completely clear as it appears that not all the provinces are listed in the database. Generally speaking, some wealthy provinces such as Jiangsu
Field of Higher Education Research, China, Table 1 Changes in publications of higher education research from 1950 to 2017 1950 8
1956 2
1959 1
1966 1
1975 3
Source: CNKI with author’s modifications
1980 32
1985 266
1990 298
1995 758
2000 1794
2005 3654
2010 5044
2015 3814
2017 3891
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Field of Higher Education Research, China, Fig. 1 Publications of higher education research by source of funding. (Source: Data from the CNKI with author’s modifications)
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and Zhejiang provided relatively more funding for higher education research, though there is no information on research funding for higher education in provinces such as Anhui and Jiangxi. By institute, the top ten institutes in which researchers made publications in relation to higher education research include Xiamen University (1,987), East China Normal University (1,621), Central China University of Science and Technology (1,496), Beijing Normal University (1,105), Central China Normal University (923), Southwest University (866), Hunan Normal University (860), Nanjing Normal University (777), Zhejiang University (765), and Peking University (677). As will be discussed in the following section, the Higher Education Institute in Xiamen University was established in 1983 and it has the longest history of all such institutes in China. It also houses a relatively large number of full-time researchers in the field of higher education. These researchers are engaged in a wide variety of research streams, from basic theories, principles of higher education, policy, the evaluation of higher education, and even institutional research. Except for Xiamen University, Central China University of Science and Technology, and Peking University in which there are no faculties of education, researchers, and academics working in normal universities contributed a large quantity of publications in relation to higher education, too. In most cases, there are many more researchers and academics
in normal universities in which they teach undergraduate students while also conducting research, some of which concerns higher education. By topic, among eight relevant publications made in 1950, six of them are not formal research papers, but reports and opening and closing speeches of national education conferences by leaders of the Ministry of Education. One article is about the issues of learning from the former Soviet model by an expert from the former Soviet Union. The other is a collection of critical remarks of the US education system by returned Chinese scholars and students from the USA based on their personal experiences while studying in the USA. By 1966 when the “Cultural Revolution” occurred, a large number of publications related to the introduction of higher education reforms guided by the former Soviet Union, and explanations of higher education guidelines and principles of the Chinese Communist Party. Considering all publications to date, the greatest proportion relate to keywords such as higher education reform (about 23,000), followed by Chinese higher education (about 78,00), adult higher education (about 4.900), higher education in North America (about 3,800), including higher education in the USA (about 3,600), massification of higher education (about 3,500), higher education (about 2,300), non-government (private) higher education (about 2,100), higher education development (about 1,800), internationalization of higher education (about 1,700), higher
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education quality (about 1,500), higher education financing (about 1,500), self-taught examination system (about 1,300), higher vocational and technical education (about 1,100), higher education in the UK (1,100), and others. This clearly indicates that higher education research in China has come to include a hugely wide range of topics in recent years. According to research by Pan and Li (2009), the development of higher education research in China since 1949 could be practically divided into the following four phases. The chapter discusses important features of higher education research in each phase in reference to existing research and also by analyzing relevant data from the CNKI. The most important feature of the first phase (1949–1977) is that higher education research had not yet formed an independent academic discipline. More specifically, there were not any professional researchers in higher education, nor were there any institutions specifically focusing on research into higher education. In reality, there was no concept of higher education research in China. Furthermore, higher education research was primarily based on personal or subjective experiences, and there was a lack of theoretical research. By analyzing the data from the CNKI, it seems that little attention was paid to the employment of scientific research methods. Almost all so-called higher education research was descriptive and based on personal observations or subjective feelings without any theoretical or conceptual frameworks. Perhaps predictably, despite efforts made by some academics, almost no significant research achievements were accomplished. For example, according to the CNKI, only 33 publications were made in the field of higher education research from 1950 to 1977. Nearly half concerned the former Soviet Union, followed by educational administrative organizations and the Ministry of Education, socialism (11), adult higher education, and part-time and night universities (9). The second phase (1978–1984) is characterized by the emergence of higher education as an independent discipline of study. Some senior researchers published articles and advocated the necessity of undertaking higher education
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research. The significance of the establishment of Research Division of Higher Education Science as an independent discipline of study in May 1978 cannot be overestimated, for it was the first research unit which specially researched higher education, and was symbolic that higher education was recognized as a specialized area of research in China. In 1981, the master’s program of higher education became available, and the establishment of the China Association of Higher Education in May 1983 suggests that higher education research had extended beyond individual higher education institutions at a regional level, and began to be conducted at a national level. With the recognition of higher education as a second-level discipline within education sciences by the Ministry of Education in 1983, higher education was officially accepted as a new independent discipline of study. Meanwhile, several influential textbooks and academic studies of higher education, such as Lectures of Higher Education, Principles of Higher Education, Brief History of Higher Education, Management of Higher Education Institutions, and History of Chinese Higher Education, were also published in this period. Further, scientific research methods came to be more widely used in higher education research. CNKI data indicate that the number of publications in this newly recognized discipline numbered 445, a ten-fold increase over the previous phase. Keyword analysis indicates that more diverse and new topics were addressed such as higher education finance and funding, comprehensive universities, higher education reform, higher education research, university graduates, and 34 articles about North America, 33 of which were concerned with higher education in the USA. The third phase (1985–1998) is characterized by the expansion of the scale of higher education research. There was a remarkable increase in the number of research institutes of higher education nationwide, professional researchers, universities in which doctoral students were specialized in higher education, and research outputs in higher education. The CNKI data reveal that 7,329 pieces of higher education research, including research papers, conference proceedings, reports, news
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and notes, etc., were published during the period. Further, the scope and range of higher education research was also massively expanded. As a result of additional research into its theories and guiding principles, higher education as an independent discipline of study was strengthened, and more research into issues which arose from the introduction of the market to higher education was undertaken, particularly focusing on measuring quality and privatization. Noticeably, the CNKI database also indicates that research into new areas of interest increased remarkably. For example, there were 573 publications discussing the market economy, 242 publications dealing with the socialist market economy system, and 121 publications about private universities released during this period. Further, nearly 600 publications were concerned with North American higher education, with a particular focus on the USA. This appears to indicate a shift in research interest towards higher education in the USA and away from the former Soviet Union. More importantly, compared to the previous two phases in which most publications were made by administrators, such as officers of the Ministry of Education, other educational departments at central or provincial levels, or institutional leaders of higher education institutions, the top ten most prolific authors of higher education research were all discipline-specific researchers working in research institutes of higher education affiliated to universities or associations of higher education. The fourth phase (1999–2017) is defined as a period of stable improvement, whose main features include: first, a greatly improved level of professionalization of higher education research; second, further emphasis on research into theories of higher education; third, a closer linkage between higher education theory and practice; fourth, a great deal of progress in applying a variety of new research methods to higher education research; fifth, rapid internationalization of higher education research, including more international conferences, the promotion of international collaborative research projects, the translation of more leading international research into Chinese, and the international publication of
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leading Chinese texts. The database of the CNKI suggests that approximately 73,492 publications were made during the period. By keyword or theme, in addition the existing emphasis on issues such as adult higher education, the self-taught examination system, nongovernment higher education, and higher education reform, huge numbers of publications concerned mass higher education (~3,500), higher education in North America and the USA (~7,000), internationalization of higher education (~1,500), and higher education quality (~1,400). In terms of institutions, similar to the previous phase, researchers and academics from individual universities contributed the largest numbers of publications. Issues and Challenges Despite enormous achievements in higher education research in China, especially since the late 1990s, the field today remains confronted with numerous issues and challenges. First, compared to other disciplines such as sociology and economics, the field remains small and the quality of publications is poor by comparison. An important reason for this is a lack of undergraduate students who are specialized in higher education, so it is more difficult for universities that provide doctoral programs in higher education to attract the best undergraduates for higher educationspecific programs. Second, some supervisors of master’s and even doctoral programs are not well trained in higher education research, even in doctoral degree-awarding institutions. A large number of doctoral students’ supervisors used to be institutional leaders who are experienced in the practical issues of higher education, but are not necessarily familiar with higher education theory, research methods, or new trends of higher education research worldwide. Third, in many universities higher education research is not highly recognized or valued by the university administration, and it suffers from a shortage of research funding and financial support. Finally, because of increased ideological control over research in the humanities and social sciences, research into some issues of higher education is not encouraged or may be prohibited. Examples include how to build civil society through higher education and
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how to evaluate the effect or efficiency of the Party’s control on university governance arrangements, etc.
Concluding Remarks This chapter analyzed the context of higher education research in China and changes that occurred through four key phases of development. With reference to prior research and original analysis of publication data included in the CNKI database, the study identified the main characteristics of higher education research from 1950 to 2017. It argues that higher education research in China has transformed from an initial phase characterized by unsystematic research based on personal observations and experiences to its present state in which researchers in the field are gradually addressing a wide variety of themes as an independent discipline in a more organized and scientific way. Due to strong support from both the central government and local authorities, and more professional researchers and doctoral students participating in higher education research, there has not only been an expansion of publications, but also noticeable qualitative improvement of higher education research. Further, on the one hand, higher education research in China has devoted huge efforts to focus on issues of Chinese higher education and practical issues related to national reforms. On the other hand, it also paid increased attention to the introduction of foreign higher education ideas and models, especially higher education in North America and the USA.
Cross-References ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, China ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, China
References Chen, X. (Ed.). 1999. 中国高等教育研究50年 (1949–1999) [Higher education research in China for
Field of Higher Education Research, Europe 50 years (1949–1999)]. Beijing: Educational Science Press. Hu, L., and S. Chen. 2017. Chapter 7: Higher education research in China: An independent academic field under the state. In Researching higher education in Asia, Higher education in Asia: Quality, excellence and governance, ed. J. Jung et al., 131–145. Springer: Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-104989-7_7. Pan, M., and J. Li. 2009. 中国高等教育研究60年: 后来 居上, 异军突起 [Higher education research in China for 60 years: Though came later, became much stronger]. China Higher Education 18: 15–41. (in Chinese). Wang, Q., and N. Liu. 2014. Higher education research institutes in Chinese universities. Studies in Higher Education 39 (8): 1488–1498. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03075079.2014.949544.
Field of Higher Education Research, Europe Ulrich Teichler INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
General Characteristics Effort in the past to characterize the situation of higher education research (Sadlak and Altbach 1997; Teichler and Sadlak 2000; Tight 2012) often underscored five general features (see Teichler 2015a). First, it is a quite a small field; this suggests that systematic knowledge on higher education is not held in high esteem by most policy makers and practitioners. Second, it is a theme-based field that has to strive for quality by drawing from theories, methods, and areas of knowledge from various disciplines (education, psychology, sociology, political science, economics and business studies, law, history, etc.; see Becher 1992) and concurrently has to legitimize its existence through being highly relevant for higher education policy and practice. Third, only some scholars active in the domain consider higher education research as the basis of their academic identity, while others perceive higher education just a thematic area which they address frequently or only occasionally (Teichler 1996). Fourth, higher education is a field of expertise
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with fuzzy borderlines between research on the one hand and consultancy, evaluation, and even “reflective” policy makers’ and practitioners’ expertise on the other hand (Amaral and Magalhaes 2013). Fifth, higher education research is predominantly national in focus or concentrates on individual institutions or their subunits. Research with a worldwide focus or international comparative research has been rare in the past but got momentum in recent years; however, major themes of higher education research followed strikingly similar waves across economically advanced countries since about the 1960s. Sixth, the conditions vary substantially across countries. In some countries, higher education research is a noteworthy field, while in other countries, it is marginal or nonexisting. In some countries, we note a clear dominance of one or two types of institutional bases, e.g., notably faculties of education and “institutional research,” while in other countries, research on higher education is widely scattered.
The Development in Europe When the first worldwide account was undertaken around 1970 (Nitsch and Weller 1970–1973), higher education research was only a substantial field of study in a few countries. Attention was paid worldwide to the impressive development of research in this domain in the USA, but both major national institutes and units for teaching and learning at many individual universities existed as well in the USSR and affiliated countries. In most countries, however, higher education was a marginal field at that time. In the 1960s, though, interest in systematic knowledge of higher education spread in many countries – obviously due to two factors. The expansion of higher education, often measured in terms of the enrolment rates of students of the respective age group, initiated a reconsideration of the tasks and functions of higher education. Moreover, the student protest in many countries called into question traditional beliefs in the proper functioning of the higher education system. In the UK, higher education research became a sizeable field earlier than in other European
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countries, and the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) was already founded in 1965. In various other European countries, research in this domain got momentum between the 1970s and the 1990s. A worldwide inventory undertaken in 2013 suggests that the number of academically based higher education researchers in Europe has surpassed 2,000 but that this field has remained quite uneven across countries (Rumbley et al. 2013). The UK, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, and Germany are often named as countries with a noteworthy magnitude, while higher education research hardly exists in some other countries. In most European countries, the community of higher education researchers was considered too small to establish academic associations on the national level. The Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland (CHERIF) and the Gesellschaft für Hochschulforschung (GfHf) in German-speaking countries eventually were founded in the first decade of the twentieth century. English and Lingua Franca: Real Factor and Biased Perception Due to dominant modes of communication and of publications in the English language, higher education research in non-English-speaking European countries looked smaller for a long period than it actually was. When the first “International Encyclopedia of Higher Education” was published (Knowles 1977), only about one of eight authors were from Europe, among them more from the UK than from the rest of Europe. When a well-known scholar invited for a conference aimed at reviewing the worldwide state of higher education research in the early 1980s, the majority of speakers were from the USA, four from the UK, and one from continental Europe (Clark 1984). Still in 1992, when the Encyclopedia of Higher Education was published (Clark and Neave 1992), about half among the 18 most frequently cited authors were from the USA, five from the UK, and three from other European countries (see Teichler 2015b). These figures indicated to some extent an exceptional strength of higher education research at that time in the USA and to some extent in the UK. Moreover, many scholars in other countries
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got to know higher education developments and related research primarily through the English language medium and thus were better informed about and influenced by research in these countries. However, research on higher education in most countries of the world is national in focus and draws primarily from national sources. It is justified to estimate that more than 90% of the publications in this domain continue to be today in the home country language and that they cite more than three times as many sources of the home country language than those in other languages still today in countries such as France, Germany, and – to name a country outside Europe – Japan. Higher education researchers in Europe opted for more intensive cross-border communication and cooperation than their peers in other parts of the world. This helped on the one hand to get to know conditions and developments of higher education in many countries of the world as well as research not published in English. For example, various international collaborative comparative empirical projects were undertaken, e.g., on the economic and social conditions of students, careers of university graduates, the situation of the academic profession, and various features of higher education governance (see Teichler 2015b). On the other hand, this cooperation stimulated publications in the English language as lingua franca on the part of higher education researchers from countries, where publishing in English was not customary in the past. During the 1970s, the European Association for Research and Development in Higher Education (EARDHE) was formed which had an emphasis in teaching and learning. It faded away after a while. The International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED), founded in 1993, has a similar focus but a broader international coverage. The European Association for Institutional Research (EAIR), initially founded in the late 1970s with the intention to promote “institutional research” according to the US model, actually became a network of communication between researchers notably with an applied emphasis on the one hand and on the other hand policy makers and practitioners
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interested in research (see Begg 2003). In 1988, the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) was founded with the aim of fostering the theoretical and methodological quality of higher education research as well as contributing the international comparison in this domain. The scope of communication in CHER is worldwide, yet more than two-thirds of its members are from Europe (see Kehm and Musselin 2013). As regards publications in the English language, the share of European authors in Higher Education, the internationally most highly reputed journal of higher education research, increased from about one-third around 1990 to almost half in 2010. While the share of authors from the UK declined, that from other European countries increased from 13% to 36% (Maassen 2000; Tight 2012). An overview published in 2015 of major functions of higher education researchers in Europe and in honors awarded from the 1980s onward suggests that altogether scholars from 17 European countries became highly visible. Both the importance of English and the actual achievements contributed to the fact that more than onethird of the functions and honors are concentrated on the UK, but an increasing dispersion across European countries is noteworthy since the 1990s (Teichler 2015b).
The Fuzzy Borderline and the Institutional Basis Any general statement about the situation of higher education research is bound to be cautious due to its fuzzy borderline. According to an overview article published in the mid-1990s, six types of experts are active in providing more or less systematic knowledge on higher education: discipline-/ department-based scholars occasionally addressing higher education issues, discipline-/departmentbased scholars continuously addressing higher education, scholars based in an academic higher education research institute or another unit, applied higher education researchers, higher education consultants, and “reflective” policy makers or practitioners (Teichler 1996).
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Similarly, the institutional basis of higher education research (Schwarz and Teichler 2000) within higher education institutions or other research institutions can be classified into six settings: (1) research and practice combined (e.g., centers for teaching and learning), (2) “institutional research” (i.e., research linked to the institutional administration which focus on one’s own higher education institution), (3) research linked to teaching (e.g., departmental units with master and/or doctoral programs on higher education), (4) nationally sponsored higher education research institutes, (5) university-based higher education research centers, and (6) units focusing on higher education within an institute of a broader thematic range (e.g., education, labor market, economic development) (Teichler 2005). The institutional setting in Europe differs substantially from that of the USA (Teichler 2015b). It is less often embedded in Europe into units in charge of master and doctoral programs. Also, higher education research in various European countries is predominantly linked to disciplines and departments other than education. Moreover, in some European countries, large institutions are located outside higher education. Finally, “institutional research” can be found only in a few European countries and there mostly on a small scale (Klemencic and Brennan 2013); often, higher education administrators have – partly or completely – analytical functions without being defined as researchers. In the above-named inventory undertaken in 2013, 66 higher education research centers – about 30% of those all over the world found by the authors of the inventory – are located in Europe, actually in 22 European countries. Only 23 master and/or doctoral programs are reported for 10 European countries, i.e., less than one-tenth of all the 277 programs reported altogether. Finally, the inventory named 68 higher education journals published in 14 European countries – almost one quarter of all the 280 journals (among them almost one-third in a language other than English) reported (Rumbley et al. 2014). Certainly, one has to bear in mind that not all the institutions, programs, and journals have been reached by the inventory or were willing to
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respond, whereby those active solely on national level in non-English speaking countries are likely to be underrepresented. There is a small number of sizeable units of higher education research in Europe playing a major role in stimulating research collaboration and the professionalization of this field: the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) of Twente University (the Netherlands); the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel) of the University of Kassel (Germany); the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) in cooperation with scholars at other institutions in Oslo (Norway); the Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies (CIPES), located near Porto and linked to various universities in Portugal; and varying units at the Institute of Education, London University College (United Kingdom). The fuzzy borderlines of higher education research are not necessarily interpreted as a weakness but often as an opportunity for close communicative links and for a creative functional mix (see Scott 2000; Amaral and Magalhaes 2013). For many years, almost all important international journals on higher education (with the exception of Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education) – many of them with European editors and publishing agencies – were inclined to publish articles ranging from typical research texts to mixed expert and actor think pieces. This held true, for example, for Higher Education Policy, Tertiary Education and Management, Higher Education in Europe, Journal of Higher Policy and Management, and European Journal of Education. In recent years, though, some of them have drifted toward a more purely academic emphasis. Thematic Priorities A glance at the publications suggests that higher education is strongly influenced in its thematic choices by the prevailing Zeitgeist of policy and practice in Europe. In the 1960s, expansion of higher education and its links to economy as well as issues of equality played a substantial role. In the 1970s, students, teaching and learning, institutional diversification, higher education planning, and graduate employment were
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frequent themes. In the 1980s, evaluation, management, and quality of research got momentum as themes. In the 1990s, system governance and institutional management, incentive steering, and internationalization became priorities. In the early years of the twenty-first century, more attention is paid to “rankings,” “knowledge society,” “employability,” market steering, as well as professionalization in higher education. Research themes do not change as quickly and dramatically as policy debates but are obviously strongly influenced by them. A thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis shows that eight themes played a substantial role over time: teaching and learning, course design, the student experience, quality, system policy, institutional management, academic work, and knowledge and research (Tight 2012). An analysis of four major international higher education journals published in the years 2011 and 2012 indicated that almost one quarter each of the articles addressed students’ satisfaction, performance, and evaluation. One-sixth of the articles informed about institutional analysis, government, and management as well as on quality, evaluation, and assessment. Finally system regulation and the role of government as well as the academic profession were quite frequent themes (Teixeira 2013). It might be added that some priorities can be named as characteristic for higher education research in European countries in the early years of the twenty-first century which cut across the above-named categories. First, many research projects address international mobility and cooperation as well as other phenomena of internationalization in higher education (Kehm and Teichler 2007). Second, issues of convergence or divergence across European countries and the impact of European policies are often targeted (Kehm et al. 2009; Curaj et al. 2012). Third, many projects compare issues of higher education in various European (and possibly other economically advanced) countries (Teichler 2014).
Prospects Higher education research really got momentum for the first time in Europe in the 1960s, when
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higher education expansion and the perspectives of the student protest called for functional reconsideration of higher education. The willingness of researchers to communicate and cooperate across borders helped to strengthen higher education research beyond its scattered and fuzzy setting. Finally, the growing impact of strong governance and management as well as the increasing global, international, and European perspectives in higher education policy and practice since about the 1990s contributed to further growth, more favorable working conditions, and a higher public acceptance of higher education research as qualitatively ambitious and practically relevant area. This has led to a certain degree of consolidation: Various master and doctoral programs have emerged. Collaborative comparative research projects are not viewed anymore as merely exceptional. Various journals and book series demonstrate an increasing quality of higher education research in Europe. Yet, differences in the magnitude and the quality of the institutional basis continue to vary strikingly across European countries. Higher education researchers in Europe perceive an increasing quality of theories and methods in their field (see notably Brennan and Teichler 2008) but continue to observe problems in catching up with the quality based in disciplines. Undoubtedly, the chances of raising funds for research projects and to undertake research considered to be highly relevant for policy and practice have grown substantially in recent years. However, higher education researchers tend to be viewed by policy and practice not as the specific stronghold of systematic knowledge but rather as experts among others, e.g., consultants, well-informed administrators, and wise evaluators. Thus, many higher education researchers in Europe seem to seek for a promising balance between the Scylla of isolated theoretical endeavor and the Charybdis of “policybased evidence.”
References Amaral, Alberto, and Antonio Magalhaes. 2013. Higher education research between policy and practice. In The development of higher education research in Europe:
Field of Higher Education Research, France 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 43–59. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Becher, R.A. 1992. Disciplinary perspectives on higher education: Introduction. In The encyclopedia of higher education, ed. Burton R. Clark and Guy Neave, 1763–1776. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Begg, Roddy, ed. 2003. The dialogue between higher education research and practice. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Brennan, John, and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 2008. Special issue: The future of higher education and the future of higher education research. Higher Education 56(3). Clark, Burton R., ed. 1984. Perspectives on higher education: Eight disciplinary and comparative views. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clark, Burton R., and Guy Neave, eds. 1992. The encyclopedia of higher education. 4 Volumes. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Curaj, Adrian, Peter Scott, Lazar Vlasceanu, and Lesley Wilson, eds. 2012. European higher education at the crossroads: Between the Bologna process and national reforms. 2 parts. Dordrecht: Springer. Kehm, Barbara M., and Christine Musselin, eds. 2013. The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Kehm, Barbara M., and Ulrich Teichler. 2007. Research on internationalisation in higher education. Journal of Study in International Education 11: 260–273. Kehm, Barbara M., Jeroen Huisman, and Bjørn Stensaker, eds. 2009. The European higher education area: Perspectives on a moving target. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Klemencic, Manja, and John Brennan. 2013. Institutional research in a European context: A forward look. European Journal of Higher Education 3: 265–279. Knowles, Asa S., ed. 1977. International encyclopedia of higher education. 10 Volumes. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Maassen, Peter A.M. 2000. Higher education research: The hourglass structure and its implication. In Higher education research: Its relationship to policy and practice, ed. Ulrich Teichler and Jan Sadlak, 59–67. Oxford: Pergamon & IAU Press. Nitsch, Wolfgang, Walter Weller. 1970–1973. Social science research on higher education and universities. 3 volumes. The Hague: Mouton. Rumbley, Laura E., Philip G. Altbach, David A. Stanfield, Yukiko Shimmi, Ariane de Gayardon, and Roy Y. Chan, eds. 2014. Higher education: A worldwide inventory of research centers, academic programs, and journals and publications. Bonn: Lemmens. Sadlak, Jan, and Philip G. Altbach, eds. 1997. Higher education research at the turn of the new century. Paris/New York: UNESCO/Garland. Schwarz, Stefanie, and Ulrich Teichler, eds. 2000. The institutional basis of higher education research. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Scott, Peter. 2000. Higher education research in the light of a dialogue between policy-makers and practitioners. In Higher education research: Its relationship to policy
467 and practice, ed. Ulrich Teichler and Jan Sadlak, 123–148. Oxford: Pergamon & IAU Press. Teichler, Ulrich. 1996. Comparative higher education: Potentials and limits. Higher Education 32: 431–465. Teichler, Ulrich. 2005. Research on higher education in Europe. European Journal of Education 40: 447–469. Teichler, Ulrich. 2014. Opportunities and problems of comparative higher education research: The daily life of research. Higher Education 67: 393–408. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015a. Higher education research. In International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, ed. James D. Wright, vol. 10, 2nd ed., 862–869. Oxford: Elesevier. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015b. Higher education research in Europe. In The European higher education area: Between critical reflections and future policies, ed. Adrain Curaj, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmi, and Peter Scott, 823–856. Cham: Springer. Teichler, Ulrich, and Jan Sadlak, eds. 2000. Higher education research: Its relationship to policy and practice. Oxford: Pergamon & IAU Press. Teixeira, Pedro N. 2013. Reflecting about current trends in higher education research: A view from the journals. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Christine Musselin, 103–121. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Tight, Malcolm. 2012. Researching higher education. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press and McGraw-Hill Education.
Field of Higher Education Research, France Stéphanie Mignot-Gérard IRG, UPEC, Créteil, France
Synonyms Higher education research; Studies in France
Definition Social science research on higher education politics, policies, systems, and institutions as well as internal groups and individuals such as academics, administrators, and stakeholders in France.
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Introduction Despite a dazzling start with Bourdieu’s farreaching studies on higher education students and institutions from the mid-1960s to the mid1980s, the field of higher education research in France has been scattered across a wide range of social sciences and weakly institutionalized, based mostly on individual scholars’ research interests. At the turn of the twenty-first century, however, the academic production has been reinvigorated, as efforts of coordination and the internationalization of the French social scientists community have started to emerge.
Genesis Higher education is a quite recent research field in France, as its origins can be traced to the mid1960s. At the outset, the topic drew primarily the attention of sociologists. Les héritiers: les étudiants et la culture, the book from Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, published in 1964, probably marks the beginning of the French social sciences interest in the study of higher education. Bourdieu was at the time Raymond Aron’s research assistant at the Centre de Sociologie Européenne (CSE) also founded in 1964. Les héritiers highlighted the influence of individuals’ social backgrounds on access and achievement in higher education. Inherited economic capital and, especially, cultural capital – which will become central concepts in future Bourdieu’s work – are analyzed as the major determinants of success in higher education, which in turn plays a role in the reproduction of social inequalities. If those ideas may look quite common nowadays, the book challenged at the time two deeply entrenched representations within the French society, equal opportunity and meritocracy, which were also two ideological pillars of the role of education in France as it had been established since the Third Republic (Champagne 2008). Not only Les héritiers contributed to the structuration and renewal of the sociology of education in the mid-1960s (Müller and Sintomer
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2006), but the book instantly fueled the public debate at the time. Aron considered it as a “thunderstorm in the sky of the policy-makers and elites” (Weber 2011: 21) and one of the causes of the political turmoil and social events of May 1968 (Bourdieu 2002). Its publication was indeed coinciding with the French society’s aspiration for greater social justice and was used by students’ unions as an instrument for a radical critique of the university’s role in the reproduction of the social order (Masson 2005). However, the sounding success of the book did not initiate a research program in higher education, as Bourdieu’s intention was primarily to use the issue of higher education to serve his larger demonstration of persistent social inequalities, which he extensively developed later in La Reproduction (1970).
Dispersion of HE Research Across and Within the Social Sciences and Humanities Despite Bourdieu’s legacy, and until the present period, no joint effort across the social scientists’ community has emerged to initiate a common research agenda on higher education. An important piece of evidence of this lack of coordination is the absence of an academic journal specialized in the area. As indexed on the CAIRN database, the only outlet that exists is Politiques et gestion de l’enseignement supérieur (also published in English under the name Higher Education and Policy). Yet, two remarkable observations have to be made about this journal. First, it is not a strictly academic enterprise as it was initiated by the OCDE/IMHE program. Second, its publication was interrupted in August 2019. (At the time of writing of this chapter, no further information was available about the reasons accounting for this interruption.) Outside this journal, scholarly work on HE has been published in a great variety of social sciences and humanities journals. Based on the review of the CAIRN database, since 1951, the 1036 articles comprising the terms “higher education” or “universities” in their titles have been
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published in no less than 245 different outlets, the most represented disciplines being in political science (290), economics and management (252), sociology (230), education science (228), and history (193). (The first positions occupied by political science and economics and management should however be nuanced as they are both driven by the high numbers of articles (81) published in Politiques et gestion de l’enseignement supérieur.) Those numbers indicate that the major disciplines that addressed the HE issue hardly joined their forces to set up a common research agenda. Furthermore, we outline below a brief review of how and to what extent three major disciplines (sociology, history, and education science) have addressed higher education. It indicates that the issue remained either compartmentalized (sociology and history) and/or a minor topic (history and education). In sociology, the high resonance of Les héritiers as well as his authors’ political engagement (Bourdieu 2002) divided the French sociology at the turn of the seventies. The same year of the release of Les héritiers in 1964, Michel Crozier, the father of the French organizational sociology, published Le phénomène bureaucratique; according to Masson (2005), Crozier’s analyses of the bureaucratic phenomenon as applied to universities is explicitly targeted by Bourdieu in Les héritiers. But the schism between the two scholars would extend beyond the frontiers of the topic of higher education. In addition to their divergent vision of the social scientist’s role in the public debate (Crozier 1994), the major opposition between the two scholars lied in their research theoretical and epistemic approaches, originated by their respective positioning toward Sartre’s existentialism that framed the intellectual debate across the 1950s–1960s in France (Masson 2001). On one hand, Bourdieu was close to Levi Strauss’ structural anthropology, looking for general laws of social behaviors and explicitly rejecting Sartre’s philosophy of individual subject and consciousness. By contrast, Crozier’s sociology, based on the premise of actor’s autonomy and capacity to pursue individual
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“rational strategies” (Crozier and Friedberg 1981), was deeply influenced by the Sartrian line of thinking. This led them to adopt radically opposed research positions: as Bourdieu emphasized the weight of habitus, Crozier outlined the individuals’ capacity of action; when Bourdieu aimed to reconstruct the genesis of individual behaviors, Crozier rejected the underlying motivations of action; as Bourdieu theorized conflicts between social classes, Crozier emphasized the existence of micro negotiations between groups of actors (Martin 2012). In the next decade, the CSE and the CSO (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations) – founded by Crozier in 1964 – produced research in higher education in parallel. At the CSE, the continuation of higher education studies was led by Bourdieu himself who published two important books both aiming at highlighting the power structure within the French society (Homo Academicus in 1984 and La Noblesse d’Etat in 1989). At the CSO, Crozier’s team of researchers was rather focusing on change in the national and local public administration (Chaubet 2014). The beginning of the “higher education program” of the CSO can be traced from Christine Musselin’s doctoral thesis that compared the organization and governance of French and German universities. The choice of Musselin’s dissertation topic was however incidental; it resulted from a discussion between Erhard Friedberg and Ulrich Teichler, who was at the time researcher at the Center for Research on Higher Education and Work at Kassel University. Friedberg encouraged Musselin to study universities “as organizations,” which they both considered as an original and promising avenue of research (source: informal interview with Christine Musselin led in August 2019). Christine Musselin launched the CSO “higher education and research program” by the end of the 1990s, which has given birth to ten doctoral theses between 2000 and 2019. It is to date the most structured and wellidentified program of higher education research in France (Rey 2017). Regarding history and education that also play an important role in the construction of the field, the development of higher education
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research is sparse and remains a relative minor issue compared to the study of other levels of education. According to Picard (2009), the topics considered by the historians of higher education have evolved across time; in the 1970s and 1980s, the study of elites was a major concern, and the history of the academic profession was the central line of research. In the next decade, the academic disciplines and their institutionalization became the main point of interest. After that period when Parisian and elite institutions or scholars were the major focus, the historians then turned their attention to regional universities or local R&D innovation systems. Despite the major advances in knowledge provided by these scholarships, Picard diagnoses an absence of a “global agenda” for the history of higher education. On their part, education sciences look quite active in higher education research. One indicator is their quantitative contribution to the doctoral theses dealing with the issue. Over the 1951 doctoral researches that have been completed in France since 1985 with a title comprising either “higher education” or “universities” (http:// www.theses.fr/), 431 are from education science, which places this field far ahead from the other disciplines. (Language sciences comes second with 172, and sociology occupies the fourth position with 72 doctoral thesis.) If Education is thus the academic discipline that produces the highest numbers of doctoral research on higher education in France, the topic remains a minor issue within the field itself. In her analysis of a questionnaire sent to 113 education scholars, DuruBellat (1999) found that education scholars (N ¼ 113) focus primarily on primary/secondary education (67.3% study middle schools, 65.5% high schools, 48.7% primary school, and 39.8% higher education). A more comprehensive state of the art conducted by the French Agency for SSHs, the Athena Agency, confirms that higher education is less studied than other levels of education; the highest proportion of doctoral thesis in education focuses on the entire educational system (32%) or on primary schools (31%), while only 16% are focused upon higher education (Athena 2017).
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Low Institutionalization of the Field The lack of a common research agenda within and across social sciences results from (and in turn fuels) the non-existence of organizational or professional structures dedicated to higher education research. The best indication of the weak institutionalization of higher education research in France is that there is no research center dedicated to the field, no scientific discipline named higher education, and no professorial posts associated with it. The inherited construction of the French higher education and the characteristics of the national elites governing the domain may help to shed light on this weak institutionalization. A first factor is the historical foundation of the French higher education and research system. Its major peculiarity, which distinguishes it from other national models, for example the German, British, or American systems (Paradeise and Thoenig 2015), is the double partition between universities and Grandes Ecoles on the one hand and between universities and national research centers (grands organismes de recherche) on the other hand. The weakness of universities originates from Napoleon who feared their alleged excessive intellectual freedom and separated them in specialized faculties (Musselin 2004). At the same time, the Emperor increased the number of professional schools that would later become Grandes Ecoles. Universities were then mostly dedicated to teaching, while research was concentrated into few elitist Parisian institutions (Charle 2013). After World War II, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was created as a response to the frailty of universities in scientific activities (Paradeise and Thoenig 2015). Despite the reforms led at the end of the nineteenth century and the law Faure of 1968, which both aimed to reinvigorate universities, the long-standing history of co-governance between the State and the academic profession was preventing them to emerge as legitimate and collective actors until the end of the 1980s (Musselin 2004). The separation between teaching and research and between elite and lay institutions was thus a primary obstacle for building a field of scientific inquiry.
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Another peculiar trait of the French higher education system is the historical construction of academic disciplines in silos. The profession has been built around strong and separate disciplines since the Napoleonic Imperial University that settled five orders of faculties corresponding to the disciplines of theology, law, medicine, literature, and sciences. At the time, the academic careers were governed through vertical, centralized, and separated structures (Musselin 2004). The strength of the academic disciplines were reinforced by the Republican reforms led at the end of the ninetieth century when was settled the CCE (Comité consultatif de l’enseignement public), the ancestor of the present National Council of Universities (CNU) created in 1945. The CNU is now organized into disciplinary sections that have decision-making power over professors’ recruitment and career progress – even though universities have gained the control of the final recruitment through the creation of local committees of recruitment (commissions de spécialistes) at the beginning of the 1990s (Picard 2012). Today, the sections of the CNU remain organized according to the five orders of faculties as defined by Napoleon; among the 87 sections existing today, only 5 are labeled as multidisciplinary (https://www.conseil-national-des-universites.fr/ cnu/#/). The institutionalization of multidisciplinary disciplines is thus quite recent. Moreover, the first being created in 1969 was education sciences, which probably compromised the creation of a subfield that would focus solely on higher education. Not only disciplines create barriers based on different research methods and paradigms but the critical and specific role they play in France in the administration of academic careers has limited the development of a new field across the disciplines. Secondly, the State’s initiatives to promote research on higher education have been modest and scarce. Despite a constant concern among governmental elites for reforming the universities and the higher education system in France across the twentieth century (Musselin 2004), the intention and actual implementation of reforms were not accompanied by efforts to fuel research in the sector. The prosopography analysis
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of the individuals in charge of higher education in France since 1968 led by Christophe Charle (2017) offers interesting layers of analysis of this paradox. One line of explanation lies in the national governance of the complex higher education system described earlier: it’s common across the period that different ministries steered education and research; moreover, a number of elite institutions fall under the responsibility of other ministries than the one of education or higher education. Charle also observes the high turnover in the function of minister of education and/or research; in the twentieth century, their mandate never lasted more than 3 to 4 years. Finally, the majority of the government elites have been trained in Grandes Ecoles; in the past 50 years, less than a half had completed higher education within “traditional” universities. Charle (2017) concludes that the gap between elite’s backgrounds and the gravity center of higher education institutions they aim to reform is growing. The only governmental endeavor in favor of research is the creation in 1971 of the Centre d’études et de recherches sur les qualifications (Céreq), an autonomous institution of research placed under the administrative supervision of the ministries of work and education. The Céreq’s mission is to analyze the relations between education and employment, as to support the education and work professionals’ practices (https://www.cereq.fr/qui-sommes-nous). Hence, the Céreq studies do not only address higher education but education at large. Furthermore, as it’s clearly expressed in its mission statement, the Céreq primarily looks at education outcomes on the labor market. One may assume here that the Céreq’s specific approach of HE is typical of the idealized conception of “matching” that still profoundly characterizes the relations between education and employment in France, as shown by Nicolas Charles (2014). This assumption is partly evidenced by the composition of the 12 academic departments/research laboratories associated to the Céreq, as the majority of them (7 out of 12) conduct scholarly work in the field of Economics (https://www.cereq.fr/lecereq-organisation/reseau-des-centres-associes).
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In sum, until the end of the twentieth century, policy-makers’ interest for higher education remained limited, and the rare actions they led to promote research in the field were oriented toward a reflection upon its implications for work and labor markets. Moreover, the innately complex structure of the HE system in France has not favored a global approach of the topic.
From the 2000s, the Revitalization of the Field The late 1990s and beginning of the 2000s are however a turning point in higher education research in France. New research has been developed, stimulated by a couple of public policies related to the unprecedented increase of students’ numbers accessing to higher education (Rey 2017). In particular, Christine Musselin’s book La longue marche des universités franc¸ aises (published in English by Routledge in 2004) draws the attention of both the academic community and the public officials in charge of the sector. In the late 1990s, the Agence de Mutualisation des Universités, which aimed to sustain the increased autonomy of universities by the development of management software, started to encourage and fund the development of new research. Other public organizations, especially the Observatoire de la Vie Etudiante (OVE) that was created in 1989, launched every 3 years between 1994 and 2006 a national and comprehensive study on higher education students’ living conditions. Since 2001, the OVE also awarded 28 prizes of the best doctoral dissertation focusing on higher education studies. The acceleration and intensification of HE reforms led by the 2010s (Ravinet 2012) have spurred the development of new studies and the enlargement of the scholars’ community interested in the topic. The law for the autonomy of universities in 2007, the creation of national agencies in charge of universities evaluation and funding in 2006, the policies of excellence in 2009, the obligation of universities to merge or create universities’ communities (COMUE) in 2012, and the change in students’ open
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admissions to universities in 2017 have clearly drawn further attention of social scientists. A strong indicator of the new vitality of field is the substantial increase of doctoral theses that were completed since the beginning of the twenty-first century; in the period 2000–2019, 497 theses – comprising “higher education” or “universities” in their titles – were completed, while there were only 162 between 1985 and 1999. A similar and even more impressive pattern is noticeable regarding the numbers of articles published in academic journals: while only 37 items were dedicated to the issue between 1980 and 1999, there were 440 between 2000 and 2009 and 504 between 2010 and 2019. Those numbers probably reflect the development of academic publishing in all the social sciences, but it also evidences the growing interest for higher education research. The field’s vivacity is moreover mirrored by the ongoing effort of coordination within the academic community. The Réseau d’Etudes sur l’Enseignement Supérieur (RESUP) initiated in 2001 by Christine Musselin has the objective to stimulate research and scientific discussion across the social scientists interested by the issue. Since its creation, the RESUP has organized 19 scientific workshops and 4 international conferences. The network currently gathers 300 francophone researchers. It’s worth mentioning the further internationalization of the RESUP, as more than 150 non-French scholars have now joined the network. Another international initiative, also initiated by Christine Musselin and Sciences Po, is the EUREDOCS network in 2004. It aims at identifying the doctoral students and young doctorates working on issues related to the “Europeanization” of higher education and research. Since 2004, EUREDOCS has organized several international conferences. Last but not least, the field has expanded the past 10 years from research to teaching through the development of graduate programs. Some universities now offer master degrees ranging from management studies (Master Développement et Management des Universités at Université Paris-Est Créteil, Master Management des Universités et des Technologies de l’Information
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at Montpellier Université) to political science and sociology (Administration des Institutions de Recherche at ENS Lyon and Master Gouvernance des Systèmes Educatifs at Sciences Po Toulouse). After having long been an object of interest rather than a research field by itself, higher education research in France has recently started its structuration, paralleling an unprecedented wave of reforms, through coordinated initiatives of the academic community that seems to have overcome the theoretical and political debates that had set the scene at the outset.
Cross-References ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Europe ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Historical Perspective, Research in Higher Education ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers, Europe ▶ Organizational Studies, Research in Higher Education ▶ Political Perspective, Research in Higher Education ▶ Role of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in the Field of Higher Education Research ▶ Sociological Perspectives on Higher Education Research
References Athena. 2017. La recherche sur l’éducation. Éléments pour une stratégie globale. Tome 1. Rapport remis à M. Thierry Mandon, secrétaire d’État chargé de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2002. Éducation et domination. Texte inédit de Pierre Bourdieu présenté par Franck Poupeau et Thierry Discepelo. Inter 82: 46–47. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1964. Les héritiers. Les étudiants et la culture. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Champagne, Patrick. 2008. “Les héritiers” de Bourdieu et Passeron: une analyse d’une grande actualité. Silomag 8 (hiver 2018). https://silogora.org/les-heritiers-debourdieu-et-passeron/.
473 Charle, Christophe. 2013. Jalons pour une histoire transnationale des universités. Cahiers d’Histoire, 121: 21–42. Charle, Christophe. 2017. Elites politiques et enseignement supérieur. Sociologie historique d’un divorce et d’un échec (1968–2012). Pouvoirs, 2/161: 31–50. Charles, Nicolas. 2014. Quand la formation ne suffit pas: la préparation des étudiants à l’emploi en Angleterre, en France et en Suède. Sociologie du Travail 56 (3): 320–341. Chaubet, Franc¸ois. 2014. Michel Crozier. Réformer la société franc¸ aise. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Crozier, Michel. 1994. L’analyse des systèmes bureaucratiques. Un bilan intellectuel. In La pensée politique. Ecrire l’histoire du xxe siècle, ed. P. Rosanvallon, 158–177. Paris: Gallimard/Seuil. Crozier, Michel, and Erhard Friedberg. 1981. Actors and systems: The politics of collective action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Duru-Bellat, Marie. 1999. La recherche en éducation et en formation en France. Éléments pour un État des lieux. Paris: INRP. Martin, Dominique. 2012. L’analyse stratégique en perspective. Retour sur la sociologie des organisations de Michel Crozier. Revue européenne des sciences sociales 50 (2): 93–114. Masson, Phiippe. 2001. La fabrication des héritiers. Revue Franc¸ aise de Sociologie 42 (3): 477–507. Masson, Philippe. 2005. Premières diffusions et receptions des héritiers (1964–1973). Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines 2 (13): 69–98. Müller, Hans-Peter, and Yves Sintomer. 2006. Introduction. In Pierre Bourdieu, théorie et pratique. Perspectives franco-allemandes, Müller and Sitomer (dir.). Paris: Recherches. La Découverte. Musselin, Christine. 2004. The long march of French universities. New York: Routledge. Paradeise, Catherine, and Jean-Claude Thoenig. 2015. In search of academic quality. Palgrave Macmillan. Picard, Emmanuelle. 2009. Les enseignants-chercheurs: une évaluation centralisée (1873–1992). Du comité consultatif de l’enseignement supérieur (CNU) (1873–1992). Spirale. Revue de recherches en éducation 49: 69–82. Picard, Emmanuelle. 2012. L’histoire de l’enseignement supérieur franc¸ais. Pour une approche globale. Histoire de l’éducation 122: 11–33. Ravinet, Pauline. 2012. La politique d’enseignement supérieur. Réformes par amplification et ruptures dans la méthode. In Les politiques publiques sous Sarkozy, ed. J. Demaillard and Y. Surel, 361–380. Paris: Presses de Science Po. Rey, Olivier. 2017. L’enseignement supérieur. In Athena, La recherche sur l’éducation. Éléments pour une stratégie globale. Tome 2. Rapport remis à M. Thierry Mandon, secrétaire d’État chargé de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche. Weber, Louis. 2011. Les héritiers et la reproduction dans les débats des années 60–70. Savoir/Agir 17 (3): 21–32.
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Field of Higher Education Research, India C. M. Malish Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India
Synonyms Study on higher education
Definition In-depth analysis of the structure and process of higher education. It can be empirical and conceptual. India has the second largest higher education system in the world. In the recent past, the higher education sector in India has made commendable progress in terms of student enrolment, number of institutions, types of programs of study, and the mode of delivery. The fast expansion of its higher education system has helped India enter a stage of massification of higher education, and the private sector has contributed considerably to this massification of the sector. However, despite the massive expansion and large size of the system, higher education research has not yet emerged as a field of study and research in India. This entry attempts to map the evolution and emerging scenario of the field of higher education research in India. The entry is structured as follows. The first section provides a brief overview of the development of the higher education sector in India and its current stage of development. The second section elucidates the evolution of higher education as a field of research in India and its institutional arrangements, source of funding, and the major challenges. The third section concludes with some suggestions for the emergence of higher education research as a vibrant field of study in India.
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Development of Higher Education in India The advent of higher learning in India was marked by the establishment of three universities, namely Calcutta University, Bombay University, and Madras University in 1857 during the British rule (Agarwal 2009). While there was limited expansion of the system during the pre-Independence period, the first two decades following Independence in 1947 witnessed high growth of the sector, followed by a relative stagnation during the 1970s–1990s, and a revival after the 1990s (Varghese 2015). This massive expansion of higher education was led by the private sector unlike in the developed countries, which have traditionally relied on public institutions and state funding (Varghese and Panigrahi 2016). In 2015–2016, there were nearly 800 universities, 40,000 colleges, and 12,000 stand-alone institutions enrolling a total number of 34.6 million students taught by 1.5 million teachers (MHRD 2016). The gross enrolment ratio (GER) currently stands at 24.5%. Although the higher education system continues to grow, persisting disparities in access to higher education in terms of the social, regional, and income backgrounds of the prospective students and the types of institutions are a source of grave concern in the country (Sabharwal and Malish 2016, 2017; Varghese et al. 2018). Albeit the diversity of the student population has deepened as a result of the strict implementation of affirmative action policies. However, notwithstanding the improvement in equity in access, the quality of education remains poor and is emerging as the most challenging issue in higher education in India. Further, there are many hurdles in the path of quality enhancement in the system including the existence of multiple regulatory bodies, inadequate public funding support vis-à-vis the demands of massification, prevalence of poor and ineffective governance mechanism at both the system and institution levels, growing adhocism in the appointment of teachers, outdated pedagogical practices, and inadequacies of the school education system (Malik 2017; Panigrahi 2017; Varghese 2015; Varghese and Malik 2016).
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Evolution of HE as Field of Research in India Since higher education institutions are multidimensional and complex, there is a need for the meticulous analysis of the structures and processes operating in them and their consequences on society from diverse vantage points to facilitate the efficient management of these institutions (Altbach 2004, 2014). The emergence of a knowledge economy which relies on knowledge production and the production of scientific and technical classes has stimulated the expansion of the higher education system across the globe. This has also led to the need for a nuanced understanding of the higher education system in the national and global contexts. Perhaps this economic rationality may be the major driving force behind the expansion of the system and growth in higher education research. As noted by Trow (1973), the massification of higher education is characterized by quantitative and qualitative changes in the system. These changes have social, economic, and political implications as higher education has become one of the important determinants of both the social mobility of individuals and growth of the national economy. Therefore, research in higher education has gained political significance in the discourse of national development and national policies. The increasing complexity of the system has also necessitated its holistic understanding, and production of higher education managers and administrators becomes an important concern. Research contributes to a deeper understanding facilitating the development of a knowledge base regarding the relevant field, the emergence of a separate field of study, and for preparing future leaders for the sector. The multidisciplinary nature of the field and engagement of researchers from multiple disciplines poses both challenges and opportunities. Given the complexity of the field of higher education, multidisciplinary research orientation is necessary for understanding the complexities of the system. Empirical evidences from the field and discussions on various perspectives on the development of higher education help in the effective management of the system at the
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national, subnational, and institutional levels, and in retaining higher education as a socially relevant and economically rewarding field of study. There is no general consensus on whether higher education has gained the status of a scientific discipline or not (Altbach 2014). Despite criticism of the claim of higher education being an independent discipline, higher education has actually emerged as an important field of study. This is exemplified by the emergence of an increasing number of academic journals and conferences focusing on higher education and study programs on higher education. The existence of higher education research as a separate field of study even in countries with a relatively lesser developed higher education sector underscores this point.
Institutional Arrangements for Research on Higher Education in India The advent of study programs on education was seen in India as early as the 1920s (Varghese 2018). Presently, around 150 universities and 1,000 colleges are currently offering study programs on education in the country. The first education research institution in post-Independence India was the Central Institute of Education (CIE), established in 1947. This was followed by the setting up of many institutions dedicated to educational research. For instance, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the State Institutes of Education (SIE) were established in 1961, and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Education (CASE), Baroda, in 1963. The establishment of the Asian Regional Centre for Educational Planners and Administrators under the auspices of UNESCO signified another major development in the field of education research in India. This was renamed as the National Institute of Education Planning and Administration (NIEPA) in 1979, and became the National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA) in 2006. The unit of higher and professional education established in NIEPA was the first higher education research unit in India. In 1991, the Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation (RJMCEI) was set up
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at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. This center primarily focused on higher education initially but later expanded the scope of its research to other levels of education. Although there are many institutions engaging with educational research, their primary focus has been on the pedagogical dimensions of education, and teacher education, particularly school education (Varghese 2018). Currently, only a handful of institutions/centers are fully engaged in higher education research in the country though a large number of scholars from universities, colleges, and research institutions are involved in such research. The School of Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE) and the Department of Higher and Professional Education at NUEPA are among the few such institutions/centers that exclusively engage with higher education research. While some private think tanks also engage with research, none of them has yet emerged as a full-fledged higher education research organization. The International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Development at the O.P. Jindal University may be the first research initiative on higher education in the private sector.
Sources of Funding for Higher Education Research There are three major sources of funding for higher education research in India. They are: (1) national councils, various ministries and regulatory agencies, (2) universities/institutions, and (3) transnational agencies. Educational research began to receive greater funding support after the establishment of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in 1969. Research funding from ICSSR is available for all social science subjects including education. The faculty members of all universities and colleges recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and other central regulatory bodies are eligible to apply to ICSSR for major and minor grants for research and financial assistance for conducting workshops and seminars and
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publication of research studies. ICSSR also funds research methodology workshops for doctoral scholars and professionals during the early stages of their research careers. In addition to research grants, ICSSR provides funding to a large number of social science research institutions. As of now, 25 research institutions are getting funding support from ICSSR, and five other research institutions are recognized by ICSSR (Thorat and Verma 2017). Some of these institutions could mobilize external grants for research and extend academic collaboration with transnational agencies. For instance, the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) in Thiruvananthapuram, which is an ICSSR institution, carried out a study on poverty, unemployment, and development in the mid-1970s in collaboration with the United Nations (UN/CDS 1975). This was a landmark study that kickstarted a debate on the Kerala model of development, thereby significantly contributing to the emergence of a new perspective on education and development in Third World economies. Several other agencies also provide financial assistance for research in the social sciences. The major and minor research project schemes under the UGC provide research grants to teachers in universities and colleges. The UGC Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) is another mechanism for promoting doctoral studies in social science subjects. Apart from the discipline of education, candidates from several other social science subjects qualifying JRF also carry out research on issues related to higher education, with these students subsequently acquiring M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees. Several other regulatory bodies and ministries also provide funding support for educational research, including the Department of Science and Technology, the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, and various central and state level ministries. In addition, some of the State Councils of Higher Education grant research funding though the quantum of assistance offered by them is not very substantial. The recently launched Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) promotes pedagogical research and professional development opportunities for
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teachers through the establishment of teaching– learning centers in higher education institutions. Universities and research institutions earmark a certain amount of funds for promoting research among faculty members. Additionally, faculty members are provided monetary incentives for their publications in some institutions falling in the category of “Institutions of National Importance.” Some institutions also offer professional development funds that provide enabling conditions for research. Funding from transnational agencies is almost minimal due to various factors. The foremost reason for the lack of funding from this source is the long-drawn and complex bureaucratic procedures that need to be followed for obtaining approval from several agencies to receive funding from abroad. The administrative structures in universities and colleges are also often nonsupportive of funding from abroad with the result that the volume of research carried out with funding from abroad is palpably low. The lack of awareness about various funding opportunities also contributes to this scenario.
Major Challenges Policy-making in education during the early decades was less dependent on evidence-based research. As a result, demand for empirical research evidence for policy-making was limited. Instead of educational research, reports of the committees and commissions were used as major background resources for policy-making in India. Appointment of most commissions and committees is political in nature even though they have made significant contributions to educational planning and development in the country. The first commission on education was the University Education Commission, which submitted its report in 1949. It was followed by the Kothari Commission in 1964. The Kothari Commission Report was the basis for the formulation of the first National Policy on Education (NPE) in 1968. The National Commission on Teachers in Higher Education submitted its report to the nation in 1985. A survey carried out by the National
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Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) too made a significant contribution to that report. Unlike the first policy of 1968, NPE 1986 followed a discussion document that was based on empirical research. The educational projections made by NIEPA in the above report were influential in the formulation of NPE 1986. The post-1990 period witnessed the setting up of a number of committees on various aspects of higher education. Although some of the committees were headed by academics, reliance on research-based evidence was not substantial. The emergence of professional associations is an important milestone in the growth of any field of study. The development of a professional community and the sharing of research findings amidst members of this community promote growth in the field of research and enable it to remain socially relevant. The first association for educational research to be established in India was the Indian Association of Professors of Education. Membership to this association was confined to those associated with the discipline of education. The Comparative Education Society of India (CESI), established in 1979, is the largest professional association for educational researchers. The annual conference of CESI is attended by a large number of researchers on education. Members of CESI are drawn from the broader social science disciplines engaged in educational research. Another such organization is the All India Association for Educational Research, which was established in 1987. All these professional associations are meant for researchers working at all levels of educational research including that pertaining to higher education. Unlike, the USA, the UK, and Australia, India does not have a professional association solely for higher education researchers. It has both its pros and cons. The advantage is that since interlinkages between various levels of education is of crucial significance, the existence of a single association for researchers engaging with various levels of education promotes a holistic understanding of education and development in the country. The disadvantage of having a more broad-based association, on the other hand, is that it limits the vibrant growth of a theoretical
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and methodological approach to field of higher education as a unique field of study. A related issue is the lack of adequate number of academic journals on higher education. The journal, Higher Education for the Future, published by the Kerala State Council for Higher Education is the first international higher education journal published in India. The first issue of this journal was published in 2014. Similarly, there is no national level network of educational research institutions in India. However, an exception is the Asian Network for Training and Research Institutions in Education Planning (ANTRIEP), which is based in India and hosted by NUEPA. The major focus of ANTRIEP, which is supported by the International Institute of Educational Planning (IIEP) in Paris, is on school education. Although major studies on higher education in India are empirical in nature, they reflect a dominance of the quantitative approach. As regards equity, one of the major areas of research in higher education, a majority of the studies in this area deal with the question of access (Malish and Ilavarasan 2016). They are largely based on an analysis of the unit level data of National Sample Survey (NSS) and official statistics of the union and state governments. The other dimensions of equity, namely participation/educational experiences and outcomes in terms of completion of studies and transition from the world of learning to the world of earning, have received very little attention. The areas that have not been sufficiently explored in the field of higher education in India include teaching and learning practices, governance and management processes, and quality assurance mechanisms. The lack of a clear direction for developing world class universities and ensuring improvements in quality in the system are reflections of an inadequate understanding of the system in both the national and regional contexts. Large-scale empirical studies involving the collection of primary data are also presently in the nascent stage in India. A related issue is the lack of collaborative research involving researchers from various institutions. It is well recognized that the adoption of mixed-methods
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research is a better strategy for developing a nuanced understanding of the higher education system (Griffin and Museus 2011). However, mixed methodology has not yet emerged as a popular approach in higher education research in India, which is why methodological innovations are seldom visible in higher education research in India. For instance, classroom observation and institutional ethnography are rarely practiced in research on higher education.
Conclusion The field of higher education is being characterized by growing research in India. Its growth is inevitable in view of the rapid expansion of the system and its complex nature of growth during the massification stage. However, growing concerns over quality and skill development are fuelling the demand for a more nuanced understanding of the system. Research in higher education faces many challenges in India including the lack of an adequate institutional arrangement to promote research in higher education, nonavailability of funding, a dearth of publication facilities, and the absence of a professional organization for researchers on higher education. Presently, there is no study program offering degrees in higher education which would help develop future managers, administrators, and competent researchers in the sphere of higher education. There is thus both an urgent need and immense scope for higher education research to emerge as a vibrant field of study in India. The growing number of research studies in the area of higher education in the country is a promising trend. However, India still needs to go a long way before higher education emerges as an active field of research and an independent discipline here.
Cross-References ▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education ▶ Higher Education in Knowledge Systems ▶ Higher Education Systems, Types of
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▶ Institutional Culture in Higher Education ▶ Research in Higher Education, Cultural Perspectives ▶ Social Mobility and Higher Education
References Agarwal, P. 2009. Indian higher education: Envisioning the future. New Delhi: Sage. Altbach, P.G. 2004. Globalisation and university: Myths and realities in an unequal world. Tertiary Education and Management 10 (1): 3–25. Altbach, P.G. 2014. The emergence of a field: Research and training in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 8 (99): 1306–1320. Griffin, K.A., and Samuel D. Museus. 2011. Application of mixed-methods approaches to higher education and intersectional analyses. New Directions for Institutional Research 51: 15–26. Malik, G. 2017. Governance and management of higher education institutions in India. CPRHE research papers 5. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Malish, C.M., and P.V. Ilavarasan. 2016. Higher education, reservation and scheduled castes: Exploring institutional habitus of professional engineering colleges in Kerala. Higher Education 72 (5): 603–617. Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). 2016. All India survey of higher education: 2015–16. New Delhi: MHRD. Panigrahi, J. 2017. Resource allocation and innovative methods of financing higher education in India. CPRHE research papers 6. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Sabharwal, N.S., and C.M. Malish. 2016. Diversity and discrimination in higher education: A study of institutions in selected states of India (research report). New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Sabharwal, N.S., and C.M. Malish. 2017. Equalising access to higher educational opportunities in India. CPRHE policy brief 1. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Thorat, S.K., and Sameer S. Verma. 2017. Social science research in India. Oxford: New Delhi. Trow, M. 1973. Garnegie commission in higher education: Problems in transition from elite to massification. Berkeley: McGraw Hill Books. UN/CDS. 1975. Poverty, unemployment and development policy: A case of selected issues with special reference to Kerala. New York: United Nations. Varghese, N.V. 2015. Challenges of massification of higher education in India. CPRHE research paper 1. New
479 Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Varghese, N.V. 2018. Education research and emergence of higher education as a field of study in India. In Researching higher education in Asia: Quality, excellence and governance, ed. J. Jung, H. Horta, and A. Yonezawa. Singapore: Springer. Varghese, N.V., and Garima Malik. 2016. India higher education report 2015. New Delhi: Routledge. Varghese, N.V., and Jinusha Panigrahi. 2016. Report of the international seminar on challenges of massification. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Varghese, N.V., Nidhi S. Sabharwal, and C.M. Malish. 2018. India higher education report 2016: Equity. New Delhi: Sage.
Field of Higher Education Research, North America Gary Rhoades Department of Educational Policy Studies and Practice, College of Education, Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Synonyms Study on higher education
Definition The “field of higher education research in North America” refers to scholarship in the academic field of studies of Higher Education in the continent including Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Nearly 50 years ago, Clark (1973) mapped the emergent sociology of higher education in the USA. Over four decades later, American scholarship in the field continues to be defined by similar patterns (Rhoades 2014), also found in Canada and Mexico. This chapter reviews North American research in Higher Education and identifies emergent paths for future research.
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In the 1960s, the sociology of higher education concentrated on students. That makes sense given US higher education’s transition from a mass to a universal system (Trow 1970). In other words, access to higher education expanded dramatically to a system in which college was seen as a possibility for up to 50% of the age group (elite systems were defined as having 15% of less of the age group) to one in which more than 50% of the age group had access. It also makes sense given societal concerns about segregation/racism and college’s role of fostering upward mobility (or reproducing inequality). One analytical focus was stratification, the extent to which college access and attainment were meritocratic, a function of academic ability versus socioeconomic status. A related analytical focus was on socialization. The questions here were about whether and how the growing numbers of students coming from different backgrounds were being integrated into college, and how college was affecting them in terms of their cognitive and moral development. A third strand of literature was studies of academics and of academic organizations. Such work addressed how systemic, social, and political changes were playing out in academic lives and marketplaces. The focus was on political divisions among faculty in different fields and on the growing national marketplace for academic hiring. Some work addressed what the changes meant for tertiary institutions, some of which were open access, such as community colleges and nonselective public and private colleges, others of which were selective liberal arts colleges and research universities. All of these institutions were part of a “snakelike procession” driven by status aspirations (Riesman 1956).
Three Frames of North American Higher Education Research Each of the above strands of work, about students, professors, and organizations/systems, has continued to define current patterns of research. In each, new strands of work are emerging.
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The student focus. The most developed areas of empirical scholarship focus on students, particularly undergraduates, who are studying for their first college degree. But reflecting changing student demographics, much current research addresses new populations’ experiences in higher education. The attainment literature in Higher Education overwhelmingly focuses on educational access and attainment, not, with important exceptions, occupational attainment. Studies find enduring patterns of differential access to different higher education sectors by socioeconomic status (Bastedo and Jaquette 2011) and ethnicity (Posselt et al. 2012). From the 1980s into the 2000s, although working class students and students of color increased their access to some form of higher education, their access to selective colleges and universities did not expand. Some of that pattern is due to stratified patterns of college choice, with working class students and students of color being more likely to start at community colleges, to go to college locally, and to not apply to more selective institutions of higher education (Perna 2006). Yet, overall access also varies by social background. The lower the socioeconomic status, the less likelihood one is going to go to college. Moreover, Asian Americans and Whites are more likely to go to college than are AfricanAmerican, Latino, and Native American students (Cahalan and Perna 2015). Some of those patterns have to do with college cost, which has increased enormously in US higher education, and to a shift in federal student aid in terms of providing loans more than grants. Along these same lines, economists have found classed and raced patterns of occupational attainment, mediated by institutional prestige (Carnevale and Strohl 2013; Carnevale et al. 2011). That is, the payoff to college is greater for students who already have economic advantage in terms of household income, and it is greater for men and for Whites than it is for women and students from other ethnic groups. Part of that is a function of the selectivity of the colleges students attend (Zhang 2005). It costs considerably more to go to a selective college or university, places to which working class students and students of color have less access, but the
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payoff to that investment is greater. Similar sorts of patterns have also been found in Canada, though not quite to the same degree (Parkin and Baldwin 2009). Another prominent body of work addresses students’ integration into college and colleges’ effects on students. The core idea of much work on why students leave or succeed in college (e.g., see Tinto 2012) is that to be successful, students must separate from their families and integrate into the campus community. They must essentially go through a rite of transition. That has spawned the development of instruments such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (Kuh 2003), which measures the extent to which students are involved and assimilated into campus life. Although the validity of that instrument has been challenged, it is widely used. Another body of work is also premised on the idea of students being involved in campus life, only in this case it entails the study of “how college effects students” in regard to their cognitive, social, and moral development, often along some sort of developmental continuum (Pascarella and Terenzini 2005) that has also continued. Although most students in most Mexican universities do not live on a campus, such academic perspectives have nevertheless percolated to Mexico (de GaraySanchez 2005). The above strands of work have been critiqued for not keeping pace conceptually with changes in the student body demographically, and for assuming that students are integrating into a positive college community (Museus 2014). By contrast, much recent research addresses the experiences and identity development of students of color, including analyses of micro-aggressions (Solorzano et al. 2000). Such work indicates that for students from non-dominant groups, the campus community is not a particularly welcome place. Moreover, they must commit a form of cultural suicide to fit in and succeed. All of this can be placed in the context of white privilege on college campuses (Cabrera 2014). That work is all the more important given the recent resurgence of White supremacy and nativism in North America. The Academic Profession. Up through the present, a significant strand of research has
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focused on the changing structure of academic employment. Emerging work addresses how professors are affected by changes in higher education systems. Some research focuses on academic employees exercising agency in responding to higher education’s changing landscape. The changing employment structure for academics can be linked to the massification of higher education. In the USA, the structure of the academic profession has shifted from a largely fulltime, secure sector of employment to one in which over two-thirds of academic employees are in part-time, temporary, and insecure employment. By the 1980s, there were already significant shifts in the configuration of the academic workforce and in the structure of academic employment. Over several decades, there has been increased hiring of non-tenure track faculty. By the 2000s, scholars were addressing the realities of full-time professors in “contingent” positions. Such faculty, who carried increased proportions of the teaching load, and whose working conditions are far below optimal in terms of materials, resources, professional development opportunities, job security, and academic tenure, were quite literally teaching without any possibility of obtaining tenure. The growing proportions of part- and full-time adjunct and contingent faculty now define the substantial majority of the faculty, upwards of two thirds of instructional staff. Similar patterns can be found in terms of academic staff engaged in research. Thus, for example, in the last two decades there has also been an expansive growth of postdoctoral researchers, whose presence represents the greatest predictor of an institution’s research productivity (Cantwell and Taylor 2015). Academe is clearly “in a turbulent era” in which the traditional, tenure stream, stable faculty is in decline (Finkelstein et al. 2016). Much the same trend line of growing proportions of temporary academic employees exists in Canada and Mexico as well, though the baseline employment structures of the countries vary, with Mexico historically having far larger proportions of part-time faculty (Finkelstein et al. 2009). In the face of such changes, some work focuses more on how faculty lives are affected by systemic patterns defining higher education and
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society. Studies addresses commercialization as it plays out in faculty work in research universities. Much of this work critiques the adverse effects of such commercial ties on traditional academic values and the independence of science. Other work identifies the ways in which some cases departments within universities can be “industryfriendly” in the ways that faculty do their work and graduate students are socialized (Mendoza 2012). As in the case of studying the student experience, so there is some scholarship on academic employees in the context of changing demographics of the workforce. Although there have been important advances for women in gaining access to the academy, there continue to be glass ceilings and various gendered structures that have hampered the proportionate entry of women into the senior levels of the academy and that have compromised their experiences in the profession – as with new populations of students experiencing micro-aggressions, so women’s pathways into the academic profession are gendered in hostile climate ways (GlazerRaymo 2001). Similarly, important work on postdocs speaks to neo-racist patterns of their experience, with international postdocs from Asia being framed by principal investigators in stereotyping and discriminatory ways that block their access to the professoriate (Cantwell and Lee 2010). Finally, some studies consider how academic employees exercise agency. Of that work, a substantial portion of it explores how faculty individually resists dominant patterns and forces to seek a balance between work and life (O’Meara and Campbell 2011). Some studies speak to the collective, organizing efforts of various categories of academic employees. In the case of faculty, who over time have become more “managed professionals” (Rhoades 1998) in terms of managers having greater discretion over faculty who have less professional autonomy, they have expanded their unionization efforts. That has been particularly the case among adjunct faculty, who has been organizing substantial numbers of new bargaining units to establish their professional rights and improve their conditions of work
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(Rhoades 2013). Similarly, due to a sense of increased vulnerability, postdoctoral researchers have organized into unions, the most dramatic case being of these academic employees in the University of California system, which accounts for 10% of all academic postdocs (Camacho and Rhoads 2015). Organizations and Public Policy in Higher Education. A continued focus of research in Higher Education is organizations and institutional stratification. There has also been growth in studies of policy changes in higher education. The role of organizations in shaping social stratification is much researched. There are many studies of community colleges’ contradictory role in social mobility, providing some access for students, but also reproducing class and ethnic patterns of social stratification (see Dougherty 1994). Similarly, there are many studies of how the marketing, financial aid, and admissions practices of 4-year colleges and universities focus on uppermiddle class students. That involves marketing in ways that promote higher education as a consumption item for those who can afford to pay and play. It can also involve admissions practices that constitute a practice of consciously selecting and preparing an elite (Stevens 2007). And it can involve financial aid practices that move monies away from need-based aid to non-need based aid, which is used to heighten recruitment of out-ofstate students who do not qualify for merit-based aid (McPherson and Shapiro 1998). All of these patterns involve colleges and universities prioritizing wealthier student markets, perpetuating stratified access to higher education. So, too, much research focuses on the stratification of higher education sectors. Part of this reflects long-standing patterns of privilege. However, part of it also reflects higher education in North America being increasingly defined by academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004), by universities behaving more like businesses. Notwithstanding a view that Canada is more egalitarian in its public policy and social institutions, Metcalfe (2010) has found growing academic capitalism in Canada,
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where increasingly, as in the US institutional stratification maps on to and shapes social stratification (Davies and Zarifa 2012). In Latin America as well, globalization and neoliberalism have led to greater privatization and stratification in higher education sectors and institutions (Rhoads and Torres 2006). The rise of neoliberalism has escalated demands for greater productivity in higher education. That has translated into a greater policy focus and focus in the academic literature on increasing attainment and productivity at the state and institutional levels. Funding mechanisms emphasize performance despite evidence that such policies have little demonstrable effects (Dougherty and Natow 2015; Hillman et al. 2014). By contrast, although neoconservative and neonationalist groups have gained political strength in North America and beyond, there are few examples of studies that address the ways in which these movements and structures of (neo) racism and nativism play out in higher education policy, either at the state or federal level. For an exception, see Harper et al.’s (2009) critical race theory analysis of higher education policy which helps us understand how although there is progress in improving access to higher education, that progress is delimited by policies that maintain the position of the dominant White power structure in American society. Amidst enduring patterns of scholarship, then, there are new areas of and possibilities for work unfolding, which reconceptualize higher education in ways that more fully address current social trends.
Cross-References ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, United States of America ▶ Institutional Research and Themes, North America ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in North America ▶ University Tradition in the United States, The
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References Bastedo, Michael N., and Ozan Jaquette. 2011. Running in place: Low-income students and the dynamics of higher education stratification. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 33 (3): 318–339. Cabrera, Nolan L. 2014. Exposing whiteness in higher education: White male college students minimizing racism, claiming victimization, and recreating White supremacy. Race, Ethnicity, and Education 17 (1): 30–55. Cahalan, Margaret, and Laura Perna. 2015. Indicators of higher education equity in the U.S.: 45 year trend report, 2015 revised edition. University of Pennsylvania: The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. UPenn: The Pell Institute Camacho, Sayil, and Robert A. Rhoads. 2015. Breaking the silence: The unionization of postdoctoral workers at the University of California. The Journal of Higher Education 86 (2): 295–325. Cantwell, Brendan, and Jenny J. Lee. 2010. Unseen workers in the academic factory: Perceptions of neoracism among international postdocs in the United States and the United Kingdom. Harvard Educational Review 80 (4): 490–516. Cantwell, Brendan, and Barrett J. Taylor. 2015. Rise of the science and engineering postdoctorate and the restructuring of academic research. The Journal of Higher Education 86 (5): 667–696. Carnevale, Anthony P., and Jeff Strohl. 2013. Separate & unequal: How higher education reinforces the intergenerational reproduction of white racial privilege. Washington, DC: Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Carnevale, Anthony P., Stephen J. Rose, and Ban Cheah. 2011. The college payoff: Education, occupations, lifetime earnings. Washington, DC: Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University. Clark, Burton R. 1973. Development of the sociology of higher education. Sociology of Education 46 (1): 2–14. Davies, S., and D. Zarifa. 2012. The stratification of universities: Structural inequality in Canada and the United States. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 30 (2): 143–158. de Garay-Sanchez, Adrian. 2005. En el camino de la Universidad. Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, Azcapotzalco. Dougherty, Kevin J. 1994. The contradictory college: The conflicting origins, impacts, and futures of the community college. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dougherty, Kevin J., and Rebecca S. Natow. 2015. The politics of performance funding for higher education: Origins, discontinuations, and transformations. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Finkelstein, Martin, Jesus Galaz-Fontes, and Amy S. Metcalfe. 2009. Changing employment relationships
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484 in North America: Academic work in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In The changing face of academic life: Analytical and comparative perspectives, ed. J. Enders and E. de Weert. London: Palgrave. Finkelstein, Martin J., Valerie Martin Conley, and Jack C. Schuster. 2016. The faculty factor: The American academy in a turbulent era. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Glazer-Raymo, Judith. 2001. Shattering the myths: Women in academe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Harper, Shaun R., Lori D. Patton, and O.S. Wooden. 2009. Access and equity for African-American students in higher education: A critical race historical analysis of policy efforts. The Journal of Higher Education 80 (4): 389–414. Hillman, Nicholas W., David A. Tandberg, and Jacob P.K. Gross. 2014. Performance funding in higher education: Do financial incentives impact college completion? The Journal of Higher Education 85 (6): 826–857. Kuh, George D. 2003. What we’re learning about student engagement from NSSE: Benchmarks for effective educational practices. Change 35 (2): 24–32. McPherson, Michael S., and Mortimer O. Shapiro. 1998. The student aid game: Meeting need and rewarding talent in American higher education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mendoza, Pilar. 2012. The role of context in academic capitalism: The industry-friendly department. The Journal of Higher Education 83 (1): 26–48. Metcalfe, A.S. 2010. Revisiting academic capitalism in Canada: No longer the exception. The Journal of Higher Education 81 (4): 489–514. Museus, Sam. 2014. The culturally engaging campus environments (CECE) model: A new theory of success among racially diverse college student populations. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, ed. Michael B. Paulsen, vol. 29. New York: Springer. O’Meara, K.A., and C.M. Campbell. 2011. Faculty sense of agency in decisions about work and family. The Review of Higher Education 34 (3): 447–476. Parkin, Andrew, and Noel Baldwin. 2009. Persistence in postsecondary education in Canada: The latest research. Ottowa: Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. Pascarella, Ernest T., and Patrick T. Terenzini. 2005. How college affects students: A third decade of research. Vol. 2. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Perna, Laura. 2006. Studying college choice: A proposed conceptual model. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, ed. John C. Smart, vol. XXI. New York: Springer. Posselt, Julie R., Ozan Jaquette, Rob Bielby, and Michael Bastedo. 2012. Access without equity: Longitudinal analyses of institutional stratification by race and ethnicity, 1972–2004. American Educational Research Journal 49 (6): 1074–1111.
Field of Higher Education Research, Russia Rhoades, Gary. 1998. Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor. Albany: State University of New York Press. Rhoades, Gary. 2013. Disruptive innovations for adjunct faculty: Common sense for the common good. Thought & Action 29: 71–86. Rhoades, Gary. 2014. The higher education we choose, collectively: Re-embodying and repoliticizing choice. The Journal of Higher Education 85 (6): 917–930. Rhoads, Robert A., and Carlos A. Torres, eds. 2006. The university, state, and market: The political economy of globalization in the Americas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Riesman, D. 1956. Constraint and variety in American education. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Slaughter, Sheila, and Larry Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, Sheila, and Gary Rhoades. 2004. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Solorzano, Daniel, Miguel Ceja, and Tara Yosso. 2000. Critical race theory, racial micro-aggressions, and racial climate: The experiences of African American students. The Journal of Negro Education 69 (1/2): 60–73. Stevens, Mitchell L. 2007. Creating a class: College admissions and the education of elites. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tinto, Vincent. 2012. Completing college: Rethinking institutional action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Trow, Martin. 1970. Reflections on the transition from mass to universal higher education. Daedalus 99: 1–42. Zhang, Liang. 2005. Do measures of college quality matter? The effect of college quality on graduates’ earnings. The Review of Higher Education 28 (4): 571–596.
Field of Higher Education Research, Russia Anna Smolentseva Institute of Education, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Synonyms Study on higher education
Field of Higher Education Research, Russia
Definition Scholarship related to the study of higher education in the Russian Federation. As in most countries, the development of the field of higher education research in Russia has been associated with the massification and expansion of higher education (Teichler 2015). In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), higher education had already reached the mass stage, which is over 15% of age cohort by Trow’s classification (1973), in the 1960s. At that time, it included in absolute terms two million of students (Smolentseva 2017a). That called for the collection and analysis of data to be used in social planning and higher education policymaking. Research on higher education has been developing along with the division of research in the country – between the Academy of Sciences, higher education institutions, and sectoral research under the corresponding ministries. However, current lack of an institutional basis for higher education research reflects the marginal role that the field plays in Russia. This paper is the first endeavor to describe and analyze the development of the field of Russian higher education research. The entry starts with a historical outline of the different branches of scholarship on higher education in Russia since the Soviet time and then addresses current institutional arrangements and thematic scope of higher education research and concludes with reflections on the challenges and perspectives of the field in Russia.
Historical Perspective on Higher Education Studies in Russia Higher education expanded and gained more prominence in policy in the 1960s, the period which also witnessed the political “thaw” and the revival of Soviet social sciences. Among the first studies of higher studies were the studies of students and social inequality in access, by V. Shubkin and D. Konstantinovsky (Astafiev and Shubkin 1998), and studies of life plans of secondary and higher education graduates and the
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social prestige of professions (Semenova 1998). Those studies developed in the Academy of Sciences, the main research center in the country, within disciplinary-based research and, while not contributing to the institutionalization of higher education research, highlighted the importance of higher education studies in social sciences. Research units at universities comprised another branch of development of higher education studies. In the late 1960s–1970s, sociological laboratories titled “on communist upbringing of youth” were organized: for example, at the University of Tartu (Estonia) in 1969 (Titma 1973, p. 5) and Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1971 (Letopis’. . . n.d.). These studies focused on the social composition of the student body; students’ values, motivations, and life plans; and the social prestige of professions. Youth and students’ studies were also conducted by general sociological centers at universities – e.g., Research Institute for Complex Sociological Studies (NII KSI) at Leningrad State University (now St. Petersburg State University) (established in 1965). Between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, perestroika led to a new stage of consolidation of sociological research on higher education within the higher education sector. At this time higher education was expected to become a driver of the transformation of Soviet society (Smolentseva 2017b). The Ministry of Education initiated and funded a large-scale research project “public opinion” on reforms of the educational system (Ovsyannikov n.d.; Astafiev and Shubkin 1998). The surveys were conducted regularly from 1987 to 1993 across the entire USSR. The scope of themes in their analysis included topics which could be considered as traditional in higher education research: time budgets of faculty and students, higher education governance, spatial analysis of higher education system (Ovysannikov and Iudin 1990), and typology of universities (Ovysannikov and Iudin 1988), among others. An important contribution of the research program was its acknowledgment of the social importance of higher education, including the development and institutionalization of sociological centers at higher educational institutions throughout the large country. In Russia it
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included comprehensive universities in Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), Tomsk, and Irkutsk, among many others. There were also centers in Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Estonia, and Lithuania (Ovsyannikov n.d.; Astafiev and Shubkin 1998). These centers also established traditions of the type of research on higher education which is internationally called “institutional research”: the collection and analysis of survey and statistical data on various issues in their respective higher educational institutions, to be used for both institutional policymaking and academic publications. The third branch of development of higher education studies, this time as an interdisciplinary field, was launched in 1974. The Ministry of Higher and Secondary Vocational Education established the Research Institute for Higher Education (nauchno-issledovatek’skii institut vysshegoo obrazovania). It became the head organization in the coordination of basic and applied research on higher education and in the provision of relevant research information to higher educational institutions. The list of the Institute’s departments reflects the broad range of issues it dealt with: public policy, economics of higher education, research in higher education institutions, higher education law, comparative analysis of higher education systems, statistics of higher education, content/curriculum of higher education, new technologies in higher education, and others (Issledovatel’skie. . . 1998). The Institute had a wide range of publishing activity: research reports, analytical reports, thematic reviews, bibliographies, statistical books, and a monthly newsletter Magistr. As of 1998 the Institute’s staff is comprised of over 120 people, 75 of which worked in research departments, including 53 with PhDs (candidates and doctors of sciences) (Ibid). In 2005 the Research Institute for Higher Education was merged with other research institutes under the Ministry of Education into the Federal Institute of Educational Development (FIRO) (FIRO. Sozdanie n.d.-b), which currently does not have a special department focused on higher education (there is only the center for professional/vocational education,
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which in Russia includes both secondary and higher education, and qualifications systems) (FIRO. Nauchnye. . . n.d.-a). Hence, the traditions of multidisciplinary and policy-related research on higher education under one umbrella, developed over three decades, were largely lost. After the disintegration of the USSR and the related economic and political turbulence that followed, higher education faced severe challenges. Low salaries, lack of research funding, and brain drain changed the conditions of work of academic staff in the higher education sector, Academy of Sciences, and sectoral research, considerably affecting the social sciences. The national policy turn toward higher education in the mid-2000s (Platonova and Semyonov 2016) resulted in a revival of academic and applied research on higher education. The new elements included Russia’s engagement with the Bologna process, transition to the new higher education admission system based on unified national testing of secondary school leavers, and most importantly, government policy to encourage stratification (the excellence initiative) and regulation (“optimization”) of by then expanded higher education system. All of this stimulated national discussion and research on higher education development. However, research on higher education in Russia, like research and the academic profession in general, faces significant challenges.
Mapping Institutional Boundaries of Higher Education Research in Modern Russia The institutionalization of the field of higher education research can be considered in relation to its institutional base, researchers’ associations, journals, and research funding. In Russia, higher education research is a very small field. The biggest research center producing research on higher education is the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) under the government of the Russian Federation. But even at this university, there is no major/midlevel unit such as a school, institute, or even
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a center specifically focused at higher education research. There is a smaller research unit, a students’ laboratory, that was established in 2010; and there is a center for the sociology of higher education that was established in 2015. Other researchers working on higher education, among other themes, are affiliated with different research units at the Institute of Education and the Institute of Institutional Studies. The latter publishes a Russian translation of Boston College’s newsletter International Higher Education (since 2014) and an English language newsletter Higher Education in Russia and Beyond (established 2014) on the transformations in the region, in cooperation with Boston College. HSE also publishes a research journal Educational Studies (Voprosy obrazovania) which covers all levels of education. HSE runs a master’s program in higher education management aimed at Russian university administrators and an English-language international summer school on higher education research for early career researchers in the field. The university hosted the 2018 conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER), Europe’s main scholarly body in higher education studies. HSE also became the base for the annual Russian higher education research conference which began in 2010. The conference was organized to consolidate Russian researchers of higher education, integrate them into the global discussion in the field, and develop the Russian Association of Higher Education Researchers. Every year the conference has hosted up to two hundred of national and international participants, but remarkably the national association of higher education researchers has never been fully formally established. By its ninth conference in 2018, the conference was taken under the auspices of the Association of Educational Researchers, newly formally established, which entered the European Educational Research Association. This story might serve an illustration of the marginal role of higher education as a field in Russia. The other center in Russia is the UNESCO chair in university management and planning (established in 1998) at the Ural Federal
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University, which conducts research and consultancy on higher education administration and management and publishes a journal University Management (Universitetskoe upravlenie) (established in 1997) aimed mostly at administrators and to a lesser extent at researchers. Other researchers contributing to higher education research are scattered around other institutions. For them higher education research is a part of the research agenda that is mostly discipline-based in fields such as sociology, economics, or history. The psychology and pedagogy of higher education largely represent a separate area of research. Following Teichler’s classification of higher education experts (Teichler 2005), in Russia there can be found all six types: discipline-based occasional and continuous higher education researchers, theme-based academic higher education researchers, applied higher educational researchers of two kinds (policy researchers, institutional researchers), consultants, and reflective practitioners. But with the probable exception of reflective practitioners, the number of researchers in each of these groups does not correspond to the scale of higher education system. Along with Educational Studies and University Management, there are three other journals aimed at researchers, faculty, administrators, and professionals in higher education: Higher Education in Russia (Vysshee obrazovanie v Rossii) (established in 1992), Alma Mater (established in 1940), and Higher Education Today (Vyshee obrazovanie segodnya). These journals publish papers on policy, sociology, and philosophy in higher education, but teaching, learning, and pedagogy seem to be their biggest area of coverage. A comparison of the above journals can be made using 5-year impact factor in Russian Science Citation Index. Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) is a national bibliographic database of scientific publications. The system was developed in order to embrace and analyze Russian language publications of which only a minor share (10%) is included in international databases such as Web of Science and Scopus (Russian Science Citation Index n.d.). It is used here in order to address the development of
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the field within Russia. The analysis of 2016 data shows that Educational Studies (1.582) and Higher Education in Russia (1.282) are more popular than University Management (0.776), which is more narrowly focused, Alma Mater (0.452), and Higher Education Today (0.404). Overall, the visible institutional basis of higher education research in Russia is rather weak. It appears that the financial base of higher education research is derived from institutional funding, as a search for funded projects on higher education in national research funding bodies (Russian Humanities Foundation and Russian Basic Research Foundation) did not produce any results. The dispersion of higher education researchers across institutions, and their formal disintegration, might mean that higher education research as a field of study is at an early stage in Russia, despite the clear need for analysis and policy ideas for Russia’s high participation in higher education system.
Themes and Issues in Russian Higher Education Research Despite lack of financial and institutional support and a limited interaction with the external world, there are numerous publications on higher education in Russia. However, being written in Russian, they are mostly invisible internationally. Considering books as more substantial contributions, we can look at the book citations in Russian Science Citation Index. They might provide only a partial understanding of the field. Book citations are dependent on time: highercited books are more than 10 years old, and that is why they are more cited. Despite those limitations, the book citation patterns reveal some major thematic strands in Russian higher education research (the similar thematic strands can be found if to look at the citations of journal articles). It shows that the most popular area of work on higher education is teaching, learning, and pedagogy. The second most cited area is that of books addressing issues in the implementation of changes under the Bologna process (e.g., Baidenko 2004, 318 citations; Baidenko 2006,
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231 citations). In other areas there are very few books which have as many as 100–200 citations. These include books on economics, management, and organization of higher education. However, only applied works are among the most cited – those on competitiveness of a higher educational institution, the marketing of educational services, and management (e.g., Lazarev and Mokhnachev 2003, 202 citations; Lukashenko 2003, 168 citations; Filippov 2005, 154 citations). This group might also include more scholarly books, such as a Russian translation of Burton Clark’s Creating Entrepreneurial Universities (2011), with 123 citations (which is one of the few key books in international field of higher education research translated into Russian). A book outlining the concept of project-oriented university, based on Clark’s entrepreneurial university model and developed on the basis of experience of a major regional comprehensive university, has reached a higher level of attention, with 209 citations (Grudzinskiy 2004). A few books with a notable number of citations focus on students – their lifestyle, work and study balance, and other issues (Medik and Osipov 2003, 152 citations; Konstantinovskiy et al. 2002, 114 citations). There are few books on the history of Russian higher education, but those that exist are read and used (e.g., Andreev 2009, 175 citations; Ivanov 2004, 109 citations). Themes in higher education research have changed along with changing social realities and policy shifts. During the 1990s, the period of weak governmental steering or “the policy of non-policy” (Kwiek 2008), the focus of study moved to higher education in the market of educational services, which was expected to be the means of survival and autonomy, and the theme of rapid massification. In the 2000s, more studies addressed the implementation of Bologna and internationalization, as Russia joined the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in 2002. Since the late 2000s, when government policy announced the intention of developing groupings of elite universities (national research universities, federal universities, universities in 5/100 excellence program aimed at getting into global rankings) and the tighter performance-
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based regulation of higher education, corresponding new themes emerged in the literature. Reflections over the restructuring of the expanded higher education system resulted in a number of studies on the classification of higher educational institutions and on the institutional landscape (Knyazev and Drantusova 2014; Froumin et al. 2014; Abankina et al. 2016; Platonova and Semyonov 2018). The national assessment of performance of higher educational institutions started in 2012 by the Ministry of Education and availability of its database have created new research themes in relation to evaluation of the performance of higher educational institutions. The transformations of the external environment have produced discussion on university strategies (e.g., Titova 2008a, b) or the lack of them (e.g., Sokolov 2017). The pressures of global competitiveness fostered the discussion of global position of Russian universities (Froumin and Salmi 2007). Some studies focused on the changes in the academic profession (e.g., Smolentseva 2003; Efendiev and Reshetnikova 2008; Sivak and Yudkevich 2017). Overall, at present, one might find in Russia some research in many of the traditional higher education research areas. As in Europe (see, e.g., Kehm 2015; Teichler 2015), there are studies of the higher education system (e.g., abovementioned studies on institutional landscape; Efimov 2012; Froumin and Leshukov 2015; Froumin and Lisyutkin 2015); access and inequality (e.g., Yudkevich and Prakhov 2018); the research mission and knowledge transfer (e.g., Smolentseva 2015); student experiences (e.g., Petrova 2000; Maloshonok and Terentev 2017); the academic profession; internationalization and mobility; economics, funding, and management; university rankings; and others. The themes in research arise both from current national policy issues and also global referencing, relating the national system and its institutions to international models, which has become a significant driver for strategic development of higher education in many countries (Marginson and van der Wende 2009). However, Russia’s engagement with international higher education research
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has been relatively low historically (similar situation is in Japan – see Yonezawa 2015). The English language has been another barrier. Opportunities to learn from and contribute to international discussion have been limited. The national higher education discussion has developed relatively independently, and relied primarily on materials translated into Russian or introduced in Russian, that made them accessible to a wider community. One of the first visible attempts to engage with international research in the field has been participation in the International Academic Profession project headed by Philip Altbach (Altbach 1996), where the Russian case was coordinated by the Institute for Higher Education Research under the Ministry of Education. This and other singular engagements in international projects provided Russian higher education research with some international presence but did not have a noticeable impact on national discussion. Only over the last decade, following the limited institutionalization of higher education studies at HSE, and the production of a number of research publications in Russian and English, has there been some impact on the national scholarly discussion and some international visibility.
Challenges and Prospects Higher education research has been a very small field. It has developed unevenly in time and space within Russia. Despite having a wide thematic range, the physical size of the field is small in terms of the number of researchers. That creates a serious challenge for development: there are a small number of researchers in the senior generation, very few in the middle generation (due to brain drain from the academic profession since the 1990s), and hopefully there are growing numbers among the junior scholars. The institutional platform of the field is relatively weak, with most of the funding dependent on internal institutional arrangements. The establishment of a professional association is a long-term goal. Another challenge is a need for some comprehensive reflection over the major transformations
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which Russian higher education has experienced in Soviet and post-Soviet periods, as well as current changes, but the size of the field and discipline-based model of research virtually means that many studies on higher education address only some narrow, particular issues or aspects of higher education. One of the aspects of the issue is the lack of research on the historical legacies of the Soviet time and the early postSoviet period, which would enable present-day scholars and practitioners to better understand the present state of higher education (e.g., see Froumin et al. 2014; Kuraev 2014, 2016; Smolentseva 2017b; Huisman et al. 2018). The lack of data presents another barrier, but this problem is gradually being overcome as new databases become available to researchers. The early stage of development of the field might serve as an advance, though the emerging generation of researchers works to overcome weaknesses in the international field and attempts to build research on the basis of improvements in the theoretical and conceptual base, as well as moving forward with stronger and more imaginative methods. The history of this field, if not of social science as a whole, shows that the main developments occur when new theories and concepts are developed which take us closer to social reality and guide stronger empirical work.
Cross-References ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Higher Education Research in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Russia ▶ University Traditions, Russia
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491 Marginson, Simon, and M. Van der Wende. 2009. The new global landscape of nations and institutions. In Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Higher Education to 2030, Globalisation, vol. 2, 17–62. Paris: OECD. Medik, V., and A. Osipov 2003. Universitetskoe studenchestvo: obraz zhiznii i zdorovie [University students” lifestyle and health]. Moscow: Logos. Ovsyannikov, A.A. (n.d.). Sovietskaya sociologia i programma Gosobrazovania SSSR “Obschestvennoe mnenie” [Soviet sociology and the program “Public Opinion” by Ministry of Education]. Retrieved from http://www.sovso.ru/index.html. Ovysannikov A.A., and A.A. Iudin. 1988. Universitety Rossii: problemy i spetsifika [Universities in Russia: Issues and special features]. Analytical report. Moscow: Goskomitet SSSR po narodnomu obrazovaniyu; Golovnoi sovet po programme “Obschestvennoe mnenie”. Ovysannikov A.A., and A.A. Iudin. 1990. Ukrupnennyi structurnyi analiz vuzovskikh tsentrov SSSR [Aggregative structural analysis of higher education centers in the USSR]. Analytical report. Gorkiy: Goskomitet SSSR po narodnomu obrazovaniyu; Golovnoi sovet po programme “Obschestvennoe mnenie”; Gorkiy State University. Petrova, T.E. 2000. Sociologia studenchestva v Rossii [Sociology of studentry in Russia]. St. Petersburg: Belveder. Platonova, D., and D. Semyonov. 2016. Stages of policy changes and institutional landscape of Russian higher education. Higher Education in Russia and Beyond 2 (8): 23–24. https://www.hse.ru/mirror/pubs/lib/data/ access/ram/ticket/43/15252510687c85e11660e13f537c 3b76791ab18139/1HERB_08_view.pdf. Platonova, D., and D. Semyonov. 2018. Russia: The institutional landscape of Russian higher education. In 25 years of transformations of higher education systems in post-Soviet countries: Reform and continuity, ed. J. Huisman, A. Smolentseva, and I. Froumin. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Russian Science Citation Index. n.d. Availble at https:// elibrary.ru/projects/citation/cit_index.asp. Semenova, V. (1998). Sociologia molodezhi [Sociology of youth]. In Sociologia v Rossii [Sociology in Russia], ed. V.A Yadov, 2nd edn. Moscow: Institute of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Sivak, E., and M. Yudkevich. 2017. The academic profession in Russia’s two capitals: The impact of 20 years of transition. European Educational Research Journal 16 (5): 626–644. Smolentseva, A. 2003. Challenges to the Russia academic profession. Higher education 45 (4): 391–424. Smolentseva, A. 2015. Globalization and the research mission of universities in Russia. In Higher education in the BRICS countries: Investigating the pact between higher education and society, ed. S. Schwartzman, R. Pinheiro, and P. Pillay, 399–421. Dordrecht: Springer.
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492 Smolentseva, Anna. 2017a. Universal higher education and positional advantage: Soviet legacies and neoliberal transformations in Russia. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0009-9. Smolentseva, Anna. 2017b. Where Soviet and neoliberal discourses meet: The transformation of the purposes of higher education in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. Higher Education 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734017-0111-7. Sokolov, M.M. 2017. Mif ob universitetskoi strategii. Ekonomicheskie nishi i organizatsionnye kariery rossiiskikh vuzov [Myth of a university strategy. Market niches and organizational careers of Russian universities]. Voprosy obrazovania [Educational Studies]. 2: 36–71. https://doi.org/10.17323/1814-9545-2017-2-36-73. Teichler, Ulrich. 2005. Research on higher education in Europe. European Journal of Education 40 (4): 447–469. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Higher education research in Europe. In The European higher education area, ed. A. Curaj et al. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20877-0_50. Titma, М. 1973. Social’no-professional’naya orientatsia molodezhi [Socio-professional orientation of youth]. Tartu: Tartu State University. Titova, N.L. 2008a. Put’ uspekha I neudach: strategicheskoe razvitie rossiiskikh vuzov [Path of success and failure: Strategic development of Russian universities]. Moscow: Higher School of Economics Press. Titova, N.L. ed. 2008b. Strategii razvitia rossiiskikh vuzov: otvety na novye vyzovy [Strategies of Russian universities: Responses to new challenges]. Moscow: MAKS Press. Trow, M. 1973. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. Berkeley: Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Yonezawa, A. 2015. Connecting higher education research in Japan with the international academic community. Higher Education Policy 28: 477–493. Yudkevich, M., and I. Prakhov. 2018. University admission in Russia: Do the wealthier benefit from standardized exams? International Journal of Educational Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijedudev.2017.08.007.
Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions George S. McClellan Department of Higher Education, University of Mississippi, University, MS, USA
Synonyms Budgeting; Budget management
Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions
Definition The process of developing, monitoring, revising, and evaluating budgeting policies and practices, budgets, and budget performance in tertiary/postsecondary education institutions.
Overview In the simplest of terms, “a budget is a plan for getting and spending money to reach specific goals by a specific time” (Dropkin et al. 2007, p. 3). The missions of tertiary/postsecondary education institutions vary, and many institutions have missions which incorporate a diversity of foci. Good financial management will lead to the development of budgeting policies and practices and to institutional, divisional, and academic/ administrative unit budgets which reflect and promote pursuit of the goals articulated in the mission statement and other planning documents.
Functions of a Budget Drawing on the work of Maddox (1999) addressing budgeting for not-for-profit organizations, Barr and McClellan (2018) note five purposes for budgets in higher education. Those purposes are: putting business strategy into operation, allocating resources, providing incentives for personnel and administrative/academic units to engage in desired activities or behaviors, giving control to personnel for programs, and providing a means to communicate priorities to both internal and external audiences.
Types of Budgets There are four common types of budgets in tertiary/postsecondary education institutions. Those types are: operating, capital, auxiliary, and special funds (Barr and McClellan 2018). Typically when people refer to “the budget” at an institution they are discussing the operating budget. This type of budget includes income from all sources and all expenditures for the
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specified budget year. Operating budgets incorporate both unrestricted and restricted income (the latter being income which may only be used for designated purposes based on the sources of that income) as well as reserve funds which are set aside by institutions for specific purpose of a longterm nature such as major repair or renovation projects. Capital budgets are created for the purposes of helping manage large capital improvement projects such as new building construction, major renovation of facilities, or campus-wide infrastructure development or updating. Rather than being defined by a specific period of time, capital budgets are created for the life of the given project. Capital budgets reflect all sources of revenue and forms of expense associated with the project including goods, labor, permits/licensing, professional services fees, and financing costs if applicable (e.g., loan payments including both principle and interest). Not all capital projects are of such a scope that they require a dedicated capital budget; these smaller projects are typically handled within the operating budget for a given budget period. Auxiliary enterprises in pure form are units which are self-supporting; they receive no support from central institutional funds. However, as a practical matter, auxiliary units exist either as purely or partially financially self-supporting. It is common for auxiliary units to be those which provide services which can be funded through user fees (residence halls or university health clinics), subscriptions or sales (university presses or university bookstores), or ticket sales or licensing (theater or intercollegiate athletics programs). Auxiliary budgets reflect the revenue and expenses for such units for the specified budget period. Special funds budgets are created to track revenue and expenses for specific programs or services for either a specified budget period or the life of that service or project. Common examples include scholarship funds or grant/contractfunded programs (including indirect costs charged by the institution for support of the grant/ contract-funded program). In some instances, a special funds budget will reflect revenue from an endowment. That revenue is used to pay the
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expenses of the program or service as well as costs associated with the investment of the endowment corpus.
Organization and Expression of Budgets Budgets are typically organized and expressed in one of two forms: functional and natural (Goldstein 2005). Items are organized by purpose in the functional form. Common examples of purpose in tertiary/postsecondary functional budgets include instruction, research, service, academic support, student services, institutional support, facilities operation, student financial aid, and auxiliary operations. The functional form of budgets is useful at levels of broad institutional analysis. In contrast, budgets in the natural form are categorized by broad type such as wages, supplies, professional development, and travel. The natural form is more helpful at the unit level (Barr and McClellan 2018). Budgets are also expressed using either cash or accrual accounting. Using cash accounting, revenue and expenses are recorded at the time of the actual transaction. Accrual accounting, on the other hand, recognizes revenue at the time it is earned and expenses at the time the commitment is made (Barr and McClellan 2018).
Models of Budgeting There are a variety of budget models commonly found in tertiary/postsecondary education institutions. Several are described here. All-funds budgeting brings together all sources of revenue and expense rather than isolating them into operating, capital, auxiliary, and special funds budgets. This model provides a holistic goalsoriented perspective which can be particularly helpful in times of financial scarcity, but it is less valuable at institutions with less complex budgets and requires a robust accounting management system that can be expensive to acquire and maintain. Formula budgeting makes use of specified criteria in allocating resources. It can be used at an institutional level, but it is more commonly
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seen in governmental budgeting for higher education. Such governmental budget processes typically feature a base allocation coupled with a portion that is earned or derived through the use of a funding formula. Criteria for the funding formula frequently include institutional size (e.g., number of employees, enrollment, or square footage of buildings). Formula budgeting is transparent and efficient, but it also tends to reward the larger and more selective institutions in a system and is vulnerable to political manipulation. Performance-based budgeting focuses on goals for the institution as opposed to conditions as they exist which is the focus as is the case with formula budgeting. Performance-based budgeting is used by both institutions and by governmental groups and is intended to encourage achievement of specified performance measures such as growth in enrollment, student retention, grants awarded, or degrees conferred. As with formula budgeting, performance-based budgets commonly include both a base element and an element determined through performance. There is mixed evidence to date regarding the efficacy of performance-based budgeting in fostering goal attainment (Hillman 2016) and some indication that it may encourage unintended consequences (Fain 2014). Initiative-based budgeting requires that all academic and administrative units return a specified portion of their base budget (typically the budget for the previous year modified using assumptions related to increases in operating costs) to central control. Those returned resources are then pooled and become a source for funding new initiatives for which units may apply. The adjustments to the base budgets are sometimes on a one-time basis, and sometimes they are on an ongoing recurring basis. Initiative-based budgets encourage units to take a hard look at their base budgets to become more efficient, spread the sacrifice in support of new initiatives broadly across the institution, encourage a focus on institutional priorities, and provide evidence to various stakeholders that an institution is doing what it can to be responsible and creative stewards of resources. It can also inherently disadvantage some units (e.g., facilities may be asked to make cuts to its important services but be challenged to articulate a new
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initiative to meet articulated priorities or opportunities), particularly units which are already minimally resourced. Responsibility-center budgeting situates responsibility for budget performance at the local level. Each unit is seen as either a cost center or as a revenue center. Cost centers provide programs and services which do not lend themselves to revenue generation. Campus police are one example. Revenue centers are units with the capacity to generate revenue to cover or offset their expenses. Revenue centers exceeding goals with respect to budget performance are permitted to retain a portion of the excess revenue. Cost centers who exceed budget performance goals are typically required to return any excess of funds. Units of either type which fail to meet budget expectations are required to address the shortfall in the next budget year. Responsibilitycenter budgeting, which is sometimes referred to as incentive-based or value-based budgeting, may lead to increased performance and greater response to quick changes in challenges and opportunities through encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation. However, it can also lead to a sense of the “haves” and “have nots” among units, and it may also lead units to stray from institutional priorities in the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities. It may also promote academic capitalism (Slaughter and Leslie 1997; Slaughter and Rhoades 2009). Zero-based budgeting includes no assumptions regarding support for services or programs. There is no assumption of a base budget that is modified in some way; each unit must justify its full budget in each and every cycle. This can help assure tight linkages between resource allocation and institutional priorities, tightly link funding to performance, and foster fiscal responsibility. It is also incredibly time consuming and can lead to a fair amount of anxiety regarding whether or not programs, services, or staff positions will continue. Hence, the model is rarely employed in its purest form. Barr and McClellan (2018, p. 85) note that “hybrid models of budgeting are far and away the common mode of budgeting in higher education.” Institutions may elect to use modified
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versions of any particular budget model, or they may choose to develop a unique design which is a blend of two or more of the models described here.
Centralized and Decentralized Approaches to Budget Decision-Making Decision-making for budgeting can generally be understood to be either centralized or decentralized. Centralized decision-making situates control at the institutional level. Tight controls help assure direct linkage with institutional priorities and budget performance consistent with the approved budget. Decentralized decisionmaking locates control of budget decisions at the unit level. Budgets are developed and managed in a ground-up fashion as opposed to a top-down one. This approach takes advantage of the involvement of those with most direct knowledge of the programs and services being delivered and allows necessary flexibility to address rapidly evolving challenges and opportunities. Whereas the centralized approach is streamlined and efficient, it inhibits a sense of ownership on the part of unit budget managers. The decentralized approach requires more time for processes and may lead to competition and friction between units, but it fosters proactive budget management. As with budget models, a hybrid or blended approach to budget decision-making is more common than a purely centralized or decentralized one.
Organization of Budgets Budgets are organized by revenue and expense. Common forms of revenue in tertiary/postsecondary education are government appropriated funds; tuition; mandatory fees (those charged to all students for a specific purpose); special student fees, including one-time fess (e.g., a matriculation fee) and user fees (charged to those using a service such as recreation center membership fees); endowment income from investments; gifts; grants and contracts; auxiliary services income;
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special programs; contracted institutional services (e.g., income from outsourced/contracted functions such as campus vending machines); income from hospital operations; licensing, patents, and royalties; support from religious institutions; and other sources of income (Barr and McClellan 2018). Common types of expenses in tertiary/ postsecondary education institutions include: salaries, employee benefits, program supplies, office supplies, computer software, communications, publications and printing, postage, programming or programming support, professional development, memberships and periodicals, travel, entertainment and gifts, facilities services, utilities, contracted service, debt service, and student financial aid (Barr and McClellan 2018).
Budget Cycles Barr and McClellan observe, “Budget management is a never-ending task for any administrator with financial responsibilities in higher education” (Barr and McClellan 2018, p. 95). Budgets are developed and managed in annual cycles (called fiscal years), and it is the case that more than one budget cycle may be ongoing at any given time. The previous budget may be in the process of being closed out as the current budget cycle is being managed and the new budget cycle is in the early stages of planning and development. The precise beginning and ending of a budget cycle may vary. Common variations in tertiary/ postsecondary education include calendar year, tax/government operation year, and academic year (including summer months). Several factors may influence the development of the budget and budget cycle at any institution. These factors include: institutional characteristics, participants in the process, and the amount of time available for input on the budget and budgeting process. Barr and McClellan (2018, p. 98) identify 11 phases of a typical fiscal year operating budget. They are: sharing information about the institutional budget process; establishing the internal unit budget guidelines and process; analyzing previous unit budget performance; developing
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and reviewing internal unit proposals; reviewing unit funding and program options; preparing and submitting unit budget requests; institutional budget review, modification, and approval; monitoring budget performance; adjusting current budget; and closing. Some of the activities may be concurrent; others are sequential.
Issues and Pitfalls in Budget Management A number of common issues face budget managers in higher education (Barr and McClellan 2018). One of these is understanding the unit organization and decision-making processes that affect the unit. “Budgeting and budget management are inherently political processes. Recognizing the various persons with power, forms of power they hold. . ., and interests they have. . .will be very helpful for those responsible for budgeting and budget management” (Barr and McClellan 2018, p. 151). A keen understanding of the unit for which one is responsible, the larger institution in which it is situated, and the interactions between the unit and the institution are important to function effectively in the political environment. It is also useful to understand the budget history of the unit. What were the decision-making styles of previous unit heads regarding budgetary matters? How was that style reflected in budgetary practices and policies? What changes if any are intended, and how might these changes be brought about and communicated in a way to help assure the success of the unit and the budget manager? A related concern is understanding the budgeting and management capabilities of staff in the unit. This is particularly true in cases where the budget for the unit is larger and more complex or in instances in which the budget manager prefers to decentralize budgetary decision-making and responsibility. In these cases, an investment of time in resources in assessment of knowledge and skill sets as well as in corresponding professional development opportunities is wise.
Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions
The issue of identifying one-time and chronic budget problems is an important part of a budget manager’s responsibilities. Barr and McClellan observe, “the greatest skill that a financial manager can have is the ability to anticipate genuine problems before they become crises” (2018, pp. 154–55). One additional issue related to budget management is understanding the political and personnel issues involved in managing change in the unit. Determining issues of agreement and commonality, demonstrating integrity, and demonstrating utility ought to guide change management (Barr and Golseth 1990). Barr and McClellan (2018) also identify a number of pitfalls which may cause problems for budget managers. The first of these is relying on informal understandings or agreements, sometimes referred to as handshake deals. These informal arrangements are prone to misunderstandings and vulnerable to changes in leadership. Documenting a process or agreement at the time they take place can help avoid problems in the future. Another common pitfall is overestimating revenue. Higher education administrators and faculty members are prone to enthusiasm and optimism when it comes to new ideas or opportunities, and this can lead to overly hopeful estimations of revenue which can then present difficult budget challenges at mid-year when the actual results far short of expectations. A related pitfall is failing to plan for the end of revenue or of an opportunity to hold down costs. Grants and contracts are an area in which this pitfall sometimes plays out. Another variation of this pitfall is assuming that good times will go on forever (e.g., current record enrollments will be maintained or that artificially high revenue from trademark licensing for sporting apparel during a run of winning years will continue). Two more pitfalls relate to costs. Failing to identify the hidden costs associated with regular operations or special projects may present a serious threat to an otherwise well-thought out budget. Failing to recognize the multiyear consequences of changes in programs or personnel may also pose a threat to the integrity of the budget.
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
Not recognizing or giving appropriate weight to the implications of unit budget decisions for other units across the institution can be a problem. Costs must be cut in one unit, but that cut in funding (and attendant program support) might in turn require another unit to make an expenditure that offsets part or all of the savings from an institutional perspective and which creates ill will due to a failure to consult and communicate with partners. The two additional pitfalls identified by Barr and McClellan (2018) for budget managers related to personal behavior or characteristics more than to matters of technical expertise or execution. Simply postponing a budget problem, or kicking the can down the road as the behavior is sometimes called because it seems to be the easiest course of action or one that avoids having to confront a political problem, is rarely the right decision. Finally, failing to ask for help in order to avoid looking foolish or ignorant is never good management. It is acceptable and commendable for a budget manager to recognize and be able to acknowledge when they do not have the information, knowledge, or skill set necessary to address a particular budget management concern.
497 Foundation. Accessed on 3 May 2017, at https://tcf. org/content/report/why-performance-based-collegefunding-doesnt-work/. Maddox, D.C. 1999. Budgeting for not-for-profit organizations. Hoboken: Wiley. Slaughter, S., and L.L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S., and G. Rhoades. 2009. Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, states, and higher education. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Financing ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil
Financing Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Vietnam
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview References Barr, M.J., and A.E. Golseth. 1990. Managing change in a paradoxical environment. In New futures for student affairs, eds. M.J. Barr, M.L. Upcraft, and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Barr, M.J., and G.S. McClellan. 2018. Budget and financial management in higher education. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dropkin, M., J. Halpin, and B. LaTouche. 2007. The budget-building book for nonprofits: A step-bystep guide for managers and boards. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Fain, P. 2014. Gaming the system. Inside Higher Ed, November 19. Accessed 3 May 2017, at https://www. insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/19/performance-ba sed-funding-provokes-concern-among-college-adminis trators. Goldstein, L. 2005. College and university budgeting: An introduction for faculty and academic administrators. Washington, DC: National Association of College and University Business Officers. Hillman, N. 2016. Why performance-based college funding does not work. New York: The Century
Gerald Wangenge-Ouma Department of Institutional Planning, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Historically, public higher education in most of Africa (with the exception of countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe) was free, with the public purse covering tuition and student living allowances, infrastructure development, and staff costs (Langa et al. 2017; Wangenge-Ouma 2007, 2008a, b, 2012). However, over the years, significant shifts have taken place in the approaches to financing public higher education in Africa. Optimism and growth in the 1960s and 1970s when budget allocations for education tended to rise, driven both by rising social demand and by belief in the economic benefits of investment in human capital, gave way in the 1980s to stagnant or
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declining budgets, as governments in many parts of the world grappled with political and economic crises, structural adjustment, and widespread poverty and unemployment (Wangenge-Ouma 2007, 2008a, b, 2012; Woodhall 2001; World Bank 1994). At the same time, many donors switched priorities and emphasis away from higher to primary education, partly as a result of arguments that primary education was a more profitable social investment than higher education (Psacharopoulos 1994; Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1985; World Bank 1986, 1988, 1994). Against the backdrop of economic difficulties in the late 1970s and 1980s, several studies advocating reforms in the financing of education in Africa were published. Hinchliffe (1985) and World Bank (1986) argued that the then financing arrangements, which favored higher education, resulted in the misallocation of public spending on education. Using rate of return analyses, the two studies (World Bank 1986 and Hinchliffe 1985) argued for more investment in primary education. The agitation for more investment in primary education was ostensibly triggered by “evidence” that the average dollar invested in primary education returned twice as much as the one invested in higher education (World Bank 1988; Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1985). Following “evidence” that investment in higher education was less socially efficient, the World Bank published a policy paper (World Bank 1988), which had major implications for the entire education sector in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper argued that governments cannot be expected to increase the resources they devote to higher education substantially. The paper further condemned the cost of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa as being needlessly high, and called upon African governments to “relieve the burden on public sources by increasing the participation of beneficiaries and their families” (World Bank 1988: 77). Overall, the paper set the stage for adjustments in public university education in sub-Saharan Africa, and heralded major changes in the financing of higher education. Budgetary allocations to higher education were significantly slashed in favor of basic education and cost-sharing was introduced in many countries (Wangenge-Ouma 2007).
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
In their study on higher education and economic development in Africa, Bloom et al. (2006) provide a powerful counterpoint to the arguments above regarding the role of higher education in the advancement of African societies and its funding. The paper advocates, inter alia, for public investment in higher education in Africa. The analysis by Bloom and his colleagues was a sequel to an emerging shift in the attitude toward higher education in Africa, especially within the international policy community. For instance, while maintaining its emphasis on primary and secondary schooling, the World Bank’s report Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education (World Bank 2002), de-emphasizes the significance of rate of return analyses in shaping investment decisions in education, and the report of the Commission for Africa calls upon the international community to invest in higher education in Africa (Commission for Africa 2005). The brief context mapped above highlights several key elements about the financing of public higher education in especially sub-Saharan Africa, namely, the complex relationship between higher education, the state, and society and the historically influential role of supranational institutions, such as the World Bank, in shaping higher education policy in Africa and the impact of shifting global development paradigms on the financing of higher education. At the time of political independence (mainly in the 1960s), higher education in Africa was one of the most critical projects of the newly independent states. The need to develop person power to replace departing colonial administrators and guarantee equity of access was mainly responsible for the high-state subsidization of higher education in Africa. The university was also seen as the epicenter of social and economic development; a role which required that generous funding be provided (Langa et al. 2017; Wangenge-Ouma 2008 2012). As part of a larger societal environment, the relationship between universities and their environment has been changing depending on the trends and developments in society. The World Bank and other supranational institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), aided
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
by the collapse of many national economies in Africa, played a crucial role in discrediting the public model of financing higher education and the introduction of cost-sharing in many African countries.
Public Funding and Allocation Mechanisms Public funding of higher education encompasses several elements, namely, actual allocations to higher education institutions (HEIs), the mechanisms used to determine public funding, and other practices linked to funding. Regarding the actual funding of universities, an analysis by World Bank (2010) shows that between 1991 and 2006, allocations to higher education in Africa averaged approximately 0.78% of its gross domestic product. During the same period, enrolments grew by an average of 16% annually (from 2.7 million in 1991 to 9.3 million in 2006), while funding only doubled. Overall, since the mid-1990s many African countries have managed to maintain a steady allocation of resources to higher education. The main challenge is that the funding has declined in real terms and has not kept up with the increases in student enrolments and the rising expenditures involved in running public universities. In South Africa, for example, an analysis by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET 2015) shows that while the block grant, which is a source of discretionary funding to universities, increased by 128% in nominal terms in the period 2004–2015, the real increase was by 30.5%. However, enrolments grew substantially over the same period and, combined with the effect of inflation, the block grant actually declined by 1.35% per full-time equivalent student. There are variations in the extent of state funding of higher education across the continent. The indicator used commonly to compare funding across countries is the proportion of GDP spent on higher education. While this is a useful comparative indicator (reflects differences in national priorities or preferences), it conveys little information about the absolute quantity of resources
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that a country devotes to the education of each student, and is often (mis)interpreted to demonstrate variations in actual funding levels across countries. A common lamentation about the funding of higher education in South Africa is that it’s poorly funded compared to other countries, inter alia, because it spends a lower percentage of its GDP on higher education compared to countries like Ghana and Senegal (Cloete et al. 2016). Admittedly, Ghana and Senegal spend higher percentages of their GDP on higher education, 1.44% and 1.38%, respectively (2012 figures), compared to South Africa’s 0.71%. However, to conclude that universities in Ghana and Senegal are therefore funded more favorably than their South African counterparts, in terms of their funding needs, would be problematic. Anyone with knowledge of higher education in these countries would struggle to support such a conclusion. El-Araby (2010) demonstrates the importance of utilizing multiple indicators to map, for comparative purposes, differences in state funding across various countries. In his comparative assessment of funding in six countries, he shows that Egypt spent 1% of its GDP on higher education and Tunisia and Morocco spent 2.04% and 0.99%, respectively. However, both Egypt and Tunisia spent 28% of their education budgets on higher education while Morocco spent 16.77%. Regarding expenditure per student as a percentage of per capita GDP, Egypt had 24.4%, Tunisia 55.8%, and Morocco 89.7%. This analysis suggests that using a single indicator to adjudge public funding of higher education would be grossly misleading. Various mechanisms are utilized to allocate funds to HEIs. Some of these mechanisms, such as South Africa’s funding formula, are utilized to steer the higher education system toward achieving policy imperatives such as access, student success, and research productivity. South Africa’s goal-oriented and performancerelated higher education funding framework consists of two key components, namely, block grants and earmarked grants. Block grants are generated mainly from enrolments (teaching inputs), student throughputs and research outputs. Earmarked
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grants include funding for infrastructure development, university development grant (includes funding for student support, tutorials, and mentoring systems), staff development, and seed funding for new programs in identified priority areas), development grants for historically disadvantaged institutions and funding for foundation provision (extended curriculum programs). From 2012 to 2016, Senegal experimented with performance contracting whereby the Senegalese government signed performance contracts with individual universities committing to disburse a predetermined amount of funds while institutions undertook to improve their performance in agreed upon areas, among them: – Internal efficiency of the institutions as measured by indicators such as student pass rates and throughputs – The use of information and communication technologies as measured by, among others, the percentage of personal computers per student and the number of lectures given online – Quality of teaching – Strengthening of links with the labor market – Improvement of governance within institutions (Toguebaye 2015). The contract with individual universities stipulated the specific areas that required improvement, performance indicators, and the amounts to be paid to institutions. Funding was allocated on an annual basis and depended on the performance of each university as per the agreed upon indicators. Both the South African and Senegalese higher education funding mechanisms seek to steer universities toward national policy goals and funding is linked to specific outputs. The mechanisms also enhance transparency in the allocation of funds and accountability. The two countries’ higher education funding mechanisms are, however, atypical in Africa where many countries, for example, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt, Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, and Nigeria, mainly use an ad hoc funding approach. Universities submit budgets to government on a line-item basis; however, allocations are hardly informed by the submitted budgets
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
(Bamiro 2012). Individual allocations are generally based on those of the previous year and do not consider the cost of higher education provision. Allocations are generally arrived at arbitrarily and often involve university leaders having to individually negotiate with government officials to try and influence higher allocations to their universities (Wangenge-Ouma 2011). Musisi and Nakayiwa-Mayega (2007: 17) report that in Uganda “the amount of the subvention (recurrent budget) is purportedly calculated using the number of government subsidised students and the ‘unit cost’ which the Ministry thinks and feels is ‘reasonable’ for that particular institution.” The line-item budget allocation format used in this funding mechanism provides limited room for transfer between budget categories except, as in the case of Egypt, by the authority of the president (Baraka 2009). A challenge related to allocation of funds is the nondisbursement of all approved funds, which are often already substantially lower than the funding requested by universities. Nigeria and Kenya are examples where this practice is common. Closely related to the nondisbursement of all approved funding is the practice in Kenya where approved funds are usually released one month in arrears, resulting in serious effects on cash flow (Wangenge-Ouma 2007). In some countries, it is required that universities return to the national treasury all unspent balances, excluding encumbered income (e.g., funding for projects), at the end of the financial year. Botswana is an example. Consequently, universities in such systems are not permitted to transfer unspent monies to reserves under their control. This practice discourages the building of a reserve fund, and could lead to unrestricted spending at the end of every financial year to discharge accumulated funds (WangengeOuma 2011).
Cost-Sharing The long history of offering free higher education in Africa and the political sensitivities related to tuition fees have made the introduction of costsharing a very complex issue. To address these
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
sensitivities, African countries have implemented cost-sharing using various approaches, mainly, the introduction of user charges for student housing and catering, a variety of fees such as application and examination fees, freezing the amount of stipends regardless of inflation, and introduction and expansion of private higher education. Morocco, with a policy of free public higher education, has implemented cost-sharing mainly with regards to living and related expenses. Students are expected to pay for their living expenses, with poor students receiving a stipend. The stipends are however frozen; they hardly increase with inflation (Sabr 2009). Botswana has, since independence in 1966, implemented two main cost-sharing models. From 1966 to 1995, all students received grants for their tuition and maintenance and, after graduating, they were required to work in the public service for a specific period of time and also pay back about 10% of their basic salary for a duration equivalent to the length of their studies. This approach experienced two main challenges: the public service could no longer absorb all university graduates, and the country did not have mechanisms to effect repayments from students employed in the private sector, leading to a precipitous decline in repayments. In 1995, the country introduced a grant/loan scheme in which the grant-to-loan mix depended on the programs students enrolled in. Students enrolled in category 1 programs (scarce skills) receive 100% grant for tuition and maintenance while those enrolled in category 5 programs (low priority skills) receive 100% loan. In Zimbabwe, cost-sharing in higher education, in the form of a deferred tuition fee policy that was complemented by a mortgage type loan system and government grants, was introduced in 1957 following the establishment of the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which is now the University of Zimbabwe. The country has since implemented various approaches to cost-sharing, inter alia, revising the loan/grant component of student funding, from 75% loan and 25% grant in 1979 to 50% loan and 50% grant in 1980, and then 100% loan in 2002; and the replacement of
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the loan system with the Cadetship Grant Scheme in 2006. This scheme gives grants, which cover tuition fees only, to qualifying students. Maintenance costs are not covered. Beneficiaries are legally bonded to the country, and, to ensure compliance with the bonding provisions, beneficiaries do not receive their degree certificates until the end of the bonding period (Chihombori 2013). The introduction of dual-track tuition fee policies in public universities is arguably the most radical form of cost-sharing in Africa. Dual-track tuition fee policies, which have been implemented in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Nigeria, among others, are characterized by “a highly restricted,” “merit-based” entry to free or very low cost higher education [usually fixed fees], with other applicants not so admitted permitted entry on a feepaying basis” (Marcucci et al. 2008: 102). While the fees paid by the state-subsidized students are fixed (or free in countries such as Egypt), individual universities determine the fees paid by students in the parallel stream. Dual-track tuition fee policies have been successful in generating additional revenue. However, they have also been blamed for deteriorating quality, growth in the number of students without concomitant provision of resources, marginalization of research, and mission drift as universities introduce new programs, often beyond their capacity, to increase their share of the student market (WangengeOuma 2007, 2012). Cost-sharing has not been without its challenges, as demonstrated in South Africa by the 2015 and 2016 #FeesMustFall campaigns. Unlike most African countries, South Africa has an established history of cost-sharing, where individual universities determine their own fees. Fees are increased every year, with the exception of 2016 when the government imposed a moratorium on tuition fee increase. The over-reliance on tuition fees, in part to mitigate the effects of decreased government investment in higher education, in the context of a weak student financial aid scheme, inevitably led to the #FeesMustFall campaigns. The key demand of this campaign, which was characterized, inter alia, by nation-wide student
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protests and closure of universities, is the provision of affordable higher education, but more so, free higher education for poor South Africans. The #FeesMustFall campaigns have demonstrated that over-reliance on tuition fees has deleterious implications for fair access, especially where financial support for poor students is inadequate.
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
maintenance, procurement of research equipment, and academic staff training (Bamiro 2012). While important strides have been made by universities in Africa to diversify their sources of income, many institutions remain disproportionately dependent on government funding and tuition fees.
Conclusion Revenue Diversification Diversification of revenue sources is important, not only as a defense against “government failure” (declining state funding), but also as a form of adaptation to conditions of financial vulnerability. African universities have implemented various strategies to diversify their sources of income, namely, short courses, gifts and endowments, donations, contract research, and establishment of university-owned companies. In many countries (for example, Kenya, Egypt, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ghana, and Uganda), dual-track tuition fee programs and other teaching related activities are the most important sources of nongovernment revenue. International organizations and foundations are increasingly becoming very important sources of funding. In 2014/2015, the University of Ghana received US$ 16.9 million from organizations such as Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) (Alabi and Mohammed 2017). In Nigeria, between 2000 and 2010, the University of Ibadan received US$ 10.4 million from MacArthur Foundation for, among others, staff development and development of ICT infrastructure (Bamiro 2012). In countries like Nigeria and Ghana, national higher education trust funds have been established to leverage funding for higher education from the market. Nigeria’s Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was established in 1993 and its main source of funding is a 2% education tax that is levied on the profits of all companies registered in Nigeria. Funding from TETFund is utilized for purposes such as infrastructure development,
Higher education funding is a complex challenge for many African countries. Although public funding of universities has generally been steady, it has declined in real terms, and has not kept up with increases in student enrolments. The funding challenge has a close nexus with challenges such as poor quality of education and research, inadequate infrastructure, inequitable access, and poor remuneration of academics. Cost-sharing is an important source of income to universities. However, its success depends on, among other factors, the existence of an effective student financial-aid scheme to support student who cannot afford fees and living expenses. The various approaches to cost-sharing, especially the introduction of dualtrack tuition fee policies, suggest that the legacy of free higher education has been overcome, to some extent. It however remains unclear why, having introduced dual-track tuition fee policies and having allowed private higher education to thrive (which indicate a willingness by students and their parents to pay fees), many African countries still maintain free or only permit nominal tuition fee regimes, in a context of underfunding of higher education and higher education participation dominated by students from middle- and high-income families. The future of financing higher education in Africa is unpredictable. However, several possibilities exist. The strong growth of many national economies will not guarantee significantly higher allocations to higher education given the demands for public funding from priorities such as basic education, health, infrastructure, and security. However, increasing political pressure in countries such as South Africa could lead to an enhancement of funding for higher education.
Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview
Tuition fees will remain the most important source of nongovernment income. In this regard, dualtrack tuition fee programs will continue to proliferate, and so will the challenges related to quality, research excellence, and differentiation.
Cross-References ▶ Cost-Sharing in Financing Higher Education ▶ Formula Funding, Higher Education ▶ Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in Europe ▶ Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in the USA ▶ Public Funding, Latin America ▶ Revenue Generation, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Tuition Fees, Higher Education ▶ Tuition Fees, Worldwide Trends
References Alabi, G., and I. Mohammed. 2017. A study on research and Ph.D. capacities in sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana. Draft country report. African Network for Internationalisation of Education. Baraka, P. 2009. Financing higher education in Egypt: Current challenges and policy options. Unpublished report. Bamiro, O.A. 2012. Sustainable financing of higher education in Nigeria: Funding models. Unpublished paper. Bloom, D., D. Canning, and K. Chan. 2006. Higher education and economic development in Africa, Africa Region Human Development Working Paper Series No. 102. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Chihombori, D. 2013. Cost-sharing in higher education financing in Zimbabwe, 1957–2009. Unpublished M. Ed. thesis. University of the Western Cape. Cloete, N., C. Sheppard, and F. Schalkwyk. 2016. Fees and sustainable development. Moving the higher education fees debate from ideology to evidence. Submission to the fees commission. Cape Town: CHET. Commission for Africa. 2005. Our common interest: Report of the commission for Africa. London. Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). 2015. Are we making progress with the systemic structural transformation of resourcing access, success, staffing and researching in higher education: What do the data say? Pretoria: DHET. El-Araby, A. 2010. Comparative assessment of higher education in six Arab countries. In Financing higher education in Arab countries, ed. A. Galal and
503 T. Kanaan. Cairo: Economic Research Forum Policy Report. Hinchliffe, K. 1985. Issues related to higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank. Langa, P., G. Wangenge-Ouma, J. Jungblut, and N. Cloete. 2017. South Africa and the illusion of free higher education. In Understanding global higher education: Insights from key global publications, ed. G. Mihut, P.G. Altbach, and H. De Wit. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Marcucci, P., D.B. Johnstone, and M. Ngolovoi. 2008. Higher education cost-sharing, dual-track tuition fees, and higher educational access: The East African experience. Peabody Journal of Education 83 (1): 101–116. Musisi, N., and F. Nakayiwa-Mayega. 2007. Access and equity in higher education: Assessing financing policies–A comparative study of African countries: Uganda case study. Unpublished paper. Psacharopoulos, G., and M. Woodhall. 1985. Education for development: An analysis of investment choices. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Psacharopoulos, G. 1994. Returns to education: A global update. World Development 22 (9): 1325–1343. Sabr, M. 2009. Funding policy and higher education in Arab countries. Comparative and International Higher Education 1: 11–12. Toguebaye, B.S. 2015. Performance contract in public universities in Senegal. In Towards innovative models for funding higher education in Africa, ed. P.A. Okebukola. Accra: Association of African Universities. Wangenge-Ouma, G. 2012. Public by day, private by night: Examining the private lives of Kenya’s public universities. European Journal of Education 47 (2): 213–227. Wangenge-Ouma, G. 2011. Managing resource dependence difficulties in African higher education: the case of multiple exchange relationships. Higher Education Policy 24: 167–184. Wangenge-Ouma, G. 2008a. Globalisation and higher education funding policy shifts in Kenya. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 30 (3): 215–229. Wangenge-Ouma, G. 2008b. Higher education marketisation and its discontents: The case of quality in Kenya. Higher Education 56: 457–471. Wangenge-Ouma, G. 2007. Reducing resource dependence on government funding: The case of public universities in Kenya and South Africa. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cape Town. Woodhall, M. 2001. Financing higher education: The role of student loans. International Higher Education 22 (8): 12–14. World Bank. 1986. Financing education in developing countries: Exploration of policy options. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 1988. Education in sub-Saharan Africa: Policies for adjustment, revitalization, and expansion. Washington, DC: World Bank.
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World Bank. 1994. Higher education: The lessons of experience. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 2002. Constructing knowledge societies: New challenges for tertiary education. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 2010. Financing higher education in Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank.
out of college. Early FYE seminars have given rise to more comprehensive and coordinated firstyear student success efforts, a focus on assessment, and programs designed to meet the developmental needs of advanced standing students.
History
First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition Paul Gore1 and A. J. Metz2 1 College of Professional Sciences, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, USA 2 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Synonyms First-year seminar; Student academic support; Student persistence; Student retention; Student success
Definition The First-Year Experience (FYE) may describe a specific course, campus department, or a series of programs designed to help students transition from high school to college. As the name implies, these programs were originally offered in the first year of higher education and focused on traditional-aged students. FYE programs have since evolved with recognition that students at different points of matriculation (e.g., sophomores, seniors, etc.) also face challenges that could be proactively addressed with various academic or student support programs. FYE courses and programs have also broadened in scope to serve the needs of transfer students, adult learners returning to school after a hiatus, or, in the USA, veterans taking advantage of government-sponsored educational assistance. Higher education institutions continue to be responsive to the evolving needs of students from increasingly diverse backgrounds who face new challenges to transitioning into, through, and
The introduction of the FYE is often attributed to events that occurred at the University of South Carolina in the early 1970s though recognition of the need to promote successful first-year transition significantly predates this modern manifestation of first-year seminar courses (Bigger 2005; Brubacher and Rudy 1997; Dwyer 1989). Amid social and political unrest, the President of the University of South Carolina commissioned a course that would provide a positive and engaging transition experience for freshmen students. The course was designed to be small to allow for faculty-student interaction and peer-to-peer community building with the goal of promoting academic and social integration on campus. This initiative resulted in the “FYE,” the precursor to today’s First-Year Experience and gained widespread attention over the next 15 years. This movement was further strengthened in 1987 with the founding of the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience (Koch and Gardner 2014). Today, the renamed National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition supports institutions around the world through scholarly publishing, conferences, and advocacy related to student transition and success. FYE was originally a course rooted in early theories of student retention/dropout (e.g., Tinto 1975) that placed emphasis on integrating academically and socially into the institution. With respect to academic integration, early FYE seminars included assignments or activities that promoted critical thinking, study skill, and strategies for reading, note taking, and writing. Social integration was promoted by orienting students to the social, cultural, and academic support opportunities on campus and encouraging (sometimes requiring) them to attend campus events and/or participate in registered student organizations.
First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition
Empirical evidence documents the success of these early FYE courses, especially in promoting first to second year student retention (Koch and Gardner 2014). Sociocultural, economic, and political changes in higher education ushered both growth of the FYE and how it manifested itself on college campuses. Increased college access to previously underserved populations of students, diminishing state appropriations in public institutions, and an increased focus on accountability were but three forces that led to the proliferation of FYE courses, programs, specific campus departments, and even new administrative positions (e.g., Director of FYE). In some cases, FYE courses and programs are mandated for all incoming freshmen; in other cases, they are optional, but recommended. Some schools link FYE courses and programs to orientation and consider it an extended orientation program. In other cases, FYE courses and programs are modeled around a select group of students based on a particular major, interest, or residence hall. Then there are FYE courses that adopt a common read and those that are associated with particular classes such as reading or math. The most prominent trends in FYE are discussed below. Far from being exclusive to the USA, the FirstYear Experience movement has gained widespread traction across the globe. For example, annual conferences have been convened by the European First-Year Experience network since 2006 (http://www.efye2017.co.uk/) and manifestations of the First-Year Experience can be found in South Africa (http://sanrc.co.za/), Australia (http:// melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/research/experien ce/the-first-year-experience-in-australian-universit ies), Hong Kong (https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/334/ english/first-year-experience/index.html), Japan (http://www.tamagawa.jp/en/highereducation/fye. html), and the United Arab Emirates (http://www. uaeu.ac.ae/en/university_college/sasp/first_year_ experience.shtml). International First-Year Experience programs have evolved to meet the unique needs of adopting nations’ cultures and higher education models. Their proliferation is testament to the usefulness and effectiveness of the FYE and its adaptability to cultural and educational differences.
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First-Year Seminars Many FYE courses continue to follow the initial model of promoting academic competencies and cocurricular integration. In these traditional courses, students develop skills in note taking, studying for tests, goal setting, time management, and managing anxiety. They might also participate in early academic planning and career development, engage in discussions focused on diversity and inclusion, and learn about campus support resources. These courses may be taught by tenure-track faculty or support staff members. Given the complexities of teaching such a course, instructors often gather collectively on a regular basis for training, coordination, or to discuss best practices or compare successful strategies they are experiencing in class. A more recent trend in FYE seminars is to integrate student success skills and campus and community engagement into more traditional academic courses. For example, a university might challenge their faculty to think about an interesting question or problem that could be sufficiently challenging for students to explore in depth over the course of a semester. Sample course titles include, “Gimme More: a History of Stuff,” “Health Care: Right or Privilege?” and “Obamacare & the Zombie Apocalypse.” Such courses not only prompt interest, but promote transferable academic and career success skills such as critical thinking, research, and creative thinking in the context of an academic discipline. To integrate FYE into traditional academic courses, faculty must embrace a mentorship role with their students – a factor repeatedly identified as promoting student success (Ray and Kafka 2014). Faculty of these courses hold individual meetings with students, engage in service activities, or attend events outside regularly scheduled classes. Like the traditional FYE seminar, students in these courses engage the campus or regional community, as appropriate, to support their learning in class. Finally, faculty assign a text, project, or campus event that punctuates an issue raised in class and that is reflective of the University’s core values. Learning outcomes from
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this type of course can be directly linked to the University’s overall Student Learning Outcomes. In some cases, multiple FYE courses might be deployed on the same campus to meet differing student needs. For example, academically underprepared students might be advised into a traditional FYE course whereas academically modal students might be referred into an academically contextualized FYE course.
A Broader Definition of the First-Year Experience Today, the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition are terms used to describe a wide range of programs, courses, and academic and student support services. A growing number of institutions recognize that a single 1–3 credit h course is insufficient to promote long-term student success. John Gardner, founding director of the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition, has long advocated for a broader philosophical definition of the first-year experience and his advocacy is paying off at institutions across the country. Enterpriselevel and coordinated efforts to promote success are increasingly common and include institutional faculty, residence life, commuter life, academic and career advising, formal risk and strengths assessment, and special population programs (e.g., Veteran Student Affairs, Diversity and Inclusion Offices, TRiO, Disabled Student Services, and Athletics). Further, they are being supported by a growing number of for-profit and not-for-profit consulting groups with expertise in student information management and sharing, assessment, and success collaboration. What follows is an abbreviated selection of efforts to take the First-Year Experience seminar to the next level of positive influence. Learning Communities and Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs) Learning communities embrace the concept that the individual is not the most optimal unit of instruction and that significant learning can be realized by a group of people who share common
academic interests and attitudes and who meet and collaborate academically and participate in common cocurricular events (Upcraft et al. 2005). Learning communities have grown steadily since the 1980s and are often outgrowths of efforts to establish academically oriented FYE seminars as described previously. First-year interest groups (FIGs) are a common manifestation of an institution’s commitment to establishing learning communities. They are used as an organizing structure to promote student success and immersion into a specific interest area (often a college major). Students frequently selfselect into a required or optional FIG during orientation or initial course registration. FIGs vary in their structure from campus to campus but may include one or more of the following characteristics: • Common course schedule so that students form a cohort/support group that will promote interaction, group study, and common daily experience • Common residence/housing to promote cocurricular interaction and opportunity for support and group study • Advanced-standing academic major peer mentor • Special FIG-focused cocurricular programming (e.g., Careers in Psychology offered by Career Services Office to Psychology FIG participants) The Common Read Another example of the expansion of the FirstYear Experience is the common reading assignment (Laufgraben 2006). The common read is an institutional initiative where all students are encouraged to read the same book during the summer before their first college term so as to provide a common basis for discussion. Though common read titles might include classics, they are more often nonfiction titles that grapple with big issues in modern society. Institutions will often cover the costs and distribute the common read title to incoming students; some institutions extend the common read program to include students at all levels of study.
First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition
Common read programs must involve more than a common reading experience to realize the full benefits of the program. Many common read programs involve one or more of the following elements in an effort to promote a shared experience among students: • Study questions assigned to students when they receive their common read title • Small group discussions during summer orientation sessions • An essay assignment based on the common read title • Continued discussions/assignments in FYE seminars or Learning Communities Risk and Strengths Assessment The last 50 years have seen numerous changes in first-year students. In 1971 over 90% of all firstyear students in the USA were white; today only 56% identify as white (Eagan et al. 2016). Nontraditional students are now the majority with over 75% commuting to school, juggling families, jobs, and education (Compete College America 2011). A growing number are attending community colleges at some point during their college career. Add to this mix increasing pressures from state legislators to control the costs of tuition, rising expenses in higher education, and increased competition for students, and you can see why there is increased attention focused on promoting student persistence and graduation, and delivering the right services and programs to the right students at the right time. There are a number of factors that predict student success and timely graduation. These factors include past academic preparation, admissions test scores, finances, institutional fit, motivation, resiliency, and the availability and use of academic success skills and attitudes to name just a few. Historically, institutions used past academic preparation (high school GPA) and admissions test score (ACT/SAT) to mitigate risk during the admissions process and then further mitigate risk through strategic financial aid policies and procedures. Financial pressures are forcing some 4-year institutions to admit less academically prepared students and most community college
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missions require they admit any student regardless of academic ability. The important role that noncognitive, motivational, and psycho-social factors play in predicting and mitigating student risk and attrition is on the rise. A body of research now supports the potential use of these factors by institutions to identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of incoming students and to use data to inform strategic programming and outreach efforts (Robbins et al. 2004). Noncognitive factors include constructs such as motivation, resiliency, academic self-efficacy, academic engagement, campus engagement, hope, institutional valence, and college commitment. Incoming college freshmen are increasingly being assessed for their strengths and weaknesses on these factors using commercially available instruments. Further, an increasing number of FYE textbooks are co-packaging noncognitive assessments with their titles or integrating noncognitive norm-referenced assessments into the development of new titles. Institutional support services are easily aligned with these noncognitive constructs and help students remediate weaknesses or leverage strengths – especially during the critical first year. When embedded in a system-wide program of student success that includes FIGs, FYE Seminars, and support services, assessment results can help institutions customize outreach and programing efforts to meet the specific needs of individual students or a designed cohort of students. The challenge that most institutions face is the coordination of existing efforts, and the distribution of data related to student risks and strengths to the right support units at the right time. Taking Stock of Institutional Efforts to Promote Success in the First Year The proliferation of student success programs and services since the 1970s seems, upon casual observation, to be a good thing. However, most institutions have expanded their student success initiatives without an eye towards coordination resulting in student success silos that are often unware of other efforts on campus, lack technology and processes for communication and riskdata dissemination, and do not share common
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outcome metrics. This lack of coordination results in fiscal inefficiencies and does not optimize services provided to students. Recognition of the need to coordinate student success services in the first-year and beyond is growing as are the number of consultancy options to assist institutions. Beyond the First-Year Experience The fact that most institutions have historically focused on the First-Year Experience is not surprising given the fact that the largest attrition occurs during the first three semesters of college. Grounded in the successes experienced in FirstYear Experience programs, initiatives extending structured programming into the sophomore year and beyond are growing in popularity. For example, between 2000 and 2007 the number of institutions reporting sophomore year programs tripled (Tobolowsky and Cox 2007). SophomoreYear Experiences have multiple goals including: • • • • •
Improving retention Improving student satisfaction Improving student engagement Helping students select a major Preparing students for career
Promoting further engagement and helping students engage in deeper and more focused exploration of their college major and career is developmentally appropriate for students in their second year. Guiding students through what is often referred to as the sophomore slump (a period of developmental confusion; Hunter et al. 2010) is another reason why these programs are proliferating. According to Hunter, students in their second year often grapple with academic deficiencies, disengagement, dissatisfaction with their college experience, and college major or career confusion. Like first year seminars and programs, sophomore-year experience programs vary widely. Universities, for example, may host a series of events specifically for 2nd year students such as a sophomore spirt week; college-specific programming targeting second year students; a “half-way there” celebration with food, music,
games, and information about staying on track for graduation; a student organization fair to promote campus engagement; and a sophomorespecific community service event. Finally, and perhaps not surprisingly, many institutions recognize the unique challenges faced by senior students as they prepare for another important transition – from undergraduate to graduate school, or into a career. Like the FirstYear and Sophomore-Year Experiences, the Senior-Year Experience takes a developmentally appropriate focus on preparing students for this transition (Gardner et al. 1997). Programs might include a college-major capstone course, special programming to help with continued education or career transition issues, and a strong focus on engaging the university career services office.
References Bigger, J. 2005. Improving the odds for freshman success. http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Resources/Clearinghouse/ View-Articles/Advising-first-year-students.aspx. Retrieved 28 May 2017. Brubacher, J.S., and W. Rudy. 1997. Higher education in transition: A history of American colleges and universities. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Complete College America. 2011. Time is the enemy summary. Available at http://www.completecollege.org/ docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy_Summary.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2017. Dwyer, J.O. 1989. A historical look at the freshman year experience. In The freshman year experience: Helping students survive and succeed in college, ed. M.L. Upcraft, J.N. Gardner, et al., 25–39. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Eagan, M.K., E.B. Stolzenberg, J.J. Ramirez, M.C. Aragon, M.R. Suchard, and C. Rios-Aguilar. 2016. The American freshman: Fifty-year trends, 1966–2015. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA. Gardner, J.N., G. Van der Veer, et al. 1997. The senior year experience: Facilitating integration, reflection, closure, and transition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Hunter, M.S., B.F. Tobolowsky, J.N. Gardner, S.E. Evenbeck, J.A. Pattengale, M.A. Schaller, and L.A. Schreinder, eds. 2010. Helping sophomores succeed: Understanding and improving the secondyear experience. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Koch, A.K., and J.N. Gardner. 2014. A history of the firstyear experience in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Past practices, current
First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis approaches, and future directions. The Saudi Journal of Higher Education 11: 11–44. Laufgraben, J.L. 2006. Common reading programs: Going beyond the book (Monograph 44). Columbia: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. Ray, J., and S. Kafka. 2014. Life in college matters for life after college. Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/ poll/168848/life-college-matters-life-college.aspx. Robbins, S.B., K. Lauver, H. Le, D. Davis, L. Langley, and A. Carlstrom. 2004. Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 130: 261–288. Tinto, V. 1975. Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research 45: 89–125. Tobolowsky, B.F., and B.E. Cox. 2007. Shedding light on sophomores: An exploration of the second college year (Monograph No. 47). Columbia: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition. Upcraft, M.L., J.N. Gardner, and B.O. Barefoot. 2005. Challenging and supporting the first- year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college, 371–390. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis Pierre Doray1 and Amélie Groleau2 1 Interuniversity Centre for Research on Science and Technology, Department of Sociology, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada 2 Centre on Population Dynamics, Department of Sociology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada
Synonyms Family academic capital; Family cultural capital
Definition Students whose parents do not have higher education or who did not obtain a higher education diploma.
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Context Over at least the last five decades, with the movement in developed countries to open up higher education to the masses, postsecondary education establishments, especially universities, are welcoming an increasingly diverse student population, in both social origin and previous academic experience. A reconfiguration of the student population is occurring with the increase in female students, adult student, and young people from ethnocultural minorities and economically disadvantaged social environments. Although social inequalities still curb access to higher education, nonetheless, the movement for academic democratization has allowed families and youth disadvantaged in terms of social and cultural resources to have higher academic aspirations, favoring the pursuit of studies beyond the level of compulsory education for a greater proportion of this segment of the population. The concept “first-generation student” is part of this particular socio-educational context. It designates all students who are the first in their family to attain higher education or obtain a higher education diploma. The underlying hypothesis is that these students in intergenerational academic mobility are disadvantaged in the pursuit of higher education. Thus, the category FGS allows us to readily identify these students to heighten their educational opportunities but also to comprehend how this status is detrimental to their academic experience.
The Emergence and Development of the FGS Concept Originally an administrative category, the FGS category was developed in the United States at the end of the 1970s by the National Coordinating Council of Educational Opportunity Associations (NCCEOA), a coalition of nonprofit associations promoting programs to improve educational access and success (TRIO federal programs). These programs are designed for students with social and academic characteristics likely to be detrimental to the pursuit of higher education.
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This new indicator was created to facilitate identification of “at-risk” students using criteria other than economic ones. First adopted by the NCCEOA in the American Midwest, then by this same organization at the national level, the category “FGS” was subsequently brought forward on the federal political scene as a criterion to reach the targeted public of TRIO programs throughout the country. This proposal was adopted and ratified by the American Congress in 1980 within the framework of Education Amendments, assuring from then on the widespread usage of this category of students within all administrative offices of higher educational establishments in the United States. Parallel to this administrative usage, the concept of FGS was also adopted by researchers. Over decades, a research tradition, long centered on the American situation, was gradually crafted to better understand what characterizes the academic experience of these “new arrivals” in the world of university and in higher education in general. The shift from “administrative category” to “concept” occurred in the context of institutional research. An initial study (unpublished) was done in 1979 by Fuji F. Adachi of the University of Wyoming. Examining FGS status and socioeconomic status as indicators of academic inequality, the analysis revealed a partial correlation between these two indicators and underscored the interest in their joint utilization in order to determine the admissibility of students to federal TRIO programs (Billson and Brooks-Terry 1982). Nonetheless, it was not until 1982 that a first research project examining the effect of the status of firstgeneration student on student retention was published in a journal of institutional research. This article by Billson and Brooks-Terry stressed the disadvantages FGS face compared to secondgeneration students (SGS or non-first-generation students), reinforcing the administrative relevance of this indicator of academic inequality (Auclair et al. 2008). During the 1980s, institutional researchers’ interest in FGS was confirmed (Groleau et al. 2009). Articles, institutional reports, and theses which were produced bore mainly on the
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experiences of FGS in specific institutions of higher learning and tended to confirm the differences existing between this category and other students in terms of student retention, adaptation to higher education, and certain psychosocial characteristics. During the1990s and 2000s, FGS became a definite analytical category in the field of research on higher education in the United States. The number of articles published in academic journals increased, as did institutional and governmental attention to this issue. National surveys and more sophisticated statistical techniques allowed for greater precision in determining the net effect of parents’ educational level on their children’s education, which contributed to more accurate results. The analytical angles available increased substantially, underscoring the variability of academic experiences of FGS (Auclair et al. 2008). Due to its institutional and intellectual origins, research on FGS covers a number of methodologies. Studies are conducted on various scales, ranging from university or college researchers targeting students in particular educational programs to work drawing upon local or national surveys. Moreover, different types of statistical tests can be found in the body of research on FGS, from correlation testing to more complex analytical models (regression, structural equations, or risk analysis). That being said, the literature also includes a number of works of a qualitative nature which seek to understand from a subjective perspective, the nature of academic experience for FGS (Auclair et al. 2008).
Definitions (Modulation of Definitions) Increased usage of the concept also comes along with a differentiation of definitions. An initial one, proposed by Adachi (1979), characterizes students whose parents did not obtain an undergraduate degree although some had academic experience in college (with or without obtaining a degree) or at university (without obtaining a degree). This definition is used by administrators of programs to improve access and student success. A second narrower definition only includes
First-Generation Student, A Sociohistorical Analysis
students whose parents did not attend postsecondary institutions. Some researchers justify this choice by stressing that the knowledge of postsecondary education acquired by the parents (Pascarella et al. 2004; Lohfink and Paulsen 2005) would facilitate their children’s participation. This first distinction is then magnified by a second one, seeking to identify the category of “secondgeneration” students (SGS) by differentiating parents’ academic experience according to the type of establishment (community college or university) or according to whether or not they obtained a diploma (Auclair et al. 2008). The way in which the FGS variable is constructed influences the results obtained. Thus, studies show that FGS seem particularly disadvantaged compared to students with one or both parents with undergraduate degrees (Barahona 1990; Warburton et al. 2001; Pascarella et al. 2004). However, their academic experience differs less dramatically from that of students with one or both parents with community college diplomas or who attended university without obtaining a degree (Warburton et al. 2001; Pascarella et al. 2004).
The Relevant Thematic The work on FGS bears on two principal themes: access to studies and academic experience, itself associated with retention. According to an initial hypothesis, coming from a less educated family is detrimental to the chances of FGS gaining access to higher education. From this perspective, some research has attempted to understand whether this social characteristic had its own effect on the pursuit of postsecondary studies or whether FGS accumulated a number of factors limiting their participation in higher education. While less numerous, studies done in the United States and more recently in Canada stress that access of FGS to higher education is, indeed, less than for students of the second generation. The FGS status would contribute directly to this state of affairs (Auclair et al. 2008; Barahona 1990; Horn and Nuñez 2000; Kamanzi et al. 2010). Being an FGS
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would also affect academic aspirations (Barahona 1990) and reduce the probability of pursuing a high school curriculum in mathematics which would favor attending university (Horn and Nunez 2000). Nevertheless, the parents’ academic level is not the sole predictor of participation in postsecondary education. In Canada, at least, academic preparation (previous academic results and time devoted to school work) proves to be even more determinant a factor than family origin in overcoming obstacles to university entrance (Kamanzi et al. 2010). Furthermore, certain factors may moderate the effect of FGS status, notably options pursued in high school, parents’ commitment to activities preparatory to the transition to college and university, and the assistance provided by academic actors (Horn and Nunez 2000). Finally, the effect of FGS status on the type of establishment chosen (community college or university) remains ambiguous, with contradictory research results on this question. A second hypothesis could be formulated as follows: because of their family origin, FGS experience their passage to postsecondary education differently. A number of studies have examined the academic experience of FGS, whether their adaptation to higher education, their retention and academic success, or the outcome of such an experience on these students’ intellectual or cognitive development (Auclair et al. 2008; Groleau et al. 2012). Some qualitative studies offered a description of the demanding nature of entrance to college or university for some FGS who experience this process as a form of acculturation and upheaval (e.g., London 1989). The work of Pascarella et al. (2004) on FGS attending community colleges indicates that the differences with SGS diminish over time, FGS succeeding in developing a form of resilience that compensates for their initial lack of cultural and social resources and helps them fully benefit from their studies. The research considering the retention of FGS is inconsistent. In the United States, certain researchers, such as Warburton et al. (2001), show that the proportion of FGS who persevere in their studies is less than that of other students. In contrast, Chen and Carroll (2005) do not
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observe any significant difference between the rates of perseverance of FGS and other students, either in postsecondary studies in general or in universities specifically (Chen and Carroll 2005). These differences could be explained by adding new variables, absent to this point from analytical models, as well as by the time scale chosen to measure academic retention (Chen and Carroll 2005). Furthermore, these analyses reveal that other factors, such as a generally low grade point average in the first year of higher education, completing few courses, dropping out of a number of courses, working fulltime, registering part time, and being married, have significant effects similar to or greater than FGS status on persistence with their studies. In Canada, research shows that FGS who attend university differ little from SGS and have an equal chance of continuing their studies until they obtain a bachelor’s degree (Kamanzi et al. 2010). In short, it is not clear that FGS status is the most important explanatory factor to account for dropping out or continuing in school. This presentation, while not exhaustive, highlights results of the influence of FGS status on the higher education career: (1) the effect of this status on access and academic experience in higher education and (2) the fact that this social characteristic constitutes one factor among others (previous and current schooling and other sociodemographic characteristics) which could affect the academic path in higher education.
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relationship to university and academic culture. The second type of explanations establishes a link between the status of FGS and other social and demographic characteristics which are often associated with it. These interpretative avenues stress how the social and academic environment of FGS (families’ cultural baggage, type of school attended, and peer groups) could limit these students’ educational opportunities. Thus, in leaving the administrative sphere of action programs within institutions of higher education, the concept of FGS becomes an indicator characterizing students’ social origin. It is tightly linked to the concept of cultural capital, central to theories of social reproduction. Incidentally, certain studies on FGS focus specifically on the difference of cultural capital with SGS (Dumais and Ward 2010). Nonetheless, the concept of FGS generally designates the institutionalized dimension of this capital, since it particularly examines the effect of parents’ academic capital on their children’s education. This effect is felt, not because the parents have a greater or lesser number of years of education (volume of capital) but because they have experience with postsecondary education which may be transmitted to their children by encouraging them to pursue their studies, by their familiarity with the functioning of academic establishments, and by their support and encouragement throughout their children’s studies. Thus, the qualitative composition of capital would take account of its influence, although this is rarely made explicit in the research on FGS.
Explanations and Theoretical Convergence International Dissemination While lacking in theoretical justification, the literature on first-generation students suggests some explanations for the influence of parents’ educational level on their children’s access to and experience of higher education (Groleau et al. 2012). The first type of explanations considers the negative repercussions that parents’ lack of academic experience could entail on: their support and academic monitoring, their perception of the utility/ importance of studies, their knowledge of the academic system and the best strategies to facilitate the path to higher education, and their
At the turn of the century, we witnessed a dissemination of this concept beyond the United States. In Canada, for example, Grayson (1997) conducted an investigation of FGS at York University in Toronto. A few years later, Lehmann (2007) returned to this concept to understand the link between FGS status, social class, and dropping out of school. At the same time, Québec researchers (Auclair et al. 2008; Groleau et al. 2010; Kamanzi et al. 2010) were using this analytical category in the context of work with a
Flagship Universities
national longitudinal survey (Youth in Transition Survey, YITS). While the academic production on FGS remains primarily American, the concept and its derivatives (e.g., the more restrictive category “first in the family” student, designating students who are the first among their parents and siblings to attain higher education) are today used by researchers and administrators in various countries (notably Canada, Australia, and England). Finally, the FGS concept was recently used by OECD as an indicator of intergenerational academic mobility (OECD, 2015).
References Adachi, F.F. 1979. Analysis of the first generation college student population (a new concept in higher education), prepared for the University of Wyoming Division of Student Educational Opportunity, Laramie (unpublished). Auclair, R., Bélanger P., Doray P., Gallien M., Groleau A., Mason L. and P. Mercier (2008) First-Generation Students: A Promising Concept? Montréal, Transitions Research Paper 2, Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation and Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (UQAM). http://www. cirst.uqam.ca/files/sites/83/2016/11/TransitionsNote2en-Final.pdf Barahona, D.D. 1990. The first-generation college student: A longitudinal study of educational outcomes. Doctorate in education, University of California (Los Angeles). Billson, J.M., and M. Brooks-Terry. 1982. In search of the silken purse: Factors in attrition among first-generation students. College and University 58 (1): 57–75. Chen, X., and D.C. Carroll. 2005. First generation students in postsecondary education: A look at their college transcripts. National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Dumais, S.A., and A. Ward. 2010. Cultural capital and firstgeneration college success. Poetics 38 (3): 245–265. Grayson, J.P. 1997. Academic achievement of firstgeneration students in a Canadian university. Research in Higher Education 38 (6): 659–676. Groleau, A., Mason, L. and P. Doray. 2009. Les étudiants de première génération : Le potentiel d’un indicateur, les limites d’un concept. Paper published in Actes du colloque international du RESUP : Les inégalités dans l’ enseignement supérieur et la recherche, University of Lausanne June 18th to 20th 2009, Volume 1: Inequality in access and success. Groleau, A., Doray, P., Kamanzi, P. C., Mason, L. and J. Murdoch. 2010. Les possibilités et les limites d’une importation conceptuelle. Les étudiants de première
513 génération au Canada. Éducation et Société, 2 (26): 107–122. Groleau, A., Mason, L., and P. Doray. 2012. Les étudiants de première génération: Les limites d’un concept, le potentiel d’un indicateur. In M. Benninghoff, F. Fassa, G. Goastellec, and J.-P. Leresche (Eds.), Inégalités sociales et enseignement supérieur, 85–95. Brussels: De Boeck. Horn, L., and A.-M. Nuñez. 2000. Mapping the road to college: First-generation students’ math track, planning strategies, and context of support. National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Kamanzi, P. C., Doray, P., Bonin, S., Groleau, A., and J. Murdoch. 2010. Les étudiants de première génération dans les universités : l’accès et la persévérance aux études au Canada. Revue canadienne d’enseignement supérieur, 40 (3): 1–24. Lehmann, W. 2007. “I just didn’t feel like I fit in:” The role of habitus in university dropout decisions. Canadian Journal of Higher Education. 37 (2): 89–110. Lohfink, M.M., and M.B. Paulsen. 2005. Comparing the determinants of persistence for first-generation and continuing-generation students. Journal of College Student Development 46 (4): 409–428. London, H.B. 1989. Breaking away: A study of firstgeneration college students and their families. American Journal of Education 97 (1): 144–170. OECD. 2015. Indicator A4: To what extent does parents’ education influence their children’s educational attainment? In Education at a glance 2015: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Pascarella, E.T., G.C. Wolniak, C.T. Pierson, and P.T. Terenzini. 2004. First-generation college students: Additional evidence on college experiences and outcomes. Journal of Higher Education 75 (3): 249–284. Warburton, E.C., R. Bugarin, and A.-M. Nunez. 2001. Bridging the gap: Academic preparation and postsecondary success of first-generation students. National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
First-Year Seminar ▶ First Year Experience Programs, Promoting Successful Student Transition
Flagship Universities ▶ World-Class Universities
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Flagship Universities in Africa Damtew Teferra Higher Education Training and Development, School of Education, University of KwazuluNatal, Durban, South Africa
Synonyms National universities; World class universities
Definition Flagship universities are the leading institutions in a given higher education system or country, and are typically regarded as reference points for emulation. Flagship universities are almost always public institutions, and are often among the largest institutions in their respective higher education system (Altbach 2006).
Introduction Contrary to a widely held view, higher education in Africa is not entirely a manifestation of colonial rule. To be sure, a number of “institutions of higher learning” existed on the continent prior to the colonial scramble for Africa that began in the mid-1900s. While some of these earlier institutions have survived into the twenty-first century, the colonial period marks a low point for African higher education generally, as colonial aggressors sought to dismantle or limit its provision (Ajayi et al. 1996, p. 28). The end of colonial rule ushered in a new phase – the era of national universities. In the wake of independence, country after country founded national universities by either creating completely new institutions or transforming existing ones in the image of foreign universities, especially those of the ex-colonial powers (Lulat 2003). These national universities are now recognized as flagship universities.
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This entry is directed at highlighting the achievements of these institutions, Africa’s flagship universities, which are often overshadowed by literature describing the chronic challenges that face African higher education.
The Concept of “Flagship” Altbach (2006, pp. 8–9) describes a flagship university as almost always public, often among the largest in the system or country, and a leading institution that is regarded as a reference point for emulation in a country or an academic system. While embodying the characteristics above, flagship universities in the African context are also described as among the first higher education institutions established pre- and postindependence in their respective countries. These “mother” institutions, typically found in capitals (Teferra 2015), tend to have the largest numbers of academic programs, senior academics, and enrollment levels in a given national context. They are also the largest producers of graduate students, research, and publications, and thus play an important role in national capacity building and innovation efforts. Flagship universities tend also to be the most internationalized in their countries in terms of institutional cooperation and linkages. Furthermore, flagship universities in Africa are the most important contributors of academics to subsequent “sibling” institutions, and act as trendsetters in terms of curriculum content, academic culture, and policy issues (Teferra 2017). However, the African higher education landscape is the world’s least developed (Teferra 2014), despite the progress made by flagship universities. “Massive” expansion, chronic funding constraints, weak infrastructure, poor quality teaching and research capability, lack of autonomy and academic freedom, weak research and innovation outputs, constant strikes, poor management and leadership, low salary and benefits, to mention some key contextual factors, are extensively and widely recorded as confronting the nascent higher education systems across Africa (Teferra 2015).
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Enrollment The enrollment trends of Africa’s flagship institutions – on the basis of growth data since the year 2000 – illustrate patterns that lend themselves to a loose taxonomy: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
Exponential expansion Major expansion Sizeable expansion Stabilization
In identifying these patterns of growth in the region, it is important to point out a number of factors that may upset the trend of this taxonomic rendering. First, the breaking up of flagship universities into independent, fully-fledged new institutions has been a common phenomenon in the African higher education landscape; second, the occasional campus strikes, which disrupt academic years often make it difficult to document enrollment numbers or other variables accurately; third, the way some researchers count the enrollment numbers – including and/or omitting graduate students and distance education enrollment – are diverse.
Graduate Output Flagship universities in Africa have made tremendous contributions to the training and development of high-level skills on the continent since their inception. A number of flagship universities – including Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Ghana, and Nairobi – each recorded an estimated 100,000 graduates since their founding. It should be noted that these figures tend to be rather conservative (Bisaso 2017). It is also notable that the University of Cairo, as an outlier, has registered more than half-a-million graduates in just the last 20 years. When this disproportionately high figure for Egypt (Mohsen 2017) is removed from consideration, the figure for the number of graduates from the ten flagship universities in Sub-Saharan Africa stands at just under one million. While it may be an onerous task to document graduates from every university in each country
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since its establishment, it is possible to make informed projections with regard to the entire African higher education landscape. The total number of graduates in Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at between 2.5 and 3.0 million.
Academics An accurate headcount of academic staff is somewhat complicated by differences in employment designations across institutions, such as “contract part-time,” “contract full-time,” and “fulltime permanent.” The “fulltime permanent” designation can also get somewhat blurry, as academic staff in some countries, including Ethiopia, are essentially on time-bound “revolving” contracts. The professoriate constitutes a very small minority of the academic staff in the flagship universities in Africa. Their proportions range from a high of 27% for Ibadan University to 3.3% for Addis Ababa University. At the University of Dar es Salaam, the percentage of full professors declined over the years in relation to the other academic ranks, from 8.6% in 2005/2006 to 4.7%. The institution had 47% of its academic staff with doctorates in the 2011/2012 academic year (Ishengoma 2017). With the expansion of the system and recruitment of often newly minted PhDs, the number of professors across national institutions may be spreading thin. Overall, in virtually all universities with flagship status, there is a pressing need to raise the number and quality of academics. It is no wonder that with such a small number of faculty – presumably highly productive members of the academic community – Africa’s contribution to the world knowledge bank is marginal.
Research Output The task of measuring productivity at an institutional level, let alone comparatively, is difficult. This is because there is a lack of clarity as to what counts as “meaningful” and “measurable” across different countries and institutions. Further, the productivity measures and weights for journal
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articles, books, book chapters, reports, and conference papers vary considerably. In Ethiopia’s flagship university, Addis Ababa, about 40 journals, some of which are published in collaboration with other professional associations, have been recorded. Between 2009 and 2012, 2,119 journal articles were published in international and national journals, of which roughly two-thirds were in international journals (Fetene 2013 in Ayalew 2017). At the University of Ghana, a total of 1,308 publications for the years 2011/2012 were published (Acquah and Budu 2017). At the University of Nairobi, research publications total 170, 209, and 186 for 2008/2009, 2009/2010, and 2010/2011, respectively (University of Nairobi, Annual Reports 2008–2011 in Sifuna 2017). According to Masaiti (2017), the University of Zambia recorded a total of 433 publications that include journals and books in 2013. Of the 30,804 “documents” recorded for Nigerian institutions, a search on Web of Science from 1993 to 2012 revealed that the University of Ibadan had the highest number of contributions standing at 19% – a figure twice as much as the second most productive university. Africa’s contribution to global knowledge production has long been pegged at less than 1%. However, according to a recent report sanctioned by the African Union, the contribution of African countries to the world’s scientific production (from 2005 to 2010) has grown to 1.8% of the global total. Though scientific production still remains small, it grew 22% faster than that observed at the world level over the period 2005–2010 (AOSTI 2014). As major hubs in knowledge production, the contribution of flagship universities is paramount.
Conclusion Challenges facing universities in Africa, including flagship institutions, abound. Notwithstanding, flagship universities remain the major intellectual powerhouses and professional citadels for the skills and expertise training required in their respective countries. Furthermore, they
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have been key hubs for guiding, empowering, and nurturing the younger and newer “sibling” institutions in their respective countries. Flagship universities have also been central fronts for internationalization of higher education in African higher education – be it in terms of attracting “overseas”/foreign students and academics; engaging in joint research, academic, and scholarship endeavors; securing grants and funds; or even appearing in the unfavorable and controversial global higher education rankings. Thus, the flagship universities are situated at the heart of the academic landscape of their respective countries – with high expectations, considerable challenges, and vast potentials – for national development, regional progress, and global competitiveness (Teferra 2016, p. 97).
References Acquah, E.H.K., and J. Budu. 2017. The University of Ghana: A “Premier” university in national development. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 143–195. London: Palgrave Macmillan. African Observatory of Science, Technology, and Innovation (AOSTI). 2014. African Science, Technology, and Innovation Outlook Bibliometric Series No. 1, 2013. Assessment of scientific production in African Union. Malabo: AOSTI. Ajayi, J.F., G.A. Lameck, and G.A. Johnson. 1996. The African experience with higher education. Athens: Ohio University Press. Altbach, P.G. 2006. The tyranny of citations. International Higher Education 43: 3–5. Ayalew, E. 2017. Once a flagship always a flagship?: Addis Ababa university in perspective. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 91–142. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bisaso, R. 2017. Makerere University as a flagship institution: Sustaining the quest for relevance. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 425–466. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Ishengoma, J. 2017. The role of African flagship universities: The case of the University of Dar es Salaam. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 373–423. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Lulat, Y.G.-M. 2003. The development of higher education in Africa: A historic survey. In African higher education: An international reference handbook, ed. D. Teferra and P.G. Altbach, 15–31. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Masaiti, G. 2017. University of Zambia: Contextualization and contribution to flagship status in Zambia. In
Formula Funding, Higher Education Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 467–505. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mohsen, E.S. 2017. Cairo University: The flagship university of Egypt. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 57–89. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sifuna, D. 2017. University of Nairobi: Review of the flagship role in higher education in Kenya. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 197–240. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Teferra, D. 2014. Charting African higher education: Perspectives at a glance. International Journal of African Higher Education 1 (1): 9–21. Teferra, D. 2015. Africa’s troika conundrums: Expansion, consolidation, and un(der)employment? International Higher Education 80: 18. Teferra, D. 2016. African flagship universities: their neglected contributions. Higher Education 72: 77–99. Teferra, D. 2017. African flagship universities in the era of “Massification”. In Flagship universities in Africa, ed. D. Teferra, 1–16. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Formula Funding, Higher Education Ben Jongbloed Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Synonyms Budgeting; allocation
Funding
decisions;
Resource
Definition
Flipped Classroom ▶ Peer Instruction in Higher Education
Flows ▶ Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views
Formula funding is the result of applying a mathematical formula to decide on the allocation of resources to higher education institutions. The formula normally includes criteria that relate to institutional size (e.g., number of enrolments) as well as unit costs (e.g., a normative allocation per student). In some cases, the formula includes measures of institutional performance (e.g., degree completions or research quality).
Overview
Foreign Aid ▶ International Higher Education Development Aid, Possibilities and Pitfalls
Foreign Campuses ▶ International Branch Campuses, Management of
Foreign Languages ▶ Language and Internationalization of the Higher Education Curriculum
When it comes to higher education, the strategies and approaches for costing, financing, and budgeting are always very much in the spotlight, because the higher education sector has grown immensely during recent decades – both in terms of student numbers and resources. The resourcing of a mass higher education sector by public authorities is a critical issue – not just in terms of the size of the budget involved, but also in terms of the methods that will have to be used for distributing the available funds across the various types of education providers. The mechanisms whereby public funds for carrying out teaching and research tasks are allocated from a budget authority to individual universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions (HEIs) can take several forms. Broadly speaking, there are three
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options (see ▶ Financial Management, Higher Education Institutions, ▶ Higher Education Institutions (HEI)), with most countries around the world using a mix of 1. Negotiated funding 2. Formula funding 3. Project-based funding We will restrict ourselves to formula funding (option 2) and the relation between funding authorities at the national (system) level (i.e., ministry, funding agency) and the individual HEIs. However, a formula can also be applied within an institution to determine funding flows from the central administration to the departments within the institution. Furthermore, in contrast to project-based funding (option 3), the funding flows determined by a formula concern the resources for ongoing activity (i.e., recurrent funding). From the 1960s onward, formula funding gradually took the place of negotiated funding (option 1). In negotiated funding, resource allocations are based on the previous year’s allocations, with negotiations primarily concerning the budget change from one year to the next (i.e., the increment). These negotiations often are about the individual items (i.e., line items) in the budget, and a budget proposal by the institution normally forms the starting point of negotiations.
Formula Funding, Higher Education
mathematical terms, usually a multiplication of a volume measure and a unit price. For instance, in an enrolment-driven formula, increased enrolments would result in increased funding. Given that some programs (e.g., dentistry, science) cost more to deliver than others (e.g., history, social science), differential per student allocations by discipline or by type of degree (e.g., bachelor’s vs. master’s degrees) are the norm. In other words, the formula will normally include “program weights.” Formulas are not only applied for funding the teaching function, they also may concern the research function of HEIs. For instance, research funds may be allocated in proportion to the volume of an institution’s education activity, its staff volume (e.g., the number of professors), or a measure of research performance (e.g., number of scientific publications). In most cases, the funding formula is combined with a budget ceiling, meaning that the sum of all allocations resulting from the formula cannot be greater than the budget made available by the funding agency. This implies that the formula primarily acts as a distribution device and is not intended to provide funds that should fully cover all the costs of the institution’s operations. As a distribution mechanism, its main function is to award funds across institutions in a fair way. Another way to limit the funds awarded to HEIs is to combine the formula with enrolment thresholds, setting intake limits per institution or program.
Definition Today, funding based on formulas is the dominant allocation mechanism in higher education. Formula funding is the result of applying straightforward rules and mathematical formulas to the task of deciding which institution should receive what sum of money for carrying out its teaching and – in some cases – its research tasks. It is a procedure used for estimating the appropriate distribution of the available government funds among the institutions on the basis of objective data, such as student enrolments, the degree programs that students are enrolled in, and program costs. All of this is expressed in
Rationale and Advantages of Formula Funding In many countries, formula funding was introduced primarily as a tool to streamline budgeting decisions in times of increasing numbers of HEIs and rapidly growing student numbers. Budget authorities could no longer afford timeconsuming negotiations with individual HEIs on their resource requirements and were in need of methods through which resources could be distributed in an equitable way to HEIs. The application of a formula reduces the need for detailed discussions and negotiations, because the formula
Formula Funding, Higher Education
depends on a limited set of well-defined criteria and indicators that are clear and acceptable to all concerned. The advantages of formula funding are transparency, equity, accountability, and predictability (McKeown-Moak 1999). Money is no longer allocated in a primarily discretionary manner, but according to guidelines that are quantifiable and clear. Equal institutions are treated equally. A formula enhances accountability, both on the part of the funding agency and the budgeted institution, because attention for the use and purpose of the funds is centered on the parameters in the funding formula: the volume of units and the cost per unit. And, finally, given the fact that HEIs can make their own projections of the elements in the formula (e.g., student registration patterns, student completions), the formula allows HEIs to engage in more realistic budget planning.
Incentives and Formula Funding Most funding formulas deal with the resourcing of the teaching function of HEIs – for covering direct instructional costs and some of the indirect (overhead) costs. In most cases, HEIs receive the grant following from the formula as a lump sum. The HEI itself determines the use of the grant; it may decide to spend it on items such as salaries for teaching staff or support staff, material expenses (computers, lab equipment), and the maintenance of lecture halls. The lump sum idea is based on the assumption that those that are closest to carrying out the primary activities will know best about cost-effective ways to use the resources. In order to encourage the HEIs receiving the funds to provide “value for money,” budget authorities often incorporate particular incentives in the funding formula. An example is that the funding parameters reflect only the number of students that show sufficient study progress (in terms of meeting academic requirements, passing exams, accumulating credits, etc.). This will encourage HEIs to make students finish their program on time.
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Funding formulas are always an outcome of political decision-making. They are designed in such a way that the HEIs (and their students) work toward realizing the (often quantitative) objectives that budget authorities have set – in terms of encouraging access, efficiency, and quality. If formula funding is meant to stress student completions, the formula may include a premium for every degree awarded. It may also include a bonus for particular degrees (e.g., extra rewards for science degrees over social science degrees). These are examples of performance-based funding, where the relative size of a performance-premium may be set with an eye upon the size of the problem that needs tackling and an assessment of the likely impact the premium is going to have on the behavior of the HEIs (see ▶ Performance-based Funding, Higher Education in Europe; ▶ Performance-Based Funding, Higher Education in the USA). In the past 10–15 years, quite a few countries have started to introduce performance elements into their funding formulas (Jongbloed and Vossensteyn 2016). This has led to concerns about unintended effects resulting from performancebased funding (Hillman et al. 2015). For the funding of teaching, countries like Denmark employ the number of credits accumulated by students as the funding basis. In countries that apply a funding formula for the allocation of research funds to universities, performance measures include the number of publications, the number of PhD degrees conferred, the outcomes of an assessment of the research quality of a university’s departments, or the number of competitive research grants won by a university.
Challenges of Formula Funding Apart from output or input measures, the formula includes a unit price that is set with an eye upon the costs of delivering a particular unit in terms of education or research. As costs will vary across disciplinary domains, the formula normally will include a limited number of funding rates – each for different cost bands: classroom-based subjects (e.g., economics or law), laboratory-based
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subjects (e.g., engineering), programs allied to medicine, and programs in performing arts (music, dance). However, programs in the same disciplinary field but offered by different institutions may face different costs. Actual cost depends on many factors, some of them related to the input side of instruction (e.g., staffing cost), some on the process (i.e., instruction methods, technology-assisted learning, etc.), and others related to the output side (learning outcomes, class of degree, etc.). In addition, small institutions might lack the “economies of scale” which the larger ones do have. Yet other factors are the age of an institution’s buildings or its geographical location. All of these factors might be reflected in the funding formula, but incorporating them will increase complexity. Funding rates often ignore quality differentials between programs. A higher than average quality may result in institutions objecting to the funding rates, calling for rates that better reflect true program cost, or requesting to augment the formula with additional components. However, no formula can ever truly reflect the complexity and diversity of the activities and outcomes of HEIs, let alone the differences in institutional missions or in the capacities of HEIs to perform their missions (McKeown-Moak 1999). Some providers may be catering for academically less wellprepared students compared to others and, as a result, will be facing relatively higher per student cost. Therefore, some formulas may need “finetuning,” reflecting objectively the needs and conditions of different HEIs. While this negatively affects the transparency of the funding formula, it does increase its acceptance. Another challenge is availability of information. Data concerning student enrolments, duration of enrolment, research activities, and output indicators in education and research is needed for feeding into the formula. Problems may arise if such data is not reliable or not delivered in time. Therefore, as in all funding mechanisms, formula funding requires adequate information systems with external checks (e.g., by accountants) on data quality.
Formula Funding, Higher Education
Developments in Formula Funding In earlier days, most institutions received their budget on the basis of the previous years’ budget, with the funding authorities (usually, a ministry of education or funding agency) adding or deducting incremental amounts. When this incremental approach came to be regarded as nontrans parent and providing too few incentives for efficiency and innovation, formula funding started appearing and became the widespread foundation for budgeting decisions. In the United States, funding formulas have been in use for more than 50 years (Lasher and Greene 1993). In Europe, its introduction is of a more recent date (Eurydice 2000; Jongbloed and Vossensteyn 2001). Over time, the funding formulas have developed from their original purposes of providing transparency and rationality for resourcing decisions into more sophisticated methodologies for achieving multiple system objectives. Whereas in the past, the funding formula would simply be a multiplication of some volume measure, a unit cost, and a program weight, nowadays the formula provides a framework by which institutions can be made more responsive to central policy direction. To achieve this, the formulas started to include more refined measures (e.g., performance measures – see above) and “add-ons” – also to reflect the increased heterogeneity in institutional missions and their changing client bases. Formula funding today still represents the largest share of the institution’s budget in most countries, acting as a kind of economic base for supporting the institution’s core activities. However, next to the formula, we increasingly see funding authorities making use of additional funding streams and instruments in order to encourage institutions undertaking additional activities in line with statewide goals. All in all, designing adequate funding formulas poses a big challenge. Funding formulas will need regular revision to align them with other aspects in the governance of higher education and to reflect the economic and political realities in higher education systems.
For-Profit Higher Education
References Eurydice. 2000. Two decades of reform in higher education in Europe: 1980 onwards. European Commission (DG Education and Culture). Available from http:// www.eurydice.org/. Lasher, William, and Deborah Greene. 1993. College and university budgeting: What do we know? What do we need to know? In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, Vol. IX, ed. John Smart, 428–469, New York: Agathon Press. Hillman, Nicholas, David Tandberg, and Alisa Fryar. 2015. Evaluating the impacts of “new” performance funding in higher education. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 37: 501–519. Jongbloed, Ben, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2001. Keeping up performances: An international survey of performancebased funding in higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 23: 127–145. Jongbloed, Ben, and Hans Vossensteyn. 2016. University funding and student funding: International comparisons. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 32: 576–595. McKeown-Moak, Mary. 1999. Higher education funding formulas. New Directions for Higher Education No. 107, fall: 99–107, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
For-Profit Higher Education Kevin Kinser1 and Dante J. Salto2 1 Education Policy Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA 2 Instituto de Humanidades (IDH) – Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas / Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Cordoba, Argentina
Synonyms
521
nonprofit higher education where ownership is invested in a charitable foundation, board, or religious entity. Excess revenue generated by forprofit institutions can be distributed to owners and shareholders, or invested in activities outside of the education sphere.
Introduction For-profit higher education is a relatively new form of private higher education worldwide. Its introduction to higher education systems has generated controversies, in many cases resembling the debates over nonprofit higher education caused when the private sector was introduced in countries where public higher education dominated the scene. Although many countries have moved toward legally allowing for-profits, they are still a minority, and there is a lack of information on function, size, and scope of the enterprise worldwide (Kinser and Levy 2006). For-profit higher education has developed in different ways, depending on national context. In most developing countries, the sector was not regulated until it was a visible part of the higher education systems (Levy 2006). In fact, many governments (directly and indirectly) have used for-profit higher education to meet access targets in systems that neither the public nor the private nonprofit could suffice. This article aims at defining for-profit higher education, introducing relevant national cases, and exploring prospects of the sector. National case selection is based on geographical scope (one case per continent) and data availability.
Proprietary higher education
Definition of For-Profit HE Definition For-profit higher education includes private institutions that are controlled by individuals, companies, venture capitalists or publicly-traded corporations. This is in contrast to private
For-profit higher education definition is blurry and dependent on local context. Regulation plays a critical role in it. In many countries, lack of legal framework spurs de facto for-profit institutions. In other cases, for-profits are explicitly forbidden but both private nonprofit and public
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institutions engage in similar types of revenuegenerating activities. Adding to this complexity, sometimes prohibition or authorization of the forprofit form is clearly set out in educational or higher education legislation, and in other cases, the only rules are provided by finance/taxation regulation (Kinser and Levy 2006). Although the definition is subject to local policies, for-profits and nonprofits differ in one key respect. A nonprofit institution typically must reinvest all profits (often referred to as excess revenue) in the nonprofit entity to further the aims of the organization. For profit institutions, on the other hand, can do whatever they want with their profits, including distributing profits to owners and shareholders, or investing in activities outside of the education sphere. Thus, this distinction between nonprofit and for-profit should properly rest on what the institutions can do with the money, rather than whether or not they make money (Kinser and Levy 2006). The relationship between taxes and profits is another area of contention. Usually, nonprofits benefit more from holding tax-exempt status. However, taxation does not provide a clear-cut distinction between for-profit and nonprofit. In most cases, nonprofits pay some taxes, though much of their revenue is typically tax free. For instance, in the United States, many nonprofit institutions compensate the local government for public services provided. This is not a tax; rather it is a fee or contribution negotiated between the higher education institution and the government. In other cases, such as in Brazil, governments incentivize for-profits through tax exemptions to meet some policy targets. And even when they hold different tax statuses, for-profit and nonprofit institution can have similar tax obligations. Traditional distinctions between for-profit and nonprofit higher education can be challenged by an ownership model where a for-profit entity controls the operation of a nonprofit institution. Multinational for-profit companies can take ownership of nonprofit institutions and continue to operate them as nonprofits under the regulations of the country they are in. Another model is contracting with a for-profit management company to operate a nonprofit institution. From a
For-Profit Higher Education
legal perspective, the institution remains nonprofit even as the control is held by a for-profit company. This article centers on legally defined forprofits based on local context, not dealing with profit elements of public and private nonprofit higher education institutions.
Profiling For-Profits Even though large institutions, usually owned by publicly-traded companies such as the US-based University of Phoenix or the Brazilian-based Universidade Estácio de Sá, attract the attention of media and society, there is no “typical” forprofit profile, at least regarding ownership and size. For-profits span from small, local, and family-owned institutions focused on a few areas of specialization to large, national, and corporation-owned institutions that cover a large variety of specializations (Kinser 2006a, b). Despite ownership and size differences, forprofits tend to offer more vocational and technical programs than their public and private nonprofit counterparts. These types of programs are usually shorter than traditional ones and are highly linked to specialized training in professional vocations. However, there is no uniformity regarding types of programs either. In countries where public and private nonprofit higher education is consolidated and has absorbed most of the demand, for-profits tend to develop specific market niches in vocational programs. In countries where the for-profit sector enrolls the bulk of the demand, they tend to offer similar programs to their public, usually more selective counterparts, but with less selectivity. Due to their mostly demand absorbing role, for-profits tend to concentrate on teaching rather than research. Thus, faculty tends to be part-timers and hired in temporary positions. Professors’ positions tend to be weak, not only due to the lack of tenure-track positions, but also due to their limited role in teaching. They deliver the curriculum rather than create it (Kinser and Levy 2006; Kinser 2015b). Another key feature of for-profits, which distinguish them from their public and private
For-Profit Higher Education
nonprofit counterparts, relates to their management and governance structure. Owners and investors tend to have a commanding presence and determine the direction in a more hierarchical way than usual university presidents. In line with this hierarchical structure, professors and students have little say in matters of governance (Kinser and Levy 2006). Students attending for-profits are usually within the nontraditional types (older than average, with full-time jobs, among other features). For-profit institutions tend to offer more flexible programs than their public and private nonprofit counterparts. They usually offer programs late at night, at distance, giving students more chances to attend after work than other institutions.
Origins and Most Recent Developments For-Profits Around the World Data on for-profits around the world are sparse, often unreliable, and inconsistent. The following sections draw on known information from various countries to identify the size and scope of the forprofit sector (in terms of enrollment and number of institutions), and a brief summary of public policy toward for-profits institutions.
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In most respects, the for-profit sector is held to the same regulatory and quality assurance standards as nonprofit and public institutions. Like all institutions, in order to gain access to federal student aid funding, for-profit institutions must be accredited by a private, nongovernmental agency recognized by the federal government. But the Higher Education Act, the governing federal legislation, authorizes for-profit higher education under a separate definition of higher education that requires these institutions to prepare students for “gainful employment in a recognized occupation” after graduation. Current policy has focused on how to hold for-profit institutions accountable for this gainful employment standard. Another regulation limits percentage of revenue that for-profit institutions may earn from federal financial aid programs authorized under the Higher Education Act. For the last decade, the for-profit sector has been under scrutiny from Federal, state, and accreditation agencies for improper student recruiting and false statement of outcomes. In part because of this scrutiny, enrollment in for-profit higher education has declined substantially since 2010, and a number of large for-profit companies have declared bankruptcy and closed. United Kingdom
United States: A For-Profit Pioneer
For-profit higher education in the United States has a long history (Kinser 2006a). Beginning in the nineteenth century, for-profit colleges began offering courses to prepare students for entrylevel employment in business and industry. Many of these business colleges continued operation into the twentieth century, and some still exist today. The current for-profit sector in the United States, however, includes large publicly traded corporations and institutions funded by venture capital firms, many of which have developed extensive online programs. Other, small institutions owned by local proprietors, are focused on career education in entry level occupations. Combined, these populate a sector that represents nearly half of all institutions of higher education and, at its peak, about 13% of total postsecondary education enrollment.
Starting in 2011, the UK opened its market to forprofit higher education providers (Levy 2012). Recently, for-profit institutions were allowed to achieve full-university status, with the first forprofit awarded this status in 2012 (Paton 2012). At that time, five other for-profit higher education institutions had degree-awarding powers but had not reached full-university status. Although the UK allows for-profits to award degrees, regulation is stricter for private institutions than for public ones. The former receives that power for 6 years in contrast to the public sector which has that privilege in perpetuity (OBHE 2010). As it happens in other countries, the for-profit sector has certain limitations in access to public funds. Unlike the public sector, for-profits cannot access public funds to develop infrastructure and domestic student support. However, for-profits have more access to private financial funding,
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making it more responsive than the public sector to market demands. Both sectors largely compete in the provision of professional and vocational education (OBHE 2010). France
European higher education systems vary in size and shape, although in general, their public sectors are dominant (Levy 2012). The French higher education system epitomizes Clark’s Continental model (Clark 1983), a state-centered, highly regulated higher education system. While the public sector prevails, the private sector is large, and it includes a growing for-profit sector (Casta and Levy 2016). As it happens in many other countries, France does not publish disaggregated data on for-profits. Private institutions enroll about 19% of the higher education students, and rough estimates indicate that a quarter to half of those students in the private sector attend for-profit institutions (Casta and Levy 2016). At least four multinational, for-profit corporations including Laureate dominate the scene. France imposes restrictions on awarding degrees to private higher education institutions; only public universities can be universities and award degrees (Casta and Levy 2016).
For-Profit Higher Education
and for-profits that provide aid to needy students (Salto 2017). South Africa
Most countries in Africa do not legally allow forprofits in higher education, although in many of them nonprofits tend to behave as for-profits (Levy 2007). South Africa is an exception to this pattern. Regulation explicitly allows for-profit higher education, and it constitutes a sizable part of the relatively small private sector. The reality of an existing private and, even, a for-profit sector contrasts to the situation before 1980, when only a few private institutions existed in South Africa (Levy 2003, 2007; Mabizela 2007). Africa resembles the case of most Latin American countries, where private higher education came into existence long after a dominant, reputable public sector was consolidated (Levy 1986). As it happens in many other countries, data on for-profits (or even privates) is restricted, and in many cases, unreliable. In addition to the lack of governmental, official figures, a series of studies on South African higher education show wide discrepancies regarding enrollment, the number of institutions, etc., leaving little room to depict the size and shape of private higher education in South Africa.
Brazil
Latin American higher education has joined the for-profit trend with a major player worldwide. Brazil, along with Chile (nonuniversity) and Peru (all education levels including higher education), has legally allowed for-profit higher education institutions. Since Brazil allowed for-profits, the sector effortlessly surpassed the public sector in enrollment share, and it has recently done the same with the nonprofit sector. Brazil moved toward allowing for-profit higher education institutions on the recognition that many de jure nonprofit institutions were de facto for-profit, but the state was not collecting taxes (Levy 2006). After 1996, Brazil has been supportive of the private sector, a main ally toward the goal of increasing enrollment, through a variety of public policies toward private higher education, including financial aid to students and tax relief to both nonprofits
The Philippines
The presence of the private sector in the Philippines is noticeable. Most of the sector fulfills a demand-absorbing mission (Kinser and Levy 2006). For-profit higher education is legally allowed by the 1980s Corporation Code, not through a particular educational law (ADB 2012). A sizable number of students, estimated at 70%, attend for-profit institutions (Kinser 2013a). Other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam also allow for-profit higher education. China and Japan have recently allowed for-profits, the former through allowing a “reasonable economic return” (Kinser 2013a; Yan and Levy 2003). In many of those countries, large international corporations have established new institutions or partnered with existing ones to offer educational services (Kinser 2013a).
For-Profit Higher Education
New Zealand
New Zealand, along with Australia, allows forprofit higher education providers. The former recently allowed private higher education providers. Until the 1989 Education Act, only public higher education institutions. From that moment, a small but important private sector has been providing higher education services (Abbott 2014, 2005). Most private institutions, both nonprofit and for-profit, are small privately owned institutions that fill the gap supply of public institutions or compete in limited areas. Also, most private providers are nonuniversity institutions (Xiaoying and Abbott 2008). Unlike in other countries such as Brazil where for-profit higher education is explicitly mentioned in the legislation, in New Zealand, the 1989 act just mentions private higher education. Thus, for-profits are allowed, following the rule that anything that is not explicitly prohibited, is allowed (Levy 2006). As it is usually the case, the government collects taxes from for-profit providers (Abbott 2014). Access to data on for-profits is limited. The latest report released in 1995 indicates that 46% of private were limited liability companies and 37% were trusts.
Issues and Future Prospects For-profit institutions have demonstrated the ability of the private sector to expand access to higher education. In countries where the government is unable or unwilling to expand state supported institutions, the private sector has often provided the capacity to meet student demand (Kinser and Levy 2006; Salto 2017). This demand-absorbing aspect of the for-profit sector has been lauded as one of its strengths. For students who have few other options for education, for-profit higher education provides a welcome alternative. In addition, some for-profit providers represent a quality enhancement compared to the public sector because they bring investment and international standards to the local system. This effort is represented, for example, by the investment of the International Finance Corporation in a for-profit
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option for education in Africa (Sharma 2013). Often, though, quality in the for-profit sector is relative to the alternative of no access at all to the higher-quality publics or to the generally very poor quality of other private sector options. There are no world-class for-profit institutions by any conventional measure. Typically, the for-profit sector is associated with low quality or even predatory providers that are interested in making profits over providing education. Typically, for-profit institutions are small and under-resourced institutions, yet charge relatively high tuition to serve a disadvantaged population (Kinser 2015a, b). Given their ability to convert revenue into profit, the incentives for owners can tilt toward private gain over the public purpose subsidies are intended to support. Questions have been raised about the quality of teaching in these institutions, in particular regarding online instruction that is provided without adequate local support. The involvement of foreign providers in the for-profit sector is also problematic, given the unclear and uncertain jurisdiction for regulating these entities. A significant issue exists regarding quality assurance mechanisms and their adequacy for a profit-oriented model of higher education. Quality assurance demands standards for quality that are enforced by external evaluation, as well as internal policies and processes to assure quality that are enforced by the institution itself (Kinser 2014). The assumption is that institutions want to maintain quality and will use the quality assurance process to verify and validate the mechanisms the institution uses to enforce quality standards. For-profit higher education often challenges that assumption by placing revenue generation as the primary goal, and seeing quality assurance as purely an external regulation that is necessary only to continue operation. As a cost of doing business, then, quality assurance can be manipulated or resisted. Quality assurance agencies have found it challenging to address this problem. The United States in particular has faced a series of issues related to the quality assurance of for-profit higher education, leading the federal government to deny authorization for an
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accreditation agency that was responsible for a large number of for-profit institutions. The business model of for-profit higher education relies heavily, and usually exclusively, on tuition fees paid by students. Depending on the country, students may have access to loan schemes or other government sponsored financial aid. In such instances, the business model is focused on maintaining access to aid programs in order to maintain and increase student enrollment. There is an ongoing tension between the regulatory efforts governments put into verifying the legitimacy, quality, and value of for-profits, and the need for for-profits to do whatever it takes to continue participation in financial aid program. This regularly leads to crack-downs on the for-profit sector that poses existential risks for institutions. Globally, however, it is unlikely that such regulatory interventions would cause the forprofit model to fade away. Instead, as the private sector has been increasingly recognized as a legitimate provider of education, for-profit higher education has made inroads into postsecondary systems worldwide. Its current status, however, suggests that it is far from being a welcome partner in educational access. Questions remain about whether for-profit education is truly a legitimate form of education, and the assumption remains that for-profit provision is necessarily low-quality provision (Kinser 2013b). Efforts to expand for-profit higher education have been resisted in many countries; in others, expansion has been followed by scandals and fraudulent activity. It is important to note that no country that has seen the sustainable development of for-profit higher education as a significant source of capacity. Although that does not mean that for-profit provision is problematic as a niche player in a country’s higher education system, it does suggest the difficulties that for-profit face in becoming a provider equal in status to public and nonprofit higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Access to and Widening Participation in Higher Education
For-Profit Higher Education
▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education ▶ Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries ▶ Experience with Student Loans, Higher Education ▶ Federal States, States and Local Policies in Higher Education ▶ Higher Education and the Public Good ▶ Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of ▶ Market Mechanisms, Higher Education ▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education ▶ Private Higher Education ▶ Private Higher Education in Developing Countries ▶ Privatization and Diversity in Higher Education ▶ Privatization, Higher Education ▶ Tuition Fees, Higher Education ▶ Tuition Fees, Worldwide Trends
References Abbott, Malcolm. 2005. The impact of regulatory competition on the investment of Australian Universities in New Zealand. Economic Papers: A Journal of Applied Economics and Policy 24 (2): 133–144. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1759-3441.2005.tb01000.x. Abbott, Malcolm. 2014. Stability and change in a mature private higher education industry. Working paper. Albany: PROPHE-Program for Research on Private Higher Education. http://www.albany.edu/dept/eaps/ prophe/publication/paper/PROPHEWP19_files/PRO PHE%20WP19.pdf. ADB. 2012. Private higher education across Asia: Expanding access, searching for quality. In Higher Education In Dynamic Asia. Mandaluyong City: Asian Development Bank. Casta, Aurélien, and Daniel C. Levy. 2016. Private higher education: Even France, even for-profit. International Higher Education 85: 30–31. Clark, Burton R. 1983. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kinser, Kevin. 2006a. From Main Street to Wall Street: The transformation of for-profit higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kinser, Kevin. 2006b. What Phoenix doesn’t teach us about for-profit higher education. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 38 (4): 24–29.
Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities Kinser, Kevin. 2013a. Paying for for-profit higher education: Implications of the US Case. In Student financing of higher education: A comparative perspective, ed. Donald E. Heller and Claire Callender, 98–114. New York: Routledge. Kinser, Kevin. 2013b. The quality-profit assumption. International Higher Education 71: 12–13. Kinser, Kevin. 2014. Questioning quality assurance. In Critical perspectives on global competition in higher education, ed. Laura M. Portnoi and Sylvia S. Bagley, 55–67. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Kinser, Kevin. 2015a. A recent history of for-profit higher education. Paper presented at Association for Education Finance and Policy annual meeting. Washington, DC. 26 Feb. Kinser, Kevin 2015b. Quality of teaching in the context of increasing non-public providers of higher education: Background paper. Prepared for the Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of Recommendations Concerning Teaching Personnel. Paris: UNESCO. Paper Available: http://www.ilo. org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_dialogue/—sector/ documents/meetingdocument/wcms_364833.pdf. Kinser, Kevin, and Daniel C. Levy. 2006. For-profit higher education: U.S. tendencies, international echoes. In International handbook of higher education, Springer International Handbooks of Education, ed. James J.F. Forest and Philip G. Altbach, vol. 18, 107–120. Dordrecht: Springer. Levy, Daniel C. 1986. Higher education and the state in Latin America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Levy, Daniel C. 2003. Profits and practicality: how South Africa epitomizes the global surge in commercial private higher education. Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE), University at Albany, SUNY. http://www.albany.edu/dept/eaps/pro phe/working_papers.html. Levy, Daniel C. 2006. The unanticipated explosion: Private higher education’s global surge. Comparative Education Review 50 (2): 217–240. https://doi.org/ 10.1086/500694. Levy, Daniel C. 2007. A recent echo: African private higher education in an international perspective. Journal of Higher Education in Africa 5 (2–3): 197–220. Levy, Daniel C. 2012. How important is private higher education in Europe? A regional analysis in global context. European Journal of Education 47 (2): 178–197. Mabizela, Mahlubi. 2007. Private surge amid public dominance in higher education: The African perspective. Journal of Higher Education in Africa 5 (2 & 3): 15–38. OBHE. 2010. A tale of two sectors: The growth of forprofit provision in the UK and Europe. UK: The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. http://www. obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id¼815. Paton, Graeme. 2012. Britain’s first profit-making University Opened, Nov 22, sec. Education. http://www.telegraph.co. uk/education/educationnews/9697046/Britains-first-profitmaking-university-opened.html.
527 Salto, Dante J. 2017. To profit or not to profit: The private higher education sector in Brazil. Higher Education 0 (0):1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0171-8. Sharma, Yojana. 2013. IFC Investment to support private higher education push into Africa. University World News. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article. php?story¼2013020616023546. Xiaoying, Ma, and Malcolm Abbott. 2008. The development of private higher education in a mature market: A New Zealand case study. Education Research and Perspectives 35 (2): 73–94. Yan, F.Q., and Daniel C. Levy. 2003. China’s new private education law. International Higher Education 31: 9–10.
F Fraud ▶ Corruption in Higher Education
Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities Ariane de Gayardon UCL Institute of Education, London, NA, UK
Synonyms Free-tuition higher education; Tuition-free higher education
Definition A free higher education system offers to undergraduate students the possibility to attend a public higher education institution without being charged tuition fees. Concretely, in a free system of higher education, the state bears the education cost for these students, mostly using taxpayers’ money.
A Vibrant Issue As higher education develops, becomes massified, and is increasingly central to the labor
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market, concerns about its financing multiply. In current knowledge economies, a tertiary degree is becoming a necessity for a career. Increasing higher education cost the world over (Johnstone and Marcucci 2010) is therefore of legitimate concern to students and their families. The idea of a free-tuition higher education system is, in this context, globally attractive. The year 2016 alone saw the start of a free for all program in Chile, the development of the Fees Must Fall movement in South Africa, the signing of a decree for free higher education in the Philippines, as well as a debate about tuition fees during the American electoral campaign.
The Many Forms of Free-Tuition Higher Education In 2017, around 80 systems in the world can be considered free-tuition. They are mainly clustered in four regions: Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, the Nordic countries, and the former Soviet countries in Europe and Asia. These countries are at various stages of economic development, meaning that developing and sustaining a free system is not solely an economic endeavor. While it is easy to imagine the simplest form of a free-tuition public system, in which all students completing high school are guaranteed a seat in one of the public institutions, this format is rare and disappearing. Countries still sustaining free higher education for all in the public system coupled with open access include Germany, Norway, and Argentina among others. Confronted with rising costs and competing social issues, many countries have been forced to find ways to limit the reach of the state funding of students. In Europe, some free countries – such as Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Ireland – limit free seats to domestic and European students. In former Soviet countries and in East Africa, dualtrack systems have been implemented, where the number of free seats in public institutions is decided by the state yearly. Students who do not get into the free track still have the option of
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paying their way through the same degree. Other countries, like Brazil, have simply limited the overall size of their public sector, and let the private sector absorb additional demand. Another way states have found to keep the pretense of free higher education while lightening their financial burden is the use of nominal fees, i.e. fees meant to cover administrative or registration costs. In some cases, nominal fees have come to exceed previous tuition fees established in the country and tuition fees in neighboring systems. On the other hand, some systems go further than tuition-free higher education, by providing students entering their free system with additional funding for lodging and food. However, with the recent economic crisis and the global decrease of state appropriations for tertiary education, this practice has been disappearing. Globally, the landscape of free higher education is complex and the criteria on which free systems are based highlight higher education issues prevalent across all types of systems, including which students and institutions are state-funded and how much public funding is available to share.
The Call for Free-Tuition Higher Education Free-tuition public higher education has long been rooted in deep cultural values and social norms. Free higher education in the Nordic countries, for instance, originated in the welfare state and the emphasis they put on social equity, while former Soviet countries inherited the free system from the egalitarianism included in Marxist philosophy. But historical origins do not explain the renewed interest in free higher education that has blossomed on all continents since the year 2010. Recent calls for free higher education are instead rooted in complex current issues faced by many systems. Most notably, free-tuition schemes provide answers to the rising cost of higher education coupled with the standardization of cost-sharing and the increase of student loans that lead to higher perceived inequity. The current argument
Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities
states that everyone should have the opportunity to complete a tertiary degree and that the current state of higher education funding prevents this from happening. Thus, the philosophy behind free higher education is based in the idea of higher education as a right. Marshall (1950) stated that all citizens are entitled to live as civilized beings under the norms of their society. In globally massified higher education systems and as ever more careers require tertiary education, higher education is often perceived as a citizen’s right. It is also a right in that not making it available to everyone creates inequalities. Under Rawls’ (1999) theory of justice, the state should use rights to mitigate unfairness and therefore should institute higher education as a right. More commonly, proponents of free higher education argue that it is a public good, since tertiary-educated individuals are better citizens and cost less to society. They also have a positive influence on their environment and on people surrounding them (Bloom et al. 2007). Thus, higher education not only provides private benefits to individuals, it also benefits society as a whole. It is consequently the state’s responsibility to ensure higher education for all for the sake of the nation. Finally, proponents of higher education mostly ask for equity for people of all backgrounds. Free higher education is seen as one of the best and simplest policies to ensure equal opportunities to all individuals. Abolishing financial barriers to higher education is, to some, the only way to make higher education equally accessible to all.
The Realities of Free-Tuition Higher Education In the twenty-first century, many challenges face higher education (Altbach 2016) and free-tuition systems are not exempt and are indeed confronted with the same issues as their tuition-charging counterparts. In the foreground of these issues is access and completion. While protesting students demand
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free higher education in the name of access, an analysis of current systems shows that free-tuition systems do not always guarantee high participation. Indeed, free-tuition systems can actually have low participation rates and higher inequity. Completion is also an issue that is impermeable to tuition policies. Argentina, Luxembourg, and Mexico are free systems with very low completion rates – below 30% – while Denmark for instance exceeds 60% (Bonasegna Kelly 2013; OECD 2016). Quality and relevance issues are also of concern in many tuition-free systems. For example, there was no university from free-tuition systems in the top 20 of the three major rankings in 2016. Quality issues have been particularly important in size-limited free systems, where private institutions have been allowed to develop to absorb the additional demand with little regulation. Finally, economic issues remain prevalent in free-tuition systems, where the state is challenged to find the adequate budget to support costs for all students entering the system. Decreasing state appropriations usually take two formats in freesystems: a restriction in the number of subsidized seats or a reduction of the per-student appropriation to institutions. These generate further access and/or quality problems.
Conclusion Free-tuition higher education is undeniably an attractive policy at a time when nations are eager to ensure universal access and equal opportunities to all, while many students struggle with higher education costs and debt. However, it is important to be wary of such a simplified policy, as systems that are currently tuition-free seem to be facing similar issues to the ones charging tuition fees – including access, completion, and quality issues. Countries investigating the implementation of a free system must not only ensure its equity and sustainability but must also make sure that it does not replace all types of financial aid since the cost of higher education goes well beyond tuition fees.
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References Altbach, Philip G. 2016. Patterns of higher education development. In American higher education in the twenty-first century: Social, political, and economic challenges, ed. Michael N. Bastedo, Philip G. Altbach, and Patricia J. Gumport, 4th ed., 191–211. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Bloom, David E., Matthew Hartley, and Henry Rosovsky. 2007. Beyond private gain: The public benefits of higher education. In International handbook of higher education, ed. James J.F. Forest and Philip G. Altbach, 293–308. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-1-4020-4012-2_15 Bonasegna Kelly, Cristina. 2013. Argentina at the top – For its dropout rate! The World View. August 5. https:// www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/argentinatop-—-its-dropout-rate. Johnstone, D. Bruce, and Pamela N. Marcucci. 2010. Financing higher education worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Marshall, T.H. 1950. Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD. 2016. Graduation rate. OECD Publishing. https:// doi.org/10.1787/b858e05b-en. Rawls, John. 1999. A theory of justice, Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Free-Tuition Higher Education ▶ Free Higher Education, Myths and Realities
French University Traditions, Napoleonic to Contemporary Transformation Jean-Franc¸ois Condette CREHS (EA 4027) Laboratory Research, Artois University, Arras, France ESPE-Lille-Nord-de-France, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France
Following a long period of common history with the other western countries, universities in France experienced a major break when they were closed in 1793 due to the French Revolution. The
Free-Tuition Higher Education
universities were revived only partially following the Revolution in the form of isolated faculties and were closely watched by the political powers of the time. The re-emergence of real universities turned out to be difficult in a context corresponding to the massification of higher education.
A Long Common Past with European Universities In the early years of the eighteenth century, universities were corporations, i.e., communities that gathered professors and students around franchises. The oldest Paris University statuses were found in 1215. The academics of the time placed themselves under the direct protection of the Papacy, reducing the right of the local elites (bishops, princes, the king) to interfere. Considered to be an association of defence and mutual aid, the university gave its members a guarantee of judicial privileges that could protect them from the arbitrary decisions of the civil power while offering them the right to elect their representatives. At that time, there was no real operational separation between secondary and higher education – students entered the Faculty of Arts at the age of 14 or 15 years and over several years they attended various courses, ending with the French Baccalaureate. The new graduates then became ‘real students’ and had to complete a master’s degree or a doctorate in one of the four faculties (Canon Law, Roman Law, Theology, Medicine) (Verger Jacques, Les Universités au Moyen-Age, Paris, PUF, 2013). From the end of the fifteenth century, ordinary boarding schools originally dedicated to the grant holders of Faculties of Arts, the French ‘collèges’ (middle schools), became high schools at which students attended all of their courses. From this point onwards, the Faculties of Arts tended to decline; at the same time, universities lost autonomy and faced growing control from the royal powers. No major change can be observed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, but new ideas, especially those linked to the Enlightenment, seldom entered universities as they appear to have remained deeply dependent
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on the Church. In 1789, the 22 French universities had between 12,500 and 13,000 students within the limits of the current territory.
The Revolutionary Break and the Napoleonic Organisation (1793–1880) The French Revolution was a fundamental rupture in society that promoted the advent of a French distinctiveness. The Convention Decree of 15 September 1793 abolished universities and ‘collèges’, which were considered symbols of the Ancien Régime. ‘Écoles centrales’ for pupils aged between 12 and 18 years were established to replace ‘collèges’ and Faculties of Arts. The revolutionaries also created special schools, with set examinations, in order to offer high-quality learning within specific fields. Thanks to that new situation, the National Public Works Institute (‘Ecole Centrale des Travaux Publics’) (September 1794), which was to become the Polytechnic School (‘École Polytechnique’), and the ‘École Normale Supérieure’ for teacher training (October 1794) were launched. Those prestigious schools, mostly born in the Revolutionary period (although some were created before, as was the case of the ‘École des Ponts-et-Chaussées’ [1747] or the ‘École des Mines’ [1783]), can be considered a French high school originality because of the division into universities on the one hand and high schools on the other, with their famous preparatory classes for with selection postgraduate schools, which still attract the best students to this day. In fact, between 1802 and 1808, these changes destroyed the medieval university framework and contributed to moving the French high school system away from the German Humboldtian university model, which is based on teaching freedom and research promotion. The Imperial University, instituted by an Act passed on 10 May 1806 and implemented by Imperial Decree on 17 March 1808, imposed a state monopoly on the school system and organised a national administrative structure. The Imperial University was a state corporation that gathered the whole secondary and higher education (the
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‘lycées’ – French secondary schools – were created in 1802) under the control of the Education Minister (‘Grand-Maître’) and the Regional School Officers (‘recteurs d’académie’). The French high school system remained unimproved for a long time. However, starting in 1794, health schools were restored and transformed into faculties of medicine in Paris, followed by Montpellier and Strasbourg in 1808. In many cities, often on the initiative of the local administration, medicine secondary schools were launched at this time, before becoming preparatory medicine and pharmacy schools in 1837. An Act dated 1 March 1802 reorganised French higher education legal studies and decided the establishment of ten Law Schools. The reborn Arts and Sciences faculties under the regional education authorities remained closely related to high schools (‘lycées’). At first, those regional faculties (Arts and Sciences) were in charge of delivering diplomas, especially the baccalaureate. Despite all Arts and Sciences faculties being composed of three to five professors, adhering to strict statutes and offering studies specified by the State, most had few students. Vocational faculties (Law and Medicine) attracted more students and provided them with technical skills training. The Napoleonic restructure strongly impacted the French higher education system due to the strength of the State control, which entailed disempowerment and emphasised the fragmentation of the existing organisation into small units made up of related subjects (the faculties). The third characteristic of the education system consisted of the low importance given to scientific research within those structures that primarily focused on juries delivering grades and on professional training. Science was not considered a priority and was set aside in favour of practice. There were 52 faculties under the French Empire (23 dedicated to Arts, ten to Sciences, seven to Theology, nine to Law and three to Medicine) (Verger et al. 1986). The French Restoration (1818–1830), which distrusted higher education, suppressed 17 faculties of Arts and three faculties of Sciences with a decree on 18 January 1816, but it kept and took advantage of the centralised administrative structure – universities were brought to heel. The July
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Monarchy (1830–1848) implemented no fundamental transformation in the faculties’ everyday life, although it authorised the reinstatement of a few faculties. With a decree on 14 June 1854 reinforcing State power in the field of education, Hippolyte Fortoul launched the basis of future university development. Five Science and three Arts faculties were restored by the decrees of 22 August 1854, with the aim of revitalising regional university life; new faculties also reappeared in the 1860s. In order to stimulate free research, Victor Duruy created the School for Higher Studies (‘École Pratique des Hautes Études’) in 1868. In 1875, there were 69 faculties and higher schools. However, the number of universities did not evolve until 1960, with some late additions in the 1870s.
The Major But Unfinished Reform Under the Third Republic (1880–1940) From 1879 to 1880, the Third Republic implemented an ambitious reform policy. The Law of 12 July 1875 relating to higher education freedom granted the right to establish free universities and promoted a mixed jury system for examinations. This was modified by the Act of 19 March 1880 which forbade Catholic faculties from taking the name ‘university’ and ended mixed juries. For the Republicans, as Louis Liard – director of the French Higher Education from 1884 to 1902 – noted, the aim was to create “Homes for Science” (Liard, Universities and Faculties, 1890), based on the model of the German universities, and “Homes for Public Spirit” capable of disseminating common values among the youth. This significantly contributed to the rebuilding of the nation after the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The reforms that followed were fundamental and set up a university system that remained until 1968. The higher education budget was significantly increased and the faculties were relocated to new buildings. In addition, the academic chairs were multiplied, allowing specialised teaching (Verger et al. 1986). However, the Republican system was
wary of the possible autonomy of universities and the State retained the majority of the decisionmaking levers, achieving its programme of reform within the faculties’ framework (Charle 1996; Charle and Verger 2012). Under this system, training programmes were enriched and diversified with modernised examinations that enhanced the scientific content of the chosen disciplines. Research laboratories developed and their allocated resources progressively increased while the number of specialised institutes grew. In addition, the doctoral thesis became a landmark in erudition. The impact of these reforms and their economic needs entailed a significant increase in the number of students and staff. The strong demand for secondary education teachers, the creation of scholarships for Bachelor’s degrees (1877) and academic graduation – ‘agrégation’ – (1881), and the growth of jobs linked to literary studies (press, journalism, clerical occupations, etc.) or associated with the mastery of a scientific culture offered a particularly favourable context. There were 11,204 students enrolled in State Higher Education in 1876, growing to 29,901 in 1900–1901, 3.15% of whom were female students. This number rose to 78,973 in 1938–1939, with 30.45% being female students. Yet the university geography remained specific with a very strong attraction from the Sorbonne. The restoration of universities was a challenging risk and remained incomplete in France from 1880 to 1968. However, a decree in 25 July 1885 endowed the faculties with legal personality (authorisation to receive grants and bequests). In 1893, Louis Liard endowed that General Council with legal personality. While a decree in 28 December 1885 reorganised the administrative framework, the basic unit of university life remained the faculty, managed by a Dean and assisted by a Board and an Assembly. However, the decree did open the way to an emerging collective life with the foundation of a General Council of the faculties in charge of dealing with all daily affairs. In 1893, Louis Liard endowed that Council with civil personality. After more than ten years of observation, the 10 July 1896 law authorised the return of universities in France,
French University Traditions, Napoleonic to Contemporary Transformation
each one gathering its whole regional faculties (Musselin 2001). However, the university remained under control and was deprived of real autonomy as the university council was not led by a peer-elected President but rather by the regional Director of Education the minister appointed. The main decisions were channelled through Paris while the faculty made up its basic structure. The number of universities stayed stable at 16 for a long time (including Algiers, but not including Strasbourg as it had become part of the German Empire); there were 17 universities between 1919 and 1960.
The French Universities, the First Mass Education Period and the Impact of May 1968 There were no major modifications to the university system during the inter-war period. However, the baby boom and the slow but real democratisation of secondary education generated a rise in the number of students from the 1950s. In addition, the economy also demanded a welltrained labour pool. The numbers of students increased from 145,000 in 1950 to 214,572 in 1960–1961, 509,898 (including the students in Technological Institutes) in 1967–1968 and 694,800 in 1970. However, the lack of buildings, classrooms and materials, questioning of the pedagogical methods linked to the implementation of numerous lectures, the absence of students’ representatives on university councils and tensions amongst the teaching staff led to significantly increased conflict within the faculties (Chapoulie et al. 2010). To face the greater number of students, new campuses were built in the suburbs and new faculties were constructed in the 1960s (ten faculties surrounding Paris, 15 distributed in the regions). New universities were also launched in connection with the territorial needs and the local presence of regional education authorities. In 1939, there were 24 cities with at least one university faculty and this number rose to 40 in 1968. In the same period, youth seemed to be more critical of the university system, which they said
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favoured “the heirs” (as Bourdieu and Passeron pointed out in Les Héritiers. Les étudiants et la culture, Paris, éditions de Minuit, 1964) radical politicised groups (Maoists, Trotskyists, etc.) spread their ideologies. The reform attempts were disputed (i.e., the Fouchet reform in 1966), some students considering that the reforms promoted a selective model based on the same admission procedures implemented in the university institutes of technology (Instituts universitaires de technologie [IUT], created in 1966). The civil unrest of May–June 1968 destroyed the university model inherited from the nineteenth century, requiring a rapid solution. The main purpose of the 12 November 1968 Law was to facilitate resumption of the universities. The Faure Law rested on three principles: autonomy, multidisciplinary activities and participation. On that basis, it marked a fundamental break in the history of the French university. The proclaimed autonomy eliminated the former 1896 framework and favoured the creation of a Board of Directors and the election of a President from within that representative body. But the State did not intend to waive its privileges. The Ministry of Education continued to define the programmes leading to examinations and national diplomas, and it kept control of staffing costs via the Finance Act. However, involvement was really encouraged and staff and students’ participation was implemented in the various elections. That new local organisation then established the management authorities of university departments (‘Unités d’enseignement et de Recherche’ [UER]). These multidisciplinary activities brought the various disciplines closer and led to the sharing of experience and skills, and the former sections (history, classics, mathematics, etc.) had to work together within the departments. However, in reality, the establishment of new disciplines often remained limited. In March 1971, 56 universities and nine university centres had replaced the former faculties. The Faure Law modernised the university structures but resulted in a division of the universities formed in 1896 into numerous units specialising in specific disciplines (Paris I, Paris II, Paris III, Paris IV, etc.).
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The French Universities and the Second Mass Education Period (1980s Onwards) The fear of facing another ‘May 1968’ could explain the ministerial hesitation relating to a number of reform proposals. The real power of the university President and department managers to make decisions decreased in favour of the various councils which regularly met and debated. The Alain Savary Law of 26 January 1984 tried to remedy some of the gaps noticed in the Faure Act in order to strengthen the training provided, professionalisation and articulation of scientific research, but did not question the inherited system of 1968. Universities became public institutions with scientific, cultural and professional character (‘établissement public à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel’ [EPCSCP]) while the UER were transformed into university departments. Those reforms took place in a context of an accelerated demand for mass education. Registered students attending universities numbered 837,776 (included IUT students) in 1977–1978 and this increased hugely to reach 1,429,750 in 1998–1999 (82% of 1,748,300 students in total were registered in post-secondary training). In 2005–2006, France had 2,275,044 students (1,309,122 attended universities), and in 2014–2015 there were 2,470,700 students (55.2% women) with 1,385,800 attending universities. To keep up with this situation, new local universities were created – former substructures of parent universities – in connection with the University 2000 programme, which was adopted in May 1990; the U3 M (Universities of the 3rd Millennium) programme was launched in 1998. Thus, the number of universities increased to 74 in 1984 and 85 in 2006. Within this development, the influence of Paris remained fundamental (26.2% of French students were located in the Ile-de-France region in 2014–2015). As a consequence, the university landscape was divided into numerous entities. Reinforced by free-market and classification logic, a merging process took place between local universities and, as a consequence, the number of universities slowly decreased to 71 in 2016. At the same time, a process of federation began,
more or less focused on a regional area. The aim was to encourage education institutions to merge within the Research and Higher Education Centres (‘Pôles de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur’ [PRES]) established by the Research Law enacted in 2006 and the Campus Programme (2008). More recently, there has been a federation process taking place within the Communities of Universities and High Schools (‘Communauté d’Universités et d’établissements’ [COMUE]) as a result of the Law on Higher Education and Scientific Research (2013). Today, the practical work of these superstructures remains very complex. French universities face several challenges today. The first challenge consists of the shared endeavour to enhance students’ performance although an enduring tradition of non-selective admission for higher learning (except for rare disciplines) is promoted. That principle is at the heart of the high failure rate for Bachelor’s degrees. There is also a major challenge relating to the professionalisation and diversification of training but the situation seems to be improving. The focus should be on a new economic model that is less dependent on State subsidies and based more on calls for projects and on the search for private or international support. Finally, the challenge of governance remains. At this level, the French management model, characterised by strong State supervision, is gradually evolving as a result of the growing demand for empowerment. The implementation of a contractual partnership policy between the State and the universities, enforced from 1989, can be considered a landmark decision. With these agreements, which encourage new dynamics within universities by leading them to develop specific and adapted policies, the French universities become more and more heterogeneous. At an institutional level, three major objectives relating to reform were pursued in this period. First, since 1989 and emphasised by the Bologna Process in June 1999, the construction of a European university area, with free movement granted to graduates and leading to the reform of the Bachelor–Master–Doctorate structure (‘Licence–Master–Doctorat’ [LMD]) and the
Further Education
adoption of the European Credits Transfer System (ECTS), provided a useful means for monitoring the curricula and standardising the diplomas. The second objective consisted of strengthening the research structures and teams, resulting in a very competitive system that required a restructuring of laboratories and the financing terms of projects. Thirdly, the reinforcement of the autonomous power of universities, following the logic of ‘New Public Management’, inevitably questioned the role of the State. The very controversial Liberties and Responsibilities of University Act of 10 August 2007 (known as the ‘LRU’ or the ‘Pécresse Law’) changed the governance of universities by awarding them more autonomy in the management of their finances and human resources. The Act also granted more powers to the university President and the Board of Directors, the number of members of which was reduced. At the same time, universities were invited to adopt ‘broad power and responsibilities’ (‘responsabilités et compétences élargies’ [RCE]), with increased budget autonomy. The world has changed and the centralised Napoleonic University seems to be more and more distant. . .
535 France [A history of universities in France]. Toulouse: Privat, 432 p.
Funding ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovakia
Funding Agency ▶ American Foundations and Higher Education
Funding Decisions ▶ Formula Funding, Higher Education
Funding for Excellence ▶ Excellence Schemes, Higher Education
References Bourdieu and Passeron. 1964. pointed out in Les Héritiers. Les étudiants et la culture, Paris, éditions de Minuit. Chapoulie, Jean-Michel, Patrick Fridenson, and Antoine Prost (dir.). 2010. “Mutations de la science et des universités en France depuis 1945” [Sciences and university mutations in France since 1945], Le Mouvement Social, no. 233, octobre-décembre 2010, 224 p. Charle, Christophe. 1996. La République des universitaires (1870–1940) [The university republic]. Paris: Seuil, 520 p. Charle, Christophe, and Jacques Verger. 2012. Histoire des universités (XIIe-XXIe siècle) [A university history]. Paris: PUF, 334 p. Musselin, Christine. 2001. La longue marche des universités franc¸ aises [The long march of the French Universities]. Paris: PUF, 218 p. Verger, Jacques (dir.), W.B. Laurence Brockliss, Dominique Julia, Victor Karady, Jean-Claude Passeron, and Charles Vulliez. 1986. Histoire des universités en
Funding Mechanisms ▶ Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe
Fundraising ▶ Philanthropy and Individual Donors in Higher Education
Further Education ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, China
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G
Gender and Higher Education Barbara Read School of Education, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Synonyms Sex; University
Definition Issues relating to constructions of gender at university-level institutions.
Research relating to gender in higher education has a wide range of foci, ranging from issues of student participation and achievement, curriculum and pedagogy, and the recruitment/promotion of academic staff to engagements with the ‘genderedness’ of academic culture/institutional life, constructions of the ‘ideal’ or typical student or academic, and the ways in which such constructions connect to wider social patterns of gendered inequality. Most research in this area is explicitly feminist in approach, and the development of the field has reflected major developments/debates in feminist social research more broadly, including the critiques of ‘second wave’ feminism by women of color, a stress on
intersectionality, and the influence of the ‘postmodern turn,’ queer theory, and humanist/material approaches. Key overarching debates in the field include the gendered impacts of globalization, the increased casualization of labor, the rising dominance of neoliberalist managerialism, and the associated framing of what is seen as valuable in terms of academic work and knowledge (see, e.g., Kenway and Langmead 1998; Morley 1999; Brooks and McKinnon 2001; Currie et al. 2002; Davies 2003). Researchers have explored the gendered effects and implications of these, noting that while some aspects of managerialist culture in HE can arguably benefit gender equality (notably increased levels of transparency and accountability in academic appointments and promotions), the increased pressure to ‘perform’ in the academic ‘marketplace’ has contributed to rising levels of stress and anxiety among academics, with notable class, ‘raced’ and gendered patternings (see, e.g., Acker and Armenti 2004; Hey 2011). In relation to student access to HE, women’s access has improved considerably across many countries in the world. In most ‘developed’ countries and those in transition, women now form a numerical majority on university campuses, although they remain a minority in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South, West, and East Asia (see, e.g., Leathwood and Read 2009; Malik and Courtney 2011). Especially in the global North, women’s rising levels of success in
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achievement as well as participation at university has led to a media/popular concern that these trends are problematic, and the academy has become – or is in danger of becoming – ‘feminized.’ Historians of higher education have provided an important historical perspective to such anxieties, exploring how women’s entry into HE in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was often accompanied by fears of loss of status of the institutions/disciplines they were entering and a fear of the ‘emasculation’ of men (see Dyhouse 2006). Feminist educationalists have pinpointed similar concerns in contemporary media/popular discourse, in particular, the fear (a) that women’s success means that men are inevitably ‘losing out’ and (b) that higher education is (or must be) becoming less elite and prestigious. These arguments have been widely countered by feminists, who argue firstly that there remain considerable gender imbalances in terms of participation and success in many countries and type of institution across the world (see Leathwood and Read 2009). For example, Pereira (2007) argues that issues of prejudice and sexual harassment contribute to high rates of dropout for women students in Nigeria (between a third and two thirds in some disciplines/institutions). Importantly, issues relating to sexual harassment and violence against women on campus remain a pressing concern in many countries (see, e.g., Phipps and Smith 2012). Patterns of participation and success also vary hugely by discipline (see, e.g., Torres 2012 in relation to STEM). Furthermore, simplistic binary comparisons between men and women students mask considerably higher disparities of access and achievement in relation to social class, ‘race’/ethnicity, disability/ability, sexuality, and age (Mirza 2005; Moreau and Leathwood 2006) with intersectional studies on nonparticipant, student, and staff experience an important strand of research (see, e.g., Archer and Hutchings 2000; Cole and Ahmadi 2003; David et al. 2003; Quinn 2003; Reay et al. 2005, 2010; Santiago et al. 2016; Taylor and Falconer 2016). Such research counters the ‘feminization’ argument through an exploration of the continued ways in which gender infuses academic cultural practices in the academy. For example,
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researchers have explored gendered cultural issues underpinning continued inequities in levels of senior academic appointments and conceptions of leadership (e.g., Blackmore 2014; Morley 2014), in applications for research funding (see, e.g., Wenneras and Wold 1997; Leberman et al. 2016), and practices of speaking, writing, and ‘presentation of self ’ (Grant and Knowles 2000; Francis et al. 2001; Jackson and Dempster 2009). Finally, a notable area of research involves the exploration of gendered discourses in knowledge, curriculum, and pedagogy (e.g., Burke and Crozier 2014), including the enormous possibilities and institutional challenge of Women’s Studies as a subject and the continued impact of academic feminism across the disciplines (Coate 2006; David 2014).
References Acker, Sandra, and Carmen Armenti. 2004. Sleepless in academia. Gender and Education 16(1): 3–24. Archer, Louise, and Merryn Hutchings. 2000. ‘Bettering Yourself’? Discourses of risk, cost and benefit in ethnically diverse, young working-class non-participants’ constructions of higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 21(4): 555–574. Blackmore, Jill. 2014. ‘Wasting talent’? Gender and the problematics of academic disenchantment and disengagement with leadership. Higher Education Research and Development 33(1): 86–99. Brooks, Ann, and Alison Mackinnon. 2001. Gender and the restructured university. Basingstoke: SRHE and Open University Press. Burke, Penny J., and Gill Crozier. 2014. Higher education pedagogies: Gendered formations, mis/recognition and emotion. Journal of Research in Gender Studies 4(2): 52–67. Coate, Kelly. 2006. Imagining women in the curriculum: The transgressive impossibility of women’s studies. Studies in Higher Education 31(4): 407–421. Cole, Darnell, and Shafiqa Ahmadi. 2003. Perspectives and experiences of Muslim women who veil on college campuses. Journal of College Student Development 44(1): 47–66. Currie, Jan, Bev Thiele, and Patricia Harris. 2002. Gendered universities in global economies: Powers, careers and sacrifices. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington. David, Miriam. 2014. Feminism gender and universities: Politics, passion and pedagogies. London: Routledge. Davies, Bronwyn. 2003. Death to critique and dissent? The policies and practices of new managerialism and of ‘Evidence-based Practice’. Gender and Education 15(1): 91–103.
Gender Discrimination in the Academic Profession David, Miriam, Stephen J. Ball, Jackie Davies and Diane Reay. 2003. Gender issues in parental involvement in student choices of higher education. Gender and Education 15(1):21–36. Dyhouse, Carole. 2006. Students: A gendered history. London: Routledge. Francis, Becky, Jocelyn Robson, and Barbara Read. 2001. An analysis of undergraduate writing styles in the context of gender and achievement. Studies in Higher Education 26(3): 313–326. Grant, Barbara, and Sally Knowles. 2000. Flights of imagination: Academic women be(com)ing writers. International Journal for Academic Development 5(1): 6–19. Hey, Valerie. 2011. Affective asymmetries: Academics, austerity and the mis/recognition of emotion. Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences 6(2): 207–222. Jackson, Carolyn, and Steven Dempster. 2009. ‘I Sat Back on my Computer . . . With a Bottle of Whisky Next to Me’: Constructing ‘cool’ masculinity through ‘effortless’ achievement in secondary and higher education. Journal of Gender Studies 18(4): 341–356. Kenway, Jane, and Diana Langmead. 1998. Governmentality, the ‘Now’ university and the future of knowledge work. Australian Universities Review 41(2): 28–32. Leathwood, Carole, and Barbara Read. 2009. Gender and the changing face of higher education: A feminized future? Basingstoke: SRHE and Open University Press. Leberman, Sarah I., Brigit Eames, and Shirley Barnett. 2016. Unless you are collaborating with a big name successful professor, you are unlikely to receive funding. Gender and Education 28(5): 644–661. Leonard, Diana. 2001. A woman’s guide to doctoral studies. Independence, KY: Taylor and Francis. Malik, Samina, and Kathy Courtney. 2011. Higher education and women’s empowerment in Pakistan. Gender and Education 23(1): 29–45. Mirza, Heidi Safia. 2005. Race, gender and educational desire. London: Routledge. Moreau, Marie-Pierre, and Carole Leathwood. 2006. Balancing paid work and studies: Working (class) students in higher education. Studies in Higher Education 31(1): 23–42. Morley, Louise. 1999. Organizing feminisms: The micropolitics of the academy. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan. Morley, Louise. 2014. Lost leaders: Women in the global academy. Higher Education Research and Development 33(1): 114–128. Pereira, Charmaine. 2007. Gender in the making of the Nigerian university system. Ibadan/Oxford: Heinemann Educational Books (Nigeria) and James Currey. Phipps, Alison, and Geraldine Smith. 2012. Violence against women students in the UK: Time to take action. Gender and Education 24(4): 357–373. Quinn, Jocey. 2003. Powerful subjects: Are women really taking over the university? Trentham: Stoke on Trent.
539 Reay, Diane, Miriam E. David, and Stephen J. Ball. 2005. Degrees of choice: Class, race, gender and higher education. Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent. Reay, Diane, Gill Crozier, and John Clayton. 2010. ‘Fitting In’ or ‘Standing Out’: Working-class students in higher education. British Educational Research Journal 36(1): 107–124. Santiago, Ileana Cortes, Nastaran Karimi, and Zaira R. Arvelo Alicea. 2016. Neoliberalism and higher education: A collective autoethnography of brown women teaching assistants. Gender and Education. https://doi. org/10.1080/09540253.2016.1197383. Taylor, Yvette, and Emily Falconer. 2016. Negotiating queer and religious identities in higher education: Queering ‘Progression’ in the ‘University Experience’. British Journal of Sociology of Education. https://doi. org/10.1080/01425692.2016.1182008. Torres, Lisette E. 2012. Lost in the numbers: Gender equity discourse and women of color in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). International Journal of Science in Society 3(4): 33–45. Wenneras, Christine, and Agnes Wold. 1997. Nepotism and sexism in peer-review. Nature 387(6631): 341–343.
Gender Balance in Science Communication ▶ Women in Science Communication
Gender Bias ▶ Gender Discrimination in the Academic Profession
Gender Discrimination in the Academic Profession Karen Monkman and Sophia Neely College of Education, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
Synonyms Gender bias; Glass ceiling; Leaky pipeline
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Definition Although women are much more represented in higher education at the dawn of the twenty-first century than they were a century ago, various gender imbalances are still noticeable. Their access to the academic profession tends to be restricted in some fields, positions, and activities, with persistent inequalities perpetuated through a complex set of mechanisms. Gender bias in higher education has a long history. Men have been students in universities for centuries, while women have been admitted for just over one hundred years or less in many countries. Discrimination in admission leads to lack of access to careers that require higher education, including academic careers. Societal dynamics such as these are conditioned by gender biased beliefs and structural limitations favoring men over women. While in many countries women now outnumber men in schools and universities, there are still inequities. In the recent past, understandings of gender discrimination have been refined and expanded. Many institutions, for example, have broadened their policy focus beyond women to include protections for people who identify as transgender or nonbinary as well as for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people. It is also more widely acknowledged that intersectionality is important for understanding gender discrimination. While gains have been made, challenges persist in the effort to dismantle or disrupt structures of gender inequity, which include patriarchy, stereotypes, and restrictive social and cultural norms. Furthermore, globalization creates new challenges.
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35 Commonwealth countries, Singh (2008) found that women were 15.3% of full professors in 2006, an increase from 9.9% a decade earlier. For associate professors (including job titles of readers, principal lecturers, senior lecturers), women overall were 29.1%. Similarly, in US universities, women are underrepresented at the upper ends of the career ladder – and overrepresented at the lower levels – 28% of full professors, 41% of associate professors, 48% of assistant professors, and 54% of instructors and lecturers (combined), demonstrating the effects of a glass ceiling. Discipline-specific discrepancies are also evident in Commonwealth countries, with the highest percentage of women in education (41.3%) and the lowest in engineering (6.7%) (Singh 2008). In Europe, Goastellec and Pekari (2013) also find an overrepresentation of women in social sciences compared with hard sciences, where they remain a minority. While women number far fewer professors than men at all levels combined (full, associate and assistant professors; instructors and lecturers), their numbers increased at a faster rate than men between 2005 and 2009 in US universities (ACE 2012). For example, women as full professors increased 17.1% from 2005 to 2009 (from 42,404 to 49,650), while men increased only 0.9% (127,788 to 127,931). At the lowest rank, both men and women in lecturer positions have increased at more than 20% (women 23.7%, and men 21.2%), revealing a faster rate of growth in lower level positions that have low wages and lack of job security. This shift reflects the increasingly contingent nature of academic work (Mason et al. 2013), influenced by neoliberalism and globalization (Blackmore 2014).
A Glass Ceiling A Leaky Pipeline Acker and Webber (2013:199) observe that “overt discrimination is now in the past, and women’s presence in ‘higher education’ is much more visible.” Despite increases in numbers, imbalances remain. In Canada, for example, women as a percentage of full-time academics rose from 12.7% in the early 1970s to 36.6% in 2010–2011 (Acker and Webber 2013). Similarly, in a study of
Some of the disparities at the upper levels are due to women being newer entrants into academia, as is evident with the historical patterns mentioned above; this suggests that the disparities may diminish over time. However, a leaky pipeline is more often evoked to explain the more frequent departures of women from the academic career
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pipeline, especially in male-dominated fields. Since 2009 in the USA women have outnumbered men as earners of doctorate degrees across all fields combined, yet in business, engineering, mathematics, computer science, and physical sciences they fall behind, sometimes earning less than 25% of the degrees (Allum and Okahana 2015). Girls and women are still often discouraged from pursuing particular fields in school and university. Strategies to reverse these societal messages include summer camps for girls to develop interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), mentoring underrepresented students, and being more explicit in offering opportunities. With more young women studying STEM fields in university, and with more entering doctoral programs in most fields, the pipeline has widened in the past couple of decades. However, representative of other universities, the University of California hires fewer women overall even though they earn more doctorates (West 2007). Recruitment processes are identified as one important place where women are weeded out (Goastellec and Crettaz von Roten 2017). In addition to the disparities within particular fields, women doctoral students are overrepresented in the lower status institutions in Europe (Goastellec and Pekari 2013) as well as in the USA, where 64% of US doctoral students are female in third and fourth tier universities versus 49.7% at the top tier; furthermore, women represent over 70% of the total enrollment in for-profit institutions (Allum and Okahana 2015). Earning doctorates from lower tier and for-profit institutions limits possibilities for academic hiring, as institutions tend to hire graduates from higher tier public or private nonprofit institutions. “‘The higher the fewer’ continues to be a fitting description for women and girls who progress through the educational system” (Pasque 2014:324).
A Broken Ladder If a pipeline refers to available candidates who can access academic jobs, a ladder reflects career
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trajectories within universities – typically from untenured assistant professor positions to tenured associate professor and to full professor, with some entering into upper level administrative positions. In countries that use different academic job titles – for example, lecturer, senior lecturer or reader, and full professor – the career ladder for upward mobility is similar. Women are tenured and promoted less frequently than men, often leaving academia before becoming tenured and/or promoted (Deutsch and Yao 2014) for a variety of reasons, including discriminatory or inhospitable work environments; inadequate mentoring, support, or access to resources; and challenges in balancing life and work. Other studies find gaps at the tenure stage, but not later, although women often take more time to be promoted to full professor. In New Zealand, an interview study found that women had lower expectations to reach the rank of full professor before retirement while most men took this for granted (Baker 2010).
A Gated Community In addition to limitations related to vertically climbing the career ladder or breaking through the glass ceiling, Hironimus-Wendt and Dedjoe (2015) talk of a “gated community” referring to horizontal limitations: “women are disproportionately absent from specific ‘places’ across establishments” (p. 52), for example, particular fields such as business and some sciences. In showing that far less women are hired relative to the supply of women with earned doctorates in particular fields, they cast doubt on the leaky pipeline theory. They make two key arguments about what maintains these patterns: higher salaries in male dominated fields and market-driven salaries. Salaries in male dominated fields are often higher than in fields with more women. Entrylevel wages decline as the proportion of women available increases. As wages decline, men look for positions that pay more, so more women are then hired for the vacated lower-paying jobs. “[M]en are disproportionately found in academi [a] . . . where wages are higher, and at rates that are
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inconsistent with the increasing presence of women possessing PhD degrees in those fields” (Hironimus-Wendt and Dedjoe 2015:51). In other words, fields where wages are higher hire fewer women. For example, 39% of businessrelated PhD degrees are earned by women, yet they are only 21% of those hired; in math and natural sciences the comparable percentages are 44% holding degrees, but only 26% of those hired. Market-sensitive pay is a related argument. In academic fields such as business and law, many universities hire at wages that are competitive with jobs outside the university to entice those with expertise into the university. This maintains high salaries in some fields, and a justification to pay low salaries in others, for example, the humanities, education, and some social science fields, where there are fewer jobs outside of academia for those with doctorates, or where those jobs don’t pay well, and where there are more women. Hironimus-Wendt and Dedjoe’s (2015) counterargument is that a professor’s job is the same despite one’s field – all professors teach, publish research, and serve the institution – so pay should be comparable across fields. That is, if those in more lucrative fields outside of academia (often male dominated) were to choose to be academics for reasons unrelated to salary, the salary disparities would be decreased.
Salary Gaps Gendered pay differentials have been studied in the USA since the 1970s with increasingly complex analytical approaches that address productivity and teaching loads, the lower status institutions and lower ranks where women are located, and intersectionality, especially of race and gender. Overall a 2–14% pay gap is recognized, favoring men (Allan 2011). Many academics supplement their salaries with grants and consulting; women are not as likely to have access to supplemental income, and when they do receive it the amounts are lower (Allan 2011). Some studies find that the largest pay disparities are at the top, among full professors.
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A variety of things can impact salary: the initial salary negotiated, the timing of promotions (when larger raises are typically given), merit increases, and, in some countries, part-time positions. Earlier promotions result in a much larger salary over time, as subsequent increases build on that larger base salary. Moreover, gendered assumptions can subjectively influence merit increases to the disadvantage of women. On initial salary negotiations, women are often not as assertive and start out with lower salaries. At institutions that have salary scales or strong unions, initial salaries tend to be more equitable. Other equity issues in academic jobs include workload (discussed below), lab space, and other things that can also reveal gendered patterns. Disparities do not prove that there is explicit discrimination, but they often do point to a variety of intangible structural and cultural dynamics that create barriers and reflect implicit gender bias. Three persistent gender issues are: a chilly climate in some fields, managing an academic workload (teaching, research, and service), and balancing life and work.
A Chilly Climate In some fields women encounter a chilly climate. Many STEM fields have historically been bastions of masculinity, and women have reported feeling unwelcomed and unable to access resources as successfully (Deutsch and Yao 2014). Engineering and computer science are reportedly the least female-friendly environments. Where women don’t find a welcoming atmosphere, work satisfaction decreases, and they often leave or are pushed out for not appearing to fit in. Beyond teaching positions, when academics move into administrative positions at the top ranks of universities, women also perceive a chilly climate there. In any academic field women may experience sexual harassment, which can also create an inhospitable work environment. Sexual harassment can be subtle (the use of language that objectifies women, for example, and makes them feel like sexual objects) or explicit (such as the
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expectation of sexual favors). Students sexually harassing faculty has also been recognized, including offering sexual favors for higher grades (Hirshfield 2015). Women in many disciplines face more subtle gendered issues, including a lack of respect from students, students asking favors of their female professors that they would not request of males, or colleagues who avoid collaborating with women faculty. Among colleagues, women are sometimes used for support but not treated as full colleagues in a scholarly sense where benefits in productivity would accrue, for example.
Managing Workload Academic jobs are typically defined as requiring research, teaching, and service (e.g., participation on university governance committees). Research usually has the largest influence on tenure and promotion decisions, and pay increases, with teaching considered less than or equally important depending on the type of institution. Service is expected but valued to a lesser degree. Women often have larger service responsibilities than men and tend to devote more time to teaching, perhaps due to socialized caretaking expectations. This reduces their time available for research. Inequities in service responsibilities are created when women and people of color are called on more often to ensure minority representation on university committees and mentor others (faculty and students) who are minorities. Pyke (2015) demonstrates how service loads interact with a variety of gendered structural spaces, positioning women to take on more service, earlier, and with less support or recognition. In teaching, women and men are often evaluated differently by students in course evaluations, with men rated higher on knowledge and women on nurturing (Hirshfield 2015). With more service and time spent on teaching, women produce less research than their male counterparts (Bird 2011). Reflecting socialization patterns, women tend to present their accomplishments in a more humble manner. Expectations for promoting one’s work are highly gendered in most universities – one is
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expected to self promote. For men, talking about their accomplishments is often seen as appropriately masculine, while for women it is likely to be interpreted negatively as bragging. In publications, men cite their own work more often than women do (Padilla-Gonzalez et al. 2011). This increases one’s citation rate, which is often used as a metric of assessing one’s impact on their field, which is a typical expectation for promotion to full professor.
Balancing Home and Work Life Balancing home and work life also reveals gender differences that affect academic success. In a longitudinal study of the careers of more than 160,000 academics, Mason et al. (2013) found that family status has very different implications for men and women. Women faculty pre- and post-tenure are less likely than their male counterparts to have children and to be married. Prime child-bearing years usually coincide with the tenure-track process. Thus, women who choose to have children face the challenge of raising them during the years in which their academic careers have the most high stakes consequences, i.e., during the 6 years they will either earn tenure or be dismissed. Having internalized the assumption that they are the primary caregivers, women either put off having children or defer to their spouse’s career so they have more time to spend with their children. They may also settle into jobs either in second tier institutions or as contingent faculty (Mason et al. 2013) where research expectations are lower. Women in academia frequently feel pressure to choose between career and family (Deutsch and Yao 2014). Men tend not to feel these pressures; they can more easily have a career and be a father. Academic women who do have children, spouse, and career manage all three despite a profession that tends to be “remarkably intolerant of employment interruptions” (Hile 2011:408). Most US universities allow women to stop the tenure clock (to not count the year) for maternity leaves. US law allows for 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave although some universities
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provide some pay. Most European countries are more generous with time off and pay, for women and often men. While stopping the tenure clock for a year allows for an easier balance of starting a family for academic women in the USA, it also postpones promotions and pay increases and delays research progress. Too often, due to gendered stereotypes, women can be viewed as less committed to their work as their involvement in family becomes more visible. While family leave policies can help in some ways, they are inadequate and often underutilized by both men and women (Mason et al. 2013). Challenging the underlying beliefs in segmented gendered roles in family and changing societal norms about women in the workplace is still a work-inprogress. Furthermore, an as yet understudied balance of work and eldercare (care of aging parents, usually women’s responsibility) is likely to create an additional challenge for women academics in their later years (Mason et al. 2013).
Pushing Back and Moving Forward Various laws and policies at international, national, and local levels aim to reduce gender discrimination. Laws and policies are insufficient, however. Societal norms, stereotypes, and cultural beliefs and practices persist, as do patriarchal structures that maintain gender inequities. While 143 out of 195 countries “guarantee equality between women and men in their constitutions as of 2014 . . . discrimination against women persists . . .” (UN Women n.d.). International agreements, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) try to reduce gender discrimination; CEDAW “legally binds signatory governments to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in public and private life, including within the family” (UN Women n.d.). Yet, 77 countries continue to criminalize same-sex relationships, thereby severely limiting progress for LGBTQ people inside academia and far beyond. In the USA, Title IX of the 1972 US Education Amendments (commonly known as “Title IX”)
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prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in academic institutions that receive federal funding. It has had a far-reaching impact on opening up athletic opportunities for women students in secondary schools and universities and has, more recently, been used to combat sexual harassment on university campuses, including that which involves academic staff. Title IX (and other gender equity laws) was expanded by President Obama to prohibit discrimination based both on sex assigned at birth and on gender identity; this was, however, reversed by his successor, revealing the very political nature of such protections. In some states and institutions transgender and nonbinary students and faculty are also legally protected from discrimination based on gender identity. Although laws like Title IX have benefited some individuals, they have not realized the cultural or structural change necessary to achieve gender equity in the academic profession. Stromquist (2013:20) explains, “Title IX addressed only sex discrimination, not the gendered structures that support power and status asymmetries between women and men.” Legal and policy protections are steps toward gender equity, yet structural patriarchal and heteronormative inequities still dominate in academia.
Conclusion Gendered structures and normative values are conditioned by broader phenomena; in our era globalization is paramount. Neoliberal forms of globalization encourage more competition and more focus on the individual and consumerism. They also exacerbate class inequities and prioritize the market over the state. The growth of neoliberalism has prioritized market strategies within education, replaced shared governance with top-down corporate models of governance in universities, and instituted quality assurance (accountability) regimes. These and other structural changes have accentuated social inequities, narrowed what is valued, and altered power relations. These shifts have created new challenges for gender equity in the academy (Blackmore
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2014). “There is a contrast between the speed of the [global structural] changes . . . and the slowness of gendered change in universities” (Morley 2005:210). While challenges have continued, increased awareness, policies, laws, and historical experience bolster ongoing efforts to advance gender equity in the academy. Further progress will undoubtedly require a continued focus on building awareness of gendered, social, and institutional processes; a commitment to gender equity in a broad sense; and political will to contest the social forces that are contrary to these values.
Cross-References ▶ Gender and Higher Education ▶ Returns to Higher Education and Gender
References Acker, Sandra, and Michelle Webber. 2013. Chapter 21: Academia as the (com)promised land for women? In Academic working lives: Experience, practice and change, ed. Lynne Gornall, Caryn Cook, Lyn Daunton, Jane Salisbury, and Brychan Thomas, 199–206. London: Bloomsbury. Allan, Elizabeth J. 2011. Women’s status in higher education: Equity matters. ASHE Higher Education Report 37(1): iii-163. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. https://doi. org/10.1002/aehe.3701. Allum, Jeff, and Hironao Okahana. 2015. Graduate enrollment and degrees: 2004 to 2014. Washington: Council of Graduate Schools. American Council on Education (ACE). 2012. Number and growth of faculty, by gender and rank: Selected years (2005, 2007, 2009). Fact Sheet on Higher Education. http://www.acenet.edu/news-room/Pages/ Number-and-Growth-of-Faculty-by-Gender-andRank.aspx. Accessed 1 Apr 2017. Baker, Maureen. 2010. Career confidence and gendered expectations of academic promotion. Journal of Sociology 46 (3): 317–334. Bird, Karen Schucan. 2011. Do women publish fewer journal articles than men? Sex differences in publication productivity in the social sciences. British Journal of Sociology of Education 32 (6): 921–937. https://doi. org/10.1080/01425692.2011.596387. Blackmore, Jill. 2014. Chapter 18 :“Still hanging off the edge”: An Australian case study of gender, universities and globalization. In Globalization and education: Integration and contestation across
545 cultures, ed. Nelly P. Stromquist and Karen Monkman, 2nd ed., 285–303. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Deutsch, Francine M., and Beier Yao. 2014. Gender differences in faculty attrition in the USA. Community, work & family 17 (4): 392–408. Goastellec, Gaële, and Nicolas Pekari. 2013. Gender differences and inequalities in academia: Findings in Europe. In The work situation of the academic profession in Europe: Findings of a survey in twelve European countries, ed. Ulrich Teichler and Ester Ava Höhle, 55–78. Dordrecht: Springer. Goastellec, Gaële & Fabienne Crettaz von Roten. 2017. The societal embeddedness of academic markets: From sex to gender in the Swiss context. In Challenges and options: The academic profession in Europe, eds. Maria Machado-Taylor, Virgilio Meira Soares, and Ulrich Teichler, 211–229. Dordrecht: Springer. Hile, Rachel E. 2011. Chapter 50: Work-family conflicts and policies. In Gender & higher education, ed. Barbara J. Bank, 406–413. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hironimus-Wendt, Robert J., and Doreen A. Dedjoe. 2015. Chapter 1: Glass ceilings and gated communities in higher education. In Disrupting the culture of silence: Confronting gender inequality and making change in higher education, ed. Kristine De Welde and Andi Stepnick, 37–54. Sterling: Stylus. Hirshfield, Laura. 2015. Chapter 11: The ideal professor: Gender in the academy. In Disrupting the culture of silence: Confronting gender inequality and making change in higher education, ed. Kristine De Welde and Andi Stepnick, 205–214. Sterling: Stylus. Mason, Mary Ann, Nicholas H. Wolfinger, and Marc Goulden. 2013. Do babies matter?: Gender and family in the Ivory Tower. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Morley, Louise. 2005. Gender equity in Commonwealth higher education. Women’s Studies International Forum 28: 209–221. Padilla-Gonzalez, Laura, Amy Scott Metcalfe, Jesús F. Galaz-Fontes, Donald Fisher, and Iain Snee. 2011. Gender gaps in North American research productivity: Examining faculty publication rates in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 41 (5): 649–668. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.564799. Pasque, Penny A. 2014. Access and equity for women in higher education during the era of the Obama administration: Social identities, pay inequities, and the power of women’s groups in changing leadership paradigms. In The Obama administration and educational reform, Advances in education in diverse communities: Research policy and praxis, ed. Eboni M. ZamaniGallaher, vol. 10, 313–336. Bingly: Emerald. Pyke, Karen. 2015. Chapter 4: Faculty gender inequity and the “just say no to service” fairy tale. In Disrupting the culture of silence: Confronting gender inequality and making change in higher education, ed. Kristine De Welde and Andi Stepnick, 83–95. Sterling: Stylus.
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546 Singh, J.K.S. 2008. Whispers of change: Female staff numbers in commonwealth universities. London: The Association of Commonwealth Universities. Stromquist, Nelly. 2013. Education policies for gender equity: Probing into state responses. Education Policy Analysis Archives 21(65). http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/arti cle/view/1338. Accessed 11 Mar 2017. UN Women. n.d.. Beijing + 20. Infographic: Human rights of women. http://beijing20.unwomen.org/en/ infographic/human-rights. Accessed 11 Mar 2017. West, Martha S. 2007. Unprecedented urgency: Gender discrimination in faculty hiring at the University of California. NWSA Journal 19 (3): 199–211.
General Education ▶ Liberal Arts Education, Going Global ▶ The Idea of the University: Renewing the Great Tradition
Genuine Over-Education ▶ Over-Skilling, Under-Skilling, and Higher Education
German (Humboldtian) University Tradition, The Robert D. Anderson School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Definition The German university tradition formed in the early 19th century and internationally influential thereafter.
Introduction The term “Humboldtian tradition” refers to the ideals and practices of German universities which developed in the nineteenth century and formed a highly influential international model
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down to 1914. Today it is often invoked as a criterion for judging, usually critically, contemporary university developments (Nybom 2003). More neutrally, but in some ways misleadingly, it is equated with the ethos of the modern research university. Wilhelm von Humboldt was the Prussian aristocrat who presided over the foundation of the University of Berlin in 1810. But his writings on the subject (Humboldt 1970) were only rediscovered around 1900: the “Humboldt myth” projected modern concerns into the past and created an idealized model of what had in fact developed pragmatically over a century. Historians have stressed that the foundation of Berlin University rested on earlier developments and was not the work of Humboldt alone (Anderson 2000, 2004: 51–65; Anrich 1956; McClelland 1980: 101–49). Many features of the German tradition developed only after his day, often departing quite far from his original ideal (Schelsky 1963; Sylvia Paletschek in Schwinges 2001: 75–104). The foundation of Berlin University in 1810 nevertheless symbolizes a turning point in university history. The universities of the ancien regime were destroyed or disrupted by the French revolution and the wars which followed it. National university systems were then reconstructed on lines which survived until a second transformation after 1945 which moved toward the “mass” university – though within this period, the First World War marked a strong breach in continuity (Wittrock 1993, 2013). The new universities were secular, identified with the nation-state, and served a social elite. Two models battled for European supremacy – the French or “Napoleonic” one characterized by centralized bureaucratic systems and curricula and the German one by greater autonomy and academic freedom (Charle 2004). The conventional view used to be that the German model triumphed, and German scientific achievements, backed by the country’s industrial and military might, certainly gave its universities great prestige. But historians today take a more nuanced view of the “reception” of the Humboldtian tradition. Centralized state systems did not disappear, and other countries were selective in what they copied from Germany, adapting
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individual features to suit their own traditions (Schalenberg 2002; Schubring 1991; Schwinges 2001). “Cultural transfer” is seldom straightforward, and the original model was simplified and sometimes misunderstood. In the long run, the most significant influence was on the growth of the research university in the United States.
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methods of investigation and criticism, establishing universal truths independent of national bias, politics, or religion. Its home was in the faculty of philosophy, which originally embraced all disciplines; the creation of separate science faculties in the late nineteenth century was often resisted as a departure from the older tradition.
Humboldtian Principles The Development of the Tradition The central principle of what came to be seen as the Humboldtian tradition was the “union of teaching and research.” In institutional terms, teaching and research were combined in universities that were corporate entities, contrasting with France, where teaching was split among specialized faculties and schools, and research was often conducted in separate institutes. Pedagogically, the principle meant that students should be taught by professors actively engaged in research and should themselves share in the search for truth. This reflected the concept of Bildung, the German ideal of liberal education as the self-directed and harmonious unfolding of the individual personality. Humboldt drew a sharp distinction between schools, where teaching must be dogmatic, and universities, where science and learning should be pursued freely for their own sake (O’Boyle 1983). General education should be complete before students entered the university. Once there, they should shape their intellectual lives in the context of a community of learning. For this, “freedom of learning and teaching” (Lern- und Lehrfreiheit) was a basic principle: there should be no fixed curricula, but professors should be free to follow their own scientific path and students to construct their own patterns of learning. Another key concept was Wissenschaft, usually translated into English as “science and learning,” though other languages do not distinguish between scientific and humanistic disciplines. Humboldt and his contemporaries believed in the unity of knowledge, a concept rooted in German philosophical idealism and romantic ideology. Wissenschaft had a special status as knowledge established by rigorous academic
Another coupling which went back to Humboldt himself was Einsamkeit und Freiheit. Einsamkeit meant “solitude” or “isolation”: both individual scholars and universities as institutions should be insulated from outside pressures. This has to be seen in its political context. German universities were financed by the state, which appointed all professors, and until well into the nineteenth century, most German states were authoritarian. How was academic freedom to be reconciled with state control? The idea of objective Wissenschaft was one answer: science could be a protected sphere independent of politics. From 1848 onwards, and definitively when the German empire was founded in 1871, freedom of Wissenschaft and of teaching was written into state constitutions. It is correct to see in the German universities the origins of the research university, but their achievements depended on ever-increasing specialization and academic professionalization, which conflicted with the “unity of knowledge” and with Humboldt’s conception of original inquiry as a means of forming the personality. On the other hand, Lern- und Lehrfreiheit remained fundamental principles. There were no fixed curricula, defined years of study, or regular examinations. Professional examinations for medicine, law, the civil service, and teaching were run by the state, and the only qualification awarded directly by the universities was the doctorate (PhD), based on a modest research dissertation. The ideal of individual Bildung survived, and though most students aimed at conventional official or professional careers, they were free to choose whatever courses, and in whichever order, they wished. One consequence was the
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custom of moving regularly from one university to another. The structure of the German academic profession was distinctive. The unity of teaching and research put the professor at the heart of the university, and German professors became all-powerful figures. This was reinforced by the institution of the seminar. Along with the PhD, this was the German feature most copied elsewhere. The seminar was a group of students working with the professor on related research topics; in the sciences, its equivalent was the laboratory or institute where professors trained researchers for the next generation. The origins of the modern research laboratory are often seen here, notably in the work of the chemist Justus Liebig at Giessen. But the importance of the seminar should not be exaggerated: for less advanced students, lectures remained the main mode of instruction and were usually the basis of a professor’s reputation. For entry to the academic profession, it was necessary to receive the Habilitation, conferred by a university after extended research work, in effect a second doctorate. Much depended on the patronage of the professor who directed a seminar or laboratory and supervised a dissertation. Successful candidates could then work as a Privatdozent, permitted to give lectures within the university, but without a salary. A Privatdozent might eventually become an “extraordinary” professor, but power remained in the hands of the established professor, the Ordinarius, and the number of these posts was limited. The autonomy of universities in granting qualifications, the professors’ right to elect deans of faculties and the university rector, and the convention that when appointing professors ministers chose from a list submitted by faculties were all seen as guarantees of academic freedom. State control was also tempered since universities were the responsibility of the separate German states (as they are today of the federal Länder), not of the central government of the post-1871 empire. German universities reflected some distinctly conservative features of German society. One was their association with the Bildungsbürgertum, an upper bourgeois stratum based on the bureaucracy and professions and distinguished from the
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business class. Another was the narrow path to university entry, which depended on the Abitur school-leaving examination. The German secondary school or Gymnasium, like its equivalents in most European countries, was an elite school giving an intensive education in the Greek and Latin classics, and the universities monopolized the training of secondary teachers. It was only around 1900 that universities were forced to admit the graduates of modern secondary schools. Germany was admired elsewhere for the contribution which science and higher education made to its dynamic industrial expansion, yet outsiders tended to simplify this connection. In some scientific branches like physics and chemistry, university research contributed directly to industry, but the universities were generally hostile to applied science, technology, or commercial subjects, which were taught in a separate sector of “technical high schools.” Only in 1899 were these allowed to grant PhDs and later still that they could call themselves “technical universities.” The barrier of the Abitur, the gendered concept of Bildung, the prejudices of the professorate, and the nature of German student life as socialization into masculinity (not least through beer drinking and duelling) also meant that German states were among the last to open their universities to women. By the early twentieth century, the unity of teaching and research and disinterested Wissenschaft pursued by individual scholars seemed outdated with the growth of large-scale and expensive science, specialization, and business involvement. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (today the Max Planck Society), financed by private money as well as the state, was founded in 1911 to coordinate a range of specialized institutes only loosely connected with universities. Reaction to these trends – later voiced in Max Weber’s classic lecture of 1918, “Science as a vocation” – was one reason why the rediscovery of Humboldt’s writings was significant (Weber 1970).
Twentieth-Century Crisis The prestige of German universities remained high until 1914, but was eclipsed by the First World War, after which the tradition’s
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international influence came at second hand via America. From the foundation of Berlin onward, German universities were central to the development of national consciousness and identity. After 1871, this took a rightward turn, and observers noted the increasing identification of students and professors with militarist and nationalist forces, including antisemitism. Many German professors or “mandarins” were alarmed by democratic trends which expanded the student body beyond the Bildungsbürgertum, by the admission of women, and by the intrusion of socialism into the academic sphere. They turned to uncritical support for the imperial “power state” (Machtstaat) and for Germany’s war effort in 1914 (Ringer 1969). French and British wartime propaganda made much of this (though their own academics were hardly less chauvinist), and after Germany’s defeat, her universities and scholars were excluded from conferences and international gatherings. The worldwide community of universities developing before 1914, an aspect of early globalization, was never fully restored, and the German universities had hardly recovered before their reputation was devastated by their failure to resist the Nazi regime. After 1945, as universities were reconstructed, Humboldt again became a symbol from which a new order could derive legitimacy. Even in East Germany, the communist regime claimed his legacy: in 1949 the University of Berlin was renamed the Humboldt University (after Wilhelm and his brother the scientist Alexander). In the West, some scholars like the philosopher Karl Jaspers reasserted a highly idealistic version of the German tradition (Johan Östling in Josephson et al. 2014: 111–26), while others sought to adapt it to new conditions (Schelsky 1963). There was a natural desire to return to familiar patterns, including the authority of the professorate and an elite conception of Bildung, and this conservative “Humboldt syndrome” (Konrad H. Jarausch in Ash 1997: 33–54) could be an obstacle to coping with postwar change, including the expansion of student numbers and the demands of students and junior staff for a say in university government.
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The Humboldtian Ideal Today Such difficulties were not confined to Germany. Throughout Western Europe, it appeared possible until the 1960s to expand and modernize the elite model of the university without fundamental change. But two successive though linked phenomena undermined this conservative optimism: the irreversible democratic shift toward mass higher education and the pressures of neoliberal globalization. The expansion of student numbers challenged the Humboldtian model in various respects. It cost money, leading governments to seek cheap alternatives to the traditional university and to make universities justify themselves in instrumental or economic terms. New universities were founded, either from scratch or by promoting existing technical or vocational colleges. In Germany perhaps more than elsewhere, this conflicted with the tradition that all universities were of equal status. As student numbers and the variety of universities grew, it seemed logical to introduce selection of students, but this too offended an established principle in many European countries, that all those with a secondary school diploma had a right to go to a university of their choice. When universities drew their clientele from a wider social range, taught a great variety of practical subjects, and prepared for occupations beyond the old professional type, the ideals of Bildung and the unity of teaching and research seemed outdated. These issues were, and still are, mainly debated within a national framework. But globalization posed further challenges (Josephson et al. 2014). In a global “knowledge economy,” universities were central to prosperity, but could no longer work only within national boundaries. This seemed to dissolve the bond, central to the Humboldtian ideal, between universities, the nation-state, and national cultures (Readings 1996). It also reinforced differentiation within national systems by encouraging governments to distinguish selected universities which could compete internationally on grounds of “excellence.” International “league tables” based essentially on research, and the neoliberal market
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view of students as customers or consumers, seemed to make the unity of research and teaching, and the community of scholars and students, more remote from reality than ever. Furthermore, to attract students on a global scale, universities needed to offer interchangeable qualifications. This was a particular issue in Europe, where the European Union adopted policies of harmonization and free movement aimed at creating a “common higher education area.” Under the “Bologna process” initiated in 1999, European universities are expected to adopt a common sequence of bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees. This is essentially an American pattern, but it was not only the terminology which seemed alien to the Humboldtian tradition: fixed curricula with stages linked to specific periods of study are a radical departure from Lernfreiheit (Ash 2006). Just as the Humboldtian tradition was never imitated straightforwardly in the past, so hopes of international assimilation today are likely to be modified by the power of national traditions. Have Humboldtian principles lost their relevance? One of their restatements was the “Bologna declaration” of 1988 (not to be confused with the Bologna process), signed by the heads of most European universities and described as the Magna Charta of European universities (Magna Charta 1988). It proclaimed four principles. First, the university is an autonomous institution, embodying and transmitting the culture of its society. Research and teaching must be “morally and intellectually independent of all political authority and economic power.” (They might have added religious authority, an issue which has grown in salience since 1988.) Second, teaching and research must be inseparable. Third, freedom in research and teaching is “the fundamental principle of university life.” Finally, the university is “the trustee of the European humanist tradition.” Transposed from the German to the European scale, these principles are essentially those of the Humboldtian university, and if universities are to flourish in the air of academic freedom, they seem as necessary as ever.
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Cross-References ▶ University Tradition in the United States, The
References Anderson, Robert. 2000. Before and after Humboldt: European universities between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. History of Higher Education Annual 20: 5–14. Anderson, Robert. 2004. European universities from the Enlightenment to 1914. Oxford: University Press. Anrich, Ernst, ed. 1956. Die Idee der deutschen Universität. Die fünf Grundschriften aus der Zeit ihrer Neubegründung durch klassischen Idealismus und romantischen Realismus. Darmstadt: Gentner. Ash, Mitchell G., ed. 1997. German universities past and future: Crisis or renewal? Oxford: Berghahn. Ash, Mitchell G. 2006. Bachelor of what, master of whom? The Humboldt myth and historical transformations of higher education in German-speaking Europe and the US. European Journal of Education 41: 245–267. Charle, Christophe. 2004. Patterns. In A history of the university in Europe. III. Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1800–1945), ed. Walter Rüegg, 33–75. Cambridge: University Press. Humboldt, Wilhelm Von. 1970. On the spirit and the organisational framework of intellectual institutions in Berlin. Minerva 8: 242–250. Josephson, Peter, et al. 2014. The Humboldtian tradition: Origins and legacies. Leiden: Brill. Magna Charta. 1988. http://www.magna-charta.org/ resources/files/the-magna-charta/english. McClelland, Charles E. 1980. State, society and university in Germany 1700–1914. Cambridge: University Press. Nybom, Thorsten. 2003. The Humboldt legacy: Reflections on the past, present, and future of the European university. Higher Education Policy 16: 141–159. O’Boyle, Lenore. 1983. Learning for its own sake: The German university as nineteenth-century model. Comparative Studies in Society and History 25: 3–25. Readings, Bill. 1996. The university in ruins. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ringer, Fritz K. 1969. The decline of the German mandarins: The German academic community, 1890–1933. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schalenberg, Marc. 2002. Humboldt auf Reisen? Die Rezeption des ‘deutschen Universitätsmodells’ in den französischen und britischen Reformdiskursen (1810–1870). Basel: Schwabe. Schelsky, Helmut. 1963. Einsamkeit und Freiheit: Idee und Gestalt der deutschen Universität und ihrer Reformen. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Schubring, Gert, ed. 1991. ‘Einsamkeit und Freiheit’ neu besichtigt: Universitätsreformen und Disziplinenbildung in Preussen als Modell für
Global Citizenship and Higher Education Wissenschaftspolitik im Europa des 19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Steiner. Schwinges, Rainer C., ed. 2001. Humboldt International: Der Export des deutschen Universitätsmodells im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Basel: Schwabe. Weber, Max. 1970. Science as a vocation. In From Max Weber: Essays in sociology, ed. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. London: Routledge. Wittrock, Björn. 1993. The modern university: The three transformations. In The European and American university since 1800: Historical and sociological essays, ed. Sheldon Rothblatt and Björn Wittrock, 303–362. Cambridge: University Press. Wittrock, Björn. 2013. The modern university in its historical contexts: Rethinking three transformations. History of Universities 27(1): 199–226.
Glass Ceiling ▶ Gender Discrimination in the Academic Profession ▶ Returns to Higher Education and Gender
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Definitions “Global citizen” and “global citizenship” are terms and frameworks which have been used in many different ways across national contexts. There is no single universally agreed-upon definition for global citizenship, and indeed the notion remains contested in many quarters. However, most attempts to define global citizenship turn on the idea that human beings around the world – despite national, ethnic, cultural, or religious background – can, do, and ideally should feel a sense of connection, compassion, and responsibility toward one another in the globalized context of the twenty-first century. Global citizenship in higher education relates to the multiple ways that higher education’s stakeholders consider if, how, and in what ways tertiary institutions should foster global citizenship development and behaviors.
Introduction
Global and Regional Agencies ▶ International Organizations and Latin American Higher Education
Global Citizenship and Higher Education Lisa Unangst and Edward Choi Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Synonyms Cosmopolitanism; Cross-cultural empathy; Global competence; Global responsibility; Intercultural competence
“Global citizenship” may be conceived of as a practical goal, a theoretical framework, a commercialized product to be bought and sold (e.g., as the focus of a training course or a book series), and a rhetorical device. Discussions about global citizenship and its relationship to postsecondary education have been taking place worldwide in recent years, a process that has raised a number of key issues and challenges in many contexts. The concept of the citizen is traced by most authors to ancient Greece and encapsulates a formalized relationship between (some) individuals and the state. Particularly in the modern postcolonial era, citizenship has been used as a shorthand for being entitled to participate in some form of democratic process in the country in which one holds formal status. Further, Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ties citizenship directly to education, noting that Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance
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Alongside the post-World War II phenomena of globalization and technologization, and situated in an era of relative peace, “global citizenship” has emerged as, in one sense, a relatively straightforward description of a (privileged) individual’s access to global information, employment, etc. However, “global citizen” has also been problematized as contradictory to the legal use of the term “citizen,” which is fundamentally grounded in the context of individual nations. Madeline Green neatly describes other conceptions of global citizenship as: “a practical choice and way of thinking; as self-awareness and awareness of others; as the practice of cultural empathy; as the cultivation of principled decision-making; as participation in the social and political life of one’s society” (Green 2012). Meanwhile, universities and educational entities that charge tuition fees have employed the term to describe their educational offerings for purchase – a skill set which may be acquired and utilized in gainful employment postgraduation or following the completion of a particular course. Indeed, it is not only the formalized postsecondary sphere which has used the term in this way; Lyons and others have strongly criticized gap year programs and similar “educational tourism” ventures for perpetuating a shallow, resumeboosting “global citizenship” available and useful to a very privileged few (Lyons et al. 2012). “Global citizen” is a term and concept also frequently used in tandem with “global competencies” and “global professionals.” This is addressed in the 2015 European Parliament Study on the Internationalisation of Higher Education, which notes that these concepts are employed by international studies undertaken by such organizations as the International Association of Universities and the European Association for International Education: This focus on global citizenship and global competence has two dimensions: competence as global professionals is strongly related to the need for employability in a globally connected world,
Global Citizenship and Higher Education while citizenship is more aligned with raising awareness and commitment to global issues such as health, poverty, and climate, as indicated in the UN [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals. (Egron-Polak et al. 2015, p. 52)
Clearly, the notion of global citizenship has caught the attention of higher education leaders and policymakers around the world. As noted below, however, the concept is not without controversy. Global citizenship can be understood as a means and as an output and can be connected to the theoretical strands of neoliberalism and cosmopolitanism (as they relate to education). Further, ongoing developments in the debate are likely, considering how, for example, populism and nationalism may impact twenty-first-scentury global citizens and global citizenship more broadly.
The Construct and Practice of Global Citizenship Global citizenship, as a construct, is fluid and multilevel, a definitional ambiguity derived from a plurality of perspectives “filtered through social and historical contexts, interconnections between epistemology and power” (Kahn and Agnew 2017, p. 54), not to mention personal transformative encounters (Lilley et al. 2017). Given these qualities, global citizenship shares much of its theoretical foundation with similar concepts such as intercultural competence, cross-cultural empathy, international mobility, cross-cultural capability, cosmopolitism, and global perspectives. These are just a few among a long list of equally ambiguous and relatively defined concepts in the field of globalization and international higher education; just as they have come to embody a wide range of modalities in practice, global citizenship, too, has taken on an adaptive shape in application according to different interpretations. A few widely discussed representations of the construct provide insight into these complexities, and the manner by which they translate into practice. One common model relates to global citizenship as a neoliberal driver, in which success is determined by global citizens who thrive as
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productive and prosperous participants in a capitalist society (Aktas et al. 2017; Lilley et al. 2017; Boni and Calabuig 2017; Rizvi 2007). This framework imagines higher education playing a critical role in an economic market where a premium is placed not only on the preparation of students for global employability, international mobility, and cross-border networking, but also on the ascendency of nation-states as globally influential economic and academic actors (Aktas et al. 2017; Boni and Calabuig 2017; Rizvi 2007). Thus, global citizens are the winners in a neoliberal capitalist society. The acquisition of global citizenship is indeed a means to an end. Another dominant model concerns a nobler, higher-order purpose: the global citizen as a virtuous individual who contributes to the betterment of society (e.g., Aktas et al. 2017; Boni and Calabuig 2017; Schattle 2009). Particularly relevant to this interpretation is Martha Nussbaum’s and Cohen (1996) description of the cosmopolitan citizen, who pursues four objectives/activities: learning more about oneself, understanding the need to solve global problems through international cooperation, acknowledging moral obligations to the rest of the world, and acquiring the ability to prepare a solid and coherent series of arguments based on the differences that one is prepared to defend. Discernable in Nussbaum’s and Cohen (1996) construct are two fundamental dimensions: becoming (e.g., learning more about ourselves) and doing (e.g., solving global problems). While a slight distinction perhaps can be made between the two (on one side, crossnational activities directed at societal ills and, on the other, a state of being or an identity as an outgrowth of reflection and learning), both can be understood as mutually reinforcing (activities as emanating from attitudes and vice versa), and as integrative processes in which self-reflection, awareness, and self-transformation, to name a few, come together as critical and necessary components. Nussbaum’s and Cohen (1996) construct of the cosmopolitan citizen is echoed in many other studies focused on global citizenship. For example, Lilley et al. (2017) employ what they refer to as a “moral and transformative cosmopolitan”
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lens to describe global citizenship and allude to attitudes and activities that globally minded citizens are likely to adopt as their modus operandi. These include praxis informed by “the capabilities of a broader mind-set and. . .educational approaches for personal intellectual achievement” and an emphasis on “global interconnectedness and ethical capacities” (p. 7). Also worth mentioning are Andreotti (2006), Boni and Calbuig (2017), and Larsen (2014), who use a critical framework to illuminate a picture of global citizenship predicated on the concepts of, inter alia, social justice, empathy, awareness, and civic engagement. Global citizenship thus becomes a lifestyle geared toward understanding, internalizing, exposing, and challenging, as Jooste and Heleta (2017) put it, unjust social, political, and economic structures. As in the neoliberal imaginary, higher education fulfills a critical function in the moral and transformative context of the cosmopolitan model; however, its role is in the preparation of globally responsible individuals (Boni and Calabuig 2017; Munck 2010) rather than the mechanical production of readily employable graduates. In particular, liberal education, as explained by several authors (i.e., Kahn and Agnew 2017; Lilley et al. 2017; Jooste and Heleta 2017), offers the necessary learning components that propel global citizenship from a theoretical consideration to a form of application undergirded by the principles of, for example, civic engagement and cross-cultural empathy, both of which are integral to Nussbaum’s and Cohen (1996) cosmopolitan citizen.
Issues and Challenges Several challenges impact the higher education landscape vis-à-vis its contribution to preparing socially responsible citizens. For one, the neoliberal reality signals higher education to perform according to the demands of a society in which knowledge has become valued as a global and necessary currency. Higher education is thus less about preparing socially oriented and civicminded individuals than about acting as a de
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facto facilitator of economic participation for the millions of students who go through academe. In response, Nussbaum (2007) spotlights the urgent need for an academic enterprise brave enough to move away from market alignment and toward fostering “a complex understanding of the world and its peoples, and educates and refines the capacity for sympathy – in short, an education that cultivates human beings and their humanity, rather than producing generations of useful machines” (p. 40). Another challenge of global citizenship is related to the broader discourse conceiving of globalization as a model of impact “in which cultures and individuals are victims of the allencompassing and omnipotent global integration of market economies and technologies” (Kahn and Agnew 2017, p. 58). Under this argument, the movers of globalization, namely, the dominant cultures and individuals acting on the victims of Kahn and Agnew’s theoretical imaginary, become the world’s “saviors,” whose sole mission in life is to save the helpless. Embedded in this language is a critique in which global activities of a civic nature become charitable practices that make clear the dichotomous state of affairs between the needy and the rich (Aktas et al. 2017). Not surprisingly, liberal education, as a vital component of the global citizenship identity formation process (mentioned earlier), bears the brunt of the attack, given its exclusive marketing and availability (in most places around the world) to those that can afford this particular kind of educational experience, not to mention access to internationally accepted passports and global social networks, among other high social capital privileges. According to Calhoun (2003), these means are understood as requirements to maintain an identity of global citizenship, a point that resonates with yet another interpretation of the construct. Schattle (2009) avers that many people have come to internalize global citizenship as an “enthusiasm for international travel and a feeling in some cases that they can live anywhere provided they are able to maintain high living standards” (Schattle 2009, p. 17).
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Internationalization of the Curriculum and Intercultural Competence “Global citizenship” is also tied closely to two elements of the larger umbrella concept of internationalization, defined by Knight as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions, or delivery of postsecondary education” (Knight 2012, p. 29). Simply put, “Internationalization at Home” (or IaH), as a subcomponent of internationalization of the curriculum, reflects an attempt to incorporate international perspectives into student learning for the vast majority of students unable to pursue mobility for one reason or another. As noted by Leask, key considerations in this sphere include: designing internationalized learning outcomes, using student diversity to internationalize the curriculum, assessment in an internationalized curriculum, and connecting internationalization of the curriculum with institutional goals (Leask 2015). How, one might ask, are global citizens formed by the application of these efforts? How, in turn, do global citizens as instructors, faculty, or staff, inform the development of the next generation of global citizens? While internationalization of the curriculum is most often used in conjunction with “brick and mortar” postsecondary institutions, “intercultural competence” may be employed in the context of traditional universities as well as in various professional settings. Indeed, intercultural competence is used not only to assess, for example, learning outcomes and skills development of study abroad students, but may also be used by corporations to establish professional development goals and facilitate productive cross-cultural work. Central to the spectrum of intercultural competence is the concept of ethnorelativism; Bennett describes his early research on the topic as follows: “I coined the term ‘ethnorelativism’ to mean the opposite of ethnocentrism–the experience of one’s own beliefs and behaviors as just one organization of reality among many viable possibilities” (Bennett 2004, p. 1). As a result of work in this area, Hammer and others have developed a range of commercial products utilized in academic and corporate
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settings alike. Some of these include targeted assessments such as the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). Proponents of such assessments explicitly tie the measurement of intercultural competence (and associated skills) to effective global citizenship. We may productively question whether skills in the absence of content knowledge are as useful as skills enhanced or informed by such familiarity – does achievement on the IDI alone qualify a global citizen?
Future Outlook As noted previously, citizenship and education have been explicitly connected by the UDHR, among other formative UN agency documents. Indeed, UNESCO currently hosts a webpage focused on “Global Citizenship Education,” with an introduction reading “Nurturing respect for all, building a sense of belonging to a common humanity and helping learners become responsible and active global citizens.” It seems likely that supranational organizations – in response to pervasive economic globalization and emergent populism and nationalism – will only heighten their emphasis on the key tenets of global citizenship moving forward. Will this serve as a counterweight to a European Union minus Great Britain? To xenophobic, nationalistic leaders across continents? If so, “global citizenship” faces a real danger of seeming even more cosmopolitan (in a pejorative sense) to disenfranchised populations – if it seems too heady, too difficult to achieve, is associated with a cultural and economic elite, it may well be the target of scorn. Alternately, the “global citizenship” associated with “Internationalization at Home” or “Internationalization of the Curriculum” may be perceived as more accessible, tangible, and achievable. However, as Leask (2012) notes, “reciprocal and uneven relationship[s] between the multiple contexts within which curricula [are] formulated and enacted” (p. 39) mean that there will be no one version of an internationalized curriculum onto which global citizenship concepts and models may be easily
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layered in the university context (Leask 2012). Additionally, the concept of responsible global citizenship, explored by de Wit and Leask (2017), provides a constructive framework for reconsidering and reworking the term moving forward. As they write: “the development of responsible global citizens may be one way in which universities can have an impact on local communities and global society” (De Wit and Leask 2017, p. 225). Alternately, we may think of the creation of responsible global citizens as an important nuance of the public good that colleges and universities worldwide have sought to achieve for centuries (Gacel-Ávila 2005).
Cross-References ▶ Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views ▶ Higher Education as a Global Reality ▶ Internationalization at Home ▶ Internationalizing the Student Experience
References Aktas, Fatih, Kate Pitts, Jessica C. Richards, and Iveta Silova. 2017. Institutionalizing global citizenship: A critical analysis of higher education programs and curricula. Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (1): 65–80. Andreotti, Vanessa. 2006. Soft versus critical global citizenship education in development education: Policy and practice. Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, Nottingham University, www.osdemethodolo gy.org.uk. Bennett, Milton J. 2004. Becoming interculturally competent. Toward multiculturalism: A reader in Multicultural Education 2: 62–77. https://doi.org/10.1002/ tl.275. Boni, Alejandra, and Carola Calabuig. 2017. Education for global citizenship at universities: Potentialities of formal and informal learning spaces to foster cosmopolitanism. Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (1): 22–38. Calhoun, Craig. 2003. Belonging’in the cosmopolitan imaginary. Ethnicities 3 (4): 531–553. De Wit, Hans, and Betty Leask. 2017. Global: internationalization, the curriculum, and the disciplines. In Understanding higher education internationalization, 345–347. Rotterdam: SensePublishers. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-94-6351-161-2_74.
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556 Egron-Polak, Eva, L. Howard, F. Hunter, and H. de Wit. 2015. Internationalisation of higher education. Directorate-General for Internal Policies, European Union. https://doi.org/10.2861/6854. Gacel-Ávila, Jocelyne. 2005. The internationalisation of higher education: A paradigm for global citizenry. Journal of Studies in International Education 9 (2): 121–136. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315304263795. Green, Madeleine F. 2012. Global citizenship: What are we talking about and why does it matter? International Educator 21 (3): 124. Jooste, Nico, and Savo Heleta. 2017. Global citizenship versus globally competent graduates: A critical view from the South. Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (1): 39–51. Kahn, Hilary E, and Melanie Agnew. 2017. Global learning through difference: Considerations for teaching, learning, and the internationalization of higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (1): 52–64. Knight, Jane. 2012. Concepts, rationales, and interpretive frameworks in the internationalization of higher education. In The SAGE handbook of international higher education, 27–42. London: Sage. Larsen, Marianne A. 2014. Critical global citizenship and international service learning. Journal of Global Citizenship & Equity Education 4 (1): 1–43. Leask, Betty. 2015. A conceptual framework for internationalisation of the curriculum. In Internationalizing the Curriculum (pp. 26–40). Abingdon: Routledge Leask, Betty. 2015. Why internationalize the curriculum? Internationalizing the Curriculum. Abingdon: Routledge. Lilley, Kathleen, Michelle Barker, and Neil Harris. 2017. The global citizen conceptualized: Accommodating ambiguity. Journal of Studies in International Education 21 (1): 6–21. Lyons, Kevin, Joanne Hanley, Stephen Wearing, and John Neil. 2012. Gap year volunteer tourism: Myths of global citizenship? Annals of Tourism Research 39 (1): 361–378. Munck, Ronaldo. 2010. Civic engagement and global citizenship in a university context: Core business or desirable add-on? Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 9 (1): 31–41. Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2007. Cultivating humanity and world citizenship. In Future forum, p. 37. Cambridge: Future Forum Nussbaum, Martha Craven, and Joshua Cohen. 1996. For love of country? Boston: Beacon Press. Rizvi, Fazal. 2007. Internationalization of curriculum: A critical perspective. In The Sage handbook of research in international education, 390–403. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Schattle, Hans. 2009. Global citizenship in theory and practice. In The handbook of practice and research in
Global Competence study abroad: Higher education and the quest for global citizenship, 3–20. New York: Routledge. United Nations (1963). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A standard of achievement. Retrieved 25 Sept 2016, from http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1. b4178245.
Global Competence ▶ Global Citizenship and Higher Education ▶ Intercultural Competencies and the Global Citizen
Global Higher Education ▶ Higher Education as a Global Reality ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Studies in Latin America
Global Higher Education, Digital Age William Lawton International Higher Education Consultant, London, UK
Synonyms Computer age; Information age
Definitions There is no agreed definition of the digital age. It usually refers to the period in which technology has permitted the transfer of information freely and quickly. Its starting point is seen as early as the introduction of the personal computer in the 1970s, or as late as 2002, when digital storage
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capacity worldwide overtook analogue capacity (Hilbert 2012). Defining the start of the digital age in higher education is equally subjective. One noteworthy year was 1989, when the World Wide Web was invented and the University of Phoenix introduced online courses.
Uneven Global Picture For hundreds of millions of people in rural parts of the developing world, the digital age has yet to arrive. In 2016, an estimated 46% of the global population was able to access the internet from home (Internet Live Stats 2016). In India the proportion was 35%, in spite of that country’s urban technology hubs and impressive digital infrastructure. Where mass higher education exists, technology-assisted education is the norm. Online and distance learning is a growth industry from Latin America to North Africa. In South Asia it is taking hold, slowly. In the United States, twice as many students take online courses as live on campus (Shirky 2015). In 2014, 28% (almost six million) took at least one course online and half of those students took all courses online, making online learning today routine in the United States (Allen and Seaman 2016). In Europe, the picture is uneven. Spain is a leader in digital higher education, and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya has offered 100% online degrees since 1995. In Germany, online provision is sporadic. Although some research universities in the United Kingdom offer fully online versions of their master’s degrees, for many more, digital innovation is administrative in function, for example, focused on online student records and virtual learning environments (VLEs) for setting, receiving, and assessing coursework.
Digital Impacts: Business Models and Pedagogy The hype over MOOCs (massive open online courses) in 2012–2013 generated more heat than
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light because more was written about them than was actually known. Excited commentators either celebrated or lamented that a digital avalanche was imminent in higher education and there was nothing anyone could do about the coming disruption (e.g., Harden 2013). MOOCs, however, did help to articulate the coming challenges to the traditional university business model, including pedagogical methods. These all come down to the fundamental characteristic of digital teaching: freeing education models from the constraints of space and time. Although online courses often have some synchronous elements (i.e., real-time engagement between students and teachers), most participation and learning is done when learners choose. This has accommodated millions of “nontraditional” students who wish to study while they work. In regard to pedagogical innovation, the “flipped classroom,” in which students watch lectures online and use class time for problemsolving and discussion, has made an appearance in the United States. Beyond this important development, however, classrooms look much as they did a generation ago. For online learning, 6-min videos are more suitable than hour-long video lectures – but they are not a game changer. The pedagogical revolution in the digital age has yet to occur. Digital impacts on business models, however, are evident. One such is the integration of MOOCs and other free online courses into degree structures. There are many examples. In the United Kingdom, a number of universities that offer free MOOCs on the FutureLearn platform now award credit for selected MOOCs upon payment of a nominal fee. Free courses are thereby marketed as “teasers” before committing to a costly degree. In the United States, whole master’s degrees are offered on the Udacity and Coursera platforms at a reduced fee (Lawton et al. 2013). A cross-border variant of this is the Open Educational Resources university (OERu). This network of institutions offers free courses using open educational resource materials. Students have the option of paying a modest fee for credits which are supposed to be accepted at any of the partner
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institutions. The OERu website says “Try before you buy.” In 2017, the network was dominated by 19 partners from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, with only three from Africa, and none from Asia. The separation or “unbundling” of provision from qualifications is also developing in new directions. This goes beyond the established public–private partnerships like Liverpool–Laureate and cross-border franchising arrangements in which one institution delivers the education and another awards the degree. Now, degrees are assembled using credits from multiple institutions. StraighterLine, a for-profit company in the United States, offers courses for $99 and has a group of accredited partner colleges that accept their credits toward degrees. StraighterLine and the OERu will not quickly change how the global elite of universities offer their degrees. But as the unbundling of credentials from provision becomes generalized, the business model on which the current system is built will be disrupted.
Digital Badges and Exchange Value Deakin University in Australia has gone another step by recognizing nonformal qualifications. It converts job and life experiences, such as critical thinking, cultural engagement, and collaboration, into credentials that lead to a master’s degree in Information Technology. This is an innovative institutional embrace of the wider “digital badges” movement. The purpose of badges is to democratize the idea of what a credential is. The Open Badges movement attempts to establish an international standard for this recognition in order to “empower individuals to take their lifelong learning with them, wherever they go.” Although thousands of organizations, including major employers and education institutions, issue Open Badges, they are concentrated in the developed world where their potential impacts are less obvious. At some point, a breakthrough will occur such that the exchange value of badges will equal the exchange value of formal higher education at the
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nonelite end of the scale. This has to impact on employers for it to mean anything: indeed, Google and EY (formerly Ernst and Young) were reported as having abandoned university grades as criteria for hiring because they are poor indicators of future performance (Times Higher Education 2015). For now, two worlds of higher education exist in parallel with each other. Elite education with a high exchange value is costly and based on scarcity of supply. Open-access education is a world away. MOOCs can open doors for individuals but not the same doors as an Ivy League degree. The digital age provides access to free knowledge but the most valuable credentials come with a price tag.
The Digital Divide and Global Inequality Absolute poverty levels are declining but, measured by income and GDP per capita over time, inequality is getting worse between and within countries. How is this possible when higher education is a vehicle for economic success and when digitization makes higher education available in many more places? There are plenty of ways to answer this. The “digital divide” between rich and poor is merely an expression of broader geopolitical and class inequalities. Despite the spread of computers and smartphones in the developing world, the digital divide between countries is also increasing because the capacity to process information in rich countries is growing faster than in poor countries (Hilbert 2012). Within some countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom, higher education is geared toward private rewards such as income rather than public goods. In Simon Marginson’s words, the sector is a “maker of social inequality rather than a corrective to it” (Marginson 2016). What about access? Like the OER movement before it, the MOOCs ideal was egalitarian: to share knowledge and democratize access to quality higher education worldwide. But the evidence is more complex. The proportion of learners on the Coursera platform who already hold a degree is commonly given as 75–80%, and half of them
Global Higher Education, Digital Age
have two degrees (e.g., Times Higher Education 2016). Rather than widening access, this is accommodating those who need it least. Slightly more promising is that the proportion of Coursera learners from non-OECD countries is rising and reached 45% in 2016. Also promising is that learners in emerging economies with no formal education report the most tangible career benefits from MOOCs (Financial Times 2015). It is worth considering whether internet access to top academics in the west is sufficient for the developing world. Whose knowledge is it? Real change may come when poorer countries have good broadband and digital platforms that provide thousands of courses designed for local and regional needs, and yield credits and qualifications recognized by those governments and employers.
Conclusions The digital age in higher education has affected almost all parts of the world. For individuals everywhere it has meant access to knowledge. For governments in the developing world it represents the only means by which they can boost capacity and start to meet demand for higher education. But technology is a tool and is politically neutral. There is nothing inherent in the digital age that “levels the playing field,” that favors the public good, and nudges us to a more egalitarian world. On present trends the future could well be less egalitarian. An undisputed effect of the MOOCs hype was to raise the profile of online higher education. Addressing misconceptions served to legitimize it in the eyes of students, universities, and governments. But that does not mean that digital teaching and learning can easily solve the intertwined problems of access, quality, and cost. The global wealth gap is reproduced in the digital divide, and both are widening. Few universities see a reversal of this as part of their mission. Few governments see higher education as anything more than a tool to enhance competitiveness in the global economy. There is no digital fix to
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this: for the hundreds of millions of people still in poverty, there is no guarantee that the digital age in higher education will lift them out. While open-access knowledge does not yet possess the same exchange value as a traditional degree, the concept of credentials is becoming fluid. The emergence of digital credentials for nonformal learning challenges business models, the monopoly of traditional degrees, and the international hierarchy of higher education institutions.
Cross-References ▶ Distance Teaching Universities ▶ Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education ▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education ▶ Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views ▶ Higher Education as a Global Reality ▶ Inequality in Higher Education ▶ Online Programs and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) ▶ Signalling and Credentialism, Higher Education ▶ Widening Access to Higher Education
References Allen, Elaine I., and Jeff Seaman. 2016. Online report card – Tracking online education in the United States, Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC. Financial Times. 2015. MOOCs most help those without a degree, 22 Sept 2015. Harden, Nathan. 2013. The end of the university as we know it. The American Interest 8 (3), January/February. www.the-american-interest.com/2012/12/11/the-endof-the-university-as-we-know-it/ Hilbert, Martin. 2012. How much information is there in the “information society?”. Significance 9: 8–12. Internet Live Stats. 2016. http://www.internetlivestats. com/internet-users/india. Accessed 3 Feb 2017. Lawton, William et al. 2013. Horizon scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020? London: UK HE International Unit and Leadership Foundation.
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560 Marginson, Simon. 2016. Higher education and the common good. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Shirky, Clay. 2015. The digital revolution in higher education has already happened. No one noticed, 6 Nov 2015. https://medium.com/@cshirky/the-digitalrevolution-in-higher-education-has-already-happenedno-one-noticed-78ec0fec16c7. Accessed 3 Feb 2017. Times Higher Education. 2015. Ernst and Young drops degree classification threshold for graduate recruitment, 3 Aug 2015. Times Higher Education. 2016. MOOCs can transform education – But not yet, 21 July 2016.
Global Learning ▶ Intercultural Competencies and the Global Citizen
Global Responsibility ▶ Global Citizenship and Higher Education
Global Trends ▶ Private Higher Education in Developing Countries
Global Trends in Student Mobility Christine Farrugia and Rajika Bhandari Institute of International Education, New York, NY, USA
Introduction Global student mobility has played a role in universities from their beginnings, and the movement of students, scholars, and knowledge has shaped the higher education landscape worldwide. It was foreign students in Bologna who banded together in 1088 to hire faculty to teach them, thereby forming the world’s first university (Ruegg
Global Learning
1992). In modern times, student mobility has accelerated quickly. In the twenty-first century, the number of higher education students studying outside their home countries nearly doubled from 2.1 million students in 2001 to 4.1 million students in 2016 (UNESCO 2017). Many factors account for the fast pace of this growth, including expanding middle classes in countries around the world and the demand for a world-class education, the increasing value of international education in the global workforce, and strategic efforts by governments to bolster both their economies and soft power through international efforts. At the institutional level, increased effort among higher education institutions to internationalize their campuses through student mobility is a pull factor that creates opportunities for students to engage in educational activities around the world. Student mobility is defined as the process of going abroad for a degree in the context of higher education for study, training, or research-related purposes. Terms related to student mobility include study abroad, academic mobility, and degree mobility, all of which reflect the concept of students moving across national borders for academic purposes. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of student mobility around the globe, including its scale and geographic patterns. The first part focuses on the current landscape of mobility, including key destination and sending countries. This is followed by an analysis of the various individual-, institutional-, and national-level drivers of mobility. The chapter concludes with a consideration of evolving trends and complications, as well as the future prospects for academic mobility. While for the most part the chapter focuses on student mobility at the postsecondary or tertiary level, we also address key developments within other levels of education that may have future implications for higher education.
Current Landscape Traditional Hosts and New Players English-speaking countries are among the largest hosts of international students, with the United
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States enrolling about one-quarter of all the world’s international students, almost double the number of international students enrolled in the United Kingdom, which is the next largest host of international students (Project Atlas 2016). Taken together, 52% of the world’s international students enroll in five English-speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) (Project Atlas 2016). Non-English-speaking countries such as France and Germany are also large hosts of international students, accounting for 8% and 6%, respectively, of all globally mobile students in 2016. Their numbers have grown in recent years, due in part to the increasing availability of English-taught master’s programs throughout Europe. While Western countries have long attracted many international students, other countries have also entered the market for students more recently, such as China and Russia, which enrolled 10% and 7%, respectively, of the world’s international students in 2016 (Project Atlas 2016). These new entrants into global student mobility reflect an expansion beyond traditional Western host nations that draw students from all over the world to include countries that draw largely from regional bases. In the case of China, six out of the top ten places of origin of international students are in Asia, and for Russia, seven of the top ten places of origin are post-Soviet nations (Farrugia and Bhandari 2016). Such regional student mobility patterns are partly a function of geographic proximity and historical and cultural ties, as well as concerted efforts at the national or regional level to strengthen regional connections via student mobility. Emerging higher education destinations like China, Japan, Malaysia, and Turkey have set ambitious targets for enrolling international students. Malaysia, for example, aims to attract 200,000 higher education international students by 2020, while China aims to host 500,000 students from outside the country. Associated with some of these efforts is the establishment of international branch campuses in several countries, which provides opportunities for students to receive an education from a foreign university while remaining closer to home. These new international education hubs attract students from
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across the globe with large shares of their students hailing from nearby countries. Regional student mobility initiatives are often enacted in support of broader regional economic and political goals. For example, recent US and Mexican government initiatives to strengthen US-Mexico academic exchange were tied to the formation of the Bilateral Forum on Higher Education, Innovation, and Research (FOBESII), which has a broad goal of supporting sustained economic and social development in both countries. As part of FOBESII, the Mexican government established Proyecta 100,000 with the goal of sending 100,000 Mexican students to study in the United States and 50,000 US students to Mexico. On the US side, President Obama launched 100,000 Strong in the Americas in 2011, with the goal of sending 100,000 students in each direction between the United States and Latin America, including Mexico. Academic mobility initiatives in other regions are similarly tied to larger efforts to unify those regions, such as Europe’s ERASMUS programs, and those undertaken by ASEAN and the East African community, which foster a regional identity and increase trade and development within a region. Origins of Globally Mobile Students In recent history, much of the mobility of international students has been a function of South to North mobility, with Asian students studying in the West making up large segments of globally mobile students. Worldwide, three of the five largest senders of students for overseas study are in Asia, namely, China, India, and South Korea; these three countries together account for 25% of all outbound students (UNESCO 2017). While many Asian students travel to Western countries, a growing number are electing to stay within the region. Of the 1.1 million international students in the Asia-Pacific region in 2014 (Australia, China, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam), students from within the region accounted for half (Project Atlas 2016; UNESCO 2017). The high level of intraregional mobility is largely attributed to Australia (28%), China (26%), and Japan (21%)
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which each hosted over 20% of international students from within the region. Some places in Asia are reliant almost entirely on other countries in the region for their international student bodies, including Hong Kong (90%), Japan (84%), and South Korea (82%) (Project Atlas 2016; UNESCO 2017). Europe is the second largest sending region of international students, accounting for 23% of the world’s globally mobile students in 2014 (UNESCO 2017). However, many mobile European students stay within the region. Among the more than 878,000 European students who study outside their home country, about 76% (664,000 students) remain within Europe (Eurostat 2016; UNESCO 2017), with the top five senders – Germany, Turkey, France, Italy, and Poland – accounting for almost half (48%) of this intraregional mobility (Eurostat 2016). This high level of intraregional mobility accounts for about 35% of all international students in the region (Eurostat 2016; UNESCO 2017). Looking beyond the common South to North mobility patterns and increasing regionalization of student flows, other unique patterns exist, such as African students in China, whose numbers have increased in recent years due to growing economic ties between China and Africa. In 2000, the bilateral Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established to advance Sino-African collaboration in several areas, including education. The Forum’s educational initiatives include Chinese scholarships for African students and professionals to study or train in China, as well as Chinese investment in African schools, development of institutional partnerships between higher education institutions in Africa and China, and investment in developing Africa’s research capacity. As a result of these initiatives, China has awarded an estimated 12,000 scholarships to students from sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, many more African students study in China using their own funds (Allison 2013). Other unique mobility patterns include sizeable numbers of African students in France, as well as Latin American students in Spain, both due to factors such as shared languages and historical ties.
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Younger Students Studying Internationally Closely tied to the growth of international students in postsecondary education is the substantial presence of international secondary students in countries that have large international postsecondary student populations. While some international secondary students engage in exchange programs and return to their home countries to complete their secondary education, many international students are now seeking to earn high school diplomas abroad to position themselves as more competitive applicants for higher education institutions in the host or destination country (Farrugia 2017). Compared to Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the United States is the largest Anglophone host of international secondary students, which is also the case at the postsecondary level. The size of the US secondary education sector, as well as its accessibility for international students, contributes to the comparatively large number of international students who study in US high schools. Over the past several years, inbound international students coming to the United States to earn a high school diploma have grown at a high rate, and they now outnumber those traveling to the United States to participate in exchange programs. The number of international students enrolled directly in US secondary programs more than tripled from Fall 2004 to Fall 2016 (Farrugia 2017;). In December 2016, there were nearly 82,000 international students pursuing a secondary-level education in the United States, with 72% enrolled for a full diploma.
Drivers of Mobility Many factors at the individual, institutional, national, and global levels drive patterns of international student mobility. At the individual level are cultural exchange motivations and the desire to develop employment skills in an international context. Higher education institutions also drive mobility through the interest in diversifying their campuses by enrolling international students, as well as the financial benefit that full fee-paying international students bring to their campuses.
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At the national and global levels, factors related to higher education capacity, quality, and the provision of international scholarships are also powerful forces that shape mobility patterns. This section discusses these current key drivers of academic mobility but with the understanding that many of these factors act in conjunction to propel students to seek an education abroad. Individual Factors Employment and the Pursuit of Global Competencies
The opportunity to gain practical work experience is growing in importance as a driver of student mobility around the globe – both for international students who pursue a full degree in another country and for shorter-term exchange students. Globally, policies governing students’ ability to work have impacted international student numbers in top destination countries such as Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the United States, 14% of the more than one million international students in 2015/2016 engaged in Optional Practical Training (OPT), which is a period of work available for international students who have graduated from a US college or university. While recent extensions of the length of OPT from 12 months to a total of 36 months for graduates in STEM fields account for some of the recent surges in OPT participation, students’ willingness to stay on for work in growing numbers and for longer periods indicates how important this aspect of international education is for many students. Many students value the ability to gain practical work experience that will help them gain jobs back home or in their host country, while others may be driven by economic conditions in their home countries that push them to take advantage of study-related work opportunities in the host country. Yet other students value such work-study opportunities as they provide a stepping stone to skilled migration in their host country. Work opportunities in the United States are more influential drivers of mobility for students from certain countries than from others. Many students from Asia purse OPT in relatively high
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numbers, including those from India, Nepal, Taiwan, and China. Indian students are especially motivated by the opportunity to work in the host country following graduation. In the United States, Indian students are the leading participants in OPT, with 26% engaged in OPT in 2015/2016. The expansion and contraction of such opportunities have a clear correlation with student mobility, as is evidenced by recent trends in the United Kingdom where the number of Indian students in the United Kingdom has dipped in recent years as a result of policy changes that limit post-study work visas following graduation. Following the implementation of the UK policy, Indian students fell by nearly 50% from 2011 to 2014, while their numbers increased by 70% in Australia and 37% in the United States over the same time period (Project Atlas 2016). While US students are also engaging in workrelated education abroad in increasing numbers, their motivations for doing so are different from those of international students who pursue OPT in the United States. In 2014/2015, more than 46,000 US students engaged in a work, volunteer, or internship experience overseas, including those who received academic credit for their work abroad and those who pursued noncredit opportunities (Farrugia and Bhandari 2016). These types of international activities provide the opportunity to gain hands-on experience outside of the classroom and to develop international work skills that can be attractive assets on the job market down the line. Globalization of the workforce and careers creates incentives for students to pursue part or all of their higher education abroad in order to gain global competencies that employers seek. Quality and Capacity
At the individual level, students and their families make decisions about where to pursue higher education based on a number of factors. The quality of higher education institutions and their capacity to enroll students drives individuals’ university selection processes in many cases. Many large sending countries of international students have a limited capacity to enroll higher education students domestically. While China and India have devoted resources in recent years to develop their
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domestic higher education capacity, the availability of seats is still not sufficient to meet the demand (FICCI Higher Education Committee 2013; Xiaoying and Abbott 2008). In some cases, students decide to earn a degree in another country because there are not enough seats available in the best universities at home; rather than enroll in a less prestigious institution in their home country, they pursue an education overseas in a country where there is more capacity in high-quality institutions. For example, in China, students must score highly on the competitive gaokao exam in order to gain admission to the country’s best universities. Those who are not optimistic about faring well in the domestic exam have been reported to enroll in international tracks in secondary school to prepare them for foreign university study. In 2016, there were nearly 169,000 Chinese students enrolled in international curriculum secondary schools within China (IEduChina 2016). Yet others elect to enroll in secondary school abroad, also with the goal of preparing to enroll in foreign universities. In 2015, there were more than 43,000 diploma-seeking Chinese students enrolled in US high schools, and students from China likewise have a large presence in secondary schools in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (Farrugia 2017). Indeed, quality is an important consideration for many international students in the selection of study destinations. A survey of nearly 16,000 international students in 19 countries found that the quality and diversity of higher education institutions and programs are chief attractions for students considering study in the United States, with over three-quarters of respondents rating the country highly in these dimensions (IIE 2015). Institutional rankings are also a powerful influence on students’ decision-making, with many students seeking admission to institutions that appear on global or national ranking lists and even some national government scholarship programs, such as KASP defining institutions’ eligibility to participate by their global rankings. For some students, the availability of liberal arts curricula, which is not common in many sending countries, provides an approach to education and
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program flexibility not found in students’ higher education institutions at home. Institutional Factors Institutional drivers of mobility encompass both the efforts of individual institutions to attract the best and the brightest from around the globe but also the extent to which countries’ higher education sectors and institutions have the capacity to offer a quality higher education. Higher education institutions in traditional destinations in the North, as well as emerging destination countries in the South, have adopted international student recruitment strategies for two broad reasons. The first is the desire to internationalize and to diversify their student body, which in turn results in a more global campus that provides cultural and linguistic exposure to all students on campus. More recently, the concept of comprehensive internationalization has also become intertwined with global rankings and the notion that to be “world-class” and globally competitive, institutions also need to have a student body and faculty drawn from all over the world. This has led to the aggressive adoption of an international recruitment agenda by some institutions regardless of whether or not it aligns with broader institutional goals. Yet another incentive for institutions to recruit international students is the economic benefit that such students provide to their institutions and the national economy of the host country. In the United States, for instance, international students brought an estimated $36 billion dollars into the economy in 2015, largely through living expenses and tuition payments, which flow to the institutions. Full fee-paying international students also help offset the high costs of a college education for domestic students. In fact, US higher education is one of the country’s top export industries. Other countries also see a large economic benefit, including Australia ($15.2 billion US), France ($2 billion US), and the United Kingdom ($31.9 billion US) (Campus France 2014; Deloitte Access Economics 2015; Universities UK 2017). In some cases, international students help support enrollment in areas where demographic shifts
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and an aging population have resulted in fewer domestic students, such as in South Korea and many US states (Farrugia and Bhandari 2016). In cases such as these, institutions benefit from recruiting international students who can fill these population gaps and help retain the class enrollments needed to keep the doors of the institution open. National- and Policy-Level Drivers Policies to increase student mobility take a variety of forms, from those of sending countries that provide financial sponsorship for their students to go abroad to host countries that set numeric targets to increase the number of international students in their countries to bilateral initiatives that aim to build closer ties between nations (Teichler et al. 2011). Government involvement in student exchange has a range of motivators, including serving as a form of cultural diplomacy (“soft power”), developing a country’s human capital and capacity to innovate, and providing development aid. One long-running major government scholarship initiative is the US government’s Fulbright program, which is designed to strengthen ties between the United States and countries around the world. The program was launched in 1946, in the wake of World War II during a time when many in US higher education and government were focused on the potential of international educational exchange to build cultural understanding across borders and to support US public diplomacy around the world (Bettie 2015). The Fulbright program operates through a partnership model, with 49 bilateral commissions and in 149 countries where such commissions do not exist, through US embassies in cooperation with host country governments. The program currently supports about 8000 students, scholars, teachers, and professionals in over 160 countries each year. Other countries that have launched large-scale national scholarship programs more recently have driven international student mobility pattern in recent years. The Saudi government launched the King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) in 2005, providing full funding and living
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stipends to Saudi students to pursue degrees overseas. This significant investment by the government over a decade altered the profile of international students coming to the United States, with Saudi students currently ranking among the top five international student groups in the United States. However, due to declining crude oil prices, it was widely reported in 2016 that there would be budget cutbacks and changes to the program, such as restrictions on academic eligibility requirements, fields of study, and the number and variety of US universities where students would be able to study. Another example of a large and influential national scholarship program was the Brazil Scientific Mobility Program (BSMP) – known in Brazil as Ciência sem Fronteiras – which operated from 2011 to 2016 and funded thousands of undergraduate and graduate students from Brazil to study at colleges and universities in more than 40 countries. The program focused on disciplines viewed by the government as critical to the country’s growth including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The program model was designed to enable students to return to Brazil to complete their degrees after 1 year abroad for academic study followed by a summer internship. In some cases, government scholarship programs are viewed as a form of development aid, with scholarships from developed nations made available to students from developing countries. One example is the intra-ACP [Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific] academic mobility scheme which is implemented by the European Commission in partnership with the ACP Secretariat and funded by the European Development Fund to provide access to higher education for students from these countries.
Evolving Trends and Future Prospects In this concluding section of the chapter, we reflect on key issues that are shaping the global landscape of higher education and thus of international higher education and mobility.
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Equity and Access in Mobility The adoption of the United Nations’ new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 has brought a renewed focus to the critical issues of equity and access in higher education as well as international higher education and the availability of a global experience to a diversity of students. Traditionally, participation in academic mobility has been viewed as an elite privilege reserved for those who either have the social and financial capital to access high-quality postsecondary education at home and abroad or for those who have the skills and know-how to apply for and obtain financial aid overseas. The imperative to make global education more accessible is growing in both developed and developing countries. For example, in the United States, the US Department of State’s Gilman Scholarship Program and IIE’s Generation Study Abroad initiative aim to increase the numbers of underrepresented students who study abroad. Other scholarship programs funded by governments and private foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Mastercard Foundation aim to provide international fellowships to marginalized individuals from developing countries. Research has shown that these types of targeted efforts have a significant impact in increasing access to international education and can have a multiplier effect on communities and countries (Martel 2017). Technological developments have also raised the prospect of delivering higher education across borders to reach students who may not have the means or ability to leave their home countries for higher education. A number of global universities have developed massive open online courses (MOOCs) to convey their curriculum to students around the world. This evolution in online education has the potential to make world-class higher education accessible throughout the developing world (Castillo et al. 2015). Another aspect of the equity equation is that of brain drain and the loss of trained human capital. While many regions of the world that see large outbound ratios of their college-aged
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population (such as Asia) have begun to see a shift toward “brain circulation,” with many of their foreign-educated citizens returning home, Africa continues to experience a significant loss of human capital through student mobility (Ziguras and Gribble 2015). This raises the issue of what obligations and responsibilities the international higher education sector and industry have toward balancing the needs of developing countries to retain their critical human capital, against the needs and aspirations of individuals to seek the best education possible regardless of where it is offered. This imbalance is addressed to some extent by scholarships in the form of development aid, awarded to students from developing countries by the governments of developed countries (see the mention of intraACP in the prior section) and monitored under Target 4.b of the SDGs. But according to a recent analysis of globally available scholarship data, the total number of such scholarships is small and serves only 1% of those from the developing world who seek a global education (Bhandari and Mirza 2016). Academic Displacement Since 2015, the world has seen human displacement on a scale unknown in more than a generation, and many of these displaced people face challenges in preparing for or accessing higher education. Attention to the access of displaced students and scholars to higher education and an understanding of the implications of an uneducated generation have been triggered by the prolonged displacement of the largely educated middle-class populations from countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, all of which had well-established tertiary systems and ambitious national higher education reforms in pre-conflict years. In 2015, 21.3 million refugees were registered with the United Nations; half of them are under the age of 18 and have yet to enter tertiary education, and many others have experienced a disruption of their higher education studies (UNHCR 2016). Only 1% of all college-aged refugees are enrolled in higher education
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(UNHCR 2016). Displaced individuals face many roadblocks in accessing higher education. Cost of tuition and travel, unavailability of identification and academic documents, lack of recognition of prior studies, language barriers, pressure to assume work or family responsibilities, host community discrimination, and difficulty obtaining information all limit access to education (Watenpaugh et al. 2014). While efforts are being made to provide financial and application support and to utilize technology to reach displaced students, the need remains great and is expected to continue for some time. While displaced students fall outside the profile of what is typically considered an international student, their circumstances require special attention from the higher education community. As displaced students seek entry to higher education institutions outside their home countries, issues of transferability of academic credentials, language preparation, integration and support of these students on campus, and preparation of students to enter labor markets following graduation will become significant issues for higher education institutions around the world. An Altered Political Climate and the Future of Mobility One of the most significant developments over the past 2 years has been the rise of nationalism around the world and what is perceived as a turning inward of many traditional host destinations that have typically attracted large numbers of students and scholars from around the world. The first such development was “Brexit” in the United Kingdom in 2016, which will likely have far-reaching consequences on student mobility into and out of the United Kingdom and also on mobility between the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. Similarly, political shifts in the United States and proposed policies restricting immigration have raised many questions about whether the United States remains an attractive destination for international students. Amid early indications that the patterns of international student mobility across countries may be shifting is
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clear that these developments have mobilized the international education community – including higher education institutions and associations – to develop joint strategies and outreach to underscore the value of international education even further.
References Allison, S. 2013. Fixing China’s image in Africa, one student at a time. The Guardian. Bettie, M. 2015. Ambassadors unaware: The Fulbright program and American public diplomacy. Journal of Transatlantic Studies 13 (4): 358–372. Bhandari, R., and Z. Mirza. 2016. Scholarships for students from developing countries: Establishing a global baseline. Paris: UNESCO. Campus France. 2014. Beyond influence: The economic impact of international students in France. Les Notes Campus France, no. 45 (Nov 2014). Castillo, N.M., J. Lee, F.T. Zahra, and D.A. Wagner. 2015. MOOCS for development: Trends, challenges, and opportunities. Information Technologies & International Development 11 (2): 35–42. Deloitte Access Economics. 2015. The value of international education to Australia. Canberra: Australian Government. Eurostat. 2016. Students (ISCED 5–6) studying in another EU-27, EEA or Candidate country (1 000). Data extracted from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/educationand-training/data/main-tables on 10 Feb 2017. Farrugia, C. 2017. Globally mobile youth: International secondary students in the United States, 2013–2016. New York: Institute of International Education. Farrugia, C., and R. Bhandari. 2016. Open doors 2016 report on international educational exchange. New York: Institute of International Education. FICCI Higher Education Committee. 2013. Higher education in India: Vision 2030. Retrieved: http://www.ey. com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Higher-education-in-IndiaVision-2030/$FILE/EY-Higher-education-in-India-Vision2030.pdf. IEduChina. 2016. 2017–2020 forecast report on the investment of international education industry in China. Retrieved from http://school.ieduchina.com/ child/201612/19567.html. Institute of International Education (IIE). 2015. What international students think about U.S. higher education: Attitudes and perceptions of prospective students from around the world. New York: Institute of International Education. Martel, M. 2017. Tracing the spark that lights a flame: A review of methodologies to measure the outcomes
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568 of international scholarships. In International scholarships for higher education: Pathways to social change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Project Atlas. 2016. Institute of International Education. New York. Retrieved from: www.iie.org/atlas. Ruegg, W. 1992. A history of the University in Europe: volume 1, Universities in the Middle Ages. New York: Cambridge University Press. Teichler, U., L. Ferencz, and B. Wachter, eds. 2011. Mapping mobility in European higher education, volume I: Overview and trends. Bonn: DAAD. UNESCO. 2017. UIS.stat. Montreal: UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Retrieved from: http://data.uis.unesco.org/. UNHCR. 2016. The world in numbers. UNHCR Statistics. Retrieved from: http://popstats.unhcr.org/en/overview. Universities UK. 2017. The economic impact of international students. Retrieved from: http://www. universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Doc uments/2017/briefing-economic-impact-internationalstudents.pdf. Watenpaugh, K.D., A.L. Fricke, and J.R. King. 2014. We will stop here and go no further: Syrian university students and scholars in Turkey. New York: Institute of International Education. Xiaoying, M., and M. Abbott. 2008. China’s tertiary education expansion. International Higher Education 53: 17–18. Ziguras, C., and C. Gribble. 2015. Policy responses to address student “brain drain”: An assessment of measures intended to reduce the emigration of Singaporean international students. Journal of Studies in International Education 19 (3): 246–264.
Globalization
Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views Manuel Souto-Otero School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Synonyms Convergence; Flows; Globalization; Homogenization; Interconnectedness; Interdependence; Mobility
Definition Globalization is a contested concept, but it can be broadly understood as a “multidimensional set of social processes that resist being confined to any single thematic framework” (Steger 2003: i), and which lead to “the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life” (Held et al. 1999: 2), and the compression of time and space. Thus, while much of the discussion about globalization has focused on economic issues, globalization also has political, social, cultural, technological, or ecological dimensions.
Globalization ▶ Academic Mobility, Inequities in Opportunity and Experience ▶ Globalization of Higher Education, Critical Views ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Latin America and the Caribbean ▶ Universities in the Age of Internationalization, Competition, and Cooperation
Globalization and Higher Education ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education Research and Careers in North America
Introduction A key idea around globalization is the facilitation and intensification of “flows” across the globe, be these of capitals, people, or ideas. In the area of higher education, globalization has been associated with the facilitation of students’ access to knowledge and information, a more holistic treatment of complex problems and realities (i.e., assisting learners’ evaluation of events from a global perspective or emphasizing the importance of understanding other cultures), increasing and widening of access, and improving excellence through competition (Robertson and Kedzierski 2016). Moreover, mobility of students and academics and their collaboration across the globe
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can be considered one of the most idealistic aspects of higher education –although the debate between brain circulation and brain drain is far from settled. As such, globalization has been seen to go together with a doctrine of salvation, an applauded and inevitable trend (Yang 2003). But not all commentators have been equally positive. This chapter reviews, specifically, scholarly debates around globalization and three key themes: (1) knowledge transmission and technology, (2) the spread of global agendas and “global spaces of equivalence,” and (3) the future of graduate employment.
Globalization, Knowledge Transmission, and Technology Technology is closely associated with globalization, and technological development has accelerated strongly in the twenty-first century. Carnoy and Rhoten (2002: 1) noted that if knowledge is fundamental to globalization and fundamental to the development of the global economy “globalization should also have a profound impact on the transmission of knowledge. Some have argued that this has not occurred, casting doubt on the capacity of globalization to permeate knowledge production and transmission influenced by local culture.” Technology – educational technology, but also transport and communication technologies, for example – has indeed facilitated increases in collaboration in the “networked academy” for research collaboration, as well as student and staff exchanges, making the higher education world “smaller.” But classrooms and teaching practices seemed for long largely untouched by globalization. More recently, technology has been expected to have a stronger impact in those practices than in the past. The debate has focused on the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other online teaching tools to transform higher education. MOOCs can reach hundreds of thousands of students globally and are often delivered by leading universities – as an example, edX, one of the MOOC platforms, was created by the Massachusetts Institute of
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Technology (MIT) and Harvard in 2012. The public and a number of scholars have examined this development under a positive, even enthusiastic, light. Acemoglu et al. (2014) argue that the Internet can help to democratize education. Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of the MOOC platform Udacity, went as far as predicting that by around 2060 there would only be ten institutions delivering higher education left in the world (Leckart 2012). The prophecy that only a handful of institutions will deliver higher education raises important questions around diversity with regards to curriculum, language of delivery, and attentiveness to local needs. National institutions and governments would be unlikely to ignore this kind of homogenizing effects, which makes this prophecy suspect. Moreover, more recently critical commentators have underlined that the value of much of this form of higher education is yet to be seen, as dropout rates from MOOCs tend to be in excess of 90%, links to formal qualifications are loose, and their value in the labor market is uncertain. There are concerns with the “digital divide” between nations and individuals within nations. In addition, universities have begun to use MOOCslike formats and courses for marketing purposes and to improve the achievement of their on-campus students, rather than to widen participation and reduce the costs of higher education for students around the globe (see Souto-Otero et al. 2016).
Higher Education, Global Agendas, and Global Spaces of Equivalence The relationship between globalization, interdependence, convergence, and homogenization (e.g., in terms of the use of English, curriculum, modes of management or discourses in higher education) has been a central theme in studies on education and globalization. Recently, a new emphasis has been placed on the study of initiatives on comparison and equivalence – which do not necessarily have a univocal relationship with homogenization. By “global spaces of equivalence,” Shahjahana and Morgan (2016: 92)
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refer to “socially constructed ‘commensurate spaces of comparison’ or ‘spaces of uniform measurement (. . .) that allow a large number of events to be recorded and summarized according to standard norms’.” These can be associated with a set of commensuration processes and data collection tools and indicators at global level, such as those promoted by international organizations like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Shahjahana and Morgan 2016) or global higher education rankings, (Souto-Otero and BeneitoMontagut 2016), as well as the global spread of (Western) ideas. The creation of these agendas and spaces of equivalence has been associated with a powerful ideological assemble of how higher education should be managed and delivered, funded, and assessed (decentralization, privatization, choice, accountability, testing) along the lines of neoliberalism and cultural imperialism (Robertson and Kedzierski 2016). These agendas have been used as “ice-breakers” for new institutional and national competitions and for reform (Enders 2004), impacting on national systems worldwide, although this impact has taken different forms in the north and the south (Dale 2009; Bonal and Rambla 2009). From these perspectives, globalization is premised upon economic and political agendas that favor rich nations at the expense of others, even if the “others” cannot be considered merely passive agents in the process – as they accept, transform, ignore, or reject global templates according to their historical trajectories, resources, and cultures. What is clear is that homogenization and spaces of equivalence have not resulted in greater equality in higher education. As noted by Altbach (2008: 2): “contemporary inequalities may in fact be intensified by globalization. (. . .) Developing countries are at a significant disadvantage in the new globalized academic system, but smaller academic systems in rich countries also face problems. (. . .) The inequalities of the global age are just as profound and in part more complex than the realities of the era of colonialism” as the domestic (language, curricula, journals) needs to fight with the global.
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Higher Education, Globalization, and the Future of Graduate Work Globalization has given an increased sense of urgency to nation-states’ activities to attract capital in the face of global competition. Economic survival, in today’s context, is seen as increasingly associated with the development of human capital and improved educational performance, which partly explains the focus on global spaces of equivalence discussed in the previous section. In the 1990s, the narrative in developed countries envisaged a future where they would do the “head work,” whereas other economies would do the “body work” in the global division of labor. Today, the situation is seen differently. As the former president of the United States of America Barack H. Obama (2011) declared: “Now, it is an undeniable fact that countries who outeducate us today are going to outcompete us tomorrow (. . .) students are sliding against their peers around the globe.” Developed countries are struggling to keep the “head work” for themselves. Could more education reverse this situation? While much has been written on the importance of higher education for economic development under the prism of human capital and skills-biased technological change, the sociological literature has expressed concerns regarding a straightforward conceptualization of the relationship between education, jobs, and incomes. Brown et al.’s (2010) critique has questioned the idea that more education can lead to greater individual and national prosperity due to various inter-related trends associated with skills production, utilization, and costs. In particular they note that following the entry of countries like China and India into the global economy, global higher education enrolments experienced a phenomenal growth rate. This, together with increasing mobility of jobs, and indeed tasks, to be performed means that today higher education cannot be regarded as a powerful insurance against unemployment, low wages, and other labor market risks, except for a minority who are considered as being part of a select group of individuals endowed with “top talent” who have generally attended “world-class” universities.
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Concluding Remarks The consequences of globalization include positive as well as negative aspects, opportunities as well as threats, and the allocation of those vary across time and space, not least because a similar ideological framework, and even similar policies, can yield different results in different contexts. This review of the relationship between globalization and higher education has not aimed to map the now very substantial landscape of studies on globalization and higher education. The intention has been more modest: to review critical perspectives in relation to three particular, although indeed key, issues around knowledge transmission, the measurement of the quality of what higher education “produces,” and the future of graduate employment. It has mapped changes of emphasis over the last two decades: from skepticism to enthusiasm (and back to skepticism) in the role of technology for global knowledge transmission, from homogenization to global spaces of equivalence, and from a global division of labor to new insecurities for graduate employment in the West. On the whole, the review suggests that globalization has so far affected those issues related to the outcomes of higher education (in terms of the future of graduate employment and the creation of systems that measure educational “performance”) the most. By contrast, the impact of globalization on knowledge transmission processes, the area where optimism had concentrated most recently, has been, so far, much more limited than expected.
Cross-References ▶ Economics of Massive Open Online Courses, Higher Education ▶ Global Higher Education, Digital Age ▶ Global Trends in Student Mobility ▶ Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes ▶ Higher Education as a Global Reality ▶ Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization
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▶ Higher Education Systems, Types of ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Evolving Concepts, Approaches, and Definitions ▶ Multi-Level Governance, Higher Education ▶ Online Programs and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) ▶ Policy Learning and Borrowing in Higher Education ▶ State and Planning, Higher Education ▶ University Rankings, National and International Dynamics
G References Acemoglu, Daron, David Laibson, and John A. List. 2014. Equalizing superstars: The internet and the democratization of education. The American Economic Review 104 (5): 523–527. Altbach, Philip G. 2008. Globalization and forces for change in higher education. International Higher Education 50: 2–4. Bonal, Xavier, and Xavier Rambla. 2009. ‘In the name of globalisation’: Southern and northern paradigms of educational development. In Globalisation & Europeanisation in education, ed. Roger Dale and Susan L. Robertson, 143–159. Oxford: Symposium Books. Brown, Phillip, Hugh Lauder, and David Ashton. 2010. The global auction: The broken promises of education, jobs, and incomes. New York: Oxford University Press. Carnoy, Martin, and Diana Rhoten. 2002. What does globalization mean for educational change. Comparative Education Review 46 (1): 1–6. Dale, Roger. 2009. Introduction. In Globalisation & Europeanisation in education, ed. Roger Dale and Susan L. Robertson, 7–23. Oxford: Symposium Books. Enders, Jürgen. 2004. Higher education, internationalization, and the nation-state: Recent developments and challenges to governance theory. Higher Education 47 (3): 361–382. Held, David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global transformations. Politics, economics and culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Leckart, Steven. 2012. The Stanford education experiment could change higher education forever. Wired. 20 Mar 2012. Obama, Barack H. 2011. Remarks on the No Child Left Behind Act. 23 Sept 2011. http://www.presidency. ucsb.edu/ws/?pid¼96798. Robertson, Susan L., and Matt Kedzierski. 2016. On the move: Globalizing higher education in Europe and beyond. The Language Learning Journal 44 (3): 276–291.
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Shahjahan, Riyad A., and Morgan Clara. 2016. Global competition, coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education 37 (1): 92–109. Souto-Otero, Manuel, and Roser Beneito-Montagut. 2016. From governing through data to governmentality through data: Artefacts, strategies and the digital turn. European Educational Research Journal 15 (1): 14–33. Souto-Otero, Manuel, Andreia Inamorato dos Santos, Robin Shields, Predrag Lažetić, Jonathan Castaño-Muñoz, Axelle Devaux, Stephanie Oberheidt, and Yves Punie. 2016. OpenCases: Case studies on openness in education. Seville: Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Joint Research Centre, European Commission. Steger, Manfred B. 2003. Globalization. A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yang, Rui. 2003. Globalisation and higher education development: A critical analysis. International Review of Education 49 (3): 269–291.
Globalization of Research ▶ Internationalization Research in East Asia
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Goals ▶ Internationalization of Higher Education, Mapping and Measuring
Good Governance and Higher Education Damian Barry and Leo Goedegebuure L H Martin Institute, Melbourne Centre for Studies of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Synonyms European Community (EC); European Union (EU); Higher education Institutions (HEI); Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation; Papua New Guinea (PNG); United States of America (US)
Introduction Governance In this article the focus is on institutional governance in higher education, in particular, the nature of good governance. Before discussing what “good governance” is, a useful starting point is to discuss what governance is and is not. Graham et al. (2003) posit that governance is “a process whereby societies or organizations make their important decisions, determine whom they involve in the process and how they render account” (p. 1). Because processes in their view are hard to observe, the “normal” focus in studies on governance is on “the governance system or framework upon which the process rests - that is, the agreements, procedures, conventions or policies that define who gets power, how decisions are taken and how accountability is rendered” (ibid.). This is very much in line with the position taken by Huisman (2009), who argues that: One of the central notions in public administration and public policy and political science is the relationship between state and society and – more specifically – whether, and if so how, the state (government) should steer, plan, regulate and control societal actors (and individuals). The basic questions around this relationship relate to the division of responsibilities between the nation-state – in all its different guises: governments, parliaments, ministries and other governmental agencies – and public and private institutions as well as individual citizens. (p. 2)
Both authors clearly focus on governance at the system level; however our focus is to be at the institutional level, with other contributions dealing with system-level aspects such as multilevel governance, autonomy and accountability, stakeholder relationship, and new public management (NPM) (see also chapters “▶ Multi-Level Governance, Higher Education,” “▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education,” “▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education,” “▶ Accountability in Higher Education,” “▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education”). Yet, when it comes to basic in terms of what governance is, there is not so much difference in principles: what matters at the system level also matters at the institutional
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level. Therefore, we adopt the following definition of governance for the purposes of this article: governance is a process (or set of processes) by which the organization makes decisions and gets things done, supports its business model, and in turn is supported by it. For governance to be effective at both the sector (system) and institutional level, there needs to be in place a clarity of purpose and vision. Without this clarity governance fails to make sense, and the principles of good governance discussed later will falter. Again, effective governance also is discussed elsewhere in this Encyclopedia (see also chapter “▶ Policy Outcomes and Effects in Higher Education,” but it is worth to state upfront that governance not only needs to be “good,” but also it equally needs to be “effective.” This logically also implies that good and effective governance is a closely linked concept, as will be demonstrated in the next sections. Before elaborating on the concept of good governance, it also is worthwhile to briefly discuss the similarities and differences between corporate and public governance. This is of particular relevance as the widespread introduction of NPM principles and practices in higher education has resulted in a blurring of this distinction as we will elaborate on later. Corporate and Public Governance Corporate governance “generally refers to the processes by which organisations are directed, controlled and held to account. It encompasses authority, accountability, stewardship, leadership, direction and control exercised in the organisation” (Australian Standard 8000–2003). During the first part of the twenty-first century, corporate governance has come under severe critique and scrutiny as a result of very public failures such as Enron and the ensuing burst of the e-bubble and Bear Stearns with the global financial crisis in its wake. In response to this, various jurisdictions have developed codes of governance to which we will refer later. Public governance is alternatively defined as “the formal and informal arrangements that determine how public decisions are made and how public actions are carried out, from the perspective of
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maintaining a country’s constitutional values in the face of changing problems, actors and environments” (OECD 2005, p. 16) or as “the regime of laws, rules, and administrative practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable the provision of publicly supported goods and services” (Heinrich et al. 2004, p. 6). While clearly there are similar elements in both forms of governance, Benz and Frey (2007, pp. 100–101) succinctly highlight the conceptual differences. Their argument is that corporate governance principally draws on agency theory to effectively control self-interested behavior by managers. Public governance in contrast is centered around the question of who has the actual rights to decide over what. As we will demonstrate at the end of this article, these contrasting views increasingly clash and mesh in the current debate on good governance in higher education institutions. What Is Good Governance? There is a fair bit of common ground as to what constitutes “good governance” as indicated in three of the most known and used sets of principles presented in Table 1. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) governance principles (1997) can claim strong universal support. The European Commission’s (EC) approach equally appears uncontested (for a more detailed analysis of the EU’s approach to good governance, see Boerzel et al. 2008). The UK’s Nolan Principles of Public Life (Committee on Standards in Public Life 1995), like the EC’s Good Governance and Higher Education, Table 1 Overview of principles of good governance United Nations Development Program 1 Legitimacy and voice 2 Direction 3 Performance 4 Accountability 5 Fairness
European Commission Participation
Lord Nolan’s seven principles of public life Selflessness
Coherence Effectiveness Accountability
Integrity Objectivity Accountability
Openness
Openness Honesty Leadership
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Good Governance and Higher Education, Fig. 1 Langland’s standard: six principles of good governance (2005)
attempt, were designed to address the growing dissatisfaction of the public with public sector performance. The Nolan Principles have been taken further in the UK by the Independent Commission on Good Governance in Public Services (also known as the Langland’s Committee) which formulated the below Good Governance Standard in 2005 (Fig. 1). The two sets are different and target different elements: the Nolan principles are values focused and Langland’s are outcomes focused. Langland’s standards clearly link good and effective governance as discussed earlier by putting the purpose and value proposition at the heart of good governance. This is equally evident in the Good
Practice Guide on Governance as developed by the Victorian Government in Australia: “(Good governance) enables entities to perform efficiently and effectively, and to respond strategically to changing demands” (http://vpsc.vic.gov.au/gover nance/). Concern has been expressed that these good governance principles lack coherence albeit that they are general in nature and application is dependent on the organizations reason for being – its purpose. Looking at the principles and their applicability to higher education, one needs to account for the presence in higher education of multiple purposes and multiple missions both of which are the subject of much current discussion.
Good Governance and Higher Education
“Good Governance” and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) A fundamental requirement for governance is to facilitate the delivery of the HEI purpose(s): its mission. However, there is much discussion in the current literature that indicates that the traditional mission(s) of HEIs is being redefined and as Collini (2016) observes: . . .what we still call universities are coming to be reshaped as centres of applied expertise and vocational training that are subordinate to a society’s “economic strategy.
The trend in most Western economies is to seek greater efficiency and effectiveness from its public institutions including public universities. This trend is also reflected in a greater focus on the governance and operations of HEIs by regulators and by the institutions themselves as they seek to adjust their organizational forms and practices to achieve mission, comply with regulatory challenges, and also position themselves financially to adapt to the current competitive environment. Government regulation is most effective and most efficient when it is coordinated across portfolios for institutions as a whole. In Western economies, universities cross several areas of government and are central to much of a country’s social and economic life. Universities perform research essential to economic development and solve many problems in society. Universities provide people with skills and knowledge that drive their careers and future lives, as well as support labor markets. Companies and other organizations require skilled people to operate, and universities are central in developing such people. Universities also provide a place for social interaction and act as key intellectual centers of society. The regulation of universities should reflect this breadth of impact and importance. Frost et al. (2016, p. 9) observe that “Governing universities is a multi-level as well as a highly paradoxical endeavor.” They also note that there are and have been “multifaceted repercussions of changing governance logics” (ibid.). In the same volume, Hattke et al. (2016, p. 246) summarize the “contradictory demands for scholarly peer control, market responsiveness, public
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policy control, and democratization create governance paradoxes.” One way of dealing with these contradictory demands while maintaining the concept of autonomous institutions in the context of accountabilities has been the adoption of the codes of conduct. Initially triggered by the spectacular governance failures highlighted before the codes is an attempt to ward off extensive controlling regulation by explicitly stating a set of principles that those covered by the code commit to stringently following or explain explicitly why they have not or cannot do that in certain cases. This has spilled over to the higher education sector as university councils/senates/boards of trustees have identified that the way they need to approach their role and responsibilities are in many ways akin to that of a company director. For example, in the UK the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) adopted a code of conduct for HEIs; in Australia, the peak body Universities Australia has developed a voluntary code of governance for HEIs. Examples of attempts to translate good governance principles are also seen in South Africa (South African King III Report on Corporate Governance), the Corporate Governance Code for Namibia (the NamCode). Similarly, in Papua New Guinea (PNG), a governance manual was developed by the PNG Department of Higher Education, Research, Science, and Technology for its HEIs. The principles in the manual are related to accountability, transparency, partnerships with stakeholders, and effectiveness – similar to the good governance principles discussed earlier. Another example is Singapore where a set of core principles that underpin governance in the public service has been developed (https:// www.cscollege.gov.sg/Knowledge/Ethos/Ethos% 20November%202004/Pages/Singapore%20Four %20Principles%20Of%20Governance.aspx). Similar in all cases is that the principles are directed at institutional governance and designed to implement a system-wide approach to good governance. Nolan, as discussed before, is focused more on the individual, and at the institutional level, this should be reflected in the appointment processes for individuals to serve on governing boards. This appointment process to
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governing boards has raised and continues to raise tensions within HEIs. There is research emerging looking at whether the development and use of governance protocols and codes have actually achieved the promoted benefits (e.g. De Silva Lokuwaduge and Armstrong 2015). Having outlined the “playing field” of good governance in higher education, in the final section of this article, we provide a succinct overview of the problems and issues identified in the literature when it comes to higher education governance in general and good governance in particular. University Governance: Tensions, Challenges, and Trauma Austin and Jones (2015, p. 18) describe the governance challenges for HEIs as: (. . .) a clash of two cultures: academia, based on a culture and traditions that go back centuries, and a modern economic neoliberal philosophy that touts the market as an efficient means of allocating scarce resources. Higher education faces a governing conundrum.
Culture is not the only issue challenging the concept of good governance in universities. Disruptive technologies, changing student and staff demographics, and changing public expectations are impacting on the strategic, academic, and operational thinking of universities. Higher education systems face new realities, and these require new strategies without losing sight of the fundamental values and purposes of higher education. As society moves more strongly into the knowledge and digital age, the role and purpose of HEIs are very much at the forefront of governments’ social and economic strategies. Shattock (2013) and Middlehurst (2013) identify and discuss a range of tensions and challenges to HEI governance primarily focused on the emergence of managerialism and the perception of the academy being sidelined with the consequence of the concept of shared governance being compromised. Much of the academic literature discussing the reduction of influence of the academy in the governance of HEIs and the rise of managerialism is more about “who” should be involved in governance rather than about the process of governance itself and the accepted need, as
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indicated by the international approach to the development and adoption of the various codes, for appointments to governing roles to have both the appropriate skills and attributes necessary to participate in governance. Campbell and Carayannis (2016) also look at the actors and structures of governance and propose that the basis for organizing knowledge-producing resources be reimagined to better accommodate the demands of the knowledge society. This observation from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (American Council of T & Alumni 2014) about the challenges for councils/boards of trustees/senates in considering their governance role supports the focus on skills and attributes: To do this effectively, trustees need to work with the CEO and have access to independent information and experts to help them gain a full national perspective. Too often, they are in the dark when it comes to crucial issues such as academic quality and integrity. They often lack information on student learning, the academic culture of the campus, and the intellectual value-added of college. Boards should expect that campus administrators will provide concise, thoughtful, and analytical information for which they will be held accountable.
(Note: The ACT publication Bold Leadership Real Reform (American Council of T & Alumni 2015) also identified 12 governance strategies to address a range of issues in the US system that resonate across all systems that can be implemented without compromising values and mission.) Also in private US colleges, the holy grail of shared governance is being redefined (Beaudry and Crockford 2015) to enable institutions to better address the challenges highlighted before. Other issues arising from the greater expectations of higher education institutions can be seen in the work of (Friedrichsmeier and Marcinkowski 2016). They note in considering the impact of greater media attention to the sector and its institutions: On the one hand, the policy idea of a trend to a knowledge society affected what public contributions are expected of HEI. On the other hand, reforms to decentralise HEI-governance compelled universities to orient themselves more directly towards the demands of external stakeholders. [p. 97]
Good Governance and Higher Education
Failures of governance in higher education institutions do occur, and when they do, they attract much public attention, commentary, and review. For example, in Australia three recent examples in New South Wales, Queensland, and Western Australia could be seen as reflective of failures to follow the Nolan Principles as well as process failures. One such failure resulted in a government inquiry that had far-reaching implications for the institution concerned. Despite these challenges HEIs and governments have moved to develop strategies and principles, many of them codified, to support the application of “good governance.” On top of the codes of conduct are a panoply of regulatory initiatives relating to accreditation (organizational and program): quality assurance and industrial relations. The effectiveness of these principles/ codes/guides is being researched using a range of conceptual and theoretical approaches. A number of questions on these issues relate to: • The efficacy of the current leadership model of Universities. • Is shared governance an issue of concern for all university staff and not only the academic staff? • The role, skills, and composition of university councils (or senates)?
Conclusion Good governance in higher education is not so much a contested issue as one that brings with it a number of issues and problems specific to the sector. As demonstrated, there is little doubt on the relevance of the generic concept of good governance to higher education nor is its operation in particular standards in question. The problematic nature of good governance in a higher education context emanates from its multiple missions and multiple product nature in combination with public policy dialogue that strongly emphasizes a more managerial approach to how our institutions are run. It would appear that the multiple mission/multiple product part is something that those in charge of both governing and managing the institution
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need to come to terms with as they are an inherent feature unlikely to change in the future, possibly with the exception for a number of highly focused, specialized institutions. Coming to terms at the very minimum means good induction programs for lay governors as to the nature of the organization they govern and the national and international contexts in which they operate. This also includes an understanding of the major environmental trends that affect their institution. In terms of the management approach, there is little doubt that as a result of massification and globalization, our institutions have become significant organizations with sizeable budgets and complexities which require both good management and good governance. This then translates into a clear articulation of how the governance arrangements are structured and implemented, keeping in mind the centrality of mission and vision as operationalized in the Nolan Principles that have been extensively discussed in this contribution. This brings with it the inevitable need for a deep understanding of what drives the staff in our institutions and the realization that “good governance” very much is a negotiated space rather than a given.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability in Higher Education ▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education ▶ Multi-Level Governance, Higher Education ▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education ▶ Policy Outcomes and Effects in Higher Education
References American Council of, T., & Alumni. 2014. Implementing governance for a new era: An action plan for higher education trustees. Washington, DC: American Council of Trustees and Alumni. American Council of, T., & Alumni. 2015. Bold leadership, real reform: Best practices in university governance. Washington, DC: American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
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578 Austin, I., and G.A. Jones. 2015. Governance of higher education: Global perspectives, theories, and practices, 2015. Florence: Taylor and Francis. Beaudry, S., and E. Crockford. 2015. Resurrecting shared governance: A model to face uncertain times in higher education. Academy of Business Research Journal 4: 32–44. Benz, M., and B.S. Frey. 2007. Corporate governance: What can we learn from public governance? Academy of Management Review 32 (1): 92–104. Boerzel, T.A., Y. Pamuch, and A. Stahn. 2008. Good governance in the European Union, Working paper no.7. Berlin: Freie Universitaet. Campbell, D.F., and E.G. Carayannis. 2016. Epistemic governance and epistemic innovation policy in higher education. Technology, Innovation and Education 2 (1): 1. Collini, S. 2016. Who are the spongers now? [Review of the book Fulfilling our potential: Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice]. London Review of Books 38 (2): 33–37. Retrieved from http://www.lrb.co. uk/v38/n02/stefan-collini/who-are-the-spongers-now. Committee on Standards in Public Life. n.d. Website www. public-standards.gov.uk. De Silva Lokuwaduge, C., and A. Armstrong. 2015. The impact of governance on the performance of the higher education sector in Australia. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 43 (5): 811–827. Friedrichsmeier, A., & Marcinkowski, F. (2016). The mediatisation of university governance: a theoretical and empirical exploration of some side-effects. Policy & Politics, 44(1), 97–113. https://doi.org/10.1332/ 030557315X14431876145728. Frost, J., F. Hattke, and M. Reihlen. 2016. Multi-level governance in universities: Strategy, structure, control. In Multi-level governance in universities, 1–15. Dordrecht: Springer. Graham, J., Bruce Amos, and Tim Plumptre. 2003. Principles for good governance in the 21st century-policy brief no.15 Aug 2003. Canada Retrieved from http://unpan1.un.org/ intradoc/groups/public/documents/UNPAN/UNPAN011 842.pdf. Hattke, F., Vogel, R., & Woiwode, H. (2016). When Professional and Organizational Logics Collide: Balancing Invisible and Visible Colleges in Institutional Complexity. In J. Frost, F. Hattke, & M. Reihlen (Eds.), Multi-Level Governance in Universities: Strategy, Structure, Control (pp. 235–256). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Heinrich, C.J., C.J. Hill, and L.E. Lynn. 2004. Governance as an organizing theme for empirical research. In The art of governance, ed. P.W. Ingraham and L.E. Lynn. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Huisman, J. 2009. Coming to terms with governance in higher education. In International perspectives on the governance of higher education; alternative frameworks for coordination, ed. J. Huisman, 1–9. New York: Routledge. Independent Commission on Good Governance in Public Services. 2005. The good governance standard for public services. London: OPM & CIPFA.
Governance Middlehurst, R. 2013. Changing internal governance: Are leadership roles and management structures in United Kingdom universities fit for the future? Higher Education Quarterly 67 (3): 275–294. OECD. 2005. Modernizing government; the way forward. Paris: OECD. Shattock, M. 2013. University governance, leadership and management in a decade of diversification and uncertainty. Higher Education Quarterly 67 (3): 217–233. UNDP. 2014. Governance for sustainable development; integrating governance in the post-2015 development framework. New York: United Nations Development Programme.
Governance ▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ethiopia ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Liberia ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovakia ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, South Africa ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Uganda ▶ Institutional Autonomy in Higher Education
Governance in Community Colleges Robert C. Cloud Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA
Overview of Community Colleges Public 2-year colleges are uniquely American institutions, reflecting the democratic ideal that America is indeed a land of opportunity for all (Smith 2000). From their inception early in the twentieth century until about 1950, most 2-year institutions
Governance in Community Colleges
were known as junior colleges and defined as “institution[s] offering two years of instruction of strictly collegiate grade” (Bogue 1950, xvii). Between 1950 and 1970, the term junior college gradually gave way to community college, which more accurately described the comprehensive, community-centered mission of the 2-year institutions. More recently, Cohen et al. defined the modern community college as “any not-for-profit institution regionally accredited to award the associate in arts or the associate in science as its highest degree” (Cohen et al. 2014). That definition includes comprehensive colleges and technical institutes, both public and private, but it does not include vocational schools, adult education centers, and the for-profit (proprietary) institutions (Cohen et al. 2014). According to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC 2016), 1108 2-year, associate degree-granting institutions enrolled more than 12 million students in 2016, nearly half of all undergraduates in the United States (AACC 2016). The majority of those institutions (982) were public community and/or technical colleges, while 90 colleges were independent, and 36 were tribal colleges primarily serving Native Americans (AACC 2016). Virtually all public community colleges are community-based and open-door institutions, featuring low costs, easy accessibility, and quality instruction. Long recognized as teaching institutions-par excellence (Eells 1931), public community colleges offer a broad array of services to their communities. Examples include the following: preparing baccalaureate-seeking students for transfer to 4-year institutions, offering quality technical and vocational programs for students seeking certificates or associate degrees, delivering job-related instruction to private-sector employees in the college district, partnering with local school districts in offering dual credit programs for high school students, and delivering developmental (or remedial) programs for students who must improve their study skills in order to succeed. Finally, public community colleges are cultural centers offering a wide array of events and continuing education programs for constituents in the college service area. Most
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colleges receive funding from three main sources: property taxes in the district, state formula funding, and student tuition and fees (Cohen et al. 2014). In addition, an increasing number of colleges are creating institutional foundations and designating all contributions for student scholarships, program enrichment, or other institutional priorities. Clearly, community colleges are dynamic and complex educational and social organizations that serve citizens from all socioeconomic classes. Consequently, they are known to many as “people’s colleges” and “democracy’s colleges” (Cohen et al. 2014). The comprehensive mission and egalitarian nature of community colleges, of course, pose unique opportunities and perplexing challenges for their administrative leaders and governing board members. Most community and technical colleges are governed by local boards of elected or appointed trustees (or regents) who live in the college district. In 2014, for example, 2-year colleges in 36 states were governed by local boards (ACCT 2014). The size of college boards ranges from 5 to 30 members who serve terms ranging from 2 to 6 years. Most community college boards meet once a month, but the number of meetings by a given board depends on several factors including the following: state law, tradition, and pending college business such as adoption of the annual budget (Weisman and Vaughan 1997; Smith 2000). In virtually all states (49), a state-level board either controls or coordinates all community college activities funded with state money (ACCT 2014). College boards have legal and fiduciary responsibility for all college operations, including proper stewardship of the budget and compliance with all laws and accreditation standards. Historically, community college boards modeled their policies and procedures on traditions and practices of public school boards because of the close links to schools during the early years of the twentieth century (Smith 2000). Consequently, many early community college boards fostered campus cultures that mandated close supervision of administrators, faculty, and staff and meticulous oversight of college functions, particularly in financial matters. For a long time, college trustees were viewed as the primary
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(if not the only) participants in institutional governance. In recent years, however, perceptions about the scope and dynamics of effective college governance have changed significantly.
Community College Governance: A Dynamic and Contentious Process Having evolved from traditional public school bureaucratic models that emphasized control and oversight, community college governance is now a dynamic process with a host of participants. Faculty, administrators, students, union representatives, business leaders in the community, taxpayer organizations, and government agencies now interact with trustees in a cooperative effort to solve internal and external issues specific to their colleges (Amey et al. 2008). Best practice standards now emphasize transparency and broad participation in governance of “the people’s colleges.” Consequently, exemplary community college governance is now a process for the equitable distribution of authority, influence, and resources among all internal and external constituencies (Cloud and Kater 2008). Gone are the days when presidents and trustees acted unilaterally and/or arbitrarily on college issues. Although college boards retain the legal and final authority to govern their institutions, prudent trustees now welcome broad-based involvement in governance. The trend is toward more participation and shared responsibility in governance, and college leaders resist or ignore that trend to the detriment of their colleges. But there is irony in this trend. Although necessary and intended to improve college governance, the inclusion of so many stakeholders with vested interests can reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of governance, making it increasingly contentious. Clearly, many constituencies have legitimate stakes in local community colleges. Federal, state, and local agencies expect the college to serve the public interest (Fossey and Eckes 2015). Taxpayers expect responsible stewardship of public funds and a balanced budget. Faculty demand academic freedom and expect college
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leaders to support academic program standards. Students want quality instruction delivered at affordable costs and at convenient times. Community leaders are pleased when the college hosts cultural and civic events on a regular basis (Davis 2016). Inclusion of the aforementioned and other groups in the governance process is prudent and necessary because it balances the interests of the various stakeholders. It also makes governance of the college more difficult because the interests of the various stakeholders can (and often do) collide, resulting in conflict and spirited debate for college trustees and presidents. Because college resources are usually limited, it is virtually impossible for the governing board to satisfy the needs and desires of all stakeholders. Therefore, the board must make discretionary decisions about resource allocation that seldom please everyone. Consequently, community college governance is now, and will continue to be, a dynamic and contentious process that can foster controversy in the college district (Davis 2016).
Principles of Effective Community College Governance Without doubt, effective governance is critically important to the success of every 2-year college. In the best of circumstances, governance can be challenging and divisive. In less than ideal situations, ineffective governance can keep the college from carrying out its mission, threaten institutional accreditation, and damage the college’s reputation. Accordingly, the following principles are recommended as best practices in community college governance: 1. Community college boards set policies that guide the administration and governance of the college. All board policies must be codified in the board’s official policy manual, and a code of ethics is a required component in the manual. The policy manual should be reviewed and updated by board members and their legal counsel at least annually (Potter and Phelan 2008).
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2. All new members of boards of trustees should be required to complete an orientation program which includes a review of the board’s official policy manual and training on board culture, policies and procedures, and the code of ethics for board members (Smith 2000; Potter and Phelan 2008). 3. Governing boards are corporate bodies, and they act only as a board. Individual members have no authority to direct the president or any other college employee to do anything. As a rule, the chairman speaks for the entire board when necessary. Individual members do not speak or act for the board unless authorized to do so (Smith 2000). Effective governing boards do not micromanage routine college operations nor do they approve or “rubber-stamp” every proposal submitted by the president (Davis 2016). 4. Hiring, supporting, and evaluating the president is the most important single duty of all community college boards (Smith 2000). Hiring the wrong person as president and then retaining him or her for too long can be disastrous for the college. 5. Effective board-president relationships are based on mutual trust, respect, and loyalty to the college. Board members protect the president, and the president protects the board from inaccurate and/or unfair criticism. There is a concerted effort by all parties to avoid surprising or embarrassing each other at public meetings or in the media (Potter and Phelan 2008). 6. Community college presidents are obligated to treat all board members equally, supporters, and detractors alike. For example, sharing complete information with all board members in a timely manner is absolutely essential (Potter and Phelan 2008). 7. Community college boards operate in a highly litigious environment in which public agencies can be (and often are) targets of frivolous legal actions. Caution is a watchword for board members, and competent legal counsel for the board is essential to protecting college interests (Cloud 2004).
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8. Governance policies should require that boards consult regularly with all college constituencies including representatives of student and employee organizations, community groups, government agencies, and public school leaders (Davis 2016). 9. Community college board members who act unethically and inappropriately are often described as rogue trustees. Such individuals are elected or appointed to boards for a variety of reasons, most of them negative. Rogue trustees do not work cooperatively with their board colleagues. They may violate policy by releasing confidential information to the media without authorization. They often attack the honesty and integrity of the president or board chair. They advocate for special interest groups on and off the campus, and they meddle in the daily operations of the college. The most effective way to deal with rogue trustees, of course, is to prevent their election or appointment in the first place. Consequently, current board members have a responsibility and a vested interest in encouraging quality candidates to seek election or appointment to the board. When a rogue trustee joins the board and begins to disrupt governance, the chairperson and other responsible members of the board must confront the rogue about his/her unethical conduct. Should the unacceptable behavior continue, the board should publically reprimand or censure the wayward trustee (Potter and Phelan 2008). It is not the responsibility of the college president to discipline recalcitrant board members. 10. State laws and college governing board policies should include provisions for the legal recall of irresponsible and/or incompetent trustees. Such provisions would serve public notice that trustees will be held to high standards of conduct and performance (Davis 2016). 11. Community college trustees must avoid even the perception of conflicts of interest, much less the reality. The board’s code of ethics must specifically preclude board members
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12.
13.
14.
15.
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from using their positions for personal or political gain (Smith 2000; Davis 2016). Special interest groups, like teachers’ unions and taxpayers’ organizations, are increasingly represented on community college governing boards, making the board-president relationship volatile for many presidents in leading their colleges. This politicalization of college boards will likely continue. Presidents and trustees must recognize this reality and deal with the political and social constraints that impact the governing process (Cloud 1993). Community college presidents must resist the temptation, no matter how justified in some cases, to influence the election or appointment of their board members. Presidents and other administrators are well advised to stay out of governing board elections, a truism that they ignore at their own professional peril (Cloud 1993). Effective community college boards focus on the future, not the present. Declining state and local financial support, changing student demographics, and rapid changes in the labor market now require boards to commit considerable time and effort in preparing for the future. Prudent trustees respond proactively by developing vision statements, financial models, and strategic planning documents that project what their college district will look like in 5–10 years. Based on formal analyses of the college’s projected strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (commonly known as SWOT analyses), the board of trustees adopts a strategic plan that sets institutional priorities in all operational areas and commits the financial resources necessary to meet each priority. In many college districts, all planning and development activities are now coordinated by one office staffed by experienced professionals. Governing boards betray the public trust, the students, and their oaths of office when they do not prepare their colleges for the future (Smith 2000; Potter and Phelan 2008). In the end, perhaps the most important principle of effective community college governance is the board’s unwavering commitment
to student learning and success. Fiscal integrity is absolutely essential, and operating budgets must be balanced, but community colleges were created and exist to serve students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. That is why they are known as democracy’s colleges (Potter and Phelan 2008; Cohen et al. 2014).
Summary Interest in community college governance will increase among practitioners and scholars for many reasons. Enrollments will continue to increase, particularly in technical-vocational programs because of the growing need for a trained workforce. Consequently, workforce-training programs will compete with transfer curricula for dwindling state funding. In many local college districts, taxpayer resistance is a reality. P-16 initiatives will require close collaboration with public school partners. Increasing numbers of poorly prepared students will need remediation. Employee unions will press for better salaries and benefits and more meaningful participation in college governance. Special interest groups will continue electing their advocates to governing boards. For-profit institutions will continue to compete for students. In the meantime, rogue trustees will try the patience of everyone. Traditional governance models will not suffice in this dynamic and demanding arena. Governance structures that are more collegial, comprehensive, and inclusive will be essential in the future as community colleges evolve to meet the needs of an increasingly complex and diverse society (Cloud and Kater 2008).
Epilog Public community colleges now operate in a highly competitive environment because potential students have many options to consider before pursuing postsecondary education. Without question, the competition for resources and students is greater than ever before. Community colleges
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have responded to this reality with campus cultures that are intended to ensure student success. Examples of college initiatives, cited previously in this entry, include open-door admissions, low cost, easy accessibility, emphasis on teaching excellence, remedial instruction, and businessindustry partnerships which lead to employment opportunities for graduates. Memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between community colleges and universities often facilitate the transfer of academic credits and the transition of students from one institution to another. In addition, community colleges have led recent efforts to provide distance learning and online instruction for all students. In 2006–2007, for example, 97% of the community college districts in the United States offered online instruction for degree credit. Nationally, more than one-third of all colleges offer full degree and certificate programs through online coursework, and the larger the institution (or district), the more likely it is to ensure that students can complete all of their certificate or degree requirements online (Cohen et al. 2014). All of the aforementioned partnerships, programs, and services enable community colleges to prosper in the highly competitive postsecondary environment. Finally, the recent growth of for-profit institutions merits the attention and concern of community college leaders. In 2010–2011, 38% of all 2-year colleges were for-profit institutions. Enrollment in for-profit colleges tripled between 2000 and 2009, while enrollment in the public institutions increased by less than 25% (Cohen et al. 2014). For-profits serve only about 9–10% of all postsecondary students but enroll disproportionately high numbers of minority and at-risk students; tuition and fee costs are inordinately high; virtually all students (95%) borrow money from the federal student loan program; and default rates on their loans are unacceptably high (Cohen et al. 2014). Student attrition rates in for-profit colleges often exceed 50% within a year or two after initial enrollment. Consequently, program completion rates are low. For-profit colleges routinely spend more on marketing, advertising, and recruitment of students than they spend on instruction (U.S. Senate Health, Educ., Labor,
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and Pension Comm. 2012). Most of the faculty are part-time, and there is no faculty participation in college governance. Furthermore, for-profits are not governed or overseen by lay boards. Because of the aforementioned and other questionable practices, for-profit institutions have been investigated by the US Department of Education, Congress, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) since the 1980s, and the scrutiny is likely to continue (Cohen et al. 2014). Clearly, many students now enrolled in forprofit institutions would be better served in public community colleges where quality instruction and comprehensive student services are provided at low costs, and a debt-free program certificate or associate degree is entirely possible, if not probable. Prudent community college trustees and presidents must continue to monitor the emerging threat to their colleges and students posed by the for-profit institutions.
References American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). 2016. Fast Facts. 2016 Fact Sheet. Amey, Marilyn J., Eric Jessup-Anger, and Jody JessupAnger. 2008. Community college governance: What matters and why? In Governance in the community college, New directions for community colleges, ed. Robert C. Cloud and Susan T. Kater, vol. 141. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT). 2014. Public community college governing boards: A study compiled by ACCT, Washington, DC Bogue, Jesse P. 1950. The community college. New York: McGraw-Hill. Cloud, Robert C. 1993. Kinsey v. Salado ISD: Legal benchmark for superintendents and presidents. West’s education law reporter, 83 Ed. Law Report [903]. Cloud, Robert C., ed. 2004. Legal issues in the community college, New directions for community colleges, vol. 125. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cloud, Robert C., and Susan T. Kater, eds. 2008. Governance in the community college, New directions for community colleges, vol. 141. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cohen, Arthur M., Florence B. Brawer, and Carrie B. Kisker. 2014. The American community college, 6th ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Davis, Gary. 2016. Issues in community college governance. Washington, DC: American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). Eells, Walter. 1931. The junior college. Boston: HoughtonMifflin Company.
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Fossey, Richard, and Susan Eckes, eds. 2015. Contemporary issues in higher education law, 3rd ed. Cleveland: Education Law Association. Potter, George, and Daniel Phelan. 2008. Governance over the years: A trustee’s perspective. In Governance in the community college, New directions for community colleges, ed. Robert C. Cloud and Susan T. Kater, vol. 141. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Smith, Cindra. 2000. Trusteeship in community colleges: A guide for effective governance. Washington, DC: Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT). U.S. Senate Health, Educ., Labor, and Pension Comm. 2012. For profit higher education: the failure to safeguard the fed. Investment & ensure student success 73. Available at http://www.help.senate.gov/imo/media/ for_profit_report/PartI.pdf Weisman, Iris, and George B. Vaughan, eds. 1997. Presidents and trustees in partnership: New roles and leadership challenges, New directions for community colleges, vol. 98. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Governance of Higher Education ▶ Governance of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Governance of Science and Technology ▶ Human Capital Technology
Policy
in
Science
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Governance of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Fabian Hattke1,2 and Jetta Frost1 1 Chair of Organization and Management, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany 2 Center for Higher Education and Science Studies, Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Synonyms Governance of higher education; Higher education management; Organization of teaching and learning
Definition Governance defines decision-making for coordinating and controlling interdependence among activities, processes, and actors in order to reconcile and prioritize fragmented claims of multiple interest groups and stakeholders that pursue different objectives (see ▶ “Governance”). It is concerned with the design and implementation of policies, structures, and practices for achieving goals at multiple levels (see ▶ “Multi-level Governance, Higher Education”). This multi-level approach is distinctive for higher education institutions, because they are pluralistic organizations (Denis et al. 2001) characterized by loosely coupled structures that allow great degrees of individual autonomy (Weick 1976). In order to cope with the complexity of teaching and learning, scholars also need to engage in collaborative activities which have to be coordinated by different modes of governance, “tightening up” loosely coupled structures by shared rules and regulations, forms of peer control, and joint decisionmaking (March et al. 2000). When it comes to governance of higher education, teaching constitutes an input target which is located at the beginning of the educational performance process. Teaching essentially depends on the curriculum, the provided programs and courses, as well as on the quantity and quality of instructors. Learning, in turn, is an output target in the governance of higher education and is located at the end of the educational performance process. It is based on the development of learning environments, technologies, and experiences, and it unfolds in students and alumni of certain qualities and quantities.
Multi-Level Governance of Teaching and Learning The provision of teaching and learning is the core mission of higher education and of major importance to contemporary knowledge societies (OECD 2013). In the educational performance process, teaching and learning are inextricably linked. Teaching involves the various techniques
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of instruction, the course objectives, the methods of presenting the relevant knowledge, and the assessment of students. Learning, in turn, is directed towards acquiring the actual content of the course, but it also includes other important dimensions such as unexpected learning, independent critical thinking, implicit learning, and metalearning (Havnes and Prøitz 2016). A match between individual teaching and learning styles enhances the effectiveness of higher education (Felder and Henriques 1995). A mismatch, in contrast, may have serious consequences for students (e.g., failure to graduate) and teachers alike (e.g., increased job stress and intention to quit). Since learning is the goal of education, it is argued that education should address the preferences of individual learners instead of focusing on the provision of specific teaching formats (Barr and Tagg 1995). Due to the mutual interdependence of teaching and learning and their significance for society, the governance of teaching and learning is a complex endeavor and develops at multiple levels (Frost et al. 2016). At the macro-level, governance is concerned with higher education systems. Policy frameworks establish institutional ecosystems for the coordination of field-level actors involved in developing, providing, conducting, financing, assessing, and monitoring teaching and learning activities. Macro-level governance therefore defines, limits, and ensures the strategic capabilities of higher education institutions so that they can cope with uncertainties in their environment. At the meso-level, governance addresses higher education institutions like universities, colleges, polytechnics, and professional schools. They implement organizational structures and coordinating mechanisms in order to mediate between their own ecosystems and educational operations. Meso-level governance thus defines the capability for organizational actorhood by performing collective decisions and coordinating activities based on the division of labor. The micro-level of governance deals with higher education practices. Those practices refer to processes that are suited for preparing, guiding, evaluating, and monitoring the teaching and learning activities of instructors and students. Governing the micro-level
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aligns the activities of individual actors with the aims of the organization. At all levels, higher education governance needs to balance and prioritize the pluralistic claims of multiple internal interest groups and external stakeholders (Burrows 1999). The most important interest groups are professors, lecturers, students, as well as administrators. Stakeholders are, among others, politicians, professional associations, funding agencies, and prospective employers (see ▶ “Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education”). The demands of these different interest groups and stakeholders can be complementary, sometimes even competing and contradictory. For example, professors emphasize academic content and demand for good teaching conditions (e.g., good students). Students call for accessibility to, flexibility in, and relevance of their studies. Politicians pursue regional economic development and hold higher education institutions accountable for being cost-efficient. Prospective employers require skilled employees with specialized knowledge, while the society desires broadly educated “citizens.” Besides, the governance of teaching and learning in higher education needs to take into account the requisite variety of teaching in the different academic disciplines (see ▶ “Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching”). Multi-level governance thus needs to build relationships and coordinate interdependence between the pluralistic goals of the multiple interest groups and stakeholders. Traditionally, governance establishes these relationships on the principle of bureaucratic control, shared decision-making, and the control of input targets. The state serves as a legitimate mediator between interest groups from within higher education institutions and groups of external stakeholders (see ▶ “Public Higher Education”). The principles of shared governance (e.g., in academic senates and councils) and input control (e.g., funding, personnel selection, and training) are characteristic of the traditional governance of higher education. However, the agenda of new public management (NPM; see ▶ “New Public Management”) has changed the governance of higher education. Privatization and
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economic integration between interest groups and stakeholders have increased at the expense of state involvement. Following the promise of performance and driven by legal requirements for (public) budgeting, managerial accountability has weakened shared decision-making, and input controls have given way for output targets. Instead of controlling financial, material, and human resources at the beginning of the educational performance processes, the quantities and/or qualities of the obtained outputs and results are sought to be aligned with the expectations of stakeholders towards a performance process. It is governed by standardized measures and indicators for aggregate information which are employed to incentivize particular achievements (see ▶ “Performance Indicators in Higher Education”). Once applied at the macro-level of higher education systems, these measures and indicators have downward consequences at the meso-level of institutions and at the micro-level of practices. Performancebased funding in higher education systems translates into performance-based pay for individual teachers. In contrast to traditional governance, NPM governance assigns responsibility for the achievement goals to individual members of higher education institutions. This transition is reflected in a shift from teaching to learning targets in the governance of higher education (Cave et al. 1997). As an input target, teaching is located at the beginning of the educational performance process (Barr and Tagg 1995). The governance of teaching essentially focuses on the range of study programs and their capacities, on the design of curricula and courses, as well as on the selection and development of instructors who should be adequately qualified to perform the teaching. By controlling these inputs, the governance of teaching aims to prevent problems at later stages of the performance process. The processes itself (e.g., teacher-student interactions) as well as the realized outputs remain largely autonomous. Learning is an output target at the end of the educational performance process (Barr and Tagg 1995). The governance of learning in higher education essentially is targeted at students, graduates, and alumni of certain qualities and/or quantities in terms of knowledge progression rates, exit
qualifications, or job-entry positions. As an ex post form of control, the governance of learning leaves considerable discretion in the choice of inputs (e.g., financial and human resources) and means of achieving the results (e.g., the learning environment). The transition from traditional governance to NPM governance in higher education has been ongoing, patchy, and incomplete. On the one hand, academic traditions, cultural idiosyncrasies, path dependencies, and structural inertia have been reasons why NPM reforms in higher education are faced with considerable resistance in some parts of the world (e.g., continental Europe, South America) and have been welcomed in other parts (e.g., North America, Oceania). On the other hand, limited financial and organizational capacities of governments and public administrations have facilitated privatization and economic integration in regions with formerly strong state involvement (e.g., Africa, South America). The result is a variety of hybrid forms of multi-level governance with customized configurations of instruments intended to govern both teaching and learning at the same time. These configurations are more bureaucratic and input-oriented in some countries (e.g., France, Finland, and Germany) and more economic and output-oriented in others (e.g., Australia, Chile, United Kingdom, United States of America; see Lenzen 2015). The following paragraphs introduce selected instruments for the governance of teaching and learning in contemporary higher education. Governing Teaching and Learning at the Macro-Level: Higher Education Systems Governance at the macro-level of higher education systems establishes an ecosystem in which higher education institutions interact with interest groups and stakeholders of teaching and learning. It targets particular groups of stakeholders by differentiating between institutions that are more strongly oriented to teaching or to research, between universities, professional schools, and applied colleges, between elite and mass universities, as well as between public and private institutions (see ▶ “Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical”). Most
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importantly, macro-level governance unfolds within policy frameworks that ensure rights and delegate responsibilities to higher education institutions. Governments and state administrations also create boundary conditions for higher education in national and transnational areas. One of the most prominent implementations of a transnational higher education area is the Bologna reform process aiming inter alia at harmonizing academic degrees across Europe’s higher education systems by means of a credit transfer system (see ▶ “Intergovernmental Policies in Higher Education, Bologna”). Within more traditional governance frameworks, the majority of higher education institutions are public institutions, and student enrollment is usually free of charge or at least heavily subsidized (see ▶ “Tuition Fees”). At the same time, study places are limited as the state provides funding for higher education institutions set on the basis of past budgets in order to ensure particular teaching capacities. With the reduction of state involvement around the globe, private or semi-private actors progressively fulfil former public duties (OECD 2013). NPM reforms grant institutional autonomy from excessive state regulations but balance this autonomy by an increased accountability towards markets. In order to create these markets, new actors are called in and institutions are founded to regulate decentralized decision-making, which has formerly been conducted by policymakers. For example, accreditation and rating agencies are now responsible for assessing higher education institutions and ensuring comparability and quality standards of systems and programs (see ▶ “External Quality Assurance in Higher Education” and ▶ “University Rankings, National and International Dynamics”). Evaluations, ratings, and rankings of this sort are used by numerous stakeholders, in turn, to legitimate their decisionmaking. State plans for advancing higher education systems (see ▶ “State and Planning, Higher Education”) are harmonized with perennial strategic plans of higher education institutions (see ▶ “Strategic Planning”) in order to determine contracts for performance-based funding (see ▶ “Performance-Based Funding”). Common output measures in these contracts are the number of
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graduates in specific academic disciplines or specific quotas for student withdrawals from studies. Although this procedure involves bureaucratic coordination to some extent, the creation of (quasi-)markets provides higher education institutions with incentives to accomplish the prenegotiated goals. In addition, the funding base diversifies. Grants for teaching from public or private foundations supplement performancebased funding by the state. Tuition fees paid by students and donations from alumni intensify competition between higher education institutions on markets for higher education (see ▶ “Tuition Fees”). The economic integration of external stakeholders aims at enabling higher education institutions to develop and optimize strategic capabilities in the provision of certain qualities and quantities of students, graduates, and alumni. Governing Teaching and Learning at the Meso-Level: Higher Education Institutions Governance at the meso-level of higher education institutions constitutes strategic capabilities and actorhood by arriving at collective decisions and coordinating activities based on the division of labor (Frost et al. 2016). Meso-level governance implements organizational structures in order to respond to demands within the ecosystems of higher education institutions and to cope with challenges arising from the daily operations of teaching and learning. Within traditional frameworks, strategic capabilities and organizational actorhood of higher education institutions are limited by budgetary constraints and mandatory teaching capacities in certain disciplines and study paths. Meso-level governance is based on the principle of collective responsibility, which ensures professional autonomy and the inclusion of different interest groups in joint decisionmaking. Shared governance (see ▶ “Shared Governance”) relates representatives of different interest groups (e.g., professors, students, administrators) in an interdependent system of governing bodies (e.g., senates, faculty councils). This system of shared governance is completed by boards with elected executives (e.g., presidents, chancellors), who have the function of head of the administration and primus inter pares among
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professors. Collective decisions form part of the design of curricula and the definition of study and examination regulations which are, in turn, implemented and enforced by the administration (see ▶ “Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions”). Due to the costliness and timeliness of collective responsibility and inputorientation, traditional higher education governance has been criticized for being unable to enact organizational change and to unlock innovative potentials (for an overview, see Eckel 2000). Within higher education institutions with a stronger managerial orientation, traditional systems of shared governance have been gradually replaced by decision-making of professional managers in executive boards who are accountable to external stakeholders in advisory boards. They develop strategic plans to obtain performance-based funding from the state, for example, by improving the quality and/or increasing the quantity of graduates. The curricula are designed to stand up to external quality assessments and accreditations. Specialized and centralized administrations bundle activities in shared service centers to support and to monitor instructors and students in their teaching and learning practices (see ▶ “Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education”). The primary reason for implementing these administrative structures is to comply with performance assessments and quality assurances carried out at the macro-level by the state or agencies (Kanji et al. 1999). These external contingencies may create considerable pressure to harmonize and to standardize study programs. At the same time, higher education institutions seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors in order to maximize student enrolments, potential graduates, tuition fees, and donations from alumni. A common strategy is to create new study programs and certificates which counterbalance isomorphic tendencies. Another strategy is to manage the placement of graduates in jobs with high reputation and/or pay. This renders marketing strategies and brand management important for higher education institutions in market environments (see ▶ “Marketing in Higher Education”).
Governing Teaching and Learning at the Micro-Level: Higher Education Practices The micro-level of higher education practices refers to processes that are suited for preparing, guiding, and monitoring the teaching and learning behaviors of instructors and students. Governing the micro-level aligns the activities of individual actors with the aims of the organization. The most important factors in the governance of teaching and learning are the skills, knowledge, and motivation of individual teachers and students. Traditionally, micro-level governance has focused on input targets. By setting and enforcing standards for the recruitment of instructors and students, higher education institutions now seek to improve actual teaching and learning practices at later stages of the educational performance process (see ▶ “Governing Access and Success in Higher Education”). Continuous professional training aims to provide instructors with relevant teaching skills as how to give lectures, how to assign group work, how to engage in project-based teaching, or how to handle conflicts. What is more important, however, is that teachers need to know when and how to use these skills (Ramsden 2003). This knowledge requires regular practice and reflection, which is less a question of university governance than one of socialization into the norms and values of disciplinary professions (see ▶ “Doctoral Student Socialization”). Accordingly, instructors need to be intrinsically motivated to provide good teaching. These (implicit) assumptions of traditional higher education governance have been challenged by the managerial approach. Instead of relying on professional self-coordination, higher education institutions are increasingly monitoring the performance of teachers by means of standardized assessments undertaken by students, despite their questionable validity (Spooren et al. 2013). Moreover, students’ demands for particular lectures are used as an indicator for the quality and relevance of courses, as well as for forecasting revenues, especially in private universities or institutions charging tuition fees. The governance of learning also requires measures that are used to assess the learning achievements of students (see ▶ “Learning Outcomes in European Higher
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Education”) although comprehensive tests for all learning dimensions are rare (Havnes and Prøitz 2016). Many higher education institutions employ these measures when having to reach promotion decisions, or they link them to the amount of performance-based pay, thus, aiming to motivate teachers extrinsically. However, the overall motivational and performance effects are unclear. Measures provide incentives to merely focus on outputs that are easily measured while other dimensions of teaching and learning are ignored. These “goal-displacement” or “multiple-tasking” effects have been explored in numerous studies, for example, on teachers who responded to output targets by “teaching to the test” or by excluding bad students from evaluations (for a review, see Frey et al. 2013).
Outlook This chapter introduced selected instruments for the governance of teaching and learning while outlining important developments in contemporary higher education. It illustrated some challenges faced by traditional and NPM forms of governance. The interrelatedness of teaching and learning makes teachers and students co-producers of education and, as a consequence, the educational performance process difficult to govern. The interplay between governing instruments at different levels requires effective and overall coherent configurations. Especially at the micro-level of educational practices, the validity and behavioral effects of output measures are highly questionable if they have been introduced by administrators. Research by Goodall (2009) has shown the importance of deep expertise to governing universities. In knowledge-intensive institutions of higher education, it is often desirable to let experts, not managers or administrators, be at the helm. Scholars in universities are experts who need leaders who are experts like themselves. The increasing debate on “third space” professionals takes up this matter (Whitchurch 2008). However, these roles and the related structures are still in the process of emerging, and their effectiveness needs yet to be empirically proven.
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Besides these challenges, there are more recent trends in higher education which are of relevance to the governance of teaching and learning. First of all, the student body is growing faster and has become more diverse. The ongoing expansion of higher education (see ▶ “Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries”) attracts students from different social backgrounds and with multiple educational biographies (sees ▶ “New Modes of Student Mobility, Work Experience and Service Learning”). Moreover, the internationalization of higher education and the related growth in global student mobility (see ▶ “Global Trends in Student Mobility”) add to the diverse audience. This creates new challenges for the development of meaningful and teachable programs and the coordination between various national higher education systems. Finally, the digital revolution transforms the practices of teaching and learning in higher education. The expansion of distance teaching (see ▶ “Distance Teaching Universities”) and e-learning concepts (see ▶ “E-Learning in Higher Education”) may be a useful response to some of the challenges when it comes to developing individualized teaching and learning formats. However, in today’s digital era, the governance of teaching and learning needs to consider possible contingencies that may arise in global higher education (see ▶ “Global Higher Education, Digital Age”).
Cross-References ▶ Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Disciplinary Differences in University Teaching ▶ Distance Teaching Universities ▶ Doctoral Student Socialization ▶ E-Learning in Higher Education ▶ Expansion of Higher Education, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Countries ▶ External Quality Assurance in Higher Education ▶ Global Higher Education, Digital Age
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▶ Global Trends in Student Mobility ▶ Governance ▶ Governing Access and Success in Higher Education ▶ Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education ▶ Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical ▶ Intergovernmental Policies in Higher Education, Bologna ▶ Learning Outcomes in European Higher Education ▶ Marketing in Higher Education ▶ Multi-level Governance, Higher Education ▶ New Modes of Student Mobility, Work Experience and Service Learning ▶ New Public Management ▶ Performance Indicators in Higher Education ▶ Performance and Quality Management in Higher Education ▶ Performance-Based Funding ▶ Public Higher Education ▶ Shared Governance ▶ State and Planning, Higher Education ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Tuition Fees ▶ University Rankings, National and International Dynamics
References Barr, Robert B., and John Tagg. 1995. From teaching to learning: A new paradigm for undergraduate education. Change 27: 13–26. Burrows, Joanne. 1999. Going beyond labels: A framework for profiling institutional stakeholders. Contemporary Education 70: 5–10. Cave, Martin, Stephen Hanney, Mary Henkel, and Maurice Kogan. 1997. The use of performance indicators in higher education: The challenge of the quality movement. London/Bristol: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Denis, Jean-Luis, Lise Lamothe, and Ann Langley. 2001. The dynamics of collective leadership and strategic change in pluralistic organizations. Academy of Management Journal 44: 809–837. Eckel, Peter D. 2000. The role of shared governance in institutional hard decisions: Enabler or antagonist? The Review of Higher Education 24: 15–39. Felder, Richard M., and Eunice R. Henriques.1995. Learning and teaching styles in foreign and second language education. Foreign Language Annals 28: 21–31.
Governing Access and Success in Higher Education Frey, Bruno, Fabian Homberg, and Margit Osterloh. 2013. Organizational control systems and pay-forperformance in the public service. Organization Studies 34: 949–972. Frost, Jetta, Fabian Hattke, and Markus Reihlen, eds. 2016. Multi-level governance in universities: Strategy, structure, control. Dordrecht: Springer International Publishing. Goodall, Amanda H. 2009. Socrates in the boardroom. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Havnes, Anton, and Tine Sopie Prøitz. 2016. Why use learning outcomes in higher education? Exploring the grounds for academic resistance and reclaiming the value of unexpected learning. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 28: 205–223. Kanji, Gopal K., Abdul Malek, and Bin A. Tambi. 1999. Total quality management in UK higher education institutions. Total Quality Management 10: 129–153. Lenzen, Dieter. 2015. University of the world. A case for a university world system. Cham: Springer International Publishing. March, James G., Martin Schulz, and Xueguang Zhou. 2000. The dynamics of rules: Change in written organizational codes. Stanford: Stanford University Press. OECD. 2013. The state of higher education 2013. Paris: Edited by Anna Glass. http://www.oecd.org/edu/imhe/ StateofHigherEducation2013-ExecutiveSummary.pdf Ramsden, Paul. 2003. Learning to teach in higher education. Milton Park/New York: Routledge Falmer. Spooren, Pieter, Bert Brockx, and Dimitri Mortelmans. 2013. On the validity of student evaluation of teaching: The state of the art. Review of Educational Research 83: 28–47. Weick, Karl E. 1976. Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 21 (1): 1–19. Whitchurch, Celia. 2008. Shifting identities and blurring boundaries: The emergence of third space professionals in UK higher education. Higher Education Quarterly 62: 377–396.
Governing Access and Success in Higher Education Liz Thomas Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK
Introduction This entry focuses on how higher education institutions can implement national and international policy aspirations to widen access and
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participation in higher education (HE) by traditionally underserved groups, including those who have “chosen” not to participate and those who have been excluded (e.g., on the grounds of ethnicity or gender). Increasing participation and addressing underrepresentation in HE are widespread government concerns, although the priority and action accorded to it varies. In Europe, the focus is on increasing participation in HE to 40% by 2020 and addressing the social composition of the student population to reflect the diversity of the population (London Communiqué 2007). This incorporates a wide range of target groups including, low income, first in family, older students, students from minority groups, students with vocational educational qualifications, refugees and migrants, and equalizing gender participation in particular subjects such as women into science, technology, engineering, and maths, and men into healthcare courses. In middle income countries, expanding participation in HE continues to be of great importance to national development, but the emphasis is turning towards access and equity issues, including the issue of access to what. For example, in China, students from low-income families, rural areas and other regions, and ethnic minorities have limited access to prestigious universities (Qian and Zhiyong 2016). While in Brazil expansion of the HE system has been achieved through the private sector, where the costs are higher and the quality is lower – but this is where many lower income students find themselves, the free-of-charge places in public institutions are predominantly taken by students from privileged backgrounds (Noroes and McCowan 2016). Addressing differential provision and enrolment on the basis of race has been an ongoing challenge in post-Apartheid South Africa, and attention here is focused on student retention and graduation rates. Access involves raising awareness of the HE offer and the admission requirements and processes, and supporting and facilitating students to gain access. In some higher education systems, this may require changes to the admission requirements or process (e.g., alternative entry pathways or lower entry qualifications, e.g., in China), while in others support and guidance may be sufficient.
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In addition, it is increasingly acknowledged that students from nontraditional, underserved, and excluded groups also need to be enabled to be successful in HE and beyond, to avoid or overcome differential outcomes in relation to continuation, attainment, completion, employment, and progression to further study. Vossensteyn et al. (2015) found that improving study success can involve financial rewards (e.g., in Indonesia) or sanctions (e.g., Norway) to change the behavior of students and/or institutions towards study success; the provision of information and any other kinds of (nonfinancial) support to (prospective) students to improve their decision-making and study behavior (e.g., The Netherlands); or changing the organization of HE (e.g., the types of programs offered, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, duration and flexibility, e.g., South Africa) to improve study success.
Institutional Responses to Diversity Whether the drive for increased student diversity and success in HE comes from national policy drivers or is an internal institutional priority, there are different responses to diversity. The nature of the institutional response is influenced by where the impetus for change comes from, and contextual issues such as institutional history, values and current mission and market position and geographical location. However, a model of “ideal types” is useful to help categorize and understand the different responses, and here the model developed in earlier work is utilized (Jones and Thomas 2005). (i) The academic approach focuses on attracting the already suitably qualified students from target groups to an un-reformed HE institution. The emphasis here is on raising awareness and aspiration among these potential students, but no changes are made to the admissions requirements or process, or to the organization of higher education once they are enrolled to support them to be successful. Low participation by students from underserved groups is perceived as an
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attitudinal problem on the part of students and is assumed to require no systemic or institutional adaptation. Such institutions therefore focus on the provision of information. (ii) The utilitarian approach views students as lacking both suitable information and aspirations to enter HE, and sufficient prior academic attainment. This approach therefore requires institutions to work to raise students’ awareness and knowledge about HE, and either to increase their academic qualifications (e.g., through additional tuition and support), to create alternative entry pathways (e.g., through a new entry qualification) and/or change the entry requirements (e.g., to take into context where prior learning occurred, to recognize experiences or alternative qualifications, or to identify potential rather than past achievement). By admitting students who may not have achieved the standard academic entry requirements – and who are unfamiliar with the expectations and norms of HE – additional support is likely to be required within the institution to ensure equivalent study success. Within the utilitarian approach however additional support is bolted on to an unreformed HE experience, rather than embedded and necessitating institutional change. Research with students who are at risk of leaving HE early indicates that they are, however, unlikely to utilize these additional support services voluntarily, and thus the impact is reduced. (iii) The transformative approach looks at changing the HE institution to offer a more relevant and appropriate HE experience. This would include the introduction of new courses and modes of delivery, changes to admissions requirements and processes, student-centered curriculum contents, pedagogy and assessment, and more inclusive organizational structures and cultures to promote and facilitate the engagement of all students. The transformative approach is premised on the principle that diversity is of value to an institution and the students that study there, and thus should be
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embraced and used to develop positively for the benefit of all students (see Shaw et al. 2007).
Managing an Inclusive Higher Education Institution Institutions that adopt either a broadly academic or utilitarian approach to diversity do not need to dwell on management and governance issues, beyond implementing new services or processes within a particular part of the institution. The challenge however is when transformation is required across the institution to ensure that all aspects of the HE institution are inclusive – and embraced by all staff. An inclusive approach can be understood as: . . . a shift away from supporting specific student groups through a discrete set of policies or timebound interventions, towards equity considerations being embedded within all functions of the institution and treated as an ongoing process of quality enhancement. Making a shift of such magnitude requires cultural and systemic change at both the policy and practice levels. (May and Bridger 2010, p. 6)
Research to understand a whole institution approach to widening access and improving student success (Thomas 2017) found that HE institutions are best understood as a complex system, with multiple groups contributing in varying ways to the HE experience in general, and the goal of inclusion in particular. This makes governance challenging and results in differential experiences and outcomes for students, which are shaped by localized interventions. Multiple and variable contributions to the institutional goals can result in fragmentation and incoherency, risking duplication and gaps in provision, and even “competition” between comparable interventions, resulting in staff frustration and student confusion. This indicates the potential value of seeking to emulate – at least to some extent – a complicated system, where there is a fixed – albeit complicated – way in which things operate, to seek to achieve more certainty in the processes, experiences, and outcomes for students through a more
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uniform and coordinated approach. However, the desire for consistency needs to be tempered by the need for staff engagement and localized solutions to specific challenges. A top-down, bottom-up approach (Kift 2009) combines structural and cultural elements to bring about institutional change to engage students from underserved and excluded groups and to facilitate study success comparable to the general student population. Culture refers to the values, attitudes, and practices of the staff (and students) within the institution, while structure refers to the institutional policies, processes, and organization (e.g., of financial and human resources) of the institution and its subunits. The structure can facilitate the institutional culture (and bottom-up work of staff and students) or frustrate it; structure contributes to the consistency of outcomes across the institution, by for example coordinating widening access activities and ensuring an inclusive curriculum across the board. The interplay of culture and structure – the top-down, bottom-up approach – should enable people to be sufficiently well informed and have the capacity and commitment to implement inclusive practices, while the structure both helps to ensure this and provides coordination across the institution, promoting integration and consistency – and avoiding duplication, fragmentation, and gaps in provision. Culture (values, attitudes, and practice of the people within the HEP, contributing to bottom-up approaches) includes: • Leadership: Managers at all levels understand, promote, and are informed by WP principles. • Values, attitudes, and practices of academic, professional, and support staff reflect the institutional commitment to diversity. • Students and alumni understand, value, and contribute to the institutional commitment to diversity. • People meet together to discuss diversity and develop their practice. • Staff from across the institution feel confident to initiate and implement diversity interventions and practices.
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• Staff use the available data and evidence to inform their decision-making and practices. Structure (policies, process, and organization within the HEP, which can be understood as topdown approached) includes: • Staff policies and processes – recruitment, induction, annual review, professional development, and promotion reflect diversity – including for senior managers. • Staff development and training is provided to all staff to support diversity. • Academic experience policies and processes (e.g., learning, teaching and assessment, quality assurance and validation processes, annual monitoring) embrace diversity. • Student support policies and processes relating to academic, personal, financial, and professional development meet the needs of underserved groups. • Student recruitment and admissions policies and processes reflect diversity. • Policies and processes to enhance employability and access to postgraduate study meet the needs of underserved groups. • Structures facilitate dissemination – sharing information and practices and enabling people to contribute. • Strategic (not just operational) leadership for diversity provides guidance and coordination, rather than direct implementation. • Diversity resources are allocated across the institution, or are available to all staff, not retained centrally. • Institutional processes make data and evidence accessible so that it can be used to inform strategic and operational decisionmaking and practice. • Staff use the available data and evidence to inform their decision-making and practices. • Institutional accountability procedures, including key performance indicators, incorporate diversity-goals. Developing an institutional structure that promotes WP can be understood to involve:
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• Ensuring policies, processes, and organization take account of WP and diversity (structure as espoused) • Considering the extent to which structure are enacted (i.e., they are implemented and move beyond paper-based aspirations or statements) • Assessing the impact or effect of the structure on underserved students Developing an inclusive culture can be understood to involve: • Raising people’s awareness and understanding of the issues. • Developing people’s skills and capacity to deliver inclusive practice. • People behave inclusively and deliver inclusive practice. • Demonstrating the impact of people’s practice on the experiences or outcomes of students from target groups. As implied in the work of Kift (ibid), there is a relationship between the cultural characteristics of a whole-institution approach – the values, attitudes, and practices of the “people” (staff and students) – and the structural features – the policies, processes, and organization (of financial and human resources). The structure may be seen to promote, “nudge,” or “push” people towards the desired culture. Structure also plays a key role in avoiding fragmentation – characterized by duplication, gaps, competition, and inconsistency – and promote integration. Drawing from the empirical research with institutions, the essential strategies for implementing a transformative approach to diversity seems to require: (i) Vertical alignment: A student lifecycle approach including pre-entry, on course and progression to employment is adopted. (ii) Horizontal alignment: Staff from departments, services, and units from across the institution are involved (i.e., not just staff employed to support diversity). (iii) Institutional commitment and leadership: There is a clear and explicit institutional
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commitment to diversity, including defining target groups and expected outcomes. (iv) Pragmatic approach to change: A top-down, bottom-up approach is adopted, developing a culture and structure that promote and support inclusivity and consistency. This incorporates: (a) Staff capacity and engagement: The values, attitudes, and practices of the staff and students within the HEP promote and support diversity. (b) Institutional structures facilitate ownership and communication: The institutional policies, processes, and organization (e.g., of financial and human resources) of the HEP and its subunits promote and support diversity across the institution. (c) Evidence informed and accountability: Data and evidence is used to understand the issues, ensure staff accountability, monitor student experience and outcomes, inform strategic and operational decision-making, and evaluate the process and impact. Examples Here are some illustrative examples of ways in which culture and structure intersect to create an inclusive institution or a transformative approach to student diversity. (i) Collaborative and coordinated outreach involving staff and students from across the institution: Academic staff, careers advisers, and students contribute to outreach work in schools to raise awareness of higher education, inform decision making, develop understanding of new subjects, improve academic expectations, create links with existing students, offer support, and provide careers planning. Staff time and funding is allocated to different departments in the institution to facilitate this; sharing experiences across the institution means people learn from each other; staff and students initiate activities because they are committed
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to and have the expertise to undertake outreach work; support and direction is offered by the strategic lead for diversity; the activities are coordinated by a central office to avoid schools being contacted multiple times by the institution. (ii) An alternative entry pathway: A bridging program is developed in one faculty of the institution to enable students from underserved groups who do not have the relevant entry qualifications to study for an additional year and gain access to and succeed on the degree program. Learning is shared with all other faculties who create similar pathways. Promotion of these alternative entry routes is undertaken by the marketing team, and recruitment and admissions are centralized. (iii) Addressing differential outcomes: Institutional research demonstrates that students from minority groups have lower attainment; the leadership makes addressing this a priority. A key performance indicator is developed; all staff undergo training and capacity development to take a more inclusive approach to learning, teaching, and assessment, including the introduction of sessions to unpack and improve understanding of each assignment brief. Staff use these tools to change their learning and teaching, and they are monitored, as are student outcomes. (iv) Improving employment outcomes through placements: Institutional research demonstrates that work placements improve employment outcomes for underserved students who otherwise are more likely to be unemployed or in nongraduate jobs. The institution makes explicit to staff, students, and families its commitment to placements; discussion of placements is integrated into outreach and recruitment activities, and throughout the first 2 years of study; students who have been on placement are trained as peer mentors who subsequently support other students to go on a placement; additional financial support is available for
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low-income students. Work placements are built into all courses, and academic staff are engaged in the process.
Conclusions, Implications, and Recommendations Increasing the diversity of the HE population can be achieved in different ways, some of which do not necessitate changing the governance of HE institutions. Academic and utilitarian approaches to diversity will only make a limited contribution to increasing the participation and success of underserved and traditionally excluded student populations. A transformative approach, which requires institutional change towards a more inclusive culture and structure, makes a much greater contribution to wider social goals that underpin national policy aspirations for wider engagement in HE, and can be enriching for the institution. HE providers who wish to embrace diversity could reflect on the following issues to generate debate and to identify areas for institutional development. (i) Does inclusion take place across the student lifecycle: outreach, recruitment, admissions, teaching and learning, employability, and progression? (ii) Is achieving student diversity and success an institutional priority, with clear target groups identified, and reflected in all policies, processes, and leadership at all levels? (iii) How are staff and students involved in diversity and inclusion to develop capacity, ownership, and agency? (iv) Are there opportunities for staff and students to learn from each other and experts, and to have their contribution to diversity recognized? (v) Are data and evidence used to inform strategic planning, everyday practices, and monitoring of students’ engagement and outcomes? (vi) Is diversity coordinated to avoid fragmentation, duplication, and gaps and to create consistent student outcomes?
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References Jones, R., and L. Thomas. 2005. The 2003 UK Government Higher Education White Paper: A critical assessment of its implications for the access and widening participation agenda. Journal of Education Policy 20 (5): 615–630. Kift, S.M. 2009. Articulating a transition pedagogy to scaffold and to enhance the first year student learning experience in Australian higher education. Final report for ALTC senior fellowship Program. ALTC Resources. London Communiqué. 2007. London Communiqué: Towards the European Higher Education Area: Responding to challenges in a globalised world, 18 May 2007. May, H., and K. Bridger. 2010. Developing and embedding inclusive policy and practice in higher education. York: Higher Education Academy. Noroes, K., and T. McCowan. 2016. The challenge of widening participation to higher education in Brazil: Injustices, innovations and outcomes. In Widening higher education participation. A global perspective, ed. M. Shah, A. Bennett, and E. Southgate. Kidlington: Elsevier. Qian, H., and Z. Zhiyong. 2016. Same sky, different horizon: An analysis of disadvantaged groups’ access to prestigious universities in mainland China. In Widening higher education participation. A global perspective, ed. M. Shah, A. Bennett, and E. Southgate. Kidlington: Elsevier. Shaw, J., K. Brain, K. Bridger, J. Foreman, and I. Reid. 2007. Embedding widening participation and promoting student diversity: What can be learned from a business case approach? York: Higher Education Academy. Thomas, L. 2017. Understanding a whole institution approach to widening participation. Bristol: Office for Fair Access. Vossensteyn, J., et al. 2015. Dropout and completion in higher education in Europe: Main report. Brussels: European Commission.
Governing by Instruments ▶ Evaluative State, Higher Education, The
Governing Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Vietnam
Government, Stakeholders, and Interest Groups in Higher Education Catherine Paradeise University Paris Est-LISIS, Paris, France
Synonyms Concerned parties; Governance; Lobbies; University leadership
Definition The evolution of formal and informal mechanisms, processes, and institutions, observed at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels, that build and sustain the conflictual coordination between universities, citizens, groups of interest and governements. Rather than “government,” a concept that applies to asymmetric top-down authority relationships from public authorities, the allencompassing concept of “governance” fits the reality of HE systems (Goedegebuure 2019; Estermann and Bennetot Pruvot 2019). “It comprises the mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations, and mediate their differences” (United Nations, “Governance for sustainable human development,” http://mirror.undp.org/mag net/policy/chapter1.htm#b). Such mechanisms, processes, and institutions range from the most informal to the most formal ones. Studying governance implies considering the ways by which they are produced, sustained, regulated, and held accountable. It thus devotes attention to horizontal normative processes developed and sustained by decentralized bottom-up normative processes developed within stakeholders’ networks or through market mechanisms as well as to topdown regulations. Governance of HE combines rules, norms, and action developed at three levels: the macro-level of public authorities, national or
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regional government, the meso-level of establishments, and the microlevel of individual academics. As a multilevel governance system, HE mixes diverse ways of building and sustaining mutually adaptive regimes of rules and norms by which its actors coordinate.
Macro-governance of Universities as Components of a National System A Classical Model in Danger A basic difference has to be made regarding the macro-level, between most decentralized and internally diverse HE systems such as the USA with their private vs. public universities and their internal stratification and nationally or regionally mostly centralized, public and traditionnally more uniform systems as the European ones. Until the turn of the 1990s, the largest share of public university funding was afforded using public resources, while private universities were funded by endowments, tuition fees, and grants. The public share of budgets was input-based (the input being the number of students) and unconditional. The rationale for massive public funding was to cover the delivery cost of public goods in higher education granted by national degrees, targeting national or state students from all social origins and backing education with research. As a public good, higher education is subject to market failure. Therefore, public authorities have to relieve it while bearing responsibility, will, and discretion to define and solve collective problems. They can partly delegate this mission to the academic profession acting collegially within universities as professional bureaucracies (Freidson 2001). The counterpart of the protection supplied by public authorities includes compliance with substantial organizational rules on recruitment, careers, and salaries, definition of leadership and governing bodies, and curricula. Regarding students, it entails free-of-charge access or lower tuition fees to local students (as compared to out of state in the USA or overseas in the UK, for instance).
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Though public authorities are in charge of elaborating and controlling a large share of public university rules and policies, heteronomous influences weight on the macro-level governance of universities. Using his famous coordination triangle of universities, Clark (1983, p. 136) underlines how the public hierarchical authority of the state, decentralized adjustments by the market, and the “third logic” of regulation by the profession (Freidson 2001) combine to integrate higher education systems. He formalizes three ideal types of integration. Such ideal types are not mutually exclusive. Each country offers a specific mix of them. The French system traditionally gives strong control capacity to the state, leaving less space for the profession and the market. While the profession has for a long time comanaged many state decisions, regional authorities as well as the market are currently playing a rising role. The German Humboldtian model traditionally balances the power of regional authorities with professional powers, but the role of the national state and the market is currently rising. The American model bestows an important role to the market, but the states – as far as public universities are concerned – and the profession have always been prominent as well. Yet the integrative role of the federal state keeps nowadays increasing in all types of universities. Changes in Governance Systems During the twentieth century, under cover of public authorities, the academic profession benefitted a quasi-monopoly on the definition of university educational and research supply. Since the turn of the millennium, the demand side increasingly impacted their missions, by framing the conditions of access to major resources outside unconditional public funding: public or private grants, donations, academic staff, and students. The soft law built by accreditation, evaluation, quality assurance, and funding agencies (Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson 2008) now adds up to the hard law elaborated by the states. Complying with such requirements increasingly conditions reputation and thus contributes in attracting good faculty and students and catching grants. Building a visible brand attracts donations. Families, when
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looking for their children’s education; policymakers, when making allocation decisions; academic and professional pressure groups, when attempting to defend and impose their own values and interests; media, when developing university leagues; as well as companies, when donating to universities, act as stakeholders and pressure groups on universities. Conflicting interests and pressures weaken in a relevant way the mediation role played by universities and academics in interpreting the demands addressed by market and society at large. Many fear that the growing commodification of higher education jeopardizes their key social contribution. In several countries, from the USA to China, voices are raised that ask state protection against “the voracity of capital” (Qiang 2015). At the same time, in countries where higher education had been developed as a public service, universities call for policies to loosen the stranglehold of rules that deprived them of any strategic capacity to catch and organize their own resources. Reforms that have taken place all over Europe and throughout the world aim at increasing university autonomy by transferring to them micromanagement and decision-making tools while requiring them to be fully accountable. Concurrently, new procedural rules and incentives allow for distant public steering of such autonomous institutions (Paradeise et al. 2009). Such radical reforms are fueled by three main factors. First, the pressure on public budgets has grown since the 1970s, as the massification of the student population and the technologization of research increased university costs, at the very moment when a rising number of welfare state sectors applied for public funding. Whether in the USA or in Europe, public universities needed to complement the decreasing share of unconditional public funding by organizational rationalization efforts combined with seeking for more monies from their stakeholders (students fees, endowments, public or private grants). Second, performance of higher education and research has become a major economic challenge as the notion of “knowledge-based economy” has emerged in advanced societies (Aghion and
Cohen 2004). Therefore, public resource allocation is redesigned by increasing the share of competitive funding to favor the best performers in cutting-edge research considered as a basic requirement for innovation. A rising share of research funding and university block grants depends on performance assessment, while the weight of former ex ante criteria of allocation (essentially based on the number of students) diminishes. Third, the general commodification of societies linked to the expansion of neoliberalism has favored suspicion toward unconditional public support to collegially ruled universities. Academics are suspected to have captured public resources so as to benefit their private corporatist interests. “New technologies of power” (Foucault 2008) should counterbalance the influence of the profession and restore accountability, by denying the asymmetry of knowledge that legitimizes the prevalence of academics in the definition of university missions and thus rebalancing power between suppliers and users. Since the 1980s, the emergence of New Public Management (NPM) ideology in higher education is part of a more general trend in public sector reforms of societies (Bleiklie 2019; Sursock 2019; Deem 2019; Magalhães and Veiga 2019). As a philosophy of action, it privileges the “value for money” of universities as estimated by the markets or by bureaucratic quasi-markets designed by multiplying assessment tools. It empowers universities as autonomous and entrepreneurial institutions able to overcome the ancient collegial selfregulation by fostering performance-based reorganization. It frames university strategies by macro-level frameworks expressing national priorities and operationalized into incentive and reward schemes. NPM targets short-term efficiency rather than democracy or legitimacy. Where public university systems still prevail, the same style of reforms has taken place all over the world, from Europe to Asia and South America. They strengthened university presidents’ authority. They transferred university jurisdiction on their budgets, human resources, and real estate and developed managerial power with institutional and financial tools. They shifted
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micromanagement tasks from public authorities’ central bureaus to local universities. They required them to define their own identity, challenges, and strategies. They increased the share of competitive-based funding in their budgets and pushed them to raise their revenues from third parties. They developed incentives and assessment of universities, departments, curricula, research groups, and academics themselves. Nevertheless, rhythm and depth of the reform effort vary from country to country. Since 1986, the UK, followed by Commonwealth countries such as Australia or New Zealand, has applied NPMstyle reforms in their purest and deepest forms. Continental European countries started later, at the turn of the 2000s, and did not switch extensively to the evaluation culture. All universities within each country did not either appropriate to the same extend strategic opportunities opened up by the reforms so as to increase and organize their resources (Thoenig and Paradeise 2016). The European University Association evidences huge variations on university administrative, financial, pedagogical, and human resource management autonomy (Bennetot Pruvot and Estermann 2017). Surveys exhibit the diversity of European university budget structure (Lepori 2008). A similar trend is visible in North America universities, whether public or private, that experiment organizational rationalization due to restrictions on unconditional public budgets (Tuchman 2009) and national centralization due to the multiplication of federal rules and the prevalence of federal grants (Graham and Diamond 1997).
Integrating Levels of Governance Relationships Between Levels of Governance By removing some bureaucratic constraints public universities face, and also by developing various incentives, reforms have multiplied university stakeholders, thus potential pressure groups that may impact significant aspects of their activity. How do nowadays the three macro-governance dimensions – hierarchy, market, and profession – combine at the meso-level governance of single
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universities as organizations? The issue is far from being easy to handle. While it indisputably frames the action system of universities, disciplines, and individual academics, the upper integration model does not determine other levels of governance, from the macro down to the micro (Musselin 2005). Integration factors are not similar across the various levels of the HE system (central system, universities as organizations, subunits of universities, the academic profession). Whatever the dominant integration model at the macro-level, its relationship with university at meso-level action taking is buffered in several ways and to various degrees. First, as a social system, higher education generates bodies able to buffer universities against the ambitions of rising demands made by exogenous stakeholders, be it public authorities, students, or companies. University associations, professional bodies such as disciplinary academies, and eminent scientists contribute to the emergence and maintenance of public norms. They exert influence as institutional members in decision-making committees, as well as by eventually leading informal resistance movements to government decisions, market pressures, and university leadership decisions they do not welcome. However, the pressure of management at all levels of the system weakens the power of these buffers, at various degrees across universities and countries. Second, as the pressure of stakeholders has increased during the last decades, universities developed tools in order to preserve their best interests and missions and to keep ethical control on acceptance and allocation of private money. Yet, as university financial needs increasingly exceed public funding, such tools may seem too weak a protection, not clearly free of the influence of university administration, involved academics, or donating companies. And the rising share of competitive public and private funding is often considered as an obstacle to blue-sky research and thus to creativity in research. Thus, whatever macro-level policies, mesolevel governance remains a wide-open issue. Meyer and Rowan (1978) suggested considering universities as “holding companies” containing “shares of stocks in uninspected activities and
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subunits,” thus leaving much room for selfdetermination by the actors. Based on the analysis of American universities, Weick (1976, p. 4) early observed that HE institutions rest on loose coupling mechanisms: “The two most commonly discussed coupling mechanisms - the technical core of the organization (. . .) and the authority of office (. . .) are not relevant (nor...) prominent in educational organizations.” If loosely coupled organizations are able to persist in spite of the breakdown or the addition of some of its components, to deploy reactivity and agility so as to absorb mutations by finding novel solutions, and to operate at relatively low coordination costs, they raise puzzling questions. How do they hold together? How do they succeed integrating their heterogeneous building blocks? And in turn, how does it happen that they remain loosely coupled while being institutionally held together inside the same single organization? Because universities gather heterogeneous disciplines, each with its own epistemology, methodology, organizational and financial needs, and links to the outside world, and because academics are not only members of a university as an organization but also of an disciplinary academic tribe (Becher and Trowler 2001), they are characterized by “variety and disorder” (Weick 1976). A New Regime of Governmentality Strongly Coupling Governance Levels? NPM-style reforms are an endeavor to foster hierarchical government of higher education systems by strongly coupling formerly loosely coupled levels of governance. They aim at reconciling governance levels by allocating more autonomy at the meso-level of universities, under indirect control of the macro-level through incentives and rewards. The reinforcement of university managerial power allows the same recoupling between their leadership at the meso-level and departments and individual scholars at the microlevel. NPM ideology and methodology link the upper-level targets with their implementation at the lower levels. It claims to eliminate buffers so as to help a chain of top-down hierarchical authority of leadership and management emerge. As the share of incentive-dependent funding increases,
universities and their components are pushed to adjust their strategies to incentives. Such a move may lead to a wave of institutional isomorphism (Di Maggio and Powell 1983), meaning to reproduce the same organizational rationalization recipes, exhibit similar behaviors, and offer similar products. Such reforms have been analyzed as imposing a new regime of neoliberal governmentality, “a new way of conducting conducts” that involves “a dramatic expansion in the scope of government” (Foucault 2008). They are based on the hierarchical top-down power of a principal (a state, a region, the leadership of a university) monopolizing the definition of ends an agent has to comply with, through incentives and performance assessment tools heteronomous to the communities they reward or sanction. They are also grounded in internalized social control developed by outside disciplinary institutions (for instance, assessment or accreditation agencies) and forms of knowledge-guiding behavior (in particular performance metrics). This self-control shapes identity and induces individuals to become the entrepreneurs of themselves, behaving like auto-regulated and auto-corrective selves in decentered forms of government. Distant steering thus reinforces centralization of decision-making at the macro- as well as at the meso-level. Actual NPM Implementation at the Meso-level The ability to build up and consolidate when not legitimize a shared identity and coexistence between subunits within the same university, while at the same time complying with heteronomous requirements developed by the new regime, is a crucial issue involving internal governance mechanisms. Hence, the critical role of internal procedural routines and social processes which concur to collectively “construct social reality” and develop the institution’s “organizational saga” (Clark 1972) building a shared link to the “beloved institution” and shared values, such as academic freedom or anti-plagiarism among diverse disciplinary cultures, that build a moral community cemented by mutual trust and legitimate social control, and integrating diversity.
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American universities are often considered as providing the better proxies to a heterarchic model (Stark 2011) that reconciles strong management with strong academic control. Nevertheless, not all universities achieve organizational and governance processes that fit and sustain such an ideal, where virtuous loops maintain both reputation and performance and build a positive image in the outside world. Each university is a local order in its own right (Cohen et al. 1972; Friedberg 1993). Paradeise and Thoenig (2015) identify three other types of universities according to their own history and to how much they are able to strategize in order to take advantage of reforms (Thoenig and Paradeise 2016). A few “Venerables” owe their reputation and strength from having been anciently founded and associated with national myths and history of national elites. Using the protection they owe to their elite interfield networks, many seek remaining the professional and collegial bureaucracies they have always been without paying much attention to stakeholders’ demands. “Wannabes” form a rising minority of universities in all countries, which try to upgrade on the international market of higher education by complying with its quasi-market heterogeneous norms of performance such as ranking metrics and adjusting to their stakeholders’ demands. They centralize power in the hands of a strong management and privilege integration by hierarchical authority over collegiality linking diverse subunits. They move toward a mechanic bureaucracy pattern (Mintzberg 1979). The last type covers the largest number of universities as it has been fed by massification of higher education. “Missionaries” gather subunits and academics, in which norms and values are heterogeneous. The ones value education, while the others insist on research. The ones consider themselves as members of the organizational community, while the others only swear allegiance to their discipline. A weak leadership does not help reconciling the various visions of what universities and academics are for that could strengthen regulation either by collegiality, hierarchy, or the market, leaving strategies to the fluctuating political majority of these organized anarchies (Cohen et al. 1972).
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Conclusion: Issues Whereas horizontal governance processes prevailed, NPM as a doctrine promotes vertical government procedures as relevant regulation tools of higher education systems. Therefore, they may switch universities from supply-governed professional bureaucracies into demand-steered mechanic ones (Mintzberg 1979). While they are well aware of the importance of higher education in knowledge-based societies, contemporary states try to reform the governance model of their higher education systems in order to manage the tension between the shortage of public funding and the protection of university contributions to society in terms of access and social integration on civic values and quality of education and research. Nevertheless, paying more attention to rationalization and less to organizational conditions of successful professional performance generates major consequences in a business such as academia that is characterized by the uncertainty of its outcomes. Such governance solutions may on one side boost university outcomes and on the other endanger higher education systems. Empirical observation shows nevertheless that, most of the time, the implementation of such policies hits buffers of various kinds, which, although weakened, remain quite strong and may help protect the quality and performance of professional work based on involvement rather than subordination.
References Aghion, Philippe, and Elie Cohen. 2004. Education et croissance. Conseil d’analyse économique. Paris: La Documentation Franc¸aise. Becher, Tony, and Paul R. Trowler. 2001. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press. Bennetot Pruvot, Enora and Thomas Estermann. 2017. University Autonomy in Europe III. The Scoreboard. Luxembourg: EUA Report, European Commission Bleiklie, Ivar. 2019. New public management or neoliberalism, higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer.
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602 Clark, Burton R. 1972. The organizational saga in higher education. Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 178–184. Clark, Burton R. 1983. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 1–25. Deem, Rosemary. 2019. New managerialism in higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer. Di Maggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–160. Djelic, Marie-Laure, and Karin Sahlin-Andersson. 2008. Transnational governance, institutional dynamics of regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Estermann, Thomas, and Enora Bennetot Pruvot. 2019. Institutional autonomy in higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer. Foucault, Michel. 2008. The birth of biopolitics. Lectures at the College de France, 1978–79. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan. Freidson, Eliott. 2001. Professionalism, the third logic. On the practice of knowledge. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Friedberg, Erhard. 1993. Le Pouvoir et la règle. Paris: Seuil. Goedegebuure, Leo. 2019. Good governance and higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer. Graham, Hugh D., and Nancy Diamond. 1997. The rise of American research university. Elites and challenges in the postwar era. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Lepori, Benedetto. 2008. Options et tendances dans le financement des universités en Europe. Critique Internationale 2: 25–46. Magalhães, Antonio, and Amalia Veiga. 2019. Evaluative state, higher education. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer. Meyer, John, and Brian Rowan. 1978. The structure of educational organizations. In Environments and organizations, ed. Meyer John et al., 78–109. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mintzberg, Henry. 1979. The structuring of organizations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Musselin, Christine. 2005. The long march of French universities. New York: Routledge. Paradeise, Catherine, and Jean-Claude Thoenig. 2015. In search of academic quality. London: PalgraveMacMillan.
Graduate Education (US) Paradeise, Catherine, Emmanuela Reale, Ewan Ferlie, and Ivar Bleiklie. 2009. University governance: Western European comparative perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer. Qiang, Zha. 2015. Burton Clark revisited. Is an aggressive state sometimes necessary? Blog from the Center for international higher education, February 9. https:// www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/. Accessed 15 Aug 2016. Stark, David. 2011. The sense of dissonance: Accounts of worth in economic life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sursock, Andrée. 2019. Autonomy and accountability in higher education, Western Europe. In Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, ed. Pedro N. Teixeira and Jung-Cheol Shin. Dortrecht: Springer. Thoenig, Jean-Claude, and Catherine Paradeise. 2016. The strategic capacity of academic institutions. Minerva 54 (3): 293–324. Tuchman, Gaye. 2009. Wannabe U: Inside the corporate university. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Weick, Karl E. 1976. Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 21: l–19.
Graduate Education (US) ▶ Doctoral Studies in Europe
Graduate Education Developments in an International Context Maresi Nerad College of Education, Higher Education, Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Synonyms Academic department, institute; Adviser, supervisor; Doctoral students, doctoral candidates; Graduate education, postgraduate education; Professional competencies, generic skills
Graduate Education Developments in an International Context
Definition What is called graduate education in North America and much of Asia, or postgraduate education in the United Kingdom and most Commonwealth countries, involves a program of study and research into a field’s or discipline’s specialized knowledge; the program’s usual prerequisite is a first academic degree or its equivalent (a bachelor’s degree, also called baccalaureate), and its culmination is the attainment of an academic or professional master’s or doctoral degree. In recent decades, the “intensified movement of goods, money, technology, information, people, ideas, and cultural practice across political and cultural boundaries” (Holton 2005) – that is, globalization – has exerted steady influence on graduate education. In turn, an increasingly internationalized graduate education has contributed to the forces of globalization. One result is that graduate education and postgraduate research have become global endeavors whose developments can best be understood in their international context.
Introduction: Globalization, Graduate Education, and Governmental Innovation Policies Since the 1990s, all around the world, the production of graduate degrees has been increasing along with reforms to programs in graduate education. These developments have occurred in countries as small as Iceland and as large as China, in countries like Germany, with its long tradition of doctoral education, as well as in Malaysia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Vietnam, with their much more recently established programs in graduate education. The changes themselves arise from the fact that national governments and supranational organizations like the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World Bank have made graduate education a target for policy attention and intervention (Nerad and Heggelund 2008). Governments everywhere view knowledge as a critical national resource for economic growth,
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innovation, prosperity, and international competitiveness. As a result, governments have turned to graduate education to train innovators, and they provide substantial funding for efforts to build national capacity in research and development. Governments have also devised competitive funding schemes for the development of master’s and doctoral programs that train students for employment in multiple sectors, increase students’ mobility, direct students toward problemsolving approaches to learning and research, and connect students and graduates to industry, business, and local communities. As governments and universities embrace the goal of competitiveness, it is not for economic reasons alone but also for reasons of pride and prestige. Moreover, governments, like universities, have learned that if innovations and economic growth are to emerge from new knowledge, it must be disseminated effectively through publications and patents – another reason for the need to rethink graduate education.
Innovation Policies and Their Impacts on Graduate Education The innovation policies of national governments have had impacts on graduate education in every part of the world, at both the macro and micro levels. Macro-Level Impacts: Growth and Reform At the macro level, the impacts of governmental innovation policies are felt in the proliferation of graduate programs, in the diversity of their student bodies, in the shift to workforce preparedness, and in the development and allocation of governmental funds for various initiatives and other projects. Increased Degree Production and Diversity of Students
The most visible macro-level effect of governments’ attention to and intervention in graduate education has been the sheer growth in the number of master’s and doctoral degrees earned all over the world, particularly in Asia. In China, for example, growth in master’s degrees was more than tenfold from 1999 to 2013, with growth in
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doctoral degrees more than fivefold for the same period (see Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, 2016; for growth in doctoral degrees earned worldwide between 1991 and 2012, see also National Science Board 2012–2016; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2012, 2015, 2016). This proliferation in master’s and doctoral programs has also created a more diverse student body, with more women, more part-time students, more students who are thirty and older, and, given the intensified internationalization of higher education, together with growth of the middle class in Asian countries, a greater flow of students from Asia to the United States and Europe. In addition, countries with low birthrates or shrinking populations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Japan, and Australia, have sought to attract highly skilled workers through the back door of graduate education, particularly for programs in science, engineering, mathematics, and agriculture (Nerad 2010). Further, the economic crisis of 2008 spurred universities to make up for shortfalls in governmental funding by recruiting more international students. Even in the United States, where active recruitment of international graduate students has not been necessary, there are particular efforts to recruit international students into self-sustaining professional master’s programs (although situated in public universities, such programs are not state-funded but instead rely on substantial tuition fees). Emphasis on Multidisciplinary Teams and Translational Research
Mode 2 knowledge production, so labeled by Gibbons et al. (1994), contrasts with Mode 1 knowledge production (that is, the tradition of learning from one master scholar within one discipline) by emphasizing the theory-practice relationship and translational research, whereby basic findings are given practical societal applications (in support of this trend, many national research councils have established separate funding tracks for university-based start-ups). Thus, as another
effect of governments’ innovation policies, universities and graduate programs have been shifting to Mode 2, with universities and graduate programs now more closely linked to their larger societies, and with graduate education and research training increasingly organized around a problem-solving approach that uses multidisciplinary teams and includes participants from industry, business, and government. This change has contributed to a paradigm shift in graduate education. One effect of this shift is that today’s doctoral students, in addition to acquiring traditional academic research skills, are expected to acquire professional competencies, as they are called in North America, or generic skills, as they are called in the United Kingdom and Australia, which is to say that they are expected to become competent writers, speakers, managers, and team members who can communicate their research goals and results effectively, inside as well as outside the university. As such, they join other communities of practice and acquire professional and multicultural competencies by way of national and international conferences, among other avenues. Initiatives for Reform and Quality Improvement
To elevate their countries’ status, and to signal national preparedness for innovation in the employment sector, governments strive to establish and sustain world-class universities. A university’s attainment of world-class ranking, and thus its ability to attract excellent students and academic staff, requires professional master’s programs and research doctoral programs of the highest quality. Governments have addressed this requirement with substantial initiatives, which variously seek to reform and elevate the quality of graduate education, increase the number of doctoral students and completed doctoral degrees, improve facilities and build new research centers, sponsor international conferences, and fund study abroad. Examples of such initiatives are Japan’s Centers of Excellence Program and its Program for Leading Graduate Schools, the German Excellence Initiative, Malaysia’s Accelerated Program for Excellence (APEX), and China’s Project 985, to name just a few.
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Funding for Flagship Grant Programs
National and regional research councils have implemented well-funded, competitive grant programs that solicit innovative, collaborative, multidisciplinary, multinational models of graduate education, with the goal of training a globally engaged workforce. These flagship programs are much more common in science, technology, and engineering fields than in the humanities or the arts. Although they primarily fund students and program expenses rather than academic staff, they are intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education for students, professors, and institutions alike. Examples include the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus programs at the master’s level and the Innovative Training Networks at the doctoral level, the National Science Foundation’s Research Traineeship program in the United States (an earlier iteration of this program was the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program), the Cooperative Research Centres Program in Australia, and the development of the German research training group programs (Graduiertenkolleg and Graduiertenschulen). With the aim of better preparing versatile students to address large-scale problems of industrial societies that cannot be solved through a single disciplinary focus or by a single researcher, these programs emphasize skill building, the learning environment, international collaboration, visits by students to other universities, and the geographical and intersectorial mobility represented by internships in nonacademic settings. Support for Returning Expatriates
In a relatively new worldwide trend, some governments seek to attract their expatriate doctoral recipients back home. Chile, France, and Germany, for example, sponsor get-togethers in the United States and other countries, where native doctoral students or postdocs living abroad are informed of employment opportunities in the home country. China grants returning doctoral graduates the status of local residents in major cities as well as tax and monetary incentives to start their own businesses and funds to reside in China temporarily while lecturing and sharing
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knowledge or setting up research groups in Chinese universities. And India has developed lucrative fellowships and incentives for expatriate scientists and engineers at all career levels to bring their knowledge home by making several months or a year-long visit or returning permanently. Micro-Level Impacts: Commonalities and Competencies At the micro level, the impacts of governments’ pursuit of readiness for innovation, and of universities’ aspirations for world-class status, are felt in the trend toward graduate programs’ increasingly common structure and requirements as well as in matters that concern students’ access to graduate education. Countries have various starting points, but in programs the world over we generally see the same policies and principles, and similar forms of graduate education. The Prevalence of English
The lingua franca of graduate education around the world is English, and many scholarly journals are published in English. The use of any common language allows students greater mobility. At the same time, the use of English as graduate education’s common language gives an advantage to students from English-speaking countries as well as to those who enjoyed access to English-language schooling before entering their graduate programs. Admission Practices
The process of admission to any type of graduate education has become well defined and competitive. After application packages are screened, the most promising applicants are personally interviewed or otherwise invited to visit. More countries now allow fast-track access to doctoral programs, whereby applicants are admitted after completion of a bachelor’s degree without having to earn a master’s degree first. Funding Practices
Doctoral programs seeking to attract the best students can now offer outstanding applicants several years of funding, with benchmarks and timelines. In some countries, student funding
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comes directly from the government. In others, funding is indirect; in the United States, for example, funding comes from the federal government through research grants or from state governments through teaching assistantships or private foundations (increasingly, departments are approaching private donors to raise funds for graduate fellowships). Length of Graduate Study
The expected time to completion for a master’s degree is the same everywhere: 1 year for a “taught” master’s degree, and 2 years for a research/professional master’s degree. For a doctoral degree, time to completion differs: in Europe, the expected time to completion is 3 years, but in the United States, it is 5 years, a period that often includes completion of the master’s degree as well. Regardless of country, the actual time to completion for the PhD degree tends to be longer in the humanities and social sciences than in science and engineering fields.
single supervisor or adviser. In addition, ethics training, or training in responsible research conduct, is increasingly required of all doctoral candidates. In some countries – Australia, for example – no oral examination has been required during doctoral study, but an oral defense of the dissertation has now been introduced. In most countries, doctoral candidates may be able to choose between writing a traditional dissertation and submitting several peer-reviewed articles, based on their own research, that have been published or are likely to be accepted for publication. Career Planning
More graduate programs in connection with the campus career placement centers provide training in career development and the job application process. As a result, graduate study now effectively includes an element of career planning.
The Graduate School as Locus of Graduate Education
Focus on Collaboration and Multidisciplinarity
Students earning master’s degrees increasingly enter programs with a cohort of fellow students and remain with that cohort throughout the two years. At the doctoral level, more programs now require specific coursework, in addition to the acquisition of research skills, written and oral examinations, dissertation research, and a written dissertation. What is new is that these components are now structured and sequenced with attention to learning, advising, mentoring, the acquisition of professional competencies and the ability to work in teams, an intensified focus on inter- or mutlidisciplinarity and the new form of Mode 2 knowledge production. Advising, Supervision, and Degree Requirements
As one aspect of the paradigm shift in graduate education, a doctoral student now tends to have more than one supervisor. In North America, for example, the doctoral student is guided throughout the dissertation process by a dissertation committee made up of two to five people. This trend is expected to continue worldwide, and to further reduce the doctoral student’s dependence on a
Centrally administered graduate education is a new phenomenon in Europe, Africa, and Latin America, but graduate schools are an established presence on university campuses in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and China. In these countries, graduate schools serve as advocates for graduate education with top university administrators, develop guidelines for the overall process of graduate education, provide training in professional competencies, and offer incentives for excellence in academic mentoring. They also solicit students’ evaluations regarding program quality and the quality of professors’ advising, and increasingly they track the careers of their graduates so as to collect outcome information. In addition, a graduate school may establish procedures for earning a dual degree or a joint degree with another university.
The Need for Quality Assurance The decades since the late 1980s have seen an increase and diversification in the types of
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master’s and doctoral degrees. Master’s degrees include the traditional prerequisite for the doctorate and terminal credentials in such fields as education, architecture, business, and the arts, but now also new types of interdisciplinary professional degrees. At the doctoral level, the most common degree remains the traditional research doctorate, or PhD, and agreement persists worldwide that the holder of this degree will have attained substantial knowledge in the relevant area of study, contributed to knowledge through original research, and undergone training that included the development of professional competencies (Bernstein et al. 2014). Nevertheless, a growing area is that of the professional or practice-based doctorate, with more weight placed on coursework than on training in research methods, and more emphasis on applied than on original research (Zusman 2017). It should also be noted that in most European countries, as in Australia, people studying at the doctoral level are not considered students but rather doctoral candidates, who often have the status of university employees. In light of these developments – apart from the rapid expansion of graduate education and the increased mobility of graduate students – national governments have seen fit to establish standards and schemes to guarantee the quality of graduate education. These measures are intended to uphold comparable standards among programs and graduate theses by defining those standards externally and then determining whether particular programs and theses comply with them. Quality-assurance measures also legitimize differences among programs so that action can be taken regarding resource allocation or even permission to run a doctoral program. Further, quality assurance has become instrumental in diminishing the migration of talented graduate students, and it serves to establish standards for dealing with the rapid expansion of for-profit graduate programs (Fortes et al. 2014). In the United States, the National Research Council has been assessing the quality of doctoral programs every ten years, most recently in 2010. Australia and New Zealand implemented various quality-assurance exercises in the 1990s, and since then the European
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University Association’s Council for Doctoral Education has also developed assessment mechanisms. In graduate education, quality assurance takes account of four core elements: a graduate program’s inputs (its admitted students, its professors who teach and advise, its research infrastructure in the form of library holdings and functioning laboratory equipment, and its research money, including students’ research support), its throughputs (advising or supervision, coursework, and students’ development of professional competencies, all of which differ between laboratoryintensive fields like physics or biology and library-intensive fields like the humanities, the social sciences, law, and business, and which also differ on the basis of whether learning takes place within a structured program or primarily within a one-to-one apprenticeship relationship), its outputs (its production of scholars holding valid university degrees, its production of theses and dissertations, and various forms of research publication), and its outcomes (these include the program’s production of new knowledge and the societal impact of that knowledge, which is why the tracking of graduates’ careers has been introduced at the institutional, national, and international levels as a measure of a program’s quality). With respect to throughputs, it must be noted that attrition rates and time to degree completion are increasingly measured along with number of degrees awarded; nevertheless, a high rate of degree completion, like a short time to degree completion, is a measure of efficiency and does not in itself guarantee a program’s quality.
Conclusion: A System in Tension The evolution of a global system of graduate education, encouraged by increased funding and sustained by converging policies and practices, has certainly had positive effects. But it has also created or exposed particular tensions. One source of tension can be conflict between a program’s goal of attaining world-class ranking, often on the mere basis of quantifiable outcomes, and its commitment to equity in terms
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of access to graduate education and the program’s affordability. Another source of tension involves conflict between a program’s goal of educating students to be creative and innovative – with all the false starts and learning from experience that this goal entails – and funders’ demands for the shortest possible time to degree completion. A notably negative effect of this dynamic is that the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences (with the exception of business administration) receive far less governmental funding than the STEM and health fields, and also have lower status and less influence within their institutions. Yet another source of tension is the stratification deriving from the existence of a few wellfunded, well-designed, elite graduate programs. This stratification creates a small group of elite students, with many ordinary programs carrying the mass of graduate students. And still another source of tension is the rise of nationalism around the world, especially as it concerns the widespread use of English in graduate education. With the most educated people in many countries now being taught in a foreign language, universities have been attacked for their contribution to younger generations’ loss or abandonment of their native languages and literatures. It remains to be seen how, and how much, the new nationalist movements will affect graduate students’ mobility and interfere with vibrant international collaborations at the graduate level. Although students may come to seek graduate education in the world’s eastern or southern sectors, more than in Europe or the United States, the worldwide convergence in standards and practices for graduate education is nevertheless likely to survive.
Graduate Education, Postgraduate Education Fortes, Mauricio, Barbara M. Kehm, and Tokozile Mayekiso. 2014. Evaluation and quality management in Europe, Mexico, and South Africa. In Globalization and its impacts on the quality of PhD education, Forces and forms in doctoral education worldwide, ed. Maresi Nerad and Barbara Evans, Vol. 2. Rotterdam: Sense. Gibbons, Michael, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott, and Martin Trow. 1994. The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Holton, Robert J. 2005. Making globalization. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China. 2016. Educational statistics year book of China, 1999– 2015. Beijing: People’s Education Press. National Science Board. 2016. Science and engineering indicators 2016. Arlington: National Science Foundation. Nerad, Maresi. 2010. Globalization and the internationalization of graduate education: A macro and micro view. Canadian Journal of Higher Education 40: 1–12. Nerad, Maresi, and Mimi Heggelund, eds. 2008. Towards a Global PhD? Forces and Forms in Doctoral Education Worldwide. Vol. 1. Seattle: Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education, University of Washington; University of Washington Press. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2012. Education at a glance 2012: OECD indicators, 2012. Paris: OECD. https://doi.org/ 10.1787/eag-2012-en. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2015. Education at a glance 2015: OECD Indicators, 2015. Paris: OECD. https://doi.org/ 10.1787/eag-2015-en. OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2016. Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators, 2016. Paris: OECD. https://doi.org/ 10.1787/eag-2016-en. Zusman, Ami. 2017. Changing degrees: Creation and growth of new kinds of professional doctorates. Journal of Higher Education 88: 33–61.
Graduate Education, Postgraduate Education References Bernstein, Bianca L., Barbara Evans, Jeannette Fyffe, Nelofer Halai, Fred L. Hall, Hans Siggaard Jensen, Helene Marsh, and Suzanne Ortega. 2014. The continuing evolution of the research doctorate. In Globalization and its impacts on the quality of PhD education, Forces and forms in doctoral education worldwide, ed. Maresi Nerad and Barbara Evans, Vol. 2. Rotterdam: Sense.
▶ Graduate Education Developments in an International Context
Graduate Premia ▶ Degrees of Quality, Higher Education
Growth in Student Participation in Higher Education
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Graduate Professionalization
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▶ Doctoral Student Socialization
▶ Higher Education for Sustainability
Graduate Student Employees ▶ Student Employees in Higher Education
Gross Enrollment ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Uganda
Graduate Teaching Fellows
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Greece ▶ Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece)
Growth in Student Participation in Higher Education ▶ Students and Higher Education Expansion
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Heterogeneity ▶ Diversity and Higher Education
High Participation in Higher Education, Implications for Funding Claire Callender Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck University of London and UCL, Institute of Education, London, UK
How higher education is funded and who pays for higher education lie at the core of any higher education system. Perhaps of all aspects of higher education, this has become the most politicized, emotive, and contested. Across the globe, changes or proposed reforms in funding and student finances have led to the downfall of governments and mass student protests. Since the 1960s higher education systems globally have expanded rapidly. How this expansion is funded and who bears the costs are paramount to the long-term financial sustainability of higher education. Both the growing number and size of higher education institutions alongside the increasing proportion of young people participating in higher education have contributed to rising costs and questions about who should pay for
them. As Martin Trow presciently observed in the early 1970s before widespread massification, “In every advanced society the problems of higher education are problems associated with growth (1973, p. 1). Trow poses the dilemma of how an expanding HE system can maintain its quality and be affordable while also safeguarding equal access to higher education. “No society, no matter how rich, can afford a system of higher education or 20 or 30 percent of the age grade at the cost levels of the elite higher education that it formally provided for 5 percent of the population” (Trow 1973, p. 36). He suggests that either unit costs have to be levelled down, potentially at the expense of quality and standards, or expansion restricted at the expense of equity. Others argue that increasing higher education’s resources through greater cost sharing is a potential solution to these dilemmas (McMahon 2009; Johnstone and Marcucci 2010). This entry will explain what cost sharing is, how and why it has become part of the higher education policy landscape including the ideas informing cost-sharing policies, and the key cost-sharing policies and their implications, especially for students.
What Is Cost Sharing? One way of financing higher education is by sharing its costs. There are two sets of costs related to students: tuition and their living costs while
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studying. Johnstone and Marcucci (2010), key advocates of cost sharing, assert that higher education costs can be borne principally by four groups: the government/state/taxpayers, students and/or graduates, their families, and individual or institutional donors or philanthropists. They define cost-sharing policies as those that shift “some of the higher education costs burden from government, or taxpayers, to parents and students” (Johnstone and Marcucci 2010, p. 2). The policy challenges are deciding how tuition and maintenance costs, and which of these costs, are divided between these four parties, and the appropriate balance of financial contributions from each group, especially the share of contributions from the public purse and from private individuals. Next are choices about the policy tools used to allocate the costs and their intended and unintended consequences. They involve decisions about tuition fees and the levels, targets, and forms of financial aid. Essentially, these are ideological and political judgements, as well as economic and pragmatic ones. Funding policies are shaped largely by the ideological persuasions of politicians and legislators and the particular histories and cultures of a country. They tend to be less the result of rational cost/benefit analyses and purely economic and pragmatic considerations and more the outcome of negotiations between stakeholders with competing interests who hold varying levels of influence and power.
The Rise of Cost Sharing The sharing of higher education costs has a long history – it is not new. For instance, public and private funds have comingled since the establishment of Oxford and Cambridge in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in England. Until the 1973 economic crisis, as higher education expanded, public expenditure on higher education rose throughout Europe, Australasia, Canada, and in many other developed economies. These systems and instruction costs were mostly funded through public expenditure with limited contributions from students or their families. The exception was the USA, but even here the federal and especially state governments played an important role
in the funding of public universities and community colleges and in providing student financial support. The policy shift whereby a greater share of the costs of tuition, and to a lesser extent student maintenance, is transferred to students and away from government and taxpayers emerges in the 1980s. It is associated with profound changes in political attitudes toward public expenditure. The post-World War II consensus concerning the role of the state in the funding of public services, including higher education, accompanied by high taxation policies to pay for these services, began to collapse. Such thinking is connected to the reemergence of neoliberalism. It is marked by the election of the Thatcher Conservative government in the UK and by the Regan Republican government in the USA. The shift is further strengthened by the collapse of the Soviet Union and state socialism in Eastern Europe. With these developments came significant ideological changes in how higher education was viewed and in attitudes toward the funding of higher education among governments globally (Altbach 1999). There was a move away from the dominant idea that higher education is primarily a public good benefiting society as a whole – that everyone gains from higher education – and so should be paid for by society. Higher education is central to economic growth, development, and innovation and produces the high-level skills required for the labor market in a knowledge economy. Society gains from the economic growth and greater labor market flexibility derived from graduates’ skills and the higher taxes they pay and other positive social externalities such as greater social cohesion, political stability, and crime and poverty reduction. Thus, an individual’s efforts to educate themselves also benefits those around them. This emphasis on the social benefits and positive externalities justifies substantial government intervention. Consequently, society should, and did, bear most of the costs of higher education. However, from the 1980s higher education becomes characterized primarily as a private good benefiting the individual more than society and so should be paid for by its key beneficiaries – students. This reflected the ascendancy and
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popularization of human capital theory. Human capital theory views expenditure on education as an investment which earns a positive return for students in the form of greater earnings (Becker 1993). So higher education participation is viewed as a private investment for private returns. Graduates, when compared to those without a university degree, tend to have increased productivity and higher lifetime earnings, less exposure to unemployment plus greater prestige, status and sociopolitical influence. These high private rates of return to higher education provide the economic evidence and rationale for charging more of the cost of higher education to the beneficiaries, and are a justification for cost-sharing policies. “Who benefits pays” became the mantra underpinning cost-sharing policies. Clearly higher education produces both societal and individual benefits. But the debate as to whether higher education is predominately a private or public good continues today, as does questions about the optimum balance of public and private contributions to higher education to match these public and private benefits (McMahon 2009). The emergence of cost-sharing policies is associated with other factors. First, as discussed, the expansion of higher education and the growing importance of, and demand for, higher education in a globalized knowledge economy. Second, associated with this is governments’ desire for higher participation rates. Third is the rising costs of higher education driven by its expansion, the growth of postgraduate education, and increasing demand for higher education. Even without this expansion, the costs of teaching and per-student costs constantly rise above inflation because higher education is a labor-intensive service industry, and technological advances tend to increase costs in higher education rather than cut them, unlike many other industries (Archibald and Feldman 2011). Fourth, faltering and falling government revenues and the inability, or unwillingness, of governments to meet higher education’s increasing costs through public funds for economic, political, and/or ideological reasons. This leads to financial austerity which has repercussion for the financial sustainability of higher education and the sector’s ability to provide high-quality courses and equitable access. Politically, higher
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education has to compete for funding with other public services such compulsory education, health, welfare services, and national security. And when combined with macroeconomic factors, which lead to constraints on overall government revenues, particularly during periods of slow economic growth, the competition becomes more acute. The final factor driving the growth of cost sharing is the inadequacy or inability of cost-side solutions and cost-cutting exercises to solve these financial problems without putting quality and access at risk. So advocates of cost sharing argue for additional, non-government sources of income to supplement insufficient, and often declining, government funds.
Cost-Sharing Policies The main purpose of cost-sharing policies is to increase the total resources available to higher education and specifically, from non-governmental or private sources (McMahon 2009; Johnstone and Marcucci 2010). They aim to reduce public expenditure on higher education by shifting a greater share of the costs of both instruction and student maintenance from government and taxpayers to students and their families. Cost-sharing policies can take many forms and include: 1. Tuition fees and administrative charges: their introduction/reintroduction or large increases. Administrative fees can include registration fees, examination fees, or obligatory contributions to student unions. 2. User fees: their introduction or increases, to recover the expenses of institutionally or government provided, and formerly free or subsidized, student services such as housing, catering, and transport (e.g., in the 1990s in Russia and most of Eastern and Central Europe). 3. Direct grants, bursaries, scholarships, and social security benefits to students for tuition and/or maintenance: their abolition, reduction or freezing (e.g., Russia and many Eastern and Central European countries in 1990s), and/or narrowing the eligibility criteria for this aid.
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4. Student loans: their introduction to cover tuition fees and their increasing role in replacing student grants, especially for students’ living costs. 5. Government subsidies on student loans through changing cost recovery strategies: their abolition or reduction. These subsidies vary depending on the design of student loans systems. They can be achieved, for instance, by introducing or increasing student loan interest rates and the period of time interest is charged, lowering the income threshold when income contingent loan repayments start, and abolishing debt forgiveness or increasing the period time before debt forgiveness takes effect (e.g., Australia 2007, England 2012). 6. Tax benefits and family allowances to cover education costs aimed at students’ parents: their abolition, reduction, or freezing their value. These tax benefits (e.g., Austria, Canada, and the USA) and family allowances (e.g., Czech Republic, France, Germany, and in about half of all European countries) tend to be available in those countries where students are considered financial dependants on their parents. 7. Block grants to higher education institutions: reduced or abolished (e.g., England in 2012). 8. Private higher education: the development or expansion of unsubsidized or partially subsidized tuition dependent private sector in higher education systems which historically have been dominated by a subsidized public sector (e.g., Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and other Latin American countries).
The Rise of Tuition Fees in Public Sector Higher Education Tuition fees and administrative charges to cover instruction costs are by far the most common form of cost-sharing globally and are justified by the high private rates of returns of higher education. Tuition fees within the public higher education sector can be found across the world’s continents (Marcucci 2013). They have a long history in the private higher education sector, and in the public sector in countries like the USA. But many
countries, especially in Europe, abandoned tuition fees following World War II. However, since the late 1980s, tuition fees in public sector higher education have become more widespread and their levels have risen, sometime quite dramatically. They were introduced or reintroduced, for instance, in Australia in 1989, New Zealand in 1990, Hungary in 1994, England in 1998, China in 1998, and Austria in 2001. Between 1995 and 2010, 14 out of 25 OECD countries increased their tuition fees, and ten countries reformed them between 2010 and 2014 (OECD 2016). By contrast, most European countries charge no or low tuition fees (except the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland), while Nordic countries charge no tuition fees. The average amount of tuition fees charged for a bachelor’s degree or equivalent by public universities varies between and within countries. The amount can depend for instance, on a student’s: level of education, field of study, socioeconomic background, prior academic attainment, mode of study, and domicile. Therefore, the proportion of students paying tuition fees and how much they pay also differs across and within countries. Today, England has the highest average undergraduate tuition fees in the world at over $11,000 per annum, and all students have to pay these tuition fees (OECD 2016, Fig. B5.2).
The Rise of Student Loans The increasing use of government-sponsored student loans to fund higher education students’ tuition fees and maintenance is another global phenomenon and popular cost-sharing policy (Heller and Callender 2013). Loans seek to tackle both liquidity and affordability constraints so even the poorest can access higher education and “pay” for their higher education. Loans can generate more income for universities while simultaneously facilitating and making more politically and socially acceptable, tuition fee increases. But not all countries with student loans have high tuition fees. For instance, Nordic countries have no tuition fees but have generous loans for students’ living costs. Loans have to be repaid by students and so are a private cost, unlike
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non-repayable grants which are a direct subsidy to students and funded 100% by government. But grants increasingly are being replaced by loans. Loans, like tuition fees, transfer more higher education costs to students and are predicated on the high private returns of higher education. It is assumed that students/graduates can afford to take out loans and repay them because of their higher graduate earnings. Most OECD countries have introduced their student loan systems since the late 1980s. The general trend is toward more students taking out loans with increasing proportions being dependent on loans to fund their studies. Between 2004/2005 and 2014/2015, the number of students in most OECD countries taking out loans increased by 40% or more (OECD 2016). However, this trend masks very important differences across countries. These countries use of loans, the type of loans available, and the penetration of loans for tuition, maintenance, or both varies considerably. Similarly loan eligibility criteria, how much students can borrow, the terms and conditions attached to their loans such as loan repayments, interest rates charged, and debt forgiveness, also differ widely across and within countries. Consequently, the proportion of students taking out loans and the value of their loans varies. Generally across OECD countries, the higher the proportion of students benefitting from loans, the larger the average amount of loan (OECD 2016, Table B5.4). For instance, in England in 2014/2015, 93% of students had taken out a loan for tuition and 89% for maintenance, and students starting their studies in that year can expect to leave university with average loan debts of over $57,000 (Callender and Mason 2017).
The Implications of Cost-Sharing Policies, Especially for Students Both tuition fees and student loans have stimulated higher education expansion, but there are concerns about the extent to which they impede access to higher education and undermine efforts to widen participation. If countries put the burden of tuition and maintenance costs entirely on the
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shoulders of students and their families, they risk attracting the wealthiest students but not the brightest, which means not making the most out of their country’s talent, perpetuating inequalities, and impeding social mobility. As research shows “students from more disadvantaged backgrounds are more sensitive to net price changes” (Santiago et al. 2008, p. 182) than those from wealthier backgrounds. This equity argument is frequently used in those countries with low or no tuition. It is also a key reason for the provision of student financial support to defray these and other higher education costs. Research repeatedly demonstrates that raising tuition fees without increasing loans and/or grants by at least the same value depresses higher education participation, especially among those from lower socioeconomic groups. But the type and mix of aid is important. Overall, grants offer a stronger and more direct incentive for access among low-income students than loans. However, research findings are contradictory with some evidence that neither tuition fee increases nor loans affect enrolments, especially among students from disadvantaged backgrounds with appropriate university entry qualifications (Baum et al. 2008; London Economics 2010; Dynarski and ScottClayton 2013). On the other hand, supporters of cost sharing suggest that tuition fees and loans are more equitable than paying for higher education out of general taxation. They argue that students reap a range of private individual benefits from their higher education qualification, while those without such a qualification do not despite the fact that they, and all taxpayers, contribute toward the costs of government-subsidized higher education. Importantly, the main beneficiaries of higher education, those mostly likely to participate, are people from middleand higher-income backgrounds. Thus, a tax is imposed on lowincome individuals to privilege an already privileged group. In essence, public subsidies are being used to redistribute wealth from people who are less well-off to those who are better-off. This is considered unfair and inequitable (Glennester et al. 1995). As a direct result of the rise of tuition fees and student loans, more students are graduating with
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growing levels of debt. Countries with high tuition fees are also those with the highest levels of graduate debt. How much of a problem this is depends mainly on the amount of debt, the uncertainty of graduates’ earnings and employment prospects, and the loan repayment conditions. For instance, in the USA, the highest default rates are found among those with relatively low levels of borrowing and this is because they have low-paid jobs on graduation – reminding us that not all graduates gain well paid jobs as assumed in cost-sharing policies (Dynarski 2014). Research also shows that student loan debt can have adverse effects on graduates’ financial, physical, and emotional well-being (e.g., Fry 2014; Dwyer et al. 2011). Also debt aversion can deter prospective students from applying to university, especially those from low-income backgrounds (Callender and Mason 2017). High default rates and poor repayment rates arising from low graduate earnings are a problem for governments too because they increase the costs of providing loans. Another dynamic of both tuition fees and loans is that when introduced within the context of the marketization of higher education and greater provider competition, they encourage the notion of higher education as a consumer good to be bought and sold – undermining the very essence of higher education, students’ learning experiences, and the co-production of knowledge (Barnett 2013). In conclusion, cost-sharing policies, especially tuition fees and loans, are now an established feature of the global higher education funding landscape, both fuelled by and fuelling further expansion. They seek to change the balance of public and private contributions to higher education so that more higher education’s costs are borne by students. The emergence of cost sharing policies in the 1980s is associated with profound political and ideological shifts in attitudes toward public expenditure including the funding of higher education. Specifically, higher education was no longer viewed primarily as a public good benefiting all in society, but as a private good mostly benefiting the individual. “Who benefits pays” became the mantra underpinning costsharing policies. Other forces boosting cost-sharing’s ascendency were the rising costs of higher education, declining government revenues, and
the failure of cost-side solutions to meet these increasing costs. Overall, cost-sharing policies have increased the total resource available to higher education and prompted a shift in the share of income from public to private sources. However, as Johnstone and Marcucci (2010) caution “Cost-sharing is no miracle cure” (p. 282). They continue “. . .our advocacy of cost-sharing is always an advocacy for its ability to supplement and augment government revenues, never to replace it.” (p. 283). Yet there is already evidence of such substitution. And all these policies may well may be at the cost of more widely drawn notions of equity.
References Altbach, Phillip. 1999. The logic of mass higher education. Tertiary Education and Management 5(2): 107–124. Archibald, Robert, and David Feldman. 2011. Why does college cost so much? New York: Oxford University Press. Barnett, Ron. 2013. The end of mystery and the perils of explicitness. In Browne and beyond: Modernizing English higher education, ed. Claire Callender and Peter Scott, 73–88. London: Institute of Education Press. Baum, Sandy, Michael McPherson, and Patricia Steele, eds. 2008. The effectiveness of student aid polices: What the research tells us. New York: The College Board. Becker, S. Gary. 1993. Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Callender, Claire, and Geoff Mason. 2017. Does student loan debt deter higher education participation? New evidence from England. The Annals of American Political and Social Science 671(1): 20–48. Dwyer, Rachel, Laura McLoud, and Randy Hodson. 2011. Youth debt, mastery, and self-esteem: Class-stratified effects of indebtedness on self-concept. Social Science Research 40: 727–741. Dynarski, Susan. 2014. An economist’s perspective on student loans in the United States. ES working paper series. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. Dynarski, Susan, and Judith Scott-Clayton. 2013. Financial aid policy: Lessons from research. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 18710. http:// www.nber.org/papers/w18710.pdf. Accessed 26 Mar 2017. Fry, Richard. 2014. Young adults, student debt and economic well-being. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center’s Social and Demographic Trends Project. Glennester, Howard, Jane Falkingham, and Nickolas Barr. 1995. Education funding, equity and lifecycle. In The dynamics of welfare: The welfare state and the life cycle, ed. Jane Falkingham and John Hill, 150–166. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice-Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship Heller, Don, and Claire Callender, eds. 2013. Student financing of higher education: A comparative perspective. London: International Studies in Higher Education, Routledge. Johnstone, D. Bruce, and Pamela Marcucci. 2010. Financing HE worldwide: Who pays? Who should pay? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. London Economics. 2010. Review of student support arrangements in other countries. BIS research paper no 10. London: Departments for Business, Innovation and Skills. Marcucci, P. 2013. The politics of student funding policies from a comparative perspective. In Student financing of HE: A comparative perspective, ed. Donald Heller and Claire Callender, 9–31. London: Routledge. McMahon, Walter. 2009. Higher learning, greater good: The private and social benefits of HE. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. OECD. 2016. Education at a glance. Paris: OECD. Santiago, Paulo, Karine Tremblay, Ester Basri, and Elena Arnal. 2008. Tertiary education for the knowledge society volume 1. Paris: OECD. Trow, Martin. 1973. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. Berkley: Carnegie Commission of HE.
Definition The relationship between higher education and democratic citizenship enjoys much attention in contemporary debates addressing the changing role and function of universities. The issue, which stands in the front, is the questioning of the social function of the university in relation to the needs of modern democratic societies and their development, or in a more narrow scope, the role of higher education in the process of creating and empowering a citizen. In relation to the two traditional functions – teaching and research – the social function of higher education and its contribution to democratic citizenship appear in discussion as a very complex and sometimes contradictory issue, so that a unique definition cannot be given.
Democratic Citizenship as an “Archetypal Model” of the Modern University
Higher Education (HE) ▶ Higher Education Systems Ethiopia ▶ Higher Education Systems Liberia ▶ Higher Education Systems Republic of Moldova ▶ Higher Education Systems Uganda ▶ Private Higher Education
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and Institutions, and Institutions, and Institutions, and Institutions,
Higher Education and Democratic Citizenship Pavel Zgaga University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Synonyms Civic/citizenship education; Education for democratic citizenship and/or culture; Outreach and engagement; Public service; Social dimension; Third mission
Since its conception, modern democracy has been closely linked to the issue of general public education (Dewey 2004). The interdependence of education, democracy, and social development can be traced back to the threshold of the nineteenth century when education was increasingly recognized as an indispensable instrument for promoting both social and economic development and democracy (Mitter 1993). However, a special role attributed to higher education was acknowledged with delay. As an institution, the university was thoroughly reconceptualized at the beginning of the nineteenth century and began to play an exposed role in the development of both national state and industry. It transferred “from the age of philosophy to the age of science” (Rüegg 2004); advancement of knowledge and training of the next generation of academics as its main purpose was extended to training of future civil servants and highly skilled manpower for the national economy. On the other hand, liberal education as a supposed inherent part of university curricula was believed to be a well-rounded preparation for the individual student in a democracy (Scott
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2006). New understanding of the societal role of higher education was in some places, especially in the USA, articulated in the mid-nineteenth century, but the specific issue of how could higher education shape citizenship was articulated slowly and contradictory. It came to the forefront of discussions only in the second half of the twentieth century when higher education began to lose its former “elite” character. Promoting democracy and democratic citizenship entered on a list of the purposes of higher education. Thus, it represents one of the “archetypal models” of the modern university (Zgaga 2009). In the discussion over the last century and a half, the relationship of higher education and citizenship has proved as a very complex one. This complexity cannot be displayed in short without having resorted to simplification. We will do so by limiting to three key themes to which the greater part of an ongoing discussion can be synthesized (but not completely free of remnants): – Democratic citizenship as a purpose of higher education – Commodification of higher education and its impact on democratic citizenship – Higher education for democratic citizenship
Democratic Citizenship as the Purpose of Higher Education From a historical point of view, the university had the role of educating an elite rather than any obvious task of enforcing democracy (Englund 2002). The modern nation-state tried from the very beginning to engage its universities for achieving the “national aims”; however, universities sometimes resisted such “instrumentalization” by advocating principles of academic freedom and institutional autonomy and may consequently took a neutral position to political ideologies and social movements. Parallel to this, questions gradually opened up of what role could higher education play in the development of modern democracy. Advancement of academic research and teaching (W. von Humboldt) on one hand and a nonspecialized, well-rounded education of a
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“gentleman” (J. Newman) on the other: these were the two “internal” academic articulations of the purposes of higher education in modern societies. They were complemented by an “external” one: training a wider range of “leaders in industry, commerce, finance, expanding state bureaucracies, and the growing professions” (Perkin 2006, 175). These ideas all came from the early nineteenth-century Europe. The specificity of the American context – which filled, e.g., Alexis de Tocqville, disappointed by the failed attempts at democratic government in Europe, with confidence in the development of democracy – contributed yet another articulation: the responsibility of higher education to contribute to its communities and to educate for citizenship. While the English and the German universities were standing somewhat aloof from the public and interpreted that social changes are merely their by-products and not their raison d’être (Bok 1982), American ones, backed on the ideological pragmatism characterizing their surrounding communities, were much more willing to collaborate with external parties (Pinheiro et al. 2015). This view has been clearly embodied by the well-known Morrill Act (1862) which strengthened the “public service movement” and strategically influenced future development of higher education in the USA. However, the attempt “to bridge the gap between town and gown” cannot be directly linked with the earlier emphases on preparation for citizenship (focused on general, not higher education) or seen as a part of civic education (Morse 1989). The further way, in the USA and globally, was polemical and anything but linear. The “public service” and “civic education” movement had been faced with opposing currents and internal contradictions were also evident within it (Harkavy 2006). These contradictions are especially evident when it comes to the interpretation of the notion of “public service” as well as “democracy.” An important theoretical contribution to discussions about education and democracy was given by John Dewey in the early twentieth century. He carried out a thorough analysis of this issue and put it in a broad historical and ideational perspective (Dewey 2004). After reconsidering the trends after the European Enlightenment of
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the eighteenth century, he noted that “education became a civic function and the civic function was identified with the realization of the ideal of the national state. The ‘state’ was substituted for humanity; [the Enlightened] cosmopolitanism gave way to nationalism. To form the citizen, not the ‘man’, became the aim of education.” Writing his book in the middle of the First World War fighting, he continued “In Europe, in the Continental states consequently, the new idea of the importance of education for human welfare and progress was captured by national interests and harnessed to do a work whose social aim was definitely narrow and exclusive.” And he asked a difficult question: “Is it possible for an educational system to be conducted by a national state and yet the full social ends of the educative process not be restricted, constrained and corrupted?” (pp. 89–90, 93, 94). Almost the entire range of key issues as were raised in the course of the twentieth century – and are still discussed today – is contained in this quotation. The exceptional role of education in the formation of a citizen has been recognized in both educational politics and academic studies, but with the former (and sometimes even with the latter), this recognition has been dominantly made in an instrumentalized form. The lesson learned over the last hundred years is that the formation of citizenship is not necessarily the formation of democratic citizenship. This was acutely proved in political totalitarianisms, which affected (not only) Europe over the twentieth century. Against the backdrop of social and political struggles of the twentieth century, the relationship between higher education and democratic citizenship became increasingly a central topic of the debate on roles and purposes of higher education in modern times.
Commodification of Higher Education and Its Impact on Democratic Citizenship If on one hand we can say that the role of higher education as a public service is American contribution to the modern “idea of university,” on the other hand, we cannot ignore another
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contribution – a contribution to deepening of the contradictory nature of the debate on education and democracy. Harkavy (2006) points to an inherent contradiction in the development of the American concept of education for citizenship. It was already in the early colonial colleges, he says, that the “religious-inspired service” was complemented by a special “form of community competition.” “Succinctly stated, contradictory capitalist market motives, not simply traditional medieval Christian motives, inspired and shaped the contradictory origins and increasingly contradictory development of the American higher educational system” (p. 13). To paraphrase Max Weber, one could say that the special form of (the Protestant) “community competition” already revealed the “spirit of capitalism.” The period after the Second World War brought new trends. A military complex was established as previously had not been even conceivable and strong incentives for scientific work in universities and institutes were provided. The Cold War that followed essentially redefined American science; consequently, the aims and purposes of higher education thoroughly shifted. As shown by Harkavy in a case of a Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at one of US universities, now it was believed that the job of professors is “simply to teach what their discipline calls for them to teach and to try to make their students into good disciplinary researchers”; they “cannot make their students ‘into good people [. . .] and shouldn’t try’” (p. 15). Together with other dominant trends of the time, this led to the widening and deepening of commodification and commercialization of universities and the whole higher education area (Bok 2003). The post-Enlightenment public school concept made citizenship education the primary focus of all education for many decades; this trend was otherwise contradictory and varied from binding “people together in cooperative human pursuit and results” (Dewey 2004, 95) to “educating a true patriot” by the state. The shock which came with Sputnik (1957) during the Cold War period put emphasis on scientific development and pushed socialization function away. “Even social scientists felt that ‘citizenship’ was not an intellectually worthy goal of education” (Reische
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1987, 15). However, on the other side, critical writers began to draw attention to “the retreat from citizenship” as well as to “the disengaged academic” (Macfarlane 2005), a trend that has not yet ended; on the contrary, it seems that it has become a worldwide trend. Many authors have shown how closely this trend is linked in modern times to the neoliberal doctrine and its universal influence on the transformation of the mission and the nature of higher education. Education is represented as an inputoutput system which can be reduced to an economic production function: higher education has commercialized (Bok 2003); new public management has replaced the “public service ethic” (Olssen and Peters 2005); the growing emphasis on free enterprise, accountability, individual choice, and consumption led to a business model of higher education (Suspitsyna 2012); etc. The new model has fundamentally altered the two essential roles of traditional universities, i.e., research and teaching. In short, “the neoliberal discourse subverts the social functions of universities that are aimed at social justice and redefines individual agency in terms of economic rationality”; what “gets lost in that market perspective is the noneconomic social and political roles of higher education” (pp. 53, 64). Under this doctrine, the only legitimate form of research is that which brings applicable and therefore “useful” industrial innovation, and the only legitimate form of teaching is one that provides a “flexible” highly skilled labor force. It is clear, therefore, that this doctrine has also profoundly affected the role which higher education is supposed to play in relation to the surrounding community and in particular its potential contribution to democratic citizenship. In this context, the term “third mission” was coined which can be seen as a further commercialization of the results achieved through the “first” and “second” missions. However, it can also be understood differently, e.g., consisting of “a knowledge transfer function as well as a more general community function. It is an umbrella term that refers to a wide variety of principles and strategies for economic and social development” (Jongbloed et al. 2008, 313). Emphasis placed on the third mission is often explained as an effort to restore the priority given
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to social purposes which the traditional university, the “ivory tower,” has been accused to neglect. The community engagement should involve “a set of activities through which the university can demonstrate its relevance to the wider society and be held accountable” and to function “as sites of citizenship” (Jongbloed et al. 2008). However, warnings that the problem is not only on the side of the neoliberal discourse but also on the side of the academic community cannot be ignored. For example, “epistemological fragmentation” (Macfarlane 2005) and “disciplinary isolation” (Harkavy 2006) have caused that “the ‘political literacy’ of academic staff has been damaged [. . .] by the decline of collegial decision making, the rise of a management culture in universities and the loss of tenure” (Macfarlane 2005, 304). A general “retreat from the broader civic role of the university” is noticeable: “knowledge transfer” has substituted “more broadly based contributions to civic society” (p. 309).
Higher Education for Democratic Citizenship Criticisms of the commodification of higher education have contributed, at least indirectly, to a newly articulating of the question on the role of modern universities in the formation of citizenship. In the academic debate, a whole series of questions opened up, such as the following: Will there be room for analysis of the often close relationship between facts and values, for a view of knowledge as part of a commitment, and for a “philosophy of knowledge”? Can the universities become public spaces for encounters between different cultures, different views of “how society works,” and different views of “the good society”? In short, what kind of knowledge and (critical) attitude would it be the task of the universities to promote (Englund 2002)? In recent decades, these issues have been broadly discussed particularly in North America and Europe. In America, criticism of commercialization and the one-dimensional role of universities were raised to the fore and related to the progressive ideas of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Europe, these issues have been
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particularly articulated in relation to the Europeanization process, democratization, the protection of human rights, living together in culturally diverse societies, etc. It is possible to identify two main horizons of the discussion: the academic and the policy one. On the academic side, historical reflections are common. Since the creation of modern nationstates, governments have been concerned with the influence of education on the citizen body. For a long time, this concern had been limited mainly to compulsory education, i.e., to the level which included all the population (Englund 2002). In this regard, university was not particularly an interesting institution until higher education was determined as elite education; its social importance reflected mainly in contributing to the formation of national identity and to the overall national development. Occasionally, universities were calling attention as sites of potential ideological and political subversion. Yet everything fundamentally changed when they were shifted to the stage of mass higher education. “With the creation of mass higher education systems in many states (including middle-income countries such as Brazil, Chile and Thailand), the question has emerged of how higher education can be engaged in governments’ efforts to create cohesive and just societies” (McCowan 2012, 51). Here we are confronted with a potentially dangerous issue. The role to be played by a modern university in promoting citizenship has varied depending on changes in the concept and practice of democracy but also by its byways and defeats. Among academics in Europe, unlike the USA, there have been mostly negative attitudes to the claim that universities should “shape” students or to “instill” particular values in them (Klemenčič 2010). Taking into account the experience of taught courses in citizenship under the possible impact of political ideologies, this reluctance is understandable. However, reaffirmation of “service learning” in the USA (or “community-based learning” in the UK) highlighted another option, initiatives that enable students to develop their civic capacities and dispositions through work outside the university (McCowan 2012). On the other hand, the process of democratization in Europe, especially after 1990, fundamentally
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changed the former context: “In just a few decades the word ‘citizenship’ has become one of the most frequently used in discussions of communal life in society.” However, “a term with such an intense historical and social significance cannot be used lightly” (Audigier 2000, 7). It cannot be ignored that in this field, many terms and concepts are competing, but also the discussants’ focus is being changed, “for example, from ‘civic instruction’ to ‘civic education’, and now to ‘education for citizenship’” (p. 9). It is obvious that there is a “tendency to polemic” in literature (Byram 2012); “citizenship education” is more often in Europe, in the USA “civic education,” in Singapore “national education,” etc.; alongside these terms “peace,” “global,” and “human rights” education are also used, etc. In practice, therefore, we do not encounter a unified doctrine, but policy experimentation, which is heavily dependent on the respective context. This should not be seen as a problem; on the contrary, experimentation fosters exploration and debate. Linking higher education and democratic citizenship proves that experiences in the field of compulsory education cannot be simply transferred into post-secondary education, e.g., in a form of taught courses. Nevertheless, this link appears an urgent issue in modern societies. One of the first major international studies on citizenship education showed that educational resources available at home and expectations for the number of years of higher education are the most powerful predictors of total civic knowledge (Torney-Purta et al. 2001). In the last two decades, interest in the development of this dimension of higher education has been certainly increased. It appears that a quite widely accepted position has been agreed that general education (e.g., liberal arts) should balance the disciplinary courses, and this can be achieved by focusing on “civic competences” such as critical thinking, social conscience, tolerance and respect for diversity, global citizenship, civic literacy, and political action. These topics are discussed in a number of projects (e.g., the Tuning project stresses that learning outcomes should not meet only the disciplinary aims of the program but also “the needs and expectations of students and society, ensuring
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employment, personal development and citizenship” (http://core-project.eu/documents/Tuning% 20G%20Formulating%20Degree%20PR4.pdf, p. 19)) at national and institutional level. They have also been included on the agendas of influential (inter)governmental and nongovernmental organizations, for example, UNESCO (see http:// unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002277/227729e. pdf), the Council of Europe (see http://www.coe. int/t/dg4/highereducation/CompletedActivities/ Citizenship_en.asp. The Council of Europe should not be confused with the European Council. The Council of Europe is not a body of the European Union but the continent’s leading human rights organization which is – among other issues – very active in the field of educational policies), or the Carnegy Foundation (see http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/newsroom/ news-releases/carnegie-selects-colleges-universities2015-community-engagement-classification/) in the USA. At the turn of the millennium, an attentionworthy contact between the American University civic responsibility movement and the Council of Europe was set up, which led to the establishment of the International Consortium on Higher Education, civic responsibility, and democracy (see https://www.internationalconsortium.org/about) (Harkavy 2006). In this fertile cooperation, we can detect one of the key generators, which in the framework of the European Bologna Process have established strong political mandate for higher education’s role in democratic citizenship education (Klemenčič 2010). Thus, in 2007 the European Ministers urged that higher education institutions “continue to fulfil their full range of purposes” which include “preparing students for life as active citizens in a democratic society; preparing students for their future careers and enabling their personal development; creating and maintaining a broad, advanced knowledge base; and stimulating research and innovation” (see http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/Declarations/ London_Communique18May2007.pdf, pt. 1.4). This is certainly the most direct position adopted at a high-level international policy forum. Preparation for democratic citizenship has become a declared aim of the whole European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and a point on the implementation agenda of member states and
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higher education institutions. But there are indications that in practice this aim remains a mere rhetoric; previous implementation reports on the progress of the EHEA didn’t focus on it at all. The ongoing crisis of European institutions does not imply that these issues should be pushed at the edge; on the contrary, now they become even more important, not only in Europe. This question has become a global question. It requires new approaches.
Conclusion We read above that a term with such an intense historical and social significance cannot be used lightly. “Democratic citizenship” includes at least two dimensions, the social and the political: the former is about citizens’ participation in civil society – today often rebranded as “leisure learning” rather than “being seen as an investment in the common good” – and the latter is “about collective political deliberation, contestation and action” (Biesta 2009, 151). In the policy practice, the first dimension is prevailing and the second is fairly restrained. How might higher education contribute to the promotion and development of citizenship? Biesta warns us that there is a tendency within the idea of “active citizenship” to depoliticize the very idea of citizenship because it is based upon a consensus notion of democracy and a functionalist understanding of citizenship and the formation of citizens: “the individualisation and domestication of citizenship runs the risk of undermining rather than promoting citizenship and civic action. [. . .] It can either become one more socialising agent for the (re)production of the competent active citizen, or it can seek to support modes of political action and civic learning that embody a commitment to a more critical and more political form of European citizenship” (p. 154). The dilemma noted by Biesta is far from being exclusively European. In the past, citizenship education (limited to compulsory education) was linked with the process of building common national identity, but today’s globalized world raises new and different questions: supranational citizenship, multiculturalism vis-à-vis ethnic/
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religious national forms of identity, environmental sustainability, world ethics, etc. At a time of growing global political tensions, large-scale migrations, and the like, these issues appear utopian, but this is precisely the point at which special contribution of higher education is possible and urgent.
References Audigier, F. 2000. Basic concepts and core competencies for education for democratic citizenship. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, June 26. Biesta, G. 2009. What kind of citizenship for European higher education? Beyond the competent active citizen. European Educational Research Journal 8(2): 146–158. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2009.8.2.146. Bok, D. 1982. Beyond the ivory tower. Social responsibilities of the modern university. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bok, D. 2003. Universities in the marketplace. The commercialization of higher education. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Byram, M. 2012. Citizenship education. The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Vol. 10. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431. Dewey, J. 2004/1916. Democracy and education. Mineola: Dover Publications. Englund, T. 2002. Higher education, democracy and citizenship – The democratic potential of the university? Studies in Philosophy and Education 21(4): 281–287. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1019840006193. Harkavy, I. 2006. The role of universities in advancing citizenship and social justice in the 21st century. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 1(1): 5–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746197906060711. Jongbloed, B., J. Enders, and C. Salerno. 2008. Higher education and its communities: Interconnections, interdependencies and a research agenda. Higher Education 56(3): 303–324. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-0089128-2. Klemenčič, M. 2010. Higher education for democratic citizenship. In EUA bologna handbook: Making bologna work, ed. E. Froment, B 1.3-1. Berlin: Raabe. Macfarlane, B. 2005. The disengaged academic: The retreat from citizenship. Higher Education Quarterly 59(4): 296–312. McCowan, T. 2012. Opening spaces for citizenship in higher education: Three initiatives in English universities. Studies in Higher Education 37(1): 51–67. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.493934. Mitter, W. 1993. Education, democracy and development in a period of revolutionary change. International Review of Education 39(6): 463–471. Morse, S. W. (1989) Renewing civic capacity: Preparing college students for service and citizenship. ASHEERIC Higher Education Report 8. Association for the
623 Study of Higher Education. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education. Olssen, M., and M.A. Peters. 2005. Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: From the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy 20(3): 313–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/026809 30500108718. Perkin, H. 2006. History of universities. In International handbook of higher education, ed. J.F. Forest and P.G. Altbach, Vol. 2. Dordrecht: Springer. Pinheiro, R., P.V. Langa, and A. Pausits. 2015. One and two equals three? The third mission of higher education institutions. European Journal of Higher Education 5(3): 233–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2015. 1044552. Reische, D.L. 1987. Citizenship: Goal of education. Arlington: American Association of School Administrators. Rüegg, W., ed. 2004. A history of the university in Europe. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott, J.C. 2006. The mission of the university: Medieval to postmodern transformations. The Journal of Higher Education 77(1): 1–39. Suspitsyna, T. 2012. Higher education for economic advancement and engaged citizenship: An analysis of the U.S. Department of Education Discourse. The Journal of Higher Education 83(1): 49–72. https://doi.org/ 10.1353/jhe.2012.0003. Torney-Purta, J., R. Lehmann, H. Oswald, and W. Schulz. 2001. Citizenship and education in twenty-eight countries: Civic knowledge and engagement at age fourteen. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Zgaga, P. 2009. Higher education and citizenship: “The full range of purposes”. European Educational Research Journal 8(2): 175–188. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj. 2009.8.2.175.
Higher Education and Economic Development Jo Ritzen UNU-Merit/Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Introduction Education has a lot to offer for the individual. It provides him or her with the opportunity to develop one’s talents. These talents – which we will characterize as “competencies” – are important for society. They make the individual a more responsible and participating citizen who is better
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able to contribute to the economic production process, whether it is in services, in manufacturing, or in any other economic sector. This applies to all levels of education. However, higher education has a special position in the twenty-first century economic and social development. This development is best characterized by more complexity in society (Elkana and Kloepper 2016) and by robotization of routine work (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). It has led to an increase in the demand on the labor market for those talents/competencies that are best associated with higher education. As a result, the graduates of higher education can generally be seen as the “winners of globalization” in the discussions on the rise of populism in European countries and in the USA (see Ritzen 2017). We present this contribution in a number of steps. In section “Higher Education and Sustainable Growth,” we consider the available evidence on the role of higher education in promoting economic development in countries or regions. We use two different lenses: that of research in higher education and that of learning in higher education. The former (research) has been widely acclaimed as an important source of economic development. The second (the education role) – which is the first and foremost role of universities – has traditionally received much less attention except for the “rate-of-return” studies (see, e.g., Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2002). These studies have their starting point in the decision of the individual to invest in himself or herself by participating in higher education. Section “Competencies and Higher Education (Excellence)” considers more in detail how the graduates of higher education contribute to economic development. This contribution is made through the competencies of the graduates of higher education. Having successfully completed higher education is but a small part of the story. Having increased one’s competences is the more important other part. It turns out that the mean and the distribution of the competences of young graduates of higher education differ substantially between countries. This begs questions whether these differences play out in economic development. Apparently, in some countries, graduates have learned more than in others, assuming that
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they were at the same level when entering higher education. Indeed, economic development benefits from better competences of graduates. In section “Elusive Equity,” we show that policies which increase equality of opportunity to participate in higher education) may reinforce economic development, even if there are costs to society involved, to allow youngsters to study through loans and grants.
Higher Education and Sustainable Growth “Economic development” is generally understood to be measured by “economic growth”: the increase in per capita income in a country or in a region. Incomes rise when output per worker (labor productivity) increases in the country or region. This notion of economic development is widely criticized as too narrow as a goal of society. Societies aim for more than just money to spend for their citizens. The very least they aim for is sustainability of economic development, so that present income is not bought on the expense of the incomes of future generations. That might be the case if our present ways of producing and consuming change the climate and reduce the stocks of scarce natural resources in a way such that future generations will have to live under less favorable conditions than we do. “Sustainable economic growth” is then the level of economic growth which results when side constraints in production and consumption – like those of the Paris 2016 agreements between countries on the climate – are taken into account. But there are other goals as well. Many countries have been looking for measures of the “happiness” of the population as the outcome of socioeconomic policy (see Helliwell et al. 2013). The distribution of income and unemployment are more easily operationalized as concerns of socioeconomic policy. Yet we limit ourselves in this contribution to, on the one hand, economic growth and on the other equity in the participation to higher education. The output per worker increases as a result of technological innovation. The latter term is defined as the changes in products or production
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processes that induce a higher output per worker. A higher output is the pleasant result of innovation, because it makes room for increases in wages and in the income derived from the capital invested in the firm. Less pleasant is the often disruptive change for the workers involved in the pre-innovation products or production processes. These dramatic changes in production processes and products have always been subject of considerable debate and criticism. The post-Second World War period was characterized by a stable development in which the major changes resulting from technological innovation were well absorbed in industrialized societies, not in the least thanks to social security systems. Then the Great Recession hit in 2008, and the trust of many citizens in the capacity of societies to absorb shocks was shaken. The aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008–2016 shows similar to the early twentieth century the dissatisfaction of many with the present organization of our societies, giving rise to Trumpism and to many other forms of populism defying long-hold beliefs in organizing innovation to promote sustainable growth. This contains the message to higher education that it should be well aware of the role of knowledge in this rather turbulent society (Elkana and Kloepper 2016). Much of the economic analysis on the role of knowledge (engendered by higher education) in generating economic growth through innovations has been focused on the research done in higher education and the research productivity of higher education. Path breaking was the study by Jaffe (1989) showing that research done in higher education institutions in the USA contributed to commercial innovation (through so-called spillovers from research done in higher education institutions to innovation). This set the stage for a large volume of studies, showing econometrically that this relation existed and depended in part on the organization of the research done in higher education institutions. Subsequently governments in several countries (e.g., the UK and the Netherlands) promoted what would become known as the triple helix: higher education-industry-government cooperation (see, e.g., Etzkowitz 2010). The relationship between the research performance of higher education and innovation leading
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to higher labor productivity is strong (see, e.g., Hoareau et al. 2012). Note that innovation is not just a “STEM” thing (for graduates of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and it is not only about technology. It is also about organizing production processes, about motivating people to bring out the best, about empowering people, about using talents and competencies, as well as about risk taking by individuals to engage in new endeavors. Yet the prime function of higher education institutions is not research but is to educate. This may be obfuscated by the rankings of research universities which focus mainly on research. To our surprise, we then notice that the relation between higher education and innovation has been much less well studied. On the individual level of graduates, the world is full of “rate-ofreturn” studies on (higher) education, showing to what extent incomes earned by individuals with a certain level of education, like higher education, reflect the costs made to attend that level of education (see Psacharopoulos and Patrinos 2002). However, there is little attention for the spillover of education toward labor productivity at large. The relationship between higher education and labor productivity is – like that between research done in higher education institutions and labor productivity – complex. Investment in physical capital was in the past viewed as the dominant force for labor productivity. Then something called “technological progress” entered the field to explain why labor productivity rose faster than investments in machines and buildings. Technological progress itself does not come from heaven but is the result of new vintages of human or physical capital with higher productivity levels as economists have amply shown (see, e.g., Aghion and Howitt 1998). The changes in the productivity levels of new vintages of physical capital are likely to be the result of the involvement of well-trained workers in the production process in combination with the proceeds from public and private R&D. We have witnessed that this leads to “labor saving” of low-skilled workers, as a result of the automation of routine jobs. In the past four decades, the supply of skilled workers increased rapidly, yet demand outpaced the supply, leading to an increase in the wage
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premiums for well-trained workers. This is the race between technology and education, a term coined by Nobel Prize winner Tinbergen (1975). The race has been lost by education, because it was not only racing to keep up, but at the same time contributed to technology (Acemoglu 2002). At the same time, the increase in the demand for graduates of higher education has given rise to a polarization on the labor market with employment polarizing into high-wage and low-wage jobs at the expense of middle-wage jobs, as is well described by Autor et al. (2006) for the USA and validated for a large number of countries by Ugur et al. (2016). A better-educated workforce does not only facilitate the creation of new technologies but also increases the country’s capacity to adopt technologies that have already been developed elsewhere (Vandenbussche et al. 2006). Goldin and Katz (2008) find that advances in education attainment (measured by degrees achieved) account for 15% of the 2.23% per year gain in real GDP per capita from 1915 to 2005 in the USA. This effect could be higher if the potential impact of (higher) education and public research on the speed of “unskilled labor saving” or “human capital-enhancing” technological progress had been taken into account. The positive impact of higher education increases as countries come closer to what is called “the technology frontier” – the degree to which production is within the “high-tech” area (Acemoglu et al. 2006; Aghion et al. 2009). Technological change increases the demand for expert thinking and complex communication (“nonroutine work”), acquired through higher education (Levy and Murnane 2005). In general, most of the developed world is close to the production frontier. However, this is not to exclude the important role of higher education in developing countries, as is well sketched by Tilak (2006). The benefits of higher education accrue first and foremost to the individual who has enriched her-/himself by learning in higher education institutions in the form of higher wages. But society at large has also a lot to gain in addition to those benefits captured by the individual.
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Competencies and Higher Education (Excellence) Since the early 1950s, schools are recognized as essential for economic development. The term human capital was born, and countries which did well in education turned out to be the countries with the highest rates of economic growth. Causality was discussed: are high economic growth rates the cause forhigh investments in human capitaloris it the other way around? It was shown to be both (Hanushek and Woessmann 2012). Indeed, high growth countries also invest substantially more in education, but this causally increases economic growth. Time and again, it was established that “doing well” in education is more than enrolling children in school. Hanushek and Woessmann (2012) are the pathfinders by using the scores in the Project International Student Achievement and the scores in the Project International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC), respectively, as an indicator of quality of the education system. The not so surprising finding is that indeed the contribution of quality education to economic growth is substantial. This has given rise to the conclusion that education needs to be of high quality to be relevant for society at large and economic development in particular. For example, for South Asia, Phan and Coxhead (2015) show that raising educational equality in countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and to a lesser extent Indonesia is essential to raise economic growth to the same levels as have been achieved in the Northern East Asian countries in the same economic position. The competencies of adult higher education graduates (20–35-year-old) were measured in an OECD project: Project International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) for a group of 23 countries in 2011. Van Damme (2015) shows (statistically) significant differences between the mean of the highest two countries (Finland and the Netherlands) and that of the lowest two (Italy and Spain), even though there is considerable spread around the mean, so that the top 5% performers in Italy and Spain perform better than the lowest 25% in Finland and the Netherlands. The competencies enriched at higher education can be valued against economic growth. Hanushek and Woessmann (2012, p. 275) find
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that competencies explain the differences in economic growth between countries for the period 1960–2000 and that the years of schooling then are less important. Sasso and Ritzen (2016) conclude moreover: “The part of the cross-country cross-sector variation in labor productivity that can be explained by human capital is remarkably large when it is measured by the average sectoral skills whereas it appears statistically insignificant in all our specifications when it is measured by the mere sectoral average school attainment.” OECD (2013a) made an attempt to come up with international comparable measures of competencies of graduates in the AHELO (i.e., Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes) project but has not yet been able to bring it to a practical implementation after a very costly test case. There are at present two ways to establish what makes graduates “excellent,” i.e., what they need to function well in society. One way is to ask the graduates, their employers, and other stakeholders (OECD 2013b, p.56). The other is to measure traits of graduates and to analyze statistically how important these traits are for the earnings of the graduates. Both approaches have been used in the recent past (see, e.g., Van der Velden and Humburg 2013). The conclusions are the same: • Cognitive achievement and knowledge of the field are important. Yet equally important is the capacity to use that knowledge in “problem solving.” • Most work is done in communication and cooperation with others. Essential parts of the job, for which the graduate needs to be prepared, are team work and internal communication. • Intercultural understanding is important as many graduates work in an international environment. • Graduates need to have a good understanding of ICT. Note that these traits go well beyond cognitive skills, into behavioral skills or personality traits. The policy discussion on higher education is often substantially focused on top-talent. This is understandable as the roots of the medieval universities lie at the provision of elite for society, to the point that even ordinary citizens could enter
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into the highest social class of nobility if they were well studied and had become important professionals. The course toward mass higher education of the post-Second World War era put the notion of top-talent in a different perspective. Hanushek and Woessmann (2012) asked the question what is more important to society: higher achievements in PISA of the lowest 30% of achievers, more attention for the mean, or higher achievements of the top group. In terms of economic growth, it seems the distribution of PISA achievement seems to matter: higher achievements of the lowest 30% and higher achievements of the top 10% turn out to be statistically significant in explaining economic growth while finally also the mean counts. To add further to the confusion, implicitly or explicitly, it is assumed that there is a trade-off in countries between top achievement and the level of achievement of the lowest 30%. However, the PISA experience for 53 countries rejects this assumption: countries can do well on both fronts.
Elusive Equity Equity is an important goal for society. Development is in part demonstrated by increased equity in educational participation. Equity in participation to higher education implies that students with the same talents at high school graduation should have equal chances to participate in higher education, also when they come from different parental backgrounds and different income groups. In most countries, the economic development process is embedded in providing opportunities for all for participation in education, in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This declaration, signed by most States, says in Article 26. 1: “Everyone has the right to education. . .. and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” The last part is a call to governments to remove what economists call “capital market imperfections” for participation in higher education. An individual who wants to make an investment can borrow money on the capital market, provided he or she can offer something of the same or a higher value as the investment as
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collateral, so that the lender is insured of the return of the capital borrowed for the investment. “Capital market imperfections” is a term to indicate that potential students who are able to complete higher education (“have merit” in the terms of the declaration) cannot borrow money on the capital market on reasonable interest rates to afford their studies (to be paid back once they have graduated), as they cannot offer a collateral. Their earning power after graduation cannot be used by private companies as collateral. To redress these “imperfections,” governments have to make student loans and grants for students available, so that students “with merit” do not have to forego higher education, because they are not able to afford the combination of tuition fees and the living costs of participation in higher education, in this way hoping to realize equality of access to higher education. Equality of opportunity is generally viewed through the “human rights” lens as a social goal of policy. However, equality of opportunity contributes to economic development as well, as it raises the competency level in the population, with its ensuing economic proceeds. Nevertheless, it is observed that there is a substantial relation between participation and completion of higher education and the social background of youngsters. OECD’s Education at a Glance (2015, p. 86) gives detailed figures on the percentages of graduates of higher education, by the level of education of the parents. The USA is the country with the highest percentage of parents of higher education graduates with higher education. The high figure for the USA is consistent with the widespread concern on equality of opportunity in the USA (Mettler 2014; Putnam 2015). Of course, these differences are for a substantial part explained by the “merits” of youngsters at completion of high school. It is observed from the PISA results that “social background has a strong impact on skills in some countries. . . In England/Northern Ireland (UK), Germany, Italy, Poland and the United States, social background has a major impact on literacy skills. In these countries more so than in others, the children of parents with low levels of education have significantly lower proficiency than those whose parents have higher levels of education, even after taking other
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factors into account . . .but Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden combine aboveaverage performance with a high level of equity” (OECD 2013b, p. 30). OECD uses here the word equity to indicate the relation between parental income and education on the one hand and achievement of the child at school on the other. It appears that in many Western European countries, school has become every year more important for achievement of the child in the period from 1960 to approximately 1980 (Ritzen 2011) but that for the birth cohorts born after 1980, this relation has become stable or even slightly declining. If we use the word equity as the OECD does, then it could be said that equity is stabilizing or slightly declining after a substantial period of an increase in equity. Ritzen (2011) explains this as a result of more segregation in housing and schools, in combination with an increase in the population of children with a migrant background. Cathles and Ritzen (2017) found that numeracy skills of adults within and across 12 different countries in 2011 are strongly associated with the accumulated public investments in education received by these adults during their schooling but – perhaps more importantly – that the timing of educational investments is important, with early investments playing the most fundamental role. Investment in primary education is associated with higher numeracy scores for those who went on to continue their education. Higher investments in tertiary education are needed in order to fully realize the benefit of the investments in primary school. This coincides with the findings about the important role of investments in primary education to engender “social equity.” At the same time, they underline the importance of investments in higher education for economic development.
References Acemoglu, D. 2002. Technological change, inequality and the labor market. Journal of Economic Literature 40 (1): 7–72. Acemoglu, D., F. Zilibotti, and P. Aghion. 2006. Distance to frontier, selection and economic growth. Journal of the European Economic association 4 (1): 37–74.
Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes Aghion, P., and P. Howitt. 1998. Endogenous growth theory. Cambridge: MIT Press. Aghion, P., L. Boustan, C. Hoxby, and J. Vandenbussche. 2009. The causal impact of education on economic growth: Evidence from US. Mimeo: Harvard University. Autor, David H., Lawrence F. Katz, and Melissa S. Kearney. 2006. The polarization of the U.S. Labor Market, NBER working paper No. 11986. Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee 2014. The second machine age. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0393-35064-7. Cathles, Alison and Jo Ritzen. 2017. Money counts, but so does timing: Public investment and adult competencies, IZA DP No. 10565. Elkana, Yehuda, and Hannes Kloepper. 2016. The university in the 21st century. CEU Press Budapest. ISBN 978-963-386-038-0. Etzkowitz, H. 2010. The triple helix: University-industrygovernment innovation in action. Routledge. Goldin, C., and L. Katz. 2008. The race between education and technology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hanushek, Eric A., and Woessmann. 2012. Do better schools lead to more economic growth? Cognitive kills, economic outcomes and causation. Journal of Economic Growth 17: 267–321. Helliwell, John F., Richard Layard, and Jeff Sachs. 2013. World happiness report, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Hoareau, Cecile, Jo Ritzen and Gabriele Marconi. 2012. The state of University policy for progress in Europe, IZA policy paper No. 51. Jaffe, Adam B. 1989. Real effects of academic research. The American Economic Review 79 (5): 957–970. Levy, F., and R. Murnane. 2005. The new division of labor: How computers are creating the next job market? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mettler, S. 2014. Degrees of inequality: How the politics of higher education sabotaged the American dream. New York: Basic Books. OECD 2013a. Learning outcomes, AHELO, feasibility study report, volume 3, Further insights. Paris: OECD Press. OECD. 2013b. OECD skills outlook 2013. Paris: OECD Press. OECD. 2015. Education at a glance. Paris: OECD Press. Phan, Dien, and Ian Coxhead. 2015. Education in South Asia, Chapter 12. In Routledge handbook of South Asian economics, ed. Ian Coxhead, 245–269. Routledge. Psacharopoulos, George, and Harry Anthony Patrinos. 2002. Returns to investment in education: A further update. World Bank. http://documents.worldbank. org/curated/en/512891468739485757/123523322_2004 1117181555/additional/multi0page.pdf Putnam, Robert D. 2015. Our kids; the American dream in crisis. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ritzen, Jo. 2011. A renaissance for social mobility and its significance for the bridge towards postsecondary education, Maastricht Economic and social Research institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), #2011-057. Ritzen, Jo. 2017. A second chance for Europe. Heidelberg: Springer.
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Sasso, Simone, and Jo Ritzen. 2016. Sectoral cognitive skills, R&D, and productivity: A cross-country crosssector Analysis. IZA discussion paper 10457. Tilak, Jandhyala B. G. 2006. Higher education and development. In International handbook of educational research in the Asia-Pacific region, Heidelberg: Springer, 809–826. Tinbergen, Jan. 1975. Income distribution: Analysis and policies. Amsterdam: North-Holland. ISBN: 9780720430943. Ugur, M., E. Trushin, E. Solomon, and F. Guidi. 2016. R&D and productivity in OECD firms and industries: A hierarchical meta-regression analysis. Research Policy, on line. Van Damme, Dirk. 2015. Global Higher Education in need of more and better learning metrics. European Journal of Higher Education 5 (4): 425–436. Van der Velden, R.K.W. and M. Humburg. 2013. What is expected of higher education graduates in the 21st century? ROA Research Memo, Maastricht University. Vandenbussche, J., P. Aghion, and C. Meghir. 2006. Growth, distance to frontier and composition of human capital. Journal Economic Growth 11: 97–127.
Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes Nico Cloete1,2, Peter Maassen3 and Pundy Pillay4 1 Centre for Higher Education Trust (CHET), Wynberg, South Africa 2 Department of Science and Technology-National Research Foundation (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence in Scientometrics and Science Technology and Innovation Policy (SciSTIP), University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa 3 Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 4 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Synonyms Nation state; Postsecondary education; Socioeconomic progress; Tertiary education
This work has been done within the context of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa (HERANA), supported by Carnegie Corporation.
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Definition The contributions of higher education to social and economic progress in a national context.
Functions of Higher Education Higher education institutions perform four basic functions, which form the foundation for their social contract (or “pact”) with society (Gornitzka et al. 2007). These functions, and their contradictions, have been discussed extensively in the academic literature: producing values and social legitimation, selecting the elite, training of the labor force, and producing new knowledge (see Castells 1993, 2001; Cloete et al. 2015; Trow 1970). Specifically in relation to development, the last two functions, namely training the labor force (the education function) and producing new knowledge (the research function), are of relevance. In the long history of higher education, the close relationship and mutual reliance of the two main functions of education and research only emerged towards the end of the eighteenth century in Germany, which saw the development of a new type of university, that is, the “research university” (Watson 2010: 225–226). In the emergence of the modern research university the establishment of the new Berlin University in 1806 formed an important turning point. This university incorporated both the scientific innovations developed at other German universities (Maassen 2014) as well as the new state vision on the role of the university in society as expressed by von Humboldt (Nybom 2007). The essence of this German university model was not to transfer “directly usable knowledge such as schools and colleges did, but rather to demonstrate how this knowledge is discovered” (Rüegg 2004: 5). The emerging US system combined the German research university model with the so-called Land Grant university model, which had a specific focus on science with application into society. Originally, the role of these Land Grant universities was to develop and apply knowledge for improving the productivity of US agriculture; to contribute to solving specific
problems resulting from the rapid urbanization of the USA; and to support the development of specific industries that had regional or national importance (Gornitzka and Maassen 2007). Other key functions of the Land Grant universities that are seldom mentioned include the requirement of the provision of extension services (especially in the area of agriculture) as well as the stated intention to provide greater access to higher education throughout the USA (Douglass 2007). According to Kerr (1991) and Castells (1993, 2001), a challenge for higher education institutions is that they cannot specialize in only one function and that many try to fulfill all four functions at the same time. A critical element in the structure and dynamics of higher education systems is to combine and make compatible various, sometimes contradictory, functions. The contradictions are not only between functions but also within functions (e.g., between “blue sky” and applied research). This requires institutions that have capacity and that are dynamic enough to withstand the tensions that will trigger the simultaneous performance of possibly contradictory functions. As Castells (2001: 14) puts it: The ability to manage such contradictions while emphasizing the universities’ role in generating knowledge and training labour in the context of the new requirements of the development process will to a large extent determine the capacity of countries and regions to become part of the new world economy.
Furthermore, universities cannot resolve the contradictions alone. In order to participate effectively in the global knowledge economy and regional development, a country must at least have a national research system, which includes a diversity of universities and other types of higher education institutions, private sector and public research centers, and private sector research and development (Castells 2009). We will start with discussing how the link between higher education and development can be conceptualized, followed by a discussion of the challenges developing countries face in their efforts to strengthen the research function of their universities.
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Linking Higher Education and Development At a 1991 World Bank seminar, Castells (1993) argued that the knowledge economy is based on the combination of technological infrastructure, connectivity, and human resources, but that without human resources, nothing works. Also Powell and Snellman (2004: 201) emphasize the essential role of human resources in their definition of the knowledge economy as “production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technological and scientific advance as well as equally rapid obsolescence. The key components of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources.” In the knowledge economy, universities and colleges have gained political and economic importance as any society’s core “knowledge institutions.” While it is certainly so that many other organizations form an important part of national innovation arenas, universities and colleges are the only specialized institutions whose core business is the production, reproduction, and dissemination of knowledge, including the education of the next knowledgeable or suitably qualified generation (Maassen 2012). At the same time, the question about the relationship between higher education and “development” – a term that is so general and ideological that it is almost meaningless – has in general been neglected in the academic literature (Kimenyi 2011), at least compared to the global attention given to the importance of primary education for development. In our discussion of the possible contributions of higher education to development, we will start by focusing on three areas with substantial international comparative research: the relative value placed on individual or private returns; public returns to higher education or the role of higher education in economic development; and higher education as a mediator of, or a contributor to, inequality. While it is widely accepted that education is a key mechanism for the development of the skills required for competitiveness in a global economy, its contribution to active citizenship and
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sustainable livelihoods is more contested and less well-evidenced (Mattes and Luescher-Mamashela 2012).
“Private” Returns In purely economic terms private returns to higher education contribute to development (Ashenfelter et al. 1999). In general, people with higher education pay more taxes, are more productive, consume more, and have a decreased reliance on government financial support (IHEP 1998). From the 1980s, the World Bank has undertaken global studies on private returns to education. In the latest study of 140 countries, calculated for 819 economy year points using UNDP Human Development Reports, Montenegro and Patrinos (2014) concluded that over the last two decades there has been a significant shift in the rate of private (individual) returns to education. The returns to schooling have declined from the early 1980s to post-2011 (from 13% to around 10%), which they ascribe mainly to the unprecedented increase in schooling (three more years globally). While there has been some decrease in overall rates of return, investment in education is still highly “profitable” (Krueger and Lindahl 2001). Global demand for high-level skills, such as working with new information and problemsolving, has kept the returns to schooling high in even the poorest countries of the world. In fact, the individual returns to tertiary education are higher in lower-income countries – except in the Middle East and North Africa owing to rigid labor market regulations (Montenegro and Patrinos 2014). The returns show that, with the exception of high-income economies, primary education has higher returns than secondary education, but that tertiary education has the highest returns. Internationally, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of university students and graduates, which should have led to a decrease in the rate of return to investment (when supply outpaces demand). However, what has changed quite dramatically is that, contrary to the Psacharopoulos (1985, 1995) findings that the rate of return to primary education is much greater than to higher
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Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes, Table 1 Average private returns to education by levels Region All economies East Asia South Asia Latin America Sub-Saharan Africa High income
Primary 11.5 13.6 6.0 7.8 14.4 4.9
Secondary 6.8 5.3 5.0 5.4 10.6 6.6
Tertiary 14.6 14.8 17.3 15.9 21.0 11.1
Source: Montenegro and Patrinos (2014)
education, the pattern has been reversed, and now the returns to tertiary education are significantly higher than those to primary and even more so than those to secondary schooling (see Table 1). Patrinos (2015) concluded that while there are demonstrable private and social returns to investing in education, there are considerable variations in returns depending on stage of economic development, with the highest returns in Sub-Saharan Africa, which also happens to be the fastest growing youth region in the world.
Stage of Development (“Public” Returns) In the discussion on the relationship between education and development it is important to note that while there is widespread agreement that education is related to development, there is little empirical evidence to demonstrate that education “drives” development (Bils and Klenow 1998; Krueger and Lindahl 2001). This also goes for higher education, that is, higher education is associated with and contributes to development, but it is not a sufficient condition (Pillay 2011). There are a number of global efforts to compare the stage of development of national economies. One of the best known of these efforts is the Global Competitiveness Index, annually published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which describes three broad categories of economies in terms of the relative competitiveness of the economy: factor-driven, efficiencydriven and innovation-driven economies. It further classifies all profiled countries into one of these three economies, or into one of two
transition stages between these three types. In their assessment, 12 pillars of indicators capture the fundamentals of the economies under study and, depending on how countries perform against these indicators, the countries are classified into one of the stages of economic development. In the first stage of economic development, factordriven economies compete on the efficiencies and effectiveness of their public and private institutions, the status of the infrastructure development within the country, the macro-economic environment in which the country performs, and the extent to which the workforce is healthy and has a basic education. As the economy grows and becomes more competitive so wages increase, the rates of return to public investment will improve, and the country will become more productive, moving into an efficiency-driven stage of economic development. In this stage, the production of goods improves, the focus shifts to improving the outputs from the higher education and training system, and the subsequent impact of this on the labor market, technology development, and financial indicators. In the final stage, the sustainability of the wages and associated quality of life is dependent on continuing innovation and more sophisticated business and production processes. Table 2 contains a range of indicators based on WEF data: education participation rates, primary school quality rankings (for secondary, quality ranking includes maths and science scores), rate of return for tertiary education, and global competitiveness ranking. Education participation rates (GER) for primary and secondary education do not seem to show any clear correspondence with stage of economic development, except that all the innovation-driven countries have a rate of above 98%. However, there is a remarkable association between a tertiary participation rate below 12 and a factor-driven economy, and the innovation economies which all have participation rates over 70%. Also interesting is that all the efficiency-driven and transition from efficiency- to innovationdriven economies have tertiary participation rates above 20%. The factor-driven economies have relatively high primary school attendance (except Pakistan), but much lower secondary school and very low tertiary participation rates. They also
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Higher Education and National Development, Meanings and Purposes, Table 2 Relationship between education, stage of development, returns and competitiveness Primary education GER QR Stage 1: Factor-driven Ghana 89 104 Kenya 84 84 Mozambique 87 138 Pakistan 72 112 Tanzania 84 124 Uganda 92 113 Transition from 1 to 2 Botswana 90 85 Stage 2: Efficiency-driven Egypt 95 139 South Africa 90 127 China 98 55 Transition from 2 to 3 Chile 92 108 Costa Rica 90 39 Brazil 87 132 Malaysia 97 15 Mauritius 98 48 Turkey 95 100 Stage 3: Innovation-driven Austria 98 30 Finland 99 1 Korea, Rep. 98 36 Norway 100 17 Singapore 100 3 United States 91 29
Secondary education GER QR (+M&S)
Tertiary education GER RoR
GCI GCI
67 67 26 38 33 27
76 (72) 36 (78) 119 (133) 75 (89) 98 (130) 81 (111)
12 4 5 10 4 4
29 22 18 15 19 –
119 99 133 64 120 115
82
77 (95)
20
–
71
86 111 89
139 (131) 138 (140) 56 (49)
30 20 26
– 40 21
116 49 28
89 109 99 71 96 86
86 (107) 28 (55) 132 (134) 6 (12) 49 (50) 92 (103)
75 48 26 37 41 70
18 20 17 22 22 15
35 52 75 18 46 51
98 108 97 111 108 94
37 (37) 4 (2) 66 (30) 11 (24) 3 (1) 18 (44)
72 94 99 74 83 94
9 – 13 10 11 15
23 8 26 11 2 3
GER: education participation rates using UNESCO (2010) classification of participation 20–24 year olds. World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2015/16, 5th Pillar: Higher Education and Training, http://reports. weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/competitiveness-rankings/#indicatorId=GCI.B.05 QR: quality rankings out of 140; +M&S: maths/science score. These data points are values derived from responses to the following questions: (i) Primary Education: In your country, how do you assess the quality of primary schools? (1 = extremely poor – among the worst in the world; 7 = excellent – among the best in the world); (ii) Secondary/Tertiary: In your country, how well does the education system meet the needs of a competitive economy? (1 = not well at all; 7 = extremely well); (iii) Maths and Science: In your country, how do you assess the quality of math and science education? (1 = extremely poor – among the worst in the world; 7 = excellent – among the best in the world). Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2015/16, 5.04 Quality of math and science education, http://reports.weforum.org/ global-competitiveness-report-2015-2016/competitiveness-rankings/ RoR: private rate of return, Montenegro and Patrinos (2014). Many countries were profiled but not all data points were available and data was provided for different years GCI: Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) for 140 countries (rounded decimal to nearest full value), World Economic Forum 2015/16
have very poor competiveness scores – again except for Pakistan, which is a general outlier with low schooling and tertiary participation, low quality but a high competitiveness rating. On the other extreme, the innovation economies have high schooling and very high tertiary
participation rates, high quality ratings (except Korea), and all are in the top 30 competitiveness rankings. Interesting in the transition between efficiency to innovation group are Chile, Costa Rica, and Mauritius where there are high participation rates in secondary education (90% or
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more), over 40% participation in tertiary education, relatively high rates of return (20 or more), and around the top 50 in competitiveness. Rates of return show that in the factor-driven economies, private returns are much higher (all above 15) than in the innovation stage where all are below 15. The factor-driven economies have poor participation rates, low quality rankings, and high rates of return. The transition from efficiency to innovation systems also has high rates of return, with widely varying participation and quality rankings. South Africa has the highest private returns to tertiary education in the world, with some of the poorest quality rankings, but with high participation in schooling. An explanation for this is offered in the following section on inequality. In terms of empirical indicators, there is a more direct association between tertiary education and economic competiveness. The measurable contribution of primary and secondary education to development is more difficult to demonstrate. A relatively small, but growing number of scholarly studies also emphasize the importance of higher education for development. (For an overview and review of studies on higher education and development, see Kimenyi (2011).) Tilak (2003), for example, argues on the basis of his analysis of data from 49 countries of the Asia Pacific region that higher education is a prerequisite for the development of nations. Tilak’s study has, among other things, indicated that there is a correlation between the size of the stock of the population with higher education in a specific country and the country’s prospects for economic development. Corroborative evidence by Cloete and Gillwald (2014: 162) showed a very strong association between participation rate and stage of economic development. A number of economic studies that have focused on the contribution of higher education to economic growth conclude that there is a link between higher education and economic growth, but this link is not “linearly mechanistic” (De Meulemeester and Rochat 1995). According to Kimenyi (2011) the emphasis of developing countries on investing in primary education and neglect of higher education in their development strategies is related to a lack of understanding of the high level of public rate of return to higher
education for developing countries. On the basis of a review of literature addressing the link between higher education and development he argues that there is convincing evidence of the impact of higher education on development. He shows, for example, that although there has been convergence across countries in primary school enrolments, the incomes of African countries have diverged from those of Asian and Latin American counterparts; while incomes have diverged so have enrolments in higher education (Kimenyi 2011: iii27–iii31). His overall conclusion is that the “continued neglect of higher education will be a major hindrance to the growth of African economies” (Kimenyi 2011: iii45). He proposes a number of areas for further research that could help to communicate more effectively the importance of higher education for development, including the role of the quality of higher education in economic development in developing countries (see also Hanushek and Woessmann 2008), and the aspects of higher education that contribute most directly to economic development.
Inequality With a clear link between education and high private returns to investment, particularly at the tertiary level, there is a rational assumption (stronger in low-income than in high-income countries) that education in general, and higher education in particular, is the route out of poverty. Access to higher education is regarded by the “haves” as a means to maintaining privilege, and by the “have-nots” as a means of getting out of poverty, but is this assumption correct? In the 1970s in the USA, 10% of students from the lowest income quintile went to university in contrast to 40–50% from quintiles four and five. By 2010, still only 10% of quintile one went to university, but for quintiles four and five the percentage had increased to between 80% and 90%. Higher education in the USA has thus become part of the mechanism for maintaining privilege. Piketty (2014) points out that in the USA, the level of wage inequality results directly from a failure to invest sufficiently in higher education. High tuition at both public and private universities
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keeps many individuals from receiving the training needed to shrink wage inequality and to make the country more equal and competitive globally. Given such trends, Piketty anticipates that social mobility will decline even further in the future as income increasingly determines access to American higher education. For Piketty (ibid.), if governments invested more heavily in high-quality professional training and advanced educational opportunities, and allowed broader segments of the population to have access to them, this would be the most effective way of increasing wages at the low-to-medium end of the scale, and decreasing the upper decile’s share of both wages and total income. On the other hand, the Hamilton Project strongly suggests that an increase in tertiary educational levels would increase incomes, but not change measures of overall inequality by much (Irwin 2015). Thus, it seems that while higher education contributes to development, and middle/upper class formation, it might not be an effective reducer of inequality.
Developing Countries In terms of the role of universities, the recruitment of social elites – first for the colonial administration and later for the new political regimes – became a fundamental function of universities in the “Third World” – not only in Africa, but also in Latin America and East Asia (Castells 2001: 213). Higher education in Africa is still an elite system, although the emergence of a private higher education sector has made it possible for students who could not enter public universities and colleges, to enroll in mainly small, low-quality private institutions, which in the majority of cases should not be called universities. As a consequence, the higher education participation rate has increased in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, even though it still is lagging behind the rest of the world, averaging below 10%. There has been a common misconception that a major problem in African higher education is that it has massified without resources. In reality, nowhere on the continent is there a differentiated and massified system; there are simply overcrowded elite systems.
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In the first decades after independence, a rhetoric about the “development university” emerged among both governments and universities. However, African governments did little to promote the development role of these institutions. In part this was because many of these governments had not developed a coherent development model, with notions of what the role of the universities would be. Instead, many had become embroiled in internal power struggles, as well as in the external politics of the Cold War and the politics of funding agencies such as the World Bank. It was during this period that the World Bank in particular, in part based on the “rate of return to investments in education” study (Psacharopoulos et al. 1986), concluded that development efforts in Africa should be refocused to concentrate on primary education. This contributed to dramatic decreases in per capita spending on higher education, from US$6,800 in 1980 to US$1,200 in 2002 (Hayward and Ncayiyana 2014). However, in the post-2005 period – supported by calls from, among others, Kofi Annan (then Secretary General of the United Nations), who urged that the university must become a primary tool for Africa’s development in the new century (Bloom et al. 2006: 2) – there has been a revitalization of higher education. As a result, many universities and higher education systems are going through far-reaching quantitative and qualitative changes (Cloete et al. 2015). In sharp contrast to Africa, and quite contrary to the US/European model, the East Asian economies did not see universities as sources of innovation – at least not during their half-century of accelerated economic catch-up. Instead, they saw universities as agents of human capital formation (Pillay 2011). Universities were viewed as advanced training institutions and were built and established at a tremendous rate. In Taiwan, for example, the national technical education superstructure expanded rapidly in parallel with other efforts to tap the knowledge of the advanced countries. In 1952, there were four universities and four junior colleges. By 1989, this infrastructure had expanded to 42 universities and 75 polytechnics or colleges – a massive expansion in just over three decades. Likewise, the Republic of Korea poured especially private resources into the tertiary sector – so much so that by 2000 its levels of enrolment were
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higher than those of the USA, which had been the leader in human capital formation in the preceding century. Also important is the point that latecomers that specialize in science and engineering first degrees stand the best chance of raising their per capita GDP (ibid.). In a more recent review, Carnoy et al. (2013) corroborated on this development. Among the development strategies and models used by the developing and emerging economies today, China appears to be among the most successful countries in applying the lessons of university expansion, knowledge application, and technology leverage. Like other successful eastern Asian countries China is drawing on the accumulated stock of knowledge of the industrial world and applies it in accelerated fashion to its own development agendas (Pillay 2011). What is different about this model is that the focus is not on the returns of higher education, but rather on the notions that higher education is a key ingredient in the development model of these societies, and that there is a relatively stable “pact” between state authorities and higher education about the main functions higher education is expected to fulfill in the further development of the society in which it is embedded.
Conclusion There is wide agreement, anchored in growing evidence, that higher education matters for development. As any country’s core knowledge institution, it plays a central role in the delivery of highly qualified graduates (the future “knowledge workers”), in the production of knowledge of relevance for economic growth and social development, and in the improved understanding of the nature of the major challenges confronting our societies, as well as in identifying ways for handling these challenges. However, our understanding of the conditions under which higher education’s potential contribution to development can be realized most effectively is still limited. This has to do with the complexity of the relationship, but also with the traditional neglect of higher education’s role in development in the academic literature as well as in governmental strategies and
policies, related to the under-appreciation among scholars, policy-makers, and donor agencies of the importance of higher education for development (Kimenyi 2011). While this situation is slowly changing, the effects of the neglect of the relationship between higher education and development are serious. This includes the continuous socioeconomic and political exclusion of a considerable segment of society (Piketty 2014), as well as the continuous lagging behind in economic growth and social development of a considerable number of developing countries, especially in Africa (Kimenyi 2011). Research on higher education can contribute to a more effective communication on the role of higher education in development. However, for that to happen research funding programs have to become more open to this issue, while higher education institutions, research centers and groups, and individual researchers have to be willing to build multidisciplinary capacity for addressing core questions with respect to the relationship between higher education and development.
References Ashenfelter, O., C. Harmon, and H. Oosterbeek. 1999. Empirical estimation of the school/earnings relationship-a review. Labour Economics 6: 453–470. Bloom, D., D. Canning, and K. Chan. 2006. Higher education and economic development in Africa. Cambridge: World Bank. Bils, M. and P.J. Klenow. 1998. Does Schooling Cause Growth or the Other Way Around? NBER Working Paper, No. 6393. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Carnoy, M., P. Loyalka, M. Dobryakova, R. Dossani, I. Froumin, K. Kuhns, J. Tilak, and R. Wang. 2013. University expansion in a changing global economy: Triumph of the BRICs? Stanford: Stanford University Press. Castells, M. 1993. The university system: Engine of development in the new world economy. In Improving higher education in developing countries, ed. A. Ransom, S.-M. Khoo, and V. Selvaratnam, 65–80. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Castells, M. 2001. Universities as dynamic systems of contradictory functions. In Challenges of globalisation: South African debates with Manuel Castells, ed. J. Muller, N. Cloete, and S. Badat, 206–223. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman. Castells, M. 2009. The role of universities in development, the economy and society: Transcript of a lecture on
Higher Education and the Public Good higher education. Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation. http://www.chet.org.za/papers/ role-universities-development-economy-and-society Cloete, N., and A. Gillwald. 2014. South African informational development and human development: Rights vs. capabilities. In Reconceptualising development in the global information age, ed. M. Castells and P. Himanen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cloete, N., P. Maassen, and T. Bailey (eds.). 2015. Knowledge production and contradictory functions in African higher education. Cape Town: African Minds. De Meulemeester, J., and D. Rochat. 1995. A causality analysis of the link between higher education and economic development. Economics of Education Review 14(4): 351–361. Douglass, J.A. 2007. The conditions for admission: Access, equity and the social contract of public universities. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. Gornitzka, Å., and P. Maassen. 2007. An instrument for national political agendas: The hierarchical vision. In University dynamics and European integration, ed. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 81–98. Dordrecht: Springer. Gornitzka, Å., P. Maassen, J.P. Olsen and B. Stensaker. 2007. Europe of Knowledge: Search for the new Pact. In University Dynamics and European Integration, eds. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 181–214. Dordrecht: Springer. Hanushek, E.A., and L. Woessmann. 2008. The role of cognitive skills in economic development. Journal of Economic Literature 46: 607–668. Hayward, F.M., and D.J. Ncayiyana. 2014. Confronting the challenges of graduate education in Sub-Saharan Africa and prospects for the future. International Journal of African Higher Education 1(1): 173–216. IHEP. 1998. Reaping the benefits: Defining the public and private value of going to college. Washington, DC: Institute for Higher Education Policy. Irwin, N. 2015. Why more education won’t fix economic inequality. New York Times, no. 31 March 2015 (March). http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/upshot/why-moreeducation-wont-fix-economic-inequality.html?_r¼0 Kerr, C. 1991. The great transformation in higher education, 1960–1980. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kimenyi, M.S. 2011. Contribution of higher education to economic development: A survey of international evidence. Journal of African Economies 20(AERC Supplement 3): iii14–iii49. Krueger, A.B.., and M. Lindahl. 2001. Education for growth: Why and for whom? Journal of Economic Literature 39(4): 1101–1136. Maassen, P. 2012. Separated connectedness: Institutional anchoring of networks aimed at stimulating economic development and innovation. In International conference on higher education and economic development. Pointe-Aux-Piments, Mauritius, 3–5 September 2012. Maassen, P. 2014. A new social contract for higher education? In Higher education in societies. A multi scale perspective, ed. G. Goastellec and F. Picard, 33–51. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Mattes, R., and T.M. Luescher-Mamashela. 2012. The roles of higher education in the democratisation of
637 politics in Africa: Reports of HERANA studies. Journal of Higher Education in Africa 10(1): 139–170. Montenegro, C.E., and H.A. Patrinos. 2014. Human development reports comparable estimates of returns to schooling around the world. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Nybom, T. 2007. A Rule-governed Community of Scholars: The Humboldt Vision in the History of the European University. In University Dynamics and European Integration, eds. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 55–80. Dordrecht: Springer. Patrinos, H.A. 2015. Higher education: Returns are high but we need to fund it better. Education for Global Development, no. 21 October 2015. http://blogs. worldbank.org/education/higher-education-returnsare-high-we-need-fund-it-better Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the twenty-first century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pillay, P. 2011. Higher education and economic development: A review of the literature. Cape Town: Centre for Higher Education Transformation. Powell, W.W., and K. Snellman. 2004. The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 199–220. Psacharopoulos, G. 1985. Returns to education: A further international update and implications. Journal of Human Resources 20(4): 583–604. Psacharopoulos, G. 1995. The profitability of investment in education. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Psacharopoulos, G., J.-P. Tan, and E. Jimenez. 1986. Financing education in developing countries: An exploration of policy options. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Rüegg, W. 2004. Themes. In A history of the university in Europe. Vol. 3: Universities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1800–1945), ed. W. Rüegg, 3–35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilak, J. 2003. Higher education and development in Asia. Journal of Educational Planning and Administration 17(2): 151–173. Trow, M. 1970. Reflections on the transition from mass to universal higher education. Daedalus 99(1): 1–42. Watson, P. 2010. The German genius. Europe’s third renaissance, the second scientific revolution and the twentieth century. London: Simon & Schuster.
Higher Education and the Public Good Jon Nixon Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
The idea of higher education as a public good is premised on the claim that it contributes to society as a whole across a wide variety of institutional
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settings. As such, it cannot be reduced to a multiplicity of private gains. It follows from this claim – which formed a central plank of the European post-WWII “settlement” and its expression in various forms of state “welfarism” – that higher education should be funded at least in part through the public purse. That claim is now highly contested and the debate on higher education and the public good is shifting significantly from the need to maintain a system of publically funded higher education towards the need to develop a system whereby the state exercises public responsibility for higher education through a variety of funding mechanisms. A major driver of this shift in emphasis has been the need to reconcile the funding of higher education with the austerity measures that have, rightly or wrongly, followed the 2007/2008 economic crisis and its continuing aftermath. Those measures have resulted in the dissolution of the public/private binary divide and the development of alternative for-profit and not-for-profit funding mechanisms. Nevertheless, the argument for higher education and the public good continues to rest on the assumption that strong democratic societies require educated and informed publics that are both inclusive and questioning. Within such societies, knowledge is the most public of all public goods – and education, therefore, is an indispensable resource, the benefits of which cut across a range of public interests and concerns. The more complex the society, the wider that range becomes; and the wider the range of public interests and concerns, the greater the need for public goods generally and for the public good of education in particular. From this perspective, higher education is a public good because it contributes to the development of an educated public with the capabilities necessary to fulfill the human potential of each of its citizens. In so doing it also contributes – both directly and indirectly – to the economic well-being of society as a whole (see, for example, Bergan et al. 2009; Calhoun 2006; Filippakou and Williams 2015; Leibowitz 2012; Nixon 2011; Walker 2012). Arguments combining moral commitment and economic assurances provided a convenient justification for the vast expansion of student numbers over the last 50 years in the United Kingdom and
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the USA, across Europe, and indeed globally. This expansion is a continuing phenomenon. As N.V. Varghese (2012, 36) notes, “enrolment in higher education totalled 152 million in 2007, and has doubled every 15 years starting from 1970.” However, it was – and is increasingly – the cost implications of this logic that have generated controversy: if education is deemed to be a public good, is the argument for its cost being borne either by individuals or by for-profit providers thereby diminished? Should public goods incur private costs? If public goods are privately purchased, do those goods thereby lose their public value? Indeed, can they continue to be categorized as public goods? Having accepted, in the boom years, the irresistible logic of the argument for expansion and widening participation, we are left in these austere times with its unavoidable legacy: the paradox of a privately funded public good. In the face of that paradox, the economic question assumes overriding importance. Economists advance a definition of public goods as products or services of which anyone can consume as much as desired without reducing the amount available for others. Multiple individuals can consume such products or services without diminishing their value and an individual cannot be prevented from consuming them whether or not the individual pays for them. These textbook distinctions hinge on what are referred to as the “non-rivalry” and “nonexcludability” criteria: public goods are “nonrivalrous” in the sense that they are accessible to all (without my consumption reducing your consumption) and “non-excludable” in the sense that we all have access to them (regardless of our ability to pay for them). The “non-rivalrous” criterion challenges the assumption that knowledge is the preserve of a particular caste, class, or clerisy and that any attempt to spread knowledge will necessarily mean spreading it thin. Since – so the argument goes – distribution leads to dilution and dilution to dissolution, the spread of knowledge needs to be tightly controlled and enforced. Of course, control is no longer exercised primarily through dynastic succession or patronage (though both continue to play their part), but it is rigorously enforced through a competitive zero-sum game of winners
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and losers. Entry to higher education is deeply “rivalrous” with, for example, a handful of élite UK universities accepting a hugely disproportionate number of applicants from families with the financial resources necessary to pay for the private schooling of their sons and daughters. The vast majority of students who have been schooled within the state system – some of whom may have equivalent academic qualifications to their privately educated counterparts – are thereby excluded. The “non-excludability” criterion is on the face of it more complicated in terms of its application to higher education. Not everyone, it is argued, would necessarily benefit from higher education, so the notion of “non-excludability” might be considered inapplicable. But who is to decide who would and would not benefit? And what implications would any such decision have for how we conceive of higher education? Such questions invite us to consider what a fully comprehensive and inclusive system of higher education might look like: what it would look like if instead of asking “Who would benefit from higher education as currently constituted?” we asked “What would higher education look like if everyone were able to benefit from it?” What would it look like, for example, if we jettisoned the false dichotomy of “academic versus vocational” – or abandoned the idea of the university as the exclusive or even the main institutional locus of higher education? These distinctions – relating to what is and is not designated a public good – make better sense when historically located. That is because the idea of “the public” is itself shaped by history and epoch: within an unrestrained monarchy, “the public” is little more than a body of office holders dependent on the Crown for status and courtly prestige; within a republic, on the other hand, “the public” is an expanded “body politic” of republican citizens endowed with political will and purpose; and within a modern late-capitalist democratic state “the public” is literate and reasonable, critical in the defense and promotion of its own vested interests, external to the direct exercise of political power, and deeply committed to the ideal of individual freedom. The latter comprises a more or less informed electorate, for whom property, private ownership, and the
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assumption of merit become the prime raison d’être. This modern construction of “the public” is, as Dan Hind (2010, 44) puts it, a “public of private interests” that has produced “the paradox of modern power, the fact of a secret public.” The “public of private interests” is sustained by what the historian Tony Judt (2009/2010, 88) has called the “cult of privatisation.” Privatization appears to save money: “if the state owns an inefficient public program or an expensive public service – a waterworks, a car factory, a railway – it seeks to offload it onto private buyers” (p. 88). The “cult of privatisation” is premised on the assumption that private buyers will not only reduce public expenditure but will also manage public services – the energy utility, the public transport system, and, increasingly, higher education – with more efficiency than their public sector counterparts. From within the “cult of privatisation,” privatization is just plain common sense. There is – to invoke the mantra – no alternative. That is the supposed rationale by which “the public of private interests” justifies the increasing privatization of higher education and the increasing disparity of institutions across the higher education sector. Privatization, however, leads to marketization which in turn leads to increased competition. That has resulted in the current situation whereby – within the United Kingdom – the older universities have almost permanent and undisputed occupancy of the premier league, the post-1992 universities are well represented across the broad span of second league institutions, and the bottom league is occupied almost entirely by institutions that have gained university status more recently. League tables are a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby those institutions located at the top recruit high-profile academic staff and attract the bulk of available research funding (see Nixon 2013). Of those entering these premier league institutions a disproportionately large number have been privately educated. In an analysis covering over one million university student admissions during the period 2002–2006, the Sutton Trust (2008) documented for the first time the extent to which a few individual schools supply the majority of students to the United Kingdom’s leading
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research universities – and with lower academic qualifications. “Basically put,” as the Chairman of the Sutton Trust remarks in his foreword to the report, “a student in a state school is as likely to go on to a leading university as a student from the independent sector who gets two grades lower at A+ level” (p. 1). The social capital – or cache – of the public school entrant outbids the academic achievements of the state school entrant. Private interest – and privilege – wins over the public good. The inequalities evident in patterns of entry to institutions of higher education are reflected in the entry patterns to the older professions. The funnel effect whereby the privately educated gain a disproportionate share of places at the leading universities has the further effect of ensuring that they fill not only a disproportionate number of posts within the older professions but also a disproportionate number of top posts within those same professions. The deep codes of chronic structural inequality remain: institutional stratification across the higher education sector, the reproduction of privilege through the selective mechanisms of higher education, and the consolidation of privately educated professional elites. These inequalities contribute to the erosion of higher education as a public good (Nixon 2015). The UK National Equality Panel provided ample evidence in its independent report of the cumulative effect of inequality across the life cycle: “we see this before children enter school, through the school years, through entry into the labour market, and on to retirement . . . Economic advantage and disadvantage reinforce themselves across the life cycle, and often on to the next generation” (Hills et al. 2010, 386). This crossgenerational reproduction of inequality is evident in the pattern of student achievement within higher education: “two thirds of those with professional parents received firsts or upper seconds, but only half of those with unskilled parents. White students were the most likely to get firsts or upper seconds, and Black and Pakistani/Bangladeshi students the least likely” (p. 366). Those inequalities of access and outcome are compounded by inequalities in the quality of
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provision – the inequalities of quality. On the one hand, the stratification of the higher education sector clearly reduces access to higher education: a reduction which, given contributory factors such as the rise in student fees and institutional variations across the sector, hits prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds with the greatest severity. On the other hand, it undoubtedly reduces the quality of higher education provision for the majority of students in the majority of institutions, with the result that those students who rely most heavily on state support have an impoverished experience of higher education: more mass lectures, less one-to-one tuition, fewer opportunities for seminar discussions, shorter courses. There is, therefore, as Stefan Collini (2011, 14) makes clear, a need to ensure that those entering universities “are not cheated of their entitlement to an education, not palmed off, in the name of ‘meeting the needs of employers’, with a narrow training that is thought by right-wing policyformers to be ‘good enough for the likes of them’, while the children of the privileged classes continue to attend properly resourced universities that can continue to boast their standing in global league tables” (original emphasis). Within the United Kingdom, the decline in staff-student ratios in the past three decades (from an estimated high of 1:8 to the current 1:22) has, claims Collini (2012), resulted in “an alarming reduction in the number of ‘contact’ hours and amount of personal attention each student receives” (p. 31) He adds that “nearly all parents with children at university hear disturbing reports of overcrowded ‘seminars’ and minimal contact hours or attention to written work” (p. 179). Higher education faces a hard choice: either it continues to acquiesce in the reproduction of inequality or it challenges its own role in that reproductive cycle. The choice is between two sharply contrasting visions of society and the place of higher education within it. The first is of a society that lacks cohesion and is economically sluggish and politically disengaged. It relies on subjects who know their place in society and are punctilious in the protection of their own private interests. It focuses on the past and views
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inequality as inevitable. At the bottom of this society are, as Joseph Stiglitz (2012, 289) shows, “millions of young people alienated and without hope.” Within this vision of society, higher education contributes to the private gain of those individuals who are in the fortunate position of being able to afford it. The second vision is of a society that embraces difference and is economically resilient and democratically purposeful. It requires citizens who demand their place within the polity and consider their own interests to be inextricably entwined with the public interest. It focuses on alternative futures and challenges the legacy of inequality. It is a society where, as Stiglitz again puts it, “the gap between the haves and the have-nots has been narrowed, where there is a sense of shared destiny, [and] a common commitment to opportunity and fairness” (p. 289). Within this vision, higher education contributes to the public good of society as a whole and is accessible to anyone able to benefit from it regardless of whether they can pay for it. This second vision was partially endorsed both by the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education convened in April 2009 under the auspices of the Bologna Process and by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in its Communiqué of July 2009. The Bologna Communiqué acknowledged that “[o]ur societies currently face the consequences of a global and economic crisis,” while stating that “we consider investment in higher education of utmost priority” (Bologna Process 2009). Similarly, the UNESCO Communiqué acknowledged that “[t]he current economic downturn may widen the gap in access and quality between developed and developing countries as well as within countries” and stated that, “[a]s a public good and a strategic imperative for all levels of education and as the basis for research, innovation and creativity, higher education must be a matter of responsibility and economic support of all governments.” It went on to assert that “Higher Education as a public good is the responsibility of all stakeholders, especially governments” (UNESCO 2009). Subsequent Bologna Communiqués have become increasingly enmeshed in an ill-defined
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distinction between higher education as a public good and higher education as a public responsibility. The distinction may be a fine one, but it is crucial in terms of government policy. It was implicit in the 2009 Bologna Communiqué which, while asserting that “[w]ithin the framework of public responsibility we confirm that public funding remains the main priority to guarantee equitable access and further sustainable development of autonomous higher education institutions,” insisted that “[g]reater attention should be paid to seeking new and diversified sources and methods”: public responsibility for higher education could – and perhaps should – include private investment and/or a combination of private and public sources of funding (See European Commission 2009). This shift from the idea of higher education as a public good to higher education as a public responsibility draws heavily on “social contract” arguments, according to which individuals surrender to the state some of their freedoms in exchange for the protection of their remaining rights. In this case, institutions of higher education – and their academic staff – reign in their claim to unconditional academic freedom and/or autonomy in exchange for the state taking responsibility for the sustainability of higher education whether through the mechanisms of public funding, public/private partnerships, or fully privatized sources of funding. The question then arises as to whether the institutions and professional groups concerned will accept the terms of whatever “social contract” is on offer or whether they will see it as at best bureaucratic meddling and at worst a serious encroachment on academic freedom. If public responsibility for higher education is to be viewed in the context of social contract theory, then it is clearly unsustainable if either the higher education sector or the state adopts an uncompromising position. Negotiation coupled with hard political bargaining becomes the order of the day: an order that crumbles if, for example, academic autonomy or academic freedom is seen as a nonnegotiable absolute or if the state imposes what is seen as too rigorous an accountability regime. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the public is itself a constituent element of the
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“social contract.” The question then follows as to whether the public is willing to accept the levels of public expenditure necessary for achieving full access to higher education, and, if so, what level of public expenditure is acceptable. That leads to further questions regarding how – and from whom – the necessary revenue should be collected. For example: should there be higher income tax rates at the top of society? Should the tax base be broadened so as to reduce the available tax concessions? Should there be a tax on wealth transfers? Should an annual wealth tax be introduced? (Atkinson 2015, 179–204) These are particularly difficult questions to address given the widespread assumption that “a public of private interests” favors low rates of taxation and that any political party standing on a platform of higher taxation runs the risk of electoral defeat. The above questions touch on major issues relating to the governance of higher education both at the level of the individual institution, the level of the national higher education sector, and the regional level of cross-national cooperation and collaboration. Jay Dee (2006) has argued that the emphasis should be on different elements within the overall system having the flexibility to respond to the various demands made upon them and the opportunities open to them, while at the same time having some sense of overall organizational coherence. The idea of “loosely coupled governance,” he argues, is useful in thinking about how different elements – such as individual institutions and the state – should interact with one another. The emphasis, in other words, should be less on “government” as a centralizing force than on “governance” as a devolved process of power sharing whereby public accountability and academic autonomy achieve a workable equilibrium. Clearly, the debate on higher education and the public good raises questions not only about how higher education is funded but about who funds it and why. Increasingly, it is being funded through private investment for personal gain. Is that what the public wants? It also raises questions about who should have access to and participate in higher education. As I have argued, access and participation are historically skewed in favor of those with both economic and social capital. Is that what we – the public – want? The current
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debate raises further questions about what form higher education should take. Do we want a highly specialized higher education curriculum or a more broad-based and cross-disciplinary curriculum? Underlying these different sets of questions is the underlying question of what higher education is for. Is it to prepare young people for entry to a highly competitive job market or to become responsible and informed global citizens? Or is it – as seems most likely – a complex amalgam of the two which defies the timeworn distinction between “vocational” and “academic”? Until we have had a much more open and public debate about what higher education is for it is difficult to see how we can develop a coherent response to the funding question, to questions relating to student access and participation, or to the question of what should be taught and how. Those involved in higher education – as researchers, teachers and scholars – have a crucial role to play in shaping that debate. “In contributing to the public good in the future,” writes Angela Brew (2015, 110), “universities will need to be more proactive in addressing critical questions that arise through the process of educating future professionals, industrialists, politicians and academics.” They will also need to be more proactive in relating to the wide variety of stakeholders that have an interest in ensuring a more diverse, expansive and inclusive system of higher education. As Hans-Georg Gadamer emphasized in his 1959 address to commemorate the 550th anniversary of the University of Leipzig, “only by means of the participation of the whole public may a university develop its true powers” (Misgeld and Nicolson 1992, 33). In addressing what Brew calls the “critical questions” we are in effect asking what kind of a society – and what kind of a polity – we want to be: one committed to short-term private gain, one shaped by a long-term vision of the public good, or one located in the betwixt-and-between twilight zone of private and public interests. If we are witnessing a shift from the idea of higher education as a public good towards that of higher education as a public responsibility, then we need to define with much greater clarity the nature of that responsibility.
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References Atkinson, Anthony B. 2015. Inequality. What can be done? Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press. Bergan, Sjur, Rafael Guarga, Eva Egron Polak, José Dias Sobrinho, Rajesh Tandon, and Jandhyala B.J. Talik. 2009. Public responsibility for higher education. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Bologna Process. 2009. The Bologna Process 2020 – The European higher education area in the new decade: Communiqué of the conference of European ministers responsible for higher education, Leuven and Louvainla-Neuve, 28–29 April 2009. Brew, Angela. 2015. The paradoxical university and the public good. In Higher education as a public good: Critical perspectives on theory, policy and practice, ed. Ourania Filippakou and Gareth Williams, 97–112. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Calhoun, Craig. 2006. The university and the public good. Thesis 11 84: 7–43. Collini, Stefan. 2011. From Robbins to McKinsey. London Review of Books 33(16): 9–14. Collini, Stefan. 2012. What are universities for? London: Penguin. Dee, Jay. 2006. Institutional autonomy and state-level accountability: Loosely coupled governance and the public good. In Governance and the public good, ed. William G. Tierney, 133–156. Albany: State University of New York Press. European Commission. 2009. Communiqué of the conference of European ministers responsible for higher education, Leuven and Leuven-la-Neuve, 28–29 April 2009. Brussels: European Commission. Filippakou, Ourania, and Gareth Williams (eds.). 2015. Higher education as a public good: Critical perspectives on theory, policy and practice. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Hills, John, Mike Brewer, Stephen Jenkins, Ruth Lister, Ruth Lupton, Stephen Machin, Colin Mills, Tariq Modood, Teresa Rees, and Sheila Riddell. 2010. An anatomy of economic inequality in the UK: Report of the National Equality Panel, CASE report 60. London: Government Equalities Office/CASE The London School of Economics and Political Science (January). Hind, Dan. 2010. The return of the public. London/New York: Verso. Judt, Tony. 2009/2010. What is living and what is dead in social democracy? The New York Review of Books LVI (20): 86–96 (December 17, 2009–January 13, 2010). Leibowitz, Brenda (ed.). 2012. Higher education for the public good: Views from the south. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books. Misgeld, Dieter, and Graeme Nicholson (eds.). 1992. HansGeorg Gadamer on education, poetry, and history: Applied hermeneutics. Trans. Lawrence Schmidt and Monica Reuss. Albany: State University of New York. Nixon, Jon. 2011. Higher education and the public good: Imagining the university. London/New York: Bloomsbury.
643 Nixon, Jon. 2013. The drift to conformity: The myth of institutional diversity. In Global university rankings: Challenges for European higher education, ed. Tero Erkkilä, 92–106. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Nixon, Jon. 2015. Inequality and the erosion of the public good. In Higher education as a public good: Critical perspectives on theory, policy and practice, ed. Ourania Filippakou and Gareth Williams, 163–177. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Stiglitz, Joseph. 2012. The price of inequality. London: Allen Lane. Sutton Trust. 2008. University admissions by individual schools. London: The Sutton Trust. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2009. Communiqué 8 July 2009. 2009 World conference on higher education: The new dynamics of higher education and research for social change and development. Paris: UNESCO. Varghese, N.V. 2012. Drivers of reforms in higher education. In The reorientation of higher education: Challenging the east–west dichotomy, CERC studies in comparative education, vol. 31, ed. Bob Adamson, Jon Nixon, and Feng Su, 36–49. Hong Kong: Springer with Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong. Walker, Melanie. 2012. Universities, professional capabilities and contributions to the public good in South Africa. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 42(6): 819–838.
Higher Education as a Global Reality Hans de Wit and Philip G. Altbach Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA
Synonyms Global higher education; International higher education
Definition International higher education concerns the study and analysis of higher education in the international and global context. Higher education has experienced dramatic expansion in the past half-century. Massification has changed the reality of postsecondary
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education everywhere. At the same time, the global knowledge economy has made higher education and research a key player and the international dimensions of universities more important than ever. Universities have always had an international focus, although different by time, by location, and by type of institution. In this chapter, we describe and analyze the major trends in higher education worldwide: its massification, privatization, diversification, and internationalization. We also focus on access and equity, the role of the academic profession, autonomy and academic freedom, and the role of reputation, rankings, and excellence. Altbach et al. (2010) wrote for the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education a report on Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution. The topics addressed in that report, including quality assurance, the student experience, teaching and learning, financing, the role of ICT and distance education, and university-industry relations, remain relevant trends. What can be considered as a key new development, emerging over the past recent years, is the changing political climate of anti-globalism, anti-immigration, xenophobia, and other nationalist populist eruptions that are taking place around the world and which impact global higher education. Manifestations of this trend are Brexit in the United Kingdom and the Trump administration in the United States but also more nationalist inward-looking movements in continental Europe, Russia, China, Turkey, the Philippines, and Israel, to mention the main ones (Altbach and de Wit 2016, 2017). It is too early to tell what the exact and direct implications of this development will be, but it will most likely have a changing and accelerating effect on mobility patterns in higher education, on autonomy and academic freedom, and on the privatization and commercialization in higher education, as well as other key dimensions of global higher education.
Massification During the last five decades, the higher education landscape has changed dramatically. Once the privilege of an elite social class, gross enrollment ratios (GRE) in postsecondary education have
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mushroomed to more than 50% in many countries. There are more than 200 million students studying globally at an untold number of institutions focusing on every specialization possible. In much of the world, massification is a key phenomenon. Emerging economies, including China, India, and Latin America (with gross enrollment ratios of 37%, 22%, and 35%, respectively), are expanding their enrollment rates toward 50% or more as is common in the developed world. Even in countries in Africa, still at the elite phase of less than 15% of GRE, the demand for higher education as a result of improved primary and secondary education and an emerging middle class is rapidly expanding. On the other side, one can observe a saturation in demand in countries which already have moved far beyond the 50% GRE characteristic of universal enrollment, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. In those places, for demographic and other reasons, the supply of tertiary places in particular in STEM fields is starting to become higher than demand. International students and scholars are needed to fill the demand for graduates in these fields. Such students are mainly coming from the developing and emerging economies, resulting in brain drain and related decrease in research and top talent capacity in these countries. In the current anti-immigration climate, tensions increase between the need for imported highskilled talents and the desire to reduce the influx of immigrants. Massification is a key factor in the development of higher education around the world. It has implications on all other key indicators (Altbach 2016, pp. 31–32).
The Global Knowledge Economy The other key element in higher education development and in internationalization in the past half-century has been the impact of the global knowledge economy – the increasingly technology- and science-based globalized set of economic relations that requires high levels of knowledge, skills, and sophisticated international relations. Research-intensive universities
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play a particularly important part in the global knowledge economy. Not only do they educate top talent, but they are also the main producers of basic research in most countries. Research universities are among the main internationally linked institutions. They have strong links with similar institutions around the globe, host international faculty and students, and increasingly function in the global language of science and scholarship – English. The global knowledge economy relies on research universities. While these institutions are a small minority of postsecondary education everywhere, they are at the pinnacle of the higher education hierarchy. They are the institutions that appear in the global rankings and have the most prestige. Other postsecondary institutions look up to them, and many try to emulate them. In many ways – by stressing elite values, emphasizing research, and having high levels of selectivity of both faculty and students – research universities embedded in the global knowledge economy pull higher education in the opposite direction from the pressures of massification. These universities tend to be public institutions – with some clear examples of private, not-for-profit institutions in some countries, like the United States and Japan – and require higher levels of funding than institutions serving a mass clientele. The research university sector is significantly different than the rest of the higher education system, and although in many countries these universities may constitute only 10% of the higher education sector, they are of great importance to the sector, the economy, and the society. There is a great variety by country and region in the size and relevance of research universities and in the role and position of research as such. Douglas (2016) and others (Teferra 2017, in the African context) refer to this type of universities as “flagship universities,” institutions that provide leadership to the rest of the higher education system.
Differentiation Massification has led to a great differentiation in higher education. As Altbach et al. (2017) state:
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“These unprecedented demands on postsecondary education have led to the greatest expansion in postsecondary education in history. At the top of the prestige hierarchy in every country stands the traditional research-intensive university. While these institutions constitute only a small number, perhaps 2–5% of an estimated total of 22,000 universities worldwide, they are of great importance” (p. 9). But under them there is a great variety of institutions. Postsecondary education has become diversified but for the most part not adequately differentiated in most countries. There is a vast array of institutions, but there is no clear differentiated system of institutions with clearly identified missions and purposes, and that is subject to appropriate and relevant mechanisms for quality assurance. From large research universities and vocationally oriented universities of applied sciences granting a range of degrees and certificates to small specialized vocational institutes providing additional qualifications virtually in every field, quality varies dramatically. Many newer institutions are private (often for-profit entities), and this sector is the fastest-growing segment of postsecondary education worldwide. “It is reasonable to view the current global landscape as postsecondary anarchy incorporating a vast range of institutions of differing foci, quality, and usefulness. There is an urgent need for the planning and structuring of coherent systems of postsecondary education to serve the ever expanding and increasingly diverse clientele in need of the skills required for the knowledge economy and opportunities for social mobility” (p. 9). The traditional university sector is not as uniform as might appear at first glance. A trend toward greater autonomy nearly everywhere has allowed for significant differentiation within the sector. Most new institutions focus on the teaching function of the university. Only a small number of universities are truly research universities, and their number and quality differ by country. Countries around the world have created alternatives to the traditional university. These range from basic vocational institutes to universities of applied science to address specific needs of the labor market designed to serve individuals without the desire or capacity to pursue more traditional academic study. The variation within this
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sector and from country to country is considerable, ranging from quite sophisticated and highly skilled programs at the Fachhochschule in Germany to low-level vocational programs offered by the industrial training institutes in India. This sector may well meet the needs of individuals who need to enter the labor market quickly, yet many of these programs too often prove to be “dead ends” with limited options for continuing study or for improving employment opportunities. Countries such as France, Japan, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom have moved to better integrate this sector into the larger postsecondary system, allowing graduates of the more practically oriented programs to continue their studies in the traditional academic sector. In several countries, the distinction between the two sectors has blurred considerably. This is particularly notable in Germany where “Fachhochschule” (University of Applied Sciences) now awards bachelors and master degrees that are considered part of the university sector. In societies where more prestige and social standing is afforded to a university degree than to a nonuniversity qualification, there is also the tendency toward “mission creep” evidenced clearly in the absorption of the polytechnics into the university system in England (Altbach and de Wit 2017). In relation to differentiation, most governments have focused on three objectives. The first is developing an elite sector of research-intensive institutions, in part to find a place in the rankings but also to participate in a global knowledge economy. The second objective has been to find a way to provide access to larger numbers of ever more diverse students. This has been done by creating new institutions, expanding enrollment at existing institutions, allowing the expansion of the private sector, and developing national strategies for co-financing the cost of study. Finally, governments have struggled to develop systems to monitor and assure reasonable levels of quality from all providers, as well as control and regulate spending. Postsecondary education systems everywhere are continuing to expand but without a well-defined strategy to balance competing demands and objectives or to align the growth of a system with the needs of individuals, the labor
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market, national development, or the possibilities of new technologies and new providers (Altbach and de Wit 2017).
Privatization and Private Higher Education Massification has not only resulted in differentiation but also in privatization. The rapid increase in cost of expansion of supply of higher education presents developing and emerging countries with public funding challenges, and this results in an increasing privatization. Higher education in the developed world is facing similar challenges but in a less speedy and substantive way. As a result, governments stimulate and demand a diversification of funding of public higher education, through contract research, continuing education, donations, and in particular tuition fees. At the same time, they stimulate and endorse the development of a private higher education sector, both not-for-profit and increasingly also for-profit institutions. As Altbach et al. (2010) state, “the growth of private higher education worldwide has been one of the most remarkable developments of the past several decades” (p. 13). At the same time, there is a tremendous variation by country and region in relation to the nature and scope of private higher education and its importance compared to public higher education. There is in several countries (the United states, Japan) and regions (Latin America) a tradition of not-forprofit, mission-based private institutions of higher education, in particular (but not exclusively) the so-called faith-based institutions, while the more current growth is in for-profit institutions of higher education. There are private institutions controlled by churches, by families, by companies, by trade unions, and more recently by multinational conglomerates such as the Apollo Group, Kaplan, and the Laureate Group. Altbach (2016) refers to ownership by multinational conglomerates as the multinationalization of private higher education. Most of the newer private institutions are mainly undergraduate teaching institutions; they are tuition based and receive no or very limited public funding (and, if so, mainly through financial aid for students). There are issues of
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comprehensiveness, quality assurance, conditions for the academic profession, social responsibility, and sustainability that affect these institutions, which are often of rather poor quality (Altbach 2016). One can also note the privatization of public universities in many countries. As the state spends less on public higher education, these institutions are forced to rely more on their own resources – usually by raising the cost of tuition or shifting more of the burden of the cost of tuition onto students and their families. The cost of public higher education has increased in much of the world – although in some countries, such as Germany and the Scandinavian countries, public postsecondary education remains free. Attempts in Germany and Austria to introduce tuition fees have not been successful, while in other countries (South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom), an appeal for tuition-free higher education has emerged, and in other countries (Chile, Ecuador, the Philippines) tuition-free higher education has been implemented. Such appeals and decisions, although understandable, ignore the complexity of factors influencing access and equity in higher education.
Internationalization The massification of higher education and the increasing importance of higher education and research for the global knowledge economy result in an increasing importance of its internationalization. There are now close to five million students studying abroad, double the amount of 10 years ago, and predictions are a further increase to at least eight million in the next decade. There is increasing global competition for international students taking place. The classic divide between those countries which are sending (mainly the emerging and developing countries) and those who are receiving (mainly the developed and in particular English-speaking countries plus Germany and France) is shifting, and the current political climate will accelerate that process in the years to come. The international student industry has become a more global and competitive market.
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There is also increasing competition for academic staff. The presence of international faculty within higher education institutions and systems around the world is an important dimension of higher education in the global knowledge economy. Yet the scope and nature of international mobility of faculty are a rather unknown and understudied phenomenon; there is a lack of consensus with respect to what defines as an “international” academic; and there are different profiles for the institutions recruiting them: from the elite research universities recruiting the most sought-after academics on the one side of the spectrum to institutions or systems facing local shortages of faculty and recruiting regional and international faculty to meet basic operational needs (Yudkevich et al. 2017). There is growing demand and recognition for “internationalization at home,” including internationalization of the curriculum, teaching and learning, learning outcomes, and global citizenship development. The reality is that only a very small percentage of scholars and students have the opportunity or even the desire to go abroad for a full degree or short term, ranging from 1–5% in most countries in the world to 20–30% in countries like Germany and the Netherlands. And this implies that one has to internationalize at home, to be able to equip all students for the knowledge society we live in. The internationalization of research is another dimension of this phenomenon. Like the case of international faculty, the internationalization of graduate education and research, including international co-authorship and other international research benchmarks, is receiving far less attention, other than through international rankings. Research, however, becomes a more complex enterprise and requires more international collaboration and competition than ever. Top academic talent is a scarce commodity, and processes around issues such as patents and knowledge transfer require more support than in the past. Long-term planning for research infrastructure, increased research capacity, development of new research platforms, and better coordination between research units all require a more strategic focus on capacity development and international research policies and systems. The growth in
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international research funding, patents, publications, and citations requires the development of research teams of a global nature. Bibliometric analysis yields evidence of increasing scientific collaboration with the international scientific community. Talented doctoral students and scholars are the international human capital on which research and development and innovation build. The dominance of English as the lingua franca in research is pervasive and has also expanded to teaching and learning. This, together with the increasing attention to international rankings and the role of research in them, explains why in recent years more attention is given to the development of national and institutional strategies for the internationalization of research. Other elements of internationalization are international branding, reputation, and rankings. The agenda of internationalization increasingly is driven by the rankings and the quantitative international indicators they rely on: number of international students, number of international faculty, and number of internationally co-authored publications. These indicators ignore the relevance of internationalization at home and of teaching and learning. According to de Wit et al. (2015), internationalization needs to evolve into a more comprehensive, more intentional, and less elitist (for all students and staff) process, less focused on mobility and less economically driven, with the goal to enhance the quality of education and research and make a meaningful contribution to society.
Access and Equity One of the main challenges for higher education is to create a balanced system of access and equity. “There is little question that participation in higher education has expanded dramatically during the last decade,” but that cannot be said of social equity (Altbach et al. 2010). Everywhere, equity is a serious challenge, and the divide between those families that can or cannot afford and have access to quality higher education is growing. The lack of equity has recently been receiving more attention, with a focus on “free higher education,” in countries like Chile, South Africa, the
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Philippines, and Ecuador but also in the developed world, for instance, in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Tuition-free higher education as an isolated policy is not only an illusion but has also proven not to guarantee equity. It is not a sustainable solution to access and equity, and it has been shown that tuition-free higher education benefits wealthy families the most. Other factors, such as the quality of and access to public primary and secondary education, the role of entrance exams, financial aid packages, and cultural capital are more important for access and equity.
The Academic Profession Altbach et al. (2010) observe that “the growing tension between enrollment demand, constrained budgets, and greater accountability has resulted in a discouraging environment for the academic profession worldwide” (p. 85). The academic profession faces challenges everywhere, with increasing dependence on nontenured staff and less qualified academics. In the developing world, most academics still lack doctoral degrees, and in many cases even master’s qualifications, and are mainly focused on teaching, are poorly paid and minimally respected, and are often forced to take additional jobs – including a combination of teaching in both public and private institutions of higher education. The professoriate is aging in many contexts, which will soon create staffing gaps. There is also a tendency toward increased differentiation and segmentation, in the sense that fulltime tenured academic positions combining research and teaching are everywhere increasingly replaced by temporary, part-time, and underqualified teachers, with only the elite wordclass universities still holding largely on to the traditional academic profession. Based on an extensive study of academic salaries (Altbach et al. 2012), the authors conclude that the academic profession, within countries and globally, is divided as never before, and this diversity is reflected in an uneven spectrum of employment conditions for scholars. Further massification and privatization will strengthen that process even more.
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Autonomy and Academic Freedom The idea of university autonomy has a strong basis on the development of the university as we know it. It is strongly embedded in the rise of the research-oriented Humboldt University in the early nineteenth century, in Latin American higher education after the Cordoba Reform of 1918, and in the further evolution of universities around the world. Autonomy and academic freedom are at the very core of the mission of the university. It is an essential basis for quality higher education, teaching, and research (Altbach 2016). Academic freedom has a long and controversial history, including confrontations with or threats from the Catholic Church, Nazi Germany, Cold War politics, and dictatorships in developing countries. The current political climate will lead to even more attacks on academic freedom, as is manifested in countries like Turkey, the Philippines, Thailand, China, and many others. This will hinder the development of quality higher education and research. “More attention needs to be given to the mission and values of the university, for without academic freedom, universities cannot achieve their potential or fully contribute to the emerging knowledge-based society” (Altbach 2016, p. 239).
Reputation and Rankings National, regional, and global university rankings are driving the agendas of institutional leaders and national governments more than ever. Many governments, in particular in the North but increasingly also in the South, create excellence programs and investment schemes to become more globally competitive, have world-class universities, and move higher in the rankings. While on the one hand there is a call for more access and equity, governments and institutions of higher education are striving for more excellence in research and teaching and learning. Altbach and Salmi (2011; see also Wang et al. 2013) give an overview of what separates elite research universities from the rest, centering on “a number of basic features: highly qualified faculty; excellence in research results; quality of teaching and learning; high levels of government
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and non-government sources of funding; international and highly talented students; academic freedom; well-defined autonomous governance structures; and well-equipped facilities for teaching, research, administration, and often student life” (p. 3). Salmi (2009) summarizes them as a high concentration of talents, abundant resources, and favorable and autonomous governance. Excellence initiatives in, for instance, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, China, and other countries have strengthened national system differentiation by separating a new elite sector of world-class universities from other more nationally and regionally oriented research universities. The universities being cultivated for world-class status receive significant additional government support to “catch up” and compete with the better known, well-established research universities in the United States (Ivy League), the United Kingdom (Russell Group), and Australia (Group of Eight) (Altbach et al. 2017). Rankings – national, regional, global, institutional, by discipline and across an increasing number of other dimensions – have come to play an ever more important role in higher education. As Marginson (2017) states, “global ranking is still only 13 years old but has already installed itself as a permanent part of’ international higher education: it has deeply transformed the sector. Global ranking is inevitable. People inside and outside the sector want to understand higher education, and ranking is the simplest way to do so” (pp. 6–7). Global ranking has remade global higher education in three ways, according to Marginson: first, competition, the idea of higher education as a competitive market of universities and countries; second, hierarchy, as a core element of the system of valuation; and third, performance, a performance economy driving “an often frenetic culture of continuous improvement in each institution.” Yudkevich et al. (2016) speak of the The Global Academic Rankings Game, in which only a small portion of the higher education sector competes. This minority of institutions gets all the attention and forces governments and institutions to “compete” without acknowledging the need for differentiation. Rankings are here to stay, but governments and institutional leaders should not let themselves be guided by indicators defined
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by rankers – rather, quality should be pursued by investing in a diverse and broad higher education system. As Altbach and Hazelkorn (2017) state: “Prestige and reputation have become dominant drivers rather than pursuance of quality and student achievement, intensifying social stratification and reputational differentiation” (p. 10).
Concluding Remarks In addition to the key trends described in this chapter, other related trends are important to mention: public and private financing of higher education, quality assurance and accountability, the role of ICT and distance education, the student experience, teaching and learning, and so on. This overview of contextual developments in higher education around the world makes clear that higher education, like the world around it, is in turmoil. One cannot isolate what is happening in higher education from what is happening around us.
References Altbach, P.G. 2016. Global perspectives on higher education. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P.G., and H. de Wit. 2016. Internationalization and global tension: Lessons from history. In Altbach, global perspectives on higher education, ed. G. Philip, 73–78. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P.G., and H. de Wit. 2017. Nationalism: The end of higher education internationalization? Amsterdam: European Association for International Education. Altbach, P.G., and E. Hazelkorn. 2017. Rankings in the age of massification. International Higher Education 89: 8–10. Altbach, P.G., and J. Salmi, eds. 2011. The road to academic excellence. The making of world-class research universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Altbach, P.G., L. Reisberg, and L. Rumbley. 2010. Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Altbach, P.G., L. Reisberg, M. Yudkevich, G. Androushchak, and I.F. Pacheco, eds. 2012. Paying the professorate. A global comparison of compensation and contracts. New York: Routledge. Altbach, P.G., L. Reisberg, and H. de Wit, eds. 2017. Responding to massification. Differentiation in postsecondary education worldwide. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. De Wit, H., F. Hunter, L. Howard, and E. Egron Polak, eds. 2015. Internationalisation of higher education.
Brussels: European Parliament, Directorate-General for Internal Policies. European Commission (2013). Douglas, J., ed. 2016. The New Flagship University. Changing the paradigm from global ranking to national relevancy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Marginson, S. 2017. Do rankings drive better academic performance? International Higher Education 89: 6–7. Salmi, J. 2009. The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Teferra, D., ed. 2017. Flagship Universities in Africa. Cham: Springer. Wang, Q., Y. Cheng, and N.C. Liu, eds. 2013. Building world-class universities. Different approaches to a shared goal. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Yudkevich, M., P.G. Altbach, and L.E. Rumbley, eds. 2016. The global academic rankings game. Changing institutional policy, practice, and academic life. New York: Routledge. Yudkevich, M., P.G. Altbach, and L.E. Rumbley, eds. 2017. International faculty in higher education. Comparative perspectives on recruitment, integration, and impact. New York: Routledge.
Higher Education as Part of Configuration of Institutions and Actors Who Produce, Store, Disseminate and Use Knowledge ▶ Higher Education in Knowledge Systems
Higher Education Conferences Barbara M. Kehm Leibniz Centre for Science and Society, Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany
Synonyms Learned society or association; Meetings or gatherings of people active in the field of higher education
Definition Research-, policy-, and/or practice-oriented national or international conferences in the field of higher education.
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Introduction With the emergence of mass higher education and a number of countries even having crossed the threshold to universal higher education (i.e., more than 50% of an age cohort entering some kind of higher education), research about higher education has become an increasingly important field of knowledge production with close links to policy making and practice. Links to policy making have increased due to the need for better, more, and, in particular, evidence-based knowledge to provide a sounder basis for decision-making and policy development. Links to practice are important as higher education leadership and management of increasingly complex institutions require professionalization. Being an interdisciplinary, objectand problem-related field of research and study, higher education research is characterized by fluid “borders between research, evaluation and consultancy” (Schneijderberg et al. 2011: 11). In the following, the main elements of the institutional basis of higher education research will first be described, because higher education conferences are one of them. This is followed by an overview of the most important higher education conferences and their characteristics in terms of research, policy, and practice. The conclusions will offer a brief summary of the research basis for the topic and propose directions for further development.
The Institutional Basis of Higher Education as a Field of Research While not being a proper academic discipline, higher education research and studies have nevertheless established themselves by developing an institutional basis (Schwarz and Teichler 2000; Kehm 2015). The institutional basis of a discipline or a field of studies and research typically has the following components: • It is located in an academic department, research center, or institute. • It has professorial positions associated to it. • It can be studied at undergraduate and/or graduate degree level and offers doctoral training.
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• It has academic journals associated with it in which research results are published. • It has its own professional or learned organization. • Periodically, conferences are organized so that papers can be presented, networking can take place, and general exchanges among scholars about the state of the discipline or field can take place. The field of higher education research is not equally institutionalized in all countries around the world. The higher the number of each of the elements listed above, the stronger the institutional basis, although typically there will be only one or perhaps two learned organizations per country, and in these it is the number of members that counts. Historically, the USA have the most developed and also the most diversified institutional basis for the field of higher education research. Altbach and colleagues (Altbach et al. 2007) have published a worldwide inventory of higher education centers and programs, which also includes a list of degree programs offered in the field of higher education. Although the inventory is heavily US oriented, the sheer number of centers and programs that can be found in the USA is telling. Nevertheless, it is necessary to keep in mind that the number of higher education (research) centers, programs, and conferences is very fluid. New ones may be established and existing ones may disappear. There have been a couple of attempts to sketch the landscape of higher education study programs in Europe (Pellert and Pausits 2006 and Maassen and Pausits 2013). In their survey-based overview which unfortunately does not include the UK, Maassen and Pausits (2013: 75) were able to identify 18 providers of 29 programs and courses located in 10 European countries. What is interesting and noteworthy in this context is the fact that the vast majority of European programs are specialized higher education management programs and courses preparing practitioners for middle- and higher-level management tasks in higher education institutions. They do not prepare a new generation of higher education researchers. In contrast, a broader range of specialized programs can be found in the USA, for example, for
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student counseling, institutional research, administration of finances, etc. Research-oriented master’s and doctoral programs remain sparse in both world regions. The scarcity of research-oriented master’slevel and doctoral-level programs is related to the fact that the number of professors who exclusively carry out research in the field of higher education is considerably lower than the number of professors who occasionally carry out higher education research but have their main academic affiliation in a discipline, such as sociology, economics, education, or political science. It is also lower than the number of reflective practitioners in higher education, e.g., university leaders, administrators, and politicians, who see themselves as experts in the field. There can be parttime researchers or consultants leading to a certain blurring of roles between the expert and the reflective practitioner. In this context, it is noteworthy that there are a number of professional organizations as well as journals and conferences for these groups of professionals.
Typology of Conferences The blurring of boundaries between researchers, experts or consultants, policy makers, and reflective practitioners described in the previous section and so typical for the field of higher education research is also reflected in higher education conferences. Many of these conferences address more than one or even all four groups as potential participants and thus cannot be characterized as purely research oriented. A good example for this type of organization is EAIR, formerly the European Association of Institutional Research, nowadays called the European Higher Education Society Linking Research, Policy and Practice (www.eairweb.org). EAIR attracts higher education researchers, policy makers, and representatives of institutional management. It runs several special interest groups, and its annual Conference offers paper and poster presentations. In addition, the field of higher education research is somewhat divided into researchers focusing on issues of teaching and learning, pedagogy, and didactics and researchers addressing
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structures and processes and comparing system developments. Each of these two groups tends to have its own conferences, networks, and publication outlets. In the following the focus is on the second type of research-oriented conferences in the field of higher education research, although some other thematic focuses are included as well. Concerning higher education conferences, a further distinction is necessary with regard to geographical outreach and type of organization. Five forms can be distinguished: 1. Higher education conferences organized by a local center or institution. These can have a local, a national, or an international outreach. An example for a conference organized by a local center but with international outreach would be the annual higher education conference organized by the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Moscow (https://educonf.hse. ru/en). This is a research-oriented conference which also includes elements of policy analysis of current topics and public debates in the field of higher education. The conference is based on paper presentations. There are also many other conferences organized by local centers or institutions with local, national, or international outreach that are a singular or just occasional event. 2. Higher education conferences organized by a national organization of higher education researchers and having a dominantly national outreach. An example for such a conference would be the annual conference of the German Society for Higher Educations Researchers (GfHf) (https://www.gfhf.net). According to its mission to be a platform for German and German-speaking higher education researchers, the language of the website and at the annual conference is German. The annual conference of the GfHf is dominantly research oriented and includes a special element of supporting young higher education researchers who can apply in a competition for receiving (monetary) awards for the best master and doctoral thesis. The conference is based on paper and poster presentations. 3. A third form is higher education conferences organized by international organizations of
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higher education researchers or by national organizations with an international or even global outreach. An example for the first type is the European-based but internationally focused Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) (www.cher-highered. org). The conference is based on paper and poster presentations and is clearly research oriented. An example for the second type is the American-based Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) (http://www.ashe. ws). ASHE has a rather broad mission. In between its annual conferences, it runs seminars and offers awards for distinguished and early career researchers as well as for outstanding leadership and services to the organization. Its website also includes job postings and a database of (American) higher education study programs. 4. Another form is national or international organizations that focus more generally on education and education research but have a subdivision or a special interest group for higher education. Examples for this type would be the American Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) (www.cies.us) and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) (www.aera.net). CIES runs a number of special interest groups and regional conferences and wants to advance the theoretical basis of comparative research as well as to inform policy debates. In addition to its annual conference, AERA offers further events and meetings, including professional development courses. It also has job offers on its website. 5. The fifth and final form to be mentioned here is national, more often international, organizations that do not address higher education in particular but a more general theme which also constitutes a topic within higher education research and thus attracts higher education researchers who specialize on this topic. An example for this type would be the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) (https://www.egosnet.org). EGOS aims to advance the theoretical and empirical knowledge of organizations, including higher education institutions. It has 13 standing working groups and covers a broad range of themes as
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well as issue-based research. It has an active voice in policy debates and supports younger researchers by running workshops. Another way of classifying higher education conferences is by looking strictly at world regions. Because most national communities of higher education researchers either tend to be too small to merit a national organization which could organize regular conferences or higher education researchers are not part of an organization at all, a look at higher education conferences by world region or continent seems to make more sense. A request for information sent by the author of this entry to colleagues around the world resulted in the following information. North America shows the most highly differentiated picture due to the diversity of the field as such. Apart from those conferences already listed, most professional groups within a university, for example, business and finance officers, institutional researchers, student counselors, or internationalization officers, have their own organizations which offer annual meetings for knowledge and information exchange, networking, and possibly advocacy. Sometimes research papers are presented at these conferences, but research is not their main focus. There are also institutional or organizational associations. Two examples of this are (1) the American Council on Education (ACE) (www.acenet.edu) which represents the presidents of accredited degree-granting higher education institutions and (2) the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) (www.chea.org) which is an association of degree-granting US colleges and accreditation organizations. ACE covers a variety of higher education topics but has a focus on leadership and advocacy. It runs leadership programs, supports executive search, has job offers on its website, and runs three centers of excellence. CHEA is focused on accreditation policy and practice. Its website includes databases and directories as well as information on accreditation and recognition. Apart from its annual Conference, it runs smaller workshops and also has a publication series. In Europe, the picture is somewhat less differentiated with less than a handful of organizations like the Consortium of Higher Education
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Researchers (CHER) as a research-focused network; EAIR focusing on researchers, policy makers, and practitioners; and the researchoriented, UK-based Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE; www.srhe.ac.uk). The Society organizes networks and offers smaller events, including professional development programs and awards. SRHE is well known for its journals and book series which are published in cooperation with the Open University Press. Still, there are quite a few other professional organizations in the field of higher education. The International Association of Universities (IAU), a broad membership association of universities and higher education institutions around the world, offers a calendar of higher education conferences which does not distinguish between conferences for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners/ institutional management (http://www.iau-aiu. net/content/global-calendar). In Russia the only conference targeting higher education researchers is the one organized by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, although individual higher education institutions might organize the occasional conference in the field of higher education. On the African continent, South Africa seems to be the most active country in terms of organizing higher education conferences. The biggest one is focused on issues of teaching and learning and organized by the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of South Africa (HELTASA) (www.heltasa.org.za). Apart from its annual Conference, HELTASA also offers a national excellence in teaching and learning award and runs special interest groups. However, some individual institutions organize smaller conference events around topics such as higher education, teaching and learning, or research and innovation. Examples are the annual conference of the University of Kwazulu-Natal on higher education research and policy (www.ukzn.ac.za) and the biennial conference of the University of Stellenbosch on research into postgraduate supervision (https://www.sun.ac.za). The most active organization on the Asian continent in the field of higher education research which also organizes annual conferences is the Higher Education Research
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Association (HERA) (https://heresearch. wordpress.com). It was established in 2014 and mainly focuses on East Asia and the Pacific. Thus, it is explicitly an organization and platform for higher education researchers in that region. Themes and locations of the annual conferences change every year. HERA pursues academic development in the field of higher education research in theory and practice and supports the development of young higher education scholars. A better overview of issues happening on the Asian continent might be provided by a recently published book tracing the evolution of research in the field of higher education in Asian countries, analyzing the evolving higher education research communities in Asia, and identifying common as well as nationally different challenges (Jung et al. 2018). No responses to the request for information on higher education conferences were received from the Middle East, Central and Latin America, China, or Australia.
Conclusions In conclusion, it is evident that an exhaustive list of higher education conferences can neither be found according to world regions nor globally. Despite the fact that Altbach et al. (2007) have attempted to produce a worldwide inventory of higher education research centers and study programs in the field of higher education, these constitute only some, albeit important, elements of the institutional basis of higher education research. The lack of an inventory of higher education conferences can partly be attributed to the fact that higher education research is not a discipline. As an interdisciplinary and problemoriented field, higher education also constitutes a theme, a topic, or even a focus at conferences of other fields of research and study which are more strongly organized along disciplinary lines. For example, higher education management and funding might be an issue at a conference of economists, the legal basis of higher education might be a topic at a conference of members of the legal profession or at a conference for members of public administration, and structures and
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processes in higher education or the role of higher education in contemporary societies might be discussed at a sociology conference. The typology of higher education conferences that has been developed in this contribution reflects this situation, and it will be very difficult if not impossible to compile an exhaustive list of higher education conferences without clearly demarcating the field and defining, for example, what should count as a higher education conference in contrast to a conference of sociologists which happens to focus partially or as a whole on issues of higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers ▶ EAIR: The European Higher Education Society ▶ Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), The
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Websites American Council on Education (ACE). www.acenet.edu American Educational Research Association (AERA). www.aera.net Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). http://www.ashe.ws Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). www.cies.us Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER). www.cher-highered.org Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). www.chea.org European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS). https://www.egosnet.org German Society for Higher Education Researchers (GfHf). https://www.gfhf.net Higher Education Learning & Teaching Association of South Africae (HELTASA). www.heltasa.org.za Higher Education Research Association (HERA). https:// heresearch.wordpress.com Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow. https:// educonf.hse.ru/en International University Association (IAU). http://www. iau-aiu.net/content/global-calendar Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). https://srhe.ac.uk The European Higher Education Society (EAIR). www. eairweb.org University of Kwazulu-Natal. www.ukzn.ac.za University of Stellenbosch. https://www.sun.ac.za
References Altbach, P.G., L.A. Bozeman, N. Janashia, and L.E. Rumbley, eds. 2007. Higher education: A worldwide inventory of centers and programs. Revised edn. Rotterdam: Sense. Jung, J., H. Horta, and A. Yonezawa, eds. 2018. Researching higher education in Asia. History, development and future. Singapore: Springer Nature. Kehm, B.M. 2015. Higher education as a field of study and research in Europe. European Journal of Education 50 (1): 60–74. Maassen, P., and A. Pausits. 2013. Higher education management programmes in Europe: From grassroots to sustainable development and impact. In The development of higher education research in Europe. 25 years of CHER, ed. B.M. Kehm and C. Musselin, 69–86. Rotterdam/Boston/Taipei: Sense Publishers. Pellert, A., and A. Pausits. 2006. Synoptical compilation of tertiary level institutions for higher education management in Europe and their study and training programmes. A Study commissioned by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Krems: Donau Universität. Schneijderberg, C., K. Kloke, and E. Braun. 2011. Disziplinäre Zugänge zur Hochschulforschung. Die Hochschule 20 (2): 7–24. Schwarz, S., and U. Teichler, eds. 2000. The institutional basis of higher education research. Experiences and perspectives. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer.
Higher Education Development ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador
Higher Education Expansion in Africa and Middle East Thierry M. Luescher University of the Free State, Mangaung, South Africa
The MEA region covers 54 countries in Africa (Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DR Congo, Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia,
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Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) and 14 in the Middle East (Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen (excluding Turkey)) which in 2015 comprised a total population of 1.4 billion. The region is generally characterized by high population growth and a very young population whereby the majority of the population in three-quarters of the countries of the region is under the age of 24 (UIS 2016a). Most countries of the Middle East and several countries in Africa have predominantly extractive economies based on oil or key minerals (bauxite, diamonds, platinum) and agricultural products. They have benefited from strong economic growth in the last two decades and come under increasing pressure to reform their public sector and diversify their economies. Several countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are among the poorest in the world, and the MEA region is the most fragile and conflict-ridden region in the world. In the midst of this complex context, higher education is booming: it is expanding faster in MEA than in any other world region while facing a diverse set of challenges for its future development and that of the region. Africa in particular has seen the fastest expansion of higher education anywhere in the world from very low levels of provision in the 1970s to a point where there are now several national systems that have achieved massification. In 2015, systems with a GER over 15% were found in Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritius, and South Africa, as well as in all North African states except Mauritania. Massification was achieved in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia well before the 2000s and in the following decade in Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan (UIS 2016a). In SSA, continued high growth rates of up to 30% have
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ensured a rapid expansion; in the extreme cases of Portuguese-speaking countries like Angola and Mozambique, the expansion has been nothing short of dramatic in the last two decades (Langa 2013). Despite this, the rate of expansion in the majority of African countries and the GER in SSA overall is still lower than in other world regions, and there persist a number of national systems that only serve the tiniest of elites. Conversely, the largest national higher education systems in Africa are found in Egypt and Nigeria with estimated enrolments of 2.5 million and 2.3 million students, respectively, followed by Algeria (1.5 million students) and South Africa (just over a million students) (UIS 2016a). In the Middle East, most countries achieved massification before the 2000s and have reached levels of universal higher education of a GER of 50% or above before 2015. The first country in the Middle East to do so was Israel, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and finally Jordan (UIS 2016a). Comparably low enrolments can be found in Yemen and at a higher level (and rapidly growing) in Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. By far the largest system in 2015 was Iran with over 4.5 million students, followed by Saudi Arabia (1.5 million), Syria, and Israel (with approx. 650,000 students each) (UIS 2016a). The MEA region is also one of high outbound international student mobility, especially students from SSA who are the second most mobile in the world (after those from Central Asia). Moreover, a number of countries in the region are successfully attracting inbound students: South Africa, for instance, is the preferred destination of mobile students from SSA alongside traditional student destinations like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are actively seeking to recruit more international students (UIS 2010, 2016b). Higher education expansion has gone hand in hand with a privatization of provision. Especially in SSA in the last two decades, this has principally taken two forms: the more or less regulated mushrooming of private higher education providers and increased enrolments in existing public
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institutions, especially by instituting cost-sharing measures and introducing fee-paying (private) students in previously fee-free public universities. A number of countries, such as Ghana and Nigeria, have made significant public investments in building new institutions like polytechnics; however, Africa’s experience of rapid expansion is predominantly one of “institutional massification,” whereby much of the growth is absorbed by a small number of fast-growing universities leading to “overcrowded elite systems” rather than system massification (Mohamedbhai 2014; Cloete and Maassen 2015). Private institutions tend to be established either by foreign universities to operate akin to multinationals, in collaboration with existing institutions, or by religious groups typically as Islamic or Christian universities (Varghese 2006). The expansion of higher education in MEA is also creating so-called “mega-universities” like the Islamic Azad University of Iran, a private university founded in 1982, which enrolls over 1.7 million students. Other mega-universities in the region include Payame Noor University (800,000 students) in Iran, the University of South Africa with over 350,000 students, Cairo University in Egypt (250,000 students), and King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia (180,000 students). In addition, Nigeria decided in 2013 to grow six of its federal universities into mega institutions of 150–200,000 students each as a way of expanding public provision (Nigeria plans. . . 2013). Many countries nurture the aspiration to develop one or several national flagship universities into high-ranking, world-class research universities. Yet, by 2016, only the University of Cape Town and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ranked in the top 200 of the THES World University Rankings. In addition, only a small a number of institutions made it into the top 500 including the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia; the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology; Makerere University, Uganda; and the Iran University of Science and Technology, among others (Times Higher Education 2016).
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The expansion of higher education in the MEA region involves not only changes in the institutional landscape; the region faces challenges at multiple levels including the quality, equity, and relevance of provision. Especially in North Africa and the Middle East, graduate unemployment has become a serious problem. Massified if not universal provision paired with low quality and relevance has resulted in a situation whereby higher education in the Middle East and North Africa now offers the lowest private rate of return of any world region (8.9). In stark contrast, in SSA, where expansion still lags, higher education offers the highest rate of return (21.9) (Montenegro and Patrinos 2014). Neither of these polar opposites is desirable: they signal social problems of unemployment and inequality, respectively, which result in escalating youth dissatisfaction with the political, educational, and economic systems that give rise to them. Within and beyond higher education institutions, the results are escalating levels of student and youth activism (Luescher 2016). Higher education in the MEA region thus requires incisive reforms and innovation at different levels, including an appropriate differentiation between institutions, the establishment of new institutions, improved regulation of private provision, and programs that serve specific sectors of the growing economies and reflect the aspirations of new kinds of students. Even in some of the massified systems in the region, higher education continues to provide disproportionally access (and success) for male students and students from well-to-do backgrounds. Sector-level reforms will also need to address the status of the academic profession along with a reconceptualization of the relationship between government and university and improving the quality of teaching and learning and research (Altbach 2011). Current and future investment in higher education, in general, R&D capacity, and the development of research universities, in particular, must therefore be part of a broader strategy of binding the sector into a “development pact” to leapfrog in the social and economic dimensions (Cloete et al. 2015). Promising policy pronouncements to this ends are contained in the 2014 Arab
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Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and the related Declaration and Action Plan of the African Higher Education Summit of 2015.
Higher Education Expansion in Asia and the Pacific
Higher Education Expansion in Asia and the Pacific Gerard A. Postiglione Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
References Altbach, Philip G. 2011. Reforming higher education in the Middle East – And elsewhere. International Higher Education 64: 2–3. Cloete, Nico, and Peter Maassen. 2015. Roles of universities and the African context. In Knowledge production and contradictory functions in African higher education, ed. Nico Cloete, Peter Maassen, and Tracy Bailey, 1–17. Cape Town: African Minds. Cloete, Nico, Peter Maassen, and Tracy Bailey, ed. 2015. Knowledge production and contradictory functions in African higher education. Cape Town: African Minds. Langa, Patricio V. 2013. Higher education in Portuguese speaking African countries: A five country baseline study. Somerset West: African Minds. Luescher, Thierry M. 2016. Student representation in a context of democratisation and massification in Africa: Analytical approaches, theoretical perspectives and #RhodesMustFall. In Student politics in Africa: Representation and activism, ed. Thierry M. Luescher, Manja Klemenčič, and James Otieno Jowi, 27–60. Cape Town: African Minds. Mohamedbhai, Goolam. 2014. Massification in higher education institutions in Africa: Causes, consequences, and responses. International Journal of African Higher Education 1(1): 59–83. Montenegro, Claudio E., and Harry A. Patrinos. 2014. Comparable estimates of returns to schooling around the world, Policy research paper 7020. Washington, DC: The World Bank Group. Nigeria plans six mega universities. 2013. PM news. 25 April 2013. http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/ 04/25/nigeria-plans-six-mega-universities/. Accessed 27 June 2016. Times Higher Education. 2016. World university rankings 2015–2016. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ world-university-rankings/2016/world-ranking. Accessed 26 July 2016. UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). 2010. UIS fact sheet. No. 10, December 2010. http://www.uis. unesco.org/FactSheets/Documents/fs10-2010-en.pdf. Accessed 28 May 2016. UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). 2016a. Higher education statistics. http://data.uis.unesco.org/. Accessed 28 May 2016. UIS (UNESCO Institute for Statistics). 2016b. Global flow of tertiary level students. http://www.uis.unesco.org/ Education/Pages/international-student-flow-viz.aspx. Accessed 28 May 2016. Varghese, N.V., ed. 2006. Growth and expansion of private higher education in Africa. Paris: UNESCO/IIEP.
The turn of the twenty-first century has seen a worldwide expansion of higher education hurled forward by the discourse of globalization and knowledge economics. This is especially true in the Asia-Pacific region which has become a major driver of the global economy and where higher education is expected to produce talent to sustain the region’s rising leadership (Shin et al. 2015). The Asia-Pacific region is far from monolithic with its vast diversity of languages, religions, economies, and political systems. We can classify Asia-Pacific higher education systems into three groups. First are those universal access systems with over 60% enrolment, including South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Second are those mass access systems that have reached 30% enrolment, including China, Singapore, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, and Thailand. Others systems like Vietnam, Macao, and Indonesia are approaching 30% enrolments but are classified with the low-enrolment elite systems of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, and other small island systems (Vargese 2015). In the lead are the so-called chopstick societies including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam with high proportions of students in the STEM fields, widely considered essential for innovation and economic growth. For example, China’s two thousand plus colleges and universities already produced five times more (over 2.5 m) graduates in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) than the United States (McKinsey and Co 2015). Asia’s top-tier research universities have begun to stun the academic world. According to the Times Higher Education, almost one-eighth (24) of the world’s top 200 are Asian universities, most with Confucian heritages. This could rise to one-quarter by 2050 (Postiglione 2015a). Unlike
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Hong Kong and Singapore which have small highly selective systems that use English and are anchored in service economies, the other three industrial giants (Japan, Korea, and China) received enormous financial support from their governments in the form of projects to build world-class universities such as Japan’s COE21, Brain Korea, and China’s 985 Project. Such government initiatives, largely in northeast Asia, have given a jump start to their top universities in the world rankings while also bestowing prestige, building confidence, and attracting investment. Southeast Asia is a different story. With the exception of Singapore, and possibly Malaysia, few Southeast Asian universities are situated to join the ranks of the world-class club. There is less of an orientation to the global knowledge economy, as there is in the northeast. There are no excellence initiatives of the sort initiated in Japan, Korea, and China for strengthening research universities. Finally, in general, internationalization in higher education is weak, except in Singapore. Malaysia has branch campuses of Australian universities and its International Islamic University. While it is virtually impossible to generalize about the region’s higher education systems, top-tier universities are inevitably state universities, while the private sector occupies the second and third tier (ADB 2012). With few exceptions, their quality is questionable. Private institutions are a new initiative in many places. Cambodia was finally allowed to set them up in 1997 (Chealy 2006). They only become legal in Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 1995, Malaysia in 1996, Thailand in 2003, and Vietnam in 2005 (Vargese 2015). China promulgated a private education law in 2002. Private higher education in Asia is the fastestgrowing sector, with about 40% of all students (Levy 2010). Foreign universities have been welcomed to establish degree programs and branch campuses to help absorb the demand that local institutions are unable to provide. Singapore has the most international branch campuses in the region, with China and Malaysia close behind. There are several major challenges facing higher education in the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps the greatest challenge for the higher
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education systems in the Asia-Pacific region is how to provide the rapidly increasing number of students with a quality education. While there are some top-tier universities, most systems have inadequate budgets to support an enabling environment for quality higher learning. Problems include low salaries, unqualified teachers, poor working conditions, rising student-teacher ratios, and inadequate library and laboratory facilities. Few academics in second- and third-tier universities have advanced research degrees or employ innovative teaching methods. As higher education expansion increases, academics are expected to do research and publish for tenure and promotion, with the result that teaching quality often suffers in the process. Reducing costs has meant a greater and greater use of online instruction. Asia has become a leader in this respect. More than 70 universities deliver instruction via online courses exclusively (ADB 2011). A second challenge is that the transition to mass higher education has transformed secondary schools into preparatory institutions for passing entrance examinations to enter college and university. Low-performing schools have few students able to pass entrance examinations. The growing popularity of shadow education and cram schools in the Asia-Pacific has done little to prepare students for the nature of higher learning. Moreover, there is a rising gap in accessibility among different social groups. Advantages are normally in favor of those from urban areas, better-off families, and mainstream ethnic groups. While women are gaining greater access to higher education, men still fare much better after graduation in securing a job. A third challenge brought on by the rapid expansion of higher education in the Asia-Pacific has been the creation of a growing mismatch between what is learned at college and university and what is required in a changing and more globalized workplace (ADB 2013). In places like China, between seven and eight million university students graduate each year. Governments in the Asia-Pacific region are concerned that talented university graduates are put to work for economic and social development, rather than societal instability. Graduate unemployment and underemployment have become a challenge in many countries
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around the world. It is a newer challenge in the Asia-Pacific region. Further complicating the access issue is that some Asian countries, notably Japan, Korea, and China, are experiencing a demographic shift to an older population. A fourth challenge concerns highly bureaucratic institutional governance, especially where there is a tradition of academic staff and administrators being considered as part of the civil service. Moreover, institutional autonomy and academic freedom are protected in some countries and lacking in most. Student activism is also on the rise and has challenged university governance in several Asian countries, and institutional governance may sometimes be plagued by academic corruption. A sixth challenge requires Asia-Pacific university systems to balance international partnerships. Most partnerships reflect a traditional preference toward Western systems. As the regional economy comes to dominate global trade, business, and commerce, there is a need to begin a shift toward a framework that strengthens capacity, quality assurance, and the Asia-Pacific’s intraregion partnerships. Finally, there is the challenge of creating a consensus of common purpose in a world whose higher education systems are becoming regionally integrated. Leading universities in systems of Japan, Korea, and China in the northeast are gradually building common frameworks, but they are a long way from a unified regional framework like that found in European higher education. The same is true for Southeast Asia. Although not all higher education systems of the Asia-Pacific are rooted in Confucian tradition, it is safe to say that such a tradition has been a major force in at more than a handful of systems and has already begun to have a spillover effect through the mobility of students, staff, and institutional practices. However, whether there is a Chinese or Asian model of higher education remains a hotly debated topic. The dynamism of Asian economics and rapid expansion of their higher education systems, including world-class research universities, have emboldened intellectual debate on this issue. Altbach and other scholars doubt there is an Asian model, only hybrids of the Western one (Altbach 1989).
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Marginson (2011) and Shin (2012) analyze it in terms of Western ideas, economic development, and Confucian culture. The debate is especially intense in China. Hayhoe and other scholars (1996) have emphasized China’s historical tradition of academies from the Tang and subsequent dynasties – as part of the intellectual heritage that is the hallmark of Chinese civilization. The massive area of China and its growing global influence make it a potentially significant trendsetter in the higher education systems of the Asia-Pacific and beyond (Postiglione 2015b).
References ADB: Asian Development Bank. 2011. Higher education across Asia: An overview of issues and strategies. Manila: ADB. ADB: Asian Development Bank. 2012. Private higher education across Asia: Expanding access, searching for quality. Manila: ADB. ADB: Asian Development Bank. 2013. Improving transitions: From school to university to workplace. Manila: ADB. Altbach, P.G. 1989. Western impact on Asian higher education: Twisted roots. Higher Education 18: 9–29. Chealy, C. 2006. Cambodia. UNESCO ed. Higher education in South-East Asia. Bangkok: UNESCO. Hayhoe, R. 1996. China’s universities 1895–1995: A century of cultural conflict. 2nd ed. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Levy, D.C. 2010. East Asian private higher education: Reality and policy. Washington, DC: World Bank Flagship Project on East Asia. Marginson, S. 2011. Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian model. Higher Education 61: 587–611. McKinsey and Co. 2015. The China effect on global innovation. New York: McKinsey Global Institute, October. Postiglione, G.A. 2015a. Asian universities are rising in the ranks. Washington Post, April 27. Postiglione, G.A. 2015b. Research universities for national rejuvenation and global influence: China’s search for a balanced model, Higher Education, 70(2), 235–250. Shin, J.C. 2012. Higher education in Korea: Western university ideas, Confucian tradition and economic development. Higher Education 64(1): 59–72. Shin, J.C., G.A. Postiglione, and F.T. Huang, ed. 2015. Mass higher education development in East Asia: Strategy, quality, and challenges. Cham: Springer Press. Vargese, N.V. 2015. Reshaping higher education in Asia: The role of the private sector. Singapore: Head Foundation.
Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China
Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China Isak Froumin and Daria Platonova Institute of Education, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia
Synonyms Massification of higher education
Definition Growth of higher education system in absolute and relative numbers; increase of participation in higher education of relevant age cohort population.
Introduction Despite the differences in political, social, economic, and cultural histories, Brazil, Russia, India, and China share the common characteristics. The BRIC countries are very large in terms of population, territory, and economy. Each country has great economic and political influence in the regions, as well as dominance in education sphere (Altbach et al. 2013). They are emerging markets as their economies have been rapidly growing for the last decades while remaining lower middle income or upper middle income countries (World Bank 2016). The experience of these countries is critical for understanding the higher education system dynamics in large countries with limited resources.
Rapid Expansion Higher education systems in BRIC are the largest after the USA. In total four countries accumulate 39% of world’s tertiary enrolment (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2016). The increase of
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students’ number is very rapid in comparison to the world average. The world’s student population has increased for 2.9 times since 1990, while China’s for 8.7 times, India’s for 5.9 times, and Brazil’s for 4.9 times. The exception is Russia where the student enrolment has raised less than the world’s average, only for 1.4 times due to the very high base. Figure 1 shows the pace of expansion of higher education in BRIC. Russia is one of the most massified higher education systems in the world. Expansion has already started since the early Soviet Union and has increased its pace after 1995. According to UNESCO statistics, gross enrolment ratio (GER, ratio between overall enrolment and number of population of relevant age cohort) in tertiary education is 77% in Russia. Brazil, China, and India have turned toward “mass” systems as well. Brazil’s higher education expanded from 16% in 1999 to 46% in 2013. China and India started expansion from the “elite” system in early 1990s. The pace of expansion is dramatic. China raised participation from 3% in 1990 to 30% in 2013, India from 5% to 23%. We analyze expansion in BRIC higher education according to four key questions. Firstly, what are the factors that drive expansion and transformation and changes in higher education in BRIC countries? Secondly, what are the financial resources of the expansion? Then, how has the expansion transformed system stratification in terms of institutional and spatial heterogeneity? And finally, how do BRIC countries deal with equality issues in mass higher education systems?
Drivers of Changes The state plays the influential role for each country’s socioeconomic development although it varies according to the history. Shared communist past in Russia and China is reflected in the formed model of state capitalism, while postcolonial Brazil and India have developed freetrade capitalist system with tendency toward social democracy (Carnoy et al. 2013). The state as a central power and four forces are considered to shape changes in the BRIC higher
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Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China, Fig. 1 Gross enrolment ratio in BRIC countries, tertiary, 1970–2012 (Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2016)
education (see also Carnoy et al. 2013). The prevalent role of state in the BRIC countries is reflected in all described below forces, thus making the state the key for exploration of transformations in the BRIC higher education (Carnoy et al. 2013, pp. 17–26). Firstly, it is the increase of rates of return to higher education at individual and national level that pressures higher education expansion in the BRIC countries. Knowledge-intensive global economy promotes high payoff for higher level of education stimulating governments to expand number of university graduates. Secondly, popular demand for higher education is determined by high social mobility, better employment, and economic success. Different social groups expect government to increase supply of higher education. As state legitimacy is associated with population well-being, level of employment, and economic growth in general, legitimacy may increase or decrease depending on results of higher education policy (Ibid). Furthermore, the need for “global legitimacy” drives the expansion of higher education (Meyer et al. 1992). Meyer et al. (ibid) hypothesizes that every society and every national state goes through isomorphic transformations in accordance with “global norms” and Western perception of progress as a dominant idea. Mass higher
education system is considered as one of the global norms, and the state expands higher education system for global legitimacy. Moreover, Carnoy et al. (2013) mentions that ideology of globalization determines the concept of quality as well. The “world class” universities race provides an explicit example. Thus, the most influential rankings promote Anglo-American model of research universities that stimulate governments of developing countries to design system and particular universities similarly to the ideal type. Finally, higher education institutions with their diverse interest pressure state policies. They are interested in the growth of the higher education sector and exercise their influence to convince the society and politicians in importance of the expansion.
Funding of Expansion: Privatization of Costs Regarding expansion, one of the most significant peculiarities of the BRIC countries is the scope of privatization. Tuition fees in public and private sectors of higher education have been major sources of expansion. High returns on higher education have determined high demand of population, and growing economy provides abilities for households to pay for education (Carnoy et al. 2013).
Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China
Russia and China, as the most of postcommunist societies, have implemented tuition fee track as a form of cost-sharing (Johnstone 2004). In addition to establishment of private universities, public higher education institutions (HEIs) have been allowed to attract not only state supported students but also tuition fee paying students. Thus, higher education is appeared to be free as public good although majority of students pay for it. In Russia, the share of students paying tuition fees in all enrolment has achieved 61% since 1991. In public HEIs, there are only 47% of state supported students although the number of private HEIs has enlarged to about 340 out of about 900 HEIs comprising only 15% of students (FSA 2015). In China, the government increased its funding for higher education; however, the cost-sharing strategy has supported expansion as well. 700 private HEIs were allowed to offer 4-year degrees, and now the private sector holds about 22% of the total enrolment (Carnoy et al. 2013, p. 115). According to HEIs’ diversification strategy adopted in 1997, both public and private HEIs charge all students regulated tuition fee (Carnoy et al. 2013, pp. 75, 111). Today the share of HEIs’ revenues from tuition and other student fees is about 35% (Wang and Yang N.d.). India and Brazil have chosen another way and shifted the cost of students in private institutions. Private sector is growing not only in terms of the number of HEIs but also in term of share of enrolment. In India private higher education plays a key role because private HEIs comprise about 50–60% of enrolment (Schwartzman 2015, p. 23). Brazil had a significant role of private HEIs even in 1970s because 60% of enrolment was in private sector. In 2013, the share is even higher. About 75% of students are in private universities (Ibid, p. 32). Brazil also represents a specific case as it has refused to open public universities for private investments, thus public HEIs are not able to charge tuition fees. Yet, the private-public ratio has been changing in Brazil. Though the private sector growth contributed expansion in the twentieth century, the new federal reform is aimed to significantly increase the student body in public sector (Verhine and Dantas N.d.). Thus, the
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diversification of finance resources in BRIC higher education and shift to students’ payments underlie the trend to greater diversity at institutional and regional level.
Regional Differentiation The higher education expansion is also associated with the increase of variation between regions “in terms of the size and structure of regional tertiary systems, college access, the relative opportunity to attend elite research universities, and the funding levels applied to higher education” (Wang and Yang N.d.). China is the only nonfederal state within BRIC countries. Yet, all of them consist of the regions that differ in socioeconomic development, population, and territory. In general, the size of regional higher education systems reflects the variation of wealth and population within the regions. As Verhine and Dantas (N.d.) notes, most of the HEIs are located in the South-eastern regions which have the highest population and income. In China, the size of student enrolment also varies significantly. The smallest Tibet system is 50 times smaller than Jiangsu higher education system that enrols 1.67 million students (Wang and Yang N.d.). Yet, the main aspect of regional differentiation is student access variation. In 2014, the average ratio of students per 100,000 residents was 2488. In Beijing and Tianjin, it was 5469 and 4346, respectively, while in Qinghai, it is 1162. According to Wang and Yang (Ibid), regional inequality of access is indicated by the higher school students to college students’ ratio. In 14 out of 31 regions, number of high school students is 1.5 times higher. The highest is in Qinghai that was 3.1 in 2014. In India, the enrolment rate varied from 56% in Chandigarh to below 15% in Chhattisgarh in 2014 (Tilak N.d.). In Brazil, the gap is lower. The enrolment rate varied from 10.8% in the North to 19.6% in the South. While in the Federal District the enrolment rate is more than 30% (Todos pela Educac¸ão 2015). Russian higher education is concentrated in the central regions and the capital. In Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, age cohort
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participation in higher education is two times higher than average (Froumin and Leshukov N.d.). In China, the gap between total revenues in the richest and poorest regional higher education systems was about 30 times in 2013 (Wang and Yang N.d.). Expenditure per student varied from about 50,000 RMB in Beijing to less than 12,000 RMB in Anhui, Henan, Gansu, Fujian, Shandong, Heilongjiang, which is lower than the national standard. In BRIC countries, leading research universities are not equally distributed. For example, in Russia there are 20 leading universities out of 45 located in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. In China “[t]here is a high concentration of selective universities in certain regions, which leads to regional variation in access to high quality tertiary education. For instance, 13 provinces has only one ‘Project 211’ institution, two provinces have two, four provinces have three, four provinces have four; while Beijing has 26 and Shanghai has nine ‘Project 211’ institutions” (Wang and Yang N.d.). In Brazil “in the state of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous and economically powerful state, four of the best regarded public universities account for nearly 36% of Brazil’s published scientific articles and enrol nearly 30% of the country’s Ph.D. students” (Verhine and Dantas N.d.).
Institutional Differentiation: Elite and Mass Sectors Higher education expansion brings institutional differentiation (Trow 1973). System stratification resulted in shaping small groups of elite universities and large mass segment with students with very different background. Both “natural” forces (e.g., market) and well-directed government’s efforts increased institutional diversity in BRIC higher education. In BRIC countries, two major factors influence the differentiation. On the one hand, the pressure to develop “world-class” universities results in most elite universities receiving more subsidies. On the other hand, the growing demand and the development of private higher education have resulted in differentiation.
The subsidized elite sector reflects the pressure too. The elite universities receive several times higher funding per student than mass HEIs. The subsidies primarily support research. The noted examples are excellence initiatives that are aimed at “world-class” university building in China and Russia. China’s Project 985, Project 211, Project 2011, and Russia’s 5-top-100 program invest large funds in support of the small group of elite universities. In China, this movement is associated with soviet type policy approach that is “commanding heights strategy”: The central authority keeps its control over elite research universities and key resources for higher education development, while loosening its grip on the mass of higher education institutions and decentralizing them towards local governments (Wang and Yang N.d.).
The resource gap between mass and elite segments is increasing. In China, 73 elite universities affiliated to the Ministry of Education received 57% higher funding per student in 2011 (Ibid). In Russia, 35 leading universities received about 43% of all funding on majority of public HEIs in 2015 (Abankina et al. 2016). Such active investing in elite universities is suggested to be a result of governments’ belief in influence of externalities of the elite sector development (Carnoy et al. 2013). Also, the gap between mass and elite segments has increased due to private education expansion. The differentiation in higher education is determined by the ability to pay and direct finances of households. It is a result of two simultaneous processes. On the one hand, elite private institutions raise the tuition fees as education there is “better.” Thus, they exclude students that are not able to pay. On the other hand, mass HEIs accept students from low social class at low tuition fees. Hence, the quality of mass sector is considered to decrease (Carnoy et al. 2013). Brazil and India also have national leading universities. For example, in Brazil it is the University of São Paulo. In 2013, this university spent about 25,000$ per student comparing to federal universities and municipal HEIs, which spent about 13,000$ and 5,200$ per student, respectively (Verhine and Dantas N.d.).
Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China
Equity in Access to Higher Education BRIC countries are complicated in terms of social stratification and equality. Besides the high level of income inequality in BRIC countries, they have complex ethnicity. Russia is multinational society with about 200 ethnic groups and 50 minority languages. There are about 56 ethnic groups and about 300 languages in China. Brazil has high level of racial inequality, though there is no clear division between ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups (Schwartzman 2015). It is contrary to India where social inequalities based on traditional institutions of caste and ethnicity. Participation in higher education for disadvantaged groups is lower in India. According to National Sample Survey (2007–2008), gross enrolment rates in higher education is 11.54% for scheduled castes (SC), 7.67% for scheduled tribes (ST), and 14.72 for other backward communities (OBC) (Joshi 2015, p. 133). The government has developed mechanisms of affirmative action. According to the Constitution, all disadvantaged groups can enrol by the quota (reservation) in both public and private HEIs. The central government has implemented reservation of 7.5% in HEIs for STs, 15% for SCs, and 27% in HEIs under central government for OBCs (Joshi 2015, pp. 135–136). In Brazil, there is a gap between participation in higher education for different ethnic/racial groups. White students’ net enrolment is 24%, and non-white students’ net enrolment is only 10%. Also there is visible income stratification in Brazil’s higher education. Participation rate in bottom income quartile is 5%, while in top income quartile is about 40% (Verhine and Dantas N.d.). The government implements special measures to overcome access inequality. According to the law, federal universities have 50% quota for students from minority groups and low-income families. Moreover, the “University for All” program has been providing scholarships for low-income families in private HEIs since 2002 (Balbachevsky 2015). China tries to provide equal chances to access higher education for low-income families, minorities, and rural students. There are special quota, special institutions, and system of additional points for the exam (Schwartzman 2015).
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Nevertheless, the gap between urban and rural student participation in higher education is very high (about 5.6 times) (Zhang and Liu 2005). Although in Russia the average level of participation is very high, the income stratification is evident as well as access inequality through geographical perspective. Urban students had 1.7 times more chances to enrol to a university than rural students (Dubin et al. 2004).
Discussion and Further Research The fast pace of the expansion in BRIC higher education makes it an important case for investigation of the high participation systems of higher education (Marginson 2016) (particularly in large countries). System differentiation, social stratification, and socioeconomic outcomes are the major research issues in emerging high participation systems of higher education. Yet, there are specific features of BRIC countries that might bring insight in higher education research. Looking at BRIC countries’ legacy and socioeconomic trends, we highlight several important topics. Institutional theories of path dependence are promising areas of focus in comparative research of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Paralleling and opposing colonial past of India and Brazil and communist legacy of Russia and China help to explore modern institutes of BRIC socioeconomic systems. It is particularly valuable for higher education research where trends of convergence are becoming well defined, while national peculiar properties are more and more disregarded (see in Carney et al. 2012). Communist and colonial legacy highlights not only public/private balance in higher education but also the role of higher education as a function for social mobility, relation with labor market, vocational-academic dichotomy, and other phenomena that shape “rules of a game” in higher education. Economic growth and changing labor market in BRIC countries present an intriguing case for comparative research of the linkages between the higher education expansion and economic outcomes from this angle; higher education expansion is tied with economic growth through human
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capital concepts (Becker 1962). The debates on effects of higher education system expansion on economic system and labor market are not closed. We mentioned perception of quality of higher education that in BRIC countries is shaped by global legitimacy and ranking game (Carnoy et al. 2013). However, we cannot pass by students’ education outcomes, gained knowledge, and competence development. In contrast to the USA and Western European countries, the research on education outcomes is limited in BRIC countries. The first attempts to assess differences in quality are presented by the study on engineering education in Russia and China (Kardanova et al. 2016). The question is not specific for BRIC countries particularly, although the focus on engineering education is considered especially important for BRIC higher education research (Carnoy et al. 2013). One of the most important and interesting questions is the future of higher education in the world where Anglo-American model is competing with local models and approaches in different countries. The increasing power of BRIC countries and further expansion of higher education can challenge the dominant university model. Is Anglo-American university model sustainable even when student population in BRIC higher education exceeds 50% of all world student body? How further growth of higher education in BRIC countries will change “global model”? Answering these questions might bring insights to the complex research of global convergence and divergence in higher education and beyond.
References Abankina, Irina, Veronika Vinarik, and Lyudmila Filatova. 2016. Gosudarstvennaja politika finansirovanija sektora vysshego obrazovanija v uslovijah bjudzhetnyh ogranichenij [State policy of higher education sector financing under the budgetary constraints]. Zhurnal Novoj jekonomicheskoj associacii [Journal of New Economic Assosiation] 3(31): 111–143. Altbach, Philip, Gregory Androushchak, Yaroslav Kuzminov, Maria Yudkevich, and Liz Reisberg. 2013. The global future of higher education and the academic profession: The BRICs and the United States. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Balbachevsky, Elizabeth. 2015. The role of internal and external stakeholders in Brazilian higher education. In Higher education in the BRICS countries: Investigating the pact between higher education and society, ed. Simon Schwartzman, Rómulo Pinheiro, and Pundy Pillay, 193–214. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9570-8_10. Becker, Gary S. 1962. Investment in human capital: A theoretical analysis. The Journal of Political Economy 70: 9–49. Carney, Stephen, Jeremy Rappleye, and Iveta Silova. 2012. “Between faith and science: World culture theory and comparative education”. Comparative Education Review 56(3): 366–93. https://doi.org/10.1086/665708. Carnoy, Martin, Prashant Loyalka, Maria Dobryakova, Rafiq Dossani, Isak Froumin, Katherine Kuhns, Jandhyala Tilak, and Rong Wang. 2013. University expansion in a changing global economy: Triumph of the BRICs? Stanford: Stanford University Press. Dubin, B., L. Gudkov, A. Levinson, A. Leonova, and O. Stuchevskaya. 2004. Dostupnost’ vysshego obrazovania: sotsial’nye i institutsional’nye aspekty [Accessibility of higher education: Social and institutional aspects]. In Dostupnost’ vysshego obrazovania v Rossii [Accessibility of higher education in Russia], ed. S.V. Shishkin. Moscow: Independent Institute for Social Policy. Federal State Statistics Service. 2015. Federalnaya sluzhba gosudarstvennoy statistiki. Ofitsialnaya statistika. Naselenie. Obrazovanie [Federal State Statistics Service. Official statistics. Population. Education]. http://www.gks.ru/ Froumin, Isak, Oleg Leshukov. N.d. Federal – Regional relationships in higher education in the Russian Federation. In Federalism and higher education: A comparative study, ed. Martin Carnoy, Isak Froumin, Simon Marginson, and Oleg Leshukov. Johnstone, D. Bruce. 2004. The economics and politics of cost sharing in higher education: Comparative perspectives. Economics of Education Review 23(4): 403–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2003.09.004. Joshi, M. Kishore. 2015. Higher education, social demand, and social equity in India. In Higher education in the BRICS countries: Investigating the pact between higher education and society, ed. Simon Schwartzman, Rómulo Pinheiro, and Pundy Pillay, 125–47. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-94-017-9570-8_7. Kardanova, Elena, Prashant Loyalka, Igor Chirikov, Lydia Liu, Guirong Li, Huan Wang, Ekaterina Enchikova, Henry Shi, and Natalie Johnson. 2016. Developing instruments to assess and compare the quality of engineering education: The case of China and Russia. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 41(5): 770–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2016.116 2278. Marginson, Simon. 2016. The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: Dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education 72(4): 413–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-0160016-x.
Higher Education Expansion in Latin America Meyer, John W., Francisco O. Ramirez, and Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal. 1992. World expansion of mass education, 1870–1980. Sociology of Education 65(2): 128. https://doi.org/10.2307/2112679. Schwartzman, Simon. 2015. Demands and policies for higher education. In Higher education in the BRICS countries: Investigating the pact between higher education and society, ed. Simon Schwartzman, Rómulo Pinheiro, and Pundy Pillay, 13–41. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-95708_2. Tilak, Jandhyala. N.d. Union-State relations in India’s higher education. In Federalism and higher education: A comparative study, ed. Martin Carnoy, Isak Froumin, Simon Marginson, and Oleg Leshukov. Todos Pela Educac¸ão. 2015. Anuário brasileiro da educac¸ão básica. Moderna. http://www.todospelaedu cacao.org.br//arquivos/biblioteca/anuario_educacao_ 2015.pdf. Accessed 11 Aug 2016. Trow, Martin. 1973. Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. Carnegie commission on higher education. Berkeley, California: McGraw-Hill. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. 2016. Education. http://www. uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/BrowseEducation.aspx Verhine, Robert, and Lys M. V. Dantas. N.d. Higher education and federalism in Brazil. In Federalism and higher education: A comparative study, ed. Martin Carnoy, Isak Froumin, Simon Marginson, and Oleg Leshukov. Wang, Rong, and Po Yang. N.d. The commanding heights strategy. Revisited: Central-Local Government relation and higher education in China. In Federalism and higher education: A comparative study, ed. Martin Carnoy, Isak Froumin, Simon Marginson, and Oleg Leshukov. World Bank. 2016. World Bank Country and Leading Groups. https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/ articles/906519 Zhang, Y.L., and B.J. Liu. 2005. Professional strata and higher education opportunities in China. Journal of Beijing Normal University 3: 71–75.
Higher Education Expansion in Latin America Alma Maldonado-Maldonado and José Humberto González Reyes Departamento de Investigaciones Educativas, The Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV), Mexico City, Mexico
According to most international organizations, there are nineteen countries which integrate the
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region of Latin America, and its selection is based mostly on culture and language. Two different colonial powers conquered this region: Spain and Portugal. Both colonies had different approaches regarding higher education; while the Spaniards decided to establish universities practically along with the churches, the Portuguese were more contained and decided to educate their elites when it was needed, in Europe, and not at the new colonies like the Spaniards (Perkin 1991). This chapter offers analysis of the increase in higher education enrollment in Latin America, the main trends and main characteristics of this growth. The information used for this section comes mainly from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO’s) Institute for Statistics, which is the most relevant source that includes most Latin-American countries. Despite the fact that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) has but two Latin-American members (Chile and Mexico) and only sometimes includes data from Brazil, it was also included as a source. In the same manner, information produced by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Latin American Information System and Educational Tendencies (SITEAL for its Spanish acronym), and other official websites was used. The downside from using most of these sources is that the origin of this information is the governments, which do not always have updated nor reliable data. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA 2015) in 1965, there were 231 million inhabitants in the region, and 50 years later it had increased to 619 million. However, the population growth has diminished considerable from 14.73% in 1960–1965 to only 5.86% in 2010–2015 (Chart 1). The traditional collegeaged population (from 20 to 24 years of age) was 47.3 million students in 2000 and 51.3 million students 10 years later; this represents 9% of the total population in Latin America. In fact, there is an estimate that in the year 2020, this group will have risen to 52.4 million, representing about 8% of the total population (1% less than the previous decade) (ECLA 2015).
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Higher Education Expansion in Latin America, Chart 1 Annual population growth and higher education enrollment in Latin America (millions) (Source: Author)
Higher Education Access UNESCO (2016) points out that higher education enrollment in Latin America represents only 12% of the enrollment worldwide – coming in at number 4 on a global scale, which represents 24 million students from a total of 199 million worldwide in 2013. The top region is the Asian Pacific which represents about 31% of the enrollment worldwide with 60.6 million students. Higher education gross enrollment in Latin America has gone from 22.8% in year 2000 to 43.8% in 2013. This means that only four out of ten individuals (from ages 20 to 24) are enrolled in a higher education institution. This percentage is low in comparison to other developed countries such as the USA, the UK, or Germany, where their higher education gross enrollment is higher than 75% (UNESCO 2016). Nonetheless, these numbers should be analyzed per country. For example, in 2013, the countries with the highest gross enrollment in the region were Chile (84%) and Argentina (80%), while Guatemala (18%) and Honduras (21%) have the lowest in Latin America. In Africa, the countries which have the lowest reported numbers are Burkina Faso (4.7%) and Angola (9.9%). From 2000 to 2013, the higher education enrollment in Latin America has grown in average
5.77%, barely above the worldwide average which was 5.54% in the same period. The latter information presented in contrast with information from other countries which are closer to an overall satisfaction of the higher education demand (i.e., North America and Europe with a 2.13% growth or Asia with an impressive 9.45% growth) shows there is still a large margin of growth to be developed in Latin America. We know that the enrollment to higher education doubled in 10 years, going from 11.48 million students in the year 2000 to 23.6 million students in 2013. However, Chart 2 contrasts the growth rate of the population versus the higher education enrollment growth rate in order to show that while there is a demographic stagnation in Latin America, it does not correspond to the unstable evolution of higher education enrollment.
Gender Since the year 2000, women’s enrollment in higher education in Latin America has been higher than men, and in fact, this gap is growing (worldwide tendencies). In 2000, there were 5.79 million women in higher education in Latin America and 4.99 million men in the same condition. In 2013, the number of women went up to
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13.15 million versus 10.44 from the men’s side. The number of women enrolled in higher education in the region almost doubled. In terms of the cases per country, the largest economies in the region – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico – reflect this tendency except for Mexico, where the men’s enrollment is still higher. However, it is very possible that in the following years, women’s enrollment will represent more than
50%, thus following the tendency of the other nations (Chart 3).
Institutional Expansion In the year 2000, Latin America reported about 8500 higher education institutions with an increase to 13,000 in the year 2013. It is important to
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Higher Education Expansion in Latin America, Chart 4 Government expenditure per tertiary student (USD) (Source: Author)
mention that the diversification of the higher education system took place, particularly, during this decade. As it has been reported before (Maldonado 2012), Mexico is the country with more higher education institutions in the region with almost 3059 (SEP 2015). Behind Mexico, Brazil has 2368 (INEP 2016) and Argentina reported 2,335 (MINEDU 2016). The majority of the higher education students in Latin America are enrolled in public institutions; however, the vast majority of higher education institutions are private. There are several prestigious private institutions in the region; nonetheless, there are also a large number of private institutions which take advantage from the lack of government regulations/accreditations and from the low cost some of these institutions have. Nevertheless, this is not the tendency for the whole region, and there are countries with a very small or none private higher education sector such as Cuba, Uruguay, and other countries where the governmental policies (or the absence of regulation) tend to privatize the higher education sector such as Brazil and Chile.
Financing According to data presented by the UNESCO, the average amount of public financing given to higher
education in Latin America went from 1214 USD per student in 2000 to 1620 USD in 2012. This represents an increase of only 400 USD in more than a decade (Chart 4). Nevertheless, the expenditure by student in higher education in 2012 represented twice as much of what was invested in primary education (UNESCO 2014). With the exception of Mexico, this tendency is the same for the main economies in the region, where Brazil showcases the most significant reduction in their public financing, almost cutting in half their higher education expenditure per student in a 12-year period (from 2000 to 2012).
Inequity Another characteristic of the Latin-American higher education expansion is that the access at this educational level has not really changed for the lower-income groups. In a region where inequity is one of its main features, it is not a surprise to see the same effect in access to higher education. From 2000 to 2013, access of the less privileged population to higher education increased in only 7%. On the contrary, the more privileged population increased its access to higher education in 6% in the same period (SITEAL 2015) (Chart 5).
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Higher Education Expansion in Latin America, Chart 5 Enrollment rate in population aged 18–24 years by socio-economic level in Latin America (%) (Source: Author)
This data shows that despite the fact that the higher education enrollment in Latin America has grown, the inequity gap has not been reduced. It is not a surprise to mention that the largest majority of the higher education enrollment is happening in the more privileged groups and that the years of schooling for both socioeconomic sectors (privileged and underprivileged) went from a difference of 13.6 years to 19.2 years from 2000 to 2013. This is a clear example of how the increase in access has not meant a reduction in inequity. As Carnoy et al. (2013) suggest, the Brazilian government has also taken steps to expand elite higher education enrollments relatively fast during the last decade; meanwhile, the programs to compensate inequity have not been very successful, and this is only one case in the region. Generally speaking, this is bad news for the region, and it shows what issues need to be solved in the coming years. The expansion of higher education itself does not solve the historical and contextual problems that Latin America has to face sooner than later.
References Carnoy, Martin, et al. 2013. University expansion in a changing global economy: Triumph of the BRICs? Stanford: Stanford University Press. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). 2015. Anuario estadístico de América Latina y el Caribe. http://interwp.cepal.org/anuario_
estadistico/anuario_2015/es/index.asp. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP).2016. Sinopses Estatísticas da Educac¸ ão Superior. http://portal.inep.gov.br/superiorcensosuperior-sinopse. Accessed 3 May 2016. Maldonado-Maldonado, Alma. 2012. Mexican faculty salaries today: Once a bagger always a beggar? In Paying the professoriate: A global comparison of compensation and contracts, ed. Phillip Altbach et al., 225–233. New York: Taylor and Francis Group. Ministerio de Educación y Deportes (MINEDU). 2016. Anuarios estadísticos. http://portales.educacion.gov. ar/diniece/2014/05/24/anuarios-estadisticos/. Accessed 3 May 2016. Perkin, Harold. 1991. History of universities. In International higher education: An encyclopedia, ed. Philip Altbach. Michigan: Garland Pub. Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP). 2015. Principales cifras del sistema educativo nacional 2014–2015. http:// planeacion.sep.gob.mx/assets/images/principales_cifras/ 2014_2015_PRINCIPALES_CIFRAS_BOLSILLO.pdf. Accessed 3 May 2016. Sistema de Información y Tendencias Educativas en América Latina (SITEAL). 2015. Escolarización en América Latina 2000–2013. http://www.siteal.org/sites/default/ files/rec_siteal_2_2015_04_28.pdf. Accessed 22 Feb 2016. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2014. Revisión Regional al 2015 de “Educación para Todos”. América Latina y el Caribe. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/ FIELD/Santiago/pdf/Informe-Regional-EFA2015.pdf. Accessed 20 Feb 2016. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 2016. Unesco Institute for Statistics. http://data.uis.unesco.org/Index.aspx. Accessed 20 Feb 2016.
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Higher Education for Sustainability Janet Haddock-Fraser Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Synonyms Corporate social responsibility; Eco-; Ethical; Green; Triple bottom line
Definition The terms “sustainability” and “sustainable” are used to describe a situation, process, or tangible entity that is viable and enduring in the long term. It has been associated with “sustainable development,” with the two terms often used interchangeably. The de facto standard definition from the “Brundtland” report of this is: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (UNWCED 1987, p. 8)
Developing from this, sustainability operates at the nexus of economic, environmental, and social benefit, although in the early days, the focus was upon environmental sustainability – at a species, ecosystem, and natural resource basis. Sustainability as a theme has undergone many developments and iterations since 1987. The most recent led to the development of 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations (2015), covering social sustainability (poverty, health, food, education, gender, inequality, human habitation, institutions), economic (economic development, infrastructure, consumption), and environmental (water, energy, climate, marine and terrestrial ecosystems). In order for sustainability to be achieved, inclusiveness of the goals is needed – it is not sufficient to meet one at the expense of another. To understand higher education for sustainability, we need to consider both the purpose of higher
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education and that of sustainability. The former is discussed briefly to provide context for the latter, but more detail can be found in Barnett [Sect. 1 The Idea of the University]. The idea and purpose of a university has altered over time, moving from the metaphysical tradition, through the “ivory tower” (research universities) and entrepreneurial typology, to today’s institutions that seek relevance in society, whether through curricula designed for enhanced graduate employability, development and dissemination of knowledge through research and knowledge exchange, or relevance to society and environment (Barnett 2011). As part of this, universities are seeking to find connections, influence, partnership, and meaning within their economic, intellectual, societal, and environmental hinterland. The core “business” of today’s universities is to generate new knowledge through research, its application (through knowledge exchange), and transmission through learning and teaching. Within each, sustainability as a theme has relevance, whether through (i) research to enhance knowledge of environmental, societal, or economic systems and their nexus or (ii) transfer of this knowledge to students and other stakeholders, including business, government, or the community at large. With this comes a potential conflict, particularly with relation to learning and teaching on sustainability, as well as public engagement: that is, to what extent should universities present a polemic view on sustainability, when it presents such a complexity of interdependencies that certainty of cause-effect can be contested, or stances that may be value led at the individual, group, or cultural level?
Scope of Sustainability in Higher Education Sterling et al. (2013) provides a useful, and all-embracing, definition of “the sustainable university,” recognizing this tension: The sustainable university is one that through its guiding ethos, outlook and aspirations, governance, research, curriculum, community links, campus
Higher Education for Sustainability management, monitoring and modus operandi seeks explicitly to explore, develop, contribute to, embody and manifest – critically and reflexively – the kinds of values, concepts and ideas, challenges and approaches that are emerging from the growing global sustainability discourse. (Sterling 2013, p. 23)
Across the sector, work is ongoing to define, promote, monitor, assess, and celebrate the development of sustainability through member organizations such as the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC) in the UK, the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) in the USA, and the Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) in Australia and New Zealand. To systemize this, they have developed schematic and assessment tools. In the USA, STARS (Sustainability, Training, Assessment, and Rating System) is used for this purpose, and in the UK the tool developed is called, appropriately, the LiFE Index (Learning in Future Environments). Its scope, presented in Table 1, provides a useful reference for the type and range of activities universities engaging in sustainability need to consider. Higher Education for Sustainability, Table 1 LiFE index categories Priority area Learning, teaching, and research Estates and operations
Partnerships and engagement
Leadership and governance
Frameworks within priority area Learning and teaching Research Student engagement Biodiversity Sustainable ICT Utilities Travel and transport Sustainable construction and renovation Resource efficiency and waste Community and public engagement Business and industry interface Procurement and supplier engagement Leadership Staff engagement and human resources
Source: www.eauc.org.uk/life/resources accessed 9th May 2016
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As noted above, the core “business” of the university is learning, teaching, and research, and within the Index, this recognizes student engagement also. Within this priority area, activities undertaken include research into sustainability, undertaking research in a “sustainable” manner (for instance, by limiting resource use), inclusion of sustainability into the curriculum, student engagement in sustainable behaviors within learning and teaching, and engagement in sustainable living as part of campus life. Estates and operations activities include activities relating to how the university operates, these being similar to those within most organizations. In recent years, actions at estates level have been incorporated into staff or student engagement activities and the creation of university campuses as “living labs” for sustainability. Partnerships and engagement relate to the university’s influence outside of its student body, whether through its research, learning, and teaching or as a role model for sustainable behavior at a campus level. Activities may involve knowledge exchange, communications to the community, or economic influence from the university’s role in supply chains and its purchasing power. Ensuring the university has strong, wellinformed leadership and staff interested and engaged in sustainability is vital for sustainability to be successfully embedded and supported in universities. The Index enables universities to self-assess their progress with respect to policy and strategy; action planning, measurement, and implementation; stakeholder engagement and communication; and training and support and links to the curriculum. For learning and teaching, for example, it asks: (i) If the learning and teaching strategy is linked to the institutional strategy (ii) What actions are being taken to embed sustainability into the curriculum, querying how its impact is monitored (iii) How training and support are provided to staff to enable them to embed sustainability into the curriculum (iv) Whether the institution actively links its education for sustainable development agenda
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in learning and teaching with other campus activities (e.g., in estates) and within the stakeholder communities that the institution engages with While the STARS for evaluation in the USA results in institutional “banding” (platinum, gold, silver, bronze), the LiFE Index in the UK is not used in this way, but as an internal assessment and development tool. Instead, for many years, UK universities have been evaluated through a student-led body (people and planet) producing a “Green League” table of sustainability practice for each institution. At the time of writing, the use of the league table is in something of a hiatus.
The “Business Case” for Sustainability in Higher Education In an environment of “massification” and “marketization” of higher education globally, with the consequent increase in reliance on student fees and commercial income (Altbach et al. 2009), university leadership needs to consider sustainability in its widest – and original – remit of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, delivering the agenda within the bounds of financial viability as a minimum. A useful, utilitarian, means by which to consider whether to support a sustainability initiative is through assessing whether it delivers: • Cost reduction, traditionally been through estates-led projects relating to environmental sustainability (e.g., waste, carbon reduction). • Reputation enhancement, through communication of good practice, community engagement, as role model to community, business, or funding body, or enhanced student perceptions of the institution. Its success depends on the interest for these stakeholders in sustainability. • Risk reduction and/or regulatory compliance, relating to statutory requirements such as measurement and reduction of carbon emissions or reduced insurance costs arising from demonstrable sustainability performance.
Utilitarianism risks criticism from those who consider that sustainability should be part of a university’s remit as a matter of course, feeling that it is the “right thing to do” morally and ethically. The utilitarian perspective does not undermine this and merely recognizes that universities cannot ignore the financial (or proxy) benefit-cost in their decision-making – and the “right thing to do” is not at any cost. A useful model to conceptualize and measure sustainability organizationally is the “five capitals” model (Porritt 2005). While this has been subsequently developed (e.g., the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IIRC 2015)), Porritt’s seminal model is helpful for purposes of explanation. It recognizes that any system (region, company, organization) is bounded by its natural capital (stocks or flow of resources, sinks, and environmental services) but that its financial capital (shares, monetary funds) depends on the value it gets from its social, human, and manufactured capital. This model is pertinent to framing higher education for sustainability in terms of its role and focus. By recognizing the boundaries of financial viability and natural resource constraints (environmental sustainability), universities have much to offer in terms of growth in human, social, and manufactured capital: • Human capital (health, knowledge, skills, and motivations) is fundamental to a university’s core business. Education, training, development of skills, and knowledge bring economic benefit, as well as other societal benefits arising from a more highly educated population. Through education for sustainable development (ESD) initiatives, sustainability is integrated into the curriculum, enabling students to understand, appreciate, and critique the complexity of the human-planet dynamic. A similar benefit arises from extracurricular student engagement. The benefits include increased knowledge of sustainability and the ability to make decisions in situations of uncertainty and complexity. • Human capital is enhanced through research and knowledge exchange. It can include
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sustainability as a research (or knowledge exchange subject) but also the enactment of research in a way that minimizes the social and environmental impact. • Universities are keen to enhance their relevance to their community and society, enhancing social capital. Metrics such as the Research Excellence Framework in the UK, measuring quality and impact of research outputs, reinforce this. In tandem, government funding for universities is shifting to research councils, corporations, and local enterprise organizations, who prioritize funding research or knowledge exchange where societal benefit is evident. This manifests itself in community engagement schemes, business partnerships, volunteering, or societally beneficial research to tackle, for example, health, education, social issues, or increased incentives for engagement in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) subjects. • In many communities, universities are a key employer, offering both economic benefit to the community and also physical estate and space that can be open to the public. This manufactured capital provides societal benefit to the community but also can offer an exemplar of good practice in environmental sustainability practices and natural capital management, through development of biodiversity schemes, “green” buildings, and overt recycling schemes – aiding sustainability knowledge in staff, students, and community.
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Cross-References ▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education
References Altbach, Philip G., Liz Reisberg, and Laura E. Rumbley. 2009. Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic revolution. A report prepared for the UNESCO 2009 world conference on higher education, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris. Barnett, Ron. 2011. The coming of the ecological university. Oxford Review of Education 37(4): 439–458. International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). 2015. Integrated framework. International Integrated Reporting Council, December. Online http:// integratedreporting.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/1 3-12-08-THE-INTERNATIONAL-IR-FRAMEWORK2-1.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2016. Porritt, Jonathan. 2005. Capitalism as if the earth mattered. London: Earthscan Publications. Sterling, Stephen, Larch Maxey, and Heather Luna. 2013. The sustainable university: Progress and prospects. London: Earthscan. United Nations. 2015. Sustainable development goals. https:// sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu¼1300. Accessed 6 June 2016. United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (UNWCED). 1987. Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Both higher education and sustainability have Institutional Strategies for morphed over the last 25 years and will continue Internationalization to do so, but the direction of travel toward relevance and responsibility in the sector is unlikely to reverse. Barnett (2011) recognized this through his typology of the “Ecological University” as a future model, being: A university that takes seriously both the world’s interconnectedness and the university’s interconnectedness with the world. (Barnett, R. 2011, p. 451.
The principles and precepts presented above provide a way forward to achieve this.
John L. Davies1 and Fiona J. H. Hunter2 1 University of Bath, Cambridge, UK 2 Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Synonyms Strategic management of internationalization; Strategic planning for internationalization
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Definition Institutional strategies for internationalization imply a process of developing and implementing a coordinated and systematic institutional response to external challenges and opportunities in order to promote the international dimension through a set of agreed actions over a given period of time.
Introduction The development of an international perspective on education, research, knowledge exchange, as well as financial and personnel policies is now a sine qua non in most universities. The complex factors facing universities need a collective strategic response, rather than a series of piecemeal ad hoc initiatives, in order to enhance the sustainability of the entire international endeavor. This requires a long-term view and a stability of approach permeating all dimensions of the university’s activity. Before considering the details, it is important to clarify briefly some basic definitions of what strategic planning is in the context of internationalization. The simplest is in the form of three questions (Davies 2008): • What are we doing now and how well? This implies that an audit, analysis, and review of international activity are necessary to establish clearly the nature of current institutional directions, activities, and effectiveness (positive and negative) (A). • What do we want to be in the future: what sort of institution and doing what and for whom in the international domain? This implies clarity about external and internal expectations and challenges, mission, vision, values, and priorities (B). • How do we get from (A) to (B) in terms of action plans, development, and activities as part of the strategy? Connecting these elements sits at the core of effective strategic planning.
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In an increasingly turbulent and complex environment driven by the growing integration of the world economy and accelerated pace of change, there are high expectations placed on universities to make a key contribution in terms of employable graduates and transferable knowledge (de Wit and Altbach 2017; Hunter et al. 2016; Hunter and Sparnon 2016; Maringe and Foskett 2010). In this new scenario, the very nature of the higher education enterprise itself is changing, and one of these trends is a growing understanding of internationalization as a key response which has consequences for institutional strategy and international positioning. How able institutions are in developing a strategic response to internationalization is a function of many factors, including: • Their traditions, fundamental core values and missions, geographical location, size, breadth of disciplinary coverage, spatial configuration, and stages of institutional development • The category of university into which they fit (e.g., comprehensive, specialized, technological, research, regional, professional, teaching etc.) • Their internal cultural character: bureaucratic, collegial, corporate, or entrepreneurial, reflected in their behavioral norms (McNay 1995) • The expectations of and engagement with their external stakeholders, regional, national, and international, including government, industry and business, and a variety of other users • The nature of the public accountability/steerage and institutional autonomy interface, especially public policy to the internationalization of HEI and its role as an instrument of soft diplomatic power and income generation • The traditions and varying experiences of strategic planning However, given that internationalization now operates in demonstrably a competitive market, the connection between internationalization and entrepreneurial behavior is now umbilical (Davies 1987).
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Why Have an International Strategy at All? Given the elements in the globalization agendas indicated elsewhere, it is a legitimate question as to why universities should need an institutional strategy for internationalization at all (de Wit 2002; Knight 2008; Maringe and Foskett 2010; Middlehurst 2008; Middlehurst and Woodfield 2007). Many internationally visible universities have existed for a long time without having systematic international strategies, typically with a strong sense of general direction and a dominant conventional wisdom about their nature, trajectory, and position. However, for most higher education institutions (HEI), the contemporary imperatives for some sort of strategic planning are now forceful and sustained. Indeed, there is a myriad of opportunities or challenges which need a strategic response and/or plan. In the international domain, these include: • Increased interinstitutional competition, not only nationally but across borders, for students, funds, and staff, which necessitates clear positioning and strategically building on strengths and eliminating weaknesses. • The expectation of a regional role and strategy for universities including lifelong learning, manpower development, knowledge transfer, and economic regeneration, which can be greatly facilitated by strong international engagement. • Reduced system-wide financial support, which requires serious planning for cost reduction and income generation and to which international student funding, and the capacity generated by international partnerships particularly in response to funding opportunities, can be highly relevant. • The opportunities and challenges of international employment mobility of graduates and faculty in different world regions. • The growing awareness of the need for an educational experience that pays greater attention to an international dimension for all students, not just the mobile minority, in order to equip graduates to live and work in a globalized society.
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• The developments of the Bologna process in Europe specifically – hence, European strategies are now a commonplace within HEI, which potential collaborators assess very carefully. • The enhancement of institutional quality through the introduction of international standards and practices. • A focus on international partnerships as a means to innovate education and research but also to strengthen and position the university (benchmarking, competition, rankings). All these multiple external factors, opportunities, threats, and agendas clearly pose challenges to HEI in terms of the consequences of failure to respond, uncoordinated response, speed of response, and prioritized responses. Strategic planning, properly done, can help HEI cope with challenges and craft new trajectories. National governments may create a strategic planning dynamic for institutions, for example, by requiring that HEI produce international strategies. Such a mandate may be enshrined in legislation, in which case it is clear on whom the obligation is laid – rector or governing body. There is a spectrum of requirements on what should be produced. Guidelines issued by the system may be very specific and prescriptive, which does not permit much creative variation, or on the other hand, they may be very loose with content left largely to the university. There may be a midpoint where government defines issues to be addressed and the institutional plan responds to these. In this case, as in Austria, Finland, or Denmark, a so-called planning agreement will be signed by the HEI and its national agency to give effect to the strategic intent and earmark funding to deliver the agreed objectives (e.g., projected increase in international student numbers or specific levels of language ability). Various issues follow from this. Government may use the plan to steer the university to deliver national policies deriving from various ministries (education, health, industry and innovation, finance and economic development, etc.). There is the assumption that government will enter into a subsequent dialogue on the plan’s proposals
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before agreement. This is not always the case in some countries, thus undermining the credibility of the whole process as far as HEI are concerned. Plans, once agreed and implemented, should naturally form the basis of any public accountability of the university and imply consequences on the basis of performance. Governments and other funding agencies (both domestic and international) may provide a substantial proportion of funds for universities on a competitive basis, especially in relation to international research, knowledge transfer, and innovation. Hitherto the adjudication of these submissions was primarily on the intrinsic scientific merit of the proposal, but increasingly submissions are required to include institutional strategic plans, research and knowledge transfer strategies as a whole, and indications of the expected benefits for teaching and learning and international collaboration. Many foundations and private research funders or commissioners of international research are displaying the same tendency. This enhances the need for HEI to have robust plans and planning and implementation processes, to give confidence to the funding body. Parallel with these external factors are a host of factors internal to the institution. Universities are highly complex organizations in terms of their multiple objectives and domains of activity, often fueled by external imperatives, and a proliferation of academic units related to teaching, research, research and development (R&D), and knowledge transfer. These units tend to act unilaterally within a traditional collegial culture which is typically individualized, fragmented, defensive, and slow to respond (despite its many other virtues relating to creativity, innovation, and experimentation). Superimposed on this may be a strong bureaucratic culture. This culture may be imposed by traditional government agencies where regulation and hierarchy are dominant and often the antithesis of a dynamic developmental and entrepreneurial ethos and informed risk taking internationally. It is not uncommon to find a traditional reluctance in universities to be self-evaluative and self-critical. There may also be ineffective synchronization of directions and effort between the various functional parts of the university
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(academic, finance, personnel, etc.), a defective vertical alignment between institutional goals and those of the faculty and their subunits, slow responses to external opportunities, “fortress faculties,” and difficulty in realizing interdisciplinarity, organizational drift, and generally a deficiency in “joined-up thinking.” International strategies are thus viewed properly as a means of attempting to resolve these internal problems by bringing in coherent structure and thinking, an outward-looking dimension, a self-evaluative ethic, a means of removing blockages, and a compass to steer the whole ship. Lockwood (1984) states that “planning is the continuous and collective exercise of foresight in the integrated process of informed decisions affecting the future.” This definition provides further pointers on implementation issues, namely: • “Continuous”: implying an ongoing cycle of planning-related activity within and between years • “Collective”: implying wholesale participation, commitment, and ownership within the institution and with its international partners • “Foresight”: implying the projection of future international economic, political, employment, intellectual, and societal scenarios • “Integrated”: implying a vertical connection between university goals and those of its parts and a horizontal harmony and mutual support of the various functional areas of university activity to support the university’s international goals (finance, human resources, institutional processes, IT, etc.) • “Informed”: implying that the design of plans is supported by accurate internal data on performance and external data on international trends • “Affecting the future”: implying that the strategic planning process is not much used unless it consciously and systematically attempts to change things within the university and its relationships with current and future stakeholders and international partners, i.e., implementation mechanisms are paramount Each of these provides clear indications of the necessary elements which are likely to be needed
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in strategic planning processes. They are also, simply, criteria against which the effectiveness of international strategic processes may be judged and improved. The distinction also needs to be made between “real” international strategies (which have ownership, priorities, incentives, and impact) and “paper” strategies (which are imposed without involvement, are unprioritized, and are largely propaganda sheets and for which there are no consequences of nondelivery).
A Framework for the Development of International Strategy The design of an international strategy is far from easy, since it needs to be sensitive to the character, culture, and profile of the university and its system but also to the circumstances in which it is located. Consequently, there are several models available for consideration and adaptation, ranging between two extremes. At one extreme, there is the “Beacon” model which sets out some broad international directions, headline goals, and objectives that are embedded in conventional wisdom and behavior and organically permeate the HEI without too much in the way of techniques or instrumentation in a spirit of osmosis. This might be typical of a well-established traditional high-status university that is not subject to too much turbulence and with a strong collegial culture based on eminent faculty. At the other extreme, there is “Cascade” model in which robust instruments are designed to trickle these broad directions through various layers down and across the HEI in a systematic and quasi-controlled manner (Davies 2008). This is more widespread in universities with a stronger corporate leadership tradition and with a series of opportunities and issues which need dealing within a shorter timespan and which are overtly entrepreneurial in nature. The latter model seems to be in the ascendancy, and the thought processes, assumptions, and operating characteristics are now examined, notwithstanding that these elements are certainly strong in the consciousness, if not the operating practices, of the former.
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Institutions vary in that there may well be a free-standing, published, and detailed international strategy which is consistent with the overall institutional strategic plan, but in other cases, this may be a section within the greater plan. Whatever mechanism is used, it clearly needs to be crossreferenced with other strategies such as research or learning resources, etc. It is usually advisable to develop a clear structure for the strategy at the outset, so that evidence can be systematically collected and channeled into the various headings. An example, though not definitive, is provided below, which could equally apply to both Beacon and Cascade models. A diagnostic process is necessary to provide the information and evidence on which the contents of the plan are assembled. Figure 1 (Davies 1995; Keller 1983) indicates such a diagnostic framework to discern where the university is at present in terms of satisfactory or unsatisfactory elements and also as a basis for determining where improvements and initiatives are necessary and how they should be developed and expressed. There are two dimensions, factors which are external to the university and those which are internal, but the interrelationship and correlations need exploring. For example, a strong opportunity in an area of activity where there are related organizational weaknesses clearly calls for remediation. Assuming the diagnosis has been honest and is comprehensive and thorough, it is generally the case that a limited number of headline goals will emerge which will perform important functions such as acting as a rallying call for the university in terms of specific international aspirations, giving broad directions which will work across all the sections in the plan, and serving as a declaration of turf for the university in relation to other HEI and indicating its identity and international positioning for external clients, stakeholders, and reference groups. Headline goals may be difficult to draft since while general, they also need to be precise, keeping in mind that internationalization is not an end in itself but a lever for change and improvement and an enhancer of quality. Furthermore, each university will decide whether to develop a comprehensive or more selective model of internationalization based on its chosen strategic direction.
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Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization, Fig. 1 Internal and external factors towards an international strategy (Source Davies 1995)
Structure of International Strategy An international strategy will generally consist of various sections, commencing with a contextual analysis and a core vision and principles for internationalization including positioning and brand before indicating the headline goals and pillars. These will then be described in more detail in the sections referring to the different academic activities such as the internationalization of education, research, and knowledge transfer as well as partnerships, alliances, and capacity building. However, also important are sections on support mechanisms from an international perspective in terms of learning resources, information technology, student services, marketing, and recruitment as well as the recruitment, promotion, and professional development of staff, financial arrangements, and campus infrastructure and facilities. It may also be relevant to include the organizational framework of roles and responsibilities of the various academic and administrative
units. Sustainability, consistency, and systematization of processes are preeminent properties. It is therefore important to achieve a close alignment of these principal goal areas and the content of the respective chapters of the strategy. The normal device for ensuring this is a matrix of goals and chapters to indicate where goals find practical expressions and a consistent formulation and structure of the respective sections covering, for example, a general statement of aim, introduction, context and evaluation, objectives, and actions over the planning period as a whole and expressed in more detail for the first year of the plan. The emphasis is thus on integration, to ensure that, if the goals are sincerely held, rather than just propaganda statements, they are consistently expressed in detail at various levels. However, some strategies stop at the headline goals in formal terms – the so-called Beacon model discussed earlier. This is reasonable as long as there is a formidably strong conventional wisdom to enforce it at all levels or perpetual purposive
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dialogue and ongoing iteration across and down the university – which is not always the case. Finally, risk management/analysis is becoming an increasingly significant element in strategic planning.
Institutionalization of the Strategy: Implementation and Change Processes The constructive use of international strategy implies a progression from one state to another, using, as appropriate, many of the elements discussed above. Figure 2 provides a convenient way to conceptualize this. Here, it is possible to identify a position where a university might be located with respect to internationalization. The operating characteristics of each may be summed up as follows in Fig. 3.
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A number of issues for institutions emerge from this conceptualization: • Where, honestly, does the institution place itself at present, and is it content with this positioning? If not. . . • Where honestly and realistically would it like to position itself, in terms of overarching mission, strategy, etc.? • If it is in quadrant A, and wishes to move to quadrant D, how does it do so? Does it move straight there? Unlikely. The ideal would be to move to quadrant B through progressive systematization of the processes indicated in Fig. 4 and then start expanding the volume of activity. Expanding to quadrant C, and then trying to systematize in quadrant D, is a likely recipe for overreaching with predictable negative policy and quality consequences.
Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization, Fig. 2 International strategy implementation mix (Source Davies 2001)
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Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization, Fig. 3 Characteristics of four quadrants (Source Davies 1995)
• Over-systematization could well lead to excessive bureaucratization which would disincentivize staff and dampen the necessary entrepreneurial spirit. The overarching conclusion is thus the need for a balance between realistic comprehensive growth and systematization. The above discussion provides a rational framework for the systematic advancement of the university to its desired strategic direction.
However, shifting the behavior of staff, external stakeholders, and partners and boards is a different proposition, involving issues of prevailing institutional culture, resistance or apathy to change, personal goal displacement, and leadership style. Space does not permit a deserved detailed consideration of all these, but the following are critical. A crucial assumption is that internationalization is both complex academic and entrepreneurial activities, and a supportive, sympathetic
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Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization, Fig. 4 Strategic plan action matrix
culture is essential to promote and sustain strategic change (Davies 2001; McNay 1995). Appropriate leadership approaches are central to achieving sustainable change, and in the case of international strategy, these approaches are relevant, depending on particular circumstances and settings. Rational approaches rely on an appeal to reason, data, and evidence to demonstrate the intellectual necessity of a particular initiative – such as the fundamental redesign of the curriculum to align with internationalized learning outcomes, the financial imperative of generating new international income, the merits of fit for purpose quality assurance arrangements, or the enhancement of university prestige via strategic international partnerships. Such initiatives are then implemented through operating plans that cascade down the university to unit and individual levels. Normative or reeducative approaches rely on supporting, enabling, and incentivizing colleagues, such as staff development in areas likely to facilitate internationalization, promotion criteria rewarding international contributions, or participation in leading international research groups. Power-coercive approaches, on the other hand, are based on the exercise of authority to achieve desired ends, such as changing
organizational structures, creating new roles in the international domain, resource re-allocation, amendments of contracts and job descriptions, or the creation of targets for international student recruitment. All the above examples relate to the behavioral and micropolitical issues in implementing change in the international domain and provide a repertoire of possibilities.
An International Strategy in Operation Ultimately, there is little point in having an international strategy which is not implemented, unless the intention is largely that of identity positioning and public relations. It follows that international strategic planning needs successes to thrive and be sustainable – hence the importance of techniques to secure implementation, as well as a supportive culture, strong conventional mission, and inspiration. The principal components in effective implementation include: • A multi-year rolling plan over the planning period (which tends to be 4–5 years) with
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Higher Education Globalization, Implications for Implementation of Institutional Strategies for Internationalization, Fig. 5 Guide for annual implementation of international action priorities
•
•
• •
•
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annual operational plans updated yearly as circumstances change and actions are achieved or not achieved and thus rolled forward Annual operating plans where the various actions for internationalization in the plan are assigned to particular years in the planning period, sequenced in terms of necessity, realism, and progression – building blocks first (see Fig. 4) Annual operating plans with responsibilities assigned to particular individuals/groups and accountability built in, in terms of time frame, monitoring responsibility, etc. (see Fig. 5) The integration of the academic planning cycle with the budgetary cycle The creation of faculty/administrative unit plans to give effect to their own aspirations within the general university international strategy framework and to ensure they pick up, as appropriate, university level goals Agreed operational freedoms for faculties, etc. to run their plans and budgets in a devolved manner and achieve international goals as it best suits their profile. This would include the freedom to spend within broad limits but subject to performance accountability A public and transparent annual planning calendar, including built-in monitoring dates
• Standard, systematized documentation • High-quality dialogue and briefings with senior officers of the university • Clear responsibilities for the management of the plan centrally and at faculty levels, including assistant deans (international), and clear management structures for partnerships • Realistic priority actions at various levels to prevent personal and system overload and to provide confidence in relation to achievements.
Conclusions Internationalization is now emphatically critical for university identity, sustainability, and the provision of quality services to all users, whether in education, research, or R&D and whether nationally or internationally. An entrepreneurial approach to internationalization is consistent with excellence, and effective strategizing is essential for both. The implications and imperatives for institutional leaders are thus evident, in terms of critical areas of attention in the international domain (De Wit 2002; Hazelkorn 2017). It should be emphasized that international partnerships (university to university, university to
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enterprises, and university to governments) are becoming a critical element in international strategy, in terms of using collaboration to enhance institutional competitiveness (Fielden 2011). It is also important to comment briefly again on the institutional-government interface in international strategy. Governments have a legitimate interest in universities espousing internationalization to realize some national priorities. These might include producing global citizens able to work beyond national systems, thus enhancing labor mobility, improving national research and R&D endeavors through increasing institutional capacity via partnerships, building a national “soft power” capability as an instrument of diplomacy and foreign policy, assisting developing countries as part of national foreign aid priorities, and enhancing income and foreign exchange as part of trade/export policy. These include both altruistic and instrumental motivations and clearly have huge significance for institutional strategy and opportunities. It follows that government should also have a policy on how it facilitates institutions to achieve the above (e.g., information technology (IT) infrastructure development for on-line learning, industrial patent (IP) legislation, internationally sensitive quality assurance) as well as how to remove blockages (e.g., rigid visa controls) and, in some national settings, how to protect its own institutions from unfair competitive advantage from non-national providers. There is much that national governments can do to foster synergies and ensure consistency between government and institutional policies, to align goals, provide support (also financial), and avoid conflicts (Henard et al. 2012). Governments are more likely to intervene in a supportive manner when they see internationalization of higher education as part of a bigger undertaking to position the country, improve economic standing, or reinvigorate higher education systems. Successes and failures of international strategies are linked to the strengths and weaknesses of the national higher education system, which in turn is embedded in the economic, political, and social developments of each country (Hunter et al. 2016). Clearly, each country has a different starting point, and universities, as a whole, may need to exert pressure on governments, preferably with
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stakeholder support to achieve desired outcomes. In the current political climate, it can no longer be taken for granted that national governments and universities will necessarily align in their thinking around internationalization. Government initiatives to reduce immigration figures or restrict visa policy will impact significantly on university strategies linked to international student and staff recruitment or cross-border operations (Hunter and Sparnon 2016). What is quite clear is that university internationalization strategies cannot be properly discussed without reference to governments and the user and stakeholder communities. However, it is also increasingly clear that whatever the level of support governments put or do not put in place, internationalization choices are increasingly in the hands of the universities themselves. Regardless of the tensions in the balance between autonomy from the state and accountability to the state, it is increasingly up to the universities to define clearly their rationales for – and approaches to – internationalization and to pursue these intentions through a strategy that is carefully and purposefully designed and delivered in line with their own mission and sense of identity.
Cross-References ▶ Administrative Planning, Higher Education Institutions ▶ Administrative Staff as Key Players in the Internationalization of Higher Education
References Davies, John L. 1987. The entrepreneurial and adaptive university. Institutional Management in Higher Education 1: 12–104 Davies, John L. 1995. University strategies for internationalisation in different institutional and cultural settings. In Policy and policy implementation in internationalisation of higher education, ed. P. di Block. Amsterdam: EAIE. Davies, John L. 2001. The emergence of entrepreneurial cultures in European Universities. Higher Education Management 13(2): 25–42. OECD. Davies, John L. 2008. Strategic planning in Irish universities at academic unit level. Dublin: Irish Universities Quality Board.
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686 Fielden, John. 2011. Leadership and management of international partnerships. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2017. What does global higher education mean for university leaders. Leadership insights. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Hénard, Fabrice, Lesley Diamond, and Deborah Roseveare. 2012. Approaches to internationalisation and their implications for strategic management and institutional practice. A guide for higher education institutions. OECD Higher Education Programme IMHE. Hunter, Fiona, and Neil Sparnon. 2016. Learning internationalisation strategy: Time to get real. EAIE blog: https://www.eaie.org/blog/learning-international isation-strategy-time-get-real/. Accessed 8 Aug 2017. Hunter, Fiona, Hans de Wit, and Laura Howard. 2016. Key trends in internationalisation of higher education: Are we heading in the right direction? In Going global, connecting cultures, forging futures, ed. M. di Stiasny, and T. Gore. London: UCL Institute of Education Press. Keller, George. 1983. Academic strategy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Knight, Jane. 2008. Internationalisation: Key concepts and elements. In Internationalisation of European higher education, ed. M. di Gaebel, L. Purser, B. Waechter, and L. Wilson. Berlin: Dr. Josef Raabe Verlag. Maringe, Felix, and Nick Foskett, eds. 2010. Globalization and internationalization in higher education theoretical, strategic and management perspectives. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. McNay, Ian. 1995. From the collegial academy to the corporate enterprise. In The changing university? ed. T. di Schuller. London: SRHE and Open University Press. Middlehurst, Robin. 2008. Developing institutional internationalisation policies and strategies: An overview of key issues. In Internationalisation of European higher education. An EUA/ACA handbook, B 1.1–1. Berlin: Dr. Josef Raabe Verlag. Middlehurst, Robin, and Steve Woodfield. 2007. Responding to the internationalisation agenda: Implications for institutional strategy, Research report 05/06. York: Higher Education Academy. de Wit, Hans. 2002. Internationalization of higher education in the United States of America and Europe. Westport: Greenwood Press. de Wit, Hans, and Philip G. Altbach. 2017. Higher education as a global reality. In Encyclopedia of higher education. Springer.
Higher Education in Chile ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile
Higher Education in Chile
Higher Education in Knowledge Systems Åse Gornitzka1 and Peter Maassen2 1 Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway 2 Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Synonyms Higher education as part of configuration of institutions and actors who produce, store, disseminate and use knowledge; Sector-wise organization of higher education institutions within knowledge configurations
Definition The structure and organization of higher education institutions within any specific political and geographical configuration of institutions and actors who produce, store, disseminate and use knowledge. The embeddedness of universities and colleges into a system forms a central element in the formal organization of higher education in any country. This implies that even though the notion of the higher education system can be interpreted in various ways (Clark 1983, pp. 4–5), it is generally acknowledged that higher education institutions and a narrowly or more broadly defined set of actors, bodies, and organizations form a clearly distinguishable, integrated system of higher education at the national or subnational level. As argued, for example, by Geuna and Muscio (2009), in most countries around the world, the political and socioeconomic interest in the functioning and performance of higher education systems and their constituent components has increased dramatically over the last decades as a consequence of the growing importance of the notion of “the knowledge economy.” This development is anchored in the acknowledgment that intellectual capabilities have become more important than natural resources or physical inputs in
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the global competitiveness of national economies (Powell and Snellman 2004, p. 201). As argued by Castells (2009, p. 1), “We live in a global knowledge economy and in societies based on processing information, which is a primary university function. This implies that the quality, effectiveness and relevance of the university system will be directly related to the ability of people, society, institutions, to develop.” With this acknowledgment in mind, two core functions of higher education can be identified, that is, selecting and educating tomorrow’s knowledge workers and producing new knowledge. However, higher education is not the only sector of relevance in the knowledge economy. Therefore the question can be raised how higher education relates to other knowledge sectors in contemporary society. We refer to these relationships as knowledge systems, which encompass all actors and institutions that are involved in knowledge production and transfer relationships. This implies that knowledge systems include a range of actors and institutions in the public and private sector and civil society, such as industry, business, and economic sectors in the knowledge economy; the range of organizations and institutions that produce and disseminate policy-relevant knowledge both within and outside public administration; schools and skills institutions and systems; hospitals and healthcare institutions; civil society and public interest organizations; and professionals and their associations. The starting point in this chapter is that higher education institutions are integrated into higher education systems, which on their turn are part of knowledge systems. A relevant argument is that the knowledge economy was the result of deliberate, top-down governmental policies (At least throughout the OECD area.) (Vallas et al. 2009, p. 66; Block 2008; Block and Keller 2009, 2012), in which higher education has an important instrumental role when it comes to developing the right skills and competences among the “knowledge workers,” and producing the knowledge that stimulates innovation (Maassen and Stensaker 2011). The same argument can be applied to knowledge societies and “knowledge democracies,” that is, when it comes to the role of knowledge in modern
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political administrative systems (Christensen et al. 2017. A major challenge for discussing the position and role of higher education in knowledge systems is that the conceptualization of “knowledge system” is much less settled than the conceptualization of higher education system. To illustrate this more loose interpretation of “knowledge system” as a concept, we can refer, for example, to the diverse ways in which “knowledge system” is used in a range of disciplines, such as neuroscience, informatics, organization studies, ecology, and development studies, referring to a wide range of phenomena, some of which have scant relevance for the understanding of higher education’s role in knowledge processes. Also it is used without much precision, with depictions of knowledge systems being implicit in much of the writing on the dynamics in academia, and macro-studies and comparative studies of neighboring fields as research and innovation, education, and skills systems. If we add up these strands of scholarship, we can observe how higher education’s role in knowledge systems varies and develops in different economic, social welfare, and political contexts. Yet, there are calls for a system perspective that capture how higher education institutions relate in a structured, institutionalized way to other sectors in knowledge systems. As argued by Mazzucato (2013, p. 196), what is needed is “a systems perspective that is more realistic on the actual role of the individual actors, and the linkages between actors.” Therefore we interpret a knowledge system here as a specific configuration of institutions and actors who produce, store, disseminate, and use knowledge. From this perspective the question addressed in this chapter is how “knowledge interrelationships” in knowledge systems have developed historically, how there are structured and governed, and where and how higher education fits in this system structure and governance.
Systemic Properties Burton Clark’s (1983) seminal book the Higher Education System is a core fork in the road in higher education studies when it comes to
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articulating a system’s perspective. The aims of the book are to introduce “the basic elements of the higher education system, as seen from an organizational perspective; and to show how these features vary across nations” (Clark 1983, p. 2). It is a treatise on how academic work is organized and governed, and how these basic components systematically differ between countries and develop over time. Clark’s perception was not built on the idea that higher education institutions had differing roles within larger knowledge systems but rather the inverse idea that higher education institutions and systems are marked by being social structures for the handling of advanced knowledge. Higher education institutions – no matter how diverse national systems are – share a common factor, that is, “In varying combinations of efforts to discover, conserve, refine, transmit, and apply it, the manipulation of knowledge is what we find in common in the many specific activities of professors and teachers” (Clark 1983, p. 12). Clark’s conceptualization of system is built on Durkheim and other sociologists, including Parsons and Platt (1973), whose reference to the “American system of higher education” incorporates all universities and colleges in the US and all their primary activities. Teichler (1988) discussed the way in which different countries addressed problems in organizing and governing their higher education systems with a particular focus on how the expansion of higher education took place. His systemic perspective allows for capturing structural changes that have taken place in the transition from elite to mass higher education (Kyvik 2004), be it in terms of expansion or institutional differentiation. As in the study of economic production or welfare systems (Esping-Andersen 1990; Hall and Soskice 2001), the study of higher education at the system level became the basis for identifying different types of systems and families of higher education systems that had key properties in common, or differed along them. This includes the notion of mass versus elite systems of higher education (Trow 1970) that is used for interpreting various patterns in the expansion and spread of higher education. In addition, this work used a configuration of types of institutions included in higher education, for example, unified versus
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binary systems, as well as institutional hierarchies, and degree of systemic integration.
Higher Education’s Conceptualized Role in Neighboring Knowledge Systems In the first decades after 1945, the most influential framework for understanding the relationship of science to society in general and the economy in particular was the linear model of innovation. The model claims that innovation starts with basic research, followed by applied research and (industrial) development, and finally production and diffusion. The linear model is often attributed to Vannevar Bush and his “Science: The Endless Frontier” report (Bush 1945). However, as argued by Godin (2006), the precise origin of the model is far from clear, and instead of coming from Bush, the model is “a theoretical construction of industrialists, consultants, and business schools, seconded by economists” (Godin 2006, pp. 640–641). Even though the model has been criticized heavily, and even declared dead (Rosenberg 1994), it has been very influential in the postwar period in the explanation of innovation in the academic literature. As argued by Godin (2006, p. 641) “statistics has been one of the main factors explaining why the model gained strength and is still alive despite criticisms, alternatives, and a proclaimed death”. Launched as an alternative paradigm to the linear model in science studies that viewed technical innovation as germinating from the sciences, pure or applied, the “national innovation systems” (NIS) approach has received a lot of attention in the academic literature as well as in science policy arenas (Whitley 2001). NIS is defined as constituted by “elements and relationships which interact in the production, diffusion and use of new, and economically useful, knowledge” (Lundvall 1992, p. 2). It presumed the presence of the nation-state as the “host” of such systems. Clearly, its definition included higher education institutions as one of the key constitutive elements. As within the study of higher education systems, variation in NIS was identified also according to the balance between public and private funding of universities and scientific organizations as well as
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the overall organizational structures of the science system. The performance of the NIS was also measured and compared in international indicators. Despite its roots in theories of economic development, part of NIS scholarship theorized the role of the state and categorized innovation systems according to the willingness of the state to engage in funding, stimulation, and regulation of innovation processes. More recent contributions take this to a new level and critical stance. In particular Mazzucato’s (2013) historical analysis of innovation systems challenges the image of a passive state that reactively “fixes” and regulates the market versus the dynamic business sector. She uses historical examples to show how highrisk, bold investments that led to technological revolutions were sparked by public investments and public sector institutions. Compared to the core theoretical tenets of economic theory, Mazzucato offers a new perspective on the role of government in knowledge production and innovation. Of special relevance from the perspective of knowledge systems is her claim that for NIS to be successful, governmental policies should be less aimed on “networking” and more on strengthening “frontier” research. This implies, for example, “a better division of labor between universities and companies, where universities should focus on high-level research and firms on technology development” (Mazzucato 2013, p. 53). Within the academic literature, there has been an increasing attention to modeling the role of education and training systems as a key component in NIS (Whitley 2001, p. 10306). This attention has been given to, for example, how differences in the higher education components of the knowledge systems affect patterns of innovation. Parallel to studies of innovation through the NIS approach, also comparative studies of education and training systems, have to varying degree identified the role of higher education in the creation of innovation (Busemeyer and Trampusch 2011). In developing countries, and especially in subSaharan Africa, there are different forces and policy arguments driving knowledge systems. Here the university is positioned in a development cooperation policy arena where the dominant
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actors are operating in policy frameworks codetermined by ministries of foreign affairs and development cooperation agencies. The development mission of the university is primarily linked to poverty reduction and community support, rather than economic competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and innovation (Cloete and Maassen 2015). One of the consequences is relatively weakly developed relationships between university and society, even though the university is a far more dominant knowledge institution than in more mature economies (In the HERANA project conducted under the coordination of the South African Center for Higher Education Transformation (CHET), the knowledge production of research universities in eight African countries was studied. The project’s data confirm the national dominance of the African university as knowledge producers. For example, Makerere University in Uganda is responsible for around 65% of all scientific publications produced in the country (see: www.chet.org.za). Historical Trajectory: System Integration, Dynamics, and Control For understanding the historic development of knowledge systems – and higher education institutions and sectors within these – it is of importance to conceptualize how systems’ constitutive units are integrated and how tightly coupled they are (Drori et al. 2003; March and Olsen 1995). System integration can be interpreted and assessed in terms of how densely and intensely the components of a system are related to each other, how interdependent and structurally connected they are, and how coherent they are from the point of view of a common set of objectives. Consequently, in an integrated system, units share overall goals, are dependent upon each other, and there are structural connections between them (March 1999, p. 134). The level of integration is in general dependent on the extent to which effective coordination among the various system components can be achieved. In practice it has often proven difficult for politicians and bureaucrats as well as organizational leaders and managers to achieve coordination, across and within loosely coupled knowledge systems. Consequently, an important
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challenge is to explore the conditions under which such coordination is possible, that is, the conditions under which decision-makers have the will, understanding, and control that are needed for coordination. Another challenge is to explore the conditions under which a tightly coordinated knowledge system is likely to produce better results, in terms of the transfer of knowledge from higher education to society, than a more loosely coupled system (Gornitzka et al. 2007, pp. 193–194). The notion of an integrated system has been central in defining the role of the state and the public responsibility for funding, governing, organizing, and regulating higher education and for ordering the interrelationship between higher education institutions and their role in a “knowledge system.” There is considerable intercountry diversity in the adaptations of the governance approaches with respect to higher education’s role in a national knowledge system. This can be regarded as the prevalence of the hierarchical vision of university organization and governance (Gornitzka and Maassen 2007; Olsen 2007). According to this stylized vision, the state is responsible for the institutional sphere of science and has taken on a systemic responsibility through identifying the goals and providing the funding and setting the regulation of its national knowledge system’s constitutive units. This was an important element in the transformation of nation-states from the end of the feudal period to the First World War. The period brought the development of national social and economic strategies, and science as an institutional sphere and public policy area, and higher education, as part of it, was regarded to be highly important for national development. A result of this transformation was that the state funded a range of public organizations in the institutional sphere of science – with the university being the key institution among them – guarded them against direct intrusion from powerful economic and social groups and granted the academic staff of these agencies a relatively high level of individual academic freedom. In the second part of the nineteenth century, the modern university was firmly established and recognized as a knowledge-producing institution (Wittrock 1993, p. 305). This development was
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closely linked to the emergence of the democratic nation-state and the need of the state to ensure the knowledge for key economic and societal areas, such as agriculture, defense, health care, and education. Knowledge systems thus emerged and gained national characteristics. This state approach is especially evident in the regulatory role of the state with respect to ensuring that “state professions” and civil service were filled with personnel educated by the national universities. This is clearly an expression of higher education having become part of knowledge systems that in their turn were defined by the borders of the nation-state and affected by the role of system building and coordination that the state took upon itself. The state was also responsible for linking systemic concerns to the national priorities (Frijhoff 1992; Neave 2003, p. 23). It is even doubtful that we can talk of a distinct higher education system until the state entered the specific regulatory role with respect to higher education institutions. Among the main reasons why many governments in Europe and other parts of the world in the end were successful in their attempts to integrate the universities in their national state structures was the expansion of universities. The rapid expansion in student numbers marked in the first place the end of the possibilities of the university to operate as a self-financing institution and allowed the state to take over at least partly the control. Even in countries with a very tight state control, such as France and Russia, the traditional universities were allowed to continue with some form of self-governance. The establishment from the 1960s and onward of a “non-university” higher education sector should not only be seen as governments’ autonomic response, but it constitutes a key systemic differentiation that dovetailed the development of regional policies in Europe. With an increasing demand for higher education among a growing number of young people with qualifications to enter higher education, governments started the buildup of public alternatives to the universities, especially in the form of professionally oriented colleges and the upgrading of specific secondary education institutions to tertiary education status (Kyvik 2004). These alternative institutions were expected to
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cater for perceived labor market needs through shorter degree programs and practice-oriented courses. System change was also prompted by the government objective to use access to higher education as an instrument for social equity. As part of the set of governmental “knowledge instruments,” polytechnics, colleges, and other nonuniversity higher education organizations thus contained a strong element of instrumentality. These organizations were also subjected to political-hierarchical control to a larger degree than the established universities at the time (Gornitzka and Maassen 2007). However, in this instrumental approach, both types of higher education institution are regarded to be an important factor of production and a source of wealth or welfare. As a consequence, since the 1960s, higher education has become politically more important, but at the same time less special. This represents a fundamental change in the way higher education is governed. Traditionally higher education systems and institutions have been governed in a vertical way; that is, the main governance relationships were organized within a sectoral governance pillar with all main actors involved being higher education actors, in the sense that they were political, bureaucratic, or institutional representatives from within the sector. The increased focus on knowledge aspects has led to a growing need for coordinating horizontally hitherto “disconnected” policy areas, especially higher and professional education, vocational education and training (VET), research, innovation, labor, and technology. The consequence is that higher education’s purposes and direction of growth have become more linked to national knowledge strategies and policies and depend on shifting political priorities and funds, more than scholarly dynamics. A key issue in this is the applicability and utility of research for practical problem-solving, such as defense, industrialtechnological competition, energy, environment, health and education, and the employability of higher education graduates. The varieties of capitalism approach (Hall and Soskice 2001) is of relevance for understanding how differences in states’ approaches to the regulation and expansion of higher education set the path for the systemic differences within higher
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education and wider knowledge systems. This concerns, for example, the differences between a German organic-corporatist approach based on a strong coalition between state, church, and industry; a French centralistic, state-driven policy tradition (de Vijlder 1996, p. 110), as well as a liberal-capitalistic policy tradition (England and US) (Ringer 1992; De Swaan 1988). A significant cause of variation is the extent to which knowledge systems, and the higher education systems embedded in them, became an essential part of a centralized state structure. These developments show that the current diversity of knowledge systems can in many ways be traced back to the diverse ways in which countries handled the need for a more instrumental functioning of their knowledge institutions, including their universities and colleges, and the need for instrumentalizing academic knowledge. Governments staged, for example, the development of non-university institutions to serve national political agendas (differentiation within higher education systems). In addition, they diversified national research organization as a response to the socioeconomic and political desire to use scientific research for the purpose of national priorities. The latter kind of institutional differentiation outside higher education clearly meshed with the post-World War II idea that is part of modern statehood consisted of the coordination of a national science system. This idea spread globally, with the aid of international organizations and with it the institutionalization of government capacity to coordinate science systems, even in countries with very little or no science to coordinate (Finnemore 1993). A difference between national knowledge systems and knowledge regimes (Campbell and Pedersen 2014) became the extent to which providing academic research as a knowledge basis for public decision-making was part of the higher education sector or the responsibility of separate sets of institutions. Varying science for policy versus science policy doctrines has implied different positions of higher education in national knowledge systems as well as in national “production sectors.” An overall model for organizing science as an instrument is subordinated to the needs and priorities of societal sectors consisted of functionally
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organized ministries and government departments with strong vertical steering of research and less horizontal coordination (see, e.g., the case of medical research, Kogan et al. 2006). In some systems a principled distinction was made between basic and applied science. The former had its home within the universities and national research councils, and the latter required a hierarchical relationship between government and knowledge institutions, which in turn was organized mainly outside the universities. The extent to which universities have been enlisted into an applied, sectoral logic of the hierarchical vision of research varies over time and national systems. However, the last 20–30 years we can observe the dismantling or at least a loosening of the sectoral cohesion and corporatist arrangements and the calling for cross-sectoral coordination (Christiansen and Rommetvedt 1999; Lægreid et al. 2014) of the links between science/professions, public administration and sectors of society. As a consequence, the sectoral logic of instrumentally organized science and higher education is being challenged in many countries. Similar de-sectoralization has happened in “non-university” higher education as the functional principle of organization has to a large extent been abandoned in Western Europe: colleges for professional education, in areas such as engineering, veterinary medicine, nursing, and so on, have been merged into multidisciplinary institutions, and in some countries, for example, Norway, these institutions have been allowed to apply for university status. Nonetheless, the prediction by Gibbons et al. (1994, p. 85) that “the universities, in particular, will comprise only a part, perhaps only a small part, of the knowledge producing sector” has not been materialized. On the contrary, as shown, for example, by Godin and Gingras (2000, p. 273) for the case of Canada, universities remain at the center of knowledge systems through increased collaboration with other sectors such as hospitals, private sector companies, and government laboratories. Also Block and Keller (2009, 2012) show that the universities’ role in innovation processes in the USA has changed, not through a marginalization of the role of universities, but through their intensifying research cooperation with especially government laboratories. This
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can be further illustrated by the success of universities in the competition for funding from the prestigious European Research Council (ERC). Since its start in 2007, the ERC has funded more than 7000 projects, of which currently almost 75% is hosted by a university. This percentage has increased from around 67% in the first years of the ERC. The remainder of the projects is hosted by research institutes and organizations. Only a few projects are hosted by industry (see EU’s Cordis databasis). Concluding Reflections The emergence of knowledge systems in which higher education systems are embedded is a relatively recent phenomenon that is anchored in the notion of national knowledge economies. And even though a knowledge economy is made and not born (Vallas et al. 2009, p 71), there are limitations to the idea that states can control and steer the dynamics of higher education and knowledge systems. There are clear limitations to a state control mode as means of system integration and change. The systemic governance of higher education and knowledge systems is varied, and, as Clark (1983) observed more than three decades ago, systems operate with varying emphasis on market-based competition, government control, and academic “home rule” as mechanisms of integration. This is true of higher education dynamics and for extended knowledge systems. Main observations from a study into the effects of the growing policy emphasis on the economic role of higher education on university organization (Gornitzka and Maassen 2000), shifts in the understanding of what constitutes “knowledge” toward an increasing utility orientation (Bleiklie 2005; Bleiklie and Byrkjeflot 2001), as well as shifts in the constitutive institutional logics (Bastedo 2009) point to fundamental changes in the interdependence of knowledge systems vis-à-vis economic production and politicaladministrative systems. A challenge comes from the perforation of national systemic boundaries with the advent of attempts to create larger regional, transnational, and global knowledge systems – either through transnational markets or political coordination (Marginson 2010). This has been a core tenor in the study of innovation
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systems – where scholars from the early 1990s such as Lundvall (1992) already argued that the coherence and importance of national systems is weakened by economic globalization. On the other hand the challenges to higher education in rapidly evolving knowledge systems are paradoxical. National systems are perforated by the global links in a global knowledge system within which also higher education institutions, scholars and students are crossing national systemic borders, and thereby confirm and challenge them. Yet the state is not retreating. In many respects higher education is elevated to the core position in knowledge systems as the transversal problemsolver with respect to global and national grand challenges. In addition, it is expected to come to the rescue of stale labor markets and hailed as pacemaker for sluggish economies. At the same time, we can observe a clear challenge to the traditional roles of higher education with other nonformal knowledge institutions and arrangements overtaking the role of higher education as the turnkeys of modern knowledge systems. This institutional imperialism may ultimately threaten to destroy what is distinct about higher education as a separate institutional sphere. As argued by Olsen (2007), we can currently observe “the fall and rise of institutional structures and their associated systems of normative and causal beliefs and resources” in higher education. Time will tell whether the institutional defense of higher education against this invasion is strong enough or whether it will be absorbed by extended knowledge systems and loose its institution-specific rationale, identity, and foundations and its ethos, codes of behavior and primary allegiances, and loyalties (Maassen and Olsen 2007).
References Bastedo, M.N. 2009. Convergent institutional logics in public higher education: State policymaking and governing board activism. The Review of Higher Education 32 (2): 209–234. Bleiklie, I. 2005. Organizing higher education in a knowledge society. Higher Education 49: 31–59. Bleiklie, I., and H. Byrkjeflot. 2001. Changing knowledge regimes: Universities in a new research environment. Higher Education 44: 519–532.
693 Block, F. 2008. Swimming against the current: The rise of a hidden developmental state in the United States. Politics and Society 36: 169–206. Block, F., and M.R. Keller. 2009. Where do innovations come from? Transformations in the US economy, 1970–2006. Socio-Economic Review 7: 459–483. Block, F., and M.R. Keller, eds. 2012. State of innovation: The U.S. Government’s role in technology development. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Busemeyer, M.R., and C. Trampusch. 2011. Review article: Comparative political science and the study of education. British Journal of Political Science 41: 413–443. Bush, V. 1945. Science: The endless frontier. A report to the president. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. Campbell, J.L., and O.K. Pedersen. 2014. The national origins of policy ideas: Knowledge regimes in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Castells, M. 2009. The role of universities in development, the economy and society, Transcript of a lecture given by manuel Castells at the University of the Western Cape, August 2009. Cape Town: Center for Higher Education Transformation. Christensen, J., Å. Gornitzka, and C. Holst. 2017. Knowledge Regimes in the Nordic Countries. In The nordic models in political science. Challenged, but still viable? ed. O.P. Knutsen, 239–254. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Christiansen, P.M., and H. Rommetvedt. 1999. From corporatism to lobbyism? Parliaments, executives, and organized interests in Denmark and Norway. Scandinavian Political Studies 22 (3): 195–220. Clark, B.R. 1983. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cloete, N., and P. Maassen. 2015. Roles of universities and the African context. In Knowledge production and contradictory functions in African higher education, ed. N. Cloete, P. Maassen, and T. Bailey, 1–18. African Minds: Cape Town. Drori, G.S., J.W. Meyer, F.O. Ramirez, and E. Schofer. 2003. Science in the modern world polity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Finnemore, M. 1993. International organizations as teachers of norms – The United Nations’ educational scientific and cultural organization and science policy. International Organization 47: 565–597. Frijhoff, W. 1992. Identiteit en identiteitsbesef. De historicus en de spanning tussen verbeelding, benoeming en herkenning. BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 107 (4): 614–634. Geuna, A., and A. Muscio. 2009. The governance of university knowledge transfer: A critical review of the literature. Minerva 47: 93–114. Gibbons, M., C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartzman, P. Scott, and M. Trow. 1994. The new production of knowledge: The dynamics of science and research in contemporary societies. London: Sage.
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694 Godin, B. 2006. The linear model of innovation. The historical construction of an analytical framework. Science, Technology & Human Values 31 (6): 639–667. Godin, B., and Y. Gingras. 2000. The place of universities in the system of knowledge production. Research Policy 29: 273–278. Gornitzka, Å., and P. Maassen. 2000. Hybrid steering approaches with respect to European higher education. Higher Education Policy 13 (3): 267–285. Gornitzka, Å., and P. Maassen. 2007. An instrument for national political agendas: The hierarchical vision. In University dynamics and European integration, ed. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 81–98. Dordrecht: Springer. Gornitzka, Å., P. Maassen, J.P. Olsen, and B. Stensaker. 2007. “Europe of knowledge:” Search for a new pact. In University dynamics and European integration, ed. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 181–214. Dordrecht: Springer. Hall, P.A., and D.W. Soskice. 2001. Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kogan, M., M. Henkel, and S. Hanney. 2006. Government and research. Thirty years of evolution. Dordrecht: Springer. Kyvik, S. 2004. Structural changes in higher education systems in Western Europe. Higher Education in Europe 29: 393–409. Lægreid, P., Sarapuu, K., Rykkja, L. and Randma-Liiv, T. (eds.) (2014) Organizing for coordination in the public sector. Practices and lessons from 12 European countries. Houndsmill: Palgrave McMillan. Lundvall, B.-Å., ed. 1992. National innovation systems: Towards a theory of innovation and interactive learning. London: Pinter Publishers. Maassen, P., and J.P. Olsen, eds. 2007. University dynamics and European integration. Dordrecht: Springer. Maassen, P., and B. Stensaker. 2011. The knowledge triangle, European higher education policy logics and policy implications. Higher Education 61 (6): 757–769. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9360-4. March, J.G. 1999. A learning perspective on the network dynamics of institutional integration. In Organizing political institutions – Essays for Johan P. Olsen, ed. M. Egeberg and P. Lægreid, 129–155. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press. March, J.G., and J.P. Olsen. 1995. Democratic governance. New York: Free Press. Marginson, S. 2010. Higher education in the global knowledge economy. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 2 (5): 6962–6980. Mazzucato, M. 2013. The entrepreneurial state: Debunking public vs. private sector myths. London: Anthem Press. Neave, G. 2003. The Bologna declaration: Some historical dilemmas posed by reconstruction of the Community in Europe’s systems of higher education. Educational Policy 17 (1): 141–164. Olsen, J.P. 2007. The Institutional dynamics of the European University. In University dynamics and European integration, ed. P. Maassen and J.P. Olsen, 25–54. Dordrecht: Springer.
Higher Education in Latin America as a Field of Studies Parsons, T., and G.M. Platt. 1973. The American University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Powell, W.W., and K. Snellman. 2004. The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 199–220. Ringer, F.K. 1992. Fields of Knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenberg, N. 1994. Exploring the black box: Technology, economics, and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. de Swaan, A. 1988. In care of the state. Cambridge: Polity Press. Teichler, U. 1988. Changing patterns of the higher education system. London: Jessica Kingsley. Trow, M. 1970. Reflections on the transition from mass to universal higher education. Daedalus 99 (1): 1–42. Vallas, S.P., D.L. Kleinman, and D. Biscotti. 2009. Political structures and the making of US biotechnology. In State of innovation: The U.S. Government’s role in technology development, ed. F.L. Block and M.R. Keller, 57–76. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. de Vijlder, F. 1996. Natiestaat en onderwijs. Een essay over de erosie van de relatie tussen westerse natiestaten en hun onderwijssystemen. Gravenhage: VUGA Uitgeverij. Whitley, R.D. 2001. National innovation systems. In International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences, ed. N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes, 10303–10309. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Wittrock, B. 1993. The modern university: The three transformations. In The European and American university since 1800, ed. S. Rothblatt and B. Wittrock, 303–361. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Higher Education in Latin America as a Field of Studies ▶ Field of Higher Education Research in Latin America
Higher Education in Post-Conflict Settings Savo Heleta Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Synonyms Capacity building; Post-conflict recovery; Postconflict reform
Higher Education in Post-Conflict Settings
Definition Rebuilding higher education in post-conflict settings refers to a period when the warring parties in a conflict zone formally end fighting and the society can begin the long process of recovery and rebuilding of systems, institutions, and relations that were damaged or destroyed in the conflict. When it comes to higher education, the focus is on rebuilding and reforming higher education systems and institutions damaged and/or destroyed in the fighting.
The Importance – and Neglect – of Higher Education in Post-Conflict Settings “Food, shelter or higher education?” What should we focus on and prioritize in a post-conflict setting? While most people are likely to say that food and shelter are more important than higher education, we cannot neglect the higher education sector in conflict-ridden countries (Law 2015). Without strong higher education systems and institutions that can provide quality education, post-conflict countries will struggle to move from destruction and destitution to recovery and from insecurity and violence to stability, lasting peace, and sustainable and equitable development. As Tickle (2015) points out, there is “no other option but to rebuild higher education, else a [post-conflict] country will inevitably spiral into a disaster from which it cannot emerge.” The disaster she is referring to is chronic dependence on foreign aid and assistance and lack of local capacity for socioeconomic development and progress. In war zones, higher education is often “caught in the crossfire of violent conflict, with devastating consequences for the sector and for conflictaffected societies” (York Accord 2015). In the aftermath of conflict, most universities lack infrastructure due to destruction and academic capacity due to displacement and death. This greatly limits academia’s potential contribution to the recovery and rebuilding once fighting stops (Heleta 2017). Despite the importance of higher education for recovery, peace-building, development, and progress, rebuilding of universities in post-conflict
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settings continues to be neglected by the local authorities and international organizations and donors (York Accord 2015). The main reason for this is the fact that war-torn countries grapple with so many pressing priorities such as stabilization, resettlement of displaced people, infrastructure rebuilding, recovery in the health care and basic education sectors, livelihood improvements, reconciliation, and state-building. In addition, international donors and organizations involved in rebuilding conflict-ridden countries do not yet “appreciate the strategic role of the [higher education] sector in stabilizing and promoting the recovery of war-torn communities and states” (Barakat and Milton 2015a: 1). When it comes to rebuilding education sector in the aftermath of conflict and destruction, prioritizing basic education while neglecting higher education creates long-term imbalances and challenges in societies: Much of the energy and resources of the international community have been directed at basic education, while education authorities have been left to their own resources to deal with the needs of the other subsectors. The result has been that system recovery has in some instances been out of balance in ways that will directly affect economic and social development in the longer term. (World Bank 2005: 63–64)
Even though the international community’s focus in post-conflict settings continues to be on basic education as part of the humanitarian response, the total spending on rebuilding the education sector (including basic, secondary, and higher education) is still minimal, accounting for 2% of the overall humanitarian assistance (UNESCO 2011). Out of this, only a small share goes toward rebuilding and strengthening higher education systems and institutions. Most of the funding for higher education, some 70% of it, goes toward scholarships for individuals from conflict-affected countries to study at universities in donor countries (UNESCO 2015). This approach does not contribute to the rebuilding of higher education in the aftermath of conflict. “Instead of funding outgoing academic mobility and (intentionally or not) significantly contributing to brain drain, foreign aid needs to assist with the rebuilding and development of local higher
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education systems, institutions and academic capacity” (Heleta 2017). Apart from foreign aid for scholarships, a number of international organizations and universities have over the years been involved in projects aimed at capacity building and rebuilding of higher education institutions in a number of post-conflict countries. Most of these initiatives, however, have been small scale, ad hoc, and isolated, without a strategy that considers the longterm impact. In addition, in most cases, there is no coordination, sharing of experiences, and collaboration between institutions and organizations that offer assistance (Heleta 2015).
Rebuilding Higher Education as a Priority Socioeconomic recovery, development, and progress in any society – whether a country recovering from war or a struggling developing country – cannot be achieved through quick-fixes or by foreign experts and consultants but only by the countries in question and their own governments, experts, academics, and citizens (Dowden 2009: 164). This requires local capacity and human capital for recovery and development. For this, countries need higher education systems and institutions that provide quality education (Heleta 2015: 11). Knowledge is and will continue to be a key driver of growth, socioeconomic development, and livelihood improvements. In order not be left out, countries emerging from violent conflict need immediate, substantial, and long-term support for rebuilding higher education institutions. Higher education cannot “wait until the task of reconstruction has been completed for significant attention and investment. Rather, if the sector is left unaddressed, it can both undermine post-war transitions and represent a major missed opportunity to invest in critical national capacities that are capable of catalyzing effective reconstruction and recovery process” (Milton and Barakat 2016: 415). Despite the enormous challenges facing postconflict countries, rebuilding and reforming higher education must become one of the key priorities of the local actors and international
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community (Heleta 2017: 48). Universities are places where the capacity for critical thinking, innovation, creation of new knowledge, and progress are developed. Post-conflict countries need to be able to develop university graduates who can contribute to reconstruction, development, and the establishment of lasting peace and stability. Furthermore, in the aftermath of violent conflict, “universities can play a crucial role in empowering individuals and communities by providing the advanced capabilities necessary for societies to assume genuine ownership of the recovery process” (Milton and Barakat 2016: 406). In many countries, education is often used to “reinforce political domination, the subordination of marginalized groups and ethnic segregation” (UNESCO 2011: 17), leading in many cases to animosity and violence. In the aftermath of violent conflict, it is important to reform such systems and prevent the (re)emergence of educational structures that reproduce inequality and divisions and promote segregation, prejudice, or domination by certain groups over others (Heleta 2015: 14). Due to the complexity of post-conflict recovery and transition in any setting, rebuilding and reforming higher education will always be a challenging process, filled with uncertainty and political instability (UNESCO 2011: 20). These challenges require long-term assistance and commitment as well as constructive engagement from international organizations, donors, and universities (Barakat and Milton 2015b; Heleta 2017: 43). In particular, higher education institutions from the developed and developing world, with the financial assistance and a long-term commitment from donors, can help universities in post-conflict settings through networking, partnering, and joint sourcing of funding for rebuilding initiatives and projects. Other forms of support can include staff exchange, development opportunities for staff and academics, joint research, and student exchange (Heleta 2015: 16). Finally, we must be “realistic and understand that the provision of quality higher education does not always guarantee that things will definitely improve in war-ravaged societies. Still, without quality education and competent human capital, post-conflict societies do not have hope for the future and better life” (Heleta 2015: 17).
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References Barakat, Sultan, and Sansom Milton. 2015a. Houses of wisdom matter: The responsibility to protect and rebuild higher education in the Arab world. Policy briefing. Doha: Brookings Doha Center. Barakat, Sultan, and Sansom Milton. 2015b. Higher education vital to post-conflict rebuilding. University World News, issue no. 375, 10 July 2015. http:// www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story¼2015 0710072233289. Accessed 10 Nov 2015. Dowden, Richard. 2009. Towards New Thinking on Aid. In Africa Beyond Aid, ed. Holger Bernt Hansen, Gerhard Wahlers, and Greg Mills. 163–67. Johannesburg: The Brenthurs Foundation. Heleta, Savo. 2015. Higher education in post-conflict societies: Settings, challenges and priorities. In Handbook internationalisation of European higher education, vol. 1, 1–20. Stuttgart: Raabe Verlag. Heleta, Savo. 2017. Higher education and its international dimensions in post-conflict settings. In The globalization of internationalization: Emerging voices and perspectives, ed. Hans de Wit, Jocelyne Gracel-Avila, Elspeth Jones, and Nico Jooste, 40–49. London: Routledge. Law, John. 2015. Food, shelter or higher education: What’s most needed? British Council, 30 September 2015. http://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/foodshelter-higher-education-most-needed. Accessed 8 Nov 2016. Milton, Sansom., and Sultan Barakat. 2016. Higher education as the catalyst of recovery in conflict-affected societies. Globalisation, Societies and Education 14 (3): 403–421. Tickle, Louise. 2015. Universities in conflict zones: ‘We face intimidation and arrests’. The Guardian, 4 June 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/higher-educationnetwork/2015/jun/04/universities-in-conflict-zones-weface-intimidation-and-arrests. Accessed 10 Nov 2016. UNESCO. 2011. The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education. EFA global monitoring report. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. 2015. A growing number of children and adolescents are out of school as aid fails to meet the mark. Institute for Statistics and the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. Policy paper 22/fact sheet 31. Paris: UNESCO. World Bank. 2005. Reshaping the future: Education and postconflict reconstruction. Washington, DC: World Bank. York Accord. 2015. The responsibility to protect and rebuild higher education during and after conflict. Doha: Brookings Doha Center.
Higher Education Inequality ▶ Inequality in Higher Education and the Labor Market
Higher Education Institution Reforms ▶ Academic Perception of Governance and Management
Higher Education Institutions (HEI) ▶ Dimensions of Sustainable Development in Higher Education ▶ Good Governance and Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Israel
Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of Alexander C. McCormick and Victor M. H. Borden Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Synonyms Classification; taxonomy; typology
Definition Typologies and classifications distill a complex reality such as a heterogeneous population of higher education institutions into something simpler – something that is more manageable from both cognitive and analytic perspectives. Such groupings assemble entities into categories or classes that share common features and meaningfully differentiate them from those in other categories. The resulting categories can serve many purposes. For example, in the case of higher education they can
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• Serve as shorthand for quickly characterizing an institution, especially if the groupings are widely understood and consensually accepted • Be incorporated or enshrined in policy for purposes of resource allocation and system differentiation • Help prospective students or staff members identify the pool of institutions they might wish to join • Be used in research for sampling, data analysis, or both For the purposes of this entry, we consider the terms “classification” and “typology” to be synonymous. Type. For our purposes, type distinguishes institutions according to relatively coarse features, often linked to system organization or institutional identity. In the United States (US) context, for example, types may be defined relative to institutional control (public, private not-for-profit, or private for-profit), level of offering (less-than-2-year, typically offering vocational training; 2-year, offering up to the associate’s degree; or 4-year, offering bachelor’s degrees and above) or function within a multicampus system (e.g., flagship, regional campus, community college, or vocational/technical college). Germany divides tertiary education institutions into four types: universities (and their equivalent), technical schools and colleges, colleges of art and music, and universities of applied sciences. In Australia, institutions are more generally divided into universities, technical and further education (TAFE) institutions, and other providers. China generally distinguishes first between stateor government-owned institutions and private institutions and then among the types: regular higher education institutions, independent institutions, higher vocational colleges, and adult higher education institutions. Used as descriptor, type may also define a category or class of institutions that is not necessarily part of a comprehensive collection of mutually exclusive categories. Thus, type may signify membership in formal or informal groups such as the Ivy League (US); the ancient universities, red brick universities, or the Russell Group (United Kingdom); the Group of Eight (Australia); or Project 211 and 985 (China).
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Types may also invoke widely accepted institutional identities (e.g., research university, worldclass university, women’s college). Classification. In contrast to type, we use classification to denote a formal system that differentiates institutions according to explicitly stated rules or procedures that typically assign all members of a defined population of institutions to designated categories. These definitions overlap to some degree, and “type” is sometimes used to refer to a category within a classification system (e.g., “Carnegie type” to refer to a category of the Carnegie Classification system in the United States). As we demonstrate below, classifications may reflect or operationalize prior understandings of type, in effect formalizing a previously informal sense of differentiation. The key distinction is that classifications are formal and rule-based. In the discussion of classification below, we draw heavily on the experience of the US-based Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as an enduring, well established, and widely used classification that illustrates the value of classifying higher education institutions as well as the associated challenges and consequences.
Institutional Type in Policy, Institutional Identity, and Consumer Choice Policy Institutional type may be enshrined in policy and linked to governance, funding, authority to award certain types of degrees but not others, tax liability, and so on. For example, public institutions are subject to coordination or explicit control by the state, while private institutions typically enjoy more latitude and autonomy in key decisions such as hiring, compensation, student admission, and creation or elimination of academic programs (although degree of autonomy varies considerably by country). In addition to the higher level of government subsidy afforded to public institutions, resource allocation decisions may be connected to government-designated type. For example, in the United States – where public institutions are established by the individual states – funding formulas are tied to differences
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in state-designated type. The Russian Ministry of Education and Science launched Project 5–100 in 2013 as an 8-year effort to improve the prestige and ranking of Russian higher education institutions (Alekseev 2014). In China, Project 211, established in 1995, targeted funding to raise the research standing of 100 National Key Universities. In 1998, a subset of these institutions were given the 985 designation, targeted for further funding (Lixu 2004). Although tied to specific government initiatives, the 211 and 985 designations have become part of the lexicon of institutional type in China (Zha and Hayhoe 2014). Institutional Identity Institutional type may also be tied to aspects of institutional identity. This is often the case for high-status institutions within a national system (e.g., membership in the Association of American Universities, Ivy Group, Russell Group, Group of 8, Project 985), but it may also relate to historical mission, such as service to a particular subpopulation (e.g., women’s colleges or historically black colleges and universities in the United States) or curricular emphasis (e.g., technical institutes that prioritize the STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Consumer Choice Institutional type is also prominent in tools intended to inform consumer choice, the implication being that one of the first-order decisions for prospective students is to identify the broad “type” that best suits their needs. In the United States, with its large and heterogeneous population of more than 4000 degree-granting colleges and universities (and still more non-degree institutions), a thriving college-guide industry offers a variety of publications and online tools for prospective students. One of the market leaders in this industry is US News and World Report, publisher of an annual “America’s Best Colleges” ranking. US News segments the market into four types: National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities, and Regional Colleges (derived from the Carnegie Classification described below). Another leader in this industry, Princeton Review, earns coverage in the industry
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press each year – as well as dismay and damage control among college leaders – with its annual list of “party schools” among other lists based on unscientific surveys of current undergraduates. As an illustration of the fluid nature of institutional type, it is instructive to examine the types invoked in the online college-search tool offered by the not-for-profit College Board in the United States (https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org). The website provides an introductory discussion of institutional types that calls attention to the following overlapping distinctions: Public and private colleges; For-profit colleges; 4-year and 2-year colleges; Liberal arts colleges; Universities; Community colleges; Vocational-technical and career colleges; Colleges with a special focus (Arts colleges, Single-sex colleges, Religiously affiliated colleges, and Specializedmission colleges). But the associated search tool offers the following type distinctions: 2-year/ community college or 4-year college or university (corresponding to level of undergraduate degree); Public, Private, or For-profit; Small, Medium, or Large enrollment size; Coed, All women, or All men; and Religious affiliation (47 choices plus no preference, no affiliation, interdenominational, and nondenominational) (https://bigfuture. collegeboard.org/college-search).
A Brief History of Classification Formally, comprehensive classification of higher education institutions emerged in the United States in the early 1970s as part of the research program of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education under the leadership of former University of California president Clark Kerr. Established by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1967, the Carnegie Commission was charged to assess the needs of US higher education in the final decades of the twentieth century. Early on, the Commission staff judged that extant typologies – which typically reflected broad distinctions of type, such as level and control, and often denominational status for private institutions – were ill-suited to its work. In Kerr’s words, the Commission “recognized the need for a classification of institutions that
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would be more useful for purposes of analysis” and thus “sought to identify categories of colleges and universities that would be relatively homogeneous with respect to the functions of the institutions as well as with respect to characteristics of students and faculty members” (Carnegie Commission 1973 p. v). The “functions” language corresponds to the widely held understanding that the resulting Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (Carnegie Commission 1973) which is known simply as the Carnegie Classification, differentiated institutions according to mission. Because it was primarily based on empirical data related to degree production, research funding, and selectivity, the distinctions reflected enacted mission rather than identity claims asserted by the institutions themselves. The first Carnegie Classification used data from the US Office of Education to differentiate institutions into five broad categories related to level of degree offering or curricular specialization, all but one of which were further divided into subcategories: Doctoral-Granting Institutions (four subcategories), Comprehensive Colleges (two subcategories), Liberal Arts Colleges (two subcategories), All Two-Year Colleges and Institutes, and Professional Schools and Other Specialized Institutions (nine subcategories) (Carnegie Commission 1971). Although the new classification included all degree-granting US institutions – public and private – this structure resembled that of California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which had also come into being under Kerr’s leadership. The classification was initially only used to inform the analyses in several Commission publications; a full listing of institutions by category was not published until 1973. Kerr wrote that the Commission published the listing “because we felt that it would be helpful to many individuals and organizations that are engaged in research on higher education” (Carnegie Commission 1973, p. vi). Over time, the Carnegie Commission, its successor organization (the Carnegie Council on Higher Education Policy Studies), and subsequently the parent of both (the Carnegie Foundation) periodically updated the classification to take account of growth and change in the population of US institutions as well as programmatic changes
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at the institutional level. The overall structure was maintained – with adjustments to categories, data sources, and classification procedures – until 2005, when the system was elaborated with the addition of several new, parallel classification schemes (McCormick and Zhao 2005). The legacy classification also underwent significant change and continues to be updated as part of the new system. In 2014, operational responsibility for the Carnegie Classification was transferred to the Center for Postsecondary Research at the Indiana University School of Education (for more details on the Carnegie Classification system, see http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu). Another change instituted around the time of the 2005 update was the introduction of a voluntary classification focused on an institution’s commitment to community engagement. To qualify for this designation, institutions provide detailed data and documentation related to their commitment to and practices within and with their communities. The documentation is reviewed by a national advisory panel that makes classification decisions (for more information, see Sandmann et al. 2009).
Other Classifications In the United States, organizations such as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) have developed their own classification systems that resemble the original Carnegie scheme in overall structure. The AAUP classification includes broad degree level designations (Doctoral, Master’s, Baccalaureate, and Associate’s) and further divides the Associate’s category according to whether academic staff have professorial ranks. The SREB classification employs three broad groupings that distinguish degree level and program type (four-year, two-year, and technical), with subcategories reflecting size, program breadth (number), and comprehensiveness (distribution of degrees across programs). In addition, a number of researchers have proposed alternative systems for classifying US institutions. Zemsky et al. (1997) proposed a 5-category market-based taxonomy of bachelor’s degree-
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granting US institutions, while Brint et al. (2006) used cluster analysis to derive a 7-category scheme, which they sought to validate relative to three others by examining the degree of agreement with reference sets identified by samples of 253–275 college and university presidents. More recently, Ruef and Nag (2015) undertook an exploratory study using a sophisticated methodology (latent Dirichlet allocation) to derive an empirical classification of a broad population of US postsecondary institutions, including nondegree-granting institutions. While these approaches have contributed to the discourse regarding differentiation in US higher education, they have not achieved the level of acceptance and use of the highly institutionalized Carnegie system. A different approach to classification is represented by the U-Map project in Europe. U-Map relies on institutionally reported data to derive “activity profiles” that use 25 indicators to characterize institutional activity along six dimensions: Teaching and learning profile, Student profile, Research involvement, Investment in knowledge exchange, International orientation, and Regional engagement (van Vught et al. 2010). U-Map represents a departure from conventional classification in two important respects. First, it does not assign institutions to predefined categories. Rather, each institution’s activity profile is represented by a circular “sunburst chart” that depicts activity along the six dimensions as a series of color-coded radii, with variable radius lengths determined by the indicator score. In this regard, U-Map is more a descriptive methodology than a classification. The second important difference is that U-Map does not identify institutions by name but by 1- or 2-letter codes. Because of its reliance on voluntary submission of data by institutions, U-Map is limited to institutions that elect to participate (67 as of this writing). For more information, refer to http://u-map.eu.
Uses of Classification Since its publication in 1973, the Carnegie Classification has enjoyed wide acceptance by both higher education researchers and practitioners,
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due in part to the legitimacy and perceived objectivity of the Carnegie Foundation and its affiliated projects. As noted above, its genesis was to inform a specific program of research on higher education, and it was later embraced by the research community at large. If a classification covers an entire population of institutions – as in the Carnegie example – it can be explicitly used to guide sampling, it can be used post-hoc to assess representativeness and potential sample bias, and it can serve as an independent or grouping variable in analyses. For example, a classification can inform understanding of the flow of higher education inputs and outputs to assess questions related to public support, educational equity, and the production of individual and social benefits (McCormick 2013). Reflecting the Carnegie Classification’s wide acceptance – and until recently, the lack of viable alternatives – it has been adopted for a variety of purposes beyond research. For example, some institutional membership organizations link membership eligibility or dues to specific classification categories, and at least one philanthropic organization has used the classification to determine institutional eligibility for a grant program targeting a specific institutional type. As noted above, US News and World Report derives the broad categories for ranking from the Carnegie Classification. It also uses selected categories to determine which institutions to rank (McCormick 2007). Both of these uses have implications for an institution’s success at student recruitment. The Carnegie Classification has even found its way into government regulations in the United States and other countries. In Germany, for example, the classification determines which Ph.D. graduates of US universities may legally use the title “Doktor” (Wiarda 2008). In the US state of Georgia, regulations for teaching certificate upgrades invoke the classification in determining approved preparation programs (http://www.gapsc.com/Rules/Current/Certifica tion/505-2-.33.pdf). These examples illustrate how an accepted and widely used classification can have consequences that extend well beyond its intended use – some of which can affect an institution’s or an individual’s access to important resources.
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Approaches to Classification In the design of an empirically based classification, there are two distinct approaches that Bailey (1994) terms “idiographic” and “nomothetic.” In the idiographic approach (the approach used in the Carnegie Classification), explicit a priori classification rules informed by expert judgment determine the assignment of entities (i.e., institutions) to categories based on specific data elements. Alternatively, nomothetic (a posteriori) approaches use statistical techniques to reveal underlying patterns of similarity and difference in the data. For examples in the US context, see Brint et al. (2006) and Ruef and Nag (2015). Each approach offers advantages and disadvantages. The idiographic approach has the advantage of transparency: Classification procedures are easily understood and the basis for assigning a specific entity to a category is readily evident (and readily challenged, for example to reveal faulty data). While the idiographic approach may reinforce prior beliefs about important differences – contributing to face validity – there is no guarantee that those beliefs are empirically justified. Nomothetic approaches, by contrast, can reveal previously unrecognized patterns in the data that may yield new understanding about similarities and differences among entities, but the procedure for deriving categories and assigning entities to them is more opaque to consumers and users. Some nomothetic approaches using probabilistic methods relax the conventional requirement that each entity belong to only one category (see Ruef and Nag 2015), which has particular appeal in the case of complex organizations such as higher education institutions that have multifaceted organizational identities and functions. A limitation of the nomothetic approach is the requirement of common data elements for all entities, potentially leading to excessive simplification and the omission of data that may be highly relevant for a subset. McCormick (2013) suggests a hybrid approach to address this limitation, splitting the population into subsets that could be classified using distinct data elements. Regardless of approach, a key step in classification involves the selection of relevant data.
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These decisions are guided by the classification’s purpose and data availability. With a vision of intended use, a classification’s designers decide which dimensions of institutional differentiation matter. Having made these choices, the next step is to determine whether and how those dimensions can be operationalized using existing or newly collected data. U-Map offers a useful example of this process because its designers thoroughly documented the design process (van Vught et al. 2010). The classification was created to characterize “the European higher education landscape” with the goal of enabling “stakeholders to comprehend the diverse institutional missions and profiles of European higher education institutions” (p. 5). Stakeholders were defined to include students, academic staff, industry, policy makers, and the institutions themselves. Following a process of stakeholder and expert consultation, U-Map’s designers chose six dimensions of differentiation to characterize this diversity, with each dimension represented by three to five indicators (Fig. 1). To illustrate how these indicators were operationalized, we offer two definitions from the U-Map report: “Start-up firms” was defined as “the average number of start-up firms created over the last three years per 1,000 FTE academic staff” (p. 83) and “Importance of international sources of income” was defined as “income from non-national sources, excluding tuition fees from nationals, as a percentage of total income” (p. 82). Another aspect of classification design concerns the granularity of the classification. As previously stated by McCormick and Zhao (2005): [C]hoosing the number of classification categories. . . involves a tension between precision and parsimony. As categories are defined more precisely, the number of categories increases, as does homogeneity within them, while the size of the group within each category declines. Favoring parsimony yields more manageable and more easily comprehended classifications made up of fewer categories but with more members and more variation within the categories (pp. 53–54).
In the U-Map design process, stakeholder and expert consultation generated an initial list of 14 dimensions, which was judged to be too unwieldy and confusing for users and unlikely to produce “a reasonable number of benchmark
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Teaching and learning profile ● Degree level focus ● Range of subjects ● Orientation of degrees ● Expenditure on teaching Involvement in knowledge exchange ● Start-up firms ● Patent applications filed ● Cultural activities ● Income from knowledge exchange activities
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Student profile
Research involvement
● Mature students ● Part-time students ● Distance learning students ● Size of student body
International orientation ● Foreign degree-seeking students ● Incoming students in international exchange programmes ● Students sent out in international exchange programmes ● International academic staff ● The importance of international sources of income
● Peer-reviewed academic publications ● Peer-reviewed other research products ● Professional publications ● Doctorate production ● Expenditure on research Regional engagement ● Graduates working in the region ● First-year bachelor students from the region ● Importance of local/regional income sources
Higher Education Institutions, Types and Classifications of, Fig. 1 U-Map dimensions and associated indicators (Source: Adapted from van Vught et al. 2010 and updated with the most current list of indicators)
institutions” when used for benchmarking purposes, leading to the final set of six dimensions (van Vught et al. 2010, p. 24).
Challenges and Caveats There are a number of notable challenges associated with classifying higher education institutions. A fundamental one involves determining what constitutes a single entity for classification purposes. This decision is less clear than in the past, as university boundaries become indistinct and permeable though remote campuses, online operations, foreign installations and franchises, and so on. To the extent that a classification relies on external data, however, the designation may be driven by data providers. A classification may accurately describe a population of institutions, but this does not assure accuracy at the institutional level. Apart from data errors, misclassification can arise for institutions undergoing rapid change such that their current profile outpaces what is reflected in previously collected data (for example, due to enrollment changes, addition or elimination of academic programs, or changes in research funding). While measurement error is unavoidable and tolerated in research, misclassification matters when institutions face classification-
related consequences such as those discussed earlier. The need to accommodate change also relates to limitations of the update cycle. A classification remains relevant to the degree that the distinctions it makes are relatively stable. To the degree that they change, the classification becomes outdated and loses validity. Classifications frequently rely on proxy measures to represent diffuse constructs, as illustrated by the U-Map example above. Proxy measures bear on the construct of interest but typically offer a limited or incomplete picture. While the use of proxy measures is standard practice in social science research, it can have perverse consequences in a classification if institutions see strategic advantage to changing categories. This certainly has been the case for the Carnegie Classification, where certain categories – most notably, the one containing the nation’s prestigious research universities (known in the lingua franca of US Higher education as “R1,” based the previously used category label “Research I”) – came to be seen as conferring prestige and in the case of public institutions were associated with higher levels of state funding. As a result, many institutions identified “moving up” as an explicit strategic objective, driving a focus on the measures used to define category membership. This was especially ironic given that “the Carnegie system
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was designed to pull the attention of policy makers away from the nation’s research institutions, and to emphasize instead the variety and social importance of the vast majority of institutions that were not research oriented” (Graham and Diamond 1997, p. 53). Indeed, the first Carnegie Commission report to use the classification (1971) observed “no need whatsoever in the foreseeable future for any more research-type universities granting the Ph.D.” and recommended “resisting homogenization” and “holding steady the number of universities” (pp. 5, 8–9). Another consequence of measurement choices relates to the selection, availability, and quality of data that will inform classification design. The selection of classification attributes is a subjective design choice that is tied to both intended use and beliefs about the attributes of higher education institutions that reflect meaningful distinctions. Even nomothetic classification approaches involve subjective choices by both their creators and those who provide the larger data infrastructure from which data elements are drawn. Data availability (or feasibility of their collection) directs attention toward some features and away from others. Certain aspects of institutional function, such as finances, student enrollment, and degree production, are subject to careful and detailed accounting as a part of routine institutional operations. These data elements are reflected in the data infrastructure and readily adapted for use in classifications. Other aspects, such as the mix of pedagogical approaches or an emphasis on preparing students to make ethical choices, may be less amenable to easy measurement. This can lead to a systematic bias in the aspects of institutions that are represented in classifications and to an implicit message that the features that go unmeasured lack value or importance. Indeed, the voluntary community engagement classification described earlier represents a response to a gap in the available data that had been perceived as impeding or undermining the legitimacy of that aspect of institutional activity. This is also an example of the use of classification to call attention and legitimacy to activities that are inadequately represented in the national data. This reminds us that classification is never neutral and always tied to intended uses.
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However, as noted elsewhere in this entry, classifications can be appropriated for purposes unrelated to those that informed their design, leading to sometimes perverse consequences.
The Future of Classification Several of the challenges noted above will shape the future prospects for existing and potential new classification systems. The rapidity of change and increasing difficulty of characterizing institutional entities, given more complex organizational and system designs, promotes the need for more frequent updates. In response, for example, the Carnegie Classification has announced plans to move to a 3-year cycle. The growing availability of data sources within countries and regions, and the slow but steady emergence of data standards for equating institution “types” across countries, improves the prospects for international or at least cross-national classifications. At the same time, the expansion and ready accessibility of data may diminish the need for formal classifications, as researchers and policy makers can devise more context-specific rules and measures to meet their needs. Indeed, McCormick et al. (2009) found that models of student experiences and outcomes using categories of the Carnegie Classification have less explanatory power than models using the underlying the data elements that form the classification categories. Globalization and internationalization forces have led to increased focus on performance outcomes. Performance-based funding, world-class research university rankings, and global competition for students and staff are shaping national policy and resource allocation schemes. Rankings, league tables, and other comparison and benchmarking systems have proliferated in recent years. Whereas classifications seek to represent the diversity of institutions, rankings typically reduce institutional performance to a single measure based on a weighted composite of institutional performance indicators. Generally dismissed by critics as excessively reductionist, arbitrary, and invalid, the rankings have had a significant impact on institutional practice and
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national policy throughout the world, as institutions seek to gain prestige and nations compete to raise the visibility of their research universities as a mark of national pride (Hazelkorn, 2015). In some respects, these developments have encouraged the homogenization of institutions. In many countries, technical and applied-science institutions have grown into full-fledged universities. In the UK, the removal in 1992 of the binary divide between polytechnics and universities resulted in the rapid expansion of the university sector. The upward mobility of institutions is also notable in the United States as 2-year and community colleges attain 4-year status by introducing a limited number of baccalaureate degree programs. Despite these pressures, there is a continued need for differentiation in the postsecondary sector to serve the increased levels of participation that most countries seek. For example, a planned change for the Carnegie Classification is the inclusion and differentiation of nondegree granting institutions, which serve an important role in meeting the workforce needs of an increasingly knowledge- and service-based economy. Classifications can serve as a basis for distinguishing performance objectives among institutions, although it is not clear that current configurations are optimally designed for this purpose. The continuing success of existing and future classifications may be linked to their ability to provide such distinctions for differentiated performance assessment. Enabling such differentiation could shift the focus from the traditional, elite functions of education to a broader array of purposes, which, in turn could increase the value, both social and economic, of the democratic functions of higher education.
References Alekseev, O. 2014. First steps of Russian universities to top-100 global university rankings. Higher Education in Russia and Beyond 1 (1): 6–8. https://herb.hse.ru/ data/2014/05/30/1325398755/1HERB_01_Spring.pdf. Accessed 9 Mar 2017. Bailey, K.D. 1994. Typologies and taxonomies: An introduction to classification techniques. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
705 Brint, S., M. Riddle, and R.A. Hanneman. 2006. Reference sets, identities, and aspirations in a complex organizational field: The case of American four-year colleges and universities. Sociology of Education 79: 229–252. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. 1971. New students and new places: Policies for the future growth and development of American higher education. New York: McGraw-Hill. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. 1973. A classification of institutions of higher education. Berkeley: Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. Graham, H.D. and N. Diamond. 1997. The rise of American research universities. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hazelkorn, E. 2015. Rankings and the reshaping of higher education. The battle for world-class excellence. 2nd Edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Lixu, L. 2004. China’s higher education reform 1998–2003: A summary. Asia Pacific Education Review 5 (1): 14–22. McCormick, A. C. 2007. “Hidden in plain view.” Inside Higher Ed. http://www.insidehighered.com/views/ 2007/05/10/mccormick. Accessed 30 Jan 2017. McCormick, A.C. 2013. Classifying higher education institutions: Lessons from the Carnegie Classification. Pensamiento Educativo. Revista de Investigación Educational Latinoamericana 50 (1): 65–75. McCormick, A.C. and C. Zhao. 2005. Rethinking and reframing the Carnegie Classification. Change 37: 51–57. McCormick, A.C., G.R. Pike, G.D. Kuh, and P.D. Chen. 2009. Comparing the utility of the 2000 and 2005 Carnegie Classification systems in research on students’ college experiences and outcomes. Research in Higher Education 50: 144–167. Ruef, M. and M. Nag. 2015. The classification of organizational forms: Theory and application to the field of higher education. In Remaking college: The changing ecology of higher education, M. Stevens and M. Kirst. (Eds.) 84–109. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sandmann, L. R., C. H. Thornton, and A. J. Jaeger. (Eds.) 2009. Institutionalizing community engagement in higher education: The first wave of Carnegie classified institutions. New Directions for Higher Education, issue 147. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. van Vught, F.A., F. Kaiser, J.M. File, C. Gaethgens, R. Peter, and D.F. Westerheijden. 2010. U-Map: The European classification of higher education institutions. Enschede: CHEPS. http://about.u-map.org/ wp-content/uploads/2012/09/U-MAP_final_report.pdf. Accessed 30 Jan 2017. Wiarda, J. 2008. “Klammerfrei.” Zeit Online. http://www. zeit.de/2008/12/C-Seitenhieb-12. Accessed 30 Jan 2017. Zemsky, R., S. Shaman, and M. Iannozzi. 1997. In search of strategic perspective: A tool for mapping the market in postsecondary education. Change 29: 23–38. Zha, Q. and R. Hayhoe. 2014. The “Beijing Consensus” and the Chinese model of university autonomy. Frontiers of Education in China 9 (1): 42–62.
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Higher Education Journals Malcolm Tight Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Synonyms
Higher Education Journals
The purpose of this contribution is to provide an overview of the current state of play. To do so, what is meant by higher education journals will first be clarified, and some of the range currently in existence will be indicated. Then an attempt will be made to estimate how many there currently are and discuss their varied characteristics. Finally, some thoughts on their role and contribution to higher education research will be offered.
Articles; Papers; Publications
Definitions and Range Definition Academic, peer-reviewed journals that focus exclusively on higher education
Introduction Higher education journals are, arguably, the most important repository for the outputs of higher education research. While there are many other important outputs for higher education research – such as conference or seminar presentations, reports, and monographs – the journal article represents the peak achievement and final word, as it will typically have been presented in other formats previously and will have gone through a peer review process to gain published status. In this contribution, the focus will be on academic journals and, in particular, peer-reviewed academic journals. Popular or professional journals (such as the Chronicle of Higher Education and Times Higher Education) will not be considered. This is not to deny the considerable value of such outlets but to limit and focus the discussion. Further, only journals published in the English language will be examined, in part because of linguistic issues, but also in acknowledgement of the role of English as academe’s lingua franca. Many more academic journals are published in Chinese, French, German, Russian, Spanish, and other languages, but they do not have the same international recognition as the leading English language journals.
A focus on refereed academic journals published in the English language still leaves a considerable diversity of journals to examine. For a start, a threefold division between journals that focus exclusively on higher education research, those that regularly publish reports of higher education research, and those that occasionally do so (the last of these will not be considered further, as they do not represent a very fruitful target for higher education researchers seeking publication) may be recognized. Journals that focus exclusively on higher education – typically, but not invariably, indicated by the inclusion of the words “higher education” in their titles – may be divided into a further three types: • First, there are what might be termed generic journals (e.g., Higher Education Research and Development, Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education), which, in principle, appear open to publishing articles on any aspect of higher education. • Second, there are topic-specific journals (e.g., Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Christian Higher Education, Higher Education Policy, International Journal for Academic Development, Journal of Marketing in Higher Education, New Directions for Teaching and Learning), which limit themselves to a particular topic or group of topics. This limitation is usually indicated in their title and also spelt out on the journal’s web page in more detail. • Third, there are discipline-specific journals (e.g., Arts and Humanities in Higher
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Education, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of Geography in Higher Education), which focus on higher education research in a particular discipline or group of disciplines. Again, this is usually indicated in their titles. An alternative categorization would divide higher education journals into two groups: international and nation (or region) specific. This may be seen as a second dimension running across the threefold first dimension just outlined. International journals (e.g., Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education) invite and encourage submissions from researchers based anywhere in the world. They include what would likely be regarded as the highest status higher education journals, but that is not to say that all international journals are high status, or vice-versa. Country-specific journals (e.g., Canadian Journal of Higher Education, South African Journal of Higher Education) confine themselves wholly or largely to research carried out in, or related to, higher education in the country in question. The country concerned is typically, but not always, indicated in the title of the journal in question. Interestingly, there is something of a developmental trend for journals along the countryspecific to international dimension. That is, journals often start out focused upon a particular country or region, but open up to become international as they expand and become established. There are also, however, countervailing tendencies; thus American-based journals, in particular, even though they may be very well-established and have high status, typically continue to focus exclusively, or near exclusively, on research carried out in, and related to, the USA (and perhaps Canada; see Shahjahan and Kezar 2013; Tight 2014). A similar, but slightly extended, categorization may be applied to other journals that publish significant numbers of articles focused on higher education but do not focus exclusively on it. This categorization recognizes that most, but not all, such journals are educational journals – that is, they publish articles focusing on all levels or stages of education (primary, secondary, higher, etc.):
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• First, generic education journals (e.g., Asia Pacific Educational Review, Oxford Review of Education) publish research considering all aspects and all levels of education. • Second, topic-specific education journals (e.g., International Journal of Education Management, Journal of Education Policy, Journal of Education and Work, Learning and Instruction, Qualitative Studies in Education) publish research on particular topics – typically indicated in their titles – concerning all levels of education. • Third, discipline-specific education journals (e.g., Education Economics, European Journal of Dental Education, International Journal of Science Education) focus on research on all levels of education in particular disciplines, with the discipline usually included in their titles. • Fourth, there are numbers of non-education journals, focusing on other disciplines (e.g., British Journal of Psychology, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment), which publish a significant number of articles dealing with higher education research. These mainly focus on social science disciplines, such as business/management, psychology, and sociology. There is, therefore, a potentially bewildering range of journals which publish higher education research. Anyone wishing to keep up to date with such research, even if they are focused on a particular topic and disciplinary area, needs to be open to examining articles published in a broad range of outlets. This is so even in an age of online databases and search engines, as these typically have less than fully comprehensive coverage.
Numbers and Characteristics As the discussion so far may have suggested, the question as to how many higher education journals there are – even if we confine ourselves to those published in the English language – is not easy to answer. There is no agreed and definitive list available, and, even if there were, it would need continual updating, as new journals are
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created every year while established journals occasionally shut down (e.g., in recent years both Higher Education in Europe and Higher Education Management and Policy have ceased publication). Nonetheless, some have tried to provide such a list. Thus, Bassett and Rumbley (2006, pp. 283–309; an updated version is available on the Center for International Higher Education’s website: www.bc.edu/research/cihe/resources. html) list 123 journals in higher education, of which 80 were English language publications. However, their list includes some journals which were not wholly focused on higher education and some which were popular or professional, rather than academic, in orientation.
Higher Education Journals
In a previous publication (Tight 2012a, pp. 229–232), 53 academic journals focusing on higher education were listed, while, in research for a forthcoming book (Tight 2018), which attempts to synthesize the research to date on higher education, in the extensive list of references, some 140 journals were referenced on two or more occasions. Since the latter, however, included many journals that were not focused on higher education, the former list, suitably updated, has been used as the basis for the list of 86 higher education journals included in Table 1. It would be wrong to claim that this listing is wholly comprehensive, as some journals have almost certainly been missed; particularly, perhaps, newer ones available only online and
Higher Education Journals, Table 1 Higher education journals Generic (14) European Journal of Higher Education, Higher Education, Higher Education Quarterly, Higher Education Research and Development, Higher Education Review, Journal of Further and Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Studies in International Education, Minerva, New Directions for Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, Tertiary Education and Management Topic specific (55) Active Learning in Higher Education, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Christian Higher Education, College Student Affairs Journal, College Teaching; Community College Journal of Research and Practice, Community College Review, Higher Education Pedagogies, Higher Education Policy, Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Industry and Higher Education, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Innovative Higher Education, International Journal for Academic Development, International Journal of Doctoral Studies, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, International Journal of Higher Education Management, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Internet and Higher Education, Jesuit Higher Education, Journal about Women in Higher Education, Journal of Academic Ethics, Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Journal of Catholic Higher Education, Journal of College and University Law, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of College Student Retention, Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Journal of Continuing Higher Education, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Faculty Development, Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, Journal of International Students, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, Journal of Problem-Based Learning in Higher Education, Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher Education, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Journal of Service Learning in Higher Education, Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, Journal of the FirstYear Experience and Students in Transition, New Directions for Institutional Research, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Perspectives: policy and practice in higher education, Planning for Higher Education, Policy Reviews in Higher Education, Quality in Higher Education, Research Evaluation, Student Success, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, Teaching in Higher Education, Theory and Method in Higher Education Research Discipline specific (13) Academic Medicine, Accounting Education, Advances in Health Sciences Education, Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, International Journal of Management Education, International Review of Economics Education, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, Language Learning in Higher Education, Medical Education Nation specific (4) Australian Universities Review, Canadian Journal of Higher Education, Excellence in Higher Education, South African Journal of Higher Education
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housed in a specific institution. The academic publication world is fairly volatile, with new journals being created all the time, particularly now in online format, with existing ones also often amalgamating or changing their names. Interestingly, the majority of the journals identified in Table 1 (55 or 64%) focus on a specific topic or theme; generic (14), discipline-focused (13), and nation-focused (4) higher education journals are rather less common. Many are owned by, or closely linked to, learned societies, which established them as outlets for their members’ and others’ research. Others are owned by their publishers, with Jossey-Bass, Sage, Springer, and Taylor & Francis all having key roles in this respect. Many, even though their focus may be international, remain firmly based in particular countries – typically the major English-speaking nations of the USA, the UK, and Australia – while others have become, or started off as, international in both operation and focus. The oldest of the journals identified, Academic Medicine, started publication in 1926, followed by the first generic higher education journal, the Journal of Higher Education, in 1930, and the first to be founded outside of the USA, Higher Education Quarterly, in 1947. The 1970s were when higher education publishing really took off, with 16 new journals founded in that decade (that have survived until the present time), more than doubling the number then published. In this century, the field has expanded again, with 35 (or 41%) of the journals identified in Table 1 having been founded since the year 2000. The “biggest” of the journals identified, in terms of volume of publication, was Studies in Higher Education, which published 2286 pages in 2016. It was followed by Academic Medicine, with 1707 pages, and Higher Education with 1646. In all, 11 of the journals published more than 1000 pages of articles in 2016, which indicates something about the scale of higher education research. Size is, of course, not everything; some smaller journals may be more selective, publish more influential articles, and accrue greater status. A number of alternative ranking systems are available, including International Scientific Indexing (ISI), which ranks selected journals in terms of
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their impact factor (i.e., the relative number of times their articles are cited by others). Here, the SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (www. scimagojr.com/journalrank.php), which compares a broader range of journals, has been used. Of the journals listed in Table 1, the highest ranked was one of the specialist journals, Internet and Higher Education, which had a rank of 3.561 for articles published in 2015. It was followed by Academic Medicine (2.202) and then three generic higher education journals which were very similarly ranked: Research in Higher Education (1.724), Higher Education (1.717), and the Review of Higher Education (1.703). These measures – of age (10 years old at least, to reflect an established journal), size (at least 200 pages published in 2016, to reflect demand), and ranking (a SCImago rank of at least 0.5, to reflect readership) – have been used to compile the list of 28 key journals in Table 2. Significantly, the great majority, 10, of the 14 generic higher education journals identified in Table 1 feature in Table 2, with both topic-specific (14 out of 55) and discipline-specific (4 out of 13) journals featuring less prominently. Nevertheless, Table 2 does still identify journals which would more likely be read by, for example, medical educators (Academic Medicine, Medical Education) or linguists (Journal of English for Academic Purposes) than higher education researchers as key higher education journals.
Contribution Higher education research is an expanding field, and the growth in both the numbers and size of higher education journals reflects this (Tight 2012b). Thus, Higher Education, which began in 1972 publishing four (rather slimmer) issues a year, now published 12 issues a year in two volumes. Studies in Higher Education, to take a more extreme example, was publishing only two issues a year up until 1986 but now publishes 12. The 86 journals identified in Table 1 between them published well over 40,000 pages of articles in 2016; if we assume an average of 400 words per printed page, that amounts to around 16 million words! That is far more than any one individual
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Higher Education Journals, Table 2 Key higher education journals Journal Academic Medicine Accounting Education Active Learning in Higher Education Advances in Health Sciences Education Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Community College Review Higher Education Higher Education Policy Higher Education Quarterly Higher Education Research and Development International Journal of Doctoral Studies International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Internet and Higher Education Journal of College Student Development Journal of English for Academic Purposes Journal of Higher Education Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management Journal of Hispanic Higher Education Journal of Studies in International Education Medical Education Minerva Quality in Higher Education Research Evaluation Research in Higher Education Review of Higher Education Studies in Higher Education Teaching in Higher Education Tertiary Education and Management
Pages 1707 656 260 1136 1285 341 1646 554 448 1323 486 894 396 1066 568 928 689 385 487 1283 490 276 495 1030 504 2286 1021 389
Ranking 2.202 0.655 1.099 1.397 0.972 0.799 1.717 0.681 1.081 0.936 0.584 0.616 3.561 0.615 1.164 1.189 0.525 0.610 1.564 1.550 0.658 0.652 0.919 1.724 1.703 1.160 0.802 0.918
First published 1926 1992 2000 1996 1975 1973 1972 1988 1947 1982 2006 2000 1998 1959 2002 1930 1979 2002 1997 1966 1962 1995 1991 1973 1977 1976 1996 1995
Base USA UK UK International UK USA International France UK Australia Australia International USA USA UK USA Australia USA USA International International UK International USA USA UK UK The Netherlands
Pages – number of printed pages published in 2016 Ranking – SCImago Journal Rank Indicator 2015 Base – location of society, editorial office, and/or editorial board. Where this is not clearly one country, the term “international” is used
could presume to “read” in a year, even if they had nothing else to do, and is expanding year on year. Higher education journals are clearly, therefore, making a massive contribution to higher education research. While all of the articles published in all of the journals, clearly, cannot be of the highest quality, and many will be repeating analyses in a different context and adding only a limited amount to the sum of knowledge about higher education, we would be on safe ground to claim that higher education is becoming a wellresearched field. That is not to say, of course, that all topics within the field have received equal or adequate attention or that there is not more to be done.
Arguably, however, the most pressing need now is not to undertake more research as such but to synthesize and learn the lessons from all of the research that has been done to date through systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Tight 2018). Then we will be able to move forward in a much more informed way.
References Bassett, R., and L. Rumbley. 2006. Journals in higher education: An international inventory. In Higher education: A worldwide inventory of centers and programs, ed. P. Altbach, L. Bozeman, N. Janashia,
Higher Education Market Segmentation and L. Rumbley, 283–333. Chestnut Hill: Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College. Shahjahan, R., and A. Kezar. 2013. Beyond the ‘National Container’. Educational Research 42 (1): 20–29. Tight, M. 2012a. Researching higher education. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Tight, M. 2012b. Higher education research 2000–2010: Changing journal publication patterns. Higher Education Research and Development 31 (5): 723–740. Tight, M. 2014. Working in separate silos? What citation patterns reveal about higher education research internationally. Higher Education 68 (3): 379–395. Tight, M. 2018. Higher education research: The developing field. London: Bloomsbury.
Higher Education Management ▶ Governance of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Higher Education Market Segmentation Jane Hemsley-Brown Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK
Market segmentation is a well-established approach to dividing a potential market into distinct and separate clusters of consumers with shared characteristics, needs, and values (Schiffman et al. 2008). This strategic approach to marketing is built on market research and marketing knowledge, which shows that customers can be divided into groups using a combination of characteristics, behavior, their decisions, and the way they make choices (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015a). At the heart of market segmentation is the view that consumers in different segments have different characteristics, values, and preferences and on this basis often behave differently when making a purchase decision; therefore, marketing communications can be targeted with their preferences in mind, and the product or service can be designed or even customized based on their needs.
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In the higher education sector, however, despite the existence of different market segments (e.g., defined by age or mode of study), market segmentation is not well established in the literature, although there is evidence of widespread use of market segmentation in terms of the marketing of programs by universities worldwide. There are, however, some concerns about market segmentation in HE; overt market segmentation can result in unfair practices and inequitable access to higher education when marketers analyze student decision-making based on socioeconomic, religious, or ethnic groups (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015). For example, there is a high commitment in some countries toward promoting widening participation – seeking to encourage those from less advantaged groups to attend university and particularly the top universities. Therefore, segments which are defined in terms of (high) social class, (high) income, and long-held tradition of participating in HE, for example, could be considered inappropriate, even though in a business setting this type of segmentation is more commonplace. Market segmentation is typically based on four key variables, and it is largely demographic and psychographic segmentation where marketers face the most challenges in terms of equality and fairness.
The Basis of Market Segmentation The grouping variables used for segmentation are well-established, and authors tend to agree on the four key variables which are: geographic, demographic, behavioral, and psychographic (Kotler and Armstrong 2003).
Geographic Segmentation Geographic segmentation is an approach to dividing the market into segments based on location, on the basis that people who originate from the same country, region, or local area have the same needs, so some extent, and in the case of some local businesses, customers might be expected to come from a narrow geographical area (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015). Geographic segmentation in
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higher education marketing is particularly pertinent for some groups of prospective students, who might, for example, wish to remain close to home to study. Local students to any university can be a specific target market based on their proximity to the university campus, and these students often differ in other respects because of this – for example, their behavior in terms of engagement with non-study activities might also vary compared with those who travel further from their family home and live on campus. Segments of target students are frequently divided into segments based on their home countries, because international students traveling to the West, for example, often share some characteristics in common: their expectations or key reasons for studying overseas. Students from different countries around the world sometimes show similar characteristics in other respects such as the subject they wish to study (such as Engineering or Business), the approaches they use to choose institutions (e.g., the use of recruiting agents), and the types of programs they favor, e.g., full-time postgraduate programs.
Demographic Segmentation Demographic characteristics include sex, age, income, and (prior) education and are widely used as the basis for market segmentation. There are well-established dissimilarities among age groups, for example, under 19 years old, and mature students (the over 25s) have very different needs and characteristics (Oplatka and Tevel 2006). Although male/female is not generally used specifically for segmentation by many institutions, there are inevitably differences by gender in relation to choice of discipline (e.g., engineering and nursing are male and female dominated, respectively). Combined with differences in segments based on gender are age and socioeconomic grouping. A segment for nursing might, for example, include a large number of female students, who live and work locally, some of whom are mature students. Whereas, perhaps, a segment for engineering, which might be predominantly male, could include a high proportion of under 19-year-old students, many of whom are from
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overseas. These segments are distinct and different and require different approaches to marketing and recruitment by the university. Nonetheless, in a university setting, there are frequently marketing initiatives to attract, for example, more females to study engineering. These objectives to widen the traditional segments, however, also need segmentation methods to identify the new segments’ characteristics to help to target the proposed marketing efforts. In this way, a segmentation approach can support efforts to widen participation and encourage nontraditional students to join programs.
Behavioral Segmentation Behavioral factors are also central to market segmentation, and these include the way consumers use the product, how much they consume, and the rate of consumption. In the case of higher education consumption, this could include whether students are part time or full time and the type of programs they follow (short courses or full award-bearing programs) because their behavior in the market is likely to differ based on these behavioral factors. Many students in mid-career choose to study part time, for example, due to additional responsibilities, such as childcare, or part-time employment, and their behavior in the market is different, for example, from under 19-year-old students applying for full-time programs (Oplatka and Tevel 2006).
Psychographic Segmentation Schiffman et al. (2008) point out that segmentation based on psychographics has its origins in the field of psychology and incorporates the measurement of opinions, beliefs, and attitudes. Psychographic segmentation usually also covers sociocultural variables: life cycle, socioeconomic grouping, and socioeconomic status. In higher education research, there is a strong research tradition of examining the influence of socioeconomic factors on the choice of university (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015), particularly in relation to prestige institutions where lower socioeconomic groups have more limited access
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compared with high socioeconomic groups (Hemsley-Brown 2015). Social class status is linked to family income; therefore, the term socioeconomic status (SES) is often used in studies of higher education choice (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015). Much of this research has been carried out in the UK and in South Africa where social class divisions are a great concern, and findings repeatedly reveal significant differences in the choices made by students from low SES groups (and nonwhite racial groups), who are less likely to apply to or to attend the prestige institutions (Hemsley-Brown and Oplatka 2015).
Ethical Issues of Market Segmentation Market segmentation in higher education while presenting marketing professionals with a challenge in terms of fairness, equity, and ethics also offers a way forward for targeting the students who are less likely to choose to enter higher education, as well as those for whom higher education is taken for granted. The widening participation student group is also a target market based on their characteristics, values, and preferences, and therefore they are surely a segment (or several related segments) in their own right. Widening participation segments – that is, those who are less likely to enter HE or less likely to choose a top university – have common characteristics and can be targeted with appropriate and imaginative marketing communications, albeit different communications from the methods used for more traditional students. The offering in universities might also need to change to meet the requirements and needs of these segments – but the concept of market segmentation does provide a basis for marketing to these more elusive groups. There remains a measure of ethical disquiet about higher education market segmentation – some still have concerns about prioritizing specific types of prospective students above others in a marketing campaign, particularly based on social class, age, gender, or ethnicity when equality of access is so central to the ethos of many universities. It is easy to view this approach as unethical when without segmentation, the message seems to be “all are welcome.” Without
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market segmentation, however, universities are most likely to engage with their traditional markets, leaving the more difficult markets, e.g., the socially disadvantaged, and people of color – for other institutions.
References Hemsley-Brown, J. 2015. Getting into a Russell Group university: High scores and private schooling. British Educational Research Journal 41(3): 398–422. Hemsley-Brown, J., and I. Oplatka. 2015a. Higher education consumer choice. London: Palgrave. Hemsley-Brown, J., and I. Oplatka. 2015b. University choice: What do we know, what don’t we know and what do we still need to find out? International Journal of Educational Management 29(3): 254–274. Kotler, P., and G. Armstrong. 2003. Principles of marketing. New York: Prentice Hall. Oplatka, I., and T. Tevel. 2006. Liberation and revitalization: The choice and meaning of higher education among Israeli female students in midlife. Adult Education Quarterly 57(1): 62–84. Schiffman, L., L.L. Kanuk, and H. Hansen. 2008. Consumer behaviour: A European outlook. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Higher Education Massification ▶ Students and Higher Education Expansion
Higher Education Networks, Associations, and Organizations in Europe Laura E. Rumbley1 and Irina Ferencz2 1 European Association for International Education (EAIE), Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2 Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), Brussels, Belgium
Synonyms Agencies; Associations; Leagues; Membership organizations; Networks
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Definition Organizations connected to the work of the higher education sector at national, regional, and international levels. Around the world, the higher education enterprise can be understood to operate in an “ecosystem” of sorts, consisting not only of higher education institutions but also a wide range of networks, associations, and organizations connected to the work of the higher education sector at national, regional, and international levels. Several categories of relevant actors stand out in this discussion, including national-level agencies and associations, regional organizations, and higher education consortia and networks. Europe’s landscape of such actors is extensive and diverse. This comes as a result of powerful forces of regional integration in the post-World War II era within the framework of what is today the European Union (EU) or the Nordic Council of Ministers, among other such supranational bodies. Particularly since the 1980s, there has been a profound commitment not only to economic and political integration in Europe but also to a broad range of actions focused on intraEuropean cooperation in higher education, first via the European Communities’ programs (Corbett 2006) and then followed by reforming and modernizing higher education institutions and systems across the region, most clearly evident in the Bologna Process. Today, higher education networks, associations, and organizations play an important role in shaping national and regional higher education policy, facilitating engagement internationally as well as intra- and interregionally, and reflecting the values and ideals of European higher education. Here, we pay particular attention to two main organizational categories: national-level entities and European-level organizations/entities, exploring multiple constellations of actors pertaining to each.
National-Level Organizations Four types of national-level higher education actors stand out as particularly relevant in the European higher education context. These are
national university associations, national research councils, national-level internationalization agencies, and national quality assurance and/or accreditation agencies. While we focus on these four types of entities, we do acknowledge the existence of other important players in the national domain, for example, student and teacher unions. National university associations are often referred to as rectors’ or presidents’ councils or conferences – as in, for example, the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), the Conference of University Presidents in France (CPU), or the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities (CRUP). While it is common practice in Europe to have one such entity per country, in countries with binary higher education systems – such as the Netherlands or Switzerland – there are typically two such associations in place, one for comprehensive universities (i.e., PhD-granting institutions) and one for universities of applied sciences, which offer professionally oriented higher education. The primary role of such university associations is to represent the interests of higher education institutions in national policymaking processes while also serving as platforms for systemic reform, capacity enhancement, and collegial dialogue. Funding, fair access to higher education, and standards and procedures for accreditation and quality assurance are common focal points. Increasingly, internationalization is a matter of considerable interest – including such issues as the attraction of “top talent” from abroad, international promotion of the national higher education system, and global competitiveness. The degree of influence these bodies have in the national context is linked to their size, resources, general structure, and the established patterns of power sharing in national policymaking. National research councils are also notable actors. Research stands as one of the central activities of higher education institutions in Europe today, as it does around the world. Much research activity is concentrated in the hands of universities, but the research enterprise at the national level often relies significantly on entities that are variously called national research councils, national academies, and national science foundations, among other monikers. These bodies
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are exceedingly important actors in the European higher education landscape, in light of the crucial roles they often play in relation to setting (or leading) the national research agenda, allocating funding to researchers, providing the academic “home” to top scientific and intellectual talent, generating innovative new knowledge, and producing the scientific papers that provide international visibility for a given country’s national knowledge system. It is important to note here that Europe’s national-level research councils are complemented at the European level by the EU-supported European Research Council (ERC). With its 2014–2020 budget of €13.1 billion (ERC n.d.), this nonmembership organization is an important actor in the European research arena. It offers funding opportunities to top scientists and plays a substantial agenda-setting role aimed at enhancing Europe’s global research competitiveness under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research program, which strives to drive economic growth and scientific innovation across the region. National-level “internationalization agencies” are a third type of key national-level entity. Such bodies exist today in most European countries and generally have a quasi-governmental status. They generally work at arm’s length from government but in close cooperation with (and often under the patronage of) ministries of education, culture, and in some cases foreign affairs. Some such agencies are also associations – like the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which counts some German universities as members. They are primarily publicly funded and tend to take on a variety of responsibilities, including implementing national higher education internationalization policies and strategies; administering mobility grants and scholarships (from multiple sources, often including the European Union, as a number of such agencies are also the National Agencies for Erasmus+, the current EU program in education, training, and youth); supporting institutional partnerships and various aspects of internationalization at home and internationalization of the curriculum; promoting their respective higher education systems abroad; and engaging in capacity-building initiatives. The degree of influence in national
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policymaking, specific roles, and operational structures can vary greatly by country.
European-Level Organizations Beyond the national level, many regional organizations actively address different aspects of the wide-ranging cooperation in higher education in the European context today (Schneller et al. 2009). European-level networks and associations generically fulfill two important functions. The first is primarily outward-looking, featuring representation vis-à-vis third parties, particularly European-level policy- and decision-makers (i.e., bodies such as the European Commission or the European Parliament). The second function is focused on the inner life of the association and features cooperation, i.e., exchange of (good) practice between members, and development of actions for the common good. Here, it is particularly useful to highlight bodies that are based on some form of “association” – including networks, leagues, and membership organizations. Indeed, membership organizations have emerged as a dominant organizational form among entities focused on higher education at the European level. Membership Organizations European-level membership organizations assemble a wide variety of members, from individuals to higher education institutions (HEIs), nationallevel entities/agencies, or a mix of these (hybrid membership). Membership Organizations for Individuals
Among the associations with membership at individual level or supporting the interests of specific groups of individuals, those representing students, alumni, international higher education professionals, teachers, and researchers are particularly representative and influential in the European international higher education landscape. European students are highly active stakeholders at European level, as well as in many national systems, although with significant differences across countries. The European Students’ Union (ESU) has been particularly outspoken, for
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example, in its views on the shortcomings of the Bologna Process over the years, as well as on the caveats of the European Union’s higher education policies and programs. ESU brings together on the European stage national student unions and associations that are active in a wide range of policy dialogues and may take on substantive roles in governance, decision-making, provision of student support services (notably for internationally mobile students), and academic evaluation and accreditation exercises. As their names imply, the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) and the Erasmus Mundus Students and Alumni Association (EMA) have been dynamic forces in the evolution of EU-supported academic mobility programs. Higher education professionals account for another major stakeholder group. The European Association for International Education (EAIE) is the professional organization for Europe’s international educators, providing publications, training, and networking opportunities for individuals and institutions looking for European (and other) partners for all manner of international collaboration. In turn, the European Association of Erasmus Coordinators (EAEC) represents international higher education professionals with a very specific job function, i.e., university mobility officers. Teacher associations are also relevant in this discussion. The Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) strives to enhance the quality of teacher education, supporting the professional development of teachers at all levels, including higher education. Also particularly present and influential in European policy circles is the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), which represents 132 teachers’ unions in 50 countries and a total of 11 million members in Europe. ETUCE presents itself as the “teachers’ social partner at European level and a defender of teachers’ interests to the European Commission” (ETUCE n.d.). A prominent member organization composed of researchers is the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) – an “international, scientific community with the primary goal to support an active research culture in the field of learning and instruction” (EARLI
2018). For its part, the prominent European Higher Education Society (EAIR) brings together researchers, experts, and professionals that are interested in the connections between research, policy, and practice in higher education. Membership Organizations for/of HEIs
Across Europe, as elsewhere in the world, member organizations comprised of higher education institutions (HEIs) provide opportunities to foster connections with peers for the purposes of pooling resources, cultivating professional knowledge, and advancing particular education and research agendas. A highly visible example of such member organizations is the European University Association (EUA). EUA provides a forum for the leadership (presidents, rectors, etc.) of Europe’s universities to explore matters of collective interest and concern. It endeavors to serve as a common voice for Europe’s university community in a variety of contexts, produces studies and reports on key issues, and conducts surveys of its members. Many other European university networks are strategically focused on specific issues, themes of concern, or missions. Their membership is most often restricted, by choice; they function as exclusive clubs, set up for strategic cooperation with carefully selected partners. Some well-known examples include the League of European Research Universities (LERU) – a prestigious network of research-intensive universities, working to disseminate “views on research, innovation and higher education through policy papers, statements, meetings and events helping to shape policy at the EU level” (LERU n.d.); the Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe (UNICA); or the Coimbra Group – “an association of long-established European comprehensive, multidisciplinary research universities of high international standard” (Coimbra Group n.d.). Still other European university networks connect around the realities of specific institutional or program types, such as ECOLAS, the consortium of European Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences; EURASHE (European Association of Institutions in Higher Education), whose focus is professional education and applied research; or AEC, the Association Européenne
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des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen (i.e., conservatories and music institutions). Others provide windows on developments in particular fields or disciplines, as seen in EFMD (which originally stood for European Foundation for Management Development). Membership Organizations of National Agencies
Umbrella organizations bring together likeminded national entities or agencies keen to learn from one another and (where applicable) leverage resources toward common goals. One example of this kind of organization is the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), which provides a forum for engagement and mutual learning among national agencies across Europe that are focused on matters of internationalization in their respective countries. Other examples are the European Association for Accreditation (ECA), comprised of accreditation and quality assurance agencies from across Europe, and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA). Hybrid Membership Associations
Among the networks with a hybrid membership base, the Lifelong Learning Platform (LLLPlatform) is particularly broad, gathering over 40 European organizations active in the field of education, training, and youth and comprising more than 50,000 educational institutions and associations in all sectors of formal, nonformal, and informal learning, including higher education (LLLPlatform n.d.). Member higher education organizations in Europe typically play an important role in bringing national and subregional concerns of the sector to the attention of policymakers in the European Commission and other key organs of the EU.
A Diverse and Dynamic Landscape The extensive developments in European higher education over the last 20 years have been thoroughly documented (Corbett 2006; European Commission et al. 2015; Kehm et al. 2009). The efforts to modernize higher education institutions
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and systems, as well as align them more intelligibly in accordance with Bologna Process initiatives, and the push to dramatically expand the quality and quantity of scientific production have had transformational effects on the European higher education sector in many respects. One of the most pronounced developments has been the expansion of the broader higher education “ecosystem” of organizations, associations, agencies, and other entities that comprise the sector. Together, these entities provide evidence of a complex, multilayered higher education environment across the European region, with significant engagement at national, regional, and international levels, touching a wide array of functional and strategic areas and becoming increasingly influential.
References Coimbra Group. n.d. Mission statement. Accessed 1 Feb 2018. http://www.coimbra-group.eu/home/mis sion-statement. Corbett, Anne. 2006. The history of European cooperation in education & training. Europe in the making – an example. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. EARLI. 2018. About. Accessed 1 Feb 2018 from https:// www.earli.org/about. ERC. n.d. Facts and figures. Accessed 1 Feb 2018. https://erc.europa.eu/projects-figures/facts-and-figures. ETUCE. n.d. About ETUCE. Accessed 1 Feb 2018. https://www.csee-etuce.org/en/. European Commission, EACEA, and Eurydice. 2015. The European Higher Education Area in 2015: Bologna process implementation report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Kehm, M. Barbara, Jeroen Huisman, and Bjørn Stensaker. 2009. The European Higher Education Area: Perspectives on a moving target. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. LERU. n.d. About. Accessed 1 Feb 2018. https://www. leru.org/about-leru. LLLPlatform. n.d. About us. Accessed 1 Feb 2018. http://lllplatform.eu/who-we-are/about-us/. Schneller, Chripa, Irina Lungu, and Bernd Wächter. 2009. Handbook of international associations in higher education. Brussels: Academic Cooperation Association.
Higher Education Policies ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Fiji
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Higher Education Policy V. Lynn Meek LH Martin Institute for Higher Education, Leadership and Management, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
Introduction Higher education policy is about how higher education institutions are funded, governed, and managed internally, and structured and coordinated nationally. These three areas are not mutually exclusive, and policy choices within and between the three domains of funding, management, and coordination are ultimately determined by political alliances and partnerships (Ansell 2008). These political alliances and partnerships are often complex and themselves shaped by volatile environmental forces. Higher education policy has assumed an importance unequalled in previous decades due to the fact that higher education itself is seen in most, if not all, jurisdictions as fundamental to economic and social well-being. It is increasingly being recognized that sustained economic prosperity for all countries is linked to the development of the knowledge economy. Policy issues concerning knowledge production and innovation and the research cultures and capacity required to support these activities are more or less ubiquitous.
Mapping Higher Education Policy Issues at the Sector Level The Global Knowledge Economy Meek and Davies (2009: 47) argue that increasingly “the governance and management of higher education are about the governance and management of knowledge systems and knowledge workers.” Although the global knowledge economy is ubiquitous, many countries are still developing appropriate policy frameworks to best position themselves in the global economic competition. Recently, this task has been further
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complicated by a populist backlash to globalization in several leading economies, exemplified by the Brexit movement in the United Kingdom. The knowledge economy has been defined as “production and services based on knowledgeintensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technological and scientific advance as well as equally rapid obsolescence” (Powell and Snellman 2004: 201). The central characteristic is an increased reliance on intellectual abilities and products rather than natural resources, mechanical production, or physical labor. It includes improvements in the production of tangible objects as well as in management practices and service provision. While few now question the advent of the knowledge economy, we are only starting to understand its complexities and strengths and weaknesses. The first policy issue to address is the purpose or purposes expected of universities and other types of higher education institutions. Boulton and Lucas (2008: 5) are concerned that governments in most countries have come to see universities merely as “instruments of social and economic policy” and use regulation and funding to generate the outcomes they seek. Harpur (2010) goes so far as to argue that The important issue confronting higher education is its assumed role in guaranteeing economic prosperity. Governments are no longer content to let research leak out serendipitously into the economy. The Post-Industrial Society, Information Society, Knowledge Economy and Smart Economy require nothing less than commercially directed research producing innovatory products. The public interest is reduced to economic measures. The political, social and moral implications of changing practices in the university are rarely acknowledged in the rise of the New Alchemy.
Universities desperate for revenue often fail to challenge the simplistic view that increased research funding will directly generate productivity growth. However, an overly instrumentalist approach to knowledge production and innovation risks undermining the very processes on which they are often based, such as fundamental research. A related policy issue concerns heavily skewing investment toward the natural sciences, technology, and engineering in the belief that these are the only disciplinary areas likely to
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generate ideas worthy of commercialization. Government policy makers need to recognize that the humanities and social sciences are essential if we are to understand our past, present, and potential for the future, including the consequences of technological change, and promote responsible citizenship (Nussbaum 2010). They are also fundamental to understanding and improving policies that underpin the innovation processes generally. The positioning of higher education institutions within the global knowledge economy raises a number of pressing policy issues and questions for government policy makers and institutional leaders alike, including the following. What policy frameworks best balance the relationship between the government policy domain, higher education, and the private sector to stimulate innovation and its commercialization? What happens to knowledge in the knowledge economy? Does knowledge become a kind of product seen to have instrumental but no intrinsic value? Does this narrow the focus on knowledge for improving material well-being but not necessarily to enhance understanding? Are politicians and policy makers unduly emphasizing the commodification of knowledge? Are there dangers in this for the long-term viability of knowledge systems? There are no definitive answers to these and related policy questions. The only certainty is that these issues are likely to occupy the interest of policy makers for some time to come. System Coordination A second and related set of overarching policy issues concern approaches to the steering and coordination of higher education systems. In general, the global trend has been away from centralized bureaucratic state control toward so-called “steering at a distance,” where the state sets the broad policy framework, but leaves it to individual higher education institutions to pursue their separate missions. Coupled with governments stepping back from the direct control of higher education institutions has been greater reliance on market or quasi-market mechanisms to enhance efficiency and effectiveness (Ferlie et al. 2007). Compared to bureaucratic control, there is evidence to support the assumption that market competition encourages institutions to be more
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entrepreneurial, innovative, and responsive to the needs of society (De Boer et al. 2008). Almost by definition, institutions require a high degree of autonomy if they are to engage in market-like behavior. The policy trend toward marketization and privatization of public sector higher education has been well established over recent decades and is clearly visible in the language of policy documents (students as customers and clients, knowledge as a product or commodity, price and quality relations, etc.) and in their implementation: the introduction of tuition fees, performance-based funding, and conditional contracting. The introduction of market-like mechanisms changes the relationships between the actors in higher education and makes the policy environment in which universities must operate all the more fluid and turbulent. While the market approach to higher education steering has become widespread, it is far from ubiquitous and does not play itself out in the same way in every jurisdiction. There remains considerable variety in the ways higher education institutions in different countries have adapted and responded to change in government control and regulation. While many of the pressures placed on higher education institutions are global in nature, local responses remain diverse. The main policy issue concerns what is the most appropriate balance between state regulation and market competition in higher education to achieve socially desirable objectives under particular local circumstances. Diversity and Differentiation A third set of broad policy issues concerns how higher education systems are structured into different types of institutions. There is ongoing debate about whether policy should encourage either unitary integrated systems (convergence) or formally differentiated systems (divergence). A critical policy question is: What sort of structures support high-quality research while simultaneously providing the means for educating the skilled labor required by a knowledge economy? Careers are becoming more mobile and global, often requiring long periods of retraining. It appears that “only diversified systems can cater
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adequately to this demand by providing multiprofiled institutions able to supply the skilled workers needed” (Kearney and Yelland 2010: 18). The basic policy question is: How to create and maintain diversified systems of higher education, particularly with respect to what is the most appropriate balance between state intervention and market competition? The creation and maintenance of a rational, efficient, and effective division of labor among tertiary education institutions is one of the most pressing policy issues confronting higher education policy makers and institutional leaders alike. It is generally recognized that all countries require “both high-level research capacity (assured by a robust university sector) and a highly skilled workforce (which can be trained in more diversified institutions and delivery modes)” (Kearney and Yelland 2010: 7). But how this is to be brought about is far from clear or straightforward. Governments are seeking to develop higher education systems that include research-intensive environments providing world-class education as well as tertiary education for a growing proportion of the population. While no country can afford to fund all of its universities as world-class research universities, there is considerable doubt that the broad range of tertiary education skills required of a modern economy and society would be catered for by doing so. While the value of diversity goes largely unquestioned, there is a good deal of argument over what policies best achieve this goal. Basically, the arguments fall into two opposing camps. There are those who maintain that a functionally differentiated higher education system can only be maintained through strong state intervention. The maintenance of functionally differentiated higher education sectors, such as those constituting the University of California system in the United States, requires regulatory intervention. The opposing policy paradigm is based on the assumption that market-like competition between institutions in the same sector best produces a diverse, innovative, and adaptive set of higher education institutions. Evidence suggests that institutions in marketlike competition with one another are more likely to imitate the most successful institutions (in this
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case, research-intensive universities) than to find a particular market niche (see Meek et al. 1996). Much of the competition is about reputation and prestige, but, by definition, only a few institutions can occupy the winner’s circle of this competition. The reputation race increases the cost of education and it is also self-reinforcing, increasing the hierarchical differentiation between institutions and the social stratification of the student body (van Vught 2008). The other alternative is to develop a policy and funding framework that distinguishes between different types of institutions. Possibly, formal regulatory boundaries may not be the sole solution. But, unless there are strong sets of powerful and consistently applied incentives and disincentives for institutions to develop alternative missions, “mission creep” is highly likely to be the result.
Mapping Higher Education Policy Issues at the Institutional Level Institutional Governance, Management, and Leadership In more autonomous, market-oriented higher education systems, governance, which is concerned with oversight and control, becomes very important. In the 1960s, governance involved democratization; however, from the 1980s, it has concerned efficiency and accountability and in higher education it became linked to New Public Management (NPM) (Meek 2003), a neo-liberal management approach based on the application of agency theory principles to the public sector. NPM has evolved since the mid-1990s, placing more emphasis on the behavioral aspects of governance. Goedegebuure and Hayden (2007) argue that this shift in thinking about good governance is now reflected in public policy debates on governance of higher education institutions, where the focus is on establishing structures borrowed from the corporate sector. Different structural arrangements can facilitate or inhibit particular organizational cultures, but structure alone will not determine practices and behavior at the institutional level. Higher education policy tends to focus on structural issues
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rather than the more intangible aspects of organizational culture. The basic question for policy is: What forms of governance and management work well in higher education institutions and which fail and under what circumstances? Sporn (2010: 245) defines management as “the structures and processes of leadership, governance, and administration.” Institutional leaders and managers are increasingly held responsible by their governing bodies for the success or otherwise of their institutions. Growth in size and complexity of higher education institutions has brought about increasing professionalization of higher education management on the one hand, and an emphasis on management accountability on the other. “In most higher education systems,” as Shattock (2010: 252) explains, “Size, increasing competition, accountability, the demands of a broader mission, and financial stringency have in combination changed the management task in universities, not just at the institutional level but in the basic academic units of the faculties and academic departments.” While in many countries, the state has moved away from direct control of higher education to “steering at a distance,” deregulation has been accompanied by the dual pressures of enhanced management performance and accountability. Governments appear to not trust that deregulation and enhanced institutional autonomy will by themselves achieve the desired efficiencies and objectives for higher education. In fact, increased institutional autonomy (as opposed to academic or scientific autonomy) has often been accompanied by the limitation of collegial forms of governance in favor of concentrating power and authority at the institutional level in central bodies and executive managers (Shattock 2006). The tensions that these changes in internal and external forms of control over higher education bring to the fore are apparent in policy debates nearly everywhere. In many higher education institutions, collegial management (at least as an “ideal type” of management) has all but disappeared. But higher education institutions cannot be successfully managed like other organizations. They remain professional bureaucracies, and managers and leaders violate basic academic norms and values at their peril. “There can be little objection to
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the idea that, in the modern age, universities must be managed but by whom and in what manner are deeply contested [policy] questions” (Shattock 2010: 255). Research has emerged as a specialized area of management in response to demands that did not exist 10–20 years ago (Nguyen and Meek 2015, 2016). It involves attracting funding; managing funds; liaising with funding bodies; project planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation; as well as publications, research dissemination, and, in some cases, commercialization. There are different ways to manage research within universities, reflecting system-wide and institutional-specific factors. Although there is no single model, critical factors include “high response speed to external opportunities, a high level of devolution of responsibilities, devolved operational responsibilities, a high level of flexibility in allocating resources (including academic staff), a sufficient ‘critical mass’ in organizational units, an interdisciplinary research support structure, powerful, visionary leadership and an institutionally coordinated senior officer and autonomous and accountable managers” (Nguyen 2010). Universities require well-developed policy frameworks to deal with the legal and ethical issues involved in research, as well as mechanisms for quality assurance and resource allocation. Internationalization Higher education institutions, universities in particular, have always encouraged international cooperation and free flow between countries of staff, students, and ideas. They have appreciated that science and scholarship do not recognize national boundaries and that progress in research will be facilitated by effective international sharing of ideas and discoveries. Higher education institutions operate on an international as well as a national stage, competing for students, for staff and research funding, major research projects, and research partners (Jacob and Meek 2012). The need to promote such cooperation is even greater today than in the past. National economies generally are becoming increasingly interdependent, while each year new technological advances in communication and transport mean
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that nations are in closer contact with one another. Added to this is the realization that many areas of scientific, technological, and medical research are becoming increasingly expensive, and that facilitating the transfer of ideas and mobility of professional personnel is, on balance, likely to advantage rather than disadvantage most countries socially, culturally, and economically. “Indeed,” as Wildavsky states (2010: 8), “Academic free trade may be more important than any other kind.” Wildavsky (2010) makes the important point that knowledge production and innovation is not a zero sum game – research and innovation in all nations contribute to global knowledge production, from which individual nations are potentially capable of benefiting. The formation of international knowledge networks is becoming increasingly important and they are attracting more and more global research funding (The Royal Society 2011; Adams 2013). Policy research on the operation and management of these networks, the role of higher education institutions in them, and the potential for researchers from all countries to participate is a high priority. Avveduto (2010: 291) argues that the brain drain/brain gain model is no longer adequate to describe the movement of the skilled workforce, and that “returnees may in fact bring back valuable entrepreneurship or management skills and give the home country a better insight into export opportunities for technology or into access to global networks.” While “brain drain” may remain an issue for the poorest countries, particularly for Africa, countries such as India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Korea are buying back experienced people and investing heavily in creating so-called world-class universities. Policy debates need to pay careful attention to the distribution of the benefits and burdens of academic mobility between countries (who pays and who reaps the rewards). Nonetheless, increasingly, research funding is directed to large-scale international networks. Individuals, institutions, and even individual nations cannot exist on their own – they need to be part of international knowledge networks. High on the policy agenda of many higher education institutions is the identification of what factors facilitate or hinder
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international mobility of their academic staff and students. Quality Assurance, Standards, and Performance Measurement Over the past 20 years, numerous countries have introduced national and institution-based processes for assessing the quality of research. The United Kingdom has been a leader. This has been driven by “massification, marketisation, new public management and the development of the evaluative (Neave 1998) or regulatory state (King 2007)” (McNay 2010: 307). When higher education systems are structured to give institutions autonomy, quality assurance becomes a major issue. This is partly a question of accountability with governments concerned about the quality of education, training, and research funded from the public purse (Harman 2010: 283). Governments wish to assess the contribution of their investment in higher education to the economy. They are also concerned about the reputation of the entire system. There is ongoing policy debate about what constitutes the best quality assurance framework. There are two broad approaches. The first is based on the idea of “fitness for purpose,” which dominated in the 1990s up to the mid-2000s. Performance is measured against mission and objectives. Starting in the early 2000s, there has been a shift to a second approach, which involves assessing institutional performance against a set of minimum standards, and comparing (and ranking) institutional performance nationally and sometimes internationally. The shift from “fitfor-purpose” to a standards- and outcome-based approach is driven by governments in their desire to support a knowledge economy and ensure their investment in education is effective and internationally competitive. International rankings are often taken as a measure of quality and are becoming increasingly influential. They are also controversial. Ranking systems provide a measure of prestige rather than quality, although the two may be linked. They create an incentive for all universities to attempt to imitate the high-reputation institutions, resulting in increasing homogeneity rather than diversity. An important policy issue is whether
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a consistent international approach to quality is desirable in terms of supporting an increasing level of international collaboration. Universities as Innovation Agents Increasingly, governments are looking to universities to generate economic growth and sustain international competitiveness through innovation and productivity improvements on the one hand, and the production of “knowledge workers” on the other. Along with immigration and career mobility, higher education systems are the main source of human resources in science and technology (OECD 2010). “Skilled human capital is a prerequisite to development” (Kearney and Yelland 2010: 17), but the policy question is: What mix of skills and qualification best suits specific contexts? Often, innovation is celebrated as good in and of itself, however, a fundamental policy question is: What does it achieve and for whom? In many countries, traditional science and technology policies are being replaced by national innovation policies. “Innovation policy is a central aspect of economic policy” (Cutler 2008: x). There is a growing body of policy research on National Innovation Systems. Predictors of national innovation include doctoral research production and linkages between universities and industry (Balzat 2006; Schmoch et al. 2006). According to the OECD (2010: 140), “four indicators can reflect the capacity of national education systems to supply skills for innovation: (i) total public and private expenditures on education as a percentage of GDP; (ii) the percentage of new university graduates in science and engineering; (iii) the graduation rate at doctoral level; and (iv) female participation in doctoral studies.” Universities also undertake applied research that may directly benefit industry. But it is important to note that university commercial activities do not make a significant financial contribution to their budgets, even in the United States where university commercialization is the most highly developed (Boulton and Lucas 2008). There is not a simple linear relationship between innovation and productivity improvements. The linear or “science-push” model of innovation assumes that if governments invest
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“significant sums in university basic research, then applied research, technical developments, innovation, and benefits in the form of wealth, health, and national security would follow automatically” (Dill and Van Vught 2010: 6–7). The linear model is criticized as providing an overly simplistic view of the relationship between universities and industry (Geiger 2010). According to Cutler (2008: vii–viii), “today innovation is understood to involve much more than transmission down the pipeline of production from research to development to application.” Innovation is more than research and commercialization of new ideas; it entails constant improvements in products, technologies, operations, business relationships, and business models. It is not simply a matter of developing new knowledge – it must be disseminated and absorbed to have any effect. Successful knowledge transfer depends, in part, on cooperation between universities and businesses and industry. Higher education institutions, research-intensive universities in particular, are developing various policies and incentives to encourage greater engagement of their staff and students with business and industry. Although innovation is much broader than the big discoveries, universities nonetheless play a crucial role in many respects. This involves not only the advancement of knowledge but also producing knowledge workers and developing human capital. Cutler (2008: x) goes beyond the narrow instrumentalist approach behind human capital and argues that “knowledge and skills are good for the individual as well as for the economy.” Educating people is not only about equipping them to generate and apply knowledge but also to make use of knowledge generated elsewhere and equipping them with the skills to engage in continuous learning. This raises policy questions about the types of education and training programmes that can best produce people who can think and find ways to improve work practices. Knowledge Transfer and Community Engagement The extent and nature of a university’s involvement in its local region depends on local and
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national policies and conditions. There have been shifts in emphasis on regional development. In the 1990s, there was increasing recognition of the importance of education and skills. At the same time, policies that fostered the development of the industrial cluster were introduced. “The concept of the industrial cluster recognised that innovation is seldom isolated but systemic with the industrial cluster acting as an innovation system” (Goddard and Puukka 2010: 391). Throughout the OCED, there has been convergence between innovationand regional-based development (Goddard and Puukka 2010), though some recent research has questioned whether universities really have a significant economic impact on their regions (Daley and Lancy 2011). Government policy needs to be clear about the roles expected of higher education institutions in supporting regional development and fostering community engagement. These expectations need to be realistic given the capacity and purpose of universities. Once the nature of engagement has been established it may be possible to identify the most supportive sector-wide policy frameworks for regulation, evaluation, monitoring, and quality assurance (Meek and Goedegebuure 2008). Research Training Many countries are reexamining the role and purpose of the doctorate (Bentley and Meek 2017). It is an expensive way of training researchers and may not be appropriate in the current context. The aim of the doctorate is twofold, providing the entry-level qualification for academic work as well as educating leaders and senior professionals employed in other sectors. The contemporary form of the doctorate as a research degree developed in Europe in the early nineteenth century. It was adopted by the United States in the midnineteenth century, Britain in 1917, Australia in 1948, and later still in the rest of the world (Boud and Lee 2009). There is considerable variety in the duration of the doctorate, how it is funded, the examination process, nomenclature, and the attached value. In most countries, the majority of people who complete a doctorate do not work as academics.
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Many become leaders in other areas, in both the public and private sectors. This raises policy questions about the purpose of a doctorate and therefore the most appropriate form of training. Even for those preparing for an academic career, completing a doctorate does not adequately prepare them for teaching, which is still the main component of academic work. The nature of doctoral programmes was once the concern of institutions but now attracts the interest of governments as well. Park (2007) identified four key policy drivers for change: sustaining the supply of researchers, preparation for employment, global competition for doctoral students, and harmonization.
Conclusion It was nearly five decades ago that the American sociologist Daniel Bell (1974: 245–246) coined the term “post-industrial society” and asserted that “the university . . . becomes the primary institution of the post-industrial society.” Over the ensuring decades, more and more has been asked of higher education institutions by government and society, requiring them to find a new legitimacy while retaining essential traditions. Where, in the past, universities had a sense of shared intellectual purpose (at least to a degree), bolstered by the security of centralized funding and control, today they are confronted by a much more complex, fluid, and varied environment that articulates different, and sometimes conflicting, demands, creating new realities. Consequently, new distributions of authority emerge, new accountability relationships arise, and a new dynamic within policy fields develops. Higher education is part and parcel of what Barnett (2000: 75) referred to as a world of supercomplexity – a situation where “our very frameworks for making the world intelligible are in dispute.” This statement is as true today as it was a decade and a half ago. Higher education institutions simultaneously help generate supercomplexity and are asked to assist in resolving the uncertainties they create, further complicating the higher education policy agenda.
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References Adams, J. 2013. The fourth age of research. Nature 497: 557–560. Ansell, B.W. 2008. University challenges explaining institutional change in higher education. World Politics 60 (2): 189–230. Avveduto, S. 2010. Mobility of PhD students and scientists. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 286–293. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Balzat, M. 2006. An economic analysis of innovation: Extending the concept of national innovation systems. Cheltnham: Edward Elgar. Barnett, R. 2000. Realizing the university in an age of supercomplexity. Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press. Bell, D. 1974. The coming of post-industrial society. London: Heinemann. Bentley, P., and V.L. Meek. 2017. Development and future directions of higher degree research training in Australia. In Doctoral training for knowledge society: Global convergence or divergence? ed. J.C. Shin and G. Jones. Dordrecht: Springer (forthcoming). Boud, D., and A. Lee. 2009. Introduction. In Changing practices of doctoral education, ed. D. Boud and A. Lee, 1–9. London/New York: Routledge. Boulton, G., and C. Lucas. 2008. What are universities for? Leuven: League of European Research Universities. Cutler, T. 2008. Venturous Australia: Building strength in innovation. North Melbourne: Cutler & Company. Daley, J., and A. Lancy. 2011. Investing in regions: Making a difference. Melbourne: Grattan Institute. De Boer, H., B. Jongbloed, J. Enders, and J. File. 2008. Progress in higher education reform across Europe: Governance reform, volume 1: Executive summary main report. Directorate General for Education and Culture, European Commission. Dill, D., and F. Van Vught. 2010. Introduction. In National innovation and the academic research enterprise: Public policy in global perspective, ed. D. Dill and F. van Vught, 1–26. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Ferlie, E., C. Musselin, and G. Andresani. 2007. The ‘steering’ of higher education systems: A public management perspective. In Higher education looking forward: Relations between higher education and society, 59–78. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. Geiger, R. 2010. State policies for science and technology: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In National innovation and the academic research enterprise: Public policy in global perspective, ed. D. Dill and F. van Vught, 438–479. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Goddard, J., and J. Puukka. 2010. Universities and regional development. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 390–397. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Goedegebuure, L., and M. Hayden. 2007. Overview: Governance in higher education – Concepts and issues.
725 Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 1–11. Harman, G. 2010. Funding of university research. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 279–285. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Harpur, J. 2010. Innovation, profit and the common good in higher education: The new alchemy. New York: Palgrave. [Online]. Available at http://www.palgra veconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9780230274624. Accessed 4 Jan 2017. Jacob, M., and V.L. Meek. 2012. Scientific mobility and international research networks: Trends and policy tools for promoting research excellence and capacity building. Studies in Higher Education 38 (3): 331–344. Kearney, M.-L., and R. Yelland. 2010. Higher education in a world changed utterly: Doing more with less. Paper presented to OECD/IMHE Conference, Paris. King, R.P. 2007. Governance and accountability in the higher education regulatory state. Higher Education 53 (4): 411–430. McNay, I. 2010. Research quality assessment. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 307–315. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Meek, V.L. 2003. Introduction. In The higher education managerial revolution? ed. A. Amaral, V.L. Meek, and I.M. Larsen, 1–29. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Meek, V.L., and D. Davies. 2009. Policy dynamics in higher education and research: Concepts and observations. In Higher education, research and innovation: Research and knowledge 2001–2009, ed. V.L. Meek, U. Teichler, and M.-L. Kearney, 41–84. Kassel: International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel. Meek, V.L., and L. Goedegebuure. 2008. Introduction. In Reinventing higher education: Towards participatory and sustainable development, ed. C. Haddad, V.L. Meek, and L. Goedegebuure, 1–15. Bangkok: UNESCO. Meek, V.L., L. Goedegebuure, O. Kivinen, and R. Rinne, eds. 1996. The mockers and the mocked: Comparative perspectives on differentiation, convergence and diversity in higher education. New York: Published for the IAU Press by Pergamon. Neave, G. 1998. The evaluative state reconsidered. European Journal of Education 33 (3): 265–268. Nguyen, T.L.H. 2010. Developing the third mission for Vietnamese higher education. Paper presented at the Linking Society and Universities: New Missions for Universities, EAIR Forum, Valencia. Nguyen, T.L.H., and V.L. Meek. 2015. Key considerations in organizing and structuring university research. Journal of Research Administration 46 (1): 41–62. Nguyen, T.L.H., and V.L. Meek. 2016. Key problems organizing university research in Vietnam: The lack of an effective research ‘behaviour formalization’ system. Minerva. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-0169289-6. Nussbaum, M.C. 2010. Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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726 OECD. 2010. OECD science, technology and industry outlook. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Park, C. 2007. PhD quo vadis? Envisioning futures for the UK doctorate. In Skills training in research degree programmes: Politics and practice, ed. R. Hinchcliffe, T. Bromley, and S. Hutchinson. London: Open University Press. Powell, W.W., and K. Snellman. 2004. The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology 30: 199–220. Schmoch, U., C. Rammer, and H. Legler, eds. 2006. National system of innovation in comparison: Structure and performance indicators for knowledge societies. Dordrecht: Springer. Shattock, M. 2006. Managing good governance in higher education. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Shattock, M. 2010. Managerialism and collegialism in higher education institutions. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 251–255. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Sporn, B. 2010. Management of and in higher education institutions. In Encyclopedia of higher education, 245–250. Amsterdam: Elsevier. The Royal Society. 2011. Knowledge, networks and nations: Global scientific collaboration in the 21st century. London: The Royal Society. van Vught, F. 2008. Mission diversity and reputation in higher education. Higher Education Policy 21 (2): 151–174. Wildavsky, B. 2010. The great brain race: How global universities are reshaping the world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Higher Education Policy and Economic Development Jo Ritzen UNU-Merit/Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Introduction Worldwide, the important and increasing role of higher education for economic development is recognized. Government policies shape higher education and in that way contribute to the competencies of the graduates of higher education and the quality of the research done in higher education. This contribution presents an overview of the knowledge acquired from studies on the role of the relation between policies and the effectiveness of higher education for economic development. In
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section “Organizing Higher Education for Economic Development,” we delve into the organization of higher education and its impact on economic development. The organization of higher education along the lines of the relative autonomy of institutions of higher education and the quality control is mostly in the hands of governments. For public institutions of higher education, the funding comes also from the government, as does the funding for student loans and grants. These are all policy issues. We discuss in this section also the metrics for government funding in higher education and differentiation between different types of institutions. Policies for higher education are set as the outcome of political decision-making. This is the topic of section “Politics.” Politics could be organized differently to ensure the best possible policies.
Organizing Higher Education for Economic Development How to organize higher education for the best possible economic development? A country which wants to advance economic development by means of higher education will start by paying attention to the empirical evidence on the role that higher education can play through the increased availability of competences embodied in the graduates of higher education. There is ample evidence on the impact of its organization on the quality of education and of research in higher education (see Hoareau et al. 2012): institutions of higher education deliver more competent graduates and a higher quality of research if they are more autonomous (i.e., given the freedom to organize themselves in terms of their internal decision-making and their financial practices, their pedagogical approach, their managerial freedom, and their staffing) provided they are well funded. In turn, competencies of graduates and the quality of the research output contribute to labor productivity. Managerial autonomy is important for research attractiveness and research productivity. Policy autonomy translates into relatively high education performance. These institutional factors are for public universities the result of legislation.
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The importance of autonomy for the quality of the output of higher education was established earlier for the research effectiveness of research universities by Aghion et al. (2007, 2009). Autonomy is often misunderstood. The first misunderstanding is that autonomy is absolute, while in practice it is imbedded into accountability and in a vigorous system of quality control, including certification. The second misunderstanding is that autonomy implies a system in which the leadership of the university is chosen by the professors or the university community at large. This system still exists in many countries, even if it does not fit the need for the kind of leadership a goal-oriented institution requires in times of substantial change. Elections of the leadership by the staff of the university generally give rise to a leadership which will be rather conservative. It works best for the interests of those who have the right to cast a vote. Their interests are generally found in the safety of maintaining the status quo and avoiding change which might threaten their position and the way they “always” have worked. At the same time, it is evident that the substantial changes in the external environment of higher education require reflection into the direction and content of education and research. It appears that in particular policy autonomy, i.e., the freedom to develop educational programs, tailored the perceived needs of society and an own research focus is an important aspect (Hoareau et al. 2012) for the contribution of higher education to the labor productivity of the graduates. Financial autonomy (financially an autonomous organization, with the ability to carry over income form 1 year to the next, the ability to borrow, with lump sum funding) may be less important, in particular for the less research-intensive universities. Financial autonomy has often translated into megalomaniac real estate projects, taking money away from education and research. However, the alternative of state control of investment policy is perhaps even more damning as the experience of several European countries shows where higher education institutions have to have their budgets approved by the state (as was, e.g., reintroduced in North Rhineland Westphalia in 2015). Also
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the perverse effects of other forms of restrictions on financial autonomy should be noted. Funding higher education, in size (the level of expenditures per student funded by the government) and in form (funding a capacity, funding per student, or/and funding including incentives), is also on the policy agenda for higher education. Education funding by the government is in most countries based on the number of students (sometimes with a cap: a numerus fixus). Research funding is increasingly based on competition between institutes of higher education or between individual researchers, using a number of indicators for the size and quality of research output. At the same time, some countries are moving toward a national focus in publicly funded research. This focus is derived from priorities derived from important industrial sectors in the country and from expressions from the public. The size of funding matters for competencies of graduates, at least if one can go by the rankings of universities, as an expression of competencies of graduates. The importance of funding for a top rank in the Times Higher Education ranking system was established by Marconi and Ritzen (2015). Funding is in this study the combined income per student from public and private sources. The rank is a quasi-indicator of university performance, both in the education and in the research domain. An elasticity of a university’s ranking score for the expenditure per student of 9% is found. This decreases to 4% if “reverse causation” is taken into account, i.e., universities with a better rank are better able to raise funds. Metrics for the Education Output of Institutions of Higher Education While research funding by government is mostly based on (competition in) outputs of research, countries mostly have to work for education in a fog on the real outputs (increases in competencies). They fund institutions of higher education simply on an input: numbers of students. Furthermore, institutes of higher education are accountable for delivering graduates according to specifications on organization (like quality control on process, on qualifications of teachers, etc.). The Netherlands was the first country to move ahead in the early 1990s toward funding based on
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outputs by making university funding based on the number of students successfully completing their degree programs, when the average length of study and dropout were at a (very) high level. But even so, graduation – even under strict quality supervision – does not imply the same value added in competencies for all graduates. Better metrics for the education output might be helpful for an incentivized system of funding for higher education. Better metrics for education output might then also strengthen the incentives on the part of the leadership in higher education to focus on the longer run. The relatively short periods of appointment of the university leadership might induce a focus on the short run. This is likely to be enhanced by an absence of metrics of outputs which by nature take a longer duration to achieve, while innovations in the education process (e.g., away from large theater teaching toward small group research problem-based teaching) might involve years before they are fully implemented. The evaluation of the leadership is then no longer on the basis of the balance sheet realized but on the state of innovation processes in the university. The need for new metrics is underlined by the increasing concerned about the learning that takes place in higher education. This concern was demonstrated by President Obama when in 2010 Arum and Roksa (2010) published their book presenting evidence on more than 2,300 undergraduates at 24 institutions. “45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills – including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing – during their first two years of college.” They argue “that for many faculty and administrators this will come as no surprise – instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.” The increasing worries of countries about the value added in learning at institutions of higher education stands in shrill contrast to the opposition against the measurement of value added in the OECD’s AHELO project. The AHELO project would involve the measurement along international standards of the outcomes of higher
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education. A pilot showed for general academic skills, economics, and engineering that this is feasible (OECD 2012). The response of students is particularly interesting: “. . .. students spoke about how the assessment had stimulated their thoughts regarding how the things they were learning in their degree related to the kind of work they would be undertaking upon graduation, and further on in their careers. Students found the test challenging as well as stimulating, with many indicating that there were sections of the assessment that made them realise how much they had forgotten of some of the fundamental issues covered in earlier years of their course.” Students also indicated to institution coordinators and the National Project Manager (NPM) that the format of the AHELO assessment was relatively unique in their experience. First, the constructed response tasks were singled out as particularly different from their traditional thinking about what an assessment involved. Second, the online implementation of the test as a whole was a new experience in assessment for most students” (OECD 2013, p. 52). It would be useful to reengage in the development of international comparative metrics on measuring university value added in learning, using the progress made in AHELO and PIAAC (see also Van Damme 2015). This would benefit the students who now have to make choices for higher education based on vague metrics like the reputation of the university or students’ satisfaction with degree courses as in Germany performed by the Centre for Higher Education of the Bertelsmann Foundation. A better metric for the education value added would make it easier for the university administration and for the government to put education on par with research. Most of the better research universities in the OECD countries find it hard to develop career lines for teaching professors or more in general to invest in innovation in teaching when the trade-off with the volume and quality of research is so plainly visible. The UK is one of the countries in search of new metrics to improve the policies to fund public higher education. “We will reward excellent teaching with reputational and financial incentives.. . .by establishing a sector regulator:
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the new Office for Students” (UK 2015). The keyword is the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) which aims through assessments to put higher education in a funding category. The Office for Students would assess the accomplishment of the different institutes of higher education using the Teaching Excellence Framework. The government would adjust its funding to institutes of higher education depending on the accomplishments. There is some support for the notion that highquality research done in higher education institutions (measured along international comparable standard) goes along with competent graduates, at least in the view of employers (Hoareau et al. 2012). But a better measurement of the education outcomes of higher education might bring about a new discussion on the imbedding of education into research. Most research universities assume that education becomes truly academic if it takes place in an environment in which research takes place and with small steps by the student into research, for example, through capstones or a thesis. Few higher education institutions have decided that a special form of problem-based learning, namely, “research-based” learning, might be the way in which education benefits most from research. Research-based learning takes research problems studied in the ongoing research of the university as the starting point for its education. Without measurement and evaluation, policies of innovative forms of teaching and learning meant to improve the quality of the graduates of higher education through innovative forms of teaching and learning remain based on vague assumptions. System Differentiation Many countries recognize the difference between prestige or research-intensive universities and other institutes of higher education (e.g., Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA). The wide variety of competencies in each country is likely to coincide with the differentiation in institutions. The sociopolitical background for differentiation is the assumption that differentiation helps students to maximize their potential. For example, it is reasonable to assume that students with less interest
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or ability in abstract reasoning would be better off at institutes of higher education of a more applied nature. However, very little empirical evidence is available on the value added (in terms of the increase in competencies) between different types of institutions in relation to the initial competencies of the student that enters into higher education. Such evidence would be important to decide on differentiating the system of higher education. A rational policy decision for differentiation ought to be based on a comparison between the differentiated system and the undifferentiated one. Insight could be gained from the “natural experiment” comparing countries with more and less differentiation and concluding which system is more efficient. It appears that countries with differentiated system generally provide better support for economic development than those with undifferentiated systems (Van Vugt 2009). System differentiation does not stand in the way of internal differentiation. Most institutions of higher education work with internal differentiation through, for example, master classes.
Politics The future of any country hinges on long-run policies supporting the cleverness of its population. There is ample evidence on the “correct” policies to ensure the best outcomes of the education system of a country in terms of competencies. These policies require in general substantial change away from the historical, post-Second World War institutional setting. However, when confronted with change, in politics sometimes the long run turns out to have exceedingly short legs, as change requires a political mandate away from the current interests. When the sirens of today sing their enchanting songs, politics is easily captured. Few are the political systems who tie themselves to the mast to ensure the proper through fare between the Scylla of maintaining the historical status quo and the Charybdis of too much change for the electorate to bear. Nevertheless, it would be important to come to political reform which creates a better safeguard for long-run education policies. One could think
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of the following practices of countries which have been relatively successful in managing the passage between the different rock formations: – Parliamentary decision-making on education and research is beyond the simple majority. This would eliminate practices in countries by which new coalitions or new parties which come into power will be inclined to reverse much of the educational policies of the previous government. There are many examples of such reversals in the States of the Federal Republic of Germany and in Central and Eastern Europe. Such reversals are detrimental to the quality of higher education, as policies need 5–10 years before they are well absorbed by the educational community and are fully implemented. Nordic countries (among them successful Denmark) generally consider education and science in parliamentary committees which are broadly composed and include the opposition. De facto, more than a simple majority in parliament determines the outcome of these parliamentary discussions. – Ministers of education and research are recognized as knowledgeable in the field of education in addition to having some experience in politics. Many countries have only ministers drawn from parliament or other elected offices as career politicians. It helps if ministers can be drawn from the outside provided they have some political experience (see Jacqmin and Lefebvre 2015). Of course, ministers can rely on an expert professional civil service. However, ministers themselves have the political responsibility for taking the right choices in their reforms. A thorough knowledge of the education sector is then important. – Ministers of education and research should be enticed to stay in office for longer periods. Perhaps this is one of the most substantial dilemmas in educational policy. Jacqmin and Lefebvre (2015) observe that in Europe the average period of stay of an minister of education in office (tenure at the job) is 2.5 years with a standard deviation of 1.7 (data from 2003 to 2011 for 20 countries). This is
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exceedingly short for engaging in long-run policies, unless there is a substantial reliance on the competency of the civil service (as the UK has shown in successive changes from Labour to Conservative Party governments and back). – Ministries of education and research maintain a top nonpartisan competency in evidence-based educational and science decision-making worldwide. Ministries of education tend – in general – to be focused on the own country as if it were a separate planet. There is little learning and exchange with the experiences of other countries. These experiences are hardly relevant for the minister to operate in the Council of Ministers or in Parliament and are therefore generally not built up in the civil service of education ministries. Fortunately, there are good exceptions in the EU in which increasingly ministries of education cooperate and exchange experiences.
References Aghion, P., M. Dewatripont, C. Hoxby, A. Mas-Colell, and A. Sapir. 2007. Why reform Europe’s universities. Brussels: Brugel. Aghion, P., M. Dewatripont, C. Hoxby, A. Mas-Colell, and A. Sapir. 2009. The governance and performance of research universities: Evidence from Europe and the US. NBER Working paper, 14851. Arum, R., and Josipa, R. 2010. Academically adrift, limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hoareau, Cecile, Jo Ritzen, and Gabriele Marconi. 2012. The state of university policy for progress in Europe. IZA Policy Paper No. 51. Jacqmin, Julien, and Mathieu Lefebvre. 2015. Does sectorspecific experience matter? The case of European higher education ministers, working paper BETA (Bureau d’Economie Théorique et Appliquée), 2015–07. Strasbourg: UDS. Marconi, Gabriele, and Jo Ritzen. 2015. Determinants of international university rankings scores. Applied Economics 47 (57): 6211–6227. OECD. 2012. Assessment of higher education learning outcomes (AHELO), feasibility study report, Design and implementation. Vol. 1. Paris: OECD. OECD. 2013. Learning outcomes, AHELO, feasibility study report, Further insights. Vol. 3. Paris: OECD. UK. 2015. Fulfilling our potential: Teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice. London:
Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, https:// www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attach ment_data/file/474227/BIS-15-623-fulfilling-ourpotential-teaching-excellence-social-mobility-and-studentchoice.pdf. Van Damme, Dirk. 2015. Global higher education in need of more and better learning metrics. Why OECD’s AHELO project might help to fill the gap. European Journal of Higher Education 5 (4): 425–436. Van Vugt, Frans. 2009. Diversity and differentiation in higher education. In Mapping the higher education landscape, ed. F. Van Vugt. Berlin: Springer.
Higher Education Professionals ▶ Professional Education
Staff
Identities
in
Higher
Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession Christian Schneijderberg International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Synonyms Administrators; Managers; Support professionals; Third space professionals
Definition Higher education professionals (HEPROs) are highly qualified persons in universities who are neither top managers nor in charge of the academic functions of teaching, research and teaching and who are hinges of academic and administrative structures and processes in universities. Higher education professionals (HEPROs) are defined as a group of mainly university-trained personnel who do not fit the binary status system
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of academic and administrative personnel in universities. Teichler (2003, 183) defines HEPROs as “highly qualified persons in universities who are neither top managers nor in charge of the academic functions of teaching, research, etc.” and who are hinges of academic and administrative structures and processes in universities. In their functions HEPROs support university (academic) management, academics, and students in fulfilling the three university functions of teaching, research, and knowledge and technology transfer (KTT), sometimes also referred to as services to the public. The tasks of HEPROs comprise counseling, organizing, planning, management, budgeting, finances, staff development, public relations, institutional research, report writing, and cooperations with people and organizations external to universities. HEPROs work in areas such as quality assurance and development planning, student counseling and services, internationalization and mobility, KTT offices, and research management. HEPROs are in positions of head or deputy head of units in central university administration, of departmental coordinators and managers, and of assistants to presidents, vice-rectors, and deans. The rough overview of the functions, positions, and tasks shows that HEPROs are a heterogeneous group: some HEPROs have only one denomination, especially in large universities and units, but the majority of HEPROs are employed fulfilling a mix of different tasks, especially in smaller universities and at departmental level (Schneijderberg et al. 2013). In a substantial literature review, Schneijderberg and Merkator (2012) have shown that research in countries such as Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States of America (USA) first addressed the quantitative growth of staff positions for administrative and clerical personnel in universities. Referring only to the quantitative growth of positions in university administration, authors like Gornitzka et al. (1998) defined this as the bureaucratization of universities. Around the millennium the research focus was amended by a more qualitative approach which brought forward a restructuring and professionalization of administrative personnel in universities, most notably of personnel which has been defined as HEPROs in the
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beginning of this article. Building on their earlier publication Gornitzka et al. (1998), Gornitzka and Larsen (2004) further elaborated the shift from lower to higher positions among administrative personnel; they also found no evidence for an expansion of administrative positions in comparison to academic positions. Similar findings have been found in Germany. Krücken et al. (2013) analyzed the growth of university personnel for the period 1992–2007. The overall increase of numbers of university personnel in Germany is mainly due to a growth of academic personnel by 28%, while administrative personnel increased by only 1%. From 1992 to 2007, among administrative personnel a shift from lower to higher grades becomes evident with administrative personnel in the higher grade (höherer Dienst) and with primarily administrative (and management) functions increased by 90%. Within the administrative personnel category, personnel with primarily administrative functions increased from 55% to 67%, while other administrative staff positions decreased, including in the area of library (from 14% to 10%), technical (from 22% to 15%), and other personnel (from 9% to 8%). The previous examples from Germany and Norway provide a number of characteristics of professionals (e.g., Abbott 1988; Larson 1977), with HEPROs holding (full-time) and salaried positions in universities, being included in the universities’ hierarchy, power, and promotion structures, and having designated professional duties. The findings also hold true for many other countries, such as the UK and the USA (Schneijderberg and Merkator 2012). The term HEPRO is not only used in Germany (Hochschulprofession) but also in other countries (e.g., Whitchurch 2017). Though, Schneijderberg and Merkator (2012) show that different terms are used for the same group of professionals working in universities, sometimes even within the same country. Whitchurch (2013) refers to them as “third space professionals” who have developed their own professional identity (see ▶ Professional Staff Identities in Higher Education), which is distinct from the administrative and academic personnel (see also Whitchurch and Schneijderberg 2017). Alternatively, Deem (1998) uses the term “nonacademic managers.”
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In the US context, Rhoades (1998) calls them administrators or managerial professionals in one publication. In another publication about student services, Rhoades (2001, 628) defines them as “support professionals.” And in a third publication, Rhoades and Sporn (2002, 385) introduce the term “nonacademic professionals.” The examples from the UK and the USA show that the phenomenon of an emergent and growing profession is being approached from different angles, e.g., focusing on work, identity, and management of organizations. But – most importantly – despite the differences in terminology and/or approach, most of the studies cited address the phenomenon of HEPROs as the emergence of a new professional group of university personnel. HEPROs as professionals are regarded as a second group of professionals in addition to the academic profession making universities “multiprofessional organizations” (Henkel 2005, 163). As designed in the overlap model (see ▶ Overlap Model of Roles and Tasks in University Organizations; Schneijderberg and Merkator 2012, 80), HEPROs are situated in between the academic and administrative personnel, with whom HEPROs – in a varying mix of task sharing – bear the responsibility of running the organization and functions of a university. Bound together in the organization of the university, the institutional logics (Boltanksi and Thévenot 2006) of professionalization and bureaucracy (see ▶ Bureaucracy) do co-affect the evolution of organizational structures and processes of professionalization of HEPROs. Both bureaucratization and professionalization are defined by Weber ([1921] 1978) as social aspects of rationalization. Ritzer (1975, 631) names ten joint characteristics of a bureaucracy and a profession (see ▶ Academic Profession, Higher Education): power (and hierarchies), systematic knowledge, rational training, vocational qualifications, specialization, full-time occupation, existence of a clientele, salaries, promotions, and professional duties. Deconstructing the rigid, mostly sociological theories of professions, Larson (1977) combines the ideas of the bureaucratic organization and professionalization as co-constitutive for new professionalism. Larson (1977, 184) argues that the bureaucratic organization provides a matrix
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for occupational specialization of new professionals. Focusing on the actual working situations of new professionals in the organization, Larson (1977, 186) defines new professionals as “organizational professionals” or “public service organizational professionals.” Adopting the concept of HEPROs as organizational professionals from Larson (1977), the evolution of the specific professionalism of HEPROs in the context of a university will be explained in the following, illustrated by examples mainly from Germany. Looking first at the education and training of HEPROs, not only in Anglo-American countries but also in Germany, a university degree is considered the minimum requirement of credentials to becoming a HEPRO (Schneijderberg and Merkator 2012). In Germany, nine out of ten HEPROs have a degree minimum at master level (Schneijderberg et al. 2013; Schneijderberg 2015). Among those almost 40% of the HEPROs hold a PhD, and 4% completed a habilitation. This is remarkable because in Germany the career into university administration, especially for clerical positions, traditionally came via vocational training. The formal (disciplinary) training, vocational or craft qualifications and possible specializations, set the “cognitive and technical basis” (Larson 1977, 180) for becoming a professional. And HEPROs with a PhD add the (inter-/multi-) disciplinary social basis to the cognitive and technical basis. According to the respondents, holding a PhD is very important for the recognition of HEPROs by academics (Schneijderberg et al. 2013). Also having the same background of studies is considered very useful for understanding the cultural background and ways of thinking of academic personnel by HEPROs. Nevertheless, HEPROs responses about where they did acquire the necessary or “special skill” (Abbott 1988, 7) – independent of it being professional (e.g., theories and methods), cognitive (e.g., learning and understanding), transfer (e.g., problem-solving), sociocommunicative additional (e.g., legal and economic knowledge), or skills for self-organization and self-management – the learning on the job was considered most important. Skills based on previous working experience, studying, individual studies, and additional training are regarded as being of minor importance by HEPROs.
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This means that the systematic knowledge of HEPROs – about their professional day-to-daywork, about their university and/or their department, about the numerous committees, and about other people around them – is developed over an extended period of working on the job. But the knowledge acquired is an individual expertise which would need to be transferred into organizational knowledge stock by knowledge management systems. The systematic or expert knowledge defines the way how HEPROs deal, e.g., with a particular individual problem of a student. According to Abbott (1988, 49) student counseling can be understood as inferential work, with inference being defined as a process “when the connection between diagnosis and treatment is obscure” to the client and the client needs to have trust in the professional. Also the “capacity to claim esoteric knowledge and identifiable skills – that is, to create and control a cognitive and technical basis” (Larson 1977, 180) is important for HEPROs, e.g., for the initiation and support of a new process in quality assurance or to provide a solution for organizational change. Larson (1977, 180) continues: “The claim of expertise aims at gaining social recognition and collective prestige which, in turn, are implicitly used by the individual to assert authority and demand respect in the context of everyday transactions within a specific role-sets.” Schneijderberg (2015) found that the special skill or social, cognitive and technical basis of HEPROs can be narrowed down to two roles: (1) management and (2) support and services or the generalist combination of the two roles, adopting both in varying degrees depending on the professional duties to be performed. The two roles of management and support and services constitute the professionalism of HEPROs. The esoteric knowledge and identifiable skills of HEPROs align with the tasks HEPROs are expected to deal with in varying and variable professional duties in universities. Historically, Larson (1977, 184) analyzes two major incidents to be the triggers for the emergence of organizational professionals in the USA: the primacy of science-based management practices of corporate capitalism and the outsourcing of state functions or decreasing direct control of
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institutions, e.g., in the health and (tertiary) education sectors. Nowadays, on a global level, the ongoing evolution initiated by these two incidents can be witnessed in universities becoming more autonomous, which is an evolution of varying speed and adoptions depending on specifics of the different national university systems, of course. Along with universities becoming more autonomous organizations comes a growing amount of task of organizing, planning, reporting, administering, etc. inside universities – task which have been previously been performed by government officials, not only in public university systems. The context and drive for the professionalization of HEPROs are also to be witnessed in other areas which are subject to public management reforms and economization trends: Professionals have become part of large-scale organizational systems, with cost control; targets; indicators; quality models; and market mechanisms, prices, and competition. Professionalization has two major objectives. Occupational domains try to establish professional control ([. . .] cf. Freidson 2001), as well as occupational closure ([. . .] Abbott 1988), so that professional workers can govern themselves and outside interference is mitigated Professionals are forced to adapt to social changes, capitalist pressures, and consumerist tendencies that resist autonomous, closed-off occupational spheres. Professionals must prove their added value. In addition, professionals are forced to adapt to organizational and bureaucratic realities; instead of status professions, modern professions have turned into occupational professions ([. . .] Elliott 1972; Freidson 1983) and perhaps into organizational professions ([. . .] cf. Larson 1977) that primarily face organizational control. (Noordegraaf 2007, 764)
Altering Noordegraaf’s (2007) analysis, Schneijderberg et al. (2013) consider HEPROs as organizational professionals with HEPROs being an umbrella term for the occupational professionals. The occupational professionals work in areas such as quality assurance, development planning, student counseling and services, internationalization and mobility, KTT offices, and research management. In a study about HEPROs in Germany, Schneijderberg et al. (2013) found only few occupational groups, especially in student counseling and development planning, have relatively closed-off occupational spheres. The
Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession
majority of HEPROs perform a variety of professional duties. For example, almost two thirds of respondents named counseling and services to students as part of their job description, one third nominated activities related to international relations and staff and student mobility, and one third nominated (routine) administration, creating a working overlap with clerks and others in university administration. The variety of tasks also depends on the positions of HEPROs. For instance, compared to HEPROs not holding a leading position, HEPROs being head or deputy head of a unit in central university administration or managing director in a department are more frequently involved in tasks like budgeting, finances, staff development, public relations, and cooperations with people external to the university. In addition to the potentially contested and overlapping areas of work of HEPROs with other HEPROs and university routine administration, HEPROs fulfill tasks supporting academics and tasks of planning, coordinating, and organizing research, teaching, and KTT. Despite the formally clear-cut differentiation of tasks among HEPROs and academics in actual everyday work, the boundaries blur, especially in research management and coordination of studies and study programs. Also, double assignments of HEPRO and academic work are found. A considerable amount of HEPROs, mainly involved in student counseling and services, are employed part time as HEPROs and part time as academics with teaching assignments and research obligation (e.g., for a dissertation, see also Schneijderberg (2015)). Accounts of designated and blurred occupational arenas can be also found in the writings by Whitchurch (2009), who describes the four types of “bounded professionals,” “cross-boundary professionals,” “unbounded professionals,” and “blended professionals” in Australia, the UK, and the USA. With the organization being core to the professionalism of HEPROs and only some HEPROs being occupied with closed-off spheres of professional duties, Schneijderberg and Teichler (2013) regard the emerging and growing group of HEPROs being a modal type of universityfocused professionals – in the words of Abbott
Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession
(1988), this could be described as the emerging work jurisdiction of the university. Schneijderberg and Teichler (2013, 395 f.) summarize the current and future challenges of HEPROs as modal type to:
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structure of management and support and services professionals.
Cross-References • Find creative power and satisfaction with work as generalists, i.e., as virtuosi of the indeterminate and unsettled in university organization and never-ending flow of human interaction related to the functions of research, teaching, and KTT. • Embrace everyday work as being characterized by management and support and services tasks with basically unknown individual and organizational requirements, both with regard to finding (problem-related) solutions and to defining (problem-related) goals. • Embrace everyday work as consisting only of a limited number of regular, possibly slowly evolving and professional duties due to a varying mix of multiple tasks (exception: e.g., fulltime student counseling). • Deal with expert work of curiosity-driven and innovative refection, searching, organizing, problem-solving, etc. – in analogy to academic work – as formally powerless facilitators of the scientific endeavor in universities. • Function in a position which is fluid on a continuum in between academic and administrative personnel, resulting in a stabilization of an intermediary function sui generis. In 2017, it is difficult to make a definite statement about the stage of professionalism of HEPROs as a process of professionalization is generally of long(er), possibly infinite duration and subject to continuing modifications due to social, cultural, economic, and political changes and requirements inside and outside of universities. Future research will have to show if HEPROs succeed as organizational professionals of the university in their bridging function in between academic and administrative personnel and work – as proof of their added value – or if the rigid status system of the university is further differentiated: adding to academic and to administrative differences and hierarchies a third power
▶ Academic Profession, Higher Education ▶ Autonomy ▶ Bureaucracy ▶ Overlap Model of Roles and Tasks in University Organizations ▶ Professional Staff Identities in Higher Education
References Abbott, Andrew. 1988. The system of professions. An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Boltanksi, Luc, and Laurent Thévenot. 2006. On justification. Economies of worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Deem, Rosemary. 1998. New managerialism and higher education: The management of performances and cultures in universities in the United Kingdom. International Studies in Sociology of Education 8 (1): 47–70. Gornitzka, Åsa, and Ingvild Larsen. 2004. Towards professionalisation? Restructing of administrative work force in universities. Higher Education 47 (4): 455–471. Gornitzka, Åsa, Svein Kyvik, and Ingvild Larsen. 1998. The bureaucratisation of universities. Minerva 36 (1): 21–47. Henkel, Mary. 2005. Academic identity and autonomy in a changing policy. Higher Education 49 (1–2): 155–176. Kruecken, Georg, Albrecht Bluemel, and Katharina Kloke. 2013. The managerial turn in higher education? On the interplay of organizational and occupational change in German academia. Minerva 51 (4): 417–442. Larson, Magali S. (1977), The rise of professionalism: A sociological analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Noordegraaf, Miko. 2007. From “pure” to “hybrid” professionalism. Present-day professionalism in ambiguous public domains. Administration and Society 39 (6): 761–785. Rhoades, Gary. 1998. Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and restructuring academic labor. Albany: State University Press. Rhoades, Gary. 2001. Managing productivity in an academic institution: Rethinking the whom, which, what, and whose of productivity. Research in Higher Education, 42(5): 619–632. Rhoades, Gary, and Barbara Sporn. 2002. New models of management and shifting modes and costs of
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736 production. Europe and the United States. Tertiary Education and Management 8: 3–28. Ritzer, George. 1975. Professionalization, bureaucratization and rationalization: The views of Max Weber. Social Forces 53 (4): 627–634. Schneijderberg, Christian. 2015. Work jurisdiction of new higher education professionals. In Forming, recruiting and managing the academic profession, ed. Ulrich Teichler and William Cummings, 113–144. Dordrecht: Springer. Schneijderberg, Christian, and Nadine Merkator. 2012. Higher education professionals: A literature review. In The academic profession in Europe: New tasks and new challenges, ed. Barbara M. Kehm and Ulrich Teichler, 53–92. Dordrecht: Springer. Schneijderberg, Christian, and Ulrich Teichler. 2013. Hochschulprofessionelle als Prototyp der veränderten Verwaltung an Universitäten. In Verwaltung war gestern. Neue Hochschulprofessionen und die Gestaltung von Studium und Lehre, ed. Christian Schneijderberg, Nadine Merkator, Ulrich Teichler, and Barbara M. Kehm, 389–414. Frankfurt/a. M: Campus. Schneijderberg, Christian, Nadine Merkator, Ulrich Teichler, and Barbara M. Kehm. 2013. Verwaltung war gestern. In Neue Hochschulprofessionen und die Gestaltung von Studium und Lehre. Frankfurt/a. M: Campus. Teichler, Ulrich. 2003. The future of higher education and the future of higher education research. Tertiary Education and Management 9: 171–185. Whitchurch, Celia. 2009. The rise of the blended professional in higher education: A comparison between the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Higher Education 58 (3): 407–418. Whitchurch, Celia. 2013. Reconstructing identities in higher education: The rise of third space professionals. Abingdon: Routledge. Whitchurch, Celia. forthcoming. Being a higher education professional today. In Professional and support staff in higher education, ed. Carina Bossu, and Vanessa Warren, XX-XX. Dordrecht: Springer. Whitchurch, Celia, and Christian Schneijderberg. 2017. Changing professional and academic identities. In Oxford bibliographies in education, ed. Anne Hynds. New York: Oxford University Press.
Higher Education Research
Higher Education Research in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden Ivar Bleiklie Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Synonyms Higher education research/studies in the Nordic countries/in Scandinavia
Definition Social science research on higher education politics, policies, systems, and institutions as well as internal groups and individuals such as academics, administrators, students, and stakeholders in the five Nordic countries.
Introduction
Higher Education Research
Higher education (HE) research is a relatively new research field in all the Nordic countries, mainly built up since the 1960s. In spite of the many similarities among the five countries such as relatively easily accessible and universal free public HE provision, high participation rates, and a high level of investment in research, their research effort in the field of HE demonstrates interesting differences in terms of patterns of organization and policy, research themes, and disciplinary composition (Kogan et al. 2006). In order to delimit the HE research effort in the five countries, this article focuses on three different characteristics:
▶ Field of Higher Education Research, France ▶ Higher Education Research in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) ▶ Higher Education Research, Germany ▶ Organizational Studies, Research in Higher Education
1. Organization of the research effort and how it varies according to (a) the extent to which it takes place within universities or within research centers outside HE institutions and (b) the extent to which it takes place within disciplinary departments or in crossdisciplinary centers.
Higher Education Research in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
2. Disciplinary composition: The field may be composed of a number of different disciplines such as pedagogics, sociology, political science, economics, history, and philosophy. 3. Themes: Following Tight (2008), this entry distinguishes roughly between two major thematic clusters: (a) system policy, institutional management, quality, and academic work and (b) knowledge, teaching and learning, course design, and student experience. Although the focus is on HE research, the field of research on research and innovation (RI) is also considered, although quite briefly.
Denmark HE research in Denmark is typically distributed among smaller groups or individuals in a number of departments located within major universities such as University of Copenhagen, Aarhus University, University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University, and Copenhagen Business School. The way in which HE research is organized means that it is decentralized, located in disciplinary university departments, and mainly initiated based on the research interests of individual researchers. The largest HE research units are located within Aarhus University. This concentration may partly be understood in the context of previous merger processes whereby the former Danish Pedagogical University merged with Aarhus University and was later transformed to become the Danish School of Education (DPU) within the Faculty of the Humanities. Within the DPU one of its research centers is the Centre for Higher Education Futures (CHEF). It is located within the Department of Education at Aarhus University. The second center at Aarhus University is The Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy (CFA), an interdisciplinary center under the Department of Political Science and the Business school. If one turns to the adjacent field of RI research, one finds a similar organizational pattern of widely distributed activity across a number of academic institutions and individual departments. Although the research is typically embedded
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within disciplinary departments, Degn et al. (2015) identified several cooperating clusters of researchers, often revolving around one or two scholars, based on different Danish universities such as Aalborg, Aarhus, Copenhagen, and Southern Denmark, as well as Copenhagen Business School and the IT University in Copenhagen. The two abovementioned centers at the University of Aarhus are located inside two different departments, education and political science, and thus should be expected to represent clearly different research themes – HE teaching and learning versus research policy, governance, and organization. Yet, when one looks closer at the research areas within the 2 units, these differences seem to be quite blurred. Whereas just one out of three officially designated research areas has a substantial proportion of teaching- and learning-oriented research projects (judged by their titles), ongoing projects seem to be evenly split by between policy, governance, and organization on the one hand and RI research on the other. The RI clusters reflect a diversity of topics that thematically overlaps with HE research covering topics like HE policy, governance, management, funding, and evaluation as well as teaching and learning in addition to traditional RI topics such as science communication, user-driven innovation, and research organization.
Finland The history of HE research in Finland is characterized by establishment of specialized research units within a broader disciplinary or crossdisciplinary context at five different universities: Jyväskylä, Turku, Tampere, Aalto, and Helsinki. Finnish HE research thus appears to have a strong institutional basis in several research universities in addition to well-developed collaborative networks as well as a national association of HE researchers (Ahola and Hoffman 2012). The first Finnish center was a specialized educational research institute established in 1968 at the University of Jyväskylä. The mission of this unit, the Finnish Institute for Educational Research (FIER), is the follow-up and evaluation of large and ongoing educational reforms, like the
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buildup of Finland’s comprehensive school system. The institute covers research across all levels of the educational system. About 25% of the staff is engaged within the HE studies (HIEST) group. The second unit, The Research Unit for the Sociology of Education (RUSE), was established at the University of Turku in 1992, largely as a consequence of the growing interest in issues related to HE following the large administrative and curricular reforms during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1995, the university strengthened RUSE by establishing a chair in sociology of education. Today it is a research unit that covers a range of themes such as equality of educational opportunity, transition of successive generations from home via education to the labor market, employment and income of graduates, HE policy, education systems, and reforms. In addition, RUSE has a special mission and earmarked money, given by the Ministry of Education (MOE), to conduct HE research with responsibility for what one today would call “evidence production” for HE policies. It conducts quantitative analyses based on large-scale statistical data in order to produce evidence supporting the formulation of HE policy. At the University of Tampere, School of Management, there is also The Higher Education Group (HEG), a unit focusing on HE research and teaching. In 2011, a research center for science innovation and technology studies was established at the University of Tampere’s School of Social Sciences and Humanities, bringing together three research groups: politics of knowledge, epistemic governance, and technology in everyday life. The integration of these groups to form one center was based on a long-standing cooperation and rapprochement of the research themes of science studies, innovation studies, and organizational learning. The Network of Higher Education and Innovation Research (HEINE) at the University of Helsinki operated between 2009 and 2012. Its aim was to combine pedagogical perspectives with governance and management dimensions and science and technology studies. However, the center was discontinued in 2012 because it was concluded that an integrated center did not produce sufficient added value to be sustainable,
and the research continued within four different centers focusing on economic research, HE governance and management, science, and technology studies, and university teaching and learning. Finally, there is a center for management education and research at the Aalto University focusing on academic work. Finnish HE researchers have also established (1999) a national association – The Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland (CHERIF) – that aims at promoting wide-ranging and multi-field research on HE and enhancing the communication and collaboration between researchers and other key actors in the broad field of HE. The Finnish Network of Higher Education Research and Training (FINHERT 2001–2005) was a doctoral training program, strongly funded by the MOE. It gave an important boost to doctoral education in the area, which in turn opened doors for career development in HE and supported the development of HE research as an academic field of research. The broad coverage of topics that one finds within the Finnish centers for HE research is a typical characteristic of the field in Finland. Research topics range from pedagogical issues to management topics, using a broad variety of intellectual devices and methodological approaches for studying HE as a social phenomenon. This variety is visible in national HE symposiums, where current topics are approached from the perspectives of public administration, sociology, teaching and learning, history, linguistics, and philosophy. Thus, one does not find the relatively sharp division where teaching and learning issues are isolated from policy, governance, organizational, and sociological issues.
Iceland Given its small population (329.000), the volume of HE research in Iceland is low. It is typically carried out by a couple of researchers at the University of Akureyri and the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. A center focusing on research in universities exists, but is currently not active. However, Icelandic scholars are working to get
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the center started. Until now Icelandic scholars have worked on topics within philosophy of HE, teaching, and learning, as well as governance and policy issues (Jónasson 2017).
Norway Norwegian HE research is characterized by a mix of different forms of organization. In part it takes place within universities both in dedicated units and within disciplinary departments. However, the largest unit for HE research is an independent research center, founded in 1969, in keeping with the Norwegian tradition of establishing independent research centers in order to address specific knowledge needs identified by the government. Thus HE research took place for a long period mainly within the independent research institute, The Nordic Institute for studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), with roots tracing back to a unit for statistics and data collection in the former Research Council for Science and Humanities. Similarly to the Finnish RUSE, its expressed mission was to provide data and statistics in order to improve the conditions for “evidence-based” HE and research policies. The Institute gradually turned into a research institution, emphasizing self-initiated empirical research in addition to its traditional responsibility for collecting R&D statistics. In addition to RI and HE research, it now also engages in research on innovation systems, policy organization, and measures, as well as secondary and primary education. The HE research group, including administrators, constitutes about the third of the full- time staff. The Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo, was established in 1996, following a merger of three different units for educational research, teacher education and school research, and special needs education. Until recently it was almost exclusively focusing on teaching and learning in primary and secondary education. More recently, it has expanded into the area of HE, and since 2015, this effort is organized in a research group called Expert Cultures and Institutional Dynamics: Studies in Higher Education and Work, focusing on “the dynamic interplay
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between knowledge creation and organization of expert knowledge” in HE and working life. Within the Department of Administration and Organization Theory at the University of Bergen, a research group, Knowledge, Politics, and Organization, focusing on HE reform policies and organizational change in HE has been active since the mid-1990s. In 2006 the group was formally organized as one of four research groups at the Department, and most of its members are focusing on HE research. The group has participated in and organized several large international comparative studies of reform and change in European HE systems and organization of HE institutions, with support from both national and European funders, partly in collaboration with colleagues from NIFU. In addition, individual researchers, e.g., the political scientist Johan P. Olsen (Cohen et al. 1972; Olsen 1976, 2007), have made internationally important contributions to the field. A smaller group at the University of Agder in Kristiansand has established itself in recent years. The field of RI has also been growing recently. It is spread out across many different research groups, based on major research universities in Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim, and in the two major business schools, the Norwegian Business School (BI) and the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and at NIFU.
Sweden HE research in Sweden is generally conducted within disciplinary university departments. Measured by publication output during the 2000s, the major institutions for HE research are the oldest research universities – Gothenburg, Uppsala, Lund, Umeå, Stockholm, and Linköping. The size of the research output in terms of publications has been quite stable the last years. The actual number of researchers engaged in HE research is not readily available, because there are few identifiable organizational unites that explicitly focus on HE. The universities of Gothenburg and Uppsala have faculties of education, but no subdivision focusing on HE. The exception is Stockholm University that has a Department of
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Education within the Social Science Faculty, where one of its nine research groups, comprising both permanent academic positions and PhD students, is dedicated to HE research and philosophy of education. National initiatives in order to stimulate HE research have not aimed to establishing dedicated permanent research centers or units in the field. Such initiatives have rather been taken in order to stimulate research within existing research institutions, through temporary funding mechanisms such as The Swedish Council for Studies in Higher Education during the 1990s or by meeting specific research needs through temporary initiatives such as The Swedish Institute for Studies in Education and Research (SISTER), in 1999–2009. The last decade the research effort has been relatively stable measured in terms of research output and the dominance of two major research topics: teaching and learning and HE policy. If one turns to the RI research field, the situation is similar in terms of how the research effort is organized. It takes place mainly within established academic institutions such as the universities of Lund, Gothenburg, Uppsala, Stockholm, Jönköping, Umeå, and Linköping as well as the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
The Nordic Countries Compared Comparing the Nordic countries, the standard assumption is that they are likely to be similar, given the common characteristics pointed out in the introduction. (Iceland is left out of this comparison because of its small size and modest research activity.) Accordingly one would assume that all four countries would emphasize research on their HE systems in a roughly similar way. However, there are clear differences when it comes to the timing and organization of the effort. In the latter case, a distinction may be drawn between research organized within disciplinary departments and research organized in thematic interdisciplinary research units. Finland and Norway stand out as early starters in this context with government initiatives behind the establishment of research centers with certain obligations to provide data in support of the formulation of
evidence-based policies in the area. Danish and Swedish research on the other hand has taken place within universities and, particularly in Sweden, within disciplinary departments. Within universities, there are also different degrees of organizational integration of research themes: with the clearest attempts at organizational integration both between the two major research themes mentioned in the introduction, as well as between HE and RI research in Finland. Sweden stands out as the representative of the opposite organizational pattern with HE research mainly taking place within disciplinary departments. One should, however, be careful not to confuse the existence of dedicated organizations of HE research with the research activity itself. As regards publication output, Geschwind and Forsberg (2015: 36) demonstrate that between 1990 and 2005, the output in Finland, Sweden, and Norway was very similar, with the countries taking turns occupying the first, second, and third position in terms of number of publications registered on Web of Science, with Denmark lagging somewhat behind. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of publications rose sharply in all four countries, but more so in Sweden than in the other Nordic countries, with Denmark still lagging somewhat behind. As for publication patterns in the four countries between 2003 and 2012, counting registered scientific publications in RI research, growth has taken place in all countries. The number of publications in the RI category is more consistent with the size of the countries and their scientific communities, with Denmark, Finland, and Norway at similar levels and Sweden, consistent with its larger population size, producing almost twice the number of publications that are produced in each of the former three countries (Damvad 2013: 41). This being said, one might reflect on the relationship (if any) between the organizational characteristics and thematic focus of HE research on the one hand and HE policies and reform activity in the other. HE research has been established and developed in all Nordic countries in parallel with rapidly growing and changing HE systems both in terms of organizational structure, governance, funding, and evaluation arrangements and the organization of teaching and
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research, and not least characteristics of the major groups – academics, students, and administrators – populating the system. These developments represent phenomena of vital societal and political importance about which research-based knowledge is strongly needed. As HE and research has grown from an insignificant to an important and more politically contested area of public policy, it has slowly been followed up by investment in research and a significant increase in research activity (Bleiklie et al. 2017; Paradeise et al. 2009). In addition to providing the resources necessary to conduct such research, the relationship between HE reform (and other changes of public interest) and dedicated research activity is likely to turn on how the research effort is organized. It is reasonable to assume that when research is undertaken by individuals spread out in different disciplinary research units, it is less likely to be receptive to national policy-driven research needs and agendas than by disciplinary (and thus internationally defined) criteria about topics of interests. A different pattern is likely to be established when research is organized in thematic, multidisciplinary research centers which can be expected to be less influenced by any single discipline and more receptive to policy-driven, thematic agendas. This association is also likely to be strengthened if dedicated funds are allocated directly for the purpose of studying government reform efforts. Thus although the conditions for studying policy-driven change have improved in all Nordic countries, Finland seems to stand out with a long-standing and stable tradition of enabling researchers to focus on changes following major reforms over a broad spectrum of issues and under conditions that, according to Finnish researchers, preserve academic freedom and independence of the research communities (Välimaa 2012). In Sweden there seems to be a quite different organizational pattern in terms of a research effort that is predominantly established within different disciplinary communities and is likely to create less thematic cross-disciplinary integration within the thematic field of research and less direct engagement with policy-driven change in HE. Denmark and Norway find themselves, according to this line of reasoning, in middle
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positions, Denmark being closer to the Swedish pattern and Norway tilting toward the Finnish pattern.
Cross-References ▶ Comparative Research, Higher Education ▶ Higher Education Conferences ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Denmark ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Finland ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Iceland ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Norway ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Sweden ▶ Role of the European Union in the Field of Higher Education Research
References Ahola, Sakari, and David M. Hoffman. 2012. Higher education research from a Finnish perspective. In Higher education research in Finland. Emerging structures and contemporary issues, ed. Sakari Ahola and David M. Hoffman. Jyväskylä: Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä. Bleiklie, Ivar, Jürgen Enders, and Benedetto Lepori, eds. 2017. Managing universities – policy and organizational change in European countries. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Cohen, Michael D., Jim G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 1–25. Damvad. 2013. Forskning om forskning og innovasjon. Kartlegging for Forskningsrådet. Oslo: Damvad. 23/10/13. Degn, Lise, Niels Mejlgaard, and Jesper W. Schneider. 2015. Mapping of Danish research and innovation: Analysis and evaluation 2/2015. Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policy (CFA), Department of Political Science and Government, Aarhus University, Aarhus. Geschwind, Lars, and Eva Forsberg. 2015. Forskning om högre utbildning – aktörer, miljöer och teman. Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. Jónasson, Jon Torfi. 2017. Personal communication, 16 March 2017. Kogan, Maurice, Marianne Bauer, Ivar Bleiklie, and Mary Henkel, eds. 2006. Transforming higher education. 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Springer.
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742 Olsen, Johan P. 1976. University governance: Nonparticipation as exclusion or choice. In Ambiguity and choice in organizations, ed. James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, 277–313. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget. Olsen, Johan P. 2007. The institutional dynamics of the European University. In University dynamics and European integration, ed. Johan P. Olsen and Peter Maassen. Dordrecht: Springer. Paradeise, Catherine, Emanuela Reale, Ivar Bleiklie, and Ewan Ferlie, eds. 2009. University governance. Dordrecht: Springer. Tight, Malcolm. 2008. Higher education research as tribe, territory and/or community: A co-citation analysis. Higher Education 55: 593–605. Välimaa, Jussi. 2012. The relationship between Finnish higher, education and higher education research. In Higher education research in Finland Emerging structures and contemporary issues, ed. Sakari Ahola and David M. Hoffman. Jyväskylä: Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä.
URLs http://blogs.helsinki.fi/heineblog-en/ http://bss.au.dk/ http://edu.au.dk/en/ http://fpol.no/nekrolog-hans-skoie-1938-2016/ http://ruse.utu.fi/ http://www.nifu.no/ http://www.uta.fi/yky/en/research/tasti/index.html http://www.uv.uio.no/ https://ktl.jyu.fi/en/
Higher Education Research in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia) Dominik Antonowicz Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Synonyms Higher education research; Studies on the Central and Eastern Europe
Definition Social science research on higher education policies, systems, institutions, and academic communication in Eastern European countries.
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Introduction The development of higher education research in Eastern Europe is heavily affected by both the communist past (1945–1990) and also the political and economic transformation that all the countries in the region underwent in the early 1990s. As a consequence, it remains fragmented, institutionally diverse, and conceptually heterogeneous field. The research used to be carried mainly by centrally funded specialized research centers but more recently it has moved more into higher education institutions where smaller research teams focus on very specific issues. The historical roots of research in higher education in Eastern European countries are fascinating, and they reflect the region’s political turmoil. To get a full picture of its organizational dynamics requires a consideration of a wider social and political context. Between 1945 and 1990, all of the countries were undemocratic, under the heavy political and military influence of the Soviet Union. It made a profound impact on the functioning of higher education, restricting freedom of research and the ideological role of the state in defining the research agenda. It is difficult to identify the origins of scholarly interest in higher education. But most probably, universities managed to attract the attention of individual scholars of their histories, thanks to the anniversary of a particular academic institution. These efforts were mostly unsystematic reflections of a historical or even philosophical nature based on observations. They were presented during rectors’ ceremonial speeches, which were traditionally one of the most significant for academic communities. But as Jabłońska-Skinder and Sadlak (1997: 138) rightly acknowledge, one of the first, most interesting, and insightful conceptual observations at the time was made by the Polish sociologist Jan Szczepański (1963), who saw higher education as being steered unprofessionally and driven by sets of routine practices. This pertinent observation applied both on the policy level and on the level of the institutional governance of universities. Despite being addressed specifically to the Polish situation of the 1960s, it can easily be expanded to cover the policy
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developments and governance of higher education at the time in other Eastern European countries. Little is known about first systematic studies of higher education besides separate individual attempts to examine the social composition of student bodies and evaluate the teaching and learning processes. This was because universities performed primarily teaching functions, and “education” was also a highly sensitive topic from an ideological point of view. The first empirical studies were undoubtedly conducted in the social sciences and particularly in the field of pedagogy. Higher education research did not really fit well into disciplinary-structured and teachingdriven universities. Therefore, establishing chairs for research in higher education was particularly difficult; however, a gradual expansion of higher education created political demand for policyrelated empirical knowledge as the outcome of education became increasingly relevant to economic development. The growing political awareness of the new role of higher education was flagged up by the establishment of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Higher Education of Socialist Countries (1966). More importantly, this was followed by a political initiative to establish central institutes of research in higher education in Eastern European countries. This growing interest was generated by the governments and the top–down political initiative focused primarily on providing policy-related knowledge and practical expertise in higher education. The process was initiated – like many other processes at the time – in Moscow, where the Research Institute for Problems of Higher Education in Moscow (1973) was established. It was followed by the Institute of Science Policy of Higher Education in Warsaw (1973); the Higher Education Research Institute in Sofia (1978), which was closed at the beginning of the 1990s and was re-activated in 1998 as the Center for Higher Education Research at the National Institute of Education (Georgieva et al. 2002: 86); the Research Institute for Development of Universities and Higher Education Institutes in the Czech Socialist Republic in Prague (1981); and the Institute for Development of Higher Education in Bratislava, Slovakia, in
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(1972). Both Romania and Hungary, however, chose different paths of development. Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest became the Research Center for Higher Education Pedagogy (1967). But in the 1970s, the government initiated special funding streams focusing on educational research which also included the development of research in higher education. The idea of targeted funding largely failed and instead The Institute for Educational Research was established in 1981 covering the entire educational system. Romania was the only exception where research in higher education was carried out by major pedagogical and psychological units at the universities of Bucharest, ClujNapoca, and Isi. Jabłońska-Skinder and Sadlak (1997) underline that “these central research institutes might seem alike, though it should be indicated that were substantial differences between them in regard to internal structure, research interest, and academic standing.” Building an organizational foundation became one of the most important dimensions of the development of research in higher education which, for almost two decades, has shaped major problems, methodological frameworks, and dominant patterns of dissemination of research outcomes. Among them, the largest and most academically active was the Institute in Warsaw, which employed approximately 100 staff. (Half of them were directly involved in research.) In the late 1970s, it was expanded into the field of sciences and technology, which was marked by the change of name to the Institute for Science Policy, Technological Progress. The Institute in Warsaw was not only very useful for researchbased policy, but it was highly respected academically, thanks to the publication of many reports, books, and articles. In general, research in higher education carried out by central research institutes could be characterized by its applicability and problemoriented nature. However, Kluczyński (1985) emphasized that this caused some internal tensions, because those research institutes had to strike a balance between high scientific standards and the “utilitarian” aspect of research outcomes. Regarding research problems, they explored a variety of issues that were of national priority.
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Kluczyński (1985: 66) also identified several problems as transnational in the region: – Planning and forecasting the development of higher education – Organisation and management of higher education – Short-cycle schooling – Improvement of the system of selecting candidates for higher education institutions – Modernisation of the educational and socialisation process in schools of higher learning
It is clear that the main focus was on the organization of higher learning and teaching, from student admissions to the professional development of graduates. On ideological grounds, education performed a more important function: shaping the minds and souls of thousands of young people. In principle, it was separated from the research realm, which was supposed to be conducted mainly within the academy of sciences. Therefore, until 1990, there was also an ideological influence on problems and, for the same reason, a prevailing assumption about the social structure of the student body, democratization of access, and ideological concerns about the role of higher education in society and the economy.
Dissemination of Research Outcomes In the Soviet Block, academic publishing was under strict political and administrative control for ideological reasons. In Poland, where the restrictions on academic freedom were relatively more relaxed than in other parts of the region, central research institutes had “publishing capacity” granted by the public authorities (JabłońskaSkinder and Sadlak 1997: 147). Also, the Institute of Science Policy of Higher Education in Warsaw produced a large volume of literature that mainly presents the outcome of desk-research studies in the form of a wide range of statistical analysis based on secondary data collected by the public authorities. This was largely because the socialist countries were known from their central-planning and data collection on almost every aspect of social life. It massively helped to conduct analysis
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with the extensive use of secondary data. Ultimately, the research became the foundation for socioeconomic forecasting, including the macroplanning in higher education and science. Overall, they were weak theoretically and made little conceptual contribution to the wider understanding of analyzed issues and processes. But this form of knowledge served its purpose, because the central research institutes were established mainly to supply practical, problemoriented, and ready-to-use knowledge. It also explains why the main channel of communication was through reports, books, and internal journals in national languages. Each country had its own scientific journal as an obvious channel for communication of relevant research papers and a professional forum for publishing the official line of policy in science and higher education. These included Hungary’s “The Felsőoktatási Szemle” (Higher Education Review), published in the period 1952–1989, “Magyar Felsőoktatás” (Hungarian Higher Education), published by the ministry in the period 1991–2004, and “Felsőoktatási Műhely” (Higher Education Working papers), published by one of the agencies of the ministry in the period 2007–2014; “Vysoká škola” (Higher Education), published in the former Czechoslovakia; Bulgaria’s “Problemi na vissheto obrazovanie” (Problems of Higher Education); and two Polish journals, “Życie Szkoły Wyższej” (Life of Higher Education) and “Dydaktyka Szkoły Wyższej” (Didactics of Higher Education). In Romania, where research in higher education was incorporated into pedagogy and psychology, there was also the monthly journal “Forum,” which became a venue for intellectual debate around the problems of higher education. Most of them were established in the early 1950s, approximately 10 years before higher education was established as a separate field of research. The journals facilitated intellectual space for academic debates around major problems in higher education; however, such a debate was ideologically restricted. Most of the research outcomes were disseminated internally; however, a good venue for sharing the results and policy ideas was provided by the transnational “Современная Высшая-Школа,” (Contemporary Higher Education), which began
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publication in Russian. (Beginning in 1976, it was also published in Spanish with an English summary.) Its aim was to advertise the model of higher education developed in Eastern European countries and create opportunities for communication between scholars within the Soviet Block. Undoubtedly, the greatest venue for international cooperation within the Soviet Block and between researchers from the East and the West was the UNESCO European Center for Higher Education, (Centre Européen pour l’Enseignement Supérieur; CEPES), established in 1972 in Bucharest. The early mission of CEPES was to encourage cooperation, to disseminate information, and to research trends in higher education in Eastern European countries. Before 1990, the last was definitely not a product “for export,” and so its contribution to building a transnational academic dialogue was never the top priority. Only the fall of Communism opened a window of opportunity for the dissemination of research and developed a platform for dialogue and networking between researchers on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Research in Higher Education After the Fall of Communism The fall of Communism triggered political turmoil and economic transformation that brought about deep structural changes in higher education, including the institutional environment, funding mechanism, and governance structure. One of the most significant changes affecting research in higher education referred to austerity measures undertaken by governments while responding to economic crises. It had a profound and damaging effect on research in higher education, because a series of severe cuts shattered centrally funded programs and research institutes. Particularly, it hit the Institute of Science Policy and Higher Education in Warsaw, which had to be closed because of a lack of public resources. The research was continued partly through Warsaw University, the Center for Science Policy and Higher Education (1992), although with only a fraction of its previous staff. In light of the discontinuity of publication strategy, the center established a
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semi-annual journal titled “Nauka i Szkolnictwo Wyższe” (Science and Higher Education), which remains the most important platform for dissemination of research outcomes in Poland. It was previously regarded as the largest and most active center of research in higher education in Eastern Europe, but it failed to adapt to the new economic conditions and gradually declined. Today, most research is conducted by the Center for Public Policy Studies at the University of Poznań and, on a smaller scale, by Sociology of Science Department at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. A similar, although less complex, situation unfolded in Bulgaria, where the central research center, Higher Education Research Institute in Sofia, was closed, and its work was carried on by a center with a broader profile, namely, the National Research Center for Education and Science. Meanwhile, the seminal journal “Strategii na obrazovatelnata i nauchnata politika” (Strategies of educational and scientific policy) was launched and still remains an important channel for academic communication. From a bird’s-eye view, the political and economic transformation fundamentally changed the institutional landscape of research in higher education. Before 1990, it could be characterized as a large concentration of resources (intellectual, financial, and infrastructural) in centrally designed research centers that had strong and direct links with their respective ministries. The new democratic political regime led to de-centralization and diversification of institutional arrangements of research in higher education, which was additionally petrified by EU structural funding. The major role of the Center in research in higher education took place in the beginning of 1990s and continuing up to 2007. Thereafter, as a result of major political changes in the decision-making seat at the Ministry of Education, the subsidy to the Center for Higher Education Studies was cut significantly, and preference was given to contractual research through public tenders (private consultancies applying for the tenders). So, the Center increasingly had to seek financial support from targeted funding, where available (different sorts of projects), which resulted in the discontinuation of several activities and loose contacts with the
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ministry. Although the situation has improved in 2017–2018, it remains to be seen to what extent the ministry will be interested in renewing the commissioned research by the Centre. In addition, new institutional actors have entered the research field, such as the Faculty of Education of Education Policy Centers at Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, enriching existing tradition with sociological perspective. Also, in Slovakia the process of democratization produced a multiplicity of new actors that are engaged in exploring various aspects of higher education. Among them, playing a leading role were the Centers for Equivalency, the Institute for Information and Prognoses of Education, the Institute for Development of Higher Education and the Department for Higher Education and Science at the Institute of Information and Planning of Education, Youth and Sports in Bratislava. In Hungary, after some organizational turbulence, the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research (HIER) has been transformed into the Institute of Educational Research and Development, and its focus is much changed. It has become the coordinator for a great deal of EU support. Nevertheless, it remains under the direct supervision of the Ministry of Education. Also in Hungary, a pluralism of institutional actors carries on research in higher education. The three major centers are actively engaged in research in higher education. The first is the Center for Higher Educational Research and Development (CHERD) at the University of Debrecen, which carries out fundamental and applied research into higher education, not only in Hungary, but also in the border regions of Romania and Ukraine. The Center for International Higher Education Studies (CIHES) was established in 2008 by a resolution of the Council of the Faculty of Economics at Corvinus University of Budapest. The Higher Educational Management Institutional Center was founded around 2008, and recently (2015), the Research Centre for Higher Education and Innovation of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of ELTE University was established with the aim of developing a new basis for research in higher education, especially teaching and learning
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processes as well as the organizational and management processes. In Romania, which experienced a truly revolutionary shift in political regimes, research in higher education has begun to grow in newly reopened departments of educational sciences after they had been closed by the Ceausescu regime. It included mainly the Institute of Educational Sciences at the University of Iasi, the Institute for Educational Sciences in Bucharest, which also tended towards bias into the whole education sector. Also recently, the Center for Public Policy in the West-University of Timisoara joined institutional actors that carry on empirical research and provide expertise in the field of science and higher education. It must be noted that, besides a variety of emerging new actors, the wellestablished center UNESCO-CEPES was officially closed in 2012, owing to a lack of support from the Romanian government and from other contributing governments.
Emerging Opportunities and Internationalization of Higher Education Research The change of political regimes had a profound impact on the institutional environment of research in higher education in Eastern Europe which, before 1989, can be characterized as a small number of centrally located institutes, established by administrative order. Often, they were also centrally funded research institutes that served various purposes, among the most important of which was providing basic information to public authorities, conducting research, disseminating knowledge of higher education, preparing evidence for policy decisions, and in some countries, supervising the implementation of higher education reforms. The fall of Communism opened a window of opportunity for emerging funding sources (transnational aid) and a new type of actor: transnational organizations engaged in research and knowledge production. The national reviews and expertise produced by teams of researchers under the headings of the
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World Bank, the Council of Europe, UNESCO, the OECD, and the European Commission have become the pivotal points of reference in policy and academic discourse. As Jabłońska-Skinder and Sadlak (1997) rightly acknowledge, the fall of the centralist state and democratization of research opened an opportunity for numerous grassroots initiatives, which led to greater organizational diversity, disparity, and even fragmentation of higher education research across the Eastern Europe and within each country. However, it also broadened the research focus, multiplied channels for the dissemination of research outcomes, and it inevitably produced methodological pluralism. A growing number of researchers from a wide range of disciplines (e.g., architecture, psychology, history, and computer science) have begun to investigate higher education from very different angles, enriching the conceptual architecture of the entire field. They are driven largely by academic curiosity and the availability of research funding; however, it also means that those attempts are often unsystematic and carried out only periodically by individual academics. Undoubtedly, research in higher education in Eastern European countries is becoming more internationalized with gradually changing publishing patterns and an increasing number of articles and books published in English and in transnational, highly respected, peer-reviewed academic journals. It is largely due to a younger generation of scholars, who are trained in research methodologies, multi-lingual, and members of international bodies and the higher education community. Gradually, the research carried out in Eastern European countries is entering the mainstream of transnational academic debate. Also, this highly dynamic region attracts the attention of scholars from outside Eastern Europe (Dobbins 2011; Dobbins and Knill 2009), which leads to international comparative analysis (Kwiek and Maassen 2012; Pinheiro and Antonowicz 2014), and even a special issue of European Educational Research Journal, with two guest editors, Michael Dobbins and Marek Kwiek.
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The situation of higher education in Eastern European countries has broadened the research focus and spread its interest to numerous aspects of change. They cover a wide range of issues beginning with the logic of transformation of higher education (Kwiek 2001; Tomusk 2001; Dąbrowa-Szefler and Białecki 1994) through the Bologna process, which brought about deep structural changes in higher learning, the structure of higher education (Pusztai and Szabó 2008), and triggered the response of the academic community (Oprean 2007). Traditionally, the research was focused on the sociological and pedagogical aspects of higher education, as well as university governance (Dobbins and Knill 2009). In addition, in recent years, a dynamic increase in analysis has been reported, focused on emerging phenomena in this region, such as access to higher education in the period of rapid expansion (IlievaTrichkova and Boyadjieva 2014), quality assurance (Kohoutek 2014), the development of private sector (Slantcheva et al. 2007; Antonowicz et al. 2017), and research evaluation (Málek et al. 2014; Kulczycki and Rozkosz 2017). To sum up, research in higher education in Eastern European countries has experienced deep structural changes since it was systematically initiated in the 1970s. It evolved from centrally funded research institutes affiliated with ministries into a diverse and fragmented organizational structure fueled by targeted funding. This bottom–up and spontaneous unfolding produced a high degree of disintegration in all respects. Therefore, the Center of International Higher Education Studies (CIHES) at the Corvinus University of Budapest and the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education at Central European University (CEU), in cooperation with partners from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia have formed the Central and Eastern Higher Education Cooperation (CEHEC). It is a promising initiative that remains a loosely connected network but manifests the need for enhanced collaboration and experience sharing between researchers and experts from Eastern Europe. In the last couple of years, there has been a shift towards the internationalization of
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dissemination of research outcomes, and the development of higher education has become an integral part of academic discourse, reflecting the growing importance of research conducted in the region and its vital contribution to ongoing debates.
Cross-References ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Europe ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Hungary ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Poland ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Romania ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovakia Acknowledgments This was supported by institutional research funding provided by Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
References Antonowicz, Dominik, Marek Kwiek, and Don F. Westerheijden. 2017. The government response to the private sector expansion in Poland. In Policy analysis of structural reforms in higher education: Processes and outcomes, ed. Harry de Boer, Jon File, Jeroen Huisman, Marco Seeber, Martina Vukasovic, and Don F. Westerheijden, 119–138. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Dąbrowa-Szefler, Małgorzata, and Ireneusz Białecki, eds. 1994. Changes in higher education in Central European countries. Warszawa: IFiS Publishers. Dobbins, Michael. 2011. Higher education policies in Central and Eastern Europe: Convergence towards a common model? Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dobbins, Michael, and Christoph Knill. 2009. Higher education policies in Central and Eastern Europe: Convergence toward a common model? Governance 22: 397–430.
Higher Education Research in Eastern Europe Georgieva, Patricia, Todorova, Lucy, and Pilev, Deyan. 2002. Higher Education in Bulgaria. Bucharest: UNESCO CEPES. Ilieva-Trichkova, Petya, and Pepka Boyadjieva. 2014. Dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education: Bulgaria in a comparative perspective. European Journal of Higher Education 4: 97–117. Jabłońska-Skinder, Hanna, and Jan Sadlak. 1997. Research on higher education in Central and Eastern Europe. In Higher education research at the turn of the new century. Structures, issues, and trends, ed. Jan Sadlak and Philip G. Altbach, 1371–1363. Paris: UNESCO. Kluczyński, Jan. 1985. Research on higher education in European socialist countries. In Higher education in international perspective: A survey and bibliography, ed. Philip G. Altbach and David Kelly, 55–85. London: Mansell Publishing Limited. Kohoutek, Jan. 2014. Analysing instrument mixes in quality assurance: The Czech and Slovak Accreditation Commissions in the era of mass higher education. Quality in Higher Education 20: 83–102. Kulczycki, Emanuel, and Ewa A. Rozkosz. 2017. Does an expert-based evaluation allow us to go beyond the impact factor? Experiences from building a ranking of national journals in Poland. Scientometrics 111: 417–442. Kwiek, Marek. 2001. Social and cultural dimensions of the transformation of higher education in Central and Eastern Europe. Higher Education in Europe 26: 399–410. Kwiek, Marek, and Peter Maassen. 2012. National higher education reforms in a European context: comparative reflections on Poland and Norway, Higher education research and policy. Vol. 2. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Málek, Jiři, Viera Hudečková, and Martin Matějka. 2014. System of evaluation of research institutions in the Czech Republic. Procedia Computer Science 33: 315–320. Oprean, Constantin. 2007. Adequately responding to “reform” and “anti-reform” pressures in the Romanian higher education system under the Bologna process. Higher Education in Europe 32: 91–97. Pinheiro, Rómulo, and Dominik Antonowicz. 2014. Opening the gates or coping with the flow? Governing access to higher education in Northern and Central Europe. Higher Education 70 (3): 299–313. Pusztai, Gabriella, and Péter Cs. Szabó. 2008. The Bologna process as a Trojan horse: Restructuring higher education in Hungary. European Education 40: 85–103. Slantcheva, Snejana, Daniel C. Levy, and Palgrave Connect (Online service). 2007. Private higher education in post-communist Europe in search of legitimacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: International Association of Universities. Szczepański, Jan. 1963. Socjologiczne zagadnienia wyższego wykształcenia. Warszawa: PWN. Tomusk, Voldemar. 2001. Enlightenment and minority cultures: Central and East European higher education reform ten years later. Higher Education Policy 14: 61–73.
Higher Education Research, Australia
Higher Education Research, Australia Simon Marginson UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
Synonyms Inquiry into tertiary and higher education, Australia; Investigation of post-school education, Australia; Study of higher education, Australia
Definition Research inquiry devoted to the field of knowledge about higher education, as practiced in Australia.
Australia and Australian Higher Education Australia is a nation of 24.8 million people (ABS 2018) occupying an island continent of 7.7 million km2 located southeast of Asia on the western side of the Pacific Ocean. The population is concentrated in a small number of coastal cities, with most large research-intensive universities in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane/Gold Coast. Australia is a British settler-state that appropriated the land of the Indigenous inhabitants, akin to Canada (the nation it resembles most closely) and the United States. It achieved national independence in 1901 but retains the British monarch as the nominal head of state and embodies British norms in government, policy, business, the professions, and higher education. Like all English-speaking countries, it is also influenced by the United States. Australia is also shaped by its proximity to East Asia, a region of exceptional dynamism. Most of Australia’s trade is in the region and migration from Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia has grown markedly. In 2015–2016, the Asian-born share was 10% (ABS 2017).
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Australia has a high participation system of higher education (Cantwell et al. 2018). More than one third of all 25–34-year-olds hold degrees, and the apparent Tertiary Enrolment Ratio was 90% in 2014 (UNESCO 2018), though this was artificially boosted by international students. In 2016 there were 1.46 million students in institutions offering degree programs of at least 3 years (DET 2018), and a larger number in subdegree programs in Vocational Education and Training (VET). Policy focuses on increasing the participation of students from poorer, rural, and remote families, and Indigenous people, who enroll at half the rate suggested by their population share (DET 2018), though progress is slow. Higher education was patterned along English and Scottish lines and the sectors in UK and Australia remain similar, from policy and regulation to public/private funding, cultures of academic work, faculty structures, and the doctorate. There is remarkable uniformity of institution. Nine in ten students in 2016 were in the public sector, primarily the 36 multi-disciplinary multi-purpose universities regulated by the federal government, nearly all offering a comprehensive suite of professional degrees and all with doctoral degrees. Research intensity varies, but in 2017 there were 23 Australian institutions in the Shanghai Academic Ranking world 500, including 21 in the top 400 and six in the top 100. Highest placed was the University of Melbourne at 39. In its broad spread of research capacity, Australian resembles the Netherlands and Canada (Shanghai Ranking 2018). Published science is comparatively stronger in volume than citation rate, but Australia has particular research strengths in Plant and Animal Science, Earth Science, Astrophysics, and Medicine (OCS 2013). Higher education is corporate in organization and often entrepreneurial in temper. Just over 40% of income is from government with almost 40% from fees and charges. Domestic student tuition is supported by income contingent loans. Fee-based international education is a vital source of university revenue, sustaining infrastructure and research. In 2016, 26.8% of all students were international, four fifths from Asia, primarily China, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
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International education is Australia’s third largest export after coal and iron ore, ahead of tourism and the agricultural sectors, and provided 20.7% of university income in 2016 (DET 2018). About a third of international students migrate to Australia after graduation.
The Field of Research As in other countries Australian scholarship and research in higher education studies is applied in character, draws on multiple social science disciplines, and is primarily shaped by government policy agendas and the information and business needs of individual universities. Typically, research is more or less instrumental. Rarely does it become pure curiosity-driven inquiry. On one hand, academic research and publishing in this field shades into institutional research and consultancy: narrower, more purpose-driven, and partly outside the public domain. On the other hand, academic research and publishing are joined to the servicing work of academic development units focused on teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum development. Much scholarship in the field is generated in these units. Other published work comes largely from individuals and small groups in faculties of education. At present only one substantial university center, at Melbourne, is nominally dedicated to the full range of topics in higher education studies (see below). There is also research on higher education generated from outside universities; and though little of it contributes to the evolving academic literature in the field, like institutional research it augments tacit knowledge about higher education and can influence scholarly sensibilities.
Instrumental Research Advocacy Organizations Australian higher education is serviced by organizations that foster and pursue the collective interests of all universities qua institutions, of differing groups of universities, of faculty and other employees, and of students and
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others. The associated discussion papers, survey reports, briefing papers, and data analyses are larger in volume than academic publishing. Both the advocacy organizations, and commercial business service companies, organize national conferences designed to attach policy “stakeholders” and institutional leaders, where some papers are more academic in form than others. One important advocacy organization is Universities Australia, which represents the 39 public research universities on the government’s schedule. It is similar in function to Universities UK in the United Kingdom, though smaller and not as crisp in its policy and data interventions. The Go8 (Group of Eight), representing the eight leading research-intensive universities, the Australian Technology Network, representing the five designated universities of technology, the Innovative Research University group, representing seven researchfocused institutions younger than the Go8, and the Regional Universities Network representing seven institutions outside the main cities, also contribute to policy advocacy, data analysis, and interpretation. A handful of individual vice-chancellors generate scholarly output on higher education matters, notably two political scientists: Glyn Davis (2017) at Melbourne and Peter Coaldrake (Coaldrake and Stedman 2013) who retired from the Queensland University of Technology in 2017. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU 2018) represents 25,000 members in public universities and small private higher education institutions. The NTEU undertakes research and policy analysis focused on higher education, especially matters that affect the working conditions of its members, including career structures, academic and intellectual freedom, casual faculty, research regulation, gender pay equity, workload and occupational stress, and intellectual property. Twice a year it publishes the independently edited journal Australian Universities Review, first founded in 1958. The Association for Tertiary Education Managers, representing some professional staff, is the nominal publisher of the refereed Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. This has achieved second rank status in higher education studies, akin to Higher Education Quarterly in the UK.
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Government Between the early 1960s and the late 1990s, the federal government was the primary sponsor of research on higher education. It often published analyses of issues and problems of higher education by its own officers, working in departments and specialist education commissions; and it sponsored research by faculty in universities and consultants outside the sector. Other researchbased discussion was triggered by periodic commissions and inquiries. Little of this work became part of the global literature but within Australia it fostered a sophisticated policy research culture with an applied focus. In the last two decades, the federal government has been much less active as a producer and a sponsor of research. While statistical collections have improved, in other respects policy literature has deteriorated. This appears linked to the politicization of leading positions in government (senior public servants are tied to particular ministers rather than apolitical), and a shift of task focus from government to shorter-term politics. Government discussion papers are often marketing oriented, even ideological, rather than evidence-based, let alone dispassionate. Nevertheless, specific units in government provide useful research-based data, information summaries and occasional discussion papers in designated areas, such as regular data from Australian Education International that informs marketing, university planning, and policy discussion in relation to international education (AEI 2018). The Australian Council for Educational Research, by far the largest research agency focused on education, conducts projects for federal and state government and international organizations. Its expertise is largely in psychologybased approaches, and it has a strong role in assessment and the design and the management of large-scale testing. From time to time, ACER has maintained an active higher education consultancy. Academic Development Units Nearly all of Australia’s 39 universities support academic development units. These are primarily focused on teaching, learning, and assessment, including educational technologies. While many
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such units operate on a central basis and focus on generic notions of academic work, some larger universities maintain units at discipline (Faculty/ School) level, for example, in medicine, engineering, and business studies. Teaching centers in business studies are often focused on academic English skills for large international student cohorts. There are some tensions in institutional practice between generic approaches to teaching and learning, and discipline-based approaches. Graduate employment matters are handled in separate servicing units that conduct solely institutional research, little of which becomes public. All academic units conduct action research that does not lead to journal articles or chapters. Nevertheless, many academic development staff hold academic posts and most of them have active incentives to produce journal papers. Academic developers organize the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA 2018), “a scholarly society for people committed to the advancement of higher and tertiary education. It promotes the development of higher education policy, practice and the study of teaching and learning”. HERDSA conferences are large and the Society publishes Higher Education Research and Development, the most cited of the three Australian-origin journals in higher education studies.
Larger Agendas A small number of competitive Australian Research Council (ARC) grants are provided for sustained empirical inquiry into higher education. In some years there are no ARC grants in the field. Over the years, most of the funded support for research on higher education has been provided by government agencies focused on teaching and learning, especially digital applications. However, in the last 50 years, two academic concentrations built a larger role in higher education studies, extending beyond teaching and learning to a range of policy studies, research and science, international education, and the global discussions about massification, marketization and globalization. The two parent
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universities are those of New England (UNE) and Melbourne. UNE housed Grant Harman, the long-standing editor-in-chief of Higher Education, Kay Harman and Lyn Meek, the current editor of Studies in Higher Education. For a time the UNE group was prolific in research studies of regulation, mergers, the academic profession, commercialization in research, quality assurance, and comparative studies in Asia and Europe. After Harman’s retirement and Meek’s departure, UNE activity wound down. The University of Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education (MCSHE 2018), founded as an academic development center in 1968, retains a presence in all of global scholarship in higher education, national policy-related consultancy, and public discussion of higher education in Australia, while maintaining a full servicing function inside the University. A small core of tenured faculty is supported by a larger cohort in contract-based positions financed largely by project funding, professional staff. There are approximately 30 doctoral students. Leading academic and policy researchers, some now deceased, that have worked at MCSHE include David Beswick (learning psychology), John Anwyl (policy), Paul Ramsden (teaching and learning, leadership), Simon Marginson (national systems, globalization, international education), Richard James (equity, Indigenous education, standards), Gregor Kennedy (digital learning), Hamish Coates (assessment), and Sophie Arkoudis (international education). Ramsden became the world’s most highly cited scholar of university teaching and director of the UK Higher Education Academy. Marginson became editor-in-chief of Higher Education in 2013 and in 2018 Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford. In 2014, he delivered the Clark Kerr Lectures on Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, the first non-American to do so. Coates moved from Melbourne to a professorship at Tsinghua University in China. While the MCSHE is well networked in Europe and from time to time its faculty have been prominent in higher education conferences in the UK and USA, in the last two decades it
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has become especially focused on East and Southeast Asia, the source of many of its doctoral students. It has close links in Japan with the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University, and the higher education unit at Tohoku University. Alongside the MCSHE, the LH Martin Institute for Tertiary Education Leadership and Management specializes in short and long programs, conferences, and consultancy. The Martin Institute’s Director Leo Goedegebuure has a long record of prolific scholarship of higher education; it maintains some doctoral students, and it publishes research-based bulletins on policy issues, but it is primarily a training center, not a research center. In addition to researchers in education and in academic development, a handful in economics, sociology, and policy studies produce relevant papers, such as Bruce Chapman, the Australian National University economist who developed income contingent tuition loans; and Ross Williams at Melbourne, designer of the U21 ranking of higher education systems (U21 2018). Journal Topics The topic coverage of Australian-based scholarship can be tracked by examining the principal journals. For example, a study published in 2013 of work in Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education found that in the 10 years from 2003 to 2012, Australian authors contributed 15.4% of papers in Higher Education and 21.6% in Studies in Higher Education – high levels for a country of Australia’s size. A relatively modest proportion of these papers involved crossborder authorship: 16.2% of those in Higher Education and 10.1% of those in Studies in Higher Education (Marginson 2013). These low rates of collaboration may be a function of Australia’s geographic isolation and the absence of a collaborative regional context, in which scholars work across borders with others with whom they share language and/or cultural heritage, as in Europe and Latin America. The 2013 study found that of the papers published by Australian authors 32.4% published in Higher Education and 30.3% in Studies were primarily focused on teaching and learning.
Higher Education Research, Australia
Along with the national presence in Higher Education Research and Development this confirms the primary importance of this subfield. A smaller group of papers in 2003–2012 – 10.8% of those by Australian authors in Higher Education, 7.4% in Studies – were focused on aspects of research, including research assessment, performance evaluation, research training, innovation policies, and commercialization. In Higher Education, other frequently visited topics included globalization, international education and international students, and comparative education (18.9%), academic faculty (16.2%), student services, experience, engagement and satisfaction (10.8%) and Australian policy, regulation and funding (5.4%). In Studies in Higher Education, other frequent topic areas included student services, experience, engagement and satisfaction (9.1%) and academic faculty (7.1%). In the 10 years under study, there were few papers on online and distance education, surprisingly given Australia’s geographic spread; disappointingly little on Indigenous higher education; and a relatively small number of papers on access, participation,and related equity issues, despite the nominal priority given to these matters in government statements and on university websites.
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imagining, often more so than their counterparts aboard. This may be a function of the transitional and partly-rooted character of Australian identity, coupled with the long geographic arc back to its cultural origins, alongside Australia’s location in dynamic Asia. Australians readily see the whole and do so from more than one position. Of the academic research bases, only the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education has achieved a level of concentration akin to the larger centers in the world field in Netherlands, UK, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Most of even that Centre’s activity is local and service related. Much of its consultancy for government does not lead to published academic monographs and articles. However, the MCSHE is distinctive in producing some curiosity-driven work and (not coincidentally) in its global presence. Given the modest institutional weight of higher education studies in Australia, Australians have had a surprising influence in the world literature. However, one senses that the definition of Australian work in higher education studies is an unfinished project, and more so than most evolving intellectual agendas. It is likely that in future decades, Australian research in this field, like many others, will be reshaped in the encounter with East Asia.
Conclusion Higher education studies in Australia is dominated by applied research, shading into institutional research, educational servicing, action research, train the trainer, policy persuasion, marketing, and other activities that draw on research techniques but do not generate lasting publications. A handful of academic scholars focus broadly on higher education, and other social scientists make higher education one of their topics – though there are many institutional researchers and academic developers. The role of research in government and funded by government has diminished and this has probably fed a contraction in the proportion of work that is framed by the broad general interest rather than particular organizational interests. All the same, many Australian scholars readily take to global
Cross-References ▶ Higher Education Journals ▶ Pedagogical Perspectives in Higher Education Research
References Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2017. 3412.0 – Migration 2015–2016. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ [email protected]/lookup/3412.0Media%20Release12015-16 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2018. 3101.0 – Australian demographic statistics, December 2017. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/0/D56C4A3 E41586764CA2581A70015893E?Opendocument Australian Education International (AEI). 2018. Research and data. https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/ pages/data-and-research.aspx
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754 Cantwell, B., S. Marginson, and A. Smolentseva. 2018. High participation systems of higher education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coaldrake, P., and L. Stedman. 2013. Raising the stakes. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Davis, G. 2017. The Australian idea of a university. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Department of Education and Training, Australia (DET). 2018. Higher education statistics. https://docs.educa tion.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/2016_student_sum mary_0.pdf Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). 2018. http://www.herdsa.org. au Marginson, S. 2013. Australian-based research in higher education studies. In The development of higher education research in Europe: 25 years of CHER, ed. B. Kehm and C. Musselin, 87–101. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne (MCSHE). 2018. http:// www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/ National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). 2018. http:// www.nteu.org.au Office of the Chief Scientist, Australian Government (OCS). 2013. Benchmarking Australia’s science performance. 22 February. http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2013/02/ benchmarking-australian-science-performance/ Shanghai Jiao Tong University Graduate School of Education (Shanghai Ranking). 2018. Academic Ranking of World Universities. http://www.shanghairanking. com/ARWU2017.html United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). 2018. UNESCO Institute of Statistics. http://data.uis.unesco.org Universitas21 (U21). 2018. U21 ranking of national higher education systems. https://universitas21.com/ news-and-events/news/u21-ranking-national-highereducation-systems-2018-released
Higher Education Research, Germany Isabel Steinhardt International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Synonyms Higher education research, Institutionalization
Higher Education Research, Germany
Definition As in other European countries, higher education research in Germany is a heterogeneous, inter-/ multidisciplinary, object-focused, and multitopic research field, where the boundaries are fluid and the field has to deal with new, politically induced requirements. As a consequence, higher education research in Germany is mainly conducted in specialized research centers or by individual professors who focus on particular issues.
History of Institutionalization of Higher Education Research in Germany The institutionalization began with the founding of three research institutes in the 1960s and 1970s: HIS – Hochschul-Informations-System (Higher Education System Ltd.) in Hanover, which was founded in 1969, was initially established as a service center, but included an Institute for Higher Education Research (HIS – Institut für Hochschulforschung). In 2014, the HIS was merged with the IFQ – Institut für Forschungsinformationen und Qualitätssicherung (Institute for Research Information and Quality Assurance) and is now the DZHW – Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschulund Wissenschaftsforschung (German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies); the second institute is the IHF – Bayerisches Staatsinstitut für Hochschulforschung und Hochschulplanung (Bavarian State Institute for Higher Education Research and Planning) in Munich, established in 1973, and finally the WZ1 – Wissenschaftliches Zentrum für Berufs- und Hochschulforschung (Centre for Research on Higher Education and Work) (now INCHER, International Centre for Higher Education Research) University of Kassel, established in 1978. In addition to the institutionalization of the higher education research institutes the topic of higher education was taken up by “scholars from various disciplines” (Teichler 2015: 9) during this period. In 1996, the HoF – Institut für Hochschulforschung (Institute of Higher Education Research) was
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established in Halle-Wittenberg as the first higher education research institute in the new Länder. In 2010, the ZHH – Zentrum für Hochschuldidaktik und angewandte Hochschulforschung (Centre of higher education didactics and applied higher education research) was established at the University of Magdeburg, which is also in the eastern part of Germany. The foundation of the ZHH is an expression of the increasing importance of HER (higher education research) after a longer period of stalemate. Teichler (2015) mentioned: “In recent years, HER has clearly expanded in Germany. One might estimate the number of scholars, who would identify themselves today as HE researchers, as being at least twice as high as a decade ago.” The first reason for the new push is additional funding and special research programs set up by the ministries of education and research, and by foundations. The Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and Research) is the largest promoter of HER which, according to its own information, invests €13 million a year in HER and science studies. The majority of the funding is awarded through competitive funding programs for (applied) basic research, which is not to be confused with contract research. In the past 6 years, the BMBF has financed eight major funding programs with an average of 17 projects with an average duration of 3–4 years. The topics of the funding programs of the last 6 years are: Leistungsbewertung in der Wissenschaft (performance evaluation of science), Wissenschaftsökonomie (economics of science), Begleitforschung zum Qualitätspakt Lehre (accompanying research on the Quality Pact or Teaching), Forschung zu den Karrierebedingungen und Karriereentwicklungen des Wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses (research on career conditions and career developments of early career researchers), Forschung zur digitalen Hochschulbildung (research on digitization in higher education), Studienerfolg und Studienabbruch (study success and attrition), and Quantitative Wissenschaftsforschung (quantitative science studies). The second and interrelated reason for the push of HER is the need for sound scientific findings providing insight into the
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changing governance of higher education, both by the Länder and higher education institutions. This demand for research has fostered growth of the academic community of HE researchers as well. This new phase of growth also led to further institutionalization. In 2006, the German speaking GfHf – Gesellschaft für Hochschulforschung (Association of Higher Education Research) was established. The GfHf promotes scientific exchange, especially at the annual conferences, sponsors awards for excellent master theses and dissertations, organizes a mentoring program for PhDs, and brings into contact international and German higher education researchers. The GfHf also takes care of the external representation of HER, e.g., toward the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In 2017, almost 400 people were members of the GfHf; of these, 332 are from Germany. Altogether, 30 professors from Germany are members of the GfHf, but of these, only 8 professors are chair holders with a denomination for HER (and three are emeritus). However, according to the new website of the BMBF (2017), 11 professorships do have a denomination for HER (and 3 professorships are in preparation). This means, on the one hand, that not all chair holders for HER are members of the GfHf and, on the other hand, more professors are interested in HER without holding a chair for HER. The majority of members are early career researchers without a PhD (223) and 79 with a PhD. For early career researchers, the HoFoNa network (Hochschulforschernachwuchs) was established as part of the GfHF. HoFoNa members are in most cases doctoral candidates, and some are postdoctoral researchers or people who have been working in higher education (research) institutions for not more than 10 years. The network has its own mailing list for exchanges about dissertation work, calls for papers, conferences, or job openings; an online-directory and an extra day of workshops and discussions at the annual GfHf conference. For the perception as a research field, the existence of respected journals with double-blind review procedures and a high impact factor are crucial. With regard to the high impact factor,
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HER in Germany has a lack of relevant journals (Bornmann 2016). To close this gap, a new double-blind peer review journal issued by a prestigious publisher was established in 2017. The journal is called Zeitschrift für empirische Hochschulforschung (Journal of empirical higher education research) and it has a focus on the theoretical and methodological advancement of HER and original research works. Furthermore, there are two academic journals which are published by higher education research institutions. First, the open access double-blind peer review journal Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung (Contributions to Higher Education Research) published by the IHF, and second, the journal die hochschule (the University) published by HoF. The third double-blind peer review journal is the Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung (Journal for Higher Education Development) sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW); it is also an open access journal. In addition, there are some journals (without double-blind peer review) on higher education issues, which primarily publish reflections and reports from the field of HER as well as of policy makers and practitioners (e.g. Qualität in der Wissenschaft – Quality in Science).
Challenges of Institutionalization of Higher Education Research in Germany According to Teichler (2015), the question of who is part of the field of HER is crucial for two reasons: First, a field needs a certain size in order to be considered as fully established by outsiders, and second, it is a question of institutional reputation and resources, i.e., research, chairs (professors and academic staffs), study programs and doctoral education, and training in HER. The question of who is part of the HER field was analyzed by three studies. The first study by Gunkel et al. (2003) had invited scholars to register to a directory if they personally define themselves as a higher education researcher. Requirements for affiliation were
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either at least five publications in the field of HER or the person had to be employed for a few years in a higher education institute or unit specialized on HER or both. According to this study, 173 people were identified as higher education researchers in 2003. Among them, “less than half of them were academics fully specialized on higher education, and this proportion was even lower within professorial ranks” (Teichler 2015). The second study is a mapping of HER in Germany which was initiated by the GfHf (Winter 2014). Winter (2014) concluded that HER in Germany has few research structures constituting a small center of HER, a big periphery overlapping with other fields, such as science studies or higher education didactics, and many individual researchers who are studying universities and related topics in addition to several other topics. The center-periphery challenge becomes evident with 43% of the early career researchers of the HoFoNa network who are so-called Higher Education Professionals (HEPROs) (see Higher Education Professionals: A Growing Profession) and are also writing dissertations about topics of HER in addition to their work and therefore are part of the field of HER (Steinhardt and Schneijderberg 2014). This is one result of a survey of the network of early career researchers (HoFoNa) with almost 200 participants (Steinhardt and Schneijderberg 2014). This study also shows two challenges of the field: First, in Germany a dissertation is disciplinebased, i.e., no dissertation can be written in higher education studies. That is, the reason why no doctoral education and training in HER exists. The main disciplines the dissertations are written in are sociology (44%), economics (23%), political sciences (11%), psychology (6%), and pedagogy (6%) (Steinhardt and Schneijderberg 2014). Second, almost half of the respondents mentioned that they do not have a supervisor who is/was an active HE researcher. Also young academics after the doctorate have only few prospects for staying in the research field (Wissenschaftsrat 2014).
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The assessment of a little institutionalized field is shared by the Wissenschaftsrat (German Research Council), which published a report on the state of HER and science studies in 2014. In the report, it is assumed that HER is weakly institutionalized in the form of professorships or planning positions at non-university research institutions. As a way to respond to this situation, the Wissenschaftsrat calls for a stronger institutionalization of German HER and defines the United States as role model. In USA, higher education research is established with study and graduate programs. Though, it is not surprising that the right to grant PhDs was not mentioned in the report of the Wissenschaftsrat. In Germany, at least eight study programs exist that have HER as a subarea. Five of the eight study programs are postgraduate programs. Their denominations are: Master Bildungs- und Wissenschaftsmanagement (MBA Education and Science Management, University of Oldenburg); MA Europäische Forschungs-, Hochschul- und Innovations governance (Governance of European Science, Higher Education and Innovation, University of Magdeburg), MA Higher Education (University of Hamburg); MBA Higher Education and Research Management (University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück) and MPA Wissenschaftsmanagement (MPA Science Management, University of Speyer). Three out of eight study programs are master programs to be accessed with a bachelor degree: MA Science and Technology Studies (TU Munich), MA Wissenschaftsforschung (Science Research, HU Berlin), and MA Science and Society (University of Hannover). In conclusion, neither bachelor nor full master study programs of HER exist in Germany. As the study programs show, there is a need for further education in higher education and science management. This need exists because of governance reforms and the increase of institutional autonomy of universities, professionalization of third-party funded research, and it is connected to the demand of systematic data collection in the immediate vicinity of practical organizational and management decisions, e.g.,
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evaluation, consulting, and marketing. To meet these new demands, most universities have created HEPRO positions (see Higher Education Professionals: A Growing Profession). Their tasks are the provision of data and information for management and controlling, to support the leadership and the management of the university and of departments, to deal with organizational issues and development, to improve academic and administrative staff development, and to deal with external relations toward politics and the general public. In addition to consulting, informing, organizing, and planning tasks, quite a number of HEPROs are actually doing HER – especially in units of quality assurance – and can be compared to the institutional researchers in USA (Steinhardt and Schneijderberg in press). However, institutional research is not established at all compared to USA, where it is part of the field of HER (Howard et al. 2012). This is also highlighted by the Wissenschaftsrat (2014), which argues that the involvement of research from HEPROs could also strengthen HER and promote its further institutionalization.
Further Development of Higher Education Research in Germany In summary, the studies cited above agree that HER is not sufficiently institutionalized despite the social relevance of the field. The social relevance is evident in the needs of higher education institutions and in the multiple external funding schemes by foundations and ministries. The BMBF is an outstanding example for external funding. This is also partly due to an overly strong orientation toward the political and administrative demand side as the Wissenschaftsrat (2014) points out – which is regarded as a challenge of HER in Germany (Teichler and Sadlak 2000: XI). In addition to practical orientation and dependence on external funding, the interdisciplinary field of HER has to integrate multiple theories and methods from different disciplines. The
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contribution from the disciplines is considered an asset for HER (Braun et al. 2011). Though, in a weakly institutionalized research field, this complicates and causes the absence of methodologically and theoretically innovative research and the absence of an overarching agenda for HER (Wissenschaftsrat 2014). At the same time, the higher education research institutes have generated large amounts of data that have not yet been comprehensively analyzed. Therefore, the Wissenschaftsrat (2014) is pushing for a network-approach and more access for scientists to analyze the existing data. HER is also advised by the Wissenschaftsrat to simultaneously conduct basic research focusing on the development of theory and methods, and to provide application-oriented results for government and universities. According to the Wissenschaftsrat, these goals could be supported by a stronger cooperation between higher education and science studies, which have been two independent research fields in Germany so far (Hüther and Krücken 2016). The criticism of the Wissenschaftsrat has substantial impact on the reorganization and institutional basis of the HER field. To increase the visibility of HER and science studies, as well as higher education didactics, the BMBF has created a website: https://www.wihoforschung.de. The website presents both current research and funding sponsored by the BMBF as well as higher education researchers. A second clue for further development of the HER field is the major topics addressed by the institutes. Among the core topics of the higher education institutes, one overlapping topic could be identified: research about governance and organizational development. The selfdescriptions of the institutes were used for clarification: • DZHW: Focus on two main fields: first, research on higher education, including analyses of students’ and graduates’ experiences, issues relating to life-long learning, steering, and funding; second, research into the scientific world and academic organizations
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• HoF: University development and governance, quality development at universities, academic staff, equality, research reform and the promotion of young researchers, as well as research at universities • IHF: Governance and management of higher education institutions, studying and students, transitions from school to universities to work, research and academic careers, internationalization and international comparisons • INCHER: Four thematic areas: students and graduates, change of knowledge, governance, and organization and innovation and transfer. In all four areas, the issues globalization, social inequality, and gender-addressed questions are included. • ZHH: Higher education didactics, organizational development, and accompanying research of Higher Education Institutes. On the BMBF website, professors were asked about the future development and topics of HER. In summary, the following topics were cited: sustained university expansion, internationalization, the abolition of the relationship between vocational education and training and academic education, diversification and differentiation of the higher education system, strengthening and improving university teaching, digitization, and research and academic careers. Particularly, the last two points have strong overlaps with science studies, but there are no overlaps with higher education didactics. This paper presented the institutionalization of HER in Germany. Overall, it can be described as a growing field of research which is still in a process of institutionalization. Thereby, we can identify that some aspects document a flourishing field, such as the growth of professorships with a denomination in HER or the increase of state funding. Other aspects, however, show that HER continues to face challenges such as no right to grant PhDs or the political desire to unite the three research fields: higher education research, science studies, and higher education didactics.
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Cross-References ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Europe ▶ Higher Education Professionals, A Growing Profession ▶ Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical
Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece) Giulio Marini Centre for Global Higher Education, Institute of Education, University College London, London, UK
References Bornmann, Lutz. 2016. Die Wirkung der Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung in den Zeitschriften, die für das Web of Science ausgewertet werden. Beiträge zur Hochschulforschung 38: 90–100. Braun, Edith, Katharina Kloke, and Christian Schneijderberg, eds. 2011. Disziplinäre Zugänge zur Hochschulforschung. die hochschule 11. Gunkel, Sonja, Gabriele Freidank, and Ulrich Teichler. 2003. Directory der Hochschulforschung: Personen und Institutionen in Deutschland. Howard, Richard D., Gerald W. McLaughlin, and William E. Knight. 2012. The handbook of institutional research. Hoboken: Wiley. Hüther, Otto, and Georg Krücken. 2016. Hochschulen. Fragestellungen, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der sozialwissenschaftlichen Hochschulforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer. Steinhardt, Isabel, and Christian Schneijderberg. 2014. Hochschulforschung als Gemischtwarenladen: Karrieremöglichkeiten des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses in einem heterogenen Feld. die hochschule 13: 63–75. Steinhardt, Isabel and Christian, Schneijderberg. 2018 (in press). Legitimität von Daten und Wissen der Qualitätssicherung bzw. des Qualitätsmanagements. In Forschungsperspektiven auf Qualitätsmanagement, ed. Tobias Scheytt, Benjamin Ditzel, Florian Reith, Markus Seyfried, and Isabel Steinhardt. München: Rainer Hampp. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Higher education research in Europe. In The European higher education area: Between critical reflections and future policies, ed. Adrian Curai, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmie, and Peter Scott, 823–856. Cham: SpringerOpen. Teichler, Ulrich, and Jan Sadlak, eds. 2000. Higher Education Research. Its Relationship to Policy and Practice. Oxford: International Association of Universities, & Elsevier. Winter, Martin. 2014. Topografie der Hochschulforschung in Deutschland. die hochschule 13: 25–49. Wissenschaftsrat. 2014. Institutionelle Perspektiven der empirischen Wissenschafts- und Hochschulforschung in Deutschland: Positionspapier. https://www.wissen schaftsrat.de/download/archiv/3821-14.pdf. Accessed 29 June 2017.
Synonyms Europe; European Research Area; Greece; Italy; Portugal; Spain
Definition Study of higher education
Introduction This entry is dedicated to the analysis of the Field of Higher Education Research (FHER) in four countries composing the sub-region of Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece). While there are specific entries dedicated to each country in question in this encyclopedia describing the national policies in detail, this entry focuses on FHER as an object and its respective disciplinary community. The entry is organized in the following way. The first section offers a general overview of the context of the subregion in the wider European and globalized higher education landscape. As research production can be taken as a significant indication of the scope of the field, FHER is analyzed through the publications patterns. This section is split between publications about these countries from one side, and publications by scholars academically based in these countries on the other side. Finally, the last section provides an exposition of the most relevant recent and current issues for the field.
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Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Table 1 Number of higher education institutions by range of global ranking and by nation or region. First and last year available 2003
0–100 101–150 151–200 0–200 201–300 301–400 401–500
IT 1 1 3 5 7 5 6
2017 ES 0 0 1 1 2 1 9
PT 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
GR 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
Southern Europe 1 1 4 6 10 7 16
EU15 26 19 21 66 44 40 40
IT 0 0 2 2 5 5 4
ES 0 0 0 0 3 4 4
PT 0 0 1 1 0 1 3
GR 0 0 0 0 0 1 2
Southern Europe 0 0 3 3 8 11 13
EU15 28 20 24 72 37 32 36
Source: Own elaboration on ARWU data
General Characteristics of Higher Education in Southern Europe: An Apparently Declining Subregion One may argue that in the Southern subregion of Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece), higher education as a whole is in decline. While the merits of rankings in assessing the quality and status of higher education may be debatable, the state of funding and operating conditions for higher education institutions may be indicative of the fact that none of the countries host universities in the top-100 of global rankings. Comparing with other Western European countries, for instance, the first 15 countries to join the European Union, Southern European institutions declined in their positions on global ranking lists in recent years. Table 1 shows the first year of release of ARWU (Academic Ranking of World Universities) data (2003 year), the first one in offering rankings of universities globally, with the last one available (2017 year). Summing the number of HEIs in the first 200 positions, in the year 2003, these four countries counted six HEIs compared with 66 from the other Western countries of the European Union (Southern Europe plus France, UK, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Finland, and Austria). By 2017, the number of Southern European higher education institutions on the list had halved to three; while overall the EU15 increased from 66 to 72. Institutions from Southern Europe also disappeared from among
the top-100 institutions. In Southern Europe, only Portugal made some progress on the list, while the other countries saw a decline. Although it is widely discussed that rankings are made up of incomplete information, it is also clear that nowadays they impose terms of comparison (Hazelkorn 2015). Rankings have also triggered a game that institutions find hard not to play (Espeland and Sauder 2007). These four countries, then, are among those that suffer from the game of global competition. While the ranking list positions offer one side element of the picture, further evidence is offered by the relative shortage of public funding, on Fig. 1. The field of higher education research in Southern Europe has mostly developed along similar lines as the rest of the European countries, focusing on analyzing the higher education reforms and their impacts (Bleiklie et al. 2017; Magalhães et al. 2016; Reale and Marini 2017; Seeber et al. 2015). Although drivers of change are common in the European Research Area, funding issues are clearly an undermining pattern for the optimal development of higher education systems in these countries.
Publication Patterns This section provides some insights about publications patterns in the field, although it must be noted that figures from different sources are not necessarily altogether comparable.
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160.0 140.0 120.0 100.0 80.0 60.0 40.0 20.0 0.0
Euro area (19 countries)
Greece
Spain
Italy
Portugal
Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Fig. 1 Total intramural R&D expenditure (GERD) per inhabitant (Euro) in the sector of Higher Education, time series (2003–2016). (Source: Eurostat)
H Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Table 2 Number of publications about each specific country by six different specialized journals in the field of higher education
Italy Spain Portugal Greece Total
Higher education 250 246 145 109 750
Higher education policy 134 122 104 60 420
Studies in higher education 129 104 66 48 347
Research in higher education 16 17 8 6 47
Higher education research and development 26 25 9 8 68
Tertiary education and management 68 77 59 14 218
Total 623 591 391 245 1850
Source: Publishers’ websites
Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Table 3 Number of publications about specific countries in “Higher Education” and
Italy Spain Portugal Greece Total
2010/ 2010 (%) 131 195.5% 127 239.6% 119 495.8% 48 141.2% 425 238.8%
Total 384 368 249 169 1170
1991–2000 55.0 45.2 115.5 95.2 n.a
2001–2010 35.0 28.9 112.4 50.6 n.a
>2010 38.1 30.2 145.9 59.2 n.a
Source: Publishers’ websites; Eurostat for normalization of production by total number persons with tertiary education (ISCED) and employed in science and technology (articles per thousands)
Publications About Southern European Countries In terms of publications, FHER in Southern Europe has demonstrated to be an increasing location of attention for the field. In particular, as the Table 2 shows, some of the most prestigious
journals entirely dedicated to higher education have hosted a considerable amount of papers about these four countries. Table 3 displays a detail of the growth of the attention on this subregion by time, with Greece being the only one in having not a remarkable
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Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Table 4 Location (country of analysis) of publications at higher education level from
ERIC repository. All possible scientific output. Normalization by number of population (italic)
Since 2017 Since 2014 (last 5 years) Since 2009 (last 10 years) Since 1999 (last 20 years) Percentage of publications in the last 5 years over the total published in the last 20 years Number of articles (last 20 year) per inhabitants (millions) Number of articles (last 20 year) per enrolled in tertiary education (10.000)
Portugal 24 99 185 221 44.8%
Spain 62 221 439 529 41.8%
Greece 13 48 126 179 26.8%
Italy 29 90 177 225 40.0%
21.5 6.3
12.4 2.7
16.6 2.6
3.9 1.2
Source: Own elaboration from https://eric.ed.gov; Eurostat for the average of population from 1990 up to 2017 and average of enrolled in tertiary education (2013–2017)
increase in the number of articles published. Portugal is overrepresented in comparison especially to Italy and Spain (see italic values on Table 3). Also the rate of increase of publications treating geographical contexts tells that Portugal has increased in attention (+495%), while studies about Greece or Italy is much less (see Table 3). A more comprehensive way to look at publications in the FHER is to search within the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) repository. From this large database – entailing not only journal articles but also other scientific outputs, and letting disentangle by “education level” and “location” (i.e., context of the analysis) – it is possible to observe that publications about these specific countries are not covered equally, if size of country is taken into account (Table 4 – italic values for normalized measures). Portugal is more often analyzed, whereas Italy is remarkably less often so. According to this source, there is no time series pattern – publications about these countries increased basically at the same rate, with the notable exception of Greece (Table 4). Publications by Scholars Based in Southern European Countries Another essential way to look at the FHER in a specific region is to analyze the marginal contribution of scholars by affiliation. This statistic is of increasing interest because of the more consuetudinary multipartner projects that generate primary data in more countries at the same time. These
studies might be funded by EU Framework Programmes, other supranational funders, or based on self-organized partnerships – an example being Bleiklie et al. (2017). At the same time, the increase of mobility of scholars favored within the European space since the very early stages of scholars’ careers incentivize to disentangle one’s nationality and the context of study. The possibility to use English as lingua franca, for interviewing people in higher education or to study documents in open repositories, conveys more opportunities to investigate more countries at the same time without necessarily having affiliations on those countries under observation. Table 5, in this regard, analyzes the publications in several indexed journals specialized in the FHER extrapolating those with Italian, Spanish, Greek, or Portuguese affiliations. Table 5 also indicates the percentage of co-authored publications with at least one of the other 27 countries of the European Union, showing an appreciable presence for Portuguese-affiliated scholars, and a relatively poor one for scholars active in the field with Greek affiliation.
Dominant Themes of Recent and Current Research FHER in Southern Europe has developed a consistent stream of research for the community. Some relevant recent and current topics are here briefly discussed.
Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece) Higher Education Research, Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece), Table 5 Bibliometrical statistics by authors’ affiliations (institutions) summarized by
Italy Spain Portugal Greece
Number of different institutions with at least one publication 23 41 14 6
Total publications 58 140 90 7
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countries. (Journals: Higher Education, Higher Education Policya, Research in Higher Education, Higher Education Research & Developmentb, Studies in Higher Education)
Total citations 497 1009 631 16
% of articles with citations 77.59 74.29 77.78 57.14
Average citations per article 8.57 7.21 7.01 2.29
% of co-authored publications with another EU country(28 Members) 16.67 11.48 21.58 7.14
Source: InCites – Web of Science. Own elaboration Since 2010 year b since 2008 year. Others are from 1980 a
One of the most overarching changes in the field is the reforms in the respective national systems. These reforms have tended to shape these countries’ higher education from positional autonomy towards more consistent institutional autonomy (Capano et al. 2016; Neave 2012; Cruz-Castro, Sanz-Menéndez 2015; Neave and Amaral 2012). Several topics stem from this general change. For instance, the role of agencies in driving changes needs recurrent updates, such as those for Quality Assurance (Rosa and Sarrico 2012; Jiménez Contreras et al. 2003; Turri 2014), especially where agencies’ rationales are still unfulfilled (Capano et al. 2016; Stamelos and Kavasakalis 2011). The periodical search for the best driver of policy change is also relevant (Capano 2017). The different ways countries may develop formulae to fund the respective systems is as well critical and essential to understand the recent trajectories, as all these countries face hard situations – see Zmas (2015) for the consequences of the most draconian measures; see Capano and Pritoni (2018) for a wider European comparative analysis. This interplay between legacy and changes have given valuable insight for the community – meaning the scholars in the field, but desirably policy makers also – about the effectiveness of policies and the presence of some possible unintended consequences. In terms of staff working in higher education institutions, the main emergent problem is to guarantee at least the reproduction of the current number of personnel, trying to tackle aging (Papadimitriou 2015; Marini 2017). As the
scholars have already discussed, these “externally driven” labor markets (Musselin 2005) will continue to need assessment regarding the way inbreeding works (Tavares et al. 2017). Recruitment procedures and promotions via competitions are also often occasions of allegations of irregularities, nepotism, malign inbreeding, or parochialism (Abramo et al. 2016; Marini 2017; Zinovyeva and Bagues 2015; Mora 2015). Gender and the respective possible discrimination also is a theme that has captured attention (Marini and Meschitti 2018) and let suggest that the issue is not totally overcome. Mobility is another popular topic, which is linked also to the opportunities of freedom of movement at European level (Branco Sousa and Magalhães 2014). Scholars have traced the extent to which mobility of PhD holders can boost productivity (Horta and Santos 2016) or let gain advantages (Groves et al. 2018). Mobility can be also an exit from the national higher education system as such (Marini 2018; Reale et al. 2018). Within the side of students and supplied learning, the globalization of higher education has already put into the scene the alternative providers (Teixeira et al. 2012). Far from being only a matter of private institutions, stronger countries are entering the “market” of higher education in these countries, as already has happened in Greece for about 10 years via an amend of its Constitution. Some contributions have already fostered insight about the learning experience in these contexts in the post-2008 crisis period (Cattaneo et al. 2018). Employability is another issue that
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the FHER in these countries have started to develop. The phenomenon of “neither working, nor studying” young cohort is particularly important and some contributions have faced the quest of employability (Sin et al. 2016). The years of the crisis (2008 onwards) certainly left outcomes still to be entirely investigated (Cattaneo et al. 2017).
Cross-References ▶ Field of Higher Education Research, Europe ▶ Public Funding of Higher Education, Europe ▶ Role of the European Union in the Field of Higher Education Research Acknowledgments The funding support of the Economic and Social Research Council, the Office for Students and Research England (grant reference ES/M010082/1) is gratefully acknowledged.
References Abramo, Giovanni, Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo, and Anastasiia Soldantenkova. 2016. How long do top scientists maintain their stardom? An analysis by region, gender and discipline: Evidence from Italy. Scientometrics 110 (2): 867–877. Bleiklie, Ivar, Jürgen Enders, and Benedetto Lepori, eds. 2017. Managing universities: Policy and organizational change from a Western European comparative perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Branco Sousa, Sofia, and António Magalhães. 2014. A research career? The Portuguese case. European Journal of Higher Education 4 (4): 317–333. Capano, Giliberto. 2017. Policy design spaces in reforming governance in higher education: The dynamics in Italy and the Netherlands. Higher Education. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10734-017-0158-5. Capano, Giliberto, and Andrea Pritoni. 2018. Varieties of hybrid systemic governance in European Higher Education. Higher Education Quarterly. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/hequ.12180. Capano, Giliberto, Marino Regini, and Matteo Turri. 2016. Changing governance in universities: Italian higher education in comparative perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Cattaneo, Mattia, Hugo Horta, Paolo Malighetti, Michele Meoli, and Stefano Paleari. 2017. Effects of the financial crisis on university choice by gender. Higher Education 74 (5): 775–798.
Cattaneo, Mattia, Hugo Horta, Paolo Malighetti, Michele Meoli, and Stefano Paleari. 2018. Universities’ attractiveness to students: The Darwinism effect. Higher Education Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/ hequ.12187. Cruz-Castro, Laura, and Luis Sanz-Menéndez. 2015. Policy change and differentiated integration: Implementing Spanish higher education reforms. Journal of Contemporary European Research 11 (1): 103–123. Espeland, Wendy Nelson, and Michael Sauder. 2007. Rankings and reactivity: How public measures recreate social worlds. American Journal of Sociology 113 (1): 1–40. Groves, Tamar, Estrella Montes López, and Teresa Carvalho. 2018. The impact of international mobility as experienced by Spanish academics. European Journal of Higher Education 8 (1): 83–98. Hazelkorn, Helen. 2015. Rankings and the reshaping of higher education. The battle for world-class excellence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Horta, Hugo, and João Santos. 2016. The impact of publishing during the PhD on career research publication, visibility, and collaborations. Research in Higher Education 57 (1): 28–50. Jiménez Contreras, Evaristo, Félix de Moya Anegón, and Emilio Delgado López-Cózar. 2003. The evolution of research activity in Spain. The impact of the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI). Research Policy 32 (1): 123. Magalhães, António, Amelia Veiga, and Alberto Amaral. 2016. The changing role of external stakeholders: From imaginary friends to effective actors or non-interfering friends. Studies in Higher Education: 1–17. https://doi. org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1196354. Marini, Giulio. 2017. New promotion patterns in Italian universities: Less seniority and more productivity? Data from ASN. Higher Education 73 (2): 189–205. Marini, Giulio. 2018. A PhD in social sciences and humanities: Impacts and mobility to get better salaries in an international comparison. Studies in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018. 1436537. Marini, Giulio, and Viviana Meschitti. 2018. The trench warfare of gender discrimination: Evidence from academic promotions to full professor in Italy. Scientometrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-0182696-8. Mora, José-Ginés. 2015. Academic inbreeding in Spanish universities: Perverse effects in a global context. In Academic inbreeding and mobility in higher education Yudkevich, ed. Maria, 206–227. Baingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Musselin, Christine. 2005. Le marché des universitaires: France, Allemagne, Etats-Unis. Paris: Sciences Po. Neave, Guy. 2012. The evaluative state, institutional autonomy and re-engineering higher education in Western Europe: The prince and his pleasure. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Higher Education Research, UK Neave, Guy, and Alberto Amaral, eds. 2012. Higher Education in Portugal 1974–2009. A Nation, a Generation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Papadimitriou, Antigoni. 2015. Coping with the Crisis: Academic Work and Changes in Greek Higher Education. In The relevance of academic work in comparative perspective, The changing academy, ed. William Cummings and Ulrich Teichler, 41–57. Dordrecht: Springer. Reale, Emanuela, and Giulio Marini. 2017. The transformative power of evaluation on university governance. In Managing universities: Policy and organizational change from a Western European comparative perspective, ed. Ivar Bleiklie, Jürgen Enders, and Benedetto Lepori. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Reale, Emanuela, Lucio Morettini, and Antonio Zinilli. 2018. Moving, remaining, and returning: International mobility of doctorate holders in the social sciences and humanities. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-018-0328-0. Rosa, Maria João, and Cláudia Sarrico. 2012. Quality, evaluation and accreditation: From steering, through compliance, on to enhancement and innovation? In Higher education in Portugal 1974–2009. A Nation, a generation, ed. Guy Neave and Alberto Amaral, 249–264. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Seeber, Marco, et al. 2015. European universities as complete organizations? Understanding identity, hierarchy and rationality in public organizations. Public Management Review 17 (10): 1444–1474. Sin, Cristina, Orlanda Tavares, and Alberto Amaral. 2016. Who is responsible for employability? Student perceptions and practices. Tertiary Education and Management 22 (1): 65–81. Stamelos, George, and Aggelos Kavasakalis. 2011. The public debate on a quality assurance system for Greek universities. Quality in Higher Education 17 (3): 353–368. Tavares, Orlanda, Vasco Lanc¸a, and Alberto Amaral. 2017. Academic inbreeding in Portugal: Does insularity play a role? Higher Education Policy. 30 (3): 381–399. Teixeira, Pedro Nuno, Vera Rocha, Ricardo Biscaia, et al. 2012. Competition and diversity in higher education: An empirical approach to specialization patterns of Portuguese institutions. Higher Education 63: 337. Turri, Matteo. 2014. The new Italian agency for the evaluation of the university system (ANVUR): A need for governance or legitimacy? Quality in Higher education. 20 (1): 64–82. Zinovyeva, Natalia, and Manuel Bagues. 2015. The role of connections in academic promotions. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7 (2): 264–292. Zmas, A. 2015. Financial crisis and higher education policies in Greece: Between intra- and supranational pressures. Higher Education 69 (3): 495–508.
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Higher Education Research, UK John Brennan1 and Mary Henkel2 1 The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK 2 Brunel University, London, UK
Synonyms “Academic” or “theoretical”; “Corporate” or “organizational”; “Stakeholder” or “user or potential user”; “Research field” or “research area”
H Definition Higher education and research in the UK: UK research into higher education institutions and processes in their social and organizational contexts, in order to enhance policy and practice and to contribute to relevant social science theory in the field.
Introduction Higher education research in the UK has expanded significantly over recent decades, although there has been a fragmentation of the field or research area. In a sense, it is a research field without a shared core, with researchers entering the field from different academic and professional backgrounds and engaging with higher education from a variety of positions and interests. Much of higher education research in the UK is policy-led, reflecting agendas set by national policy bodies and their needs for supportive evidence for those agendas. There is also a significant body of practice-based research, mainly concerned with the core functions of teaching and learning and the pressures on institutions to develop “good practice” in them. But there is also research which
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draws on academic work in the social sciences, especially economics and sociology, but also psychology, social policy, and political science. Some work combines all three approaches. UK academics generally are under pressure to demonstrate that their academic research is relevant and useful to policy and/or practice. Funded research, in particular, needs to demonstrate utility and impact. This paper will examine the main features of higher education research in the UK, firstly by examining its growth from around the middle of the twentieth century to the present and then by examining the main strands of policy, practice, and academic/theoretical research and the relationships between them.
Growth and Differentiation: Of UK Higher Education and of UK Higher Education Research The impetus for the development of higher education research in the UK came in the early 1960s from the Committee, chaired by an economist, which produced a landmark report on higher education and the need for its expansion (Robbins Report 1963). In the absence of a systematic empirical research base, it commissioned six national surveys. More importantly, it recognized the continuing need for research-based policy in this field and was a major force for the establishment of three university-based higher education research centers. A meeting between the leaders of these centers resulted in a further step toward the institutionalization of higher education research in the UK, the foundation in 1964 of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). By 1965, the Society had 58 corporate/organizational and 300 individual members. It began immediately to organize annual conferences, seminars, and national and local working parties and went on to establish its own publishing house. However, the momentum generated by the Robbins Report was not sustained, and funding for higher education research was a problem from the beginning. Neither the government nor the Social Science Research Council (the
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Government supported national funding body for the social sciences), set up in 1965, took an effective interest in it (Shattock 2015). While some more universities had established higher education research centers by 1970 and higher education became a distinct field for PhD study in the next decade (Shattock and Williams 2014), it never established a strong presence in higher education institutions. Research for Robbins was centered on economics and statistics but higher education has not become a significant area of study in this or other social sciences in the UK. While the period 1970–2000 saw higher education research activity by economists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, and education researchers, most of those who sustained their interest in this area did so through connections with international researchers, particularly in the United States. Gradually, some became part of a wider international research community that manifested itself in the foundation of the, initially European, Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) in 1987. As such, they saw themselves as having entered a relatively under-researched field affording ample opportunities to draw on social science for theory development and new conceptualizations. Some work produced in this period remains a testament to such ambitions (e.g., Becher and Kogan 1980, 1992; Becher 1989). However, this was also a time of major change to higher education in the UK that had significant implications for the direction and organization of higher education research. Key factors were the expansion of higher education and new conceptions in government and society of its functions and importance for the economy, society, and individuals. The slow shift from an elite (low participation) to a mass (expanded participation) system of higher education gathered momentum in the 1980s and, from the turn of the century, markedly accelerated. Existing universities were enlarged and new ones created, including some in the private sector. Student numbers increased and the student body became far more diverse. A new framework of governance was accompanied by the establishment of a new institutional infrastructure for UK higher education in the
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form of national funding, regulatory and developmental bodies. This entailed greater external controls and performance measures, a new focus on the previously unquestioned quality of higher education, a shifting balance between public and private funding sources, greater competitiveness, and changing organizational boundaries and management processes. The UK was a leader, in Europe, in the adoption and development of New Public Management reforms at national and institutional levels, including in the field of higher education. The change in UK higher education from an elite and substantially self-governing sector to a system in which both government and other sectors of society had a significant stake was the main driver of the growth and differentiation of higher education research. The organizations in need of it had multiplied, not least those newly created for the development and implementation of policies and the improvement of practice. There were now new rich and important questions for higher education research. Policy makers need research evidence in order to develop policy, ensure its implementation, and assess its impact. Higher education institutions need research evidence to identify the organizational and staffing arrangements most suited to successfully responding to changes. Individual academic staff may need research evidence to inform them of “good practice” and help them make the changes expected of them. Users of higher education may need research evidence to enable them to select appropriate institutions and academic departments to meet their diverse needs. All of the above factors have driven the growth and differentiation of higher education research in the UK in recent decades as it has attempted to meet the information needs and interests of different stakeholders (users and potential users) in the expanded and differentiated higher education system.
Higher Education Research for Policy and Practice Much higher education research in the UK addresses the fairly immediate concerns of policy
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and practice. Research funding for the more policy-focused projects comes from various sources, some mainly representing the interests and agendas of government, others reflecting those of the higher education sector itself, or parts of it. Research funding for more practicefocused projects comes largely from organizations representing higher education interests, and is generally concerned with enhancing the quality of higher education provision and, particularly, the learning experiences of students. However, boundaries are quite porous. On the policy side, some research is undertaken to inform the formulation of new policy initiatives while other research focuses more on the implementation of policy and its impacts on practice. Some projects mainly concern the internal lives of higher education institutions, e.g., processes of teaching and learning, management, and evaluation; others primarily address external relationships between higher education and other sectors of society, e.g., the employment of graduates, social inequalities in access, and participation. While a high proportion of funded research projects on higher education in the UK receive their funding from national policy bodies, several organizations have been set up collectively by the higher education institutions themselves to address particular policy and development needs and their implications for practice. Whereas the former are basically focused on the effective execution of government policy, the latter are more concerned with the protection and well-being of the higher education sector itself, including its capacity to innovate and, indeed, to survive. Below we summarize recent higher education research funded by four national UK policy bodies: the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), the Leadership Foundation for Higher education (LFHE), and the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Higher education funding councils for each of the UK constituent nations have played a major role in the execution of national policies. They have regulatory authority as well as funding with which to execute policy, although the balance between the two differs between the four UK nations.
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HEFCE is in the process of moving from a mainly funding role to a mainly regulatory role and a name change to Office for Students will occur in 2018. HEFCE produces its own reports which identify national trends and performance but it also funds research projects carried out by external bodies. These are particularly focused on the implementation of national policies and the challenges they pose for individual institutions. All HEFCE projects are put out to competitive tender and the spread of their locations reflects a mix of interest levels and quality of proposals from different organizations, within and beyond higher education. Of 16 projects funded by HEFCE in 2016 and the early parts of 2017, only 2 were awarded to researchers based in higher education institutions. The rest were awarded to other national bodies or to smaller independent research organizations, some with links with higher education institutions and some without. Different aspects and functions of higher education were emphasized in different projects. These included higher education’s relationships with employment, the advancement of equality, and higher education’s own research function. While most projects were focused on practices within higher education institutions that were needed to achieve the goals of particular higher education policies, some were examining practices undertaken by or on behalf of HEFCE itself to achieve its policies, e.g., on the establishment of the national student survey (a regular survey of student satisfaction) and on knowledge exchange (knowledge flows between higher education and other organizations). Research results were provided by project reports and generally contained recommendations to higher education institutions and/or to HEFCE itself. Because most projects were carried out by organizations outside higher education, publication in academic research journals was limited. The audience was typically policy makers and managers and the reports’ authors did not need to generate refereed journal articles to promote their own careers. Another national policy body which supports higher education research in the UK is the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA).
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The QAA is an independent body which undertakes quality assurance activities across the whole higher education system on behalf of governmental and statutory bodies. Research and analysis are undertaken as part of the central quality review processes but also to address system-wide issues affecting quality and standards. The QAA funds external projects undertaken mainly by university-based researchers, although some QAA staff are themselves active in research and external consultants are also sometimes employed. Research addresses a range of QAA’s areas of responsibility and the wider organizational and political contexts shaping them. Current topics include the following: the increasingly diverse transition experiences of entrants to higher education; the role of student satisfaction data in quality assurance and enhancement; and student expectations and perceptions of their higher education experience. The QAA generally determines its own research agenda and new projects are put out to tenders from the research community. The QAA publishes its outputs itself rather than handing them over to commercial publishers or academic journals. Research questions are generally set by current policy issues rather than building directly on previous research in the field. Whereas the HEFCE and the QAA are national policy bodies established to represent government and wider societal interests, the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education (LFHE) is more focused on the interests of higher education institutions themselves. It is an independent organization collectively funded by higher education institutions on a subscription basis. As part of its activities, it funds research projects relevant to leadership roles in higher education and publishes reports, some research based and some more opinion led, on topics relevant to university leadership. Between January 2016 and May 2017, the LFHE published 48 papers, most of which were authored by academic staff in higher education institutions, though across a broad range of disciplines and roles within their institutions. Specifically research-based reports have been published under eight main themes as follows: academic and research leadership; business and
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organizational systems; equality and diversity; impact; leadership in practice; perspectives on leadership; student engagement, teaching, and learning; and leadership insights. A national body with more of a focus on institutional practice than national policy is the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a professional institution, owned by the universities’ national representative body, Universities UK, and the Guild HE group of institutions. It was established to improve the quality and status of teaching in higher education. It commissions research designed to provide evidence for higher education policy makers, institutions, and practitioners but also to improve the experiences of students and their learning outcomes. A review of its work in the years 2012–2014 (HEA 2014) suggests that a significant amount of its research is concerned with national and institutional policies and strategies for the improvement of teaching and learning, as well as with the practice and experience of teachers and learners. In this period, its policy-oriented research was commissioned largely from established higher education researchers located in universities. Examples included projects on learning and teaching strategies in Wales and the implications of changes in academic careers for enhancing professionalism in teaching. Projects linked more directly to HEA initiatives for the improvement of teaching and learning were commissioned from research centers and consultancies from outside as well as inside academe. They included empirical studies of the impact of teaching development programs in institutions and of the HEA professional standards framework, as well as literature-based and developmental studies of concepts of teaching excellence and quality in student learning. Some General Points The policy and practice focused areas of higher education research engage participants representing different interests and backgrounds in the higher education system. There are some full-time researchers carrying out individual projects, some based in higher education institutions and others based elsewhere. Typically, their projects are led and developed by more senior staff in
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management positions. The aim is to undertake research which will be immediately useful, whether to inform policy decisions, or to improve everyday practices in institutions in order to achieve more effective outcomes and greater social benefits from higher education. HEFCE, QAA, LFHE, and the HEA are major examples of organizations sponsoring and leading UK higher education research in order to support and inform future policies and practices. In general, they share a focus on the immediate and the practical. They may draw on research located in academic contexts, including relevant social science disciplines, but the generation of new academic knowledge and its dissemination through prestigious academic journals tends not to be the principal focus of this kind of higher education research in the UK.
UK Higher Education Research: Social Science Theory Driven The relationship between government and the social sciences in the UK has been somewhat uncertain during the last 35 years. Overall, the weight of expectation on the social sciences has shifted towards relevance and utility rather than challenging critique or intrinsic academic interest. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the social sciences, with the exception of economics, came under critical scrutiny from government, in terms of their scientific credibility, as well as their relevance and usefulness to national economic and social well-being. In 1983, the Social Science Research Council was replaced by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It, like other UK research councils, has been expected to promote relevance in its funding criteria, to engage more actively with research users, including industries, public services, and third sector organizations, in the development of its research programs and to ensure effective dissemination of research findings beyond as well as within academe. Some significant academic research programs analyzing major higher education reforms (e.g., Kogan and Hanney 2000; Deem et al. 2007) were undertaken in the last decades of the twentieth
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century. However, increasingly from that time, much of the more academically ambitious higher education research tends to have been carried out in international collaborative projects, often dependent, at least in part, on funding from international bodies or independent foundations. An analysis of ESRC funding in the field of higher education from 2004 to 2014 (www. researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/) suggests that its research agenda has been significantly shaped by national policies, although it continued to support some UK HE research on international issues. Three of the most prominent themes for research projects and programs in this period have been: access and widening participation, factors affecting the study of mathematics and science subjects, and the enhancement of student learning more generally. For the most part, the higher education research funded by ESRC can be said to draw on the social sciences to help develop theories and conceptualizations of higher education that have potential for application to problem solving and addressing current challenges facing the sector rather than to generate new social science theory or explore higher education’s longer term roles and relationships. Some broader themes were, however, addressed by the ESRC during this period, including the relationship between higher education and the knowledge society and higher education’s role in regional transformation. The ESRC archive for this period gives more than one mention to only four social science lead disciplines, apart from Education, for research projects addressing higher education issues: Economics (six), Human Geography (three), Management and Business Studies (three), Science and Technology Studies (two). The most significant absentee from this list is Sociology, perspectives from which are, however, evident in the titles of many of the projects. Overall, University Education Departments or Research Centers were the major bases for ESRC projects, individual and, frequently, collective. However, the disciplines involved were probably more varied. Collective higher education research in the UK is frequently multidisciplinary. Sociologists, psychologists and, to a lesser extent, in numerical terms, economists contribute
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significantly to it, and researchers whose academic training was in education draw heavily on a range of social sciences. There have also been multiple audiences for the research outputs from these projects. As indicated above, these have typically been a mix of policy bodies and the research community itself. The latter is a mixture of specialists in higher education research and researchers in other social science fields who sometimes address higher education issues as part of their research. But wherever they sit within the research community, UK researchers have now long been subject to regular performance assessments by national bodies on behalf of government. This is mainly about quality control and the justification for public funding. But it has large implications for individual academics’ priorities. Career futures can be heavily influenced by the scores achieved in Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessments (the Government’s tool for assessing research quality in order to inform funding decisions) where priorities are to publish in reputable peer reviewed academic journals. Policy reports and books score less on these assessments.
UK Higher Education Research: Bringing It All Together An important recent development has been the establishment of a new research Centre based at University College, London, but with many partners, both national and international. The Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) is funded by the ESRC, with support from HEFCE. However, notwithstanding the social science linkage through its funding source, policy, and practice seem to remain the central focus of the new center’s mission: “Our research aims to inform and improve higher education policy and practice.” No other aim is specified! CGHE’s work is organized in three research programs which “integrate local, national and global perspectives, each having policy implications”. The three programs are for Global Higher Education Management, the Social and Economic
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Impact of Higher Education, and Local Higher Education Engagement. Sixteen different projects divided fairly evenly across the three have been established. Already over 50 working papers have been published and there are regular seminars held in London. The case of the CGHE reflects the larger tensions which exist within the expanded higher education system of the UK. Higher education is expensive. Therefore, it receives considerable government attention. It needs to be useful and to make a positive impact on society. Research is needed to demonstrate these things and to show how they can be improved. The CGHE aims to act as a source of stimulus and support for the higher education research community in the UK more generally. Up till now, the organization that has come nearest to promoting and supporting higher education research nationally is the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE). With very limited resources, it has, notably through its annual conferences, its publications (books and two journals, Studies in Higher Education and Higher Education Quarterly) and its links with a variety of policy bodies, successfully raised its public profile. At the same time, through the sponsorship of special interest networks among its members, the provision for individuals of small research grants and the support it has given for newer researchers, it has played a significant role in counteracting the fragmentation of UK higher education research and in supporting numerous individual researchers, including those that might constitute the next generation. It is also worth noting, however, that higher education does sometimes feature as a focus of research undertaken within specific social science disciplines. A recent example is a major sociological study of social inequalities in the UK which undertook a major national survey of social class and included a chapter specifically on higher education influences on social class in a major book of the project (Savage 2016). As we have noted several times above, boundaries within higher education are increasingly porous and identities and territories (Becher and Trowler 2001) can be very fluid in today’s academic world.
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Conclusion Policy, practice, and social science are, and need to be, linked in researching higher education. However, in UK higher education research in recent years, there has been a tendency for the immediacy of current policy issues to dominate research agendas. This largely reflects the pressures on researchers to demonstrate “impact” which itself reflects the funding sources and priorities in UK higher education. There remains a need for longer term perspectives, and a constructive mix of theory and international work can provide this. Social science theory and international perspectives can also increase the value of research to policymakers. While research can be important in providing answers to current policy questions, it can be even more important in posing new policy questions relevant to the future direction of higher education.
Cross-References ▶ Consortium of Higher Education Researchers ▶ Economic Perspectives, Research in Higher Education ▶ Elite Higher Education ▶ Elite, Mass, and High-Participation Higher Education ▶ Higher Education in Knowledge Systems ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, United Kingdom ▶ Inequality in Higher Education ▶ New Public Management or Neoliberalism, Higher Education ▶ Pedagogical Perspectives in Higher Education Research ▶ Policy Outcomes and Effects in Higher Education ▶ Policy Implementation in Higher Education ▶ Political Perspective, Research in Higher Education ▶ Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE), The ▶ Sociological Perspectives on Higher Education Research
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References
Higher Education Studies Becher, T. 1989. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. 1st ed. Milton Keynes: SRHE and Open University Press. Becher, T., and M. Kogan. 1980. Process and structure in higher education. London: Heinemann Educational Books. Becher, T., and M. Kogan. 1992. Process and structure in higher education. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Becher, T., and P. Trowler. 2001. Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. 2nd ed. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Committee on Higher Education (The Robbins Report). 1963. Higher education: A report Cmnd 2154. London: HMSO. Deem, R., S. Hillyard, and M. Reed. 2007. Knowledge, higher education and the new Managerialism: The changing management of UK universities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Higher Education Academy. 2014. Providing evidence, building solutions: An overview of HEA research 2012–2014. Heslington: Higher Education Academy. Kogan, M., and S. Hanney. 2000. Reforming higher education. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Savage, M. 2016. A tale of two campuses: Universities and meritocracy. In Social class in the 21st century, ed. M. Savage et al. London: Pelican/Penguin Books. Shattock, M. 2015. The Society for Research in higher education and the changing world of British higher education a study of SRHE over its first 25 years. London: SRHE. Shattock, M., and G. Williams. 2014. Reflections on research into higher education since Robbins. Higher Education Quarterly 68 (2): 210–224.
Higher Education Research/ Studies in the Nordic Countries/in Scandinavia ▶ Higher Education Research in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
Higher Education Spending ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador
▶ Organizational Studies, Research in Higher Education
Higher Education System ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Israel ▶ Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Slovakia
Higher Education System Differentiation, Horizontal and Vertical Ulrich Teichler INCHER-Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany
Key Issues in the Diversity Discourse The key activities within higher education – teaching and learning, research, and possible others, for example, service – are undertaken within every higher education system in diverse institutional “settings” – also called “shapes,” “configurations,” or “structures.” And these settings of a higher education system vary substantially between countries. We note a perennial debate since about the 1960s about the extent, the major modes, the causes, the major trends – increasing diversification – as well as the “benefits” or “problems” of the various diverse institutional settings. In looking at the institutional settings of higher education, we refer to the macro-level of society. A higher education system, as a rule, is understood as comprising all respective institutions within a country. Although the character of some academic disciplines is universalistic, international cooperation and exchange is
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widespread and many scholars harbor cosmopolitan values; the actual life in higher education is strongly shaped by nationally determined modes of supervision and funding, organizational rules, employment practices of academic and other staff, curricular practices, etc. Even in a countries, where the major supervisory powers do not rest on the national level, but on the level of the individual “state,” “province,” “Land,” “Kanton,” etc., patterns tend to be fairly similar across the whole country (Cortés and Teichler 2010). The debate on diversity focuses on variations between institutional segments: This might be supra-institutional settings, for example, types of higher education institutions, individual institutions, or subunits within institutions, for example, departments or study programs. The most obvious single element of diversity in higher education, that is, that according to disciplines – the fact that theories, methods, and areas of knowledge have their specific territories of discourse and are also characterized by varying organizational arrangements as well as varying links to society – is so much taken for granted that it plays a limited role in the diversity discourses. However, institutions of higher education are often classified according to their composition of disciplines (e.g., all major disciplines, individual disciplinary groups, or individual disciplines, for example, medical universities, normal universities, or technical universities, or fields combined by a common conceptual thrust, for example, “liberal arts” colleges). Some studies on institutional diversity are not confined to structural settings but also include other elements, such as organizational differences (see Birnbaum 1983; Huisman 1995), the supervisory or financial regime of institutions (e.g., public vs. private higher education), and modes of education delivery (such as distance education institutions). Moreover, a widespread discourse on “diversity of higher education” centers around the composition of students (e.g., according to socioeconomic background, gender, ethnicity) within higher education in general or in certain segments as compared to
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the population at large, thereby discussing the interaction of preservation of traditional privileges, meritocratic principles, and equity policies (cf. ▶ Diversity and Higher Education, in this encyclopedia).
Major Classifications Descriptions of higher systems employ a bewildering variety of concepts, terms, and descriptors. Notably, the naming and the borderlines of the overall “system” vary as well as the formal elements of institutional patterns emphasized, the extent to which formal or informal elements are considered salient, and what notions of “vertical” vs. “horizontal” diversity guide the interpretations (see Teichler 2007, 2010). Till 1950, “university” was in the center of discourses, and other somewhat similar institutions tended to be named only in passing (colleges, “Hochschulen,” academies, schools, etc.). The term “higher education” became popular in the 1960s and the 1970s, when the view spread that other institutions – with less of a research function and shorter as well as possibly with more applied study programs – have much in common with universities. Since the 1980s, “tertiary education” is often advocated, but not fully accepted in many countries; it underscores that students beyond secondary education can be viewed to have something in common irrespective of variations as regards intellectual ambition and the institutional relationships between teaching and research. Diversity of higher education systems is often described according to formal elements – that is, those named and laws and other formal regulations. Types of institutions or study programs (universities, junior colleges, “Fachhochschulen,” “escuelas universitarias,” etc.) as well as levels of study programs (e.g., bachelor and master) are most frequently referred to. Informal classifications – based on public opinions or statements by groups of actors, media, or on public opinion – play an enormous role as well, whereby the terminology employed varies enormously (“elite” vs. “mass,”
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“international” vs. “regional,” “theoretical” vs. “applied,” etc.). Notably the informal, but often indirectly the formal classifications of higher education systems put segments of the system on a “map” characterized by a “vertical” and a “horizontal” dimension. The vertical dimension might be described as “more” of the most highly reputed activities (e.g., research, doctoral degree-granting vs. only bachelor and master program teaching), as high “quality” or high “reputation,” high hurdles of access and admission, a high intellectual caliber of staff and students, and high status and income rewards for graduates. In contrast, the horizontal dimension implies substantive variations, for example, the breadth of disciplines within an institution, the “academic” vs. “professional” thrust, and the dominant academic “schools” within disciplines. It should be noted, though, that many terms explicitly naming substantive variations, as a rule, are interpreted vertically: a “theoretical” thrust as “higher” than an “applied” thrust or an “internationally oriented” institution “higher” than a “regionally oriented” one. Many analyses of this domain opt for “diversification” as the umbrella term. This implies that higher education experiences a more or less regular trend towards increasing diversity. In some instances, “differentiation” is the preferred term – that is, more emphasis being placed on a common basis of varied features. The clearly most often named classification was presented as an internationally valid developmental model by the US higher education researcher Martin Trow (1974). He characterized higher institution prior to its massive growth as “elite higher education.” When enrolment rates surpass about 15%, a second sector – “mass higher education” – emerges alongside. This diversification is viewed as serving the increasing variety of motives, talents, and prospective graduate careers, whereby the existence of the latter sector both serves the “new” students and helps protect the traditional functions of the universities. When enrolment rates eventually surpass 50%, a third sector is expected to emerge: “universal higher education.” This model, first, is a “functional” one: It points at functional reasons
for diversification, without specifying the change of formal or informal institutional settings. Second, it assumes that the “vertical” dimension of diversity is the most salient one.
Major Waves of Diversity Discourses and Policies Discussions, policies, and measures aimed at the institutional patterns of higher education tend to vary substantially across countries as well as at different moments in history or stages of higher education development (see Teichler 1988; Meek et al. 1996; Tadmor 2006). However, international discourses – notably in economically advanced countries, but not confined to them – have had an enormous impact in stimulating four major waves of discourses and policies (Teichler 2010). First, the rapid increase of enrolment rates soon after the recovery from World War II spurred the conviction predominantly in the 1960s and 1970s that formal diversification was at stake. Notably spurred by OECD-initiated discussions, a search began for consolidating institutions and programs not serving the traditional academic, research, and “elite” emphasis. Terms such as “non-university” or “short-cycle” higher education gained prominence (see OECD 1973), but were not generally accepted. Some countries reinforced levels of study programs, often defined by the required length of study, as the major principle of formal diversity – for example, by adding or extending 2-year programs to existing bachelor and master level programs. Other countries opted for the establishment – often through upgrading of institutions and programs traditionally not viewed as higher education – of a second institutional type (“polytechnics,” “IUTs,” “Fachhochschulen,” “hogescholen,” etc.; see de Moor 1978; Teichler 1988). Second, international organizations highly active in educational policy (UNESCO and OECD, but also World Bank, Council of Europe and others) opted in the 1980s for the popularization of the term “tertiary education.” While programs leading at least to a bachelor degree and respective institutions, as a rule, were coined
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“higher education” previously, “tertiary education” – as employed in international statistics since that time – comprises also shorter and/or more “vocational” postsecondary programs (e.g., “associate degree” or “foundation degree” programs, and various advanced vocational training programs). This new understanding became customary only in some countries (possibly with different terms, for example, “third-level education”), but nowadays references to international statistics (e.g., to enrolment quotas) made in policy contexts often do not make clear distinctions anymore whether “higher” or “tertiary” education is meant. Actually, this trend towards widening the borderlines of the sector continued subsequently in many countries through blurring the boundaries between tertiary education and vocational training as well as through increasing the permeability between these sectors (Ebner et al. 2013). Third, the ministers of most European countries strive since the late 1990s for the realization of a “convergent” European system of study programs and degrees according to “cycles.” This was advocated primarily in order to facilitate international student mobility – through introducing a degree system across Europe which is widely customary outside Europe and facilitating recognition of study achievements abroad for temporarily mobile students within Europe upon return. In the so-called Bologna Process, more than two thirds of study programs were fitted within a decade into a such a system, whereby the length of 3 years (or 180 credits according to the so-called ECTS system) for bachelor-equivalent and 2 years for masterequivalent programs was the most frequently chosen option (see Huisman 2009; Reichert 2009). Thus, levels of study programs, though possibly varying in length, actually became the single most important criteria for formal diversity. However, most countries previously having opted for two or more types of higher education institutions and programs actually kept the institutional diversity (Taylor et al. 2008), whereby labor market rewards for non-university bachelor degrees often turned out to be higher than for the new university bachelor degrees (Schomburg and Teichler 2011). Fourth, “rankings” of “world-class universities” gained momentum. Ranking lists had already an
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enormous popularity for decades in Japan (notably regarding admission to universities and entry to top employment sectors) and the United States (notably as regards the academic reputation of graduate schools), and also had already undertaken occasionally in various other countries. They got in the limelight of the international diversification discourse, when a British newspaper, a Chinese research institute, and an international agency specializing on rankings began to publish annually ranking lists of a few hundred leading universities notably successfully according to indicators of research performance (see Sadlak and Liu 2007; Kehm and Stensaker 2009). This triggered off enormous efforts among many institutions to raise their rank as well as among various governments to increase support for “elite,” “excellent” or “word class” institutions in order to contribute to a steeper informal “vertical” stratification (see Shin and Kehm 2013; Hazelkorn 2015).
Motives, Causes, and Effects of Diversity Policies and Trends The first international wave of the “diversification” discourse was initiated by concerns about potential “over-education.” The notion was widespread that patterns of the employment system did not change along higher education expansion and an increasing number of graduates had to expect employment in positions traditionally not viewed to be typical graduate jobs (notably “professional” and “managerial” occupations). In response, increased vertical diversity of higher education was viewed as facilitating absorption into less privileged jobs. According to widespread conventional wisdom as well as social theories notably in the domain of “system theory” (see for example Clark 1983), increased diversity between institutions – and thereby the preservation of a certain degree of homogeneity of students within individual institutions – was expected to be corresponded to the diversity of students and of graduates’ job prospects (see ▶ Understanding Institutional Diversity, in this encyclopedia). For various reasons, though, no consistent international convergent trend emerged towards
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the popular model of a relatively clear distinction between an “elite higher education” sector with strong links between teaching and research (except for “grandes écoles”) and a “mass higher education” sector with less research-based, shorter and more applied curricula along “elite higher education.” Notably, five developments and arguments challenged this model see Teichler 2008). • Already at times, when only a few percentages of the age group were enrolled, higher education had been characterized in some countries (e.g., the United States) by a steep informal vertical stratification, while it had been fairly homogenous in other countries (e.g., Germany). In the wake of higher educational expansion, the international “diversification” models gained some popularity worldwide but continued to compete with beliefs in the strength of national traditions as well with other policy options, for example, to foster equality of opportunity and equity, to facilitate study options for adults, or to provide many regions and economic sectors with more or less equal quality of human resources (Teichler 1988). • Higher education policies are not necessarily in favor of an enormously high degree of formal and informal diversity. Rather, clear structures of degrees with only a few formal levels of similar quality tend to be considered desirable – for example, for ensuring clear links and transparency between entry qualifications and careers – often highly appreciated in the public sector or vis-à-vis independent professions, for example, medical doctors (see JablonskaSkinder and Teichler 1992). The call for such clear structures and levels is also seen within the “Bologna Process” in the emphasis placed on “cycles” of study programs as reinforcing and facilitating student mobility. • The academically less prestigious segments of the higher education often did not accept the more diversified system, even if graduates from shorter and more applied institutions and programmed were relatively well rewarded by the employment system. In many countries, an “academic drift” (Pratt and Burgess 1974; Neave 1979) could be
observed, that is, efforts on the part of this sector to become more similar to the academically most prestigious sector – select signs of an “vocational drift” of the latter notwithstanding (see Williams 1985). • While representatives of the world of work and governments tend to favor both vertical and horizontal diversity, vertical diversity seems to dominate the perceptions of the academic profession as well as of those shaping policies of higher education institutions. As a consequence, efforts seem to be widespread among institutions of higher education not rated as top-ranking to imitate those on higher ranks. Thus, concern is widely spread that the preoccupation with vertical diversity undermines desirable horizontal diversity. • The strong emphasis placed on institutional rankings since the beginning of the twenty-first century is based on a questionable set of assumptions as regards factors contributing to academic quality: a belief that both a high concentration of academic talents within a few institutions and high degree of vertical stratification in terms of resources is beneficial for high academic quality (see Shin et al. 2011). There seems to be ample evidence, though, that academic productivity calculated relative to the population size or the number of researchers is not lower or even higher in countries with a relatively flat institutional hierarchy than in countries with a steep hierarchy (see European Commission 2011). Also, many highly talented scholars at institutions “below” those highly ranked do not seem to be dependent on masses of highly talented scholars in the same institution in order to be academically successful, but often have more privileged conditions and can serve as “light house,” “flagship,” etc. for their institution. Moreover, the race for rankings seems to have led to an environment shaped by extrinsic motives and overcompetitive race that some observers fear a loss of creativity (Teichler 2015). • In contrast to the widespread advocacy of “inter-institutional” diversity in the 1960s and 1970s, efforts in favor of intra-institutional variety could be observed as well: For example, policies in the 1970s in Germany and
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Sweden to establish “comprehensive” institutions of higher education rather than clearly divided sectors (see Teichler 1988). Moreover, activities increased in the 1990s in some countries to merge diverse institutions within a city or region (Harman and Meek 2002). Finally, efforts to reduce inequalities of access to higher education and of learning within higher education according to sociobiographic background, gender, ethnicity, etc. have been led by analyses indicating creative potentials of diversity of the student body within the individual institutions and departments (see Chang 2005; Smith 2009), and also by the hope that “diversity management” does not endanger, but rather foster academic quality (Chang et al. 2006, see also Griffin and Hart, in this encyclopedia). These developments and arguments show that fear of “over-education” did not remain to be the only trigger for diversification (see ▶ Understanding Institutional Diversity, in this encyclopedia). For example, the assumption of an increasing social and economic relevance of high-quality research serves for the advocacy of steeper vertical diversity, and various arguments in favor of expansion and increasing intrainstitutional diversity are based on the belief that the “wisdom of the many” will become more important.
Conclusion Trends as regards the institutional patterns of the higher education system are by no means linear and consistent. The discourses have remained controversial and the policies varied across countries and frequently changing. Yet, the scene in the second decade of the twenty-first century seems to be strongly influenced by “ranking” preoccupations. Steep vertical stratification is supported by many advocates and reinforced by opportunistic actors, and it even occupies the minds of many opponents. This could be viewed as consistent feature in the wake of the trend towards higher education
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expansion, where the graduation quota already surpassed 50% in some countries and where a “knowledge society” is in sight. One could assume that the growth of knowledge leads to a “flatter” distribution of knowledge alongside a persistent relevance of exceptionally high level of knowledge. As a consequence, competition for small distinctions might become fiercer, and small “vertical” differences might “matter” as much as bigger ones in the past. But, the race for steeper vertical stratification does not dominate the whole scene (see Pritchard et al. 2015). “Multi-ranks,” that is, a continued stratified look at the higher education system moderated by a set of various criteria, gained some popularity in Europe (van Vught 2009; Kováts 2015). Calls for reinforcing more horizontal diversity seem to become stronger and more powerful. Beyond this, other scenarios have some plausibility as well. The powers supporting an increasing instrumental values and a “rat race” in favor of small advantages and privileges might give way to “postindustrial values” and life concepts. The enormous increase of enrolment rates – the OECD (1998) predicted some years ago that a rate of three quarters can be expected in economically advanced countries to be the norm in economically advanced countries in the twenty-first century – might encourage to explore the opportunities of a “highly educated society” (see Teichler 2010), where even persons in job with below-average social rewards have high intellectual competencies and the call for a steeply stratified system might be challenged. Finally, expectations that higher education ought to contribute substantially to the improvement of international understanding (and to counteract possibly growing international misunderstanding) might call for a stronger common philosophy rather than for emphasis on an enormous heterogeneity of motives, talents, and future prospects.
References Birnbaum, Robert. 1983. Maintaining diversity in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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Chang, Mitchel. 2005. Reconsidering the diversity rationale. Liberal Education 91(1): 6–13. Chang, Mitchell, Nida Denson, Victor Saenz, and Kimberly Misa. 2006. The educational benefits of sustaining cross-racial interaction among undergraduates. The Journal of Higher Education 77(3): 430–455. Clark, Burton R. 1983. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cortés, Mario A.M., and Ulrich Teichler. 2010. Higher education in federal systems. In International encyclopedia of education, vol. 4, ed. Penelope Petersen, Eva Baker, and Barry McGaw, 603–608. Oxford: Elsevier. De Moor, R.A. 1978. Changing tertiary education in modern European society. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Ebner, Christian, Lukas Graf, and Rita Nikolai. 2013. New institutional linkages between dual vocational training and higher education: A comparative analysis of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In Integration and inequality in educational institutions, ed. Michael Windzio, 281–298. Dordrecht: Springer. European Commission. 2011. Progress towards the common European objectives in education and training (2010/2011) – Indicators and benchmarks. Brussels: European Commission. Griffin, Kimberly, and Jeni Hart. forthcoming. Diversity and higher education. In International encyclopaedia of systems and institutions. Springer. Harman, Kay, and V. Lynn Meek (eds.). 2002. Special issue: Merges revisited. Higher Education 44(1). Hazelkorn, Ellen. 2015. Ranking and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence, 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Huisman, Jeroen. 1995. Differentiation, diversity and dependency in higher education: A theoretical and empirical analysis. Utrecht: Lemma. Huisman, Jeroen. 2009. The Bologna Process towards 2020: Institutional diversification or convergence? In The European Higher Education Area: Perspectives on a moving target, ed. Barbara M. Kehm, Jeroen Huisman, and Bjorn Stensaker, 245–262. Rotterdam: Sense. Jablonska-Skinder, Hanna, and Ulrich Teichler. 1992. Handbook of higher education diplomas in Europe. Munich: K. G. Saur. Kehm, Barbara M., and Bjorn Stensaker (eds.). 2009. University rankings, diversity, and the new landscape of higher education. Rotterdam: Sense. Kováts, Gergely. 2015. “New” rankings on the scene: The U21 ranking of national higher education systems and U-Multirank. In The European Higher Education Area: Between critical reflections and future policies, ed. Adrian Curaj, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmi, and Peter Scott, 301–320. Cham: Springer. Meek, V. Lynn, Leo Goedegebure, Osmo Kivinen, and Risto Rinne (eds.). 1996. The Mockers and mocked: Comparative perspectives of differentiation, convergence and diversity in higher education. Oxford: Pergamon. Neave, Guy. 1979. Academic drift: Some views from Europe. Studies in Higher Education 42(2): 143–159.
OECD (ed.). 1973. Short-cycle higher education. Paris: OECD. OECD. 1998. Redefining tertiary education. Paris: OECD. Pratt, J., and Tyrell Burgess. 1974. Polytechnics: A report. London: Pitman. Pritchard, Rosalind M.O., M. Klumpp, and U. Teichler (eds.). 2015. Diversity and excellence: Can the challenges be reconciled? Rotterdam: Sense. Reichert, Sybille. 2009. Institutional diversity in European higher education. Brussels: European University Association. Sadlak, Jan, and Nian Cai Liu (eds.). 2007. The worldclass university and rankings: Aiming beyond status. Bucharest: UNESCO-CEPES/Presa Universitara Clujeana. Schomburg, Harald, and Ulrich Teichler (eds.). 2011. Employability and mobility of bachelor graduates in Europe: Key results of the Bologna Process. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense. Shin, Jung Cheol, and Barbara M. Kehm (eds.). 2013. Institutionalization of world-class universities in global completion. Dordrecht: Springer. Shin, Jung Cheol, Robert K. Toutkoushian, and U. Teichler (eds.). 2011. University rankings: Theoretical basis, methodology, and impacts on higher education. Dordrecht: Springer. Smith, Daryl G. 2009. Diversity’s promise for higher education: Making it work. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Tadmor, Zehev (ed.). 2006. Transition to mass higher education systems: International comparisons & perspectives. Haifa: S. Neaman Press. Taylor, James S., José Brites Ferreira, Mara de Lourdes Machado, and Rui Santiago (eds.). 2008. Nonuniversity higher education in Europe. Dordrecht: Springer. Teichler, Ulrich. 1988. Changing patterns of the higher education system. London: Jessica Kingsley. Teichler, Ulrich. 2007. Higher education systems: Conceptual frameworks, comparative perspectives, empirical findings. Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense. Teichler, Ulrich. 2008. Diversification? Trends and explanations of the shape and size of higher education. Higher Education 56(3): 349–379. Teichler, Ulrich. 2010. Diversity of higher education. In International encyclopedia of education, vol. 4, ed. Penelope Petersen, Eva Baker, and Barry McGaw, 347–353. Oxford: Elsevier. Teichler, Ulrich. 2015. Diversity and diversification of higher education: Trends, challenges and opportunities. Educational Studies (Moscow) 1: 14–38. Trow, Martin. 1974. Problems in the transition from elite to mass education. In Policies for higher education, ed. OECD, 51–101. Paris: OECD. Van Vught, Frans (ed.). 2009. Mapping the higher education landscape: Towards a European classification in higher education. Dordrecht: Springer. Williams, Gareth. 1985. Graduate employment and vocationalism in higher education. European Journal of Education 20(2–3): 181–192.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Albania
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Albania Myqerem Tafaj1 and Arjan Shahini2 1 Departament of Agriculture and Environment, Agricultural University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania 2 Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany
Higher Education System Development in Albania With a population of about 2.9 million (INSTAT 2018), Albania is one of the smallest countries in Southeast Europe. The country proclaimed its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. After the Second World War, Albania became part of the Eastern Bloc. The totalitarian communist regime, supported in the beginning by the Soviet Union and later by the People’s Republic of China, ruled the country until 1991. The first democratic elections were conducted in March 1991. In the last 10 years of the communist rule and during the transition, the country was afflicted by a deep economic crisis. Now Albania is an upper-middle income country with a GDP per capita of 4,600 US$ (or 12,021 in international dollars at PPP). The economy is characterized by low competitiveness, relatively low labor cost and low-technology activities (World Bank 2018; SCIMAGO 2013, 1212). The first Albanian higher education institution was a 2-year pedagogical institute, established in 1946 (Pedagogical Institute of Tirana). Together with other teacher training courses, the Institute was part of the government’s plan to eradicate illiteracy by 1955 (Golemi and Misja 1987; Kambo 2005; Dyrmishi 2001; Misja et al. 1986). In 1947, the government established a National Research Institute (Instituti i Shkencave), followed in 1951 by three higher education institutions (pedagogical, polytechnic and agricultural higher institutes) and later, in 1952, by higher education institutes for economics and for human medicine. Some of these institutes were merged in 1957 to form the University of Tirana (Golemi and Misja 1987), today still the largest in the country. After
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1991, all major higher education institutes were upgraded to universities (Agricultural University of Tirana, University of Shkodra, University of Elbasan, University of Korc¸a and University of Gjirokastra) and new ones were established. By 1995, the country counted eight public universities and two academies (Prifti 1996). The University of Tirana was first divided to found the Polytechnic University of Tirana, the second largest university; and later, in 2013, the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences became the University of Medicine. Between 1960 and 1970, the system expanded rapidly by providing both part-time (korrespondencë) and evening courses at the regional branches (filialet) of the University of Tirana and the Higher Institute for Agriculture (11 branches in 1972, constituting about 58% of total enrollments). The expansion followed in terms of the number of providers and enrollments during three main periods: (1) 1950–1970 with the total number of students growing from 300 to around 25,500, (2) 1980–1991 with the number of students growing from 15,000 to 25,000, and (3) between 2004 and 2013 with the number of students growing from 53,000 to 173,000, by allowing and encouraging also private providers to meet the increased demand for higher education. Hence, until 2004, the system could have been characterized as élite and now higher education is almost universal. Before and after the 1990s – during the political transition period – part-time and distance education played a major role in providing education for nontraditional students. Without counting student numbers in evening studies in regional branches, part-time students made up between 40% and 60% of the total student body during 1960–1970 and between 20% and 45% during 1980–2000. The ratio decreased from 30% to 16% in the period between 2005 and 2015. Before 1991, the gross enrolment ratio (GER) was below 10%, one the lowest in the region and Europe. The GER peaked in 2015 with 70% and decreased in 2017 to 57% (UNESCO – Institute for Statistics 2018). Decreases in student enrollment have been mainly the result of policy interventions in the mid-1970s and of mass migration between 1993 and 1996. Under the communist
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regime, interventions would involve the reduction of the planned student quotas, stricter admission criteria and decrease of providers. The admission criteria were based primarily on party loyalty, social class (as part of the class struggle), and then academic merit. In 2014, as part of the new higher education reform (Gjoncaj 2014) the government revoked or suspended the license of two public and 18 private providers for quality reasons, introduced a threshold grade for access into higher education, increased tuition fees, shut down part-time education for undergraduate studies and encouraged the supply of vocational educational providers. In the academic year of 2017–2018, there were 129,394 students in total (106,077 students in public HEIs and 23,317 students in private HEIs) (INSTAT 2018). The higher education landscape became more diverse and hierarchical after 2007. There are four types of higher education institutions (Law 80/2015) amongst Albania’s 45 providers (15 are public and 26 nonpublic): university, academy, university-college and higher professional college. Only universities and academies may award all of the three Bologna cycle degrees. The tertiary nonuniversity or postsecondary level comprises the higher professional colleges offering the 5th level of the Albanian Qualification Framework (Law 10,247/2010) and the vocational training courses which are regulated by the law on vocational education (Law 15/2017) and the National Agency of Employment and Skills. Some public and private universities also offer short-cycle programs. From a regional perspective, Zgaga et al. (2013) distinguish three waves of reforms in the Western Balkans: transition, Bologna reform, and political pressures, all accompanied by substantial changes in the legislation. However, in the case of Albania there have only been two major reforms after 1991. During the period of 2007–2013, the government guided the implementation of the Bologna Process for all degree cycles; it centralized the admission process through a central Matura examination; introduced the state exam for regulated professions; increased institutional autonomy; initiated the integration of the research institutes (previously part of the Academy of Science) at the public universities; and expanded the higher
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education system (in terms of students, diversity of providers and degrees). In 2014, the government targeted mainly admission policies, tuition fees and academic governance by strictly dividing the academic from the administrative management. The international dimension has been a constant issue in Albanian higher education. Since its inception in 1947, the higher education system as the education system in general, was greatly assisted by and structured similarly to the Soviet Union (Roucek 1958; Schmidt-Neke 2007). Student exchange and staff mobility were mainly with countries of Soviet Union and other Eastern Europe Block, increasing for several years until 1961 (e.g., from 1950 to 1961 the annual average of outgoing students was 130); this was the period when Albania broke its relationship with the states of Warsaw Treaty and retreated into self-isolation. It was only after the 1980s that the country began to open up and the number of students going abroad increased slowly, mainly to France and Italy (in 1971 there were three students abroad, and that number grew to 110 in 1985). During the transition, and especially after the implementation of the Bologna Process since 2003, the system has been greatly influenced by regional cooperation in the framework of Albania’s EU integration and the policy recommendations of international organizations, e.g., the World Bank and UNESCO. Since 1998, Albania has a negative net flow ratio of internationally mobile students, ranging from 10% to 25% (UNESCO – Institute for Statistics 2018). The majority of outgoing students reside in the European Higher Education Area (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2018, 258).
Governance of Higher Education The main higher education policy-making authorities are the Government and the Parliament. The Ministry responsible for higher education, currently Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, initiates and manages education policies. It is assisted by an advisory board on education policies, the Council of Higher Education and Research. Public and private institutions are represented in the Rectors’ Conference through
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which they can influence the decision-making. As stated in both in the Constitution (Article 57/1) and the Law on Higher Education (80/2015, Article 3) universities enjoy autonomy and academic freedom. Public universities may set their own admission criteria and tuition fees but the government has reserved the right to cap fees and include additional entry criteria (grade threshold and proof of knowledge of one foreign language for the Master level degrees). The Ministry approves the establishment of new study programs and periodically monitors higher education to ensure legal compliance. The government also sets out promotion criteria for the academic staff. If a public higher education institution is funded predominantly by the government, its representatives constitute the majority in the administrative board, the highest decision-making authority within the institution. The academic senate is the most important authority of the university for academic affairs. The senate is elected by the academic staff. The rector, whose mandate is limited to two 4-year terms, is the head of the university and represents the university vis-à-vis its external partners and other stakeholders. The government also appoints the members of the Accreditation Board and the head of the National Quality Assurance Agency in Higher Education (ASCAL), responsible for external quality assurance and accreditation.
Funding and Finance The government finances public higher education institutions through direct transfers to the universities earmarked for teaching, research or capital investment. Public universities have a relatively limited financial autonomy, because they have to comply with the regulatory framework of the budget law and the law for public procurement. Since 2009, the budget for higher education has been less than 1% of the country’s GDP (World Bank 2018). In 2017, the budget for public higher education was about 0.4% of the GDP plus the 0.24% of the GDP from tuition fees. Study places at public universities are subsidized. Annual tuition fees range from 200 to 370 EUR for Bachelor programs and from 600 to 800 EUR for
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Master programs, while the current costs at public universities for the Bachelor programs run up to an average of 400 to 500 EUR per student. Annual tuition fees at private providers vary from 1,000 to 5,000 EUR. With the new Law on Higher Education (80/2015) the government initiated a funding reform, including cost-sharing alternatives. While the governmental agency responsible for funding, the National Funding Agency of Higher Education (AKFAL), has been created only formally, student loans and a performancebased funding system have not been yet implemented. Funds for research and development are about 0.03% of GDP and are allocated through projects administered by the National Agency for Research and Innovation, which is under the Ministry of Education.
Faculty, Students and Other Issues Academic ranks are: professor, associate professor, lecturer, and assistant lecturer, who may be engaged in teaching and research. The number of academic staff has been rising slowly to accommodate the growing demand during the growth periods. A substantial increase occurred only after 2005. In 1995, there were 1,940 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) university teachers and 320 professors and associate professors for about 28,000 students (see Prifti 1996, 94). By 2005, academic staff numbers increased by 30% (2,500 FTE – ca. 600 professors), while the number of students grew by 120% (63,200 students). Another trend is the increase of part-time academic staff at public universities, while in private institutions hiring adjunct faculty has been the norm (although government regulations require at least seven fulltime academic staff members per department). In 2018, there were 2,300 teachers in the private institutions (43% adjunct, and 50% female), and 6,700 in the public universities (52% adjunct, and 58% female). In 2018, there were 466 technical and administrative employees in the private institutions and about 990 in the public universities, whereby in both sectors female employees constitute about 68% of the staff. For the Bachelor programs, the three most preferred fields of university study have been
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(1) business administration, and law, comprising about 29% of students in 2013 and decreasing to 23% in 2017; (2) health sciences and well-being, consistently enrolling about 15% of students since 2013, and lately experiencing a surge in demand, especially nursing and other related professions; and (3) engineering, manufacturing and construction, where there are 14% of the students, an
increase of 3% since 2013. While absolute numbers of students in the tertiary nonuniversity sector are not reported regularly, according to (INSTAT 2018) the number of students enrolled in programs of professional postsecondary level has increased by 2% since 2016 (currently, only 14.3% of students graduating from the secondary education attend some type of nonuniversity program).
Development of Albanian higher education 6183
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Data compiled from different sources, 2005-2018
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Albania, Fig. 1 Data compiled by the authors for 2005–2018 (read from bottom up): (1) total number of students enrolled; (2) number of students enrolled at public universities; (3) number of students enrolled at private higher education
institutions; (4) total number of students graduated; (5) gross enrollment ratio; (6) total number of higher education institutions; (7) number of public universities; (9) number of private higher education institutions; (10) full-time equivalent staff
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The recent migration wave and population decline are starting to affect regional universities with enrollments declining every year. The graduate unemployment rate is increasing and at 17.5% in 2016 it has surpassed the overall unemployment rate (Bartlett et al. 2017). Over-qualification, the employment of graduates in jobs that require lower qualification or none, is also an issue; the median over-qualification rate of 45% (i.e., almost half of all students), is the highest in Europe (European Commission/ EACEA/Eurydice 2018, 193) (Fig. 1).
References Bartlett, Will, Milica Uvalic, Niccolo Durazzi, Vassilis Monastiriotis, and Tanguy Sene. 2017. From university to employment: Higher education provision and labour market needs in the Western Balkans synthesis report. Edited by Helene Skikos. Luxembourg: Publications Office. Online: Directorate-General for Education and Culture: European Commission. Dyrmishi, Demir. 2001. Arsimi dhe Shkenca ne vitet 1946–1960 (Education and science 1946–1960). Studime Historike [Historical Studies] (1–2):14. https://www.ceeol.com European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. 2018. The European higher education area in 2018: Bologna process implementation report. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union. Gjoncaj, Arjan. 2014. Raporti i pare per reformimin e arsimit te larte dhe kerkimit shkencor [First report for the reform in higher education and research]. Edited by Youth and Sports Ministry of Education. Tirana: Komisioni për Arsimin e Lartë dhe Kërkimin Shkencor [Commission for Higher Education and Research]. Golemi, Bardhyl, and Vladimir Misja. 1987. Zhvillimi i Arsimit te Larte ne Shqiperi [The development of higher education in Albania]. Tirana: Universiteti i Tiranes. Enver Hoxha. INSTAT.Arsimi [Education]. 2018. Instituti i Statistikave. http://databaza.instat.gov.al/pxweb/en/ Kambo, Enriketa. 2005. Arsimi në Shqipëri [Education in Albania] (1945–1960). Tirana: Mësonjëtorja. Misja, Vladimir, Arqile Teta, and Adriatik Kallulli. 1986. Higher education in Albania. In Monographs on higher education, ed. UNESCO CEPES. Bucharest: CEPES. Prifti, Ilia. 1996. Albania. In Relations between state and higher education, ed. Roel in ‘t Veld, Hans-Peter Fussel, and Guy R. Neave, 96–97. Hague/Boston: Kluwer Law International. Roucek, Joseph S. 1958. The sovietization of Albanian education. The Slavic and East European Journal
783 2 (1): 55–60. https://doi.org/10.2307/304697. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/304697 Schmidt-Neke, Michael. 2007. Albania. In The education systems of Europe, ed. Wolfgang Hörner, Hans Döbert, Botho von Kopp, and Wolfgang Mitter, 11–32. Dordrecht: Springer. SCIMAGO. 2013. The state of scientific performance in the Western Balkan countries. In World Bank technical assistance project, ed. World Bank Group. Washington, DC: World Bank. UNESCO – Institute for Statistics. 2018. Adapted from: UNESCO, http://data.uis.unesco.org World Bank. 2018. Data for Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, FYR, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro|Data. World Bank Group. https://data.worldbank.org/? locations¼AL-RS-MK-BA-ME. Accessed 2 Oct. Zgaga, Pavel, Manja Klemenčič, Janja Komljenovič, Klemen Miklavič, Igor Repac, and Vedran Jakačić. 2013. Higher education in the Western Balkans: reforms, developments, trends. Ljubljana: Center for Education Policy Studies.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Algeria K. Chachoua1,2,3 and L. Schoelen4,5 1 National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), Research Institute on Arab and Muslim World Studies (IREMAM), Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France 2 National Prehistory, History and Anthropology Research Centre (CRNPAH), Algiers, Algeria 3 National Social and Cultural Anthropology Research Centre (CRASC), Oran, Algeria 4 Centre for Quality Assurance and Development (ZQ), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany 5 Faculty of Human and Social Sciences (SHS)Sorbonne, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France
System Development More than half a century after independence in 1962, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, as the largest country on the African continent by area with a population exceeding 41 million as of 2018, is a member of the influential Arab League, and a key player in the Maghreb
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region, the continent, as well as the Muslim world. In terms of urban and scientific infrastructure – roads, hospitals, schools, universities, training centers, research laboratories and, specifically, journal publications – Algeria ranks among the first countries in Africa and the Arab world (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2015). To date, the Algerian higher education system features more than 1.5 million students, out of whom about 300,000 are pursuing a Master’s degree and about 55,000 are registered as doctoral candidates, with the latter up from just 8,800 in 2011 and 22,000 in 2009 (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2015). According to UNESCO data, in 2017, tertiary education gross enrolment ratio was at just under 50%, the majority of the students being female (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation 2018). The Algerian higher education system encompasses 106 public institutions in 48 wilayas as administrative units, including 50 universities, 13 university centers, 20 écoles nationales supérieures, 10 écoles supérieures, 11 écoles normales supérieures, and 2annexes (Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique 2017a). Out of these, about 30% of universities and 90% of university centers have been created since 2000 (Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique 2017b). Écoles, modeled after the French type, are highly selective institutions of higher education aimed at training the national elite, often with employment guaranteed in various public administrations upon graduation in their respective field. This chapter traces the development of the comprehensive university institution, where teaching and research coexist, and the national science system in Algeria. Higher education in modern Algeria begins with the founding of the University of Algiers as well as its two annexes in the west of the country, Oran, and in the east, Constantine, during the French colonial period in 1909. However, the existence and impact of traditional education in the form of Islamic schools in Algeria, among others, and centers of higher studies in the Arab world for centuries before colonization, must be acknowledged.
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The Algerian university remained largely French by elitist selection, curricula, structure, and staff in the years following independence in 1962. The first higher education reform of 1971 was designed by European, Eastern, as well as American educational consultancies, which – though paradoxical as it may seem for the socialist regime of the time – had put the university on an economy-oriented, developmental, and even liberal as well as global pathway (Guerid 2007). La Refonte hence reshaped the function of the Algerian university towards democratization in access and detached it from its colonial history and its French stamp, the phenomenon being characterized by the arabization of the social sciences, and the suppression of languages and disciplines, for example, anthropology (Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique 1971). Then President Houari Boumediene (1965–1978) stated in one of his speeches on arabization that “the Arabic language is the language of steel and the steel industry” (Mahiou 2013, 301, original in French). The 1980s were marked by the phenomenon of university graduate unemployment in Algeria and the trivialization of the institution (Benghabrit and Haddab 2008). The university center of Tizi-Ouzou, opened in 1977, is a symbol of the political transition from the colonial university to a national and even regional university (Kadri 1991). The subsequent décennie noire (“black decade”), emerging from civil unrest triggered by a drop in fossil fuel prices in the late 1980s, was marked by extremist political violence which meant that academic life stagnated to a great extent. A reform geared towards an increase in university autonomy was abandoned before implementation in 1998/1999. The 2000s saw a rise in fuel prices and, with the arrival of Abdelaziz Bouteflika as President in 1999, a 1970s re-edition of higher education politics. Combined with the successive adoption of the European-initiated Bologna Process via the three-tier LMD (Licence-Master-Doctorat) system from 2003 onwards, this policy has allowed first-generation students to access university and, above all, gain a feeling of socioeconomic success by ascension and real modernization as well as individual empowerment which has had the effect of social peace (Merzouk 2012), though the
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university system remains highly centralized and bureaucratized. As of today, the former classical system coexists with the LMD structure.
Governance Algerian higher education governance at the national level is organized via the central authority of the Ministère de l’Enseignement Superiéur et de la Recherche Scientifique (MESRS), established in 1971, after having been incorporated in the Ministry of National Education post-independence. The Minister is an appointee by the President. The National Commission for Habilitation (CNH) and the National Pedagogic Discipline Committee (CPND), which is charged with post-graduate study programs, have been created. Administrative procedures, including accounting, are prescribed, enforced, and evaluated by the Ministry’s General Inspectorate Division via the regional authorities. At the regional level, there exists the National Conference of Universities (CNU) which is divided in the three regions, east, west, and center. At the institutional level, each university is headed by a Ministry-appointed rector, who is supported by several vice-rectors, deans, and vice deans of faculties, directors of institutes, and heads of departments. Only the latter are elected, while all the other positions are generally government-appointed. Institutionally, each faculty, department, and university has a board of directors and three scientific councils at departmental, faculty, and university level. In terms of research governance and funding, the Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du développement technologique (DGRSDT) is the national central agency attached to the Ministry, legally founded in 2008, which is charged with consolidating the national science system, research programming and evaluation, finance, scientific human resources development, scientific cooperation, and research promotion. There are five subordinate thematic agencies: Biotechnology and nutrition sciences in Constantine, social sciences and humanities in Blida, natural and life sciences in Bejaia, as well as engineering and technology and health sciences in Algiers. In addition, since the late 1990s, there exists a national evaluation council (CNE), permanent sector committees (CSP) by
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different Ministries, ten inter-sector coordination commissions (CIS), as well as the National Agency for University Research (ANDRU), the National Research Promotion and Technological Development Agency (ANVREDET) aimed at universityindustry partnership and, lately, several Innovation and Technological Transfer Centers (CITT) (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2013). As of 2019, the Algerian higher education system features 26 national research units at universities and 25 research centers under the tutelage of MESRS and seven other Ministries, as well as more than 1,500 groups (laboratoires) at universities, up from only 270 in 2000, their year of inception (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2019).
Funding The 2018 operating budget for higher education and scientific research, i.e., Ministry allocation, in total is at a rather staggering 313 billion Algerian dinars, equaling around USD 2.65 billion in absolute numbers, corresponding to approximately 7% of the entire annual national budget (Ministère des Finances 2018). This amount is used to finance all institution administration, infrastructure, teaching, and research – including those national research centers attached to the Ministry – as well as students’ social services, via the Ministerial agency Office National des Oeuvres Universitaires (ONOU), which make up a large part of the expenses. All budget items are funded at 98% by fossil fuels exportation revenues, in accordance with the Algerian national budget in its entirety.
Academic Profession and Student-Status Services The Algerian higher education system incorporates a total of 54,000 academic staff in various capacities and ranks. The two highest categories, professeur, or maıˆtre de conférence, as enseignant-chercheurs, account for 30% of the total, whereas more than two-thirds belong to the two lower categories of maıˆtre assistant as lecturer or assistant lecturer.
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Female representation is at an average of 37%, though it varies between 16% at the rank of professor to 46% for maıˆtre assistant, respectively, and 49% for doctoral candidates. Approximately 30,000 academic staff members are engaged in research. In 2015, there were 265 researchers per one million population – up by more than half from only 105 in 2005. There are a total of 8,500 PhD holders, out of whom 5,000 at the rank of professor at universities, and 2,500 as permanent researchers in 22 national research centers and 16 research units. With MESRS employing 99%, the remainder is absorbed by public administration, while there are only about 400 PhD holders outside academia, notably, in the large national process engineering companies (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2015). All Algerian high school-leaving diploma (bac) holders have access to 100% publicly funded institutions. Students receive accommodation in university residences for a nominal fee, on the condition that they live further than 30 kms for female and 50 kms for male students away from their place of study. In addition, there is only a symbolic price for catering on campus, with meals costing 1.2 Algerian dinars equalling USD 0.01 each on restaurant ticket booklets as well as transport for 135 dinars or USD 1.11/ academic year. Not least, most students, depending on parental income, receive a modest stipend for associated costs, which makes Algeria one of the few, if not the only, remaining country in the world which grants not only tuition-free studies – as is also the case in most continental European countries – but also fully finances living costs for the duration of first (Bachelor), second (Master), and even third-level (doctorate) courses for all domestic as well as any foreign students, generally via bilateral government agreements with a number of sub-Saharan African countries, though the latter constituted only 0.7% of the total registered stipend receivers in 2017. In the 2017/2018 academic year, close to half a million students were accommodated in public student residences, approximately 925,000 received a stipend and campus transport, and more than 1,155,000 meals were dispensed daily (Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique (MESRS)/Office National des Ouevres Universitaires 2018)).
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Current Status and Future Trends In the framework of recently revised public sector laws, academic staff wages were significantly increased. However, this change only applies to those with civil servant status, while it excludes the increasing number of temporary as well as permanent contract holders – mostly young PhD candidates or recent doctorate holders. The teaching profession in general is undermined by so-called stages, funded short- or medium-term stays abroad, from 2 weeks to 1 year, as well as the desire to climb the professional ladder in order to obtain professor rank, rather than remaining at the level of (Assistant) lecturer with less social benefits. Alternatively, incumbents seek to obtain a promotion as an administration executive. The impact of a policy of massification has created a kind of depreciation of the university community as evidenced by the dilapidated state of university residences and campuses across the country where basic infrastructure and equipment are faulty, poorly maintained, or missing altogether, e.g., recreation spaces. Numerous universities are still under construction by local, Chinese, or Turkish companies and noise is rife in lecture halls (Chachoua 2010). Yet, for reasons which go beyond the Algerian higher education system or its infrastructure, many students are preparing – as the end of their postgraduate courses approaches – to enroll in French universities through the French public agency Campus France, established in 2010, which promotes France as a destination to pursue, or continue, higher education. This common practice may be considered a way of masking emigration as shown by the large, and rising, number of candidates for the required French language proficiency test at the French cultural institutes, the Instituts franc¸ ais, across the country each year. Despite the many obstacles in mutual recognition of degrees, the financial cost in hard currency for living expenses abroad and especially ever more lengthy and restrictive visa procedures, a significant number of Algerian graduates is striving to go to Europe or North America – not primarily to study, but to emigrate (Chachoua 2018). Algerian universities presently rank low in worldwide comparison. While international rankings must generally be examined critically in terms
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of, among others, methodology and their often inherent anglo-saxon system as well as Englishlanguage bias, as an indication, in the 2019 Times Higher Education Universities World Ranking edition, five Algerian institutions appear, out of which 2 are at 800–1000th position and three at 1001+. In this classification, within African universities, those perform well in occupying 17th–30th place, although there is only one, at 25th position, in the 2018 Arab World ranking (Times Higher Education (THE) World Universities Ranking 2019). Lately, however, the state has been reacting on quality issues (University World News/Algérie Press Service, November 16, 2018) and has successfully begun to participate in prestigious internationally competitive and selective higher education cooperation projects and institutions, such as the “Academy” project funded by the European Union’s INTRA-AFRICA academic mobility scheme coordinated by the University of Tlemcen, the United Nations University Institute for Sustainable Development (UNU-IRADDA) in Algiers in 2016 or the Pan-African University Institute of Water and Energy Sciences (including Climate Change) (PAUWES) in Tlemcen since 2014. In September 2018, foreign private and international higher education providers were permitted to operate in Algeria for the first time and some academies and institutes with a focus on economics or management and elements of foreign-language instruction have since emerged, though distance-learning – while respective centers or units have been set up and are equipped at a number of universities – is not yet on large-scale offer by either public or private institutions. Since the late 2000s already, there has been sponsoring by national companies such as SONATRACH (oil) and Djezzy (telecommunication) for some instituts or écoles. By 2020, the country envisions 50,000 new doctoral candidates in addition to 35,000 researchers, thereby more than tripling its present researcher per habitant ratio (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2015). Nevertheless, while the significant past and present contribution of Algerian Diaspora scholars around the world is acknowledged, the marginal degree of internationalization in-country, with almost exclusively national, i.e., Algerian citizen-status academic
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staff, and less than 1% international students, and a negligible number of English-language courses, potentially hampers – to a higher extent in comparison to elsewhere in the region and indeed on the continent – scientific cooperation including, but not limited to, intra-Maghreb and other Arab and African countries. Out of close to 11,000 co-authored publications involving Algerian researchers analyzed in 2000–2011, about 42% were written with France, while only 3% with the United States, 2% with the United Kingdom, and less than 1.5% each with Canada, Tunisia, and Morocco (Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique 2015). Not least, to date, prior direct Ministry authorization is required for institutions providing invitation letters to all foreign nationals in need of a visa for academic stays, as Algerian researchers need to equally obtain approval by the authority for the same purpose abroad. To conclude, within 50 years, the Algerian higher education system has grown from a marginalized minority to an overwhelming majority student youth, and from one single university to a large system incorporating more than one hundred institutions of various types. Since La Refonte, the first reform of higher education, and the creation of a Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in 1971, Algeria has been transforming all components of its education system in not only passing but indeed replacing the colonial university by its national university. It continues to be 100% publicly funded and has been centrally and directly governed from the respective Ministry. In the past 15 years, the adoption and subsequent successive implementation of the Bologna process from 2003 onwards, and the most recent authorization to operate private and foreign institutions, are two of the indicators for a change of policy, which nowadays features a more global outlook, rather than the orientation towards nationalization dominating in the past. Notwithstanding, as of now, the Algerian higher education system remains highly bureaucratized in terms of both governance and budget, granting a low degree of autonomy to institutions, which arguably correlates with an overall little-developed domestic internationalization state of affairs
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despite the existence of a few scattered active hubs in historically significant urban centers.
References Benghabrit, Noria, and Mustapha Haddab, eds. 2008. L’Algérie 50 ans après. Etat des savoirs en sciences sociales et humaines 1954–2004. Oran: Editions CRASC. Edition bilingue. Chachoua, Kamel. 2010. La sociologie en Algérie, l’histoire d’une discipline sans histoire. In Les sciences sociales en voyage, l’Afrique du Nord et le Moyen Orient vus d’Europe, d’Amérique et de l’intérieur, ed. Eberhard Kienle, 133–156. Paris: Karthala. Chachoua, Kamel. 2018. Un délire bien fondé. Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée (144): 45–60. Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique. 2013. La Recherche Scientifique en Algérie. Algiers. Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique. 2015. L'Evolution de la Recherche Scientifique dans le Monde et en Algérie de 2000 à 2014. Algiers. Direction Générale de la Recherche Scientifique et du Développement Technologique. 2019. DALILAB. Annuaire des laboratoires de recherche. Statistique: Nombre de laboratoires agrées par année. Accessed 07 Jan 2019. http://dalilab.dgrsdt.dz/index.php?option¼5 Guerid, Djamel. 2007. L'exception algérienne. La Modernisation à l'épreuve de la société. Algiers: Casbah. Kadri, Aïssa. 1991. De l'université coloniale à l'université nationale: Instrumentalisation et "idéologisation" de l'institution. Sciences Sociales Sociétés Arabes. Peuples méditerranééns 54 (55): 151–184. Mahiou, Ahmed. 2013. La réforme de l’enseignement supérieur en Algérie. Libres propos d’un acteur. In Le temps de la coopération. Sciences Sociales et décolonisation au Maghreb, ed. Jean-Robert Henry and Jean-Claude Vatin, 297–320. Aix-en-Provence: Karthala. Merzouk, Mohamed. 2012. Les nouvelles formes de religiosité juvénile: enquête en milieu étudiant. Insaniyat – Revue algérienne d’anthropologie et de sciences sociales 16 (55–56): 121–131. Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique. 1971. La Refonte de l’Enseignement Supérieur. Principes et régime des études des nouveaux diplômes universitaires. Algiers. Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique. 2017a. Réseau Universitaire. Accessed 11 May 2017. https://www.mesrs.dz/reseaux-universitaires Ministère de l‘Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique. 2017b. Textes législatifs et réglementaires du secteur de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche scientifique. Accessed 30 June 2017. https://www.mesrs. dz/documents/12221/32648/Textes-Reglementaires-Fr2005-2016.pdf/75f41cc6-2472-4ce1-b5fd-aa8287659ef6 Ministère de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique (MESRS)/Office National des Ouevres
Universitaires. 2018. L'ONOU en chiffres. Accessed 14 Dec 2018. http://www.onou.dz/index.html Ministère des Finances. 2018. Rapport de Présentation du Projet de la Loi de Finances pour 2018 et Prévisions 2019–2020. Accessed 14 Dec 2018. http://www.dgppmf.gov.dz/images/stories/PDF/RPLF/aplf2018.pdf Times Higher Education (THE) World Universities Ranking. 2019. Top universities in Algeria. Accessed 07 Jan 2019. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/ where-to-study/study-in-algeria United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. 2018. Algeria. Education and literacy. Accessed 14 Dec 2018. http://uis.unesco.org/en/coun try/dz?theme¼education-and-literacy University World News/Algérie Press Service. 2018. ALGERIA 72 laboratories shut after ‘negative assessments’. University World News, November 16, 231. Accessed 25 Nov 2018. http://www.universityworldnews.com/arti cle.php?story¼20181113103306973&query¼+72+labo ratories+shut+after+
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America Sandra Gift1, Dianne Thurab-Nkhosi2 and Ruby Alleyne3 1 Quality Assurance Unit, The Vice Chancellery, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago 2 The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago 3 Office of Quality Assurance and Institutional Effectiveness, The University of Trinidad and Tobago, Arima, Trinidad and Tobago
List of Abbreviations ACTT CAAM-HP
CACET
Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions Caribbean Accreditation Council for Engineering and Technology
In this entry, the terms higher education and tertiary education are used interchangeably.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America
CANQATE CARICOM CARPIMS COSTAATT
CQF CRNM CSME FCORs GCREAS HEIs ICTA ICTs INQAAHE
MOOCs NABs UCC UCJ UCWI UTT UWI
Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education Caribbean Community Caribbean-Pacific Island Mobility Scheme College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago CARICOM Qualifications Framework Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery Caribbean Single Market and Economy French Caribbean Outermost Regions Greater Caribbean Regional Engineering Accreditation System Higher education institutions Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture Information and communication technologies International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education Massive Open Online Courses National accreditation bodies University of the Commonwealth Caribbean University Council of Jamaica University College of the West Indies The University of Trinidad and Tobago The University of the West Indies
Colonial Legacies of Higher Education and Dominant Models of the University Codrington College, established by the Anglican Church in Barbados in 1743 to train priests, was the first higher education institution to be founded in the Anglophone Caribbean. In the aftermath of World War I, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA) was established in 1921, thus becoming the second higher education institution in the region (Cobley 2000). The University College of the West Indies (UCWI) was established in
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1948 under a “special relationship” with the University of London. The UCWI standards proved prohibitive as they facilitated access only to “a relatively narrow neocolonial elite” (Cobley 2000, 17). In 1960, ICTA merged with the UCWI and became its second campus. In 1962, the UCWI took on a new identity as The University of the West Indies (The UWI), an autonomous university awarding its own degrees by Royal Charter. Over the period 1963–1988, tertiary level institutions were established in countries such as Guyana, the United States Virgin Islands, and Jamaica. In the Eastern Caribbean, a shortage of trained manpower led to the creation of domestic institutions of postsecondary education in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada. In the post-1980 period, global trends in higher education, such as the liberalization of education and the recognition of the importance of knowledge workers to building a competitive regional economy, positively impacted the further development of the regional higher education sector (Kassim et al. 2015; Tewarie 2010). By the 1990s, other national and community colleges were established in Barbados, the Bahamas, and in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, among other countries in the region (Cobley 2000). The community college model was adopted as a step toward national universities in several Caribbean countries such as Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. This gave rise to a variety of higher education institutions (HEIs) in terms of size, profile, and mission, inter alia. Some community colleges entered into articulation agreements with The UWI “in 2+2 arrangement[s] (i.e. two years leading to an associate degree followed by another 2 years leading to a full degree)” (Kassim et al. 2015, 68).
Relative Size of the Public and Private Sector and Relevance of National and Regional Institutions The tertiary education sector in the Anglophone Caribbean has become increasingly diverse over the past few decades. There has been an emergence
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of partnerships or alliances between local and foreign awarding bodies and institutions, and a growing number of online providers and “offshore” institutions located in the Caribbean but owned and operated by persons from outside of the region. There has also been a concomitant expansion in tertiary education enrolment as an increase in available spaces, government policies that fund tuition and other expenses, and more flexible admission policies and modes of learning have resulted in higher participation rates. To a large extent, tertiary education in the region has been dominated by the public sector. From 2000 onwards, however, there has been a growth in private and transnational providers. This development has sparked some concern about the relevance of these institutions’ objectives to the vision of the people of the Anglophone Caribbean. A burgeoning for-profit sector has also emerged in recent years as the demand for tertiary education by both out-of-school youth and adult learners increased exponentially. Consequently, investment by governments, employers, and individuals has increased steadily over the years. The regional UWI, national universities, and community colleges comprise the public tertiary education sector. National universities were founded from the merger of existing small tertiary level institutions. As of 2011, there was a total of 42 medical schools/institutions in the CARICOM region. Medical schools in the Caribbean are categorized as either regional or offshore. Regional medical schools train students to practice in the country or region where the school is located. Offshore medical schools primarily train students from the United States and Canada who intend to return to these countries for residency and clinical practice after graduation. Most offshore schools are dual-campus programs, where basic sciences are completed in the Caribbean while clinical clerkships are completed at teaching hospitals in the United States.
Number of Institutions and Enrolments at the Undergraduate Level Current and reliable data on the higher education sector in the Anglophone Caribbean are not
readily available, thus representing one of the region’s developmental challenges. Data available from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics provide some limited information on the nature of the higher education sector in the region. Owing to differences in population size, enrolment levels in the Eastern Caribbean are significantly lower than in larger countries such as Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago. Enrolment levels are also a reflection of national policies for the financing of higher education. Enrolment levels in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago have tended to be higher, given government financing of access to higher education for their nationals. Recent economic circumstances of these countries, however, have resulted in significant adjustments to these policies and a concomitant decline in enrolment in the case of Barbados. Figure 1 and Tables 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 provide some limited data relating to the tertiary education sector over the period 2004–2016. Figure 1 indicates that in 2004, the tertiary education public sector was larger than the private sector in the Anglophone Caribbean. This characteristic of the tertiary education landscape very likely persists in 2017, perhaps with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, where in 2016 the number of private institutions surpassed that of public institutions, possibly as a result of the government’s policy for the financing of higher education. Table 1 shows that while Barbados had a generally high level of tertiary education participation, this was not the case for other countries for which data were available. The higher gross enrolment levels in Barbados reflect government financing of higher education for citizens of Barbados, a policy that has changed in recent years (Kassim et al. 2015, 54). Table 2 shows that Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the two countries with the largest populations, have the largest number of TLIs and largest enrolments. In Grenada, the comparatively high enrolment level is accounted for by an enrolment of 7,058 in what St. George’s University, a private international university, refers to as its Fall 2015 session.
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Sectors Tertiary Institutions with Government Support
Private Tertiary Institutions
Public Tertiary Institutions
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Fig. 1 Percentage of tertiary level institutions by sector
(Source: 2004 survey commissioned by the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) (Williams 2004))
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 1 Gross tertiary enrolment ratios for selected countries in the Anglophone Caribbean Country Antigua and Barbuda Barbados Belize Bermuda Jamaica Saint Lucia
2005 – – 16.0 – 20.2 13.1
2007 – 56.5 18.2 26.2 – 8.7
2009 14.8 70.5 22.9 32.1 25.2 17.7
2011 14.4 60.8 22.9 31.2 28.2 16.3
2012 23.5 – 25.8 30.8 30.8 10.2
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 2 Number of tertiary institutions by combined students enrolled Country 2004 Bahamas Guyana Jamaica Trinidad and Tobago 2015 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 2016 Saint Lucia Trinidad and Tobago Grenada
Publicly funded tertiary institutions
Private tertiary institutions
Combined student enrolment (approximately)
– 9 25 9
– – 18 –
Under 48 8,400 37,500 16,000
2
7
3,315
1 10 1
4 62 2
1,269 – 9,372
Source: Hosein et al. (2004)
Table 3 is illustrative of the impact of government financing of access to higher education as seen in the significantly higher enrolment level in Barbados in 2007.
Table 4 shows that, for the countries indicated, participation in higher education is predominantly at the bachelor’s level, which is likely to be the case throughout the Anglophone Caribbean,
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 3 Percentage of gross enrolment ratios for higher education in selected countries, 2007 Country Barbados Saint Lucia
Percentage 56.5 8.7
Source: Kassim et al. (2015)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 4 Gross percentage of students enrolled in tertiary education in selected countries at various levels Country 2015 Grenada St. Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Grenada Saint Lucia 2009 Barbados Grenada 2011 Barbados Grenada
Percentage (%)
Level of tertiary education
75 5.3
Bachelor Bachelor
44.4 0.8 1.0
Bachelor Master Master
1.58 0.059
Doctoral Doctoral
1.07 0.129
Doctoral Doctoral
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS.Stat. Accessed December 16, 2016. http://data.uis.unesco.org
although increasing numbers of graduates with bachelor’s degrees are accessing postgraduate education at the master’s level. Table 5 is again illustrative of the association between population size and/or government policy for financing of higher education and relatively higher net enrolment levels in tertiary education institutions. Net enrolment in both Barbados and Jamaica is higher than in Saint Lucia, whose population is smaller and where the government does not have a policy of funding higher education for all nationals. While Table 6 refers to “Vocational Secondary Institutions,” the information is included as the age cohort served by these institutions includes the tertiary level age cohort. It can be noted that, in Antigua and Barbuda, between 2009 and 2015 there was a decline of 2.85% in net enrolment in
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 5 Net number of students enrolled in tertiary institutions in selected countries Country 2009 Barbados Jamaica Saint Lucia 2011 Barbados 2015 Jamaica Saint Lucia
Net number 14,324 61,509 2,796 12,421 74,537 2,788
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UIS.Stat. Accessed December 16, 2016. http://data.uis.unesco.org
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 6 Net percentage of students enrolled in vocational secondary institutions (15–24-year-old) Country 2009 Antigua and Barbuda 2015 Antigua and Barbuda Saint Lucia
Percentage (%) 4.1 1.25 0.25
Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UIS.Stat. Accessed December 16, 2016. http://data.uis.unesco.org
vocational secondary institutions. This should be monitored for any indication that such programs might be losing their appeal for the particular age cohort and for ways to address the situation, if necessary.
Levels of Certification at Undergraduate and Postgraduate Levels While public sector institutions are comprehensive in their offerings, with several offering programs up to the doctoral level, the offerings of the private for-profit sector are generally specialized and demand-driven. Programs are offered by the private sector up to the degree level and include “disciplines such as information and communication technologies (ICT), accounting, marketing, business administration, labour studies and human resource management” (Tewarie 2010, 3).
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 7 CARICOM Qualifications Framework (tertiary levels) Levels Level 10
Level 9
Level 8
Level 7
Level 6
Level description qualifications Doctoral level – includes the ability to: (i) Generate new ideas, knowledge, and understanding (ii) Address complex issues through research and development (iii) Effect change in the profession and/or workplace based on a profound understanding of complex theoretical and methodological principles and analysis Master’s level – includes the ability to: (i) Apply knowledge and understanding to real life situations (ii) Plan and develop actions to impact organizational change within the work environment (iii) Understand the relevant theoretical and methodological area of study or work Postgraduate Diploma level – includes the ability to: (i) Refine, integrate, and apply advanced knowledge and skills to solve complex problems with limited data (ii) Initiate and develop interventions for change and improvement through the application of relevant theories (iii) Continue to develop knowledge, understanding, and new skills Bachelor’s level – includes the ability to: (i) Recognize the application of relevant knowledge, methods and skills for the work environment and further learning (ii) Plan, assess, and develop actions to respond to a broad range of situations (iii) Communicate with varied audiences (iv) Demonstrate understanding of different schools of thought Associate Degree level – includes the ability to: (i) Use relevant and appropriate knowledge, skills, and technology to complete tasks and procedures and to address complex and nonroutine problems (ii) Demonstrate leadership, engage in teamwork, be a critical thinker (iii) Appreciate different perspectives in a field of study or work
Source: CARICOM Secretariat (2017)
Modes of Organization of the Levels of Education The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) approved a new Qualifications Framework (CQF) in March 2017. The CQF, which has been formally adopted at the regional level, comprises ten levels. The CQF levels corresponding to tertiary education are presented in Table 7. From the lower to higher levels of the framework, there is an increasing degree of complexity. The CQF is aligned to the Transnational Qualifications Framework and the European Qualifications Framework.
student enrolment of over 45,000 as of November 2016. “[The] UWI remains irrefutably the only truly regional higher educational institution in the Caribbean in concept, scope and reach” (Tewarie 2010, 3). For individual nation states, however, their national universities would also be their flagship institutions designed to support the human development of their citizenry. Such universities include the University of Technology, Jamaica; the University of Guyana; The University of Trinidad and Tobago; the University of Belize; and the public tertiary level institutions in the Eastern Caribbean. In Grenada, St. George’s University is listed as a flagship institution.
Prestige Hierarchies Among Institutions The Regulatory Framework Today, the predominance of The UWI as the leading HEI remains a significant distinguishing characteristic of the regional tertiary education sector. The UWI now has four campuses and a presence in all 17 of its contributing territories, with a total
In 1989, CARICOM, through the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, embarked on the establishment of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) as “a single, seamless economic space
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and economic environment within which business and labour will operate [in order to stimulate] greater efficiency in both the private and public sectors, higher levels of domestic and foreign investment, increased employment, and growth of intra-regional trade and of extra-regional exports” (Girvan 2006, 6). Article 46 (1) of the Revised Treaty identifies “Movement of Skilled Community Nationals” as one of the key elements of the CSME, and the signatories therefore agreed to put systems in place for the free movement of skilled persons between their territories. The recognition of qualifications by a competent authority consequently became a priority, thus highlighting the need for a regulatory framework to set standards for, and monitor performance of, tertiary education providers. The tertiary education sector in the Anglophone Caribbean is largely regulated by statefunded national accreditation bodies (NABs), which currently operate in nine countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Each NAB was established by an Act of Parliament and seeks to: 1. Provide students with an assurance of the quality of education 2. Protect public, private, and individual investment in tertiary education 3. Safeguard the reputation of tertiary education providers and the country in which they operate NABs perform a range of functions, which in some countries include acting as gatekeepers for access to state funding by students and providers. The majority of NABs in the Anglophone Caribbean were established during the period 2004–2011 (see Table 8). However, prior to this, the St. Kitts and Nevis Accreditation Board and the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ) were established in 1987 and 1999, respectively, and both played a major role in regulating tertiary education providers in their respective territories. In Trinidad and Tobago, a decision was taken by the Government in 1971 to establish a National Commission on Accrediting (Cabinet Minute
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 8 National accreditation bodies National body Antigua and Barbuda National Accreditation Board Barbados Accreditation Council National Accreditation Board of the Commonwealth of Dominica Grenada National Accreditation Board National Accreditation Council of Guyana University Council of Jamaica St. Kitts and Nevis Accreditation Board National Accreditation Board of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago
Year(s) of enactment and amendment of legislation Act No. 4 of 2006
Act No. 11 of 2004 Act No. 13 of 2006
Act No. 15 of 2011 Act No. 31 of 2014 Act No. 12 of 2004 Act No. 23 of 1987 Act No. 16 of 1991 Act No. 21 of 1999 Act No. 9 of 2001 Act No. 35 of 2006
Act No. 16 of 2004 Act No. 16 of 2007 Act No. 10 of 2008
Note: The first year listed refers to the year in which the first piece of legislation was enacted. Where other years are listed this refers to the year(s) in which subsequent amendments are recorded
1297 of December 9, 1971). Subsequently, a Committee on the Recognition of Degrees was established in 1979. However, it was only in 2004 that the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT), currently the largest NAB in the region, was established. The primary functions of the NABs vary based on their legislation, but the full range includes inter alia: – Registration (which is based on minimum standards and is required to operate in some jurisdictions) – Institutional accreditation (which is voluntary in some countries but mandatory in others) – Specialized accreditation (largely of professional programs) – Conferment of institutional title or regulation of degree-granting powers (for new institutions
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–
– – –
seeking to establish themselves as universities or use other protected titles) Recognition of foreign or transnational providers and their awards (whether based overseas or operating in partnership with local providers) Assessment of the equivalence of qualifications Evaluation and validation of new programs and Development of unified credit-based systems for their higher education sectors
The regulatory framework requires all public or private providers to comply with the legislation and, in some cases, there are sanctions for failure to comply. The NABs also play a major role not only in monitoring providers but also in providing guidance and support for quality improvement. Regionally, the Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE), founded in 2004, operates as an association representing the interests of NABs and providers and is recognized as a subregional network of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE). There are also three regional bodies for specialized accreditation in the fields of medicine and other health professions and engineering: the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP), established in 2003; the Caribbean Accreditation Council for Engineering and Technology (CACET), established in 2009; and the Greater Caribbean Regional Engineering Accreditation System (GCREAS). Generally, the regulatory environment in the Anglophone Caribbean has been shaped by government policy and reforms, which have focused on strengthening mechanisms for quality assurance and accreditation of tertiary education programs and providers. In the absence of accreditation bodies in countries such as Saint Lucia and Belize, which have not yet established NABs, the regulatory function is carried out by departments within government ministries.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 9 Public expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of government expenditure on education, 2005–2012 Country Barbados British Virgin Islands Jamaica Saint Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines
2005 31.6 34.2
2007 30.2 33.1
2009 29.9 –
2011 – –
2012 30.2 –
22.1 – 3.7
20.0 – 5.7
20.3 6.3 5.4
19.8 5.0 –
17.6 – –
Source: UNESCO Institute of Statistics. UIS.Stat. http:// data.uis.unesco.org/. Cited in Kassim et al. (2015)
Finances Table 9 shows that in 2005 public expenditure on tertiary education in Barbados was 31.6%, with a marginal decrease to 30.2% in 2012. In the case of Jamaica, in 2005, 22.1% of public expenditure was on tertiary education, declining to 17.6% in 2012. Strategies for funding higher education have included: • A mixed system with financing shared by the state and students, and government scholarships for needy students • The government funding fully all activities in public HEIs • The government charging a tax or levy to be used to provide subventions to HEIs • Cost-sharing involving educational institutions, students, the state, and the corporate sector (Nkrumah-Young and Powell 2011, 8–11) • The government providing assistance for tuition fees, or a part thereof based on a needs assessment, for undergraduate and postgraduate students attending both public and private HEIs The UWI, for example, has been financed from a number of sources including government grants, tuition fees, commercial operations, research grants, and philanthropic gifts (Taylor-Hanna 2016).
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Contemporary Trends in the Anglophone Caribbean Main Changes in the Last Decade Within the last decade, in addition to the increased demand for higher education, several global trends have impacted tertiary education in the Anglophone Caribbean. Increasing use of technology, including the spread of blended or hybrid learning, and the widening of access to university courses via distance education and, more specifically, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have all influenced higher education in the region (Hosein et al. 2004; Johnson et al. 2016; University of Oxford 2015). Internationalization has also impacted higher education globally, resulting in universities embarking on collaborative projects to attract students from wide-ranging geographical locations (University of Oxford 2015). One of the major trends to feature prominently in the Anglophone Caribbean has been the increasing demand for higher education. Smith (2011) stated that the secondary school gross enrolment rate was approximately 80%. Although there are more potential higher education students, the higher education enrolment ratio averages just around 12%. Policies and Instruments for Accreditation and Quality Assurance With the growth in demand for higher education and a more discerning student population, more attention has been paid to quality assurance. Several milestones in quality assurance in higher education in the Caribbean have been identified. These include UCJ’s 25th anniversary, CANQATE’s 10th anniversary, and CAAM-HP’s 10th anniversary. The first institutional accreditation of The University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT) by the ACTT occurred in 2010, and that of the St. Augustine Campus of The UWI occurred in 2011 (Perkins 2015, 1). In 2007, an Inter-Governmental Agreement was signed by seven member states to establish the Caribbean Community Accreditation Agency
for Education and Training. It was envisaged that this regional agency would, among other things, develop guidelines for good practice to assist national accreditation bodies; seek to harmonize standards of quality and quality assurance procedures; and facilitate mutual recognition agreements. The agency, when operational, will strengthen the regional profile regarding the integrity of the national systems for external quality assurance. Internationalization and Main Challenges Consistent with the global trend, Caribbean HEIs are placing priority on internationalization. Internationalization has also been bolstered by joint programs between regional institutions and international counterparts, and by European Unionfunded initiatives such as the Caribbean-Pacific Island Mobility Scheme (CARPIMS) and Erasmus Mundus, which promote intra-Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP), and ACP-European Union (EU) partnerships and mobility for students and faculty. International student recruitment has been a priority for some institutions in the region, as exemplified by the following initiatives: • The UWI Open Campus delivers certificate courses in Tourism and Hospitality, and Entrepreneurship in Barbados to African students • The University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) in Jamaica is receiving government support for a Knowledge City, which will be a center of entrepreneurship and innovation and will be sustained through investment attraction and returns. • The UCC and COSTAATT have expanded their physical capacity to accommodate the number of new international students targeted. • The UWI’s international student recruitment is focusing on specific areas of study including Medicine, Optometry, Veterinary Medicine, Dentistry, Petroleum Geosciences, Agriculture, Biotechnology, Bioresearch, Public Health, Tropical Medicine, Law, Governance and Public Trust, Cultural Studies, and Geoinformatics. Efforts to take advantage of The UWI’s student and faculty exchange agreements are constrained by limited
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America
resources for Caribbean participation in overseas study or postings. • Student exchange programs take place between Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and Trinidad and Tobago and the French Caribbean Outermost Regions (FCORs) (CARIFORUM 2015, 4). Challenges faced by indigenous universities attempting internationalization include competition from international counterparts, size of the market for specific programs in the region, and lack of resources to implement postings and marketing strategies required. One provider in the region, the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Trinidad and Tobago, has targeted foreign cities, including Brazil, in its internationalization thrust. New Providers: For-Profit Institutions, International Branch Campuses At the same time, the region has been experiencing the manifestations of internationalization undertaken by universities in the global community. These include, in particular, the entry of transnational providers of higher education. Examples of transnational education programs in the region include: • Participation of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Jamaica, in the EU-funded Inter-Reg Caraibes program, which facilitates an estimated 15 international students per year and promotes employment in the arts in French Guiana • The UWI’s joint International Relations degree offered with the University of Bordeaux in France • The UCC’s status as an overseas recognized teaching institution for the University of London • The University of London’s Bachelor of Law programme in Jamaica and delivery of Florida International University (FIU) modules on behalf of that institution (CARIFORUM 2015, 4) Offshore medical programs are offered in ten Anglophone Caribbean countries. These
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programs are associated with the London Metropolitan University, Ross University, Nova Southeastern University, and St. George’s University. Distance Education and Internet-Based Learning Distance education is now an option to expand access to education. The UWI established a fourth virtual campus, the Open Campus, in 2007. Operating in more than 40 sites throughout the Anglophone Caribbean to deliver degrees and professional development programs for a total of 40 study options, The UWI Open Campus is the leading provider of distance education in the region, with more than 4,000 students enrolled in online programs alone (CARIFORUM 2015; The UWI Open Campus 2014). The implementation of MOOCs has not been popular in the region due to the cost and resource requirements for development. With Internet penetration in the Caribbean relatively high at 43.1% of the population, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have altered the way individuals operate in higher education contexts. Online student applications, Smart Classrooms that have altered learning spaces, blended courses that integrate online activities for teaching and learning with face-to-face, real-time activities, and web conferencing for administration and teaching have all become a part of higher education in the region. Other Relevant Dynamics Gender inequity exists in the region, with females outnumbering males in higher education. In six countries in the region, the female enrolment ratio more than doubles the male. Table 10 shows that in Dominica, for example, female enrolment is more than three times that of male enrolment.
Conclusion Following the colonial period, the spirit of independence and quest for self-sufficiency of the people of the Anglophone Caribbean fuelled their thirst for learning and an improved quality
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Anglophonic Countries in Latin America, Table 10 Female to male gender enrolment ratio Country Dominica Saint Lucia Jamaica Antigua and Barbuda Cayman Islands St. Kitts and Nevis
Female-male gender enrolment ratio 3.22 2.58 2.22 2.21 2.16 2.10
Source: Adapted from Smith (2011)
of life. Education was, and continues to be, viewed as the vehicle for personal and societal transformation, with tertiary level education playing a pivotal role in this regard. Much progress has been made despite numerous challenges, not least of which is the high cost of making accessible a full range of learning options and opportunities in small states. The challenge remains to ensure that the investment in higher education is commensurate with the developmental aspirations of the people of the region.
References CARICOM Secretariat. 2017. CARICOM qualifications framework. Georgetown: CARICOM Secretariat. CARIFORUM. 2015. Background brief for the 3rd CARIFORUM EU Business Forum: Internationalization of higher education services and institutional partnerships, 15–16 Apr 2015. http://www.cariforum.eu/ pdf/background_paper_HE.pdf. Cobley, Alan G. 2000. The historical development of higher education in the Anglophone Caribbean. In Higher education in the Caribbean: Past, present and future directions, ed. Glenford D. Howe, 1–23. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. Girvan, Norman. 2006. Towards a single economy and a single development vision. In collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat and the Special Task Force on the Single Economy. http://www.caribank.org/uploads/ publications-reports/research/conference-papers/regiona l-conference-on-csme/GirvanTowardsSingleEconom y[1].pdf. Accessed 5 Apr 2017. Hosein, Roger, Tommy Chen, and Reanti Singh. 2004. The international supply of tertiary education and services trade negotiations: Implications for CARICOM. Report prepared for the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).
St. Augustine: The University of the West Indies. http://www.slideshare.net/CRNM/crnm-theinternational-supply-of-tertiary-education-andservices-trade-nego tiations-implications-forcaricom. Accessed 7 Dec 2016. Johnson, L., S. Adams Becker, M. Cummins, V. Estrada, A. Freeman, and C. Hall. 2016. NMC Horizon Report: 2016 higher education edition. Austin: The New Media Consortium. http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2016nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf. Kassim, Halima Sa’adia, Anand Dass, and Tiffany Best. 2015. Higher education and statistical review: Issues and trends in higher education, 2013. St. Augustine: University Office of Planning and Development, UWI. http://www.uwi.edu/sf-docs/default-source/uopd—gen eral/hesr2013–issues-and-trends-in-higher-educationmarch2015-for-univer-council.pdf?sfvrsn¼2. Nkrumah-Young, Kofi K., and Philip Powell. 2011. Exploring higher education financing options. European Journal of Higher Education 1 (1): 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2011.577181. Perkins, Aanna Kasafi. 2015. Quality in higher education in the Caribbean. In Quality in higher education in the Caribbean, ed. Anna Kasafi Perkins, 1–20. Kingston: The University of the West Indies Press. Smith, W. 2011. The paradigm shift in higher education: A call for action. Keynote address at the 10th annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Higher Education Administrators (ACHEA), 7–9 July 2011, Cave Hill. http://www.caribank.org/uploads/ publications-reports/statements-and-speeches/Speech_ The_Paradigm_Shift_in_Education_Final_Website_% 20edited_26Jul2011.pdf. Taylor-Hanna, Andrea. 2016. Managing higher education in challenging financial times. A presentation to the Association of Caribbean Higher Education Administrators, Trinidad and Tobago chapter. Tewarie, Bhoendradatt. 2010. Concept paper for the development of a CARICOM strategic plan for tertiary education services in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). Mount Hope: Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business. http://cms2.caricom. org/documents/9524-concept_paper_tertiary_educatio n.pdf. Accessed 8 Dec 2016. The UWI Open Campus. 2014. The UWI Open Campus annual report 2012/13. http://www.open.uwi. edu/sites/default/files/UWI_OpenCampus_2012-2013. pdf. University of Oxford. 2015. International trends in higher education 2015. Oxford: University of Oxford. https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxford/Inter national%20Trends%20in%20Higher%20Education %202015.pdf. Williams, Horace A. 2004. Some key forces impacting on higher education – The Caribbean perspective. Paper presented at the 3rd annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Higher Education Administrators (ACHEA), 10–12 July 2004, Cave Hill. www. acheacaribbean.org/sites/default/files/Horace%20Willi ams%20.doc.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Angola
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Angola Pedro Videira1 and Pedro Nuno Teixeira2 1 CIPES & DINAMIA’CET - ISCTE-IUL, Matosinhos, Portugal 2 CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics U. Porto, Portugal
Historical Background The Republic of Angola is located in the southwest coast of Africa, bordered by the Democratic Republic of Congo to the north, Zambia to the east, and Namibia to the south. With an area of about 1,246,700 square km and a population of 30 million, it is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in Africa. In 1975, following the collapse of the authoritarian regime in Portugal, Angola became independent with the socialist MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) as the only legally recognized party and an economic regime of state control and collective property. After a prolonged and extremely destructive civil war with the other movements which had taken part in the colonial war, namely, UNITA and FNLA, the 1992 agreements led to general elections and the establishment of the Second Republic (in which MPLA still dominates Parliament, government, and presidency but in a multiparty regime) and market-driven reforms. The civil war would nevertheless continue to ravage the country until 2002 with the death of UNITA’s historical leader Jonas Savimbi. In terms of natural resources, Angola is one of the richest countries in Africa with extensive oil and gas resources, diamonds, hydroelectric potential, and rich agricultural land. However, the 27 years of civil war and the endemic corruption at all levels of government have stilted its economic development, and the majority of its population lives in poverty. The Human Development Index of 2019 rates the country in the 149th position (out of 189 countries); the life expectancy is at around 60 years and the adult literacy rate at 66%.
The beginnings of higher education in Angola can be traced back to 1958 with the establishment of Catholic seminaries in Luanda and Huambo (de Carvalho 2012). In addition to these institutions, in 1962, the “General University Studies of Angola” was created, as part of the Portuguese university system, being renamed as the University of Luanda in 1968. In 1975, when Angola became independent, the University of Luanda was composed of six schools or faculties: science, economics, engineering, and medicine in Luanda, agriculture in Huambo, and arts/education in Huíla. The number of students was around 2,400, and the great majority of these (around 95%) were of Portuguese origin, not only because of social discrimination but also due to the existence of fees in secondary and higher education which precluded most Africans from access to these levels of education. Following its independence, there were important changes in the higher education system (Langa 2013). For instance, the institutions of Catholic higher education were closed down (as all non-state educational institutions), and in 1979, the University of Luanda changed its name to University of Angola and later, in 1985, to University Agostinho Neto (UAN), named after one of the historic leaders of the independence, the country’s first president, and also the first rector of the University (Liberato 2014). During this period, several faculties and institutes were created, such as the Law School in Luanda and the Superior Institute for Educational Sciences (ISCED) which operates in several cities and is focused mainly on training secondary school teachers. In 1995, the Angolan government conferred to UAN a new legal status and organic structure which somewhat reinforced its collegial decision-making structures. At the same time, the advent of the Second Republic in 1992, and the new political and economic paradigm which followed, paved the way for entrepreneurial activities from the private sector including in the education system (Liberato 2014; Langa 2013). In terms of higher education, the first private university was launched by the Catholic Church in 1992
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(Catholic University of Angola) followed by the establishment of Lusíada University of Angola (a branch of a Portuguese private institution bearing the same name), the Private Superior Institute of Angola in 1999, Jean Piaget University in 2000, and the New University of Angola in 2002 (Kandingi 2016). In 2002, a new public institution of higher education was established, the Superior Institute for Political and Social Sciences, located in Luanda and with a number of different programs in the social sciences, international relations, management, and public administration. Meanwhile, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, UAN underwent a process of geographical dispersion of its schools which ultimately led in 2010 to the fragmentation of the university in several autonomous and geographically dispersed institutions (Liberato 2014). The process of diversification and massification of higher education in Angola accelerated in recent years. This has resulted both in the rapid increase in the number of institutions (in 2014, there were 26 public HEIs and 45 private ones) and in enrolment rates with over 146,000 students and 4,100 teachers at all levels of tertiary education in 2017. As often happens, this has caused some concern that this process of rapid expansion has nevertheless negatively impacted the quality of the training being provided, especially in the newly created private institutions (de Carvalho 2012; Kandingi 2016). This has given increasing visibility to the issue of quality assurance and accreditation. The process of expansion is expected to continue, given the low level of qualification of the labor force and the large share of young population. In fact, the government led by the new president João Lourenc¸o (elected in 2017), which has indicated the willingness to promote significant political changes, has pledged to increase participation in higher education even further by creating 7 new public institutions by 2022 and further increasing the number of new graduates by 33,000 in each year. It is yet to be seen how much of this expansion will be carried out exclusively through the expansion of the public sector or by a further expansion of the private sector.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Angola
Higher Education Governance and Funding The governance of the higher education institutions and system are established by the “General Rules Regulating Subsystem Higher Education” (Decree No. 90/09 of 15 December), reinforced in 2016 by the approval of the Law 17/16 which provide the framework for higher education in the country. This legislation regulates academic autonomy and collegial participation by stating that “all individuals directly involved in the teaching and learning process, as an agent of education or of a partner, have the right to participate in the organization and management of the structures, modalities and institutions concerned with education.” Universities in Angola enjoy thus some autonomy and collegial decision-making processes (da Silva 2009). This autonomy was, in the case of the UAN, reinforced by the approval of the new statutes in 1995 which also strengthen the collegial decision-making structures. However, some authors still claim that this autonomy has been found to be somewhat limited in the collegial structures and that the adoption of a centralized administration model in the UAN has allowed the Dean, representing the State, to effectively control the organizational action (Silva and Mendes 2011). This has been a recent tendency also at the system level with the replacement of the still incipient collegial bodies by processes and dynamics that foster individual leadership and recentralization practices (Mendes 2016). In practical terms, there is also evidence of a strong dependence of universities in relation to the Ministry of Education, which maintains extensive power in academic and scientific areas such as the opening of new degrees, approval of internal assessment schemes, and the establishment of curricular and pedagogical standards, including general methodological guidelines. In terms of funding, Angola higher education institutions have four main sources for funding: direct state support (in the case of the public institutions), student fees, contributions from private and international donors, and paid services to individual or corporate users. While the public higher education sector is predominantly financed by the state, with tuition fees being charged only
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Angola
for evening studies and graduate programs, private institutions depend mainly on tuition and other fees paid directly by students. Despite the insufficiencies in the available data on overall funding for the system, all estimates point to a very significant annual increase in public funding since the end of the civil war in 2002, a period which coincided with the exponential growth of the sector in enrolment rates and number of institutions. At the same time, as in other Portuguesespeaking countries in Africa, the inordinate proportion of public funding directed at scholarships for studying abroad has declined in recent years in favor of directly funding the country’s higher education institutions and the students enrolled in those institutions. However, in spite of the significant increase in recent years in enrolment rates, participation levels are still below those of other regional countries, and a significant proportion of young Angolans are still excluded from this level of education, namely, those from lower-income families who are unable to meet the significant costs of tuition fees in private institutions.
Quality Assurance In terms of quality assurance of higher education institutions, the practice of external evaluation began in very incipient form in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, followed by some sporadic practices of self-assessment by the higher education institutions themselves from 2005 onward. Until the late 1990s, it was the UAN itself, although under control of the Ministry of Education, that assumed the dual role as a higher education institution and as an entity of central state administration in the design and planning of activities related to higher education. Despite the fact that the national evaluation policy is often referred to in institutional documents, several authors argue that the process was, until recently, still largely dependent on the institutions’ initiatives and less on effective actions by the State (Silva and Mendes 2011). The issues of quality assurance and evaluation of higher education institutions have gained increasing relevance with the establishment in
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2009 of a quality assurance system, coordinated at the national level by the Institute for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (INAAES) and, at the local level, to be operated by each of the universities and higher education institutions. The agency is mandated to “define general criteria for assessing the performance of institutions; create mechanisms ensuring the external evaluation of the quality of services; assess and evaluate the merit of the activity and the performance of higher education institutions” as well as “to approve the regimes for internal evaluation of higher education institutions” (Decree No. 90/09, of 15 December). The implementation of the system was not however above criticism, and the new government has further regulated the quality assurance mechanisms through the approval of the presidential Decree 203/2018 which reinforces the autonomy of institutions in its relation with the State (Tauchen et al. 2019).
Challenges Higher education in Angola faces important challenges. On the one hand, the system is under significant pressure to expand, in order to help the country to catch up regarding the qualification of its labor force and the significant social pressures for greater access to higher levels of education. This is particularly relevant given the economic potential of the country and its traditional reliance on foreign-trained skilled professionals. On the other hand, and as many other systems in Africa, the expansion of the higher education system was significantly supported by a large share of private institutions. This pattern of rapid expansion and diversification has created important regulatory challenges regarding both the public and the private sectors. In the case of the former, the system needs to strengthen its research base and its degree of autonomy. Regarding the private sector, the system needs to consolidate its quality and relevance regarding the labor market. Moreover, the system needs to continue expanding its regional diversification, fostering greater interaction with local needs and enhancing the contribution of higher education to economic
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and social development in different parts of the country (and not only in the capital and a couple of other major regional cities). Last, but not least, it needs to find sufficient resources to support a growing system in a context of scarcity and pressing needs in other areas of public services. Although the country owns important resources of economic potential, recent financial difficulties are likely to make that challenge even more complex.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina Ana García de Fanelli Center for the Study of State and Society (CEDES), National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Brief History Cross-References ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa ▶ Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview ▶ Higher Education Expansion in Africa and Middle East
References da Silva, Eugénio Alves. 2009. Autonomia e liberdade académicas. Revista Angolana de Sociologia 3: 9–29. de Carvalho, Paulo. 2012. Evoluc¸ão e crescimento do ensino superior em Angola. Revista Angolana de Sociologia 9 (9): 51–58. Kandingi, Adelina. 2016. A expansão do ensino superior em Angola – um estudo sobre impacte das instituic¸ões de ensino superior privado; FCSH – U. Nova de Lisboa; unpublished Ph.D. thesis in educational sciences. Langa, Patricio. 2013. Higher education in Portuguese speaking African countries: A five country baseline study. Somerset West: African Minds. Liberato, Ermelinda. 2014. AvanÇos e retrocessos da educac¸ão em Angola. Revista Brasileira de Educac¸ ão 19 (59 out.-dez): 1003–1031. Mendes, Maria. 2016. Avaliac¸ão da Qualidade e Educac¸ão Superior em Angola: O caso da Universidade Agostinho Neto. Thesis submitted at University of Minho. Silva, Eugenio, and Maria Mendes. 2011. Avaliac¸ão Institucional e Regulac¸ão Estatal das Universidades em Angola. Educac¸ ão, Sociedade e Culturas 33: 89–106. Tauchen, Gionnara, Daniele Borges, and João Filho. 2019. Avaliac¸ão, Regulac¸ão e Autonomia do Ensino Superior em Angola: Perspectivas e Desafios. Revista FAEEBA Educac¸ ão e Contemporaneidade 28 (55): 13–27.
In 1613, the Society of Jesus founded the Collegium Maximum in today’s Córdoba Province. This gave rise to the University of Córdoba in 1621, the only university in Argentina for almost two centuries. It later became the National University of Córdoba following its incorporation by the national state in the mid-nineteenth century. It was not until 1821 that the second public university was founded. The University of Buenos Aires was established in the wealthiest city of Argentina, later the capital of the Argentine Republic. Between 1860 and 1930, Argentina experienced a high degree of economic advance by expanding its export-oriented economy. This was also a period of high population growth because of the massive influx of immigrants, mainly Spanish and Italian. As a result, Argentina’s population rose from 1.7 million inhabitants in 1869 to almost 8 million in 1914. During this period, the provincial governments of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Tucumán founded the Universities of La Plata, Santa Fe, and Tucumán, respectively. These three universities later fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government (Fernández Lamarra 2003). In 1918 one of the most significant student movements in Argentina took place, the so-called 1918 Reform, also known as the “Cordoba Movement,” which began at the National University of Córdoba and quickly spread to other universities in Argentina and across Latin America. This student movement in Argentine public universities led to the establishment of university autonomy. Students could now participate in university councils, together with
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professors and alumni, thus forming a three-party system known as co-governance. In addition, the student movement exerted great pressure on university authorities to guarantee access to the growing number of middle-class high school graduates. Moreover, it fostered faculty appointments via open, competitive, and periodic renewal contests to counteract nepotism and patronage (Tünermann Bernheim 2008). Until the late 1950s, only nine public universities existed, mostly located in the main cities around the country. In 1958, following the Church’s strong pressure to establish new private institutions, a law was enacted to authorize the establishment of private universities under national state regulation. After this law, a small number of private universities were created in the city of Buenos Aires and other key cities around the country. Since the 1970s the private sector experienced a new expansion, along with a number of public and private non-university tertiary institutions. These tertiary institutions basically comprise technical and vocational schools offering short-cycle programs and teacher-training programs. In the 1970s, 1990s, and the first decade of the 2000s, new waves of institutional expansion took place, resulting in an increasingly diversified and heterogeneous higher education sector. Currently, the majority of Argentine public and private universities have a strong professional orientation, and their student population is concentrated in only a few professional fields at the undergraduate level.
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Enrollment Expansion Records show there were around 85,000 higher education students in 1950 and around 500,000 in 1980 (Cano 1985). This expansion took place in a period of demographic and economic growth and in a context of urbanization and the political development of the urban middle classes (Tedesco 1986). New students began to enter the education system, especially women and young adults who also worked and studied on a part-time basis. These “nontraditional groups” transformed the old elitist universities of the turn of the century, mainly oriented toward liberal professions, into massive and diversified systems that voiced the heterogeneous demands of these groups. With some periods of rapid acceleration and others of deceleration, this expansion continued from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the new millennium. The average annual enrollment growth rate amounted to 6.3% between 1984 and 2000 (García de Fanelli 2005). As a consequence of this early significant growth, Argentina achieved one of the highest enrollment rates in Latin American higher education, comparable to many European countries. In 2014, Argentina’s gross enrollment rate encompassed 77.4% of the 20-/ 24-year-old group (see Table 1). The undergraduate enrollment expansion of the public university sector decelerated during the first decade of the 2000s, while the number of students attending private universities
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina, Table 1 Undergraduate enrollment by type of institution and sector, 2000–2014 Type of institution and sector Total Universities Public Privatea Non-university tertiary institutions Public Private Growth enrollment rate (20–24 years old)b
2000 1,779,904 1,339,740 1,138,503 201,237 440,164 254,031 186,133 51%
2010 2,387,921 1,718,738 1,366,237 352,501 669,183 387,141 282,042 72.4%
2014 2,684,935 1,871,445 1,468,072 403,373 813,490 527,988 285,502 77.4%
D 2014/2000 (%) 51 40 29 100 85 108 53 52
Notes: aIt includes an international institution (FLACSO) and a foreign university (Bologna) 2000 data correspond to 2001 and 2014 to 2013 Source: Anuarios de Estadística Universitaria (2000–2013), Dirección de Información Universitaria (2014), Anuarios de DINIECE (2000–2014)
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increased. The economic upswing from 2004 to 2011 contributed to improving household purchasing power, and this may have favored the ability of students and their families to address the financing of tuition fees charged by private universities. Nonetheless, the expansion in the number of students at private universities showed some structural restrictions stemming from four factors: (1) public universities at the undergraduate level are tuition-free, (2) the more prestigious public universities provide more varied programs than their private counterparts, (3) public financial aid is nonexistent for students enrolled at private institutions, and (4) admission processes in the public sector are not very restricted – basically, any high school graduate can attend a public university. However, some public universities or schools do apply entrance examinations or require students to take specific courses, particularly in the case of medical schools. In addition, during this decade, the public non-university tertiary sector registered a significant increase in enrollment. In total, undergraduate enrollment in the public university and non-university tertiary sectors accounted for 74% of the total undergraduate level in the country (see Table 1). Like the French-Napoleonic university organization, the undergraduate level includes both the “licenciado” degree – on concluding an average of 5 years of study at public universities or 4 years at private ones – and professional degrees, generally with a longer duration (6–7 years), in fields such as medicine, engineering, public accountancy, architecture, psychology, and law. In many respects, these undergraduate degrees are equivalent to the professional master’s degrees in the United States and British systems. Argentina’s undergraduate enrollment levels are quite high, while postgraduate education is fundamentally underdeveloped. Some institutional and financial conditions illustrate why. First, graduation rates are low, while undergraduate enrollment in 2014 totaled almost 2 million; the number of graduates was around 120,000 (García de Fanelli 2016). Second, while the undergraduate level at public universities is tuition-free, students and their families finance the full cost of postgraduate education at public or private universities. Third, while a few
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scholarship programs are available for young, full-time students, the majority of the postgraduate students are in their 30s and study part time. Students are admitted to doctoral and master’s degree studies after they have completed a university program that theoretically can take as long as 5 or 6 years, but studies in professional fields, such as engineering or medicine, can take effectively closer to 9 years. As undergraduate students tend to both work and study, they do not graduate until they are about 27 years old. Finally, traditionally not having a doctorate or a master’s degree did not preclude entry into (or promotion within) the academic profession (until the 1995 Higher Education Act recommended that faculty show postgraduate studies to progress in their careers). Furthermore, postgraduate students wield little political influence inside the university’s governance. Given the co-governance system to elect university authorities, it is the undergraduate level that carries the most weight. Moreover, the university authorities’ annual negotiations for grants with Congress and the Ministry of Education are directly related to the undergraduate enrollments and do not consider the enrollments at the graduate level. For these reasons, the Argentine postgraduate level is still quite underdeveloped, and it is only slowly acquiring a more formalized structure inside the higher education system. According to Table 2, in 2014, 144,152 students were enrolled at postgraduate courses. This represented only 7.7% of total undergraduate enrollment (see Tables 1 and 2). The majority of postgraduate students, especially in the public sector, were concentrated in specialization programs (mostly in medicine and engineering), followed by master’s degrees (see Table 2). Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina, Table 2 Postgraduate enrollment by type of degree and sector, 2014 Type of degree Total Master’s degree Specialization degree Doctoral degree
Sector Total 144,152 54,131 66,028 23,993
Public 110,417 38,795 50,791 20,831
Private 33,735 15,336 15,237 3,162
Source: Dirección de Información Universitaria, Ministerio de Educación y Deporte
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The Structure of the Higher Education System Since the 1980s, together with the expansion in enrollment, the university sector has experienced significant institutional diversification. The number of public universities more than doubled and the private ones almost tripled in 2015 compared to 1980. In 2015 there were 131 universities, 66 public and 65 private (see Table 3). Several factors have contributed to the increasingly heterogeneous structure of the higher education system: the growth in private and public universities; their diversity with respect to size and age; the relative importance of teaching, research, and service functions; and their prestige and quality. While the average size of the student body across public universities was around 26,000 in 2013, there is one mega-university, the University of Buenos Aires, with almost 320,000 students, and three more enrolling between 80,000 and 100,000 students. On the opposite side, some new tertiary institutions enroll less than 1000 students (Ministry of Education 2014). Although the University of Buenos Aires is a national “flagship,” it should not be considered a prototypical “research university.” On the one hand, many of its schools are teaching-oriented units, devoted to training students in the main liberal professional programs, while other schools, like the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, provide advanced scientific training, and their faculty are full-time professors dedicated to both teaching and research. For example, in the Qs World University Rankings by Faculty 2015/ 2016, UBA ranked third in Latin America among
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the top universities for natural sciences, below the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the National University of Mexico. Moreover, UBA’s professors were awarded four Nobel prizes between 1936 and 1984 – two in Physiology or Medicine, one in Chemistry, and one in Peace. The private university sector also shows a wide range of institutional profiles, including religious institutions created mainly in the mid-twentieth century and secular ones founded later. A few private universities have an elite profile. They are small institutions with a critical mass of fulltime professors with PhDs and full-time students at the undergraduate level, conducting research activity, with high-quality facilities and social prestige. The largest private university is Century XXI University with almost 50,000 students, devoted mainly to teaching online programs. There are also three private institutions with more than 25,000 students and a group of seven universities with enrollments between 10,000 and 20,000 (Ministry of Education 2014). All private universities, including foreign institutions like Bologna University, which established a campus in Buenos Aires City, should be – according to Argentina’s 1995 Higher Education Act – not-for-profit organizations. Public and private universities also differ in their enrollment distribution by field of study. While the majority of students in both sectors attend social sciences programs, especially those studying at private universities, students at public universities focus more on the applied and basic sciences (see Table 4). Finally, 2213 small non-university tertiary institutions, whose numbers increased by 281%
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina, Table 3 Higher education institutions: 1980–2015 Type of institution and sector Universitiesa Public Privateb Non-university tertiary institutionsc Public Private
1980 51 28 23 581 353 228
1990 62 33 29 1,209 749 460
2000 100 44 56 1,870 772 1,098
2010 114 55 59 2,129 948 1,181
2015 131 66 65 2,213 1,023 1,190
Notes: aSince 1995, it has also included university institutes. These institutions specialize in only one field of study, for example, medicine b It includes an international institution (FLACSO) and a foreign university (Bologna) c Non-university tertiary data in 2015 correspond to the year 2014 Source: Ministry of Education and Sport
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Argentina, Table 4 Undergraduate and postgraduate enrollment at universities by field of study and sector, 2014 Field of study Total Applied sciences Basic sciences Health sciences Humanities Social sciences No data
Total 2,015,597 468,166 63,341 287,950 363,718 822,294 10,128
Percentage 100.0 23.2 3.1 14.3 18.0 40.8 0.5
Public 1,578,489 405,962 60,030 224,241 296,368 583,511 8,377
Percentage 100.0 25.7 3.8 14.2 18.8 37.0 0.5
Private 437,108 62,204 3,311 63,709 67,350 238,783 1,751
Percentage 100.0 14.2 0.8 14.6 15.4 54.6 0.4
Source: Dirección Información Universitaria, Ministerio de Educación y Deporte
between 1980 and 2015 (see Table 3), are also encompassed in the higher education sector. These institutions train primary and high school teachers as well as offer short vocational and technical programs. Moreover, while public and private universities fall under the jurisdiction or regulation of the national government, the nonuniversity tertiary sector is controlled by each of the 23 provinces in the country and the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires (capital city). With few exceptions, they enjoy less prestige than the university sector.
Governance and Quality Assurance According to the 2006 National Education Act, the National Ministry of Education sets public policies and regulatory mechanisms concerning universities. Additionally, the Federal Council on Culture and Education composed of the national and provincial Ministers of Education and three representatives of the Council of Universities – also issues resolutions that affect the non-university tertiary institutes under the jurisdiction of the Argentine provinces. In particular, the National Ministry of Education, through the Secretariat of University Policy (SPU), formulates general policies in university matters, ensuring, under the principles of university autonomy, the participation of coordination and consultation entities created under the 1995 Higher Education Act. The primary consulting organization is the Council of Universities. This is presided over by the National Ministry of Education and is composed of the Executive Committee of the National Interuniversity Council (which brings together the
rectors of the public universities), the Steering Commission of the Council of Rectors of Private Universities, a representative of each Regional Council on the Planning and Coordination of Higher Education, and a representative of the Federal Council on Culture and Education. The 1995 Higher Education Act also adopted quality assurance procedures in public and private university institutions through the creation of the National Commission for the Evaluation and Accreditation of Universities (CONEAU). The CONEAU is a decentralized organization under the jurisdiction of the National Ministry of Education. Among its primary functions are the external evaluation of public and private university institutions and the mandatory accreditation of postgraduate programs and of undergraduate programs whose degrees correspond to professions regulated by the state – those which could compromise public interests by directly risking citizens’ health, safety, rights, assets, or education. The CONEAU also rules on the creation of new university institutions and the procedures for awarding of official authorization to private institutions. The degree of academic and institutional autonomy that national universities enjoy is considerably high. The main example of university autonomy is the election of executive and collegial authorities which is organized in each university by its based statute. The university senate, its main collegial body, is the highest ranking authority, comprising the deans and the collegial bodies. Among other roles, it dictates and reforms the university statute; creates, removes, merges, or splits academic units (faculties, institutes, departments); and elects the rector (or vice-rector at some universities) and removes them for justifiable reasons.
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Members of the university senate are elected by professors, students, and alumni. Although the administration is controlled by the university president or rector and staff members, university senate rules over public universities. Within the structure of governance of public universities, the executive authorities (the rector and the deans or department heads) do not hold great power of decision, particularly since the election of these authorities depends on agreements or prior negotiations with the various actors represented in the collegial body (faculty, students, alumni, and, at some universities, the administrative staff). In general, universities are comprised of facultades – schools defined by professional or disciplinary fields. Traditional professional faculties, in particular, uphold a strong sense of identity and autonomy. Governance and management at private universities, in contrast, are more hierarchical, with a board of directors or trustees that appoint the executive and collegial authorities. It is basically the board that sets the university’s main goals and policies. The faculty, with limited representation, has little power of decision. University presidents nominate deans and other administrative staff (Del Bello et al. 2007). Finally, the public non-university higher education institutions are not autonomous. They depend on the Ministry of Education of each provincial government, in the same way as pre-primary and secondary levels do. The directors of these institutions are usually appointed by the Ministry of Education of each provincial government through public contests. Moreover, the rules to operate are established by the provincial legislature.
Academic Profession The type of labor contract of a faculty member at public universities depends on the amount of time allocated to work: full time (40 h weekly), half time (20 h weekly), or part time (10 h weekly). Full-time professors teach undergraduate students and conduct research, while half-time professors are expected to teach first and then carry out some research. Finally, part-time professors only teach, except for those belonging to the national research
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career of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). The CONICET’s scientific researchers carry out their full-time tasks at universities or other public and private entities dedicated to research. CONICET’s researchers can also be affiliated to a private university. There are five categories for CONICET researchers. From the lowest to the highest, they are assistant, adjunct, independent, principal, and superior. Admission to the research career takes place through highly competitive mechanisms that take into account the candidate’s scientific production and other relevant academic activities. Having a PhD degree is mandatory. The performance of a CONICET researcher is evaluated periodically through reports. Promotion depends on merit and the fulfillment of the particular requirements of each category. Although private university’s rules regarding a teacher’s workload vary greatly, they are mostly comparable to rules at public universities. The ranks of the faculty fall into two broad categories: professors (full, associate, and assistant professors) and teaching assistants. In 2013, at public universities, 38% of faculty were professors and 62% were teaching assistants (Ministry of Education 2014). Upward mobility is restricted as a consequence of the academic model of the chair, predominant at Argentine public universities. While women encompassed almost half of the total academic posts, they were underrepresented within the full- and associate-professor categories (Ministry of Education 2014). Very little information about private-sector faculty contracts is available. Neither is there any information about the percentage of faculty by rank. Overall, private-sector faculty positions encompass the categories of professors and teaching assistants, although a survey reveals a lower proportion of teaching assistants in the private sector (Del Bello et al. 2007). Another characteristic of Argentina’s academic profession is that the majority of the posts are part time. This is linked to the high concentration of undergraduate enrollment in professional programs (e.g., law, public accounting, management, medicine, and psychology). In total, only 13% of the posts at public universities were full time in 2013 (Ministry of Education 2014). Nonetheless, some public and private universities have a higher proportion of full-time professors, especially inside the
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more research-oriented faculties like the exact and natural sciences, agronomy, or humanities. Academic training reflects a low proportion of faculty holding the highest degree (PhD). Only 10% of professors at public universities attained a doctoral as their highest level of training in 2013 (García de Fanelli 2016). According to the 1995 Higher Education Act, public universities are allowed to define their pay scale in a decentralized manner, but, in fact, they have followed the collective bargaining agreements negotiated on a national scale by the National Ministry of Education, university authorities, and teacher unions. This fixedsalary schedule varies according to the teaching category, the workload, and the seniority. Consequently, although a legal framework supports the decentralized setting of faculty remuneration at public universities, what ultimately prevails is a structured salary system that is similar to public employment. This implies a lack of recognition for the opportunity costs of external labor income, which varies by discipline, or scant incentives that reward individual performance for the work of teaching or research. One of the variables that carry significant weight on the total wage is seniority, reaching 120% of the base salary at 24 years of seniority (García de Fanelli 2007). Comparable data on wages at private universities are unavailable. Information gathered through case studies showed that the private university sector is very heterogeneous. Within the private sector, we should distinguish between some elite upper quality institutions that offer very attractive salaries to their full-time faculty and the other private institutions, which generally pay wages that match or are even lower than those in the public sector.
Finance The federal government is the most important funder of public universities. It allocates funds to each institution according to the previous year’s budget, the increment in wages as negotiated with teacher and staff unions, and other increases related to inflation. Public expenditure on higher education institutions experienced ups and downs from the 1980s to the 2010s, depending on the overall economic
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situation of the country. After the recovery from the 2001 serious downturn of the economy, public expenditure on the public university sector as a percentage of GDP increased from 0.40% in 2004 to 0.85% in 2014 (García de Fanelli 2016). Although undergraduate programs at public universities are tuition-free, public universities diversify their sources of income through contracts with public organizations and private firms, as well as by charging tuition fees for postgraduate and online undergraduate degree courses. In 2013, public universities covered 57% of their operating expenses with these other resources (Ministry of Education 2014). Since 1990, new instruments have been introduced to finance higher education and improve efficiency and equity. In 2003, negotiations between the national government authorities and the council of the public university presidents produced a new formula to finance public universities. Nonetheless, the proportion of the government’s grant allocated via this formula usually represents only around 3% of the total. Also, a small proportion of the total public funds has been allocated to public universities through noncompetitive contracts to meet some specific objectives. In particular, in 2005, the Argentine National Ministry of Education launched an innovative funding instrument called the “University Quality Program.” This program linked the accreditation results of undergraduate institutional programs to public funding. Its principal objective was to address the main weaknesses and necessary corrective measures detected during the mandatory accreditation exercises of professional undergraduate programs that the CONEAU coordinated (García de Fanelli 2012). The federal government also funded students via scholarships in order to improve social inclusion and retention at the undergraduate level in public universities. During the first decade of the 2000s, the government put in place the National Bicentennial Scholarship Program (PNBB). The PNBB grants scholarships to low-income students entering or pursuing a career in the higher education system in any of the following fields of study: applied sciences, natural sciences, and basic sciences, as well as to those advanced undergraduate students currently attending the last 2 years of engineering programs.
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Research activity at public universities is funded through two channels. On the one hand, the federal government grant allocated to public universities includes a small proportion devoted to R&D activities. On the other hand, university faculty can also be part of the CONICET research career and can compete for research grants from the National Ministry of Science and Technology (MINCYT). Between 2010 and 2013, Argentina’s investment in R&D increased from 0.49% to 0.60% of GDP (MINCYT 2015). Private universities’ main source of income comes from tuition fees for undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In 2005, this source covered around 90% of total revenues. The sale of services (training, consulting, and technical assistance services) represented approximately 3%. Other income was derived from corporate donations, foundations and other contributors (4%), and state subsidies for R&D activities (0.5%). The rest (2.5%) corresponded to unspecified income (Del Bello et al. 2007). Note that Argentine private universities do not receive direct state subsidies for teaching activities. However, they can compete for grants from the MINCYT to cover research activities. In addition, as was mentioned above, researchers in the CONICET career can choose a private university as their workplace. State non-university tertiary institutions receive their funding directly from the provincial governments and the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires. The private non-university tertiary institutions are mainly financed through tuition fees, although teacher-training institutions may also receive state contributions. In total, public contributions to the financing of Argentine higher education represented over 1% of GDP in 2014, showing a growth since 2010 (García de Fanelli 2016). While no official figures exist on the share of private investment in higher education, the increase in private enrollment during this period allows us to calculate that this investment has been growing by close to 0.20–0.25% of GDP, according to past estimates by Del Bello et al. (2007).
Contemporary Trends Of the major trends in Argentine higher education during the last decade, let us highlight three topics. First, the national government and the
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universities are increasingly concerned about the low retention and graduation rates at the undergraduate level. Second, CONEAU has been accrediting a growing number of undergraduate programs that are regulated by the state. Finally, international students are increasing their presence at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Low Retention and Graduation Rates A total of 1.9 million students in the undergraduate university sector in 2014 show that Argentine high school graduates value the university degree. However, relatively few ultimately complete their studies, since there were only about 120,000 graduates this same year (Ministry of Education 2014). In order to improve retention and graduation rates, the government has launched scholarship programs that target low-income students and promoted the adoption of tutoring and other practices for the betterment of social inclusion at public universities. Nonetheless, much remains to be done in this area. One important topic is to improve data collection that can measure dropout and graduation rates and study the socioeconomic, demographic, and academic factors associated with these rates. Another concern is to measure the impact of the public polices implemented during the last decade to determine how effective they were at bettering social inclusion in higher education. Moreover, the Ministry of Education is also planning the adoption of some measures to facilitate the transfer and mobility of undergraduate students between programs and institutions to improve the completion rate at undergraduate level. Mandatory Accreditation of Undergraduate Programs As explained above, the 1995 Higher Education Act ensures that any undergraduate program toward professional degrees involving the public interests or possibly affecting the health, security, rights, assets, or education of Argentine citizens has to comply with mandatory accreditation procedures. Accreditation confirms whether a higher education institution has fulfilled the minimum quality standards. The law also promotes the improvement of courses that do not achieve such standards. Institutions seeking national degree
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validation must reapply for accreditation every 6 years. A new resolution offers a 3-year accreditation as long as the institution commits to improving the areas where the evaluation found weaknesses. Should a course be accredited for only 3 years, it must undergo a second cycle of accreditation to demonstrate that it has fulfilled its commitments. To comprehend the likely impact of this policy on the university sector, it is important to notice that students enrolled in undergraduate programs regulated by the state represented almost 60% of the total undergraduate enrollment in 2013 (Ministry of Education 2014). This policy also confronts challenges to manage the accreditation of fields with large enrollments, such as law, medicine, psychology, and public accountancy, and also faces the challenge of avoiding the risks of stifling innovation in professional programs.
Colombian. Faculties with the largest percentage of foreign postgraduate students were dentistry and psychology, with approximately 25% of the enrollment. Although public postgraduate schools charge tuition and fees, they are rather low compared to international standards (UBA 2011). The private university sector also attracts a number of international students. Although undergraduate and postgraduate students at private universities pay tuition and fees, for most international students, the costs of the undergraduate programs are generally lower than in their countries of origin. In brief, improving retention and graduation rates, the quality of professional undergraduate programs, and internationalization create new challenges for the federal government and for public and private higher education institutions as well.
Internationalization During the 2000s, the number of international students attending public and private universities in Argentina increased considerably. The majority came from Latin American countries, especially Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. The bulk of these international students are enrolled at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). The 2011 UBA census counted 10,646 international students in undergraduate programs and 2,165 in postgraduate programs. International students at UBA in 2011 represented 4% of the total undergraduate enrollment, while they made up scarcely 1.2% only 10 years earlier. International students at the UBA undergraduate level were concentrated in the schools of medicine, business and economics, architecture and design, and law (UBA 2011). Note that undergraduate education at Argentine public universities is tuition-free and the majority lead to professional degrees. So, these international students can obtain professional degrees free of cost. In fact, the cost of the studies for these international students is actually lower than for the Argentine students, taking into account that public education is funded by Argentine citizens through their taxes. The rate of international students enrolled at UBA’s postgraduate faculties is also quite significant, numbering 15% of the entire postgraduate student body in 2011. Almost half of the total postgraduate students in this census were
Cross-References ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Latin America ▶ Higher Education Expansion in Latin America ▶ Higher Education Systems, Types of ▶ Latin American University Tradition, The ▶ Public Funding, Latin America
References Cano, Daniel. 1985. La educación superior en Argentina. Caracas: CRESALC-UNESCO. Del Bello, Juan Carlos, Osvaldo Barsky, and Graciela Giménez. 2007. La Universidad Privada Argentina. Buenos Aires: Editorial del Zorzal. Fernández Lamarra, Norberto. 2003. La educación superior argentina en debate. Buenos Aires: EUDEBAIESALC. García de Fanelli, Ana. 2005. Universidad, Organización e Incentivos. Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila-Fundación OSDE. García de Fanelli, Ana. 2007. The challenge of building a research university in middle-income countries: the case of the University of Buenos Aires. In World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America, ed. Philip Altbach and Jorge Balán, 260–285. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. García de Fanelli, Ana. 2012. Acreditación de la calidad y financiamiento: potenciando el cambio universitario vía fondos no competitivos de mejora. Archivos Analíticos de Política Educativa 22: 1–31.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia García de Fanelli, Ana. 2016. Informe Nacional: Argentina. In Educación Superior en Iberoamérica. Informe 2016, ed. José Joaquín Brunner and Daniel Andrés Miranda, 1–56. Santiago: Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo-UNIVERSIA. http://www.cinda.cl/wp-cont ent/uploads/2016/11/ARGENTINA-Informe-Final.pdf. Accessed 17 Nov 2016. Ministry of Education. 2014. Anuario 2013 de Estadísticas Universitarias. Buenos Aires: Ministry of Education. http://portales.educacion.gov.ar/spu/investigacion-y-estad isticas/anuarios. Accessed 15 July 2016. Ministry of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation (MINCYT). 2015. Indicadores de Ciencia y Tecnología Argentina. Buenos Aires: MINCYT. http://www.mincyt.gob.ar/indicadores/indicadores-deciencia-y-tecnologia-argentina-2013-11318/. Accessed 20 Aug 2016. Tedesco, Juan Carlos. 1986. Educación y sociedad en la Argentina (1880–1900). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Solar. Tünnermann Bernheim, Carlos. 2008. Noventa an˜ os de la Reforma Universitaria de Córdoba: 1918–2008. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. UBA. 2011. Censo de Estudiantes: 2011. http://www.uba.ar/ institucional/censos/Estudiantes2011/estudiantes2011. pdf. Accessed 20 July 2016.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia Peter James Bentley1 and Conor King2 1 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia 2 Innovative Research Universities, Melbourne, Australia
Higher education is a major contributor to Australian society that over the past two decades has grown to become one of the most important service sectors in the national economy. The higher education sector now comprises more than 160 institutions, employs more than 100,000 staff, and teaches more than one million students each year. Built on an enormous growth in international students, educational services are now Australia’s third largest export industry worth A$22 billion in 2016 (Australian Government 2017b). Despite concerns about declining value of per student public funding, increased managerial control over university decision-making, and a growing cohort of insecurely employed academic staff, by international
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standards, Australian higher education is performing well. With around 0.3% of the world’s population and 1.6% of the world’s GDP, Australia was responsible for roughly 4% of the total scientific output in the Web of Science in 2016. Australia has one of the most highly educated workforces in the world with 32% of the working age population holding a tertiary qualification (OECD 2017, p. 52). Over the past two decades, Australia has achieved mass higher education participation and increased research productivity while maintaining high standards of quality, strong graduate employment, and high student satisfaction. The Australian university workforce is increasingly well credentialed, among the best remunerated in the world. The core challenges lie with the declining public funding of teaching (per student basis) and research (on a full cost recovery basis), leading to a growing dependence on international student fee revenue (particularly from China) and external financiers to support ongoing functions. This dependency has led to concerns about the longterm financial sustainability of the sector and autonomy of Australian universities.
Higher Education System Development Australia’s first universities were established during the British colonial period in Sydney (in 1850) and Melbourne (in 1853), followed soon after in Adelaide (in 1874) and Hobart (the University of Tasmania in 1890). Following the establishment of Australia as an independent country in 1901 (“Federation”), universities were established in Brisbane (in 1909) and Perth (in 1911), both bearing their new state names (the University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia). In the first half of the twentieth century, Australian universities were focused on training and education for a relatively small share of the population. By 1949, Australia’s seven universities (now including the Australian National University in Canberra) enrolled 32,000 students from a population of eight million (DETYA 2001). Research and research training was still in its infancy, with the first Australian PhD awarded in 1948 at the University of Melbourne (Dobson 2012).
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The number of universities and students increased steadily in the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of universities in regional and suburban centers and teaching-focused colleges of advanced education (CAEs). The CAEs focused on professionally and vocationally oriented education (e.g., teacher training, nursing, accountancy) and were part of a binary system of higher education. By 1975, there were 276,000 students which roughly have enrolled in the 19 universities (DETYA 2001, p. 5). Following the Labor Government’s abolition of tuition fees in 1974, student enrollments grew relatively slowly (2–3%) over the next decade. Few new universities were established until the late 1980s. The 1989 “Dawkins reforms” ended the binary system, with CAEs upgraded or merged into universities, eventually doubling the number of universities to 39 with enrollments reaching 604,000 by 1995 (DETYA 2001, p. 5). The past two decades have seen a dramatic expansion in the number of students, more than doubling from 634,000 in 1996 to 1,457,000 in 2016 (Australian Government 2018c; DETYA 2001). This expansion has mostly occurred by existing universities expanding. As of 2018, Australia has 37 public system universities, 3 private universities, 1 specialist private university, and 2 overseas universities (TEQSA 2018). Universities Australia is the peak body representing 39 of the 40 Australian universities (Torrens University excepted). Most also belong to associations, representing universities of similar backgrounds. The eight most research-intensive universities are part of the Group of Eight (similar to the Russell Group in the UK), the Australian Technology Network represents five universities of technology, the Innovative Research Universities includes seven research-intensive universities founded since the 1960s, and the Regional University Network includes six universities. Australian higher education also includes 125 nonuniversity higher education providers (TEQSA 2018). These institutions are part of the higher education sector, but enroll relatively few students (7% in 2016), have limited autonomy to grant degrees, and generally do not engage in research (Australian Government 2018c). The number of nonuniversity higher education providers has declined from around 145 in the mid-
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Table 1 Australian higher education providers by type, 2006 and 2016
Institutions Universities Specialized universities Private universities Overseas universities Nonuniversity higher education providers Total
2006 # %
2016 # %
37 0
20% 0%
37 1
22% 1%
2 1 145
1% 1% 78%
3 2 125
2% 1% 74%
185
100%
168
100%
Source: TEQSA (2018) and Jones and Ryan (2008)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Table 2 Australian higher education students by course level, 2006 and 2016
Non-award/ sub-bachelor Undergraduate Postgraduate coursework Postgraduate research Total
2006 # 23,832
2016 # 62,779
% 6%
524,409 76% 109,452 16%
731,923 194,745
71% 19%
34,234
45,468
4%
% 3%
5%
691,927 100% 1,034,915 100%
Source: Australian Government (2018c)
2000s to 125 today (Jones and Ryan 2008). Additionally, there are around 4,600 accredited Australian training providers enrolling almost four million students, mostly in sub-bachelor, diploma, and certificate courses (Schubert et al. 2016). These institutions are part of the vocational education and training (VET) sector. The VET sector is part of the broader “tertiary” sector, but outside higher education which is generally restricted to bachelor and higher level course providers. The number of Australian higher education providers by type in 2006 and 2016 is shown in Table 1 and the number of students by course level in Table 2. The two main impetuses for the growth in higher education students have been the steady increase in international students and the phasing in of demand-driven funding for domestic undergraduate places in 2009 (with full implementation since 2012). The introduction of the demanddriven system removed caps on publicly funded
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domestic undergraduate places. The number of domestic undergraduate students increased steadily by 33% from 2009 to 2016, with some universities more than doubling their domestic enrollments. International students increased from 53,000 in 1996 to 392,000 in 2016 (Australian Government 2018c; DETYA 2001). More than one quarter of all university students are now international (27%), compared to 8% in 1996. Across the entire tertiary sector (including VET sector), Australia ranks 5th in the OECD for the proportion of international students and 3rd in the total number of international students (OECD 2017, p. 300). Australia also has one of the highest proportions of international PhD candidates (OECD 2016). In 2016, 34% of PhD enrollments and 39% of the PhD completions were international (Australian Government 2018c). While domestic research higher degree completions increased by 43% from 2001 to 2016 (including a small number of research master degrees), international completions tripled over the same period. Similar to the UK, Australian PhD training has traditionally been based on an “apprenticeship model” of supervised independent research with minimal coursework, following a 1-year specialized “honors” degree. Until recently, most PhDs expected to pursue academic careers, but the number of new academic positions has not kept pace with the growth in PhD completions (Group of Eight 2013). This has underpinned increasing calls for broader generic skills development, coursework, and industry relevance in PhD training (Bentley and Meek 2018; McGagh et al. 2016). Concerns that expansion in higher education participation may lead to a lowering of standards of admission, student experience, or graduate outcomes led to the creation of a national regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). Most of the data available suggests that Australia’s higher education system continues to perform well. The Australian Government funds a range of data collections on student experience, graduate outcomes, and employer satisfaction, published on the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) website (www.qilt.edu.au). The data is primarily for informational purposes. No public funding is attached to the indicators, but indirectly they shape internal discussions and
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external advocacy (including justification of public funding). In 2017, 79% of current students and 79% of recent graduates were satisfied with their educational experiences (QILT 2018c). This continues a long-term trend toward improved student experiences (Norton and Cakitaki 2016, pp. 76-77). Graduate employment outcomes also remain strong by international standards. In 2017, 72% of recent undergraduates were in full-time employment 4 months after completing their degree, with a median annual salary of $60,000 (~$45,000 USD) (QILT 2018b). Graduate full-time employment rates remain below pre-2008 levels (85%) but have improved in recent years. The vast majority (84%) of employer supervisors of recent graduates are also satisfied with their graduate (QILT 2018a), suggesting universities are preparing graduates effectively for employment. Not all of the student experiences are attributable to the actions of universities, and Australia has experienced a long period of sustained economic growth which has undoubtedly influenced graduate satisfaction and outcomes, but student and graduate indicators show few reasons for concern.
Higher Education Governance Australian universities are established as independent organizations, mostly under state and territory government laws. Since the 1960s the Australian (“Commonwealth”) Government has been the primary public funder and uses its funding powers for quality assurance and accreditation purposes (Norton and Cakitaki 2016, p. 54). Universities must report to their respective state or territory government but are regulated primarily by the Commonwealth Government. “University” is a restricted title under the (Commonwealth) Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards), administered by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). These standards cover student admission policies, teaching facilities, course design and staffing, research and research training, institutional quality assurance, and corporate/ academic self-governance. The dual institutional mission of teaching and research is a defining characteristic of Australian universities. Universities need to be active across at least three fields of
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research (specialized universities can be active in only one or two fields), and teaching must be informed by scholarship. Teaching staff must hold qualifications at least one level higher than what they teach (e.g., PhD is required to teach master students). While these legislative requirements help underpin strong confidence and understanding of universities, it may restrict potential for diversity. All universities are doctoral granting, and most are comprehensive. There are no universities of applied science (or equivalent) in the unified higher education sector, and no full Australian university has been created since 2000. Australian universities are self-governing communities, with governance structures defined in their establishment legislation. The structures differ, but there are three basic pillars forming a tripartite structure: corporate (setting strategic objectives), academic (setting/monitoring academic objectives), and executive governance (implementing corporate and academic objectives). These are set out diagrammatically in Figure 1. The vice-chancellor is the principal officer responsible for executive governance and management. The university council is the peak body responsible for corporate governance and is chaired by the chancellor. The council is supported by the academic board (or academic senate), which is responsible for monitoring academic activities. The board is usually chaired by an elected representative and, with support from subcommittees, provides advice to the council. The council appoints the vice-chancellor, who in turn appoints deputies, senior executives, and managers, including deans and heads of schools/ departments (TEQSA 2014). The size and composition of the governing council vary, but most Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Fig. 1 Australian universities’ typical tripartite governance structure. (Adapted from Shattock 2012)
universities have 16–17 members with typical membership comprising three official members (e.g., the vice-chancellor, chancellor, and president/chair of the academic board), four government-appointed members, five governing body-appointed members, two academic staff, one professional staff member, one student, and one alumnus (Chan 2018). The council has the power to dismiss the vice-chancellor for misconduct. It is rarely enacted, but some vicechancellors have resigned under pressure from the council, including at the Monash University (in 2002) and Murdoch University (in 2015). Self-governance and self-accreditation distinguish universities from other public nonuniversity higher education providers. Universities can develop and award their own degree programs up to a doctoral level with internal approval from their academic boards. Nonuniversity higher education providers must seek accreditation from TEQSA for each degree program (this includes 113 of the 125 providers) or are self-accrediting for only a limited number of courses (12 of 125). Universities own and control their assets and employ staff on enterprise-level agreements. This differs from other publicly owned and vocationally oriented institutions whose governance structures are more typical of state government departments rather than independent entities (Schubert et al. 2016, pp. 22–23). The formal university governance structures have remained stable over the past two decades, but the internal dynamics of Australian universities have shifted in ways which have weakened collegial decision-making and academic autonomy. In Marginson and Considine’s (2000) study of 17 Australian higher education institutions,
Lead: Chancellor
Lead: Vice-Chancellor
Lead: Elected Chair
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia
university leaders “without exception” saw collegial decision-making as an obstacle to managerial rationalities (p. 20). The university mergers of the late 1980s and early 1990s created relatively large multicampus universities at a time when universities faced greater dependence on private funding for teaching and external competitive funding for research. The increasing complexity of the resource environment helped legitimize the centralization of authority, executive style of leadership, and broadly greater managerial authority over decision-making (criticized by the academic community as “managerialism”) (Rowlands 2016, p. 14). Universities developed more corporatized structures capable of quickly responding to their environment and engage in “academic capitalism” (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). This facilitated supplementing public funds with feepaying international students, particularly in applied disciplines. University leaders implemented their executive agenda by devolving budgetary responsibilities to deans and heads of departments, while retaining a tight and centralized framework of plans and performance targets (Marginson and Considine 2000). The implementation of management practices by appointed deans continues to involve a complex balance between collegial and managerial norms, of which neither appears to have gained permanent ascendency (Meek et al. 2010, p. 51). Academic freedom remains a core value of most academics and retains legal protections in Australian universities (Bexley et al. 2011; Norton and Cakitaki 2016, pp. 16–17). The Higher Education Support Act 2003 requires universities receiving Commonwealth funding to implement policies upholding free intellectual inquiry in relation to learning, teaching, and research. Protection of free intellectual inquiry is a requirement for registration under the laws administered by TEQSA. Enterprise-level employment contracts also contain clauses limiting the discretion of university managers, financiers, or government to circumvent academic freedom (Stobbs 2015). Typically these clauses allow academics to express unpopular or controversial views, so long as they do not harass, vilify, or engage in misconduct. For example, the University of Melbourne protects academics “to engage in critical
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inquiry, intellectual discourse and public controversy without fear or favour, but does not include the right to harass, intimidate or vilify” (the University of Melbourne 2013, p. 12). Such freedoms are closely guarded by the academic community. The definitional boundaries of protected academic freedom remain contested. The explicit exclusion of harassment and vilification from protected academic freedom has led to concerns of (self)censorship within universities, based on fear of offending staff and students when raising unpopular views (Furedi et al. 2018; Lesh 2016). While academics have reasonably strong formal protections of academic freedom, in practice these are restricted to the declining share of academics in secure contracts of employment. Academics in insecure employment may have contracts renewed (or not) at the discretion of senior academics or management. This offers practically no recourse to academic freedom protections when discussing controversial issues within their area of expertise. Academic autonomy and the university governance structure are important protectors against external influence, but maintaining research and teaching integrity will likely continue to be an important challenge for university governance as universities draw an increasing share of revenue from external sources.
Higher Education Funding Australian universities are funded primarily through a combination of Australian Government grants for teaching domestic undergraduate students and conducting research and private revenue from student tuition fees. Funding has followed two distinct phases. Up until the late 1980s, universities received most of their funding from state governments (until around 1960) or the Australian Government (from 1960s onwards) (Norton and Cakitaki 2016, p. 54). Since then, the share of private revenue has steadily increased. In 2016, around 41% of revenue was from public sources (Australian Government 2017a), placing Australia 6th lowest in the OECD for the share of public funding (OECD 2017, p. 189). This represents a steady decline since 2006 when
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public revenue was 45% of the total. The declining share of public funds is attributable to rises in domestic tuition fees, growth in international students, and declines in the value of public funding per domestic student taught. Despite Australian universities drawing a relatively low proportion of revenue from public sources, they remain heavily reliant on governmental funding. Firstly, total public funding increased from $7.2 billion in 2006 to $12.3 billion in 2016, primarily due to growth in domestic students. Secondly, tuition fees for domestic students may be deferred with an income-contingent loan from the Australian Government (the Higher Education Loan Program or HELP). The Australian Government pays the fees to universities on behalf of the students and recovers the debt via the taxation system on incomes above $57,000 (in 2018). If students do not repay the HELP debt to government, it is effectively public funding for universities. HELP debt increased from 13% of total university income in 2006 to 18% in 2016. HELP now represents just under one third (30%) of Australian university private revenue, with the remaining 48% from direct tuition fees and 23% from other income (Australian Government 2017a). HELP debt is indexed to inflation (providing an interest rate subsidy), with around 20% of HELP debt not repaid to government (Norton 2016). Taking this into account, the share of public revenue is closer to 45%, and, in terms of cash flow (treating HELP as public sourced funding), 58% of funding is from public sources (Australian Government 2017a). Australian university revenue in 2006 and 2016 by source is shown in Table 3. The attractiveness of international student revenue is that Australian universities are able to
determine the tuition fees and number of students to enroll. Australian domestic undergraduate students also pay tuition fees, but at a maximum level set by government. Maximum tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students differ by discipline groups (or “bands”) based loosely on perceived costs of teaching and earnings of graduates within the disciplines. In 2017, fees were capped at $6,300 per year in low-fee disciplines (e.g., humanities), $9,000 in mid-fee disciplines (e.g., engineering), and $10,600 in high-fee disciplines (e.g., law, commerce, and medicine) (Australian Government 2018b). Over the past two decades, maximum tuition fees increased 89% across bands or roughly 3.5% per year (Australian Government 2003). Up until 2009, the government capped the number of domestic places. This limited the total government spending on higher education and the risks of unpaid HELP debt. The removal of the cap on places allowed universities to decide the number of domestic undergraduate enrollments, receiving the full subsidy and tuition payments (up to the maximum level set by government). While this represented an improvement in access to higher education, concerns from the Liberal-National Coalition (conservative) Government over the cost of the demand-driven system led to a freeze on government funding for teaching (set to 2017 levels). This did not restrict the number of domestic undergraduate students, but most universities will not receive additional public funding for teaching more students (other than the tuition fee component). The impact of this policy change is yet to be determined, but it may lead to a reduction in admissions in courses deemed high cost to universities (e.g., nursing or courses offered at regional campuses). The opposition Labor Party
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Table 3 Australian university revenue by source, 2006 and 2016
Public – Government grants Private – Higher Education Loans Program Private – Domestic student fees and charges Private – Overseas student fees Private – Other income Total Source: Australian Government (2016)
2006 # $7,169 M $2,123 M $1,579 M $2,375 M $2,665 M $15,912 M
% 45% 13% 10% 15% 17% 100%
2016 # $12,298 M $5,287 M $2,251 M $6,249 M $4,048 M $30,133 M
% 41% 18% 7% 21% 13% 100%
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia
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has committed to removing the freeze should they win the next election. Universities finance their research through a combination of research block grants from the Australian Government, competitive grants from the two national research councils, and contract research income from industry and government sources. Over the past decade, total research funding and income increased 62% from $3.3 billion in 2006 to $5.3 billion in 2016. Most of this increase has been due to greater research contract income, increasing from $1.3 billion to $2.2 billion, and competitive grants from $960 million to $1.5 billion. These two sources represent “directed” funding. They are earmarked for specific people and projects. “Open” sources, where universities have full autonomy in how resources are expended (e.g., the research block grant components historically supporting the Research Training Scheme, Joint Research Engagement, and Institutional Grants Scheme), have increased at a much slower rate, increasing from $860 million to $1.0 billion from 2006 to 2016. Other “mixed” sources (e.g., block grant supporting infrastructure) have increased from $200 million to $450 million over this period. University research funding by source for 2006 and 2016 is shown in Table 4. Universities also draw on a portion of their teaching and other funds to support research. The surplus from international student revenue is particularly important for university-driven investment into research because of the limited growth in open sources of research funding. The dual funding system of open block grants that universities direct to best outcomes and directed competitive grants for projects has helped target resources to highly productive researchers and incentivized research behaviors (Innovative Research Universities 2018). However, its effectiveness in
funding breakthrough research and efficiency in allocating resources is facing strains. Success rates for many nationally competitive grants which support curiosity-driven research and allocated on a research excellence basis are now below 20%. Public investment in basic research has also declined by 25% between 2012–2013 and 2016–2017 and as a share of total research expenditure has dropped to 41% (ABS 2018, cited in Group of Eight 2018). The shift in balance toward applied research is unlikely to have immediate consequences, but curiosity-driven “basic” research has underpinned many of Australia’s important technological breakthroughs and university reputation in global rankings, which feed in to international student demand.
University Staff Australian universities employ staff on enterpriselevel agreements, generally with academic and nonacademic (“professional”) staff sharing similar basic conditions but with separate clauses and salary scales specific to their roles. Australian university vice-chancellors and other senior management are typically hired on individual contracts. Enterprise agreements are negotiated with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and underpinned by sectoral-based minimum standards set out in “awards.” There are five levels of academic employment, ranging from associate lecturer (Level A) to professor (Level E) at the top. Academics in noncasual contracts may apply for internal promotion. Professional staff have a separate classification system with more levels and no access to internal promotion. In 2016, there were 127,000 university full-time equivalent employees in Australian universities,
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Table 4 Australian university research funding by source, 2006 and 2016
Competitive grants (directed) Research contracts (directed) Government research block grants (mixed) Government research block grants (open) Total Source: Australian Government (2018d)
2006 $ $957 M $1,251 M $200 M $859 M $3,266 M
% 29% 38% 6% 26% 100%
2016 $ $1,549 M $2,237 M $454 M $1,049 M $5289 M
% 29% 42% 9% 20% 100%
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including 68,000 professional staff and 58,000 academic staff (Australian Government 2018a). Academics have traditionally been employed in ongoing teaching and research roles (T&R), but most of the growth in the past two decades is in casual (hourly based contract) teaching only (TO) and limited-term contract research-only roles, concentrated in the bottom two academic ranks. Close to half of all teaching is completed by staff with no paid research time (Andrews et al. 2016). A growing set of the professional roles actively support teaching and employ people with academic level qualifications such as a PhD. Internal promotion of ongoing staff has contributed to a 54% increase in associate professor and full professor positions since 2006. Other academic positions increased 29% over the same period and professional staff by 31%. The number of full-time equivalent positions at Australian universities by academic duties classification in 2006 and 2016 is shown in Table 5. Australia’s higher education workforce is well remunerated by international standards, with relatively similar conditions across the sector for comparable ranks. Across the seven Victorian-based universities in 2017, base academic salaries for a Level E professor in enterprise agreements ranged from $188,000 at the University of Melbourne (~$140,000 USD) to $169,000 at Victoria University. Minimum salaries for PhD holders ranged from $87,000 (~$65,000 USD) to $79,000. Total expenditure on staff salaries and benefits has increased at a far greater rate than FTE employment Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Australia, Table 5 Full-time equivalent positions at Australian universities by academic duties classification, 2006 and 2016
Associate and full professors Senior lecturer Lecturer Assistant lecturer Professional (nonacademic) staff Total
2006 # 8,642
% 9%
2016 # 13,294
% 10%
8,751 13,560 12,713
9% 14% 13%
10,677 17,046 17,320
8% 13% 14%
52,087
54%
68,380
54%
95,753
100%
126,717
100%
Source: Australian Government (2018a)
or student growth. Over the 2006 to 2016 period, expenditure on academics increased by 87% from $4.6 billion to $8.6 billion and professional staff expenditure by 94% from $4.0 billion to $7.7 billion (Australian Government 2016). Academic internal promotion and the NTEU’s success in maintaining steady annual salary increases across the sector (partly reflecting the productivity increases) have likely contributed to this growth. Australian university vice-chancellors and other senior management are hired on individual contracts and are also well remunerated. In 2016, vice-chancellor salary packages ranged from $500,000 at Southern Cross University to $1.4 million at the University of Sydney (~$1.1m USD), with an average of $900,000 (Hare 2017). With professors earning more than double entrylevel salaries, and vice-chancellors earning roughly 13 times entry-level salaries, Australian universities are becoming increasingly unequal institutions.
Future Directions in Australian Higher Education The challenges facing Australia’s universities over the coming decade center around two issues, how universities fit within a post-school education system that increasingly expects each person to acquire one or more qualifications and the impact of digital technologies on the delivery of higher education and its potential to create serious alternatives for the universities. The 2009 Review of Higher Education (Bradley Review) positioned its recommendations as part of a longer-term move to consider all post-school education as a coherent tertiary system. This aspect of the report was largely ignored in the decade following. The question has regained currency due to significant problems in the delivery of vocational education, in part driven through the over rigorous application of market-based mechanisms. Higher education is no longer a rare option but the most common outcome for young people completing secondary education. Together with vocational education, over 50% of 18–20-yearold school leavers progress to tertiary education (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018), with most
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of the rest likely to do so in the following decades of their lives. This raises questions about how that array of vocational and higher education options work together and the government’s role to fund and regulate it to create effective options for the whole cohort. In a system where the universities remain the better funded institutions, they will face considerable pressure to retain the same level of funding. The second issue goes to how higher education continues to develop. Universities are alert to the opportunities but also threats from digital delivery. Classroom practice has changed considerably in response, with delivery in classroom and by distance converging. There is pressure on the traditional degrees from micro-credentials and growing number of providers offering such programs. It is reasonable to argue that the bachelor and doctorate will remain dominated by the universities but that other qualifications will increasingly be available through a range of institutions and organizations, making for a more complex higher education landscape.
References Andrews, S., L. Bare, P.J. Bentley, L. Goedegebuure, C. Pugsley, and B. Rance. 2016. Contingent academic employment in Australian universities. Melbourne: LH Martin Institute and AHEIA. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2018. Census of population and housing. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2003. The higher education contribution scheme. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2016. Finance 2016: Financial reports of higher education providers. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2017a. 2016 Finance publication and tables. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2017b. Australia’s export performance in 2016. Retrieved from https://www.austrade. gov.au/News/Economic-analysis/australias-export-per formance-in-2016. Australian Government. 2018a. Staff: Selected higher education statistics. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2018b. Student contribution amounts. Retrieved from https://www.studyassist. gov.au/help-loans-and-csps-commonwealth-supportedplaces/student-contribution-amounts. Australian Government. 2018c. Students: Selected higher education statistics. Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Government. 2018d. Research block grants. Retrieved from https://www.education.gov.au/consoli dated-time-series-data.
819 Bentley, P.J., & Meek, V.L. 2018. Development and future directions of higher degree research training in Australia. In J.C. Shin, K. B. M., & J. G. A. (Eds.), Doctoral education for the knowledge society: Convergence or divergence in national approaches? (Forthcoming). Dordrecht: Springer. https://www. springer.com/us/book/9783319897127. Bexley, E., R. James, and S. Arkoudis. 2011. The Australian academic profession in transition: Addressing the challenge of reconceptualising academic work and regenerating the academic workforce. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Chan, E. 2018. Legislative Changes Affecting the Governance of Australian Universities. Parramatta: University Chancellors Council. DETYA. 2001. Higher education students time series tables selected higher education statistics 2000. Retrieved from Canberra: https://docs.education.gov. au/node/35519. Dobson, I.R. 2012. PhDs in Australia, from the beginning. Australian Universities’ Review 54 (1): 94–101. Furedi, F., M. Johnson, and S. Schwartz. 2018. What’s happened to the University? Sydney: The Centre for Independent Studies. Group of Eight. 2013. The changing PhD, discussion Paper, March 2013. Retrieved from Turner: https:// go8.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/the-changing-phd_ final.pdf. Group of Eight. 2018. Group of eight (Go8) submission to house of representatives standing committee on employment, education and training inquiry into funding Australia’s research. Canberra: Go8. Hare, J. 2017. Uni vice-chancellors average salary package hits $890,000. The Australian. Retrieved from https:// www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/uni-vice chancellors-average-salary-package-hits-890000/newsstory/f01aaa072fe5a7ceaa0c2d8154f282fb. Innovative Research Universities. 2018. IRU submission – Inquiry into funding Australia’s research. Melbourne: IRU. Jones, G., and P. Ryan. 2008. The establishment of a nonuniversity higher education institution: A reflection on the marketplace and the experience. New Zealand: Promaco Conventions Pty Ltd. Lesh, M. 2016. Free speech on campus audit 2016: The state of intellectual debate at Australian universities. Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs. Marginson, S., and M. Considine. 2000. The enterprise university: Power, governance and reinvention in Australia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McGagh, J., H. Marsh, M. Western, P. Thomas, A. Hastings, M. Mihailova, and M. Wenham. 2016. Review of Australia’s research training system. Report for the Australian council of learned academies. Retrieved from Melbourne: https://acola.org.au/wp/ PDF/SAF13/SAF13%20RTS%20report.pdf Meek, V.L., L. Goedegebuure, and H. De Boer. 2010. The changing role of academic leadership in Australia and the Netherlands: Who is the modern dean? In The changing dynamics of higher education middle management, ed. V.L. Meek, L. Goedegebuure,
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820 R. Santiago, and T. Carvalho, 31–54. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. Norton, A., & Cakitaki, B. (2016). Mapping Australian higher education 2016. Retrieved from Melbourne: https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/875Mapping-Australian-Higher-Education-2016.pdf. OECD. 2016. The internationalisation of doctoral and master’s studies. Paris: OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/ 5jm2f77d5wkg-en. OECD. 2017. Education at a glance 2017. Paris: OECD. QILT. 2018a. 2017 Employer satisfaction survey national report. Melbourne: The Social Research Centre. QILT. 2018b. 2017 Graduate outcomes survey national report. Melbourne: The Social Research Centre. QILT. 2018c. 2017 Student experience survey national report. Melbourne: The Social Research Centre. Rowlands, J. 2016. Academic governance in the contemporary university: Perspectives from anglophone nations. Singapore: Springer. Schubert, R., Bentley, P.J., & Goedegebuure, L. (2016). Profiling institutional diversity across the australian VET sector. Retrieved from Melbourne: https://mel bourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/ 2564220/lhmi-vet-sector-diversity-briefing-web.pdf. Shattock, M. 2012. University governance. Perspectives: Policy and practice in higher education 16 (2): 56–61. Slaughter, S., and L.L. Leslie. 1997. Academic capitalism: politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Stobbs, N. 2015. Academic freedom and university autonomy. In Higher education and the law, ed. S. Varnham, P. Kamvounias, and J. Squelch. Sydney: The Federation Press. TEQSA. 2014. TEQSA guidance note: Academic governance (Draft). Retrieved from Canberra: https://www. teqsa.gov.au/sites/g/files/net2046/f/guidance-note-aca demic-governance-2-3.pdf?v=1507781862. TEQSA. 2018. National register. Retrieved from Canberra https://www.teqsa.gov.au/national-register. The University of Melbourne. 2013. The University of Melbourne Enterprise Agreement 2013, Melbourne: The University of Melbourne.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Austria Hans Pechar and Elke Park Institute for Science Communication and Higher Education Research, University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria
Higher Education Systems Development Austria is located in the center of Europe and has a population of eight million. It has a federal political structure consisting of nine provinces and a
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federal government. Austria is among the richest OECD countries measured by GDP per capita (€ 39,390 in 2015). Within the EU it has one of the lowest unemployment rates. In 2015, general unemployment was 5.6% and youth unemployment was 10.6%. Responsibility for education is shared among the federal, provincial, and municipal levels. For the most part, higher education (HE) is a federal matter; for the nonuniversity sector, the provinces, and in some cases municipalities, play supplementary roles. The higher education (HE) system consists of 22 public universities (15 research universities, 6 universities of the arts, and 1 university of continuing education), 21 universities of applied sciences (UAS), 17 University Colleges for Teacher Training (UCTT), and 12 private universities. The former medical faculties of the Universities of Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck became special medical universities in 2004. Classification of public and private institutions is tricky. By legal definition, UAS are private; however, the boards of these institutions are dominated by representatives of the provinces and municipalities, and funding is almost entirely public. The same holds true for some private universities. Six out of the 17 UCTT are maintained by religious communities. History The University of Vienna (established in 1365) was the second university in the “Holy Roman Empire” and the first in the German speaking world. In the course of the counterreformation, the Habsburg regime placed the religious order of the Jesuits in charge of universities. By adhering to the order’s curriculum, Austrian universities were cut off from the scientific revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. While enlightened absolutism under Joseph II ended the Jesuit reign, it was not until after the revolution of 1848 that HE was reshaped in line with the neo-humanist principles that had evolved in Prussia three decades earlier. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Austrian universities quickly caught up with the standards of German research universities and at the turn of the century, some were among the top tier institutions of that era. During the same
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Austria, Table 1 Enrollment and graduates at Austrian HE institutions (2015) Public universities Private universities Universities of applied sciences Teacher training colleges Total
Students 277,508 8,777 45,660 15,356 347,301
Share of sector (%) 80 3 13 4 100
Graduates 34,300 1,472 12,721 3,788 52,281
Share of sector (%) 66 3 24 7 100
Source: BMWFW (2015)
time, however, universities became a stronghold of nationalism and anti-Semitism. The successive Austrofascist and Nazi regimes provoked severe and long-lasting damage to HE and Austria lost most of its intellectual elite. After World War II, Austria was not, like Germany, subject to “re-education programs” by the (western) Allied Forces (USA, France, Great Britain). Reconstruction of HE after 1945 was merely the restoration of prewar institutions and structures. Austria did not make any serious efforts to repatriate the many exiled academics and up until the late 1960s, the generation that started their careers during the Austrofascist regime dominated academic life in the postwar years. The 1960s were a turning point in education policy. This decade was the “take-off” period of educational expansion and the commencement of an ongoing reform process. One can distinguish two reform cycles that strongly differed with respect to their underlying policy paradigms. The first reform cycle had its peak in the mid1970s and can be characterized as an inclusion of HE under the umbrella of welfare state policies. The second reform cycle, starting in the 1990s, focused on diversification and deregulation of HE. In both cycles, governance was a main reform issue. A Statistical Overview Austrian HE has a relatively homogeneous structure. Austria was a latecomer regarding the establishment of a nonuniversity sector, with the advent of the UAS in 1993 and comprehensive teacher training at tertiary level in 2000. Private universities were legalized in 1999. Today, 80% of tertiary students are enrolled at public research universities. Due to the longer duration of studies and a high attrition rate at public universities, the
proportion of graduates who graduate from nonuniversity institutions is significantly higher (see Table 1). According to OECD indicators (OECD 2016, 68) Austria had an age specific tertiary graduation rate of 44% in 2014 (excluding international students). Before reforms in the OECD classification scheme, Austria had one of the lowest tertiary graduation rates in the OECD. The new classification scheme (ISCED 2011, see UNESCO 2012) includes graduates from various vocational tracks (“higher vocational schools” and advanced credentials from apprenticeship training) in the tertiary graduation rate. However, none of these institutions are regarded as part of the HE system in Austria. Focusing on academic degrees in a strict sense, the first-time graduation rate at the Bachelor level is 21% and at Master’s level 18% (due to the late implementation of Bachelor studies, the Master is still the first degree for many students).
Governance In the early 2000s, the Austrian system of university governance underwent far-reaching transformations. The Universities Act of 2002 represented a radical shift towards a new model of university governance based on the ideas of a more managerial, corporate-style approach (e.g., New Public Management). Transformed from state agencies that were micro-managed more or less directly by the federal ministry, universities now act as autonomous legal entities under public law. As such, they negotiate performance agreements with the government/ministry. Generally, executive decision-making structures have been strengthened at the expense of traditional
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academic self-governance and decision-making in collegial bodies. Regarding “external” governance, the relationship between universities and the federal government centers around the negotiation of performance agreements as the ministry’s main steering instrument. Concluded for a period of 3 years, these public contracts outline specific goals and objectives to be met by the university in the areas of personnel, research, and teaching. The budget is determined on this basis. Every year, universities have to report to the government on the state of implementation. If the targets agreed upon in performance agreements are not met, “adequate corrections and consequences” are to be discussed in the following cycle of negotiations. Sanctions per se are not foreseen in the evaluation process. Basic funding is allocated to universities as an outcome of negotiations with the ministry in the form of a lump-sum budget. Universities are free to dispose of these funds but are held accountable to fulfilling the objectives agreed-upon in the performance agreements. In addition, a portion of the country’s HE budget is reserved for competitive or indicator-based distribution among all 22 Austrian universities. The indicators taken into account include enrolled students who are actively pursuing a degree, graduation rates, PhD programs, and cooperation initiatives. In principle, governmental steering of universities occurs via “management by objectives” (Drucker 1954), rather than directly. In practice, however, the Austrian federal government retains a strong strategic and operative influence on the development of the HE and university sector. Also, this influence is in place because selfregulation and differentiation through competition or cooperation among universities has not occurred as a corollary of the recent governance reforms (see also de Boer et al. 2015, 41). As “autonomous” actors, Austrian universities have not yet turned towards each other in a competitive market environment; rather, they remain fixed in a dialogue of a more or less dependent relationship with the state. The Universities Act of 2002 also had a profound effect on the internal governance of universities. A governing board composed of
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external experts now supervises and controls the institution. Its members are appointed both by the senate and the federal government. The Rector is no longer elected by his peers but appointed by the governing board which selects from a shortlist of three candidates proposed by the senate. This pattern is repeated throughout the organizational structure or hierarchy of Austrian universities: first, in the (s)election of the Rector, described above; second, in the (s)election of deans, where the faculty nominates three candidates for the rector from which to choose and, finally, at the individual level of professors, where hiring commissions also prepare a list of three and the rector decides on this basis. The Rector acts as the executive manager of the “corporate” university. He or she appoints a team of vice-rectors together forming the rectorate as a decision-making entity. Also the position of deans as the heads of faculties and departments has been strengthened. The formerly powerful senates are – with the exception of the aforementioned responsibilities – now reduced to mostly curricular matters. Academic self-governance has been starkly curtailed in this last reform cycle. In the 2010 EuroAc survey, Austria was among the countries that scored highest when asked about the existence of top down management at their institution and – conversely – lowest on the perceived role and influence of collegiality and academic self-governance (see Park 2013). UASs, which still form a rather new and small segment of the Austrian HE landscape, follow a completely different governance regime than universities. Initially, the organizational structure of Austrian UASs centered around “study programs.” It was up to a “provider,” a public – for example, local or regional – or private entity, to apply for accreditation of a specific “study program.” If accredited, the federal government funded up to 90% of the operating costs of the program (“norm-costs,” referring mostly to personnel), while the provider was required to cover the infrastructure (e.g., buildings). As of 2012, the Austrian Quality Assurance Agency is responsible for the accreditation of study programs and of newly established UASs as institutions per se.
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Austrian UASs operate as private limited companies. Hence, while internal governance mechanisms at UAS generally differ vastly, in some cases a rift can be observed between the executive director (mostly appointed by the owners or providers) who is responsible for the business aspect of the operation and a newly instituted “academic leadership” in the form of an elected head of a collegial body composed of heads of study programs, teaching staff, and students.
Finance/Funding Systems Funding of HE is almost entirely public. Tuition fees were abolished in 1970, but were reintroduced in 2001, and again abolished in 2006. Presently, tuition (726 €/year) is charged only from students who exceed the regular length of studies by 2 years or more. Funding has been a controversial issue since the 1980s. During the 1970s, public funding for universities largely kept pace with the growth in student numbers. Starting in the mid-1980s, the political priority of fiscal consolidation set limits on HE expenditures. Over the years, the gap between public funds for HE and student enrollment at universities increased. Accordingly, the tensions between universities and the government about funding intensified. Although it is impossible to agree on levels of appropriate funding, indicators can be identified that signal quality problems in teaching and research. The policy debate in Austria has focused mainly on the deterioration of the teacher-student ratio. This indicator varies significantly among different subjects; the ratio is usually benign in small disciplines but problematic in “overenrolled” fields. In the early 2000s, one third of all students were enrolled in such disciplines with as many as 400 students per faculty member in some cases (Pechar 2009, 39). How do Austrian HE expenditures compare internationally? The OECD indicator for tertiary expenditures is no longer accurate. Since the implementation of ISCED 2011, this indicator includes some expenditures for vocational education and training that is not regarded as HE in Austria. Expenditures for education at Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral level are 1.5% of GDP. As
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such, Austria is not among the top ranked countries, but it is slightly above the OECD average of 1.4% and considerably higher than HE expenditures in Germany or Switzerland (1.2%). Yet, as a report (Unger et al. 2005) has demonstrated, the financial situation of leading German and Swiss universities is superior to that of their Austrian counterparts. How can funding appear to be satisfactory at the systems level while individual institutions are not able to provide sufficient student-teacher ratios? Several factors might help to unravel this puzzle. First, there is some evidence that Austrian academics have relatively high wages, second only to Swiss academics in Europe (see the data of the European Commission (2007) and the data provided by the Academic Careers Observatory of the European University Institute). Second, a unique funding pattern for medical universities results in cross subsidies from HE funds to the health system of some municipalities. Hospitals attached to medical universities provide the most expensive medical services, yet these services are funded out of the HE budget (Klinischer Mehraufwand). The most important factor seems to be the absence of admission procedures at research universities; this has severe consequences for funding and student-teacher ratios. Except for research universities the government funds study places and institutions admit students accordingly. At research universities, however, funding is not related to study places. Until 2005, graduates from the elite track of secondary schools have been “entitled” to enroll at any field of study and universities had no control over enrollments. More recently, control over enrollment has been established in some disciplines, but the entitlement system is still in place in most fields of study. As a result, 80% of the students are enrolled at research universities, and this unique pattern is a financial burden on the HE system.
The Academic Profession The Austrian academic career structure traditionally followed the German pattern whereby an ordinary professorship can only be attained on
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the basis of a competitive call, or “Berufung.” A career-path or track towards a professorial position was not foreseen. As Ben-David (1991, 198) termed it, there was – and still exists – an “unbridged disjunction” between professors and the rest of academic staff. With the Universities Act of 2002, Austrian universities became autonomous legal entities. As a result, all new academic staff were to be employed by the universities themselves on the basis of private employment contracts. Interestingly, with regard to academic careers, the Universities Act only explicitly addresses and regulates access to professorial positions – thus highlighting the lasting importance attributed to professors within the structure of Austrian HE. All other positions and academic career structures were to be determined by the universities themselves. After years of negotiations, the new collective agreement for Universities entered into force in 2009. It added a new, Austrian type of tenure-track and two new permanent positions: senior lecturer and senior scientist. All assistant positions remain fixed-term. Generally, the majority of academic employees at universities are employed on a fixed-term basis, including the large group of part-time lecturers. The fastest growing group of academic staff in the last ten years has been those employed within the framework of externally funded research projects (“project workers”). The new pathway to permanent, tenured employment outlined in the collective agreement was undoubtedly inspired by the North American tenure-track: an assistant to associate to fullprofessor trajectory with an “up or out” provision after a long probation period. However, the Austrian tenure-track does not lead to full professorship. Until 2015, associate professors remained part of the middle-rank of academic staff and belonged to the voting-group of university assistants in collegial decision-making bodies. This distinction is justified increasingly less because of (1) the strongly competitive recruitment process to get “on the tenure-track,” which in many cases bears close resemblance or no difference at all to a professorial call and (2) the high performance targets to be met by those on the tenure-track. In 2015, lawmakers recognized this
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problem and alleviated it by admitting “associate professors” into the voting group of ordinary professors in collegial bodies. The “unbridged disjunction” thus has become smaller; however, in status, power, and remuneration it still remains clearly visible.
Future Challenges Austria must find a sustainable solution to the imbalance of student mobility from other European countries. The EU mobility policy has effectively decoupled accessibility from funding of HE. In all member states of the EU, HE is funded by national taxes. However, preferential treatment of national citizens is regarded as “discriminatory” by European Law. The concept of a fully integrated European HE Area where all students can move freely across national borders seems to rest on the tacit assumption that the expenditures of any national government for incoming students from other countries will be offset by savings through outgoing students. In some cases, however, there is significant asymmetric mobility. Problems result from mobility flows from large to small countries sharing the same language (Gérard 2012, 727). Large numbers of German Numerus Clausus migrants have the potential to crowd out Austrian students. (A Numerus Clausus specifies restrictions to admissions in those countries where certification earned at the secondary level entitle individuals to tertiary entry. In medicine, the most expensive field, the Austrian government has established a quota system that reserves 75% of all study places for Austrian citizens. However, such quotas infringe on European Law, hence there is a dispute between Austria and the EU. In psychology, where no quota was established, 80% of all students at some universities are German citizens. Most urgent is a change in access policy for research universities. Most experts agree that the “no admission” policy that grants access entitlements to all graduates of a Gymnasium (upper secondary academic track required for university access) is not sustainable. Research universities need similar funding mechanisms and admission rights as their nonuniversity counterparts. Current
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regulations have the consequence that nonuniversity sectors with less academic prestige are more selective than research universities. Hence, 80% of all tertiary students enroll at the latter. Government aims at a balance of 60% (university) to 40% (nonuniversity); this reform will face stiff resistance from student unions and some political actors.
Pechar, H. 2009. Can research universities survive without control over admission? Reflections on Austria’s exceptionalism in higher education policy. Journal of Adult & Continuing Education 15 (2): 142–154. Pechar, H. 2014. The European student mobility game. Winners and losers. In The EU between ‘an ever closer union’ and inalienable policy domains of member states, ed. Thomas Giegerich, Oskar Josef Gstrein, and Sebastian Zeitzmann, 485–512. Baden-Baden: Nomos. UNESCO 2012. International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011). Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Unger, M., et al. 2005. Finanzvergleich von Universitäten in Zürich, München, Darmstadt und Wien. IHS/ unpublished report.
Data Sources All statistical data and publications on the Austrian HE Sector, including the “Statistisches Taschenbuch” and the “Universitätsbericht” are available online at uni:data: https://oravm13.nocscience.at/apex/f?p¼103:36:0:NO (Ministry of Science, Research and Economy).
References Ben-David, Joseph. 1991. Scientific growth. Essays on the social organization and ethos of science. Berkeley: University of California Press. BMWFW. 2015. Statistisches Taschenbuch 2015. Available online at https://wissenschaft.bmwfw.gv.at/fileadmin/ user_upload/wissenschaft/publikationen/Web-Version_S tat_TB_2015.pdf de Boer, H., et al. 2015. Performance-based funding and performance agreements in fourteen higher education systems. Report for the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. CHEPS, Twente. Available online at http://doc.utwente.nl/93619/7/jongbloed%20ea%20p erformance-based-funding-and-performance-agreem ents-in-fourteen-higher-education-systems.pdf Drucker, Peter F. 1954. The practice of management. New York: Harper Row. European Commission. 2007. Remuneration of researchers in the public and private sectors. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Gérard, M. 2012. Who is to pay for mobile students? In European higher education at the crossroads. Between the Bologna process and national re-forms, ed. A. Curaj, P. Scott, L. Vlasceanu, and L. Wilson, 727–748. Dordrecht: Springer. OECD. 2016. Education at a glance 2016. OECD indicators. Paris: OECD. Park, E. 2013. From academic self governance to executive university management – Institutional governance in the eyes of academics in Europe. In The work situation of the academic profession in Europe. Findings of a survey, ed. Ulrich Teichler and Ester Hoehle. 183–204. Dordrecht: Springer.
H Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh Shakhawat Hossain Sarkar1 and Syed Zabid Hossain2 1 Department of Accounting and Information Systems, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh 2 Department of Accounting and Information Systems, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Prelude Bangladesh is one of the most thickly inhabited countries in the world, with its people packed into a delta of rivers that unified into the Bay of Bengal. It shares land borders with India (4142 km or 93.8 percent) and Myanmar (271 km or 6.14 percent) (CIA World Factbook, updated on January 20, 2018). It has achieved economic growth of 7.1 percent in 2017 and becomes one of the fastest growing economies. But, this economic growth will not sustain for long without substantial development of its human capital because “investment in human capital development plays a positive role in economic growth and that human capital is the driver of economic growth and development” (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1997). Thus, development of human capital through quality higher education and training is a must for Bangladesh if it wants to ensure sustainable
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development and growth of its economy. In this context, the present study strives to provide a brief scenario of higher education systems and institutions in Bangladesh. The root of its higher education system goes back to the period of British rule in India, and it is the legacy of social, political, and education systems of the United Kingdom. The Indian subcontinent got independence in 1947 and is divided into two separate countries – Pakistan and India. Bangladesh became a part of Pakistan and was named as East Pakistan. There was no major initiative to reform higher education in the then Pakistan. After the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, many uncoordinated initiatives have been taken from both public and private sectors to improve the quality of higher education. However, the real change has started very recently with the intervention of the World Bank through funding Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) of the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh, and the transformation of teaching learning pedagogy and continuous improvement of course curricula on the basis of stakeholders’ feedback and participation have become an ongoing process. The process of setting key performance indicators (KPIs) and benchmarking of teaching learning and research by the program offering entities (PoEs) have started to keep pace with the quality of higher education and research of the developed world. The government has also approved “The Bangladesh Accreditation Council Act, 2016.”
(UGC website, April 15, 2018) compared to only 7 in the mid-1980s. In Bangladesh, there are 20 grades of education from preprimary to PhD level as well as different branches of education such as engineering, medical, nursing and health, basic sciences, information technology, business studies, business administration, agricultural, legal studies, fine arts and crafts, sports, madrasah (Muslim religious), vocational and technical education, etc. Higher education (HE) in Bangladesh denotes education pursued after higher secondary level (12 years of schooling). Higher education includes 3 years pass (undergraduate), 4 years honors, 1 and 2 years master (postgraduate), 2 years M. Phil, 3 years PhD, etc. The British administration had introduced higher education in India including Bengal with a clearly spelled out limited objective of creating a group of people to serve the British administrative system, business, and commerce. With the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of India and Pakistan, the scenario and the state of higher education of both the countries happened to take a new shape in terms of fulfilling their national goals. But owing to military and civil bureaucratic obstructions, the main objectives of higher education during the Pakistan rule could not be materialized. After the independence of Bangladesh, a good number of commissions and committees have been formed to reform education. Most of the commissions and committees suggested a series of reforms in higher education. But the implementation of those recommendations was held back or delayed due to political change, political chaos, student unrest, lack of sincere effort of the government, and shortage of finance. The higher education sector in Bangladesh has expanded significantly during the last two decades. There was a time when higher education was considered to be a luxury in Bangladesh, a society of mass illiteracy. But, now it is considered as a means of faster economic growth through faster development of human resources. With the turn of time, highly educated people with required skills not only contribute toward economic development of a country but also become instrumental in bringing technological revolution in all areas of education and, last but not least, in
Higher Education System Development Dhaka University, the first Bangladeshi university, opened its doors to students in 1921, 50 years prior of the independence of Bangladesh. It should be mentioned here that Dhaka University was the only university under British rule in East Bengal (Bangladesh) till 1947. There were only six universities in Bangladesh at the time of its independence in 1971. Now, there are 139 universities in Bangladesh, of which 40 are public, 2 are international (backed by OIC and Asian University for Women Support Foundation), and the rest 97 are in the private sector
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the creation of an eloquent civil society (Islam 2012, p. 23). Objective of higher education in Bangladesh is to innovate and generate knowledge, train up future leaders, and develop human resources for the conduct of professional, technical, and administrative functions (GOB n.d.; Khatun 2003; Rao 2006).
their own campus, and the remaining 3 are special in nature, of which one is the National University (NU), an affiliating university, which affiliates all degree colleges that provide general education, conducts examination and awards certificates or diplomas depending on the nature of academic programs, and offers subject-wise special training and M. Phil and PhD programs for the teachers of affiliated colleges. Another is Islamic Arabic University (IAU), similar to National University, that provides Islamic religious education through fazil (degree), fazil (honors), and kamil (master) madrasah of Bangladesh that were previously regulated by Islamic University, Kushtia (UGC 2016). The other one is Bangladesh Open University (BOU), which offers distance mode of education. The number of students in 34 public universities were 264,084, including 355 foreign students (UGC 2016, pp. 127 and 133) and excluding their affiliated institutions, NU, IAU, and BOU (UGC 2016, p. 133). The female and male student ratio was 1:1.3 in public universities (UGC 2016, p. 125). In 2016, the students in NU were
University Education Considering the increasing demand for higher education, the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) enacted Private University Act 1992 and then 2010. Till date the number of universities, students, and teachers in both public and private sector has increased significantly (Table 1), but the quality of teaching learning and research is still a big question. Public University
Out of 40 public universities, 2 newly established medical universities have not yet started their academic activities, 35 universities are teaching university having their classroom, residential accommodation, and other physical facilities in
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Table 1 No. of universities, teachers, and students and teacher-student ratio during 2000–2016
Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Public university Number Number of of university teachers 16 4707 20 5241 20 5467 23 6101 23 6462 24 6921 29 7905 30 8086 32 8320 32 9241 33 9545 35 9781 35 10,568 37 11,323 37 12,047 38 12,531 38 13,072
Number of students 78,192 92,562 92,152 104,736 112,327 116,397 153,249 163,004 164,624 165,937 173,688 389,963 413,434 457,183 496,425 541,506 594,052
Source: UGC Annual Report 2000 to 2016 NA not available
Teacherstudent ratio 01:16.6 01:17.7 01:16.9 01:17.2 01:17.4 01:16.8 01:19.4 01:20.2 01:19.8 01:17.9 01:18.2 01:39.9 01:39.1 01:40.4 01:41.2 01:43.2 01:45.4
Private university Number Number of of university teachers 17 NA 22 2205 37 2948 52 2762 53 2920 54 3319 51 3668 51 NA 51 4821 53 5710 54 6290 56 6997 69 8178 77 NA 81 NA 90 10,188 92 10,436
Number of students 32,791 27,245 34,432 46,080 62,856 88,669 124,267 170,505 182,641 200,939 220,752 280,822 314,640 328,736 330,730 350,130 337,157
Teacherstudent ratio NA 01:12.4 01:11.7 01:16.7 01:21.5 01:26.7 01:33.9 NA 01:37.9 01.35.2 01:35.1 01:40.1 01:38.5 NA NA 01:34.4 01:32.3
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2,300,053, IAU were 77,247, and BOU were 265,304 (UGC 2016, p. 124). The students in the technical colleges under the control of other public universities were 89,723 (UGC 2016, p. 120). It is evident in Table 1 that the number of universities, teachers, and students had an increasing trend during 2000 to 2016. The teacher-student ratio in Bangladeshi public universities was 1:20 in 2016, excluding NU, BOU, and IAU. The teacher-student ratio in different universities (both public and private) varied between 1:5 and 1:67 in 2016 (UGC 2016, p. 133). According to the Education Adornment Specialist Committee, the best teacher-student ratio is 1:15 which can be extended to 1:20/25 (GOB 2002, p. 56). Against this norm, the teacher-student ratio of Bangladeshi public universities was varied between 1:17 and 1:45 during 2000 to 2016 (Table 1). Per student recurrent expenditure in public sector agricultural universities was varied between BDT 251,000 and BDT 275,000 and, in general, in engineering and science and technology universities between BDT 26,000 and BDT 124,000 ($1 ¼ Tk. 80)} (UGC 2015, pp. 147–148).
College Education The institutions offering post-higher secondary (after 12 years of schooling) education are included in college education. The institutions include intermediate colleges (57.23 percent), degree colleges (28.69 percent), honors, and master’s colleges (14.13 percent). The total number of colleges, teachers, and students in colleges of both public and private sectors was increasing gradually over the period (Table 2). Majority (92.66 percent) of colleges is privately managed, and only 7.34 percent is managed by the government. There are two types of colleges: one provides coeducation (both male and female students), and the other provides (17 percent in 2015) education exclusively for female students (BANBEIS 2015, p. 18). In 2015, the total number of teachers in 4113 colleges was 111,612 and teacher-student ratio was 1:33, of which, 25,803 (23 percent) were female teachers. The highest teacher-student ratio was in postgraduate colleges (1:103), and the lowest was in intermediate colleges. The number of colleges enjoying MPO (get government grant for the salary of college staff) is 2753 (72.34 percent) of the total nongovernment colleges (BANBEIS 2015, p. 19). Table 2 demonstrates that teacher-student ratio at tertiary level was between 1:20 and 1:43 over the period of study. The increase was more pronounced in case of the number of students than in case of the number of colleges and teachers. As a result the teacherstudent ratio had an increasing trend over the period.
Private University
The Private University Act 1992 was first revised in 1998. But again in the later part of 2010, the Private University Act 2010 was enacted, and to date all private universities are functioning under this Act (UGC 2015, p. 150). In 2016, the total number of students in private universities was 337,157, of which 92,237 (27.36 percent) were female and 1927 were foreign students (UGC 2016, p. 230). The numbers of universities and students in private sector have been increasing gradually. In 2016, the average teacher-student ratio in private universities was 1:32.3. It should be mentioned here that 67.19 percent of faculties in private universities was full time, and the remaining 32.81 percent was part time in 2016 (UGC 2016, p. 230). Per student recurrent expenditure in private universities was BDT 109,230 in 2016 (UGC 2016, p. 236). Teacher-student ratio of private universities was varied between 1:12 and 1:40 during 1999 to 2016 (Table 1). It should be mentioned here that only full-time faculties have been taken into consideration in the analysis.
Madrasah Education Madrasah (religious) education is also a large subsection, catering to over 3.78 million students through 9319 institutions including Ebtedayee (primary equivalent). Madrasah education provides fazil and kamil degrees which are equivalent to graduation and postgraduation of general stream (BANBEIS 2015, p. 19) and is managed by IAU. The trend of madrasah education had been increasing from 2001 to 2016. The number of madrasah, teachers, and students and teacherstudent ratios has been increased gradually but slowly as compared to universities and colleges.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Table 2 Tertiary-level college education based on governance type during 2005–2016
Year 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Govt. college 241 241 238 228 239 243 250 255 260 265 281
Private college 1086 1695 1216 1187 1251 1308 1361 1423 1471 1494 1538
Total number of colleges 1327 1936 1454 1415 1490 1551 1611 1678 1731 1759 1819
Number Number of of teachers teachers (govt.) (private) Figure in thousands 11 44 11 43 10 45 10 43 10 45 10 50 12 50 11 52 13 55 13 59 13 63
Total number of teachers 55 54 55 53 55 60 62 63 68 72 76
Student (govt.)
Total number Student of (private) student
Teacherstudent ratio
506 507 715 805 881 1123 1165 1139 1317 1336 1389
600 576 790 856 1045 1267 1328 1481 1599 1716 1738
1:20.1 1:20.1 1:27.4 1:31.3 1:35.0 1:39.8 1:40.4 1:41.6 1:42.9 1:42.4 1:41.1
1106 1083 1505 1661 1926 2390 2493 2620 2916 3052 3127
Source: BANBEIS 2016
The teacher-student ratio at madrasah was between 1: 33 and 1:23 during the period. Professional Education Professional institutions include 11 types of institutions. These are Medical Colleges, Dental Colleges, Nursing Colleges, Homeopathic Colleges, Unani/Ayurvedic Colleges, Nursing Institutes, Health Technology Institutes, Textile Technology Institutes, Leather Technology Institutes, and Law and Art Colleges. This subsector is growing rapidly. The total number of institutions was only 150 in 1995; it increased to 199 in 2003 and 480 in 2015 (BANBEIS 2015, p. 20). The number of professional institutions, teachers, and students is growing rapidly. Teacher Education This subsector comprises of seven types of educational institutions. These are Primary Training Institute (PTI), Teachers Training College (TTC), Technical Training Centre (TTC), Vocational Teachers Training Institute (VTTI), Physical Education College (PEC), Higher Secondary Teachers’ Training Institute (HSTTI), and Bangladesh Madrasah Teachers Training Institute (BMTTI). This sector is growing slowly. The total number of institutions was 68 in 1995, 143 in 2003, and 215 (3.16 times over the period) in
2015. Among 215 institutions, 38 percent are managed by the government, and 62 percent are privately managed (BANBEIS 2015, p. 21). Technical and Vocational Education It is a diverse subsector, catering to more than 872,658 students, involving 14 types of providers. These institutions are Polytechnic Institutes, Technical School and Colleges, Glass and Ceramic, Graphic Arts, Survey Institutes, Technical Training Center, Textile Institutes, Textile Vocational, Agricultural Training Institutes, Marine Technology Institutes, SSC Vocational (independent), HSC Vocational (independent), HSC Vocational (attached), and HSC Business Management (BM). This subsector is growing very rapidly: the total number of institutions was 147 in 1995, which increased to 2314 in 2003 and 4227 in 2015 (increased to 28.76 times over the period); the total number of students was 39,650 in 1995, which increased to 45,965 in 2003 and 716,990 in 2015 or 18.08 times over the period (BANBEIS 2015, p. 21).
Governance and Financing The overall educational administration and management of Bangladesh is under two ministries,
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Education
Ministry of Primary and Mass Education
Ministry of Education
University Grants Commission of Bangladesh
Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education
Colleges
Public Universities
Private Universities
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Fig. 1 Governance structure of education in Bangladesh (Source: self-constructed based on collected information from the UGC, Sarkar et al. 2014)
namely – Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MOPME) and Ministry of Education (MOE). MOPME and MOE in association with the attached departments and directorates as well as a number of autonomous bodies control educational administration in Bangladesh (BANBEIS 2007, p. 61). The education system in Bangladesh is operationally categorized into two stages: one is primary education (Grades I–V) managed by the MOPME, and the other is the postprimary education which covers all other levels from junior secondary to higher education under the administration of the MOE (BANBEIS Website). MOE is the apex body to manage higher education in Bangladesh in collaboration with University Grants Commission (UGC) and Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE). Public and private universities are offering higher education with prior approval from the UGC. The UGC was established in 1973 with the objectives of finding the needs of education at the university level, preparing specific plan for the development of higher education, appraising financial needs of universities, receiving fund from the government and allocating the same to the universities, and promoting evaluation of development activities of universities and their academic departments, institutes, etc. Higher education is also offered in different colleges. The DSHE is financing the colleges, but this directorate accompanied by NU jointly manages them. Some colleges offer only up to graduation level, some offer both graduate and postgraduate
courses, whereas some colleges offer only postgraduate courses (BANBEIS 2007, p. 14) (Fig. 1). In Bangladesh, the higher education landscape has undergone a transformation since the second half of 2010 as observed in the “accretion” of higher education through the introduction of Private University Act 2010 without considering the need for quality education to face the challenges and skills need of global job markets. The policy pandemonium that accompanied by increasing globalization of the higher education system and the persuasion of poor academic and organizational culture has led to the growth of powerful Vice-Chancellor-led executive teams, which have transformed governance practice and decisionmaking in almost all universities in Bangladesh. Vice-Chancellor (VC), Pro-Vice-Chancellor (pro VC), Treasurer, and a dominant number of Syndicate (highest decision-making body) and Senate (budget-approving and VC panel-proposing body to the government) members are appointed or nominated by the Honorable President based on the recommendation of the Prime Minister and have strong political affiliations, and thus governance arrangements and academic decisionmaking are affected and influenced in public universities to a large extent. Private universities have all the earlier stated bodies except Senate, where the Board of Trustees (BOT) recommend the VC, Pro VC, and Treasurer panels and the name of some members of Syndicate and academic council to the government for approval and the remaining process is same as public universities. The Chairman and members of the BOT are so
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Table 3 Government expenditure on education, higher education, etc.
Year 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Mean
Education budget as % of GDP 2.28 2.28 2.53 2.06 NA 2.09 2.83 2.35
Education budget as % of government expenditure 8.99 12.11 11.17 11.28 11.66 10.71 14.39 11.47
Tertiary budget as % of education budget 9 NA 14.1 14.33 NA 15.06 16.71 13.84
Salary expenditure at tertiary as % of recurrent expenditure 91.3 NA 91.3 91.3 NA 91.3 89.23 90.89
Per student expenditure at tertiary level ($1 ¼ BDT 83) NA NA $183 $185 NA $193 $252 $203
Source: BANBEIS-Education Database 2011 to 2016
powerful that they can influence the governance of private universities whatever they want. However, the recent intervention of the World Bank through funding the HEQEP has compelled the administration of HEIs, both public and private, to ensure good governance to some extent and to demonstrate a sense of accountability to main stakeholders such as students, alumni, government, taxpayers, and the society at large. The above table discloses that the average public expenditure on education to government expenditure was 13.84 percent and to GDP was 2.35 percent (Table 3). Thus, it can safely be said that the expenditure on higher education was always far below the recommended norms of different education commissions of Bangladesh, which were in between 20 to 25 percent of government expenditure and 4 to 5 percent of GDP (GOB n.d.-a, GOB n.d.-b, GOB 1997, GOB 2004, GOB 1988, GOB 1978, GOB 1974). The allocation was also very low in Bangladesh as compared to UNESCO standards of 4 percent of GDP (Chaudhary et al. 2009) for developing country. It is also evident that around 90 percent of the total education budget is spent for salaries of teaching and nonteaching staff. Education financing system differs based on the ownership of educational institutions in Bangladesh. There are largely three types of educational institutions – public, nongovernment, and fully private institutions. Public higher academic institutions are mostly (about 90 percent) financed by the government, and a small part of the total requirement (about 10 percent) is financed
through self-generated fund from tuition, fees, and others; purely private higher academic institutions are financed from their own revenue income; and nongovernment (affiliated) educational institutions are partly financed (about 60 percent) by the government and partly (about 40 percent) financed from their own revenue income such as tuition, fees, and others (Sarkar and Hossain 2016a). Figure 2 presents the revenue sources and spending categories of higher education budget of public universities in Bangladesh. Though the sources of funding are different, the spending categories of private universities, public and private colleges, and other higher educational institutions are similar to public universities. Though the ratio (percent) of expending categories differs, the heads of expenditure are almost same.
Other Issues New Student Intake The uniform precondition for admission to a tertiary course is 12 years of schooling with successful completion of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) or its equivalent. Admission into the universities is based on the result of admission test, and a small number of successful candidates enjoy the privilege to get admitted into the subject of their own choice (Khatun 2003, p. 48). Admission test in different universities is held in different dates under separate units. Admission test is taken centrally only for
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Fig. 2 Sources and spending categories of higher education (Source: Self-constructed based on UGC annual report 2011–2012, Sarkar et al. 2014) Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bangladesh, Table 4 Matched between expected and actual study area and discipline Category Yes No Total
Studied in expected discipline Frequency Percentage 204 36.6 353 63.4 557 100.0
Studied in expected study area Frequency Percentage 275 49.4 282 50.6 557 100.0
Source: analysis of primary data collected from alumnae through semi-structure questionnaire, Sarkar and Hossain 2016a
admission into medical program of all medical colleges. To get chance in higher education other than medical, a student usually competes in different universities and colleges under different units. It is time-consuming with huge financial involvement and a big hassle for students as well as guardians. Matched between Actual and Expected Study Areas Enrollment pattern reflects interdisciplinary imbalance in favor of liberal arts and social science than pure science, agricultural science, and technical areas (Islam 2008). Against this backdrop, Table 4 demonstrates that most of the students who applied for admission into tertiary level did not get a chance to study in their expected discipline (63.4 percent) and in their expected study (50.6 percent) area. Thus students’ motivation, engagement, and performance might have decreased for not getting admitted into their expected study area and discipline. The total number of seats in the 34 public universities, except NU, BOU, and Islamic Arabic University, in undergraduate programs was 46,353 as against 1,900,565 seats in NU and
787 seats in BOU (UGC 2016, p. 117). Gradually the seat capacity has been increasing considering the demand and political pledge. The total number of students on the study in 34 universities including affiliated colleges was 3,150,409 (UGC 2016, p. 117). In Bangladesh a little more than 4 percent of the 17–23 age cohorts receives higher education whereas 11.9 percent in India, 29.3 percent in Malaysia, and 37.3 percent in Thailand (UGC 2006, p. 6). Quality of Higher Education Evidences support that in Bangladesh, the number of educational institutions, teachers, and students at tertiary level has increased significantly over the last two decades. The Times Higher Education, one of the most credible source of world university ranking, disclosed its university index, 2018, and noted that out of 100 top universities in the world, there include 1 from Japan, 5 from China (including 3 from Hong Kong), 1 from South Korea, and 2 from Singapore (Times Higher Education, 2018). None of the universities in South Asia was ranked within 100. Thus the situation of higher education in South Asia, including Bangladesh, is not as good as we would normally
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expect. More revealing is that none of the Bangladeshi universities were ranked within 1000. Bosworth and Collins (2003) investigated the education quality of 84 countries across the globe considering a scale from 72 to minus 12. In the study, India and Sri Lanka scored 20.8, Bangladesh scored only 2.8, and Pakistan scored 11.3 (Bosworth and Collins 2003). Various studies (Aminuzzaman 2011; Mamun 2008; Kitamura 2006) indicated that the quality of higher education in Bangladesh has been deteriorating gradually over the last two decades. Thus it can safely be said that the higher education in Bangladesh is not in the right track though the demand for higher education has been growing over the period (Rabbani and Chowdhury 2014). Bangladesh government is concerned about the quality of higher education, and as such the government is in the process of forming an Accreditation Council that would ensure quality education through accrediting the higher educational institutions and its curriculum activities, forming separate accreditation committee for each discipline, determining the conditions of the accreditation and confidence certificate, and canceling the accreditation and confidence certificate under reasonable ground. Moreover, the UGC has undertaken the HEQEP with funding from the World Bank to improve the teaching learning and research quality of both public and private universities in Bangladesh.
Chaudhary, A.R., A. Iqbal, and S.Y.M. Gillani. 2009. The nexus between higher education and economic growth: An empirical investigation for Pakistan. Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences 3: 1–9. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 1978. Interim education policy 1978, working paper for national debate, 1–2, 25–28, 33–34. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 1988. Bangladesh nation education commission, 1–4, 121–140, 350–361 and 375. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 1997. Report of National Education Policy preparation committee 1997, 15–17, 86–90, 173–175. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 2002. Report of education adornment specialist committee. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 2004. National Education Policy 2003, 112–117, and 133–156. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). n.d.-a. Report of the implementation cell of nation education commission-2003, 17–19, 38, 45–49, 59, 62, and 72. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). n.d.-b. National Education Policy 2000, 14–17, 42–46. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). 1974. Bangladesh education commission report, 83–102, 282–292. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh (GOB). n.d. National Education Policy-2010. Dhaka: Ministry of Education. Islam, F. 2008. Some issues of higher education in Bangladesh: Analysis of demand, problems and trends. Prime University Journal 2 (2): 137–152. Islam, F. 2012. Higher education in Bangladesh: Prospects and challenges. 1st ed. Dhaka: Desh Publications Ltd. Kitamura, Y. 2006. Expansion and quality in bangladesh. International Higher Education 44. Khatun, S. 2003. Access to education: An inquiry into the present situation in Bangladesh. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.) 48 (2): 37–57. Mamun, M.S.A.K. 2008. Vertical equity effect of subsidy to higher education in Bangladesh. BRAC University Journal 5 (2): 23–29. Psacharopoulos, G., and M. Woodhall. 1997. Education for development: An analysis of investment choice. New York: Oxford University Press. Rabbani, G., and S. Chowdhury. 2014. Quality of higher education in Bangladesh: Governance framework and quality issues. Beykent University Journal of Social Sciences 7 (1): 78–91. Rao, D.P. 2006. Genesis and growth of higher education in India. Journal of Social and Economic Studies 18 (1): 19–28.
References A Dictionary of Accounting. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, Indian Edition. 2007 Aminuzzaman, M.S. 2011. Quality issues of higher education in Bangladesh. Journal of General Education 1: 1–15. BANBEIS. 2007. Education system of Bangladesh. Dhaka. BANBEIS. 2015. Bangladesh education statistics. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Education Information and Statistics. BANBEIS. 2016. Bangladesh education statistics 2016. Dhaka. BANBEIS- Education Database. 2011–2016. Education finance and stipend. Dhaka. Bosworth, B.P., and S.M. Collins. 2003. The empirics of growth: An update. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2: 113–206. https://www.brookings.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2003/06/2003b_bpea_bosworth.pdf
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belarus Olga Gille-Belova Bordeaux Montaigne University, Pessac, France
Higher Education Systems Development: Drifting Away from the Soviet Model Situated on the Eastern boarder of the European Union with a population of 9.5 million, Belarus is mainly known for its authoritarian political regime and its strong dependence on the influential Russian neighbor. One of the former USSR republics, the country gained its independence in 1991. The reluctance of Belarusian authorities to follow the path of radical liberal economic and political reforms promoted in the region became a source of tension with its Western neighbors (Wilson 2011). At the same time, this reluctance granted the country an important socioeconomic stability, especially during the 1990s, in comparison with other post-Soviet countries and despite the absence of abundant natural resources (Ioffe 2008). The official rhetoric about the positive value of the Soviet heritage in different fields was particularly visible in the sector of higher education (HE). One of the main reasons of the
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hesitation of Belarusian authorities to join Bologna Process during the 2000s was the fear to lose the essence of the Soviet model of higher education, presented as one of the best in the world (Gille-Belova 2015). This strong attachment to the former Soviet model of HE can be better understood if we take into account the fact that the Belarusian HE system was formed during the Soviet period as part of the larger Soviet HE system. On the territory of the Belarusian Republic, the first university, Belarusian State University, was created in 1921 and more than 25 HE institutions were founded during 1920s and 1930s. Their number continued to grow from the beginning of the 1950s. By the end of the 1980s there were 33 higher education institutions (HEIs) with 188,600 students and 15,400 teaching staff. This entirely public HE system was conceived as a vocational one with the main mission to train politically loyal professionals for the needs of centralized and planned Soviet economy. The HE institutions trained engineers, agronomists, teachers, doctors, etc., in order to support the industrialization policies and to accompany social transformations decided by the Soviet political authorities. This HE system played an important role in the socioeconomic development of the Belarusian Republic. The collapse of the USSR represented an important challenge to the new Belarusian authorities at the beginning of 1990s. The HE sector was supposed to break its dependence on Moscow and develop into a national HE system able to respond to the new economic needs and social expectations. The social demand for HE was largely driven by wide-spread expectations that the state-owned Belarusian economy might be progressively transformed following the example of Western post-industrial countries. In this context and despite the desire of Belarusian political authorities to preserve the best elements of the Soviet HE model, it became clear that some reforms were difficult to avoid (Vetohin 2001). The new Law of the Republic of Belarus on Education was adopted on 29 October 1991 aiming at the liberalization of the system inherited from the Soviet period (Zakon 1991). The changes of the legal framework in the early 1990s opened some new opportunities for the HE
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actors, such as the possibility to consistently modify their study programs by introducing new disciplines and new specialties as well as to establish private institutions of higher education. The existing public HE institutions gained some organizational and financial autonomy with the possibility to introduce tuition fees for students. One of the main consequences of this partial liberalization of the legal framework was a massification and diversification of Belarusian HE (GilleBelova and Titarenko 2017). By 2010, Belarus experienced one of the highest rates of student enrollment in HE with 470 students per 10,000 of population. This increase in access to HE became a subject of pride for Belarusian authorities as it placed the country at the same level as the most developed countries and in second place after Russia among the post-Soviet countries (MORB 2013). The second important period of HE reforms happened around the end of 2010 with the adoption of the new Law on Higher Education in 2007, replaced in 2011 by the new Code on Education, a document regulating the whole education system from preschool to postgraduate level (Zakon 2007; Kodeks 2011). The main changes were related to the architecture of HE system defining its new structure and introducing new types of HEIs. A credit system distantly related to the European ECTS was introduced, and the decision to create a Diploma Supplement corresponding to European standards was made (although it was not implemented). The need to integrate a competency approach into curricula, to develop a national qualifications framework, and to improve quality assurance according to the European standards was publicly debated by decision-makers in the field of HE. Although these reforms were largely inspired by the example of other neighboring countries, which had introduced similar measures after joining the Bologna Process during the 2000s, Belarusian authorities remained rather suspicious in regard to this process fearing that the HE reforms could weaken government control over this sector. When they finally decided to join the Bologna Process by the end of the 2000s for geopolitical and economic reasons, their first attempt in 2010 was unsuccessful and Belarus officially joined the
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European Higher Education Area (EHEA) only in 2015 (Gille-Belova 2015). Nevertheless, the above mentioned reforms never had the ambition to introduce a radically new model of HE. Instead they tried to adapt the former Soviet model to a new political, economic, and social reality as well as responding to international pressure. This led to a hybrid system in which the characteristics inherited from the Soviet model coexists with the elements inspired by international HE governance (Gille-Belova 2014). The 1991 Law on Education allowed the emergence of a private HE sector and the first private HE institutions appeared in 1994. Their number rapidly increased to 20 in 1996–1997, then slowly declined throughout the 2000s and from 2011 onwards remained stable with nine private HE institutions. The public sector was composed of 33 HEIs at the beginning of 1990s inherited from the Soviet period. The number of public HEIs increased during the 1990s and 2000s reaching 46 institutions. Since the beginning of 2010 some smaller institutions were merged and in 2017 there are still 42. This means that the public sector is largely dominant in the Belarusian HE system. Most of the HE institutions are still located in the national capital Minsk. The number of HEIs in regional centers remains low: three in Grodno, four in Brest, five in Vitebsk, five in Mogilev, and six in Gomel. Another important trend was the transformation of types of HE institutions, in particular by upgrading some former institutes (traditionally specialized during the Soviet period to prepare students for a particular sector of the economy) to universities. In fact, only the Belarusian State University was originally created based on the model of a “classical” university with many different faculties and some research activities. Two former pedagogical institutes were transformed into universities (Grodno and Gomel) already in the 1970s and this type of “relabeling” continued through the 1990s, so that nowadays Belarusian HE system officially has nine “classical” universities. Other types of HEIs remain narrowly specialized in a limited number of fields and oriented mainly to teaching activities. Some of higher colleges (formally, the level of secondary
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belarus, Table 1 Number of students in private and public HEIs in Belarus, 1994–2017 (in thousands)
500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0
Public HEIs
Private HEIs
Source: Annual reports on education of the National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus (NSCRB 2012, 2016) (compiled by the author)
specialized education) have also changed their status by becoming non-university higher education establishments. Their mission is to prepare specialists for one particular economic branch. The number of students has experienced an important growth for a long period following the increase in the number of HE institutions as well as a diversification inside existing institutions by opening new faculties and programs (see Table 1). For almost 20 years the number of students has constantly grown to almost 450,000 in 2011–2012. Then there was a progressive decline for demographic reasons when the less numerous generation of young people born in the 1990s started to enter higher education. The public sector attracted much more students than the private sector and, in 2016–2017, 290,900 students were enrolled in public HE institutions and only 22,400 in the private sector. There is also an important difference in the organization of studies between the public and the private sector. The proportion of part-time students (zaochnoe obrazovanie) considerably increased during the post-Soviet period and they
represent 40% of students in public sector and 75% in the private sector (NSCRB 2016). This phenomenon can be easily explained by the difficulty of most HE institutions to cater to the rapid growth in the number of students because of limitations related to their infrastructure and financial capacities. It was difficult to rapidly build new buildings and campuses but it was possible to hire academic staff and offer different programs and degrees for part-time students who attended classes for only short periods of time. Another peculiarity of the private sector in Belarus, as in many other post-Soviet countries, consists of the fact that programs in private HEIs are mainly oriented to humanitarian, social, and economic fields. These fields were inexistent or underdeveloped during the Soviet period and the social demand for this type of studies exploded during the 1990s, so the newly created private HE institutions benefited from this situation. At the same time, they did not have enough financial resources in order to invest in the creation of programs in the hard sciences with their highly expensive equipment. For these reasons, most
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programs in the hard sciences (e.g., engineering, medical, and military fields) exist only in public institutions. Nevertheless, a lot of the public establishments experienced an important diversification by opening new programs in the humanities and social sciences as well as in management and economics. In a more general way, the structure of studies by field has radically changed compared to the Soviet period when more than 50% of students were enrolled in “industry” programs (corresponding to the category “sciences and technology”). By the end of the 2000s, 41% of Belarusian students studied in “social sciences, business, law,” only 26% in “science and technology,” 12% in “education,” 5% in “humanities and arts,” 8% in “agriculture,” 4% in “health care and social protection,” and 4% in “services” which is quite similar to the situation in other OECD states (IBK 2013). According to official national statistics, at the end of the 1990s more than 50% of 17–21 year olds were enrolled in postsecondary (undergraduate and graduate programs), and since 2010 this ratio increased to 80%, one of the highest not only in the post-Soviet landscape but in the world (MORB 2013). The Master level of studies was introduced at the end of the 2000s when Belarus started its accession process to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). At the same time, the traditional “specialist” degree, inherited from the Soviet period and obtained after 5 years of study, was transformed into the equivalent of a Bachelor degree (while it is still officially called “specialist”) which could be obtained in 4 years. Despite the creation of this two-level structure in order to fit the requirements of Bologna Process, most students are enrolled in “specialist” programs and the number of students enrolled in Master programs remains low. For example, in 2016–2017, only 11,000 out of 290,000 students enrolled in HEIs followed Master programs. Nevertheless, their number increases continuously doubling between 2010/ 2011 and 2015/2016 (NCSRB 2016). With regard to the third cycle programs, they still have their old binary structure, typical for many post-Soviet countries: doctoral studies for 3–4 years in the framework of an aspirantura provide the opportunity to obtain the Kandidat nauk degree (PhD);
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and second level doctoral studies (equivalent to the habilitation in some Western European countries) in the framework of a doctorantura lead to the Doktor nauk degree which is usually the crowning achievement of a long teaching and research career. This level of studies in Belarus is insufficiently developed in comparison with OECD countries, as only 1% of higher education graduates go into doctoral studies.
Higher Education Governance: A State-Centered Model with Weak Institutional Autonomy State control of education is highlighted in the national Code on Education (Kodeks 2011) listing the regulating bodies as well as their competencies (art. 106–111), licensing (art. 112), development forecasting (art. 113), accounting (art. 114), and data support (art. 115). Belarusian HE corresponds to a State-centered governance model in which the decision-making power remains highly concentrated in the hands of the country’s President and his administration. Officially, other bodies take part in the process: the Council of Ministers; the Commission on Education, Culture, and Science in the lower chamber of the Belarusian Parliament; and the Commission on Education, Science, Culture, and Social Affairs in the upper chamber of Parliament. However, their actual influence remains limited. Usually they simply approve the legislative proposals prepared by the Ministry of Education in coordination with the presidential administration. The ministry, with its HE and professional training department, is in charge of policy implementation as it controls and evaluates the academic sector. Another actor involved in HE policy-making is the National Council of Rectors, created in February 2001 to prepare recommendations on HE and science policy issues and provide legal expertise. Its function as a representative body of the academic community is limited by the fact that its members are appointed directly by the President. The institutional autonomy of Belarusian HEIs is rather weak as their executive heads (rectors) are appointed and dismissed by the President (for public HEI) or by the Ministry (for private HEIs).
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The selection procedures or the requirements are not specified by the university or by law and there is no specific term of office for a rector. Although the regulation on the university’s governing body (the Council) provides details for the selection procedure of Council members (students, academic and administrative staff are represented), it says little or nothing about the number and procedure of selection for external members. In practice, the University Council’s activities are largely defined and controlled by the rectors appointed by and accountable to the Ministry and the President. Neither the University Council nor the rector or any other body of the higher education institution is empowered to decide on academic structures (IBK 2014). The Ministry is in charge not only of the accreditation of HEIs and of quality control, but also of setting salaries for academic and administrative staff (with civil servant status), of approving study programs, setting the number of students and their selection criteria, etc. As for funding mechanisms, the budget of public institutions is composed mainly of state funding and tuition fees, but the Ministry controls their spending. The role of other actors (parents, students, private foundations, employers) remains weak and they do not have an influence on the main issues (Gille-Belova 2014). For example, while determining the admission plan, HE institutions have to follow (public ones) or coordinate (private ones) target admission numbers of the Ministry of Education. The target figures are set on the basis of the forecasted demand for specialists on the labor market determined by the government. The admission plan regulates the number of students who are admitted both on a state-funded and fee-paying basis. Belarusian higher education institutions lost any independence in the selection of their students since the introduction of centralized testing at the end of 2010 and admission to universities according to its results. HE institutions have no right to independently make decisions about introducing new educational programs. The decision is made by the Ministry of Education in coordination with other governmental bodies and organizations concerned (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, etc.).
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As for quality assurance and accreditation issues, article 124 of the Education Code specifies that the governmental bodies authorized to control the quality of education are established by the President of Belarus (Kodeks 2011, art. 124.2). In fact, the Department of Quality Control of Education of the Ministry of Education is the only body authorized to conduct quality evaluations and to deliver or refuse an accreditation. The criteria for accreditation are the contents and the quality of the provided education to the educational legislation, the requirements of educational standards, and the academic documentation of the educational programs (Kodeks 2011, art. 124.1). The Ministry of Education is an administrative body responsible for the quality of education and at the same time responsible for the control of this activity which seems to contradict the fundamental nature of the quality assurance system as conceived in the EHEA.
Financing Massification with Student Fees and State Control of the Budget The financial autonomy of HE institutions is quite low in Belarus. Public HE institutions submit an estimate of receipts and expenditures for the upcoming financial year to the Ministry of Education and are entitled to spend the money within the budget limits and the estimate strictly according to the established itemized budget. According to the line-item budget public HE institutions cannot keep any surplus but have to transfer it back to the state. The funding model of private institutions is more flexible as they are accountable to their founders. Even if HE institutions are allowed to use external funding in form of loans from national banks, financial companies, or funds, in practice they hardly use this type of funding (IBK 2014). Despite the claim of success in expanding access to HE, Belarusian public authorities did not finance its massification. Although Article 53 of the first Law on Education (1991) envisaged that no less than 10% of GDP should be spent on education, real budget financing has never reached this level and was around 6% during the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was progressively
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reduced to 5% by the end of 2000. In the same period HE spending decreased from around 1% to 0.7% (IBK 2013). In fact, the Belarusian Ministry of Education maintained its financial support only for the state HEIs by capping number of publicly financed places. It also capped the number of students paying fees. This practice was allowed in those state institutions of HE that turned education into a commercial enterprise combining state-supported and fee-paying students. Thus, the Belarusian state kept the same level of expenditures as at the beginning of 1990, despite the growing number of HEIs and students. As a result, the massification of the Belarusian HE was largely financed by the Belarusian students and their families. In the meantime almost two thirds of the students in state institutions of HE in Belarus pay fees for their education. Only one third of the students enjoy the state financial support (NSCRB 2013). According to national statistics at the beginning of 2010, 66% of students paid fees for their studies. When the number of students started to decline and the government support remained stable, this proportion changed slightly. During the last few years, 58% of students paid for their studies and 42% studied for free (NSCRB 2016). The larger part of the funding of scientific and research activities is provided by the state. Most of university research in Belarus is carried out within the framework of “State Programmes for Innovation and Development” (GPIR). Depending on scientific interests, each HE institution can submit a project to GPIR (once in 4–5 years). Still, GPIR funding constituted only 0.04% of the total amount of expenses in 2010. Within HEIs the percentage of internal expenditures for research and development has been decreasing during the 2000s. In 2011, it was 9.6% of the total volume of internal expenditures compared to 17.0% in 2005. Research in universities is only one tenth of the institutional weight in terms of human resources, the volume of work, and the proportion of the innovative businesses at the institution’s disposal (NSCRB 2012). In fact, an important part of research activities is carried out not in the HE institutions themselves but in the Institutes of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences or other types of research institutes (for example, those under
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supervision of the Ministry of Industry or of State Committee of Military Industry). This situation is a part of the Soviet legacy because Belarus has inherited the Soviet organizational structure of science in which the research institutes of the Academy of Sciences served as the key institutions that accumulated the great majority of the scientific manpower and performed an important part of the overall research and development.
Main Trends in the Academic Profession Formally, procedures of hiring, dismissal, and promotion of academic and administrative staff in Belarus do not differ greatly from the European models. Holding a position of professor or associate professor depends on the assignment of the corresponding title by the external state authority. Higher education institutions have no right to recruit academic staff on a long-term basis without an open and competitive selection. The candidate has to meet the qualification requirements established by the regulation, in particular in regard to corresponding academic degrees and titles awarded by the State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles. Without such a sanction the university can employ academic staff for no more than a year till the next vacancy announcement. The number of teaching staff increased from 15,000 at the beginning of the 1990s to 20,000 at the beginning of the 2000s. It was 24,000 at the beginning of the 2010s and then started to decrease following the above-mentioned trends of a decreasing number of HE institutions and students. In 2016–2017, there were 21,600 persons teaching in the higher education system. The number of persons occupying professorial positions remained stable around 1,200 to 1,300 as well as the number of persons occupying a position as assistant professor (docent) with around 7,300 to 7,400 which is slightly lower than the number of teaching staff with a PhD degree: 1,300 for Doctor nauk, and 8,500 for Kandidat nauk (NSCRB 2016). The main problem of the academic staff became its weak renewal because low wages in the HE sector did not make the academic profession sufficiently attractive for
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young graduates. The average age of academic staff grew dramatically throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Another trend was the growing feminization of academic staff and by the end of the 2000s women represented more than 50% (MORB 2013). Nevertheless, they are much more numerous on the lowest career levels (lecturers and teaching assistants). Fewer females are represented in the higher status groups as shown by the gender analysis of the key scientific and administrative posts in HE institutions. Women had a proportion of 31.7% among the Heads of Chairs, of 34.1% among the Deans and the Vice-deans, of 21.5% among the Vice-rectors, and of 7.1% among the Rectors (Antonova 2012).
Challenges to the Belarusian Higher Education: Internationalization and Labor Market Relevance of Degrees In 2013, the Ministry of Education introduced a national ranking system which is supposed to help ensure a better distribution of public funding and increase the attractiveness of the Belarusian higher education system. First ranking results were published in 2014 and confirmed an increasing vertical differentiation of the national HE system. The state HEIs which were leading at the beginning of the 1990s reinforced their position, while the private or recently created public HEIs played a marginal role in the national HE system (Gille-Belova and Titarenko 2017). Facing the decrease of national students due to the demographical decline, Belarusian authorities tried to attract more foreign students. In December 2006, the Ministry of Education adopted an action plan for 2007–2010 to develop the export of educational services using as the main instrument the intensification of Belarusian HE promotion abroad. The number of foreign students effectively increased from 6,000 (1.4% of the total student population) in 2005/2006 to 9,000 (2.4%) in 2011/2012 and more than 15,000 (5%) in 2016/2017 (NSCRB 2016). These foreign students come mainly from countries maintaining political and economic cooperation with Belarus: neighboring post-Soviet countries like Turkmenistan (52%), Russia (10%), and Azerbaijan (5%),
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as well as from a variety of Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria), Asian countries (mostly China), and African countries (mostly Nigeria). Most of these students are enrolled in medical and engineering programs. Belarusian HE remains less expensive than in Europe or in Russia. Since the end of the 2000s there were some attempts to introduce courses taught in English but most of the foreign students complete intensive Russian language courses before they enroll in university programs taught mainly in Russian. Officially, the proportion of outgoing student mobility is very low. Nevertheless, many Belarusian students leave on an individual basis for Poland, Germany, Lithuania, or Russia, especially for enrollment in Master programs. The outflow is much more serious among young graduates as brain drain continues because of the low level of wages in comparison with neighbor countries (in particular Russia). The Belarusian government is particularly concerned about the brain drain of managers, engineers, and doctors (IMF 2014). In this context, Belarusian officials continue to defend the practice of compulsory postgraduate work assignment as the main form of interaction between the system of HE and labor market. In fact, every year around 20,000 postgraduates (one third of graduates from public HEIs) whose studies had been financed from the public budget should work for several years in public organizations or enterprises (NSCRB 2016). Nevertheless, strong state legislative regulation of the educational programs according to educational standards defining every detail in the content of the curriculum does not allow to develop flexible educational pathways and does not contribute to fostering employability and competitiveness of the graduates for the labor market (IBK 2013: 71–72).
References Antonova, T.A. 2012. Scientific mmanpower of the Republic of Belarus: Gender analysis following the results of 2010. In Bulletin of Grodno State University named after Yanka Kupala. Edition 5, Economics, sociology, biology, Vol. 2, No. 131.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium Gille-Belova, Olga. 2014. Les réformes de l’enseignement supérieur en Biélorussie: entre poids de l’héritage soviétique et influence internationale diffuse [The reforms of higher education in Belarus: Between the weight of soviet heritage and diffuse international influence]. Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest 45 (1): 55–90. Gille-Belova, Olga. 2015. Beyond the limits of the European higher education area: The case of Belarus. European Journal of Higher Education 5 (1): 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/21568235.2014.979848. Gille-Belova, Olga, and Titarenko, Larissa. 2017 (forthcoming). Chapter 5: Belarus. In 25 years of transformations of higher education systems in post-Soviet countries: Reform and continuity, eds. Huisman, Jeroen, Smolentseva, Anna and Froumin, Isak. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. IBK [Independent Bologna Committee]. 2013. White book. Reforming of the Belarusian Higher School in accordance with the aims, values and main directions of the European Higher Education Area policy. Minsk: IBK. http://bolognaby.org/?p¼878&lang¼en. Accessed 16 July 2013. IBK [Independent Bologna Committee]. 2014. Alternative report. Belarussian higher education: Readiness to EHEA admission. Minsk: IBK. http://bolognaby.org/? p¼1872&lang¼en. Accessed 12 Dec 2014. IMF [International Monetary fund]. 2014. Republic of Belarus, IMF Country Report n 14/227. Ioffe, Grigory. 2008. Understanding Belarus and how Western foreign policy misses the mark. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Kodeks. 2011. Kodeks Respubliki Belarus’ ob obrazovanii n 243-З [The code on education of the Republic of Belarus n 243-З]. http://www.pravo.by/main.aspx? guid¼3871&p0¼Hk1100243&p2¼{NRPA}. Accessed 20 Apr 2011. MORB [Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus]. 2013. Belorusskoe obrazovanie v kontekste mezhdunarodnykh pokazateleï [Belarussian Education in the context of international comparison]. Minsk: Ministerstvo obrazovanija. NSCRB [National Statistical Committee of the Republic Belarus]. 2012. Science and innovative activities in the Republic of Belarus, Statistical compendium. Minsk: NSCRB. NSCRB [National Statistical Committee of the Republic Belarus]. 2013. Obrazovanie v Respublike Belarus. Statisticheskiï sbornik [The education in the Republic of Belarus. Statistics]. Minsk: NSCRB. NSCRB [National Statistical Committee of the Republic Belarus]. 2016. Obrazovanie v Respublike Belarus, 2016–2017 [The education in the Republic of Belarus, 2016–2017]. http://www.belstat.gov.by/ofitsialnayastatistika/publications/izdania/public_bulletin/index_ 6835/. Accessed 15 June 2017. Vetohin, Sergej. 2001. Reformirovanie vysshego obrazovanija v Respublike Belarus’ [The reforms of higher education in the Republic of Belarus]. Minsk: RIVŠ/BGU.
841 Wilson, Andrew. 2011. Belarus – The last European dictatorship. New Haven: Yale University Press. Zakon. 1991. Zakon Respubliki Belarus’ n 1202-XII “Ob obrazovanii” 29 okt^ a br^ a 1991 goda [The law of the Republic of Belarus n 1202-XII on education from 29 October 1991]. http://www.pravo.by/main.aspx? guid¼3871&p0¼V19101202&p2¼{NRPA}. Accessed 20 Mar 2013. Zakon. 2007. Zakon Respubliki Belarus’ n 252-3 “O vysshem obrazovanii” 11 ijulja 2007 goda [The law of the Republic of Belarus n 252-3 on higher education from 11 July 2007]. http://www.pravo.by/main.aspx? guid¼3871&p0¼H10700252&p2¼{NRPA}. Accessed 20 Mar 2013.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium Jan De Groof1,2,3 and Kurt Willems4 1 College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium 2 University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands 3 HSE, Moscow, Russia 4 Leuven Centre for Public Law, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Higher Education System Development In 1830, Belgium became an independent unitary and centralized state. The 1831 Constitution was gradually reformed between 1970 and 1993 to develop a federal system. Today, Belgium is a federal state composed of three communities and three regions. The communities are the Flemish (“Vlaanderen”), French (“Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles”), and German Community (“Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft Belgiens”). The regions are the Flemish Region, the Walloon Region, and the Brussels-Capital Region. The regions and communities have their own legislative and executive bodies. However, the parliament and government of the Flemish Region and of the Flemish Community have merged, so that the Flemish part of Belgium now has one single Flemish parliament and one single Flemish government. There is no strict hierarchy between the three policy levels (federal, community, region), but there is a division of competences. The Regions
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are in charge of economic policy, environment, urban development, housing, traffic, public construction, and investments. The communities are, among other things, responsible for the cultural and personal affairs. The principle of “federal loyalty” oversees the use of the competences: the federal authority, communities, and regions not only adhere to their respective areas of responsibility but also act in such a way as to avoid all conflict of interest among themselves, the objective being to ensure that the various institutions function as a balanced whole. Since 1989, the three communities have acquired (almost) full authority and competency for education. They each have their own Ministry of Education. As a consequence, each community has its own education legislation and its own education system. Three educational matters remain constitutionally linked to the competence of the federal government: (1) compulsory education, (2) the minimum requirements for a degree, and (3) the teachers’ pension schemes. But in many cases, those domains are affected by the higher education policies of the communities. The competence for education granted to the communities is thus quasi comprehensive. Within the Ministry of the Flemish Community, the Education Department is responsible for nearly all aspects of the higher education policy, from nursery schools to university education and life-long learning. The Flemish Minister of Education heads the Department. The bilingual capital of Brussels does not have its own education Minister (Brussels is a region). As a consequence, the Flemish Community, the French Community, and the federal state share this competence in Brussels (Articles 127 and 129 of the Constitution). Higher education in Belgium is mainly organized by the two largest communities (the Flemish and the French Community). Both communities adopted the Bologna reforms, meaning that the higher education systems in both communities follow the Bachelor/Master system. Since both communities have entirely different laws governing higher education, in the following sections the Flemish higher education system will be discussed. Flanders is the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium and holds approximately 6.5 million
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inhabitants. In Flanders, only institutions registered by the Flemish government may award the degrees of Bachelor and Master. Higher education institutions in Flanders operate a full-fledged credit system based on ECTS. In light of the public funding, the legislator has intervened in the rationalization and planning of the number and types of programs offered by those institutions (Article II.78 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education). This results in a mostly closed system of higher educational institutions (beside the purely private for-profit sector and foreign institutions), despite the constitutional guarantee of freedom to establish educational institutions (Article 24 of the Constitution). The full list of recognized institutions can be found on the Higher Education Register (Hogeronderwijsregister), a site maintained by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (NVAO). In January 2017, a total of 50 institutions can be found on the list. Depending on their nature, institutions can be statutory registered by government, or, after completion of a registration process, on the initiative of the institution. The statutory registered institutions receive public funding for their education and research. They are first and foremost the registered universities and the university colleges which enroll the majority of the higher education learners. There are five universities in Flanders: the (Catholic) University of Leuven (KU Leuven); Ghent University (UGent), Hasselt University (UHasselt), University of Antwerp (UAntwerpen), and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Free University of Brussels). There are around 15 university colleges of various sizes throughout Flanders. Since 2012, university colleges are legally obliged to structure themselves within an association under the coordination of a university, in order to be able to offer academic programs alongside the universities. There are five associations in Flanders linked to the five universities. Table 1 lists these associations and the number of students enrolled in them. The following Table 2 shows the total number of students enrolled in higher education institutions of the Flemish Community according to the type of program.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium, Table 1 University associations and number of students enrolled (2016/2017) KU Leuven Association Catholic University of Leuven 42,331 University colleges Total 93,791 Antwerp University Association Antwerp University 15,440 University colleges Total 38,726 Ghent University Association Ghent University 34,042 University colleges Total 65,865 Association Colleges-University of Limburg Hasselt University 3176 University college Total 11,283 Brussels University Association Vrije Universiteit Brussel 10,466 University college Total 15,905 Source: Publicly available statistical data at http:// onderwijs.vlaanderen.be (Flemish Education in Figures 2016–2017)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium, Table 2 Enrollment numbers in the academic year 2016–2017 Academic programs Professional programs Total
109,229 112,964 228,809
Source: Publicly available statistical data at http:// onderwijs.vlaanderen.be (Flemish Education in Figures 2016–2017)
Higher Education Governance The federal Acts on higher education that had been enacted since the independence of Belgium in 1830 were gradually replaced by Flemish “decrees” after the competence of education was transferred from the federal level to the communities in 1989. The autonomy and financial accountability of higher education institutions was strengthened in 1991 (decree of 12 June 1991 concerning the universities in the Flemish Community) and 1994 (decree of 13 July 1994 concerning the higher education institutions in the
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Flemish Community). The Bologna process formed the start of the current system of higher education in Flanders. In subsequent decrees between 2003 and 2012, the higher educational landscape took form: among other things via the introduction of a Bachelor and Master degree structure, rules on quality assurance and the accreditation system (organized in a binational organization with the Netherlands under the name Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (NVAO)), refining the (already existing) ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) scheme, and the creation of a uniform procedure for Validation and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). A historical peculiarity of the Flemish system, namely, the predominant dual structure of the higher education landscape in universities on the one hand and university colleges on the other hand, was maintained. The Flemish Code on Higher Education (Vlaamse Codex Hoger Onderwijs), coordinated in 2013, contains almost all legal provisions regarding higher education, either in detail or at least in their leading principles. According to the current Flemish law, institutions of higher education can be public or private (but not for profit) in their legal nature. The Flemish government chose to make almost no distinctions between private and public institutions. They have roughly the same autonomy and have to follow the same rules as regards accountability and control. Institutions of higher education, regardless of their nature, are treated by the same provisions of the Flemish Code on Higher Education, including the right to and rules on public funding. As a consequence, the distinction between private and public institutions is to a large extent obsolete in Flanders. Although the Flemish Code on Higher Education does contain several provisions regarding management and control (management of assets, duties regarding financial accountability, etc.), governance of higher education institutions is to a large extent left to the institutions themselves. The Flemish legislation stressed the prior responsibility for the guarantee of quality standards by the institutions themselves but reserved for itself the duty to articulate the administrative quality framework. The government assesses the
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quality of education at the very end of the process and imposed an obligation on the institutions to account for the quality of research and education. Control mechanisms include external quality assurance of the institution, the check on the capacity of the institution to steer the internal quality procedures, a system of accreditation, and the obligation to provide annual financial data to the government, as well as other data and information for national databases. Accountability and supervision mechanisms can be found in Art. IV.79 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education. Bachelor and Master programs are accredited on behalf of the Flemish Community by an external accreditation institution: the NederlandsVlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (NVAO), embedded in a quite unique treaty between Flanders and the Netherlands. The results of the accreditation process are made public through the Flemish Higher Education Register. Apart from the accreditation of individual programs, the institution itself is subject to quality assessment as well. Article II.126 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education were modified in 2015 to launch a new integrated system for external quality assurance of the entire educational institution under supervision of NVAO. This institutional review consists of a periodical assessment of the management processes within an institution of higher education to guarantee that all tasks regarding education are executed in a qualitative manner. In addition to quality control by NVAO, the Flemish Code on Higher Education installs a system of supervision through “Government Commissioners,” appointed by the Flemish government for one or more university colleges and universities. The commissioners supervise the decisions taken by the university or university college boards and ensure that they do not make decisions that breach the legal provisions or that disrupt the institution’s financial balance. The commissioner has the right to appeal (veto) any decision before the Flemish government. All commissioners form one official board which meets at least six times per year and reports to the Flemish government on an annual basis. Article IV.118 of
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the Flemish Code on Higher Education provides for a similar supervision by a commissioner vis-à-vis the associations of the university and university colleges.
Funding System The current funding system for higher education has been installed by the Financing Decree of 14 March 2008 and has since been modified substantially, in particular by the Decree of 13 July 2012 regarding the integration of academic university college programs in the universities. Since 2013, legislation on funding can be found in Article III.1 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education. A key element of the current funding system is that all universities and university colleges are mainly financed by public funds. The government funding covers the salaries of the academic, administrative, and technical personnel, the operational costs, investments, social facilities for students, and academic research. The budget received by those institutions is composed of (1) a fixed amount related to education (for university colleges) or to education and research (for universities) and (2) an additional variable amount related to education (for university colleges) and to education and research (for universities). For universities, the division education/research funding is 55/45%. The criteria for the variable amount are mostly output-oriented (e.g., for research: the number of Bachelor and initial Master degrees; the number of doctorates; the number of publications and citations; the number of first appointments of external researchers and female researchers to the level of autonomous academic staff). Additional public funding is available for specific purposes. Tuition fees in Belgium are rather low (in 2016, 890 Euros per year for a student with a full-time degree contract composed of 60 ECTS credits) and reflect the traditional liberal and social policy of open access to higher education. The exact amount of the tuition fee depends on several criteria such as income (for education grants), whether the student is an EEA citizen or not, the type of study contract, or the
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type of program and number of ECTS credits chosen by the student. Universities and university colleges are not allowed to charge higher tuition fees as a tool to select students (except for the master after Master programs, which are follow-up or second Master programs that can only be taken after completion of an initial Master program). One of the implications of receiving public funding is the obligation to support the democratization of higher education. Registered institutions of higher education are obliged to enroll all applying students as first year Bachelor students if they meet the legal admission requirements which are summed up in Article II.174 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education. Restricted or competitive admission to higher education is not a feature of the Flemish higher education system, with the exception of Bachelor programs in medical science and dentistry and in the arts for which the legislator imposed admission tests. In combination with primarily public funding, the financing of the higher education system is of concern to the government. In order to ensure that flexibilization of study programs does not lead to an overextended study time (and thus overextended public financing), Article II.246 of the Flemish Code on Higher Education states that “study progress monitoring measures” can be imposed on students who do not manage to acquire at least 60% of the credits they registered for. Study progress monitoring measures are binding measures that can lead to a refusal to re-enroll the student if the measure is not complied with. In addition, for students whose track record shows that re-enrollment in a higher education program will not be successful, institutions are allowed to refuse re-enrollment even without prior study progress monitoring measures. In addition, pursuant to Article II.203 and following of the Flemish Code on Higher Education, a “learning account” was created for each individual student enrolled in an initial Bachelor or Master program. This learning account indicates for how many credits a student has registered and how many of those the student eventually acquired. At the end of the academic year, credits that were not acquired remain subtracted from the learning account. If
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the study progress of the student is too low, the learning account can drop to zero. If such is the case, the student is no longer financed by the government and higher education institutions may refuse enrollment.
Academic and Administrative Staff The legal framework for academic and administrative staff in higher education is complex in Belgium. Labor law is a competence of the federal state, but the legislative framework for staff of higher education institutions is regarded as being a competence of the Department of Education (instead of Labor), meaning that it is up to the communities to make the necessary laws. However, in the Flemish Community, the Flemish legislator has chosen to only partially make use of this competence, leading to a complex and unclear situation wherein federal law and Flemish law interferes, both for individual labor relations and for collective bargaining. The various types of professorships in Flanders are collectively called “independent academic staff.” They consist of lecturers, senior lecturers, professors, and full professors. Full-time independent academic staff typically holds a permanent position at the university. Rather recently, universities have started appointing professors via a tenure-track system (meaning they can get a permanent position of no more than 5 years, subject to meeting all contractual conditions formulated in the tenure-track contract). Unlike in some other countries, tenure-track staff is already considered to be a professor in the Flemish system. Academic staff is assisted by research assistants (usually PhD candidates), teaching assistants, and postdoc research assistants. With the exception of teaching assistants, Flemish law provides that all assisting academic staff can spend at least 50% of their time on research. A first appointment as assisting or independent academic staff is always subject to a call open to the public. The Flemish government determined the most important elements of the academic statute of academic staff, regardless of the public or private
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nature of the institution and regardless of the appointment via employment contract or as public servants: disciplinary measures, leave/absence, termination of positions, administrative statute, etc. Salaries are determined by the Flemish government as well. Universities can add remunerations for staff that hold office in the universities’ administration. Since university colleges have been obliged to associate with a university in order to offer academic programs, staff within those programs have been adopted by the universities since October 2013. They are referred to as “integration staff” and have a complex legal status. Other academic teaching staff in university colleges, attached to the professional programs, remain staff of the university colleges. They are usually called “lector.” The following tables (Tables 3 and 4) provide an overview of the number of staff at universities and at university colleges.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium, Table 3 Staff of universities paid through funding by the state (2016–2017) Total Academic staff Autonomous academic staff Academic assistance staff Integration staff Total Administrative and technical staff Total
5549 3228 1104 9881 5606 15,487
Source: Publicly available statistical data at http:// onderwijs.vlaanderen.be (Flemish Education in Figures 2016–2017)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Belgium, Table 4 Staff of university colleges paid trough funding by the state (2016–2017) Tenured posts Temporary posts Total
Total 6147 4614 10,761
Source: Publicly available statistical data at http:// onderwijs.vlaanderen.be (Flemish Education in Figures 2016–2017)
Other Main Issues Contractualization and Juridification of Study Programs and Study Progress Since 2004, Article II.273 of the Flemish Code on Higher Education stipulates that students and universities or university colleges are bound by a contract, regardless of the public or private legal nature of the institution. Some decisions by higher educational institutions have however been singled out by the legislator as administrative acts (meaning that the institution making those decisions acts as part of the executive branch of government), namely, study progress decisions. Of those study progress decisions, evaluation decisions are the largest part. From a legal point of view, this qualification as administrative act is important as it implies the application of the principles of good governance to those decisions. A typical feature of the higher education system in Flanders is that the Flemish legislator has chosen to establish a specific administrative court (Council for Disputes against Study Progress Decisions), solely to deal with litigation against university decisions regarding study progress decisions. After 10 years of existence, this special court has encountered an exponential growth in cases and now deals with over 600 cases a year leading to a highly “juridified” higher educational landscape.
Internationalization and Language Belgian history shows many periods of linguistics tensions. In this light, a debate about internationalization in higher education and the use of English easily triggers political discussions with a “defensive” reflex about the use of the own national language. This results in complex legislation regarding the use of foreign languages in higher education with many parameters that determine the limits of the universities’ policy margin. The legislator aimed to preserve Dutch as the primary language (for the basic degrees), while at the same time also giving the educational institutions a certain degree of (state-regulated) freedom to develop a language policy for each of the courses/programs they teach.
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Insofar the functioning of the educational institutions is concerned, the administrative language in the Flemish Community is Dutch (Art. II.260 of the Flemish Code on Higher Education). A consequence of this provision is that foreign professors appointed in a Flemish institution of higher education need to learn Dutch within 5 years on a level of B2 of CEF (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) (Article II.270 of the Flemish Code on Higher Education). Insofar as the content of the educational Bachelor and Master programs is concerned, the principal language of education is also Dutch (Article II.261 of the Flemish Code on Higher Education). Four exceptions are possible: (1) courses that teach a foreign language and that are taught in that language, (2) courses that are taught by a foreign visiting professor, (3) courses that are taught at a foreign institution for higher education, and (4) courses for which the use of a foreign language implies an added value for the student, the receiving field, or the program. Bachelor programs that exceed a threshold of 18.33% of foreign language courses (in ECTS credits and not including the exceptions 1 and 3 mentioned above) are no longer considered Dutch-spoken programs. For Master programs, the threshold is 50%. For those foreign language programs, an equivalent Dutch program needs to exist within the Flemish Community. The total number of these foreign language programs is limited by law. Foreign-language Bachelor programs can make up to a maximum of 6% of all Bachelor programs offered within the Flemish Community; for Master programs it is up to 35%. With regard to quality assurance, the Flemish Code on Higher Education states that the teaching staff has to achieve a language proficiency at level of C1 of CEF (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) for the language in which the course is taught.
References Legislation Belgian Constitution. n.d. http://www.const-court.be/en/ basic_text/belgian_constitution.pdf.
847 De Groof, Jan, and Yvette Janssens. 2004. De Universitaire Regelgeving – Coördinatie en Annotatie. Tilburg: Wolf Legal Publishers. (with supplements following years). De Groof, Jan, and Yvette Janssens. 2005. De Hogeschoolregelgeving – Coördinatie en Annotatie. Tilburg: Wolf Legal Publishers. (with supplements following years). Flemish Code on Higher Education (in Dutch). n.d. http:// data-onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/edulex/document.aspx? docid¼14650#1276.
Websites http://associatie.kuleuven.be/eng/heifl/structure. http://www.enic-naric.net/belgium.aspx. http://www.eui.eu/Documents/MWP/AcademicCareers/ Countries/Belgium/BelgiumFlemishHigherEducation. pdf. http://www.highereducation.be/short-introduction. http://www.hogeronderwijsregister.be/browseindex. http://www.onderwijs.vlaanderen.be/en/education-inflanders. http://www.studyinflanders.be/en/education-system/struc tures/. http://www.vlaanderen.be/nl/publicaties/detail/flemisheducation-in-figures-2015-2016. https://www.vlaanderen.be/nl/publicaties/detail/flemisheducation-in-figures-2016-2017.
Literature Broucker, Bruno, and Kurt De Wit. 2013. Liberalisation and privatisation of higher education in Flanders: Passing the point of no return? A case study. European Educational Research Journal 12 (4): 513–524. De Groof, Jan. 1999. On ‘the European Higher Education Area’ after the Bologna declaration of 19 June 1999. European Journal for Education Law and Policy 3 (2). De Groof, Jan. 2004. Trans-national models of accreditation – Aspects of the international cooperation in the field of quality assurance. In The yearbook of education law, ed. Charles Russo, 286–297. Education Law Association, Cleveland, Ohio. De Groof, Jan. 2009. European higher education in search of a new legal order. In The European higher education area: Perspectives on a moving target, ed. Barbara M. Kehm, Jeroen Huisman, and Bjorn Stensaker, 79–104. Rotterdam: Sense. De Groof, Jan. 2012. Thoughts on autonomy in policy and law within the European higher education space. In Intercultural dialogue and multi-level governance in Europe, a human rights based approach, ed. Léonce Bekemans, 81–140. Brussels: Peter Lang. De Groof, Jan, and Zoontjens Paul. 2006. ‘National’ and ‘public’ higher education in an international context. In European higher education in the 21st century: What prospects? ed. Spyridon Flogaitis and ALthanassios Kyriazis, 83–92. London: Esperia. De Wit, Kurt, and Harry de Boer. 2010. Governance and funding reform in the European higher education area. National System Analysis: Belgium (Flanders). In Methodology, performance data, literature survey, national system analyses and case studies. Vol. 2 of
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848 progress in higher education reform across Europe: Governance and funding reform, ed. Ben Jongbloed, Harry de Boer, Jürgen Enders, and Jon File, 130–146. Brussels: European Commission.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bhutan Sungsup Ra and Shanti Jagannathan Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines
Development of the Higher Education System in Bhutan A constitutional monarchy nestled in the Himalayan mountain range, the Kingdom of Bhutan has a population of about 0.78 million (National Statistics Bureau 2017). The country is renowned for adopting the unique development philosophy of the “Gross National Happiness,” which offers an alternative paradigm for the development and collective well-being of its citizens. Using this to shape its economic and social policies and interventions, the Kingdom of Bhutan has been promoting holistic and sustainable development, going beyond just economic development. A monastic education system was the dominant system in Bhutan till the late 1950s, after which government and private schools began to offer secular school education. Secular higher education is even more recent. It is only in 1983 that the Sherubtse Junior College was upgraded into an undergraduate degree college, to offer the first secular higher education courses of study in Bhutan. The university system in the country is very young – the country got its first university as recently as 2003 with the establishment of the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB), with nine constituent colleges and institutions under it. In addition, there are two affiliated private colleges under RUB. Until the establishment of RUB, higher education institutions mostly offered only those courses that catered to the requirement of government ministries, focusing mostly on imparting technical and professional training to existing government
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staff. In other cases, higher education institutions were affiliated to the University of Delhi in India (Schofield 2016). The setting up of RUB paved the way for a broader approach to developing tertiary education in the country. The Strategic Plan 2013–2020 of the Royal University of Bhutan reinforces the goal of providing relevant education and training to the increasing number of high school graduates towards building a knowledge economy (RUB 2012). The Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan (KGUMSB) was established in 2015 as a medical university through an act of parliament by the Royal Government of Bhutan. A few institutions are now under the jurisdiction of the Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan. The first private college was established in 2009. Currently, there are three private sectormanaged tertiary education institutions in Bhutan, namely, the Royal Thimphu College (RTC), Norbuling Rigter College (NRC), and Reldri Academy of Health Sciences (RAHS). The Royal Institute of Management and the Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law are autonomous institutions established under the Royal Charter. Although the tertiary education system is very young, the pace of growth in tertiary enrollments has been very robust. The gross enrollment ratio (GER) for tertiary education of Bhutanese students, combined for study within Bhutan and outside, was 24.44% in 2017. GER for tertiary education within Bhutan was 16.14%, (MOE 2017a) increasing from 6.3% in 2008 (UIS 2018). Under the auspices of the two universities, there are 13 constituent colleges/institutes and 3 affiliated colleges/institutes. Tables 1 and 2 summarize enrollments and streams of study by qualification level during 2017. Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bhutan, Table 1 Tertiary education enrolments GER within Bhutan GER (combined for Bhutan and in other countries)
Male 8.68% 13.38%
Female 7.46% 11.06%
Total 16.14% 24.44%
Source: State of Tertiary Education in Bhutan 2017
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bhutan Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bhutan, Table 2 Enrolment of students within Bhutan by qualification level Level of Qualification Diploma Bachelor Bachelor honors Postgraduate certificate Postgraduate diploma Master Doctorate Total
Male 857 3,918 825 17 235 184 21 6,057
Female 645 3,491 784 13 192 68 9 5,202
Total 1,502 7,409 1,609 30 427 252 30 11,259
Source: State of Tertiary Education in Bhutan, 2017
Governance of the Higher Education System The Ministry of Education (MOE) is responsible for promoting and regulating the overall development of all streams of education within the country, across public and private sectors. The Department of Adult and Higher Education (DAHE), established in 2003 under the MOE, is mandated to promote and regulate tertiary education in Bhutan. Since 2003 when RUB was established, the tertiary education system in Bhutan has undergone significant transformation. The government has put in place quality assurance mechanisms and regulatory boards to restructure tertiary education and align it to international standards (Education Sector Review Commission 2008). Given the nature of Bhutan’s governance system – a parliamentary democracy coupled with a constitutional monarchy – the King of Bhutan has been presiding as the Chancellor of RUB, while MOE has been overseeing all administrative and regulatory activities related to tertiary education. The RUB was granted autonomous status in 2011 and has independence in financial and nonfinancial matters like staffing, planning, and fund allocation. The Tertiary Education Policy (TEP) of the Kingdom of Bhutan, 2010, gave shape to the governance structure of higher education institutions (MOE 2010). Following the policy, the Tertiary Education Board (TEB) was established through an Executive Order from the cabinet to provide overall policy and strategic directions to
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tertiary education. The Higher Education Planning Division of DAHE, serves as the Secretariat to TEB. The Bhutan Accreditation Council (BAC) was set up to ensure quality assurance and accreditation. TEB and BAC are empowered and autonomous bodies that take major decisions pertaining to planning, establishment, funding, quality assurance, registration, and licensing. The Quality Assurance and Accreditation Division of the DAHE, MOE, serves as the Secretariat to BAC. To effectively implement its role, the BAC has developed Accreditation Principles, the Accreditation Manual, and the Bhutan Qualifications Framework (BQF). BAC has so far accredited 12 tertiary education institutions (one at “A+” level, five at “A” level, and three at “B” level and one with provisional certification). The TEB has developed the Tertiary Education Roadmap for Bhutan, 2017–2027, with the aim of developing a forward-looking tertiary education system in Bhutan (MOE 2017b). The Tertiary Education Roadmap underscores the critical role of tertiary education in building long-term human capital and innovative capacities to support socioeconomic development in the country.
Financing the Higher Education System Funding for tertiary education in Bhutan has been mainly provided by the Royal Government of Bhutan, and through external aid, mostly provided by the Government of India. The education sector (Education Sector: Department of School Education, Department of Adult and Higher Education, Department of Youth and Sports, Department of Curriculum Research and Development, decentralized education sector support through Dzongkhags, Secretarial Services of the Ministry of Education, Early Childhood Education, etc.) has historically received a high share of government’s total budget allocation, and in recent years it has been averaging between 18% and 20%. In the 11th Five-Year Plan, the education sector received a capital outlay to the tune of Nu. 7238.76 million ($113.11 million), which represented 7.9% of the government’s total capital outlay (GHNC 2012). During the fiscal year 2017–2018, funding for tertiary education was
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of the order of Nu. 2266.85 million ($35 million), of which Nu.1467.49 million ($ 23 million) came from the Government of India. Since the early 1990s, the Government of India has been an important financier of tertiary education in Bhutan, particularly through scholarships for higher education to Bhutanese students. During 2013–2018, the Government of India’s share of Bhutan’s tertiary education funding has been around 60%. Tertiary education institutions (TEIs) are free to raise funds from endowments, alumni contributions, research, collaboration and consultancy activities, short programs, and rent from infrastructure. External donor grants to TEIs need approval of the Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) (MoE 2013). The TEB approves and authorizes funding for scholarships (full/partial, ex-country/in-country) for tertiary education students. The number of scholarships to be offered is determined by the TEB based on inputs from the National Human Resource Projections. Scholarship numbers are approved under Five-Year Plans. Students enrolled in programs deemed to be of national priority are eligible to receive full scholarships, whereas those enrolled in popular courses may receive only partial scholarships (MOE 2010). According to the Tertiary Education Statistics System (TESS), most students in government colleges are state-funded (MoE 2018). The Student Loan Scheme for Tertiary Education instituted by the DAHE in 2014 prioritizes students from economically disadvantaged sections aspiring to pursue higher education courses that ensure employability in the country. During 2014–2017, 428 students availed student loans. As of 2017, there were 891 undergraduate students pursuing various courses in different countries under RGoB and other scholarships. This also includes undergraduate students with partial scholarships known as Assistance to Privately Enrolled Medical Students (APEMS) scholarships. For postgraduate level studies, the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) coordinates the scholarship programs. Currently the RCSC has 272 postgraduate students pursuing tertiary education abroad through scholarships. The students studying abroad under scholarships had
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predominantly enrolled in engineering stream, accounting for 253 students in 2017.
The Academic Profession, Students, and Administrative Staff Stakeholders in the tertiary education system can be divided into academic and nonacademic staff and students. Data from the TESS shows that 743 academic staff (male, 286; female, 457) work in the 22 tertiary institutes in the country. Out of these, 10% are Ph.D. holders and 60% are postgraduates. Around 15% of faculty in Bhutanese colleges are international and mostly hired on a contractual basis (MOE 2018). The tertiary education system in Bhutan has strong connections with India through exchange of Indian faculty and students, collaborative research, and other joint initiatives. In 2017, 3993 of the 5791 students pursuing degree courses outside Bhutan were enrolled in Indian institutions. Nearly a quarter of total Bhutanese students pursuing tertiary education are enrolled in India (MOE 2017a). The Tertiary Education Policy envisions several initiatives for the development of human resources, with special emphasis on continuing professional development and support to faculty to obtain doctorate qualifications and research experience. The Policy emphasizes the need for a mix of Bhutanese and international faculty to enable a vibrant academic culture in the country to improve quality of learning and promotes collaboration with international universities.
Challenges and Prospects in the Tertiary Education System Limited Intake Capacity In 2017, 18,930 students were enrolled in higher secondary education, out of which 10,145 students appeared for the Bhutan Higher Secondary Education Examination (BHSE). 9280 students were successful in passing the BHSE and became eligible for tertiary education. However, the intake into colleges was only 4118 students (MoE 2017a). There is a need to increase the
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intake capacity of tertiary institutions within the country to increase enrollments as per the Tertiary Education Roadmap. Lack of Qualified Staff and Human Resource Development Less than 20% of faculty in Bhutan’s TEIs are Ph. D. holders. Highly qualified faculty is critical to promote research, improve learning, and support the growth of tertiary education. Faculty development initiatives are needed to intensify research in areas of national priority and to strengthen capacities for innovation and creativity. Professional development opportunities for faculty are required to improve the quality of teaching and research, student learning, and the academic environment. It is only through faculty development that curriculum, pedagogy, and learning processes can be upgraded in line with global trends. Lack of Diversity in Academic Programs While the TEP recommends that institutions diversify their programs and provide multidisciplinary education, the current capabilities of tertiary institutions are not reflective of the same. Colleges are constrained by resource availability, lack of accreditation, and insufficient years of operation. Need for Orientation to the Job Market Students entering the workforce are in need of well-rounded skills. There is particularly a growing need for soft skills, managerial capabilities, and work experience by most employers (UNDP 2013). The tertiary education institutes can make graduates more job-ready by encouraging internships and providing job-related skills training.
Opportunities Bhutan is internationally recognized for its policies and practices relating to environmental protection. Tertiary education institutions can develop leading roles to pursue research and development in this space. Tertiary institutions could take up topics relating to environmental protection for courses of study and promote
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innovations for next-generation solutions to protect the environment and strengthen sustainable development. Bhutan’s tertiary education institutions could help to develop a strong pool of environmentalists for Bhutan and the world and engage in research and studies to synergize knowledge and practice. Co-locating research and development with international partners in key environmental fields will attract international scholars and students to Bhutan. Joint research projects on climate change and establishment of a climate change action research hub could potentially help to leverage the country’s strengths in environment protection and sustainable development. Undertake RUB could in areas like climate change and protection of biodiversity research and initiate innovations in the teaching and learning of natural sciences. Research in areas such as water security, climate change, and disaster risk reduction can contribute to furthering Sustainable Development Goal 6 on clean water and sanitation, Goal 13 on climate action, and Goal 15 on life on land. Bhutan’s unique cultural heritage would favor deeper action research for conserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage and strategically link heritage preservation together with community well-being, such as employment and income generation. Tertiary education institutions can foster higher-order human capital for sustainable development.
References Education Sector Review Commission. 2008. Education without compromise. Thimphu: RGoB. Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC). 2012. Eleventh five year plan (2013–18). Thimphu: RGoB. Ministry of Education (MOE). 2010. Tertiary education policy. Thimphu: Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education (MOE). 2013. Funding and financing mechanism for tertiary education. Thimphu: Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education (MoE). (2017a). State of tertiary education in bhutan 2017. Thimphu. Royal Government of Bhutan. Ministry of Education (MOE). (2017b). Tertiary education roadmap for bhutan: 2017–2027. Thimphu. Tertiary Education Board, Royal Government of Bhutan. Ministry of Education (MOE). 2018. Tertiary Education Institutions (TEIs) in Bhutan. Retrieved from Tertiary
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852 Education Statistics System (TESS). http://www.dahe. gov.bt/tess National Statistics Bureau of Bhutan. 2017. Bhutan at a glance. Thimphu: National Statistics Bureau of Bhutan. Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). 2012. Strategic plan 2013–2020. Thimphu: Royal University of Bhutan. Schofield, J.W. 2016. Higher education in Bhutan: Progress and challenges. In Education in Bhutan: Culture, schooling, and gross national happiness, ed. M. Scheulka and T. Maxwell, 87–102. Singapore: Springer. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2013). Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Acceleration Framework: Youth Employment in Bhutan. http://www.bt.undp.org/content/dam/bhutan/docs/ MDGs/MAF%20-%20Youth%20Employment%20in %20Bhutan%2030%20Dec%202013.pdf Accessed 25 June 2018 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). (2018). Retrieved from http://uis.unesco.org/country/BT#slideoutmenu
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia Crista Weise Departament de Psicologia Bàsica Evolutiva i de L’Educació SINTE Research group, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
The HE System: History and Features Universities in Bolivia emerged accompanying first the Spanish colonization process in the region, during the beginning of the seventeenth century and, second, the process of independence followed by the creation of the new Bolivian republic. The first university created in Bolivian lands was the Universidad Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier under the Catholic Church’s tuition. This University belonged to the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata and constituted the main educational reference until the foundation of the republic (Contreras 2000; Serrudo Ormachea 2006; Brunner 2008). As the other Latin American universities, the University of San Francisco Xavier was based on the model of the University of Salamanca, organized in cathedra around theology and humanism,
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governed by the authority of the boards of teachers (Rodríguez et al. 2000). Only several years after independence, around 1930, the elitist structure was partially changed under the Cordoba’s reform movement influence. The reform of Cordoba was inspired in the social struggles of the region and turns its orientation toward an ideal of a university of the people. Teachers and students together were in favor of an open and popular university highly committed with the society. New grades were introduced in social sciences. It was only entered on the seventieth that some shy traits of the Humboldtian model influenced the Bolivian university introducing engineering. Nevertheless, the pedagogy of dictation and rote learning remained, hindering scientific development. As a result, a professional training mission prevailed over research, which lasts until nowadays. Public Universities Shortly after independence, other universities were created: the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (1830) in the city of La Paz and the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (1832) in Cochabamba. Other public universities, one in each region, were opened toward the end of the nineteenth century: the Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno in Santa Cruz, the Universidad Técnica de Oruro in Oruro (1892), and the Universidad Autónoma Tomás Frías in Potosi (1892). Four more public universities were created in the twentieth century: the Universidad Autónoma Juan Misael Saracho, situated in Tarija, the Technical University of Beni (1967), and the University of Siglo XX in the mining district of Llallagua, Potosí. Finally, in 2002, the Public University of El Alto was created in the city of El Alto, in La Paz. As a result, Bolivia has now 11 public institutions, one in each region (department) excepting La Paz and Potosi that have two public universities each. All these institutions applied in the period between 1924 and 1929 the principles of the Córdoba University reform (1918) that tried to get the university closer to the working class and
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to break with the elitist model inherited from colonial universities (Sader et al. 2008). From that moment, the universities broke with the tuition of the church and the state and adopted the following principles: (a) Autonomy of the university from all the external powers. (b) Free direct election of university community members and own authorities. In Bolivian public universities, this idea was shaped as a parity co-government between students and professors, with each having 50% of participation in all the boards and decision-making organs and in the election of authorities. (c) Academic freedom (free election of contents, methodology, and approaches). (d) No attendance obligation for the students. (e) Education free of charge. Nowadays even the idea of gratuity is still claimed; all grades ask for fees that vary according to the different courses and schools. (f) Democratization of the university. (g) Social outreach as an important university activity. (h) Resistance against dictatorships and imperialism. These 11 universities formed the Public University System (CEUB), with a board that rules all the aspects of the academic and organizational life of public universities, without direct participation of the state. In a completely different context, characterized by the emergence of indigenous peoples’ claims for their rights, and specifically for higher education, the government of current President Evo Morales created three new universities: the indigenous Apiaguaiki Tupa University in the Guaraní region of Camiri; the indigenous Casimiro Huanca University in Chapare, a region domained by Quechua coca farmers; and the indigenous Tupac Katari University, situated near the Aymara region of the Titicaca Lake in Warisata. The outstanding characteristics of these new universities are: 1. They are not autonomous, as they depend directly from the state.
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2. They include local and community authorities in the academic boards and organs of decisionmaking. The superior decision organ is the community board, with the participation of indigenous authorities. 3. There is “numerus clausus” for new enrollments in each university. 4. They are completely free of charge, and all the students have full grants, studying in an internship regime. 5. They are exclusive for indigenous students or for the ones that have organizational support from the syndicates or community authorities. 6. Some courses are held in the local indigenous language as Guarani, Quechua, or Aymara, following the idea of trilingual education (native, Spanish, and English), and tend to include the traditional indigenous knowledge. 7. They are state-owned, but they don’t belong to the system of public universities, having different financing mechanisms. Additionally, there are four universities under a special regime, which operate with state funding, but don’t belong to the public system, because they are from the police or military corps. Private Universities Later on, during the twentieth century, the expansion of the private system begun. The first private university, as was often the case in Latin America, was the Catholic University (UCB), created in 1966 with the acceptance of the Public University System and recognized in the Public System facilitating the validity of the titles issued. However, UCB is an exceptional case. Private universities followed a separate road. They started growing at the beginning of the 1990s abetted by neoliberal policies that opened the door for their creation under very loose regulations and with public universities vehemently opposed. Currently, there are some 38 private universities, regulated in some aspects by the state and represented in the National Association of Private Universities (ANUP). They respond to different models: entrepreneurial universities, familiar universities, confessional universities, or community universities. The large majority are smaller than any public university, have a clear professional
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Thus, considering the size and enrollments in Bolivian university system, there is a clear predominance of the public sector over the private. As the distribution of data on new enrollment shows, the initially expected growth of the private sector was not realized. On the contrary, the evolution of enrollments between public and private universities shows gains of the public sector until 2012 and a shortening of the gap in 2013 and 2014 probably due to the change in the governmental policies (Fig. 3). These data confirm the change of tendency toward the strength of the public sector that can be observed from 2009. This might be explained by the lack of support that the private sector has had during the mandate of president Evo Morales and a higher investment of public funding in education.
approach, have no resources for research, and have hierarchical mechanisms of decision-making in which neither the academics nor the students have participation.
Size and Distribution of the Students in the HE System Net enrollment rates in higher education hadn’t varied significantly in the past few years. In 2012 the net enrollment rate was 18.44%; it reached 17.24% in 2013 and 20% in 2014 (according to INE 2017). These data are very similar than in 1990, with 20.51% (according to INE 1990) (Fig. 1). The total of students reaches 556.543, who are highly concentrated in the public sector, distributed in the University system as follows: Regarding regional distribution, we can sustain that there is some equilibrium. Each department has the same quantity of public institutions (excepting La Paz and Potosí), and the size is correspondent with its population. The private universities have also representation in every department (Fig. 2).
Special Reg.
Indigenous
Private
3%
Academic Career and Characteristics of the Professoriate In public universities, there are regulations (teacher’s ladder) to enter and develop the academic career. Yet there’s a lack of recognition of the research and academic activities such as publications, Ph.D. education, internships, or participation in research projects, which are not taken into account. Even so, public universities have more stability and higher levels of education of their academic cadres than private institutions, albeit still low and insufficient: 77% of the lecturers are part time in public universities (Rodriguez and Weise 2006). In the private sector, mobility is higher; fulltime professors account for 15% of the total. The rest are part time, with contracts covering only the
Public
0% 24%
73%
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia, Fig. 1 Distribution of students, enrollment by types of universities (Source: Based on data of INE 2017) Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia, Fig. 2 Student’s distribution by region (Source: Based on data of INE 2017)
4% 1% 9% 24% 30%
4%
19%
4% 5%
CHUQUISACA LA PAZ COCHABAMBA ORURO POTOSI TARIJA SANTA CRUZ BENI PANDO
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140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000
Private
60,000
Public
40,000
Total
20,000 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia, Fig. 3 Evolution of new enrollment by sector (Source: Based on data of INE 2017)
duration of the courses, working under a sort of freelance contract (Rodríguez and Weise 2006). Full-time professors in both public and private institutions are concentrated in the undergraduate level, with high dedication to teaching to the detriment of research. Regarding the educational level of the professoriate, most have only an undergraduate degree, even though for the last 10 years it has been compulsory to have a specialization in higher education. In 2003 in public universities, only 8% of the academics had a masters’ degree and 2% a Ph.D. Flagship institutions are the three biggest public ones: the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, and Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno. Some international rankings based on reputation also include the Universidad Católica San Pablo as one of the best universities in Bolivia.
Structure of Higher Education The educational system structure recognizes the following sectors in higher and professional education: University (4–6 years) (a) Technical education (2–3 years) (b) Artistic education (c) Teacher’s education (normal) The recognized levels in university education are university technical degree (1–2 years), undergraduate (licenciatura) (4–6 years), specialization
(variable), master (2 years), and doctoral (Ph.D.) education (2–3 years). The vast majority of program offerings are at the undergraduate level (licenciatura). It is important to point out that technical education is not connected with access to higher degrees in the same field; thus, the trajectories are closed, without articulation or intermediate degrees. The system is characterized by a clear predominance of universities as a priority professionalization option for young students. In general, technical education is still underdeveloped and undervalued in the labor market. Only some universities offer technical education. Most of it takes place outside universities in specific technical institutes and in teachers’ training programs (normal). As we can observe in the next graph, students have tended to increasingly prefer university education over teacher training schools (normales) and technical and vocational programs (Fig. 4). The development of technical and vocational education is a pending challenge for policymakers in Bolivia.
Levels of Certification and Modes of Organization Inside the Postgraduate Level The postgraduate level (specialization, master, and Ph.D.) is quite new and is still under development. According to data from the CEUB (2004) (More current data is not available), total enrollments doubled from 1998 to 1999, from around
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20
Gross enrollment rate
18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4
Normal (teachers training school) University Thecnician (middle and superior)
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bolivia, Fig. 4 Evolution of the enrollment in higher education (Source: Based on data of INE 2017)
2000 to 4185, and 5661 in 2001 (Landivar 2004). In the same period, graduate enrollment was 1.86% of the undergraduate total, increasing to 2.06% in 2001 and to 3.11% in the period between 2005 and 2010. This process was accompanied by an increment of programs in the post-degree level, from 367 programs to 515 in 2010. From this total, there is a predominance of specialization and master programs with a professional orientation and a lack of offerings at the Ph.D. level and research programs. It is also relevant that the postgraduate level is not free of tuition, as is the undergraduate level in public universities. They are all paid programs without specific funding from the government, neither in private nor in public universities. Public funding is destined only to the undergraduate level.
Regulatory Framework The Bolivian university system can be characterized as a loosely coupled system (Clark 1986; Rodríguez et al. 2000), highly diverse in terms of the variety of models of institutions, and with a weak state regulation. There are two main regulatory frameworks: the National Constitution (Nueva Constitución Política del Estado - CPE) (Bolivia 2008) and
the Avelino Siñani Law (Ley de Educacion N 070/2010) (Bolivia 2010). The first one establishes the general framework and only recognizes two categories of institutions: public and private (Art.188). Even so, there are many other models of universities that are currently open under the acceptance of the state, including the indigenous universities. The indigenous universities, as well as the private ones, are regulated by the Ministry of Education, according to art. 77 of the National Constitution and art. 107 of the Supreme Decree N 29894/09. At the same time, the CPE establishes the principles of autonomy and gratuity of education for the public universities, which restrict the participation of the state in any regulatory activity toward them. Nevertheless, some efforts to regulate and ensure quality and accountability have been undertaken. Assessment and accreditation process for private universities initiated during the period of 1990–2000, establishing some regulations in order to improve the accountability of these institutions, certificating them either as “Plenas” (consolidated) and “Iniciales” (beginning) according to the accomplishment of basic conditions. In parallel, the public universities also developed their own systems of assessment and accreditation, following the guidelines of the agreements reached in the educational Mercosur (2006) regarding accreditation systems in the region.
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Nowadays these processes are under review to be adapted to the new educational law (N 070/ 2010) and its main principles. Among these are included the consideration of the indigenous cultures, the principle of decolonization, democratization, anti-imperialism, and the inclusion of inter- and intracultural processes of knowledge construction, based on the “good living” and complementarity of the principles of Andean cultures, established as well in the CPE (Constitución Política del Estado CPE de 2009, 2016, p. 1–107).
Finances The National Constitution establishes public universities as the only ones that can receive financial sources from the state, which are considered in the general budget of the nation. This funding operates through two mechanisms: direct endowment and special taxes, such as the hydrocarbon’s direct tax (IDH 2005) which account for 8% of the incomes of universities. The use of these resources is limited to specific investments in innovation projects, infrastructure, and social services. Anyhow, around 75% of the financing of public universities comes from governmental funds and the rest as follows: 14% from fees and rights, 4% from services, and 5% from other sources, including international cooperation and donations data of the Ministry of Finances (Ministerio de Hacienda) in Santa Cruz (2004). The private sector is financed mainly through private sources, such as students’ fees, services, or shareholders dues. Therefore, the investment in research in these universities is small. Research activities are highly concentrated in public universities. With respect to public investment in education, we observe a change of tendency in the year 2000, after a period of slight contraction of public investment in higher education during the previous decade. The investment per student decreased from USD 689.5 in 1997 to USD 498,7 in 2000. The percentage of the general education budget destined to higher education fell from 33.0% in 1990 to 12.6% in 2000 (INE 2004). This tendency
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changed in later years, when the percentage of the internal gross product invested in higher education went from 1.25% in 2002 to 2.31% in 2014 (UNESCO 2010 cit. in Brunner and Ferrada Hurtado 2011). Bolivia has done a big effort in order to enhance the educational system increasing investment in education. Nowadays, it is one of the countries of the region with the highest investment in education: up to the 8% of the GDP, while the regional mean is around 2.5%. Likewise, up to the 2% of the public expenditure as a percentage of the GDP was invested in universities in 2014 and 0.25% to non-university higher education institutions raising one of the highest ranges of public expenditure in universities in South America (Martinez et al. 2016). The private sector has a tiny participation in higher education financing, and industry is absent as an actor in the transformation of the HE system. While the National Plan of Development 2010–2015 (Bolivia 2006) includes this aspect as central, there aren’t any political devices in order to make this happen. Thus, the disconnection between the needs of the productive sector and the academic and research activities is highly evident. The universities decide by their own their academic offerings and the research lines, without specific governmental or private sector guidelines. This situation has negative effects on employability and I + D activities. Regrettably, there is a lack of studies to account for graduate employment and insertion in the labor market after graduation. It is important to take into account that a huge informal sector and a low level of industrialization also due to the features of the productive sector in Bolivia characterize this situation.
Policies and Instruments for Financial Support of Students and Expansion of the Access to Higher Education In Bolivia, there are no specific policies to financially support access to education. There is only one mechanism that tends to ensure access to HE from low-income sectors, by a special access
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program directed to rural students (Programa de Admisión Especial), aimed at public universities. There are no student credits or other grants. The strategies to expand access to higher education are based on the extent of the offer and the decentralization of services, amplifying the universities and courses in rural regions. The creations of indigenous universities respond to this logic, as well as similar initiatives delivered by the public system and some private institution such as the Universidad Católica San Pablo, creating rural venues.
Main Challenges of HE System In spite of the advances of the Bolivian HE system, there are some crucial challenges that still should be attended: 1. Adaptation to the new educational law (n 70/10). The new educational law establishes a change of paradigm that forces universities to take into account different pathways to approach decolonization, institutionalization of indigenous knowledge, and inter- and intraculturalism as guiding principles. These ideas are quite accepted in the university context but very difficult to interpret and apply. A construction of specific policies and the design of concrete curricular/organizational devices are needed, as well as a deeper analysis about their meaning and impact in a scientific research environment. 2. System strengthening and quality assurance. Under the different regulations, there has been an increment of several types of institutions with overlapping functions and parallel systems cohabitating inside both the public and the private sector. Policies have favored disparate and disperse small institutions instead of strengthening the university system as a whole. Quality assurance systems are a priority in order to focus the economical efforts to ensure access, quality, equity, and pertinence of the system. Stronger policies are needed to improve public education, guaranteeing highquality professional training and improving productivity in the labor market. In this
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context, taking into account the enhancement of the academic profession and their dedication to the university is a primary concern. 3. Inclusion and social pertinence. Despite increasing access to higher education, according to regional standards, inclusion is still a challenge. High attrition and low attainment rates are a problem, affecting especially low-income students and students from rural regions. Moreover, students with special educational needs are not taken into account. 4. Transitability. The connection between levels and subsystems is paramount in order to favor flexible trajectories, which facilitate a fluid access to higher levels of education. Stand alone and rigid educational offers hinder mobility and increase years of study. More flexibility should go hand in hand with a reform and improvement of the technical and vocational sector. 5. Research and I + D. Bolivia contributes just a tiny proportion of scientific publications, with a 0.3% of the South American scientific production and with the 0.01of the world production. According to the International Bank of Development (BID 2010), developed countries have more than 6 researchers for 100.000 inhabitants of the labor force; in Bolivia, there are only 0.16 for 100.000. Moreover only 3.30% of the lecturers has a Ph.D. in the university, and only a small proportion is a fulltime researcher. Nevertheless, universities concentrate the R + D activities in the country, 88% of researchers works at universities, and the majority of research projects are also located in them. Thus, it is clear that investment in research should be increased, as well as the coordination with social and key market actors. A national effective strategy of R + D is still a pending issue.
References BID. 2010. Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación en América Latina y el Caribe. Un compendio estadístico de indicadores. Washington DC: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. http://www20.iadb.org/intal/catalogo/ PE/2011/08300.pdf.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bosnia and Herzegovina Bolivia. 2006. Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2006–2010: Bolivia digna, soberana, productiva y democrática para Vivir Bien. La Paz: Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo. http://www.tic.siteal.iipe. unesco.org/politicas/1024. Bolivia. 2008. Nueva Constitución Política del Estado. La Paz: Asamblea Constituyente. Bolivia, E.P. 2010. Ley de la Educación “Avelino Sin˜ ani– Elizardo Pérez”. La Paz: UPS. Brunner, J. J. (2008). El proceso de Bolonia en el horizonte latinoamericano: límites y posibilidades. Revista de Educación, 119–145. http://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/ sites/default/files/agora/files/1264693983.jjbrunner_u_ 0.pdf Brunner, J.J., and R. Ferrada Hurtado. 2011. Educación superior en Iberoamerica: informe 2011. RIL. CEUB Comité Ejecutivo de la Universidad Boliviana 2004. Sistema de la Universidad Boliviana Estadísticas de la Universidad Boliviana 1990–2002. La Paz. Clark, B.R. 1986. The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press. Constitución Política del Estado CPE de 2009. (2016). Retrieved from Gobierno de Bolivia website: http:// www.gacetaoficialdebolivia.gob.bo/index.php/normas/ lista/9 Contreras, J. M. (2000). Reformas y desafíos de la educación. In F. Campero Prudencio (Ed.), Bolivia en el siglo XX. La formación de la Bolivia contemporánea (pp. 23–50). La Paz, Bolivia: Harvard Club de Bolivia. http://www.reduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/REF ORMAS-Y-DESAFIOS-DE-LA-EDUCACION.pdf Instituto Nacional de Estadística – Educación Inicial Primaria y secundaria. (2017). Retrieved from http:// www.ine.gob.bo/index.php/educacion/educacion-4. Landivar, Z.M.D. 2004. Diagnóstico y perspectiva de los estudios de postgrado en Bolivia. IESALC. Venezuela. Martinez A., S. Butrón, and M. Loayza. 2016. Informe nacional Bolivia. CInda. Santiago de Chile. Mercosur, S.E. 2006. Plan del Sector Educativo del MERCOSUR 2006–2010. http://repositorio.educacion. gov.ar/dspace/handle/123456789/95035. Reglamentación del Impuesto Directo a los Hidrocarburos (IDH) (28223) – Infoleyes Bolivia. (2005). Retrieved from Gobierno Nacional de Bolivia website: https:// bolivia.infoleyes.com/norma/14/reglamentaci%C3% B3n-del-impuesto-directo-a-los-hidrocarburos-idh28223 Rodríguez, G., and C. Weise. 2006. Educación Superior Universitaria en Bolivia. Estudio nacional. Cochabamba: Quipus. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/ 0014/001489/148999s.pdf. Rodríguez, G., G. De la Zerda, and M. Barraza. 2000. De la revolución a la evaluación universitaria. PIEB: La Paz. Sader, E., H. Aboites, and P. Gentili. 2008. La reforma universitaria. Desafíos y perspectivas noventa an˜ os después. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Santa Cruz, J. (2004). Financiamiento de la Educación Superior en Bolivia (IES/2004/ED/PI/39). Retrieved from IESALC website: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ images/0014/001400/140078s.pdf
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Serrudo Ormachea, Historia de la Universidad Boliviana. Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana [en linea] 2006, 8 (Sin mes): [Fecha de consulta: 14 de diciembre de 2017] Disponible en: http://www.red alyc.org/articulo.oa?id=86900804 ISSN 0122–7238 UNESCO, Compendio Mundial de la Educación 2010 cit. en Brunner, J. J. ed. Ferrada Hurtado, R. ed. (2011). Educación superior en Iberoamérica: Informe 2011. RIL. Santiago, Chile: Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo (CINDA.)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavel Zgaga University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a multiethnic country in the middle of Balkan Peninsula, has a long and turbulent history. For centuries, it has been marked by demarcation and tensions between different regional powers, empires, cultures, and religions. Bosnia was first mentioned in Byzantine documents in the tenth century; in the fifteenth century, it came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire. The origins of higher learning are associated with the Gazi Husrev-beg Sufi School which was founded in Sarajevo in 1531. It was followed by other religious schools. The Ottoman Empire began to collapse in the nineteenth century, and in 1878 the Habsburg Monarchy annexed BiH. After World War I, the country was included in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918) where it had no formal status of its own. The first modern higher education institution, the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, was founded at the beginning of World War II (1940), while the University of Sarajevo was founded in 1949 (Sekulić 2013), in the context of the modernization program of the socialist Yugoslavia within which Bosnia and Herzegovina had the status of a federal republic. At its collapse, four universities operated in BiH (Šoljan 1991). They were strongly affected during the civil war period (1992–1995) that followed the disintegration of the federal Yugoslavia.
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The Dayton Peace Accord (1995) which ended the war set up a complex and highly decentralized state structure (with two entities: the Federation of BiH consisting of 12 cantons and the Republic of Srpska) which left its mark on the organization of education (Tiplic and Welle-Strand 2006). On the one hand, ethnic division of some formerly common educational institutions (“two schools under one roof”) resulted in significant fragmentation of the system; on the other, in the Federation of BiH, the Dayton administrative system delegated responsibility for education to the level of the cantons and even to the level of a municipality (Branković and Branković 2013). Responsibility for education, including higher education, lies with the ten cantons in the Federation of BiH, the Republic of Srpska, and the Brčko District which means that there are 12 ministries of education in a country with a population of 3.5 million (2013 census). There is the Federal Ministry of Education and Science at the level of the Federation of BiH that has a coordinating role over the cantonal ministries of education. At the national level, since 2003, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH has been responsible for the coordination of activities of the entity authorities and for defining strategy at the international level in various areas including education. Each of the 12 administrative units has its own education legislation and budget creates its own education policy and is fully responsible for the organization and functioning of education within its area of competence (Ministry of Civil Affairs 2014). Legislation adopted by units is harmonized by the national Framework Law on Higher Education (Framework 2007) which sets the basic standards and principles, including “the European strategic goals in the area of higher education, as reflected in the Declaration of the European Ministers of Higher Education from Bologna (1999).” BiH has joined the Bologna Process in 2003 (Sekulić 2013). Another coordinating body is the Council of Ministers of BiH. It has recently passed a decision to adopt the priorities for the development of higher education in BiH for the period 2016–2026 (the previous one was adopted in 2008). It aims at strengthening the development of higher education and at becoming fully involved in the European Higher Education Area
(EHEA) by highlighting seven key areas: good governance and management, resources, connection between the labor market and higher education, qualification standards, student experience, internationalization, and statistics (Odluka 2016). The binary system of higher education comprises universities and “higher schools” (visoke sˇkole; colleges). Universities offer academic degrees in all three cycles (bachelor, master, doctoral studies) in at least five study programs and in at least three scientific areas, while higher schools offer first cycle (bachelor) degrees in at least one area (Framework 2007, art. 10). The Agency for the Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance, founded in 2008, is an independent organization, which, among other things, carries out evaluation and (re)accreditation procedures at national level. The problem of the quality of higher education remains acute, i.e., maintaining a considerably fragmented system with insufficient financial resources. In such a situation, corruption is also a notable issue (Hamidičević 2015). The network of higher education institutions is highly fragmented (Tiplic and Welle-Strand 2006; Sekulić 2013). In parallel with the ethnic division of some public universities established before 1990, new ones were also set up: eight state universities (six in five cantons of the Federation of BiH and two in the Republic of Srpska) operate today. In addition, there are two public higher schools for health care and tourism in the Republic of Srpska (Branković and Branković 2013). Universities are almost by rule loose associations of “autonomous faculties,” which is a characteristic feature of the ex-Yugoslav academic spaces. Over the last 15 years, the private sector has been expanding almost uncontrollably. According to recent information from the Centre for Information and Recognition of Qualifications, 19 private universities and 21 private higher schools are licensed. Some institutions operate without accreditation or with accreditation pending. The war period caused a large outflow of students and staff to other countries. Later, the number of students began to grow fast. In 2000, there were about 60,000 students enrolled, while in 2012/2013 there were 116,567, and 18,365 students graduated in 2012, which was 2.3% higher than in 2011 (Ministry of Civil Affairs 2014). It
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seems that growth has stopped. In 2015/2016, there were 105,299 students enrolled and 15,974 students graduated in 2015, which was 5.6% lower compared to the previous year (Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHAS) 2016). The ratio of the enrolled students in the Federation of BiH and in the Republic of Srpska is about 60 to 40. Out of the total number of graduates, 58.7% were female; at PhD level, 40% of candidates are female. Despite the large number of private colleges, the share of students in them is quite small: overall around 15% of the total student body; around 10% in the Federation of BiH but around 30% in the Republic of Srpska (Branković and Branković 2013). Education in BiH is largely funded by public funds of the entity and cantonal budgets. There are 13 separate education budgets in BiH: two at the entity level, one in the Brčko District and ten cantonal budgets (Ministry 2014). The share of public funding for education in BiH is quite high: 6% in the Federation of Bosnia and 4% in the Republic of Srpska (Ministry 2011), but absolute figures are very small. It is estimated that the spending for higher education is “50% lower than in Europe” (Rožić and Međedović 2015, p. 283). In 2010, institutions received on average 1,674 BAM (837 EUR) per student from public funds (Ministry 2011). As public funding remains relatively low, public institutions are given the option to raise financial resources (donations, funds, tuition fees, intellectual property, commercial activity, etc.). At the state universities, there are “budget” (tuition-free) and “non-budget” students, the latter paying tuition fees which vary to a large extend, e.g., between 50 and 1,500 EUR for undergraduate studies and between 2,000 and 8,500 EUR for a PhD (Branković and Branković 2013). According to a recent study (limited to the Federation of BiH only), studies at public universities cost 2,175 BAM (1,087 EUR), while selffinancing (i.e., non-budget) students pay tuition fees of around 500 EUR per year. Typical tuition fees at private institutions range from 1,000 to 2,250 EUR (Hamidičević 2015) per year. Due to fragmentation of the system, detailed and reliable information is difficult to obtain. The total number of staff (academic and nonacademic) in higher education has been increasing
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in the past, between 2007 and 2011 by 33%. While this increase has been more notable in terms of total staff number, the number of full-time equivalent staff members has increased only slightly and with around 40% the proportion of female staff has remained unchanged. More detailed data for the Republic of Srpska show that the rise in the number of academic staff is relatively more prominent in the private sector (Branković and Branković 2013). Public institutions are free to employ staff, but respective ministries give consent to the so-called systematization (i.e., institutional legal provision which describes the organization of an institution and determine the conditions and the number of jobs for each type of work). The study mentioned above estimates that the average monthly teacher salary in the Federation of BiH is around 1,000 EUR (Hamidičević 2015). The same study estimates that there are 11 students per teacher in the public sector and 9 students per teacher in the private sector.
References Agency for Statistics of BiH. 2016. First release. Education statistics. Sarajevo, 31 Oct 2016. http://www.bhas.ba/ Branković, Jelena, and Nina Branković. 2013. Overview of higher education and research systems in the Western Balkans. Bosnia and Herzegovina. University of Oslo, Department of Educational Research. http:// www.herdata.org/research/country-reports/68 Framework Law on Higher Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, no. 94/07. Sarajevo, 30 July 2007. http://www.erisee. org/downloads/library_bih/Framework%20Law%20on %20HE%20in%20BiH.pdf Hamidičević, Sanjin (ed.). 2015. Corruption in higher education: Fiction or reality? Kiseljak: ITC. Ministarstvo civilnih poslova BiH. [Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, 2011]. Osnovne informacije o obrazovanju u BiH [Basic information on education in BiH, 2011]. www.mcp.gov.ba/org_jedinice/sektor_ obrazovanje/osnovne_inf/?id. Accessed 8 Jan 2012. Ministry of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2014. Bosnia and Herzegovina. Education for all 2015 national review. [Sarajevo], June 2014. Odluka o usvajanju prioriteta za razvoj visokog obrazovanja u Bosni i Hercegovini za period 2016–2026. [The decision to adopt the priorities for the development of higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2016–2026]. Službeni glasnik BiH [Official Gazette], 35/2016. http://www. sluzbenilist.ba/page/akt/e8wfEohz4nh78h77G7ohz4 nh78h77yE5
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862 Rožić, Jelena, and Aldin Međedović. 2015. Impact of the existing division of responsibilities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Finding the right path: Higher education financing and social dimension in the Western Balkans countries, 281–284. Beograd: University of Belgrade. Sekulić, Tatjana. 2013. The Bosnian puzzle of higher education in the perspective of the Bologna Process. In The globalisation challenge for European higher education: Convergence and diversity, centres and peripheries, ed. Pavel Zgaga, Ulrich Teichler, and John Brennan, 309–324. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Šoljan, Nikša Nikola. 1991. The saga of higher education in Yugoslavia: Beyond the myths of a self-management socialist society. Comparative Education Review 35(1): 131–153. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1188019 Tiplic, Dijana, and Anne Welle-Strand. 2006. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s higher education system: Issues of governance and quality. European Education 38 (1): 16–29. https://doi.org/10.2753/EUE1056-4934380101.
Websites Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance. http://hea.gov.ba Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHAS). 2016. http://www.bhas.ba/ Centre for Information and Recognition of Qualifications in Higher Education (CIP). http://www.cip.gov.ba/en/ he-system-eng Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina. http:// www.vijeceministara.gov.ba/Default.aspx?pageIndex ¼1&langTag¼en-US Federal Ministry of Education and Science. http://www. fmon.gov.ba/ Ministry of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2011. http://www.mcp.gov.ba/org_jedinice/sektor_obrazovanje/ default.aspx?langTag¼en-US&template_id¼108&page Index¼1 Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Srpska. 2014. http://www.vladars.net/eng/vlada/ministries/ MEC/Pages/default.aspx
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil Clarissa Eckert Baeta Neves Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
Synonyms Expansion; Financing; Structure of higher education; Trends
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil
Definitions The structure and organization of higher education system and institutions in Brazil.
Brief History In Brazil, the introduction of a higher education system occurred later than elsewhere in the Americas, where the first universities were already established in the sixteenth century. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1822, and formal education was the responsibility of Jesuits dedicated to the Christianization of indigenous peoples and to the education of children from the dominant class in royal schools. King D. João VI took the first initiatives in higher education during the period that the Portuguese royal family, escaping Napoleon’s invasion, took up residence in Brazil (1808–1820). After 1808, higher education institutions were established in Rio de Janeiro (military engineering, medicine), Salvador (medicine), and Recife and São Paulo (law). The system of higher education implanted by the Portuguese Crown was structured according to the educational reform measures that had been introduced by the Marquis of Pombal, minister under King D. José I (1750–1777). The first and major impact of this reform was the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Portuguese empire and the reformation of the traditional University of Coimbra in Portugal (Oliven 2002). Thus, in Brazil, higher education followed the model of intermediate professional units that comprised the University of Coimbra. These units began to operate as independent schools to prepare professionals for public administration, the military, engineering, medicine, and legal affairs. Latter in the nineteenth century, another major influence came from France with its secular institutions, the Grandes Écoles, which were aimed more at teaching than at research and whose organization was based on a lifelong tenure chair. From the colonial period until the proclamation of the Republic (1889), all Brazilian higher education was provided by the state, thus public.
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After 1850 under Emperor D. Pedro II, Brazil entered a long period of political stability and economic growth, which led to a gradual expansion of its educational institutions and the consolidation of a number of scientific centers, like the National Observatory, the National Museum, and the Imperial Geological Commission (Schwartzman 1992). Until the end of the nineteenth century, there were only 24 institutions of higher education, with about 10,000 students. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, this number grew to 133. During the period of the First Republic (1889–1930), the public debate focused on the need to create universities. In 1920 the University of Rio de Janeiro was founded, joining already existing schools under the same administration. It continued to be elitist, aimed more at teaching than research, while maintaining its academic emphasis on the professions (law, medicine, engineering, etc.). The debate surrounding the formation of universities was intensified with the founding of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (1916) and the Brazilian Association of Education (1924) (Oliven 2002). In 1931, the Getulio Vargas administration (1930–1945) carried out a broad education reform. The first university law was enacted and remained in force until 1961. Under this law, a university could be public (federal, state, or municipal) or private and had to include three of the following academic programs: law, medicine, engineering, education, sciences, or languages. In order to overcome the traditional isolation of different schools, a Provost’s Office was to establish the administrative connection between these courses. In 1937 the University of Rio de Janeiro included the School of Philosophy and was henceforth called University of Brazil. This university was supposed to provide the model for all other higher education institutions in the country. The period 1930–1950 was one of growth and diversification. The political and economic elites in the state of São Paulo, already the country’s economic hub, maneuvered to keep their autonomy from the central government and in 1934 had created their own university. The spirit of a revitalized system of higher education became clear with the founding of the University of
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São Paulo and, especially, its Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Languages, which employed many foreign professors, mainly from Europe (Schwartzman 1992). In 1946, the first (private) catholic universities were founded in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo. The next year, the Holy See granted them the title of Pontifical universities. During the 1950s, Brazil experienced a significant political, economic, and social moment. There was a change in the structure of Brazilian society with the progressive consolidation of an urban-industrial society. In politics, an ideology of nationalist development was rising inspired by a model of import substitution and the creation of new urban jobs in both the public and private sectors. Scientists connected to the Brazilian Academy of Science actively engaged in the fostering of technological development in the country, and in 1948, the Society for the Progress of Science was founded, a nonprofit organization aimed at advocating scientific and technological advances and educational and cultural development. In 1951, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) was founded to promote the development of scientific and technological research by providing grants to universities, laboratories, and research centers. Also in 1951, the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) was established to enhance the quality of human resources within the higher education system. In 1961, the first education law (LDB – Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educac¸ ão Nacional) was enacted. It reinforced the previous traditional model of a university loosely comprised of a set of professional schools focused on teaching. It also maintained lifetime tenure of universitychaired positions. In the same year, however, the University of Brasilia was founded, and the national capital was transferred there from Rio de Janeiro, and this was the first university that did not follow the traditional model. Rather, its structure was integrated and flexible, organized in the form of a foundation, and departments replaced chairs (Oliven 2002). Thus, the decades of 1950 and 1960 were periods of great political and cultural effervescence with profound social changes and a rapid
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modernization of the economy. The political dialogue surrounding Brazil’s pathway of development was becoming radicalized, and the military coup of 1964 introduced an authoritarian development strategy with a major emphasis on economic internationalization. It is in this political context that the policies on education were readjusted, especially those affecting higher education. The government sought to modernize higher education and reform the university system. The introduction of graduate programs (master’s and PhD) was accompanied by policies intended to develop the human resources needed to meet the national technological and scientific needs. The 1968 University Reform Law established the university as the preferred model of higher education, thus isolating the independent professional schools. This reform affirmed the integration of teaching and research missions and introduced the autonomy of the university with its specified powers. In addition, the traditional chair system was replaced by the department model, full-time contracts for faculty members were adopted, regulations for graduate programs were introduced, and undergraduate instruction shifted to the credit system (Schwartzman 2013). Even if it aimed to become a general guide for the Brazilian higher education, this reform in fact impacted mainly the public universities and some Catholic universities (Cunha 1988). At this same time, enrollment growth opened access to higher education to middle-income groups. The Ministry of Education responded to the pressure for more places by allowing the multiplication of private independent schools with an exclusive teaching mission. In this sense, the 1968 Reform was paradoxical. On the one hand, it enabled the modernization of public universities under the ideal of large multifunctional institutions that integrated teaching, research and extension; on the other hand, it provided incentives for the expansion of the private sector, through a network of higher education for-profit institutions generally of lower quality (Durham 2004). A democratic government was restored in 1985, and in 1988 the new Federal Constitution was ratified (Brasil 1988). The current structure of higher education in Brazil was formalized in the
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Federal Constitution of 1988 and legally recognized in the new education law (LDB) of 1996, under the auspices of the National Council of Education (Ranieri 2000).
The Current Structure of Higher Education in Brazil Brazil currently possesses a complex, diversified system of public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) that are officially classified according to two criteria – the administrative status and the academic organization (Neves 2002). With regard to administrative status, HEIs may be public or private. Federal and state-public HEIs both offer tuition-free education, whereas municipal entities are organized as foundations and charge tuition. Private HEIs support themselves mainly by charging monthly fees, and they can be subdivided into community, denominational, not-for-profit, and for-profit. Community-owned HEIs appeared at the end of the 1980s as a specific model characterized as “public, non-state organizations.” They are strongly tied to their regions/ local community oriented, focused on serving the region and the less endowed families, and are nonprofit. Denominational HEIs are maintained by religious organizations and are communityoriented and nonprofit organizations. The most important of these are the numerous branches of the Pontifical Catholic University, found in most Brazilian capitals. At the end of 1999, the government authorized the introduction of private forprofit HEIs; they are subject to general commercial law with regard to fiscal and labor regulations (Sampaio 2011). The second criterion of classification is the academic organization that categorizes HEIs into universities, university centers, and nonuniversity institutions. Universities are required to engage in providing indicators of some research activity, teaching, and community outreach. At least onethird of their faculty must have a master’s or Ph.D. degree, and at least one-third must be contracted full time. University centers are multicourse teaching institutions, which need not conduct research. They enjoy the autonomy to create new programs and new student vacancies.
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Nonuniversity institutions (including independent faculties, technological centers, and institutes) are in essence teaching institutions with no autonomy to approve new courses and vacancies; the National Council of Education must approve them. Regardless of legal status and type of organization, all HEIs provide the same formal credentials. The standard 4-year undergraduate program provides the bachelor degrees; the 4-year teachertraining program earns the licenciatura. The technological courses, most of them lasting 3 years, can provide bachelor’s, licenciatura, or technological degrees; the same happens with the distance courses, in different formats. At the graduate level, academic and professional master’s programs have a duration of 2 years, and the doctorate is a 4-year program. The specialization programs (lato-sensu) vary in format, as to duration and type of course offered.
The Growth of Higher Education The growth of higher education has not been the result of government planning but rather a function of the rapidly increasing demand for higher education mostly met by a dynamic private sector. In 2015, Brazil had 2,364 HEIs, of which 2,069 were private (87.5%) and 295 were public (12.5%). Among the private ones, 998 HEIs were for profit (42.1%), and 1,072 were non-profit (45.3%). The for-profit HEIs are primarily connected to one of the five large educational groups in Brazil traded on the national stock market – Estácio, Kroton (which are in the process of merging), Ser Educacional, Anima, and Laureate.
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Among the public HEIs, 107 are federal (4.5%), 118 state owned (5%), and 49 HEIs municipal (2.1%). Twenty-four HEIs are in the special category (1%). Of the total number of HEIs, 195 are universities (54.8% public); 140 are private university centers, and only 9 are public university centers; 1980 HEIs are independent faculties (83.7%), the great majority of them private (77.8%). Besides these, there are 40 technological institutes, all of them public (Table 1). Academic quality varies widely between the public and private HEIs as well as within each category. The public federal and state universities can be very diverse. Some are outstanding as research universities, offering both teaching and research and maintaining high-quality graduate programs. The faculty members at these institutions are highly qualified with a doctorate and have full-time contracts. Other public universities are mostly oriented toward the undergraduates, where the faculty members usually have fulltime contracts but fewer possess a PhD degree. Variation is even greater in the private sector. There are a small number of elite private institutions, including the Catholic universities and schools specialized in business and economics, which combine academic strength and institutional entrepreneurialism. On the other hand, there are many private mass-production universities and small independent faculties, and the vast majority of them are lacking in quality as defined by the low qualifications of the teaching staff and lack of proper learning conditions. Enrollment in undergraduate programs (excluding online until 2013) according to the type of administrative organization for the period from 1960 to 2015 can be seen in Figure 1 below.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil, Table 1 Number of institutions and enrollments by type of higher education institution and administrative status (2015)
Public Private Total
Institutions Enrollment Institutions Enrollment Institutions Enrollment
University 107 1,663,222 88 2,609,933 195 4,273,155
Source: INEP/MEC (2015)
University center 9 18,844 140 1,338,958 149 1,357,802
Independent faculties 139 125,203 1,841 2,126,261 1,980 2,251,464
Technological institute 40 144,876 – – 40 144,876
Total 295 1,952,145 2,069 6,075,152 2,364 8,027,297
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From 1960 to 1970, enrollment rose from 93,000 students to 425,478, and the percentage of students in public schools dropped from 56% to 49%. By 1975, undergraduate enrollment reached 1,072,548 students, with about 38% in public institutions. After a period of slow growth from 1975 to 1996, a rapid expansion of undergraduates occurred overwhelmingly within the private sector. For example, enrollments increased from 1,759,703 students in 1995 to 6,379,299 in 2010 and then 8,027,297 in 2015. The share of federal public HEIs in undergraduate education fell significantly, as total enrollments expanded. While the public sector remained limited in size because of its high costs and stronger academic requirements, the private sector rapidly responded to the growing market demand. As a result, today the public sector only covers 25% of the enrollments, the rest being concentrated in the private institutions (Fig. 1). As Table 1 indicates for 2015, universities had 4,273,155 students (53% of the total); university centers had 1,357,802 students (14%); institutes of technology had 144,876 students (2%); and independent faculties had 2,251,464 students (28%). In recent years, distance learning has expanded rapidly in higher education. In 2006 it
accounted for 4% of the undergraduate enrollment (207,206 students), but by 2010 it had grown to approximately 15% of total enrollments (992,927 students), and in 2015, it represented 17% of the enrollments (1,393,752 students). Of all students enrolled, 57% are female, and for those who finish their programs, almost 61% are female. At most of the public HEIs, the courses are offered in the daytime, while in the private HEIs, 70% of the courses are offered in the evening. Despite this rapid expansion, the net rate of enrollment (the percentage of the population in the age group from 18 to 24 enrolled in the level of education appropriate to their age group) remains modest at 18% in 2015. On the other hand, the gross enrollment rate (considering total enrollments at a given level of education over the population in the age group appropriate to this level) reached 34.6%, which suggests a significant number of adults seeking an undergraduate education (Fig. 2). The expansion of higher education has followed a pattern of strong emphasis on lowercost programs, namely, those in the human sciences and applied social sciences. In Brazil, the professions are formally regulated, but there are many opportunities for public sector employment
9.000.000 8.000.000 7.000.000 6.000.000 5.000.000 4.000.000 3.000.000 2.000.000 1.000.000
1960 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
0
public sector
private sector
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil, Fig. 1 Growth of enrollment in presential undergraduate courses according to administrative status (From 2013 it includes long-distance courses)
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brazil, Fig. 2 Growth of gross and net enrollment ratios in higher education in Brazil (2001–2015) (Source: INEP/MEC 2015)
(and even private sector employment) for anyone with a higher education degree in any program. Brazil is a society in which the service sector predominates and in this context the preferred degrees in, for example, law and administration are seen as having wide applications and thus offer an attractive entrée into the job market. The great concentration of enrollment occurs in the social and applied sciences (41.6%). However, the transformation of Brazil’s productive economy, together with positive economic growth experienced by the country between 2005 and 2013, has increased the demand for engineering and technical professional degrees. Enrollment in engineering programs more than doubled over the decade beginning in 2000 in response to market demand (Neves 2015). The total number of faculty working throughout the higher education sector in Brazil was 490,377 in 2015. At the public HEIs, 57.9% have a PhD and 28.2% a master’s degree, while 13.9% have some sort of specialization. At the private HEIs, only 20.8% of the academics have doctorates, 48.2% have a master’s degree, and
about 31% have some degree of specialization. At public HEIs, 83.8% of the teachers work full time, while at the private HEIs, only 24.9% of the teachers do. At the largest and most prestigious HEIs, the number of Afro-Brazilian professors, on average, does not reach 1% of the total faculty. Through a deliberate public policy, Brazil has managed to consolidate a vigorous national system of graduate programs that currently covers all fields of knowledge. This success is due to conscious planning, uninterrupted public funding, and the institutionalization of a systematic evaluation process, as well as a policy that withhold public support for graduate studies abroad from the end of the 1980s up to 2010. The development of graduate education generated a profoundly influential renewal of Brazilian higher education and fostered the institutionalization of research activities within universities, especially in the public ones. The National Graduate Plans (PNPGs) were a crucial element in building the architecture of this system. They set the policy and goals for graduate education. From the mid-1970s up to the present moment, there have been five PNPGs.
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The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), within the Ministry of Education, is the agency responsible for graduate education policy and for the expansion and evaluation of all graduate degrees throughout the country. CAPES has been responsible for the National System for the Evaluation of Graduate Education since 1976. Three axes characterize this evaluation: (a) it is done by peers recognized for their distinguished intellectual reputation; (b) it is meritocratic in nature; and (c) it associates acknowledgment with support, including scholarships for students. The evaluation assigns each program a score (1–5 for independent master’s programs and 1–7 in the case of master and doctoral programs). Only programs that scored at least 3 in the evaluation carried out every 4 years are allowed to continue operational (Brasil 2016). In a system of higher education with a preponderance of private institutions, graduate education has been mostly concentrated at public universities since the beginning. In 2015 there were 3,841 master’s programs with 149,316 students and 2,095 doctorate programs with 102,365 students. Of the master’s degree students, a third received financial fellowship support, as did 42% of the doctoral students. Since 2013, about 50,000 master’s and 15,000 PhDs have been completed annually (Brasil 2016).
Regulatory Framework The regulatory framework of higher education has undergone significant changes since the 1980s. The main instruments that define the structure and functioning of higher education are the Federal Constitution of 1988, the Law of National Education Bases and Guidelines of 1996, and the National Council of Education of 1995. Besides these, the regulation of Brazilian higher education is comprised of many decrees, administrative rulings, resolutions, transient rules, constantly changing tools for evaluation, and technical notes (Ranieri 2000). The Federal Constitution attributes a juridical identity to higher education. The Federal Constitution guarantees didactic-scientific, administrative, financial, and patrimonial management
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autonomy for the universities (actually there is no financial autonomy in the public universities, except for the three universities owned by the State of São Paulo). It also imposes tuition-free education at the public HEIs and the use of tax revenue to maintain and develop public education; and it guarantees private enterprise participation in the supply of higher education within the limits of the law but forbids the use of government resources to fund private institutions. However, the constitution does permit public funding for community-owned, confessional, and not-forprofit institutions. There is a constitutional provision establishing that the federal and regional governments should expend at least 18% of their tax revenues in education. In the case of the federal government, almost 70% of these resources are spent in supporting the federal sector of higher education (Brasil 1988). The education law (LDB) defines goals and the general framework for courses and programs, the types of HEIs, and the competencies of the government agencies. The law also determines the range of university autonomy. Brazil, being a federal state, has HEIs under control of the federal, state, or municipal levels. The federal system includes those HEIs maintained by both the federal government and the private sector. All such public federal and private institutions are subject to the laws and regulations of the Ministry of Education and the National Council of Education. The state and municipal HEIs are outside the purview of the federal system. However, they are still subject to federal laws and standards, when they apply for federal public resources, like scholarships and research funds (Brasil 1996). The main government agencies which coordinate, control, regulate, and evaluate the public federal and private system of higher education are the Ministry of Education (MEC) and the National Council of Education. Two other important agencies in the sphere of coordination and evaluation of higher education are the abovementioned Coordination of the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) and the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research (INEP), in charge of performing evaluation of both the undergraduate courses in the federal and private sectors. Through these
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agencies, MEC retains the prerogative for formulating policies, development and support programs, regulation, inspection, and evaluation models. It is also responsible for funding all the federal public HEIs and the inspection and evaluation of the federal and private HEIs. This form of coordination centralized under a single-state agency has existed since the first colleges were established in the country (MEC 2016). The powers of the National Council of Education are normative and deliberative. The Council of Higher Education advises MEC, helps elaborate the National Plan of Education and its implementation, analyzes issues regarding the application of legislation, and approves the by-laws of universities and community colleges. The approval of statutes for non-university institutions is a task that pertains solely to MEC. In 2003 the government established the National System of Evaluation of Higher Education (SINAES) to define the national process of evaluation for undergraduate courses and to monitor the academic performance of undergraduate students. In Brazil, there is no accreditation of HEIs, but regulation, based on evaluation processes. SINAES is an integrated system responsible for coordinating evaluation procedures comprising the Institutional Evaluation, the Evaluation of Undergraduate Courses, and the National Exam of Student Performance (Barreyro and Rothen 2014). There is a regulatory tradition that heavily burdens the courses and HEIs. Courses are authorized (in the case of institutions that do not have university autonomy) and approved (which makes the diploma issued by the institution legal), and the HEIs need an institutional certification to operate. Approving a course or certifying an institution, as done in Brazil, is not an accreditation but rather a regulatory act that only serves to legalize the course and the institution.
Financing According to data from OECD (2013), Brazil invests a total of 10.7% of its GDP in education (all levels). Out of this total, 20% of the resources are allocated to higher education. Among the
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funds invested in higher education, 45% are private and 55% are public. Financing of higher education is different between the public and private sectors. The federal institutions are maintained with funds from the National Treasury. These institutions offer tuition-free education at undergraduate and graduate levels, and only 3.5% of their revenues comes from other sources. The Ministry of Education establishes individual budgets for each federal university based on the previous year’s allocation of specific budget items, covering expenditures on personnel (active and retired), current expenditures, and investments. The distribution of these funds traditionally follows a historical matrix in which the most important item is personnel – i.e., the faculty and staff payroll (Chaves 2015). State-owned HEIs also offer tuition-free education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. For almost all state-owned universities, the main sources of revenue of these institutions are the budget allocations in state budgets, which usually follow the historical matrix, as described for the federal universities. The São Paulo state universities are funded by a fixed percentage (11%) of the state main tax revenue, a tax imposed over all goods and services traded inside the state. These resources are transferred en bloc to the universities, and the institutions have autonomy to decide where it will be used. The municipal HEIs are funded with money from the municipal budgets and from tuitions charged for education. It is important to note that higher education funding does not cover the direct costs of research, nor is usual for HEIs to reserve funds for covering other costs of research than human resources. Funding research, both in public and private sectors, is done by federal and state level specialized agencies, usually through competitive tenders and calls. Some of these tenders focus thematic areas; others cover more broadly research in all fields of knowledge. These agencies also offer a number of competitive scholarships for academics and students interested in engaging in research. In the private sector, funding comes from tuition charged for education. Tuitions vary significantly depending on the region, on the type of course (medicine, dentistry, and engineering are more
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expensive, while management, economics, pedagogy, and social sciences are less expensive), and on the type of institution (university, university centers, and independent faculties). However, there are many indirect sources (fiscal and social security exemptions and tax waivers, the ProUniUniversity for All Program) of public funds for private HEIs and direct sources (educational loans/ FIES). The expansion, and even the maintenance of the current level of enrollment in the private sector, has only been possible due to the existence of these modalities of public funding for the private sector. The main public programs for student funding at the private sector are a student loan program with preferred interest rates (FIES) and the scholarshipbased University for All Program (ProUni). Both help finance higher education tuition for lowincome students at private HEIs (Neves 2009). In Brazil, the private sector grew as a demanddriven sector, receiving students with poorer academic profile that are not prepared to pass through the demanding entrance examinations in the public sector. In this scenario, student loans under reduced interest provided by the federal government, known by the acronym FIES, and the scholarships provided by the abovementioned federal program ProUni are an essential instrument for students from low-income families to have access to higher education. In 2014, about one-third of the university students enrolled in the private sector benefited from some type of public financing. About 41% of the students enrolled in undergraduate courses had financing from FIES and 22% from ProUni scholarships. The expansion and even the maintenance of the current level of enrollment in the private sector have only been possible because of these modalities of public financing (INEP 2015).
Contemporary Trends In Brazil in the last 25 years, governments have formulated higher education policies in the form of ad hoc measures and programs targeting specific issues within the system of higher education: (a) Access to higher education was expanded mainly by FIES and ProUni programs. Since
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2009, access to entrance positions in the federal universities, in many state universities, and in some private institutions is organized through a national exam offered once a year, known by the acronym ENEM (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio) and the Unified Selection System (SISU). ENEM was launched in 1998 to evaluate the performance of students finishing high school and indirectly measure the performance of high school learning. From 2009 onward, it was linked to SISU and became the major national exam for access to higher education. (b) A mandatory policy of affirmative action for federal institutions reserving 50% of all entrance positions in the public universities for students from public basic education (which in Brazil attend mostly children from low-income families), with a proportional distribution of the places children from AfroBrazilian families, and indigenous. (c) Public and institutional level policies aimed at internationalization are a novelty in Brazilian higher education. Up to the beginning of the 2010s, this issue was a target for science and technology policies but hardly a preoccupation for university authorities. It was only in 2011, with the launching of the Science without Borders program, which target sending 100,000 students abroad, that universities attention was directed to this area. In most universities, especially in the better endowed private HEIs, internationalization is usually understood as supporting students’ internship abroad. A number of institutions have also plans for attracting foreign students. Only a small number of universities understand internationalization as the integration of their research effort into international networks, by improving the infrastructure and supporting research groups in relevant areas so that they can attract doctoral students and postdocs. The motivation is derived both from government incentives, particularly initiatives within the sphere of cultural and academic diplomacy, and the exposure of the university authorities to the international debate created around the dissemination of the international rankings of excellence and the “world-class universities”.
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However, no matter how narrow one understands internationalization, there are many obstacles to overcome. The data of the last census of higher education (2015) show that so far there are very few foreign students at Brazilian HEIs. Brazil has 15,605 foreign students at the HEIs, of which 174 different nationalities represent only 0.2% of the total enrollment. This number comprises, basically, students from Portuguesespeaking African countries and from South American countries. CAPES and CNPq, federal agencies, and many state level research agencies, the FAPs, maintain programs to support academic exchange and studies abroad, especially at the graduate level. Nevertheless, from the end of 1980s up to 2011, most of the academic exchanges were confined to postdoc internships and senior academics already established in secure positions, mostly in the public sector. Undergraduate scholarship was something not heard of, and graduate education demand was supposed to be answered by domestic programs. Studies abroad were expensive, and the agencies maintained that the domestic system of graduate education was of enough quality for the demands of qualification coming from the university system. These policies made Brazil a highly closed system. In 2011 this picture changed with the launched of the Science without Borders Program, by the federal government. The program had a goal of supporting internationalization of the Brazilian universities, through the international mobility of undergraduate and postgraduate students in science, engineering, and technological fields. Of the 100,000 scholarships awarded between 2011 and 2016, about 79% were intended for undergraduate students. Aside from the fact of being highly expensive, the program had some problems, mostly because it was centrally implemented, counting with a small participation of the universities. The program was closed in 2016. However its main legacy is a new institutional awareness regarding the internationalization of higher education (MEC 2016). Mergers in the Private Sector In the 1990s, the horizontal expansion of the private sector prevailed, through the increase in the number of small- and medium-sized
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institutions. Since 2005 there is a movement to concentrate the market mergers of educational groups and HEIs (Sampaio 2011). The activities encompass the purchase, sale, and merger of HEI and the organization of new companies with shares on the stock exchange. By opening their capital, streamlining costs, and employing vigorous marketing, they demonstrate a clear tendency toward more entrepreneurial management. Operating publicly in the stock exchange and attracting international investors, the education groups control several HEI and now account for about a third of total enrollment in the private higher education sector in Brazil (Corbucci et al. 2016).
Concluding Remarks In the last 40 years, the HE system in Brazil has been built a public/private dual system. In the public side, all HEIs are basically funded by the state, while in private education, all costs are paid by students or their families. While public universities traditionally were more selective and tended to cater for the best students from middle-class families, the private HEI were mostly composed of nonuniversity demand-driven institutions catering for children of low-income families that could not afford to be prepared to face the highly difficult entrance examinations organized at the public sector. However, the recent trends blur these traditional lines of divide: first, there is a differentiation inside the private sector with a new profile of HEIs targeting students from affluent families. These elite private institutions are more entrepreneurial and offer some innovative programs tailor-fit to special niches in the job market. On the other hand, the affirmative action policies adopted in the public sector broadened access to public sector. Finally the interlinking between public and the private sector is reinforced by the new mechanisms for supporting access to higher education through the enlarged private sector, as described above. Finally, one should note that the growth of enrollment is evident in Brazilian higher education; however, it is insufficient when faced with the size and expectations of the Brazilian population. The
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persistence of enormous social inequalities in terms of access and permanence at the higher education level remains an urgent challenge. Thus, the great recurrent challenges are to manage the expansion of enrollment with democratization of access and diversification of supply in order to meet the demands of the economy and society and to guarantee the excellence of the training offered with an adequate financing equation for expansion.
References Barreyro, Gladys Beatriz, and Rothen José Carlos. 2014. Percurso da avaliac¸ão da educac¸ão superior nos Governos Lula. Educac¸ ão e Pesquisa, São Paulo 40 (1): 61–76. BRASIL. 1988. Constituic¸ ão da Repu´blica Federativa do Brasil. Brasília: Senado Federal. BRASIL. Lei no 9.394 de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educac¸ ão nacional. Brasília: Diário Oficial da União. BRASIL. 2016. Coordenac¸ão de Aperfeic¸oamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). http://www. capes.gov.br. Accessed 26 Oct 2016. Chaves, Vera Lúcia Jacob. 2015. Política de Financiamento e a Expansão da Educac¸ão Superior no Brasil: o Público e o Privado em Questão. Educ Temática Digit 17: 427–441. Corbucci, Paulo Roberto, Luis Claudio Kubota, and Ana Paula Barbosa Meira. 2016. Reconfigurac¸ão Estrutural da Educac¸ão Superior Privada no Brasil: Nova Fase da Mercantilizac¸ão do Ensino. In Texto para discussão. Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, Brasília. Rio de Janeiro: Ipea. Cunha, L.A.C.R. 1988. A universidade reformada: o Golpe de 1964 e a modernizac¸ ão do ensino superior. Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves. Durham, Eunice. 2004. Higher education in Brazil – public and private. In The challenges of education in Brazil, ed. C. Brock and S. Schwartzman, 147–178. Oxford: Triangle Journals, Ltd. INEP. 2015. Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira. Censo da educac¸ão superior. http://www.inep.gov.br/superior/censosuperior. Accessed 15 Sept 2016. Ministério da Educac¸ão (MEC). 2016. http://portal.mec. gov.br. Accessed 05 Sept 2016. Neves, Clarissa E.B.A. 2002. Estrutura do Ensino Superior no Brasil. In A educac¸ ão superior no Brasil, ed. M.S.A. Soares, 39–70. Brasília: Capes. Neves, Clarissa E.B.A. 2009. Using social inclusion policies to enhance access and equity in Brazil’s higher education. In Financing access and equity in higher education, ed. Jane Knight, 169–188. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Neves, Clarissa E.B.A. 2015. Demand and supply for higher education in Brazil. In Higher education in the
BRICS countries: Investigating the pact between higher education and society, ed. Simon Schwartzman, Pundy Pillay, and Rómulo Pinheiro, 1st ed., 73–96. Dordrecht: Springer. OECD. 2015. Organization for educational and cooperative development. 2015. In Education at a glance: OECD indicators 2015. Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. https://data. oecd.org/eduresource/spending-on-tertiary-education. htm. Accessed 15 Sept 2016. Oliven, Arabela Campos. 2002. Histórico da Educac¸ão Superior no Brasil. In A educac¸ ão superior no Brasil, ed. M.S.A. Soares, 24–38. Brasília: Capes. Ranieri, Nina B.S. 2000. Educac¸ ão superior, direito e Estado na Lei de Diretrizes e Bases (Lei n. 9.394/96). São Paulo: EDUSP /Editora da Universidade de São Paulo. Sampaio, Helena. 2011. O setor privado de ensino superior no Brasil: continuidades e transformac¸ões. Revista Ensino Superior Unicamp, Campinas, ano 2(4): 28–43. Schwartzman, S. 1992. Brazil. In The encyclopedia of higher education, ed. B.R. Clark and G. Neave, 82–92. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Schwartzman, Simon. 2013. Higher Education, the Academic Profession, and Economic Development in Brazil. In The global future of higher education and the academic profession – The BRICs and the United States, ed. P.G. Altbach, G. Androushchak, Y. Kuzminov, and L. Reisberg, 28–55. London: Palmgrave – Macmillan.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam Rose Patsy Tibok and Wendy Hiew Centre for the Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Introduction Brunei Darussalam, the “abode of peace,” is located on the Southeast Asia island of Borneo. The country, with a total land area of 5765 km2, has as neighbors the Malaysian Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak, and Indonesian Kalimantan. A former British protectorate until its independence in 1984, Brunei Darussalam is categorized as a “developed country” and ranked 39 out of 189 countries and territories in 2017 in terms of Human Development Index (HDI) measurements
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education that reflects their ability, inclination, and academic engagement. The education system adopts an inclusive outlook by ensuring specialized education and the learning requirements of special needs children are catered for. Children begin their formal schooling at preschool and enter primary education at the age of 6. Upon completion of a 6-year schooling period, they then proceed to their secondary education. A common curriculum is used in all schools for Year 7 and Year 8, the first 2 years of secondary school. After this, however, students are required to choose between four programs: (1) General Education Program for the academically-inclined, (2) Applied Education Program for learners who wish to develop specific vocational skills, (3) Specialized Education Program for children who are
(United Nations 2018). Oil and natural gas reserves are central to the country’s economic prosperity with this wealth benefiting its citizens through, among others, free education and 0% taxation on personal income.
Brunei Darussalam Education System The Sistem Pendidikan Negara Abad ke-21 (21st Century National Education System or SPN21) (Fig. 1) framework, introduced in January 2009, outlines the education aims and pathways for the country under three categories: education structure, curriculum and assessment, and technical education. SPN21 creates possible broad-based pathways for children to access the type of
STRUCTURE OF THE 21ST CENTURY NATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM (SPN 21)
FURTHER EDUCATION/UPGRADING SKILLS/EMPLOYMENT TERTIARY EDUCATION
STPU
Nursing Diploma
Pre - University Education
Nursing Education
SPU
PRIMARY EDUCATION Age: 6-11 yrs
Diploma
Vocational and Technical Education
Specialised Education Learning Profile
BC GCE’O’/IGCSE/other equivalent qualifications
ARABIC SEC. EDUCATION
Primary
Entry Test to ARABIC SCHOOLS [Yr 4]
(4/5 years)
SECONDARY EDUCATION Age: 12-16 yrs
BDTVEC (NSC, Diploma)
BC GCE ‘A’/VCE
General Education Programme 2 years (Yr 7 & Yr 8) Common Curriculum
(5 years)
POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION Age: 17 yrs
TERTIARY EDUCATION
Applied Education Programme 2 years (Yr 7 & Yr 8) Common Curriculum
Specialised Education Programme
School
Special Educational Needs Programme [5 years]
Assessment
Primary Education (Yr 1-6) (Age: 6-11 yrs)
Pre School (Age: 5 yrs)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Fig. 1 Structure of the 21st Century National Education System (SPN21) (Ministry of Education 2018)
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gifted and demonstrate exceptional intellectual capabilities, and (4) Special Educational Needs Program designed for those with special learning needs (Ministry of Education 2018). Post-secondary school education offers students the choice of either pre-university education in sixth form colleges and centers, or skills-based qualifications in vocational or technical areas of specialization. Tertiary education is offered at both public and private institutions of higher learning. As of 2018, the Department of Planning, Development, and Research of the Brunei Darussalam Ministry of Education lists seven such Higher Education (HE) institutions in the country (Table 1). The total enrolment figure for 2017 is 12,135 with 4896 (40.3%) male students and 7239 (59.7%) female students, an overall gender disparity of 2343 (19.4%). At all age levels of enrolment, more female students are found to be in HE compared to males. The number of Brunei Darussalam students pursuing tertiary education in overseas universities, whether on government scholarships or privately funded, however is not available thus any definitive breakdown or comparison of male–female university enrolment cannot be ascertained. The 2017 enrolment figure in Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Table 1 Higher Education institutions in Brunei Darussalam (Ministry of Education 2018) Public institutions of Higher Education Universiti Brunei Darussalam Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali Universiti Teknologi Brunei Politeknik Brunei Kolej Universiti Perguruan Ugama Seri Begawan Private institutions of Higher Education Kolej International Graduate Studies Laksamana College of Business
HE shows a very slight increase (0.9%) from the 12,027 enrolment total in 2016 (Table 2).
Brunei Darussalam Higher Education System and Governance Brunei Darussalam practises a sistem dwibahasa, or bilingual language system in education, and HE institutions in the country use both Bahasa Melayu and English in their teaching and learning. University governance would usually involve the participation of the Brunei Darussalam government in the institutions’ council board, as in the case of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) where cabinet ministers and key government officials are prominent representatives. Although government and private learning institutions come under the direct purview of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Religious Affairs (for institutions focused on the teaching and learning of Islamic religious aspects), HE institutions must be in compliance with the Education Act 1984. Public universities and colleges are authorized to award their students with degree qualifications, subject to acquiring prior accreditation by the Brunei Darussalam National Accreditation Council (BDNAC). The Brunei Darussalam Technical and Vocational Education Council (BDTVEC) is currently the main awarding body for public and private institutions of HE in the country. The HE institutions in Brunei Darussalam offer study programs from bachelor degree to postgraduate study levels with each university or college establishing their own niche areas. UBD, for instance, positions itself as the premier HE provider in the country with a diverse range of study options. Established in 1985, UBD has expanded to include eight academic faculties, nine research
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Table 2 Higher Education enrolment by age, 2017 (Ministry of Education 2018) Gender Total Male Female
Higher Education enrolment by age (2017) 16–17 18–19 20–21 22–23 24–25 26–27 288 2378 3714 2817 1371 583 114 1009 1467 1125 539 242 174 1369 2247 1692 832 341
28–29 268 106 162
30–34 391 164 227
35–39 174 65 109
40 132 61 71
Unknown 19 4 15
Total 12,135 4896 7239
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institutes, and six academic service centers (UNESCO 2015). The Discovery Year program in UBD provides the opportunity for students to engage in real-world learning experiences through community-based or international engagements. The Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University (UNISSA) specializes in Islamic-based programs such as Islamic History and Civilization, Islamic Law and Governance, Islamic Finance, and Arabic Language. The four faculties and three research centers in UNISSA offer courses at all levels of study from Higher National Diploma (HND) to postgraduate programs. Kolej Universiti Perguruan Ugama Seri Begawan (KUPUSB), supervised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, was formerly an Islamic Religious Teachers’ Training College but upgraded to university college status in 2007. It remains a center for the training of Islamic teaching with study programs from diploma to postgraduate master’s level. KUPUSB currently offers programs under its seven faculties and three centers. University Teknologi Brunei (UTB) was formerly Institut Teknologi Brunei (ITB), an institution established by the MoE in 1986 to cater to study options that are skills-based and industryinclined. ITB in its initial years of establishment offered courses such as the higher national diploma. With the upgrading to university status in 2008, UTB began offering programs such as engineering, business, and ICT through its School of Business and Finance, School of Information and Communication Technology, School of Science and Engineering, and School of Health Sciences. The practical industry-based programs enhance the value and marketability of the qualifications awarded by UTB.
economic backgrounds and learning needs, free education from pre-primary to higher education level is implemented. The benefits of this are twopronged: parents are encouraged to enroll their children in formal education at the earliest opportunity, and students are given the option and motivation to pursue their studies to the highest possible level. This provision of free education is due largely to the country’s wealth and relatively small population. University scholarships under various schemes – the Sultan Scholars Scheme, Ministry of Education Scheme, Human Resources Funds, Brunei Shell Schemes, Brunei Administrative Scheme, Ministry of Religious Affairs Scheme, Royal Brunei Armed Forces Scheme, and the BPTV scholarship scheme – are awarded to eligible students to pursue their undergraduate and postgraduate studies in local universities or institutions abroad. In addition, a special scholarship scheme to recruit bright talents into the teaching profession is also available (Ministry of Education 2018).
Academic Profession and Students As of 2017, the 839 lecturers teaching in HE have at least a National Technical Education Certificate or Skills Certificate (Ministry of Education 2018). Of this number, 46.7% are PhD holders, 37.5% Master’s, 0.1% Postgraduate certification, 15.4% Bachelor’s degree, and 0.2% National Technical Education Certificate or Skills Certificate. Five hundred and fifty-five of these lecturers are Brunei Darussalam citizens (66.2%) and 284 non-citizens (33.8%) (Table 3). Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Table 3 Number of lecturers in Higher Education, 2017 (Ministry of Education 2018)
Funding System The Brunei Darussalam National Education Policy is aimed at ensuring quality education is accessible to all its citizens. Compulsory formal education is stipulated for children between 6 and 15 years old under the Compulsory Education Order 2007 (Ministry of Education 2018). To ensure the education becomes truly inclusive and benefits children regardless of their socio-
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Academic qualification PhD Master’s degree Postgraduate Bachelor’s degree National Technical Education Certificate and Skill Certificate Total
Number of lecturers Male Female Total 264 128 392 126 189 315 1 0 1 57 72 129 2 0 2
450
389
839
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Table 4 Higher Education enrolment, 2017 (Ministry of Education 2018) University Universiti Brunei Darussalam Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali Universiti Teknologi Brunei Kolej Universiti Perguruan Ugama Seri Begawan Politeknik Brunei Kolej International Graduate Studies Laksamana College of Business Total
Enrolment Male Female 1675 3309 384 690 673 752 262 487 973 1146 274 249 655 606 4896 7239
Of the 12,135 students in the various HE institutions in the country, UBD has the highest number, accounting for more than half of the total enrolment at 48.2%, followed by Politeknik Brunei (PB) (20.3%), UTB (13.8%), UNISSA (10.4%), and KUPUSB (7.3%) (Table 4). In 2017, more than half of the 2300 graduates were from UBD (56.9%) followed by UTB (23.9%), KUPUSB (11.3%), and UNISSA (7.91%) (Ministry of Education 2018). In 2017, Business and Administration recorded the highest student enrolment at the postgraduate level with 266 students (30%) while Arts and Humanities had the highest enrolment in the bachelor’s degree level with 2102 students (34.4%). Engineering and Engineering Trades was the most popular diploma course with 571 enrolments (25.4%) (Table 5).
Issues and Challenges Gender Gap The gender gap in academic achievement in Brunei Darussalam becomes apparent at the tertiary level of education. A factor contributing to the gender gap is differences in career interests (Metussin 2017) with the majority of male school leavers opting to join the security services (police, army, and prison department) and uniformed services as recruits and cadet officers after completing school (Metussin 2017). Secondly, female students outperform their male counterparts in key subjects, such as Mathematics and English, which are among the admission criteria of colleges and universities in Brunei Darussalam. This has resulted in
Total 4984 1074 1425 749 2119 523 1261 12,135
Graduates Male Female 367 941 58 124 256 294 99 161 0 0 197 203 313 279 1290 2002
Total 1308 182 550 260 0 400 592 3292
fewer males being admitted into HE institutions (Metussin 2017). In addition to the lack of academic qualifications to enter college and university, other contributing factors include financial problems, interest to gain work experience, lack of interest for further study, and lack of confidence to further their study due to poor academic results (Metussin 2017). Ironically, there were more PhD male graduates than female in 2017, specifically in the fields of Education, Arts and Humanities, Information, Communication and Technologies, and Health and Welfare (Ministry of Education 2018). Brain Drain The Brunei Darussalam government offers numerous scholarship opportunities to its citizens to study overseas. However, a downside to this has been many young graduates choosing not to return home upon completion of their studies or deciding to leave Brunei Darussalam after graduation. This has led to a major brain drain in the academic sector and affected the country’s pool of highly-skilled workforce. Lack of job opportunities at home and better work incentives offered by overseas companies are among the main career attractions for graduates. The government aims to address the brain drain issue by establishing a special scheme for technical experts and reviewing the salary of civil servants (Roberts and Onn 2009). Internationalization To provide local students with international exposure, UBD introduced the GenNEXT curriculum in 2011. Under GenNEXT, it is mandatory for third-year students to undertake one or two of
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Brunei Darussalam, Table 5 Student enrolment at tertiary level programs (Ministry of Education 2018) Tertiary levels Arts and Humanities Social and Behavioral Sciences Architecture and Building Engineering Business and Administration Law Sciences Computing Engineering and Engineering Trades Manufacturing and Processing Engineering Health Business Information and Communication Technology Teacher Training Life Sciences Physical Sciences Mathematics and Statistics Social Care Bridging and Foundation Programs Total
Postgraduate 219 32 13 266 5 – 30 42 – 63 – – 258 32 44 7 14 – 1025
Bachelor’s degree 2102 1 107 1213 249 1297 210 608 12 307 – – – – – – – – 6106
Diplomaa 8 – 263 – 110 – – 571 0 342 483 468 7 – – – – – 2252
Othersb 4 – – – 0 – – – – – – – – – – – – 215 219
a
Diploma includes Postgraduate Diploma, Higher National Diploma, Advanced Diploma, and Diploma Levels 4 and 5 Others include Certificate, University Bridging Program, Bridging English Course, Foundation Degree in Process Engineering, and Foundation Degree in Mechanical Engineering
b
the following activities: student exchange, internship, community outreach program, or incubation program. UBD students are sent to over 40 countries and 80 universities around the world (Universiti Brunei Darussalam 2018). UBD has seen a significant 10-year increase in inbound international students from 2% in 2006 to 19% in 2017 (Universiti Brunei Darussalam 2018). The university’s customized credit-bearing summer school program, the Global Discovery Program, attracts international exchange students to explore and immerse in the history, culture, and tradition of Brunei Darussalam. These ambitious efforts by UBD in promoting internationalization have resulted in it being ranked 1st in outbound and inbound student mobility in the QS Asia 2017 Ranking (Universiti Brunei Darussalam 2018).
Opportunities Tackling Unemployment According to the World Bank (2018), Brunei’s unemployment rate increased to 7.08% in
December 2017 from 6.93% in December 2016. In an effort to address the issue of graduate unemployment in Brunei, the Energy and Industry Department with relevant agencies established the JobCentre Brunei program in January 2017, a one-stop career center for local job seekers to improve their employability and marketability. The center also functions as a jobmatching platform between local job seekers and private companies to match suitable vacancies and qualifications. Under JobCentre Brunei, an apprenticeship program called i-Ready Apprenticeship Programme was launched; as of February 2018, 1263 graduates were actively involved in the program. To date, 146 apprentices have successfully obtained permanent jobs in the government, private sector, and statutory boards (Norjidi 2018). In addition, the Energy and Industry Department continues to work together with the Ministry of Education through the HE Institutions Action Group in reviewing the existing education curriculum to ensure that it meets industry needs with regards to supply and demand of graduates
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(Norjidi 2018). The Energy and Industry Department also emphasizes the development of entrepreneurship among graduates in order to generate employment opportunities and inculcate selfreliance as opposed to being dependent on the government. This entrepreneurship program initiative has the involvement of agencies, educational institutions, and the private sector (Norjidi 2018). The Ministry of Education implements a system called the Labour Management Information System which provides data on manpower demands. The system enables HE institutions to decide on the number of places to offer in their respective courses based on identified industry needs. The system is expected to reduce enrolment in certain courses, or eliminate them altogether, to ensure HE outputs match jobs available in the country (Azaraimy 2018).
References Azaraimy, H.H. 2018. New system to reduce graduate unemployment in Brunei. Asia News Network. http:// asianews.eu/content/new-system-reduce-graduate-unem ployment-brunei-68951. Accessed 3 Oct 2018. Metussin, H. 2017. Gender gap in academic achievement in Brunei tertiary education: Qualitative perspective. European Journal of Social Sciences 9 (2): 28–41. Ministry of Education. 2018. Brunei Darussalam education statistics 2017. http://www.moe.gov.bn/Document Downloads/Education%20Statistics%20and%20Indi cators%20Handbook/Brunei%20Darussalam%20Edu cation%20Statistics%202017.pdf. Accessed 15 Sept 2018. Norjidi, D. 2018. 2017 sees a drop in unemployment. Borneo Bulletin. https://borneobulletin.com.bn/2017sees-a-drop-in-unemployment/. Accessed 21 Sept 2018. Roberts, C., and L. Onn. 2009. Brunei Darussalam: Cautious on political reform, comfortable in ASEAN, pushing for economic diversification. Southeast Asian Affairs 2009: 61–82. UNESCO. 2015. Education for All 2015 National Review Report: Brunei Darussalam. UNESCO. United Nations. 2018. Human development reports. http:// hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/ BRN.pdf. Accessed 30 Sept 2018. Universiti Brunei Darussalam. 2018. Global education. http://www.ubd.edu.bn/about/ubd-global/global-education. html. Accessed 30 Oct 2018. World Bank. 2018. Brunei unemployment rate. https:// www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/brunei/unemploymentrate. Accessed 3 Oct 2018.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria Pepka Boyadjieva and Petya Ilieva-Trichkova Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
Bulgaria is a Balkan nation whose long history dates back to the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681 AD. A melting pot of Greek, Slavic, Ottoman, and Persian influences, the country has a rich cultural heritage. After more than four decades (1944–1989) as part of the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, the country started its democratic transition at the end of 1989 and moved toward a market-based economy. Today Bulgaria is an urbanized country governed as a unitary parliamentary republic. It became a member of the European Union (EU) in 2007.
Higher Education System Development The first Bulgarian university (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”) was founded in 1888, 10 years after Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman rule. In the country’s process of democratization following 1989, the autonomy of Bulgarian higher education institutions (HEIs) was restored; the three-level model of higher education (bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees) was established and university quality assurance systems were developed. Undoubtedly one of the most significant changes in the institutional development of Bulgarian higher education after 1989 has been the emergence of a private sector (see Boyadjieva 2007a). Bulgaria currently has 51 accredited HEIs, 14 of which are private. The highest-ranking university according to World University Rankings is Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Boyadjieva 2017). The existing HEIs include: 10 universities, 28 specialized universities (among them are 3 technical universities, 4 medical universities, the University of Chemical Technology and Metallurgy, the University of Mining and Geology, the University of
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Economics, the Agricultural University, the University of Forestry, and the University of Food Technologies), 10 specialized HEIs, and 3 independent colleges. They provide an education across a wide array of study programs that are grouped into 52 professional fields. At present, along with the three levels of higher education, the Bulgarian higher education system also includes the educational and qualification degree of “Professional Bachelor in. . ..” The Strategy for the Development of Higher Education in the Republic of Bulgaria for the Period 2014–2020 acknowledges the unclear status of this degree within the three cycled system and envisages its abolishment (Strategy 2014, pp. 16, 31). Bulgarian higher education experienced a post–World War II expansion, following the same trend as in Western countries. Despite that, if we follow Martin Trow’s framework, the massification of higher education has occurred only since 1990. Recently, there has been a decreasing trend in the number of students enrolled in higher education (mainly due to a demographic decline). After a peak in the academic year 2009/2010 when there were 287,086 students that number decreased to 249,937 students by 2016/17 (see Fig. 1). At the same time, there has been a steady increase in the gross enrolment rate, from 40% in 2010/2011 to 41.8% in 2016/2017 (NSI 2011,
2017). However, despite the expansion of higher education, Bulgaria still lags behind most other European countries and has yet to achieve its national target of at least 36% of people aged 30–34 having completed higher education. In 2011, the percentage of 30 to 34-year-olds with a tertiary degree was 27.3%; it increased to 33.8% in 2016 (Eurostat, Code: t2020_41, Data extracted: 15.10.2017). As of 2016/2017, 86.4% of all students are enrolled in the public sector of higher education. The first private HEIs emerged in 1991 (Boyadjieva 2007b). The number of students in private HEIs increased throughout the period between 2006 and 2010, reaching a peak of 63,037 students in 2010. This number accounted for 22% of all students. However, from 2010 to 2017 there was a considerable decrease in their number due to three main factors: (a) the effects of the economic crisis, which reduced the capacity of students and/or their families to pay tuition fees; (b) the increase in the number of available places in the state-run HEIs; and (c) the demographic decline which has also been reflected in the decreasing number of high school graduates. With regard to gender differences, the enrolment of women surpasses that of men and the number of women increased by 1.6 times over the period from 1990/1991 to 2010/2011. There were 134,303 female students in the academic
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria, Fig. 1 All Bulgarian students enrolled in HEIs, the share of female students, and those enrolled only in private HEIs
(including PhD students for all years except 1990/1991), (2006–2017) (Source: National Statistical Institute (NSI) (various years))
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year 2016/2017, equivalent to 53.7% of all students. As of 2016/2017, about two-thirds (62.1%) of students are enrolled in bachelor degree programs. Despite the recent decrease of enrolment in bachelor and master degrees, there has been an increase in the number of doctoral students over the period between 2006 and 2017. Their number increased by about 40%. Most likely, this trend is due to the enactment of a new law for the development of academic staff (2010) which led to a decentralization of the process of granting PhDs. There are diverse forms of attendance in higher education. About 92% of HEIs (47 out of 51 accredited higher institutions) provide extramural (part-time) training. Distance learning is provided by approximately a quarter of the institutions. Most students attend regular programs. The number of students engaged in distance learning increased by 67.2% between 2006 and 2015, but it still represents only about 5% of all students (see Fig. 2).
Governance of Higher Education Institutions Higher education in Bulgaria is governed in accordance with the Higher Education Act
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria
(1995, last amendments 2016) and the Strategy for Development of Higher Education in the Republic of Bulgaria for the 2014–2020 period (adopted in 2015). The elaboration and implementation of legislation and policies in the sphere of higher education is a responsibility that lies with three main bodies: the National Assembly adopts the main legislation and policies governing higher education, and the Council of Ministers develops and endorses the policies which are adopted by the National Assembly, while the Minister of Education and Science is in charge of the implementation of higher education policies. The Minister of Education and Science keeps a register of HEIs which contains data about their academic staff and students. An important role in governing higher education in Bulgaria is assigned to the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (NEAA), which was established in 1996 and is an independent structure under the Council of Ministers. Its main tasks are (a) performing program and institutional evaluations and accreditations of HEIs, (b) determining the institutional and intake capacity of HEIs, and (c) conducting post-accreditation monitoring and control of HEIs. The procedures for the opening and closure of HEIs include accreditation by the NEAA, approval by the
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria, Fig. 2 Number of students by mode of attendance (2006–2017) (Source: NSI (various years))
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Minister of Education and Science and the Council of Ministers and a vote by The National Assembly. There are no buffer bodies between the state and the autonomous HEIs. The Council of Rectors of HEIs in Bulgaria and the National Representation of Student Councils in Bulgaria are collective bodies which express the opinions of HEIs and of their students respectively. The Bulgarian academic community is very sensitive toward the issue of institutional autonomy as a result of memories from the communist period (1944–1989) when there were only state HEIs entirely subordinated to the state and the ideology of the communist party. The restoration of institutional autonomy was perceived as an expression of the democratization of Bulgarian society, which explains why a special Academic Autonomy Act was adopted as early as 1990. However, problems emerged due to the fact that the restoration of universities’ autonomy was neither accompanied by the establishment of mechanisms for accountability and transparency in higher education nor by mechanisms for the control and maintenance of quality standards. Such facts provided favorable ground for new legislative changes implemented in 1995 which leaned in the direction of limiting university autonomy and expanding the role of the state in higher education. In 2002, though new amendments to the Higher Education Act were introduced which legitimized a substantial increase of the autonomy granted to HEIs in Bulgaria. At present, one of the functions the state assumes in the sphere of higher education is the approval of the total number of study places plus the number of study places dedicated to professional fields for each HEI according to its institutional capacity. When granted the freedom to offer new specialties within the framework of the main professional fields for which they have been accredited, HEIs become more open to the needs of the market and the demands of students; the number of enrolments also increases. Another particularly important aspect in this regard is the increased number of elective disciplines. The percentage of elective disciplines varies across different HEIs and specialties: they make up about 40% of a typical curriculum. It is an opinion
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generally shared today that, thanks to the greater freedom of universities in recent years to offer bachelor and especially master programs, and due to the new possibility for students to take part in setting up their own study plans, Bulgarian HEIs have become better adapted to the needs of the labor market, the requirements of employers, and the expectations of students. The governance model of public HEIs is predominantly academically centered. The main governing bodies at institutional level are the General Assembly, the Academic Council and the Supervision Council, all of which are dominated by representatives of the academic staff. In this regard, concerns have been raised that public HEIs are run primarily for the benefit of their faculty, and that management experience is generally not a major factor upon which the appointment of rectors is based (World Bank 2012, p. 25). A 2007 amendment to the Higher Education Act stipulates that each HEI should put a board of trustees into place. Creating a board of trustees guarantees the participation of business representatives in the process of managing HEIs. However, in a number of HEIs the functioning of such boards is not yet sufficiently effective in practice.
Funding of Higher Education The percentage of GDP allocated to higher education was 0.9% in 2012, below the EU average of 1.1% (EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat 2012, p. 88), and has continued to remain low. According to 2014 data from Eurostat, this percentage decreased to 0.7% (Eurostat, Code educ_uoe_ fine06, Data extracted: 31.10. 2017). The largest part of the income of public HEIs (about 60–65%) comes from state subsidies. Public money goes only to public HEIs. Some money for HEIs comes from EU structural and cohesion funds which are used to support national strategic projects (e.g., the development of the Bulgarian University Ranking System, BURS). Private contributions, mainly from tuition fees, grants and projects from abroad, property and consulting services, and donations, constitute the third source of funding for HEIs. Public HEIs enjoy freedom in their allocation of state financial resources.
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They can also carry money forward from 1 year to the next and can own assets, but they do not possess ownership of the majority of their stateowned buildings. Amendments to the Higher Education Act at the beginning of 2017 have introduced several important changes with regard to funding HEIs. The most important among them is a growing emphasis on the quality of education as a prerequisite for determining the level of state subsidy. Performance-based funding was first introduced in 2011. According to the new regulations, it will gradually increase so that by 2020, 60% of state funding for HEIs will be based on quality and performance indicators. An important recent development in the financing of HEIs which will influence the entire system as well as the structure of the student body has been the introduction of targeted funding for certain professional fields which have been deemed as strategically important for the country, and of the so-called protected specialties (specialties which are not attractive to applicants but are deemed necessary for society). A Council of Ministers’ Decree defined 36 professional fields to be priority ones, among them Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Informatics and Computer Science, Energetics, General Engineering, Plant Breeding, Pedagogy, History and Archaeology, Theater and Cinema Arts, and Veterinary Medicine. Eight specialties in the professional field of Philology were defined as protected, e.g., Arabic, Armenian, Indology, Iranian, Modern Greek, and Portuguese. Tuition fees for all students were introduced in 1999. Bulgarian HEIs are allowed to define their own fees, but in the case of public institutions, maximum amounts are set by the government. Student tuition fees strongly depend on the program and field of study. The lowest fees are in the social sciences and the highest in medicine (e.g., the first cycle fees at public universities for fulltime studies range from 450 BGN to 1450 BGN per year; 1 € ¼ 1.95583 BGN). Public HEIs with “good” and “very good” accreditation grades, as well as those with PhD programs assessed as “very good,” have the right to enroll more students than there are state subsidized study places and to impose higher tuition
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fees than those paid by other students. However, the percentage of students enrolled above the state quota should not be higher than 5–10% higher, and the total number of students should not exceed the capacity of the HEI as determined by the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency. This regulation has played an important role in affirming the autonomy of HEIs and in achieving a balance between the regulative functions of the state and the principle of institutional autonomy. Scholarships are provided by the state for regular students. HEIs distribute the scholarships, taking into account needs-based (monthly income per family member) and merit-based criteria. In 2016/17, 12.2% of full-time students were grant recipients (European Commission/EACEA/ Eurydice 2017, p. 27). A student loan scheme was launched in 2010. Loans are provided at the lowest interest rate (7%) on the market with no additional costs, a grace period for repayment of up to 1 year after graduation and annual repayments over a 10-year period.
Staff and Students Generally, the student-staff ratio is favorable and below the OECD average (World Bank 2012, p. 38). As of the academic year 2016/2017, the ratio is about 11.3:1 for the entire higher education system. It is about 10.9:1 in public HEIs, and 14.2:1 in private HEIs. The majority of the country’s teaching staff (89.2%) are employed by public HEIs. About two-thirds (62.4%) of all teaching staff have signed permanent labor contracts. Professors make up 15.2% of the total teaching staff. Women who account for almost half of the teaching positions (49.1%) comprise just 36.6% of all professorial appointments. Female university presidents have been few in number thus far. The aging of academic staff is one of the main challenges related to the quality and compatibility of Bulgarian higher education. The Development of Academic Staff in the Republic of Bulgaria Act was passed by the National Assembly at the end of 2010. It was regarded as a step toward decentralization and
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Bulgaria, Fig. 3 Graduates (levels 5–8) by field of education as of 2015 (Source: Eurostat, Code: educ_uoe_grad02, Data extracted: 31.10.2017)
improving the process of honoring scientific degrees and academic positions by providing significant autonomy to HEIs and research institutions to adopt their own staffing policies. However, the way the Act has been implemented raises serious doubts and criticism that, instead of increasing academic standards, it might be lowering them leading to an imbalance between academic staff with and without habilitation (a second formal qualification after the doctorate). Recently, different drafts containing amendments and changes to the Development of Academic Staff in the Republic of Bulgaria Act have been sent to the Parliament. The rationale of the proposed changes is the need to raise quality of awarding scientific degrees through the elaboration of national standards for various scientific fields. The number of people who graduated HEIs as of 2015 was 62,718. Almost a third of them studied in the fields of business, administration, and law. The other two most preferred fields were social sciences, journalism, and information (15.8%) and engineering, manufacturing, and construction (14%). Despite the economic need for specialists in mathematics, statistics, and
information and communication technologies, graduates from these fields were less than 5% (see Fig. 3). Highly educated people are the least vulnerable group on the labor market in Bulgaria. The employment rate of graduates more than 5 years after graduation is 88.3%, which is higher than the EU28 average (Eurostat, Data extracted: 31.10.2017. Code: edat_lfse_24). However, Bulgarian HEIs differ significantly in relation to their institutional profiles which has an influence on graduates’ employability (Boyadjieva and Ilieva-Trichkova 2015). Bulgaria is among the few countries where monitoring of the social dimension in higher education as a policy instrument, something which could accompany measures already being implemented to stimulate participation (Eurydice 2010, p. 32), is not used. Despite the massification of higher education, Bulgaria is among the most salient examples of countries where socioeconomic inequality affects access to higher education (Ilieva-Trichkova and Boyadjieva 2014). There is some evidence that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are increasing in number, but students from relatively more affluent
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families are still overrepresented in the student body (Boyadjieva and Ilieva-Trichkova 2017). There are a high number of adults enrolled in HEIs. In 2015, 35.8% of all students were over 25 years of age. There is a clear tendency that this number is increasing. The number of students aged 25–49 in bachelor programs increased from 40,428 in 2013 to 50,260 in 2015. During the same period, the number of students aged 25–49 enrolled in master programs increased from 36,447 to 41,264 (Eurostat, Code: educ_uoe_ enra02, Data extracted: 10.10.2017). In almost all HEIs, there are units for continuing education and training and career development centers. Their aim is to strengthen the links between HEIs and the labor market as well as to increase graduates’ employability. Although some good practices in jointly developing academic programs with representatives from the business world do exist, concerns have been raised that these practices are not widespread enough and that there is a lack of flexibility regarding different forms of lifelong learning. This is key in order to ensure better harmonization between academic programs and the qualifications demanded by the labor market (Strategy 2014, p. 18).
Other Main Issues The main body responsible for quality assurance in higher education in Bulgaria is the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (NEAA) which was founded in 1996 and has undergone substantial subsequent improvements. Today the NEAA is a specialized governmental body tasked with carrying out evaluation, accreditation, and quality control of the activities of HEIs. In addition, the Higher Education Act stipulates that the development of an internal quality evaluation system for teaching and academic staff is part of the very definition of an HEI. Another important feature is that students play a central role in assessing the quality of their education. In this way, a complex approach to quality assurance is ensured, including: (1) program and institutional accreditation; (2) external program and institutional evaluation; (3) internal
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self-evaluation; and (4) post-accreditation monitoring and control. The accreditation process uses a 10-step grading scale which allows for greater differentiation across HEIs. In 2010, the Bulgarian University Ranking System (BURS) was launched. The BURS is a web-based tool which does not produce an institutional ranking of HEIs but rather compares and rates the professional fields offered by HEIs against a set of criteria. The ranking system uses more than 100 different indicators which have been developed based on statistical data collected from various sources, among them sociological surveys. The indicators are grouped into six categories: teaching and learning; science and research; teaching and learning environment; welfare and administrative services; prestige; and career development, labor market relevance, and regional importance. There are two types of rankings: a standardized ranking in which the number of indicators and their weights are pre-set, and custom rankings which allow users to independently select the indicators by which they would like to compare HEIs in a given professional field as well as assign a particular weight to each indicator. There is a clearly increasing tendency in the number of foreign students enrolled in Bulgarian public HEIs, up from 4.3% in 2012 to 5.7% in 2016 (NSI 2016, p. 71). This tendency is most pronounced among students attending master level programs. Most Bulgarian universities offer a wide range of master degree programs taught in English, French, or German, and also provide double degrees through partnerships with universities abroad. On 26 February 2015, the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria approved the Strategy for the Development of Higher Education in Republic of Bulgaria for the Period 2014–2020 and an action plan for its implementation. The strategy defines eight objectives for the future development of Bulgarian higher education and proposes concrete measures to achieve them. These objectives refer to improving access to higher education; increasing the quality of higher education and its compatibility with European higher education systems; building up a sustainable and effective link between higher education
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and the labor market; promoting research activities in HEIs; upgrading the system of HEI management; increasing funds for higher education and science and the effectiveness of their use; overcoming negative trends in the career advancement of academic staff; expanding lifelong learning networks; and broadening the scope of various electronic forms of distance learning. It is believed that by achieving these objectives, Bulgaria will become a “strong and attractive regional centre of modern higher education with a European profile, attractive to students from Europe and the world” (Strategy 2014, p. 25). This is a realistic vision which could be achieved via joint and systematic efforts of the academic community and all relevant stakeholders.
Eurydice. 2010. Focus on higher education in Europe 2010: The impact of the Bologna Process. Brussels: Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency. Ilieva-Trichkova, Petya, and Pepka Boyadjieva. 2014. Dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education: Bulgaria in a comparative perspective. European Journal of Higher Education 4 (2): 97–117. NSI. 2011. Education in the Republic of Bulgaria 2011. Sofia: Education and Science Inc. Co. NSI. 2016. Education in the Republic of Bulgaria 2016. Sofia: Education and Science Inc. Co. NSI. 2017. Education in the Republic of Bulgaria 2017. Sofia: Education and Science Inc. Co. Strategy for the Development of Higher Education in Republic of Bulgaria for the Period 2014–2020 (2014). Sofia. https://www.mon.bg/?go¼page&page Id¼74&subpageId¼143. Accessed 31 Oct 2017. World Bank. 2012. Strengthening higher education in Bulgaria: Options for improving the models of governance, quality assurance and financing of higher education. Washington, DC: World Bank.
References
Data Sources National Statistical Institute. www.nsi.bg
Boyadjieva, Pepka. 2007a. Diversity matters: A lesson from a post-communist country. In Towards a multiversity? Universities between global trends and national traditions, ed. Georg Krücken, Anna Kosmützky, and Marc Torka, 108–131. Bielefeld: Transaction Verlag. Boyadjieva, Pepka. 2007b. Public perceptions of private universities and colleges in Bulgaria. In Private higher education in post-communist Europe: In search of legitimacy, ed. Snejana Slantcheva and Daniel Levy, 223–238. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Boyadjieva, Pepka. 2017. Invisible higher education: Higher education institutions from Central and Eastern Europe in global rankings. European Educational Research Journal 16 (5): 529–546. Boyadjieva, Pepka, and Petya Ilieva-Trichkova. 2015. Institutional diversity and graduate employability: The Bulgarian case. In Diversity and excellence in higher education: Can the challenges be reconciled? ed. Rosalind Pritchard, Matthias Klumpp, and Ulrich Teichler, 153–171. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Boyadjieva, Pepka, and Ilieva-Trichkova, Petya. 2017. Social inclusion and social fairness in higher education: Theoretical distinctions and methodological implications. Paper presented at Jubilee conference “How we live together: Communities, institutions, networks”, organised by the Department of Sociology at the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski”, 10–11 March. Sofia (In Bulgarian). EACEA/Eurydice/Eurostat. 2012. Key data on education. 2012 edition. Brussels: Eurydice. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. 2017. National student fee and support systems in European higher education – 2017/18. Eurydice facts and figures. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Websites Bulgarian University Ranking System. http://rsvu.mon.bg/ rsvu3/?locale¼en Ministry of Education and Science. https://www.mon.bg/ National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency. https:// www.neaa.government.bg/en/
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burkina Faso Akemi Yonemura Islamic University of Niger, Dakar, Senegal
Higher Education System Development Introduction Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa Sahel, surrounded by Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire. It achieved independence from France in 1960 (IMUNA 2018). The population was estimated at 19.2 million with the median age of 17 in 2017 (UNDP 2018). Its high population growth (3.1%) and limited natural resources result in poor economic prospects for the majority of the population (World Bank 2018a).
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Historical Development of Higher Education System In 1965, the Higher Institute of Pedagogical Training was created with the help of France in Ouagadougou. It was transformed into two independent structures: the University Institute of Pedagogical Technology and the Center for University Studies, which became the Center for Higher Education in 1969. In 1974, various institutions became the University of Ouagadougou: comprised of 12 schools and institutes. At the time of its creation, the University of Ouagadougou’s mission was to train secondary school teachers in order to provide for the next generation of French teachers. During several reforms particularly those in 1985, 1991, and 2000, it underwent significant structural, institutional, and academic changes to adapt the training to employment. In 2017, there were four public universities: University of Ouagadougou (Ouagadougou founded in 1974), University of Ouaga II (Ouagadougou 2007), Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dioulasso (Bobo-Dioulasso 1997), and Norbert Zongo University (Koudougou 2005), and three polytechnic university centers: Polytechnic University Center of Dédougou (Dédougou 2012), Polytechnic University Center of Ouahigouya (Ouahigouya 2017), and Polytechnic University Center of Kaya (Kaya 2017) (UniRank 2019), which would be transformed soon into universities. There were 54 higher education establishments in total, including 19 public and 35 private institutions (IIEP-Pole de Dakar 2017). Tertiary Enrollments The participation in tertiary education in Burkina Faso increased significantly in the past two decades from 9,878 in 1999 (male: 7,627 and female: 2,251) to 94,728 (male: 63,260 and female: 31,468) in 2016. The increase may be partly due to the high population growth and greater output from the secondary and primary school sectors, but the gross enrollment rate (GER) also grew more than five times during the same period from 1% (male: 1.5% and female: 0.5%) in 1999 to 5.6% (male: 7.3% and female: 3.8%) in 2016. On the scale of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) (UIS 2011), in 2012, about one fourth of the tertiary students were enrolled at ISCED 5 (short-cycle tertiary education). The
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majority of students were enrolled at ISCED 6 (Bachelor’s equivalent) followed by ISCED 7 (Master’s equivalent). Doctoral enrollment (ISCED 8) was about 3.5% of all tertiary students. Private institutions seem to be on the rise, represented 15% of the total tertiary institutions in 2006, which increased to 25% in 2016 (UIS 2018). In terms of program orientation, in 2012, the largest proportion of students were enrolled in social sciences, journalism, and information (29%), followed by business, administration and law (24%), arts and humanities (17%), natural sciences, mathematics and statistics (13%), engineering, manufacturing and construction (6%), health and welfare (5%), education (4%), and communication technologies (2%). Services as well as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and veterinary programs have less than 1% of tertiary enrollments. Female participation was low in such programs as natural sciences, mathematics and statistics, engineering, manufacturing and construction, communication technologies, and education (UIS 2018).
Higher Education Governance The Role of the Ministry of Higher Education The Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research, and Innovation manages the higher education system in Burkina Faso. One of its essential missions is to produce high-level professionals who can effectively steer economic and social development of the country. Higher education welcomes holders of diplomas or degrees of upper secondary education at universities, public and private higher education institutions, and Grandes Ecoles. It is organized in two or three cycles according to the courses. The introduction of the system of “License, Master, Doctorate” (LMD) and its implementation face a major challenge for the professionalization of training in higher education structures in Burkina Faso (Ministries in charge of education of Burkina Faso 2013). For the management, monitoring, and evaluation of higher education, research, and innovation, there are three national steering structures: the Directorate General of Higher Education (DGESup), the Directorate General of Scientific Research and Innovation, and the
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Directorate General of Studies and Sectoral Statistics (DGESS) (UNESCO 2019). Institutional Governance At the national level, major needs addressed were well-governed resource management and creation of an autonomous national quality assurance agency, which would put in place internal and external quality assurance mechanism throughout the country. At the community level, the Francophone Council for African and Malagasy Higher Education (CAMES) has developed quality assurance mechanism in its Strategic Development Plan for the 2015–2019 period, requiring all the member countries to strengthen the quality assurance that promote effective education and research systems (UNESCO 2019). At the level of higher education institutions (HEIs), introducing autonomy and merit-based processes and facilitating the flow of funds would help foster innovation and encourage the development of alternative forms of higher education service delivery. Quality Assurance The improvement of quality assurance (QA) in HEIs is a priority in the Government educational plan, Programme sectorial de l’education et de la formation (PSEF) 2012–2021 (Ministries in charge of education of Burkina Faso 2013). The Government aims to strengthen the operationalization of the governance mechanism through a World Bank project. The objective of the project is to strengthen quality assurance in tertiary education by: (a) implementing relevant aspects of governance issues in HEIs and the CAMES; (b) establishing quality assurance units in selected HEIs and a National Quality Assurance Framework (NQAF) with benchmarks of evaluation to link up with regional quality assurance practices; (c) increasing the capacity of universities to implement projects; and (d) strengthening the management and communication of the HEIs and to adapt to diversified delivery modes. The project specifically supports (a) the definition of a national quality assurance system; (b) the creation of internal quality assurance units (IQAUs) within HEIs and the development of internal quality assurance strategies or policies, their engagement in the self-assessment process of institutions or
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programs, and the preparation of the external evaluation and/or accreditation; and (c) the creation of an independent and autonomous national quality assurance authority, the international accreditation of professional training programs, and training of engineers and health professionals (World Bank 2018b).
Finance/Funding Systems Government Expenditure Since 2005, overall, Burkina Faso has invested more than 4% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in education. In 2015, the government expenditure on tertiary education was 0.6% of GDP, which was PPP$ 175 million. The share of tertiary education of the total government expenditure on education was 13.7%. Per student government expenditure has always been the highest at the tertiary level compared to primary and secondary levels. In 2010, more than $3,000 was spent per student at tertiary level (more than ten times of primary and secondary levels), which has declined to about $2,000 in 2015 (UIS 2018). Higher Education Revenues by Source Since the government resources are limited, the World Bank-financed project aims to identify and tap additional sources of financing for higher education by creating revenue-generating activities by HEIs, including tuition fees, other student fees, consultancies, joint research, fund-raising and donations (World Bank 2018b). The available data (2006) show that the initial household funding of tertiary education as a percentage of GDP was 0.1% (UIS 2018). In 2013/2014, household contribution for the tertiary level mainly went to tuition fee: 108,255 CFA (public: 19,309 CFA; private 358,420 CFA), followed by supplies: 18,688 CFA (public: 16,929 CFA; private: 23,636 CFA) and food: 7,933 CFA (IIEP-Pole de Dakar 2017).
Academic Profession and Students Academic Profession Data are not available every year, but in 2012, there were almost the same number of teachers at
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ISCED 5 programs (total: 1,800; female: 130; male: 1,670) and at ISCED 6, 7, and 8 programs combined (total: 1,871; female: 191; male: 1,680) (UIS 2018). The conditions of work and employment of educational personnel are not different from those of other public servants. Wage processing and recruitment methods do not distinguish between male and female sex, and are based on the following principle: identical diploma and equal pay (IBE-UNESCO 2010).
Students Major challenges for Burkinabe tertiary students are high student-teacher ratio and student strikes reducing lecture time and learning. Most student aids come from the National Fund for Education and Research, which provides grants to new secondary school graduates who are enrolling in any university in Burkina Faso, as well as loans for students during their last year of education. Another body, the National Information Center for Student and Professional Orientation and Scholarships provides bachelor’s degree scholarships for which all new secondary school graduates can apply. Once the quota of scholarships has been awarded, there are a further 300 scholarships that are offered only to young women (World Bank 2018b).
Other Main Issues Use of Technology Burkina Faso has already started developing distance education through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and massive open online courses (MOOCs), which creates new opportunities in higher education. Burkina Faso is positioning itself to be one of three knowledge hubs in West Africa with Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire and is well set up with basic ICT infrastructure. A dedicated cloud for the Government is sponsored by Norway for developing an e-learning platform. The World Bank is financing to extend these technological developments at the undergraduate level by establishing the Virtual University of Burkina
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Faso (VU-BF) based on the model of community college in the USA or the Open University in the UK. The UV-BF also aims to improve teaching by sharing resources and developing joint programs of studies, offering teacher training programs (World Bank 2018b).
Internationalization The number of international students enrolled in universities in Burkina Faso increased from 880 (Female: 338; Male: 542) in 2005 to 2,154 (Female: 601; Male: 1,553) in 2013, which is about 3% of the total tertiary enrollment in Burkina Faso. Between 1998 and 2017, the number of outbound tertiary students increased from 2,140 to 5,374. The rate of outbound mobility, however, was declining from 22% in 1999 to 6% in 2016. In 1999, the most popular destination region for Burkina Faso was within sub-Saharan African region (12%) followed by North America and Western European region (7%), which decreased to 2% and 3%, respectively, in 2016. Top destination country for Burkinabe students was France (1,176 students in 2014), followed by Cote d’Ivoire (619 in 2015), USA (574 in 2015), Canada (366 in 2013), and Saudi Arabia (287 in 2014) (UIS 2018). An excellent example of internationalization in research activities is the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE) in Ouagadougou, established to support the Africa’s growth through the training of highly qualified and innovative entrepreneurial engineers. Originally, it started with 14 Western and Central African countries’ collective political commitment, leading to two founding schools, Rural Equipment Engineering School (EIER) and Rural Equipment and Hydraulic Technicians School (ETSHER), which trained 3,000 engineers and senior technicians since 1968 and then turned into 2iE in 2006. It is the only African school whose engineering degrees are internationally recognized and known for a solid governance model and public/private partnership (Center for World-Class Universities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 2014). It is reputed for its research work and currently it hosts a World Bank-funded African Center of Excellence (ACE) in Water,
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Energy and Environmental Sciences and Technology (World Bank 2017).
References Center for World-Class Universities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. 2014. International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering. http://www.shanghai ranking.com/grup/africa/International-Institute-of-Waterand-Environmental-Engineering.html. Accessed 11 Feb 2019. International Bureau of Education (IBE-UNESCO). 2010. World data on education: Burkina Faso. 7th ed., 2010/ 11. Geneva: IBE. International Institute for Educational Planning (IIPE) – Pole de Dakar. 2017. Rapport d’état du système éducative national du Burkina Faso, Pour une politique nouvelle dans le cadre de la reforme du continuum d’éducation de base, Ministères en charge de l’éducation et de la formation. Dakar: IIEP-Pole de Dakar. International Model United Nations Association (IMUNA). 2018. Country profile: Burkina Faso. http://www.imuna. org/resources/country-profiles/burkina-faso. Accessed 22 Sept 2018. Ministries in charge of education of Burkina Faso. 2013. Progamme sectorial de l’education et de la formation (PSEF) 2012–2021. Ouagadougou: Ministries in charge of education of Burkina Faso. Available at http:// planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/fr/2013/programme-sectorielde-l%C3%A9ducation-et-de-la-formation-psef-20122021-5626 UIS. 2011. International standard classification of education (ISCED) 2011. Montreal: UIS. UNDP. 2018. Human development indicators: Burkina Faso. http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/BFA#. Accessed 11 Feb 2019. UNESCO. 2019. Rapport relatif à l’étude de l’état des lieux de l’assurance qualité dans l’enseignement supérieur au Burkina Faso. Dakar: UNESCO. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2018. UIS.Stat. http://data.uis.unesco.org. Accessed 13 May 2018. UniRank. 2019. Top universities in Burkina Faso: 2018 Burkinabe university ranking. https://www.4icu.org/bf/. Accessed 9 Feb 2019. World Bank. 2017. International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering. http://projects.worldbank. org/P108791/international-institute-water-environment al-engineering-2ie?lang¼en&tab¼overview. Accessed 11 Feb 2019. World Bank. 2018a. Burkina Faso: Overview. http://www. worldbank.org/en/country/burkinafaso/overview. Accessed 22 Sept 2018. World Bank. 2018b. International development association project appraisal document on a grant in the amount of (SDR 48.7 million) (US$70 million equivalent) to Burkina Faso for a higher education support project. Washington, DC: World Bank.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi Callixte Nizigama Department of Research and Quality Assurance, Université Lumière de Bujumbura, Bujumbura, Burundi
Synonyms Enrolments and graduates; Governance; Knowledge outputs; Postsecondary education; Tertiary education
Definition Overview of the Burundian higher education system and institutions.
Introduction Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in the African Great Lakes region of East Africa, bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. It is also considered part of Central Africa. Burundi’s capital is Bujumbura. It has an area of 27,834 km2 and a population of 10.11 million (2016). The south-western border is adjacent to Lake Tanganyika. The Twa, Hutu, and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an independent kingdom, until the beginning of the twentieth century, when Germany colonized the region. After the First World War and Germany’s defeat, it ceded the territory to Belgium. Both Germans and Belgians ruled Burundi and Rwanda as a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi. Burundi gained independence on 1 July 1962 and initially had a monarchy, but a series of assassinations, coups, and a general climate of regional instability culminated in the establishment of a
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republic and one-party state in 1966. From that time, diverse ethnic conflicts took place and ultimately two civil wars and genocides during the 1970s and again in the 1990s left the country undeveloped and its population as one of the world’s poorest. Burundi remains an overwhelmingly rural society, with just 13% of the population living in urban areas. Its population density of around 315 people per km2 makes it the second highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The official languages of Burundi are Kirundi, French, and English; Kirundi being recognized officially as the sole national language and French being used in administration and education.
Structure of Higher Education in Burundi Public Higher Education Public higher education is provided by seven institutions, but the main role is played by the National University of Burundi. The other six institutions are the National School for Pedagogy (Ecole Normale Supérieur) in charge of training high school teachers; the Military academy (Institut Supérieur des Cadres Militaires: ISCAM), the Police Academy (Institut Supérieur de Police: ISP), respectively, training the military and police officers; the National School of Administration (Ecole Nationale d’Administration: ENA); the School of Public Health (Institut National des Santé Publique: INSP); and the School of Management (Institut Supérieur de Gestion des Entreprises: ISGE). The origins of the University of Burundi can be traced to the Agronomy Institute of the University of the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Urundi. In 1960 this became the Agronomical Institute of Ruanda-Urundi (Institut agronomique du Ruanda-Urundi) and moved to Bujumbura, becoming the country’s first major center of higher education. Under the initiative of the Jesuit missions, three other specialist institutions subsequently emerged in Bujumbura after Burundi’s independence in 1962. These institutions were merged to form the Official University of Bujumbura (Université officielle de Bujumbura, or UOB) in January 1964. In 1977, the UOB merged with
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two vocational institutions to create the University of Burundi (Université du Burundi, or UB).
Schools and Institutes at National University of Burundi The university is divided into faculties and institutes which are themselves made up of departments. The university currently comprises: Faculties • Faculty of Agronomy and Bioengineering (Faculté d’Agronomie et de Bio-Ingénieurie) • Faculty of Law (Faculté de Droit) • Faculty of Medicine (Faculté de Médecine) • Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science (Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l’Education) • Faculty of Economics and Management (Faculté des Sciences Economiques et de Gestion) • Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaine) • Faculty of Natural Sciences (Faculté des Sciences) • Faculty of Engineering Sciences (Faculté des Sciences de l’Ingénieur) Institutes • Confucius Institute for Chinese language (Institut Confucius) • Institute of Applied pedagogy (Institut de Pédagogie appliquée) • Institute of Physical Education and Sport (Institut d’Education physique et de Sport) • Institute of Applied Statistics (Institut des Statistiques appliquées) • Higher Institute of Commerce (Institut supérieur de Commerce) It should be noted that the University of Burundi is governed by a rector and a vice-rector all nominated by the President of the republic on the recommendation of the Minister of Higher Education. The Board of directors is made of 11 members. Contrary to the students of private higher education institutions, the students of National University do no pay tuition fees and are granted
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a scholarship by the government, including free housing and free registration. The University of Burundi has established several partnerships, including the Académie de Recherche et d’Enseignement SupérieurCommission de la Coopération au Développement (ARES-CCD) (a Belgian higher education institution), the Conseil Africain et Malgache pour l’Enseignement Supérieur (CAMES), Inter University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), the Centre d’Etudes et de Langues au Burundi (CELAB), etc.
Private Higher Education From 2000, there has been a rapid expansion in the development of private higher education institutions. This is especially initiated by faith-based communities but also by individuals. Most of these institutions are based in Bujumbura (see Table 1). The creation of private universities at such a sustained pace after some 40 years of calm is certainly linked to the emergency of new factors. It was a time when the country was weakened by a terrible and long socio-political crisis affecting the public university and more specifically the irregularity of the academic years. Even social cohesion in this institution was under severe strain, especially in the student community, where a major crisis erupted in 1995, in which Hutu students were slaughtered while others left the university. This “dark period” was used by a certain opinion to label the National University of Burundi as a sectarian, mono-ethnic institution, and therefore advocating the opening of other alternatives. Besides, the demotivation of lecturers, discouraged by their working conditions and poor remuneration, leading to a brain drain, particularly to Rwanda and other countries, has considerably reduced the number of available professors, while the number of students continued to grow. It was at a time when the government was unable to respond adequately to the demands of development. The creation of private higher education institutions was then designed with the aim of meeting community-based development needs (Sebudandi 2012). It is in this context that one can situate the creation of the Universities of
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Ngozi, Mwaro, and Grands Lacs. The ambition displayed by the founders of these Universities was to put them in a dynamic of Integrated Development of their home provinces, the relevant region and the country. Moreover, research on this topic has shown that the creation of private higher education institutions is an important step forward in the development of education in Burundi (Sebudandi 2012). This happened when the country really needed it. The only public university was experiencing an explosive situation in terms of huge number of students as a result of large flows of students compared to its capacity in terms of available infrastructures. Also, the public university was confronted with serious organizational problems and repetitive strikes which had terrible consequences on the regularity of academic years and resulted in a less motivated academic staff. The emergence of new private higher education institutions has not only made it possible to relieve public higher education, but also to provide opportunities for Lectures to improve their living conditions and thus create stability at the National University of Burundi. Among other things, private higher education institutions have increased the supply of training, with the opening up of programs that were not available at National University of Burundi. These new programs include Communication, Management and Administration, Theology, Sociology, and Computer Sciences. Some institutions also offer evening programs, allowing different categories of public administrative officers to attend these. The other positive aspect that deserves to be mentioned is the impact of opening universities or campuses in the countryside, allowing population in the provinces to have access to higher education without necessarily having to leave their families.
Legal Status of Private Higher Education Institutions Most initiators of private universities have taken the option of providing them with the nonprofit association legal status. This applies, for example,
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi, Table 1 Private higher education institutions N 1 2 3 4 5 6
Name Grand Séminaire Saint Cure d’Ars Institut Supérieur de Contrôle et de Gestion (ISCG) Université Martin Luther King (UMLK) Université de Ngozi (UNG) Institut Supérieur des Technologies(IST) Université de Lumière de Bujumbura (ULBu)
Official launching year 28/02/2000 06/03/1995 11/05/1998 07/05/1999 12/05/2000 13/06/2000
7
Université des Grands Lacs (UGL)
20/06/2000
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Université de Mwaro (UM) Université du Lac Tanganyika (ULT) Université Espoir d’Afrique (UEA) INITELEMATIQUE Institut Supérieur des Techniques de Gestion (ISTG) Institut Supérieur de Management (ISM) Université Paix et Réconciliation(UPR) Université Sagesse d’Afrique (USA) Institut Supérieur d’enseignement Technique (ISET) Institut Supérieur pour le Développement (ISD) Institut International Libre d’Afrique (INILAQE) Institut Supérieur de Gestion et d’Informatique (ISGI) Université des Collines (UC) International Leadership University (UIL) Université Ntare Rugamba (UNR) Institut Supérieur des Sciences de la Santé et du Développement Communautaire (IUSSDC) Hills university of Kayanza Université polytechnique intégré des lacs de Kirundo Université polytechnique intégré de Cibitoke East Africa Leadership university of Muyinga Université polytechnique de Gitega Bujumbura International University East African Star University Institut Supérieur Paramédical de Gitega Université Chrétienne de Bujumbura Institut Supérieur d’Entrepreneuriat et de Gestion International University of Equator East African Leadership Institute Summit International Institute Institut Supérieur Islamique de Muyinga Livingstone University College
02/10/2001 11/12/2003 26/09/2003 27/02/2004 19/05/2006 07/07/2008 10/09/2008 07/07/2008 15/12/2009 12/01/2010 20/01/2010 15/12/2010 20/01/2010 03/12/2010 01/03/2011 17/03/2011
Campus location (s) Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Ngozi/Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura and GOMA in DRC Kiremba/Bujumbura/ Rutana, Makamba Mwaro Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Kayanza Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura
2018 2018 2018 2018 29/1/2014 3/2/2014 11/2/2014 26/1/2015 9/4/2015 3/3/2016 4/3/2016 19/9/2016 21/3/2017 2018 2018
Kayanza Kirundo Cibitoke Muyinga Gitega Bujumbura Bujumbura Gitega Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Bujumbura Muyinga Bujumbura
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
to: Université de Ngonzi, Université du Lac Tanganyika, Université des Grands Lacs, Université de Mwaro, Université Martin Luther King, Université Ntare Rugamba, Institut supérieur de Gestion, Université Espoir d’Afrique, and the Université Lumière de Bujumbura.
This choice of legal status of nonprofit organizations can be explained by at least two factors: The first is related to the regulations in force (Decree N 100/081 of August 2001). The latter stipulates that private higher education institutions are created and organized by natural or
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legal persons, associations, or foundations, enjoying legal personality with the fundamental purpose of educating and training. In addition, authorization to open a private higher education institution is subject to the presentation of the proof that one has been officially granted the civil and legal personality and is a legal representative of a nonprofit organization or a Foundation. In the legal context of the country, the status of nonprofit organization is the most flexible and the easiest to obtain. The second factor is certainly fiscal. In fact, nonprofit associations do not pay income tax, but only the Professional Income Tax that is paid on employees’ salaries. This condition has an advantage for these institutions, although some of them may be considered private commercial companies. From that point of view, they should comply with the tax requirements of commercial companies. The definition of a nonprofit association in this decree is unclear and therefore offers the opportunity of it being used even as a cover for lucrative organizations (Decree N 1/11of April 1992). In fact, it is deemed to be “a nonprofit association, one that does not engage in commercial or industrial activities and whose main objective is not to provide its members with material and financial gain. However, it is not considered as a lucrative activity for an association to carry out activities intended to fructify its patrimony in order to better achieve its objectives.” This last clause is a nuance and allows even a for-profit organization to slip in and to settle comfortably in the suit of nonprofit organizations. From an organizational point of view, except for the few universities that are the emanation of denominational structures, such as the Université Espoir d’Afrique and the Université Lumière de Bujumbura, the Université de Ngozi and the Université des Grands Lacs were currently run by religious rectors and are being gradually managed by the respective catholic church dioceses of Ngozi and Bururi. Even if this is a response to the commitment deficit of the founding members on one hand and to a funding problem on the other hand, this can generate new organizational problems and generate a negative impact on the quality of teaching.
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Some problems have already been observed in some universities emanating from confessional structures, where two structures with different or even opposite missions overlap. In this case, sometimes the authority has a narrow margin of operation to manage the human and material resources of the university, with adverse consequences on the organization and functioning of that university.
Modalities for Encouraging Private Higher Education Institutions In order to encourage these initiatives, the government of Burundi has put in place a decree (Decree N 100/081 2001) encouraging the development of higher education institutions since this is a necessary complement to public education. This decree stipulates that the government undertakes to grant some advantages such as the plot of land and exemption from paying registration fees in the process of acquiring land titles in case of lands intended for building a campus and other infrastructure, exemption from customs duties and transaction fees on academic equipment, all learning and training equipment/materials, the granting of scholarships and tuition fees under specific conditions, and the exemption from income tax from activities that generate income whose profits are intended to be reinvested in education. According to several university officials (Sebudandi 2012), the implementation of these various provisions on certain benefits, tax in particular, would sometimes cause a lot of problems. Thus, some private institutions have experienced difficulties in being allocated land to build their campuses. As for the exemption of tax benefits, the Burundi Revenue Authority (OBR) has been reluctant to apply the provisions of this law, and some applicants were categorically refused. Due to the bigger and rapidly growing number of private higher education institutions, many irregularities have been observed in the access to higher education, given that each institution operates as an isolated body in terms student recruitment, academic curriculum, and the recruitment of lecturers.
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2008: Assessment of Challenges Facing Higher Education in Burundi Within the framework of the Project supporting the Reform of Higher Education (PARES), six preparatory studies for the international audit mission on Burundian higher education have been carried out. The authors of these six studies came to the same conclusion: that there are many challenges facing Burundian higher education. Reference will be made to 4 of these 6 researchers in this chapter. For Professor Gaston HAKIZA (2008), the problems that undermine the University of Burundi can be summarized as follows: i. a large number of staff, especially at the level of the auxiliary category; ii. A very large number of students in university lodgings, causing overexploitation of facilities and buildings; iii. The oldness of academic and social facilities; iv. The relatively small budget granted by the government compared to the activities, which causes frequent interruption of supplies of materials and delays, if not hindering the work to be done; v. Supplies exchange from one campus to the another requiring a lot of transportation, whereas several vehicles have been overused and have never been replaced due to lack of funds; and those which are in operation spend all the time in the garage; vi. The funds that government allocates to each student in a form of scholarship for food and lodging is grossly insufficient given the real price of goods on the market; vii. Access to the university housing does not take into account the social status of the student; viii. There has never been any visible vigorous action for the establishment of infrastructures in favor of the University of Burundi; ix. The various successive governments have merely requisitioned the country’s largest secondary schools and used them as campuses instead of building new and adequate campuses. As far as private higher education institutions are concerned, Professor MIDENDE (2008a) identifies the following main problems: i. Lack of clear development policy. ii. The legal statutes dealing with private higher education show strong shortcomings. iii. In general, the lack of human resources is a major constraint for the
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development of the private higher education institutions and a danger for the maintenance of quality in both public and private institutions in Burundi. iv. The minimum working conditions are lacking in most of Burundi’s higher education institutions (infrastructures, documentation, laboratories, computer equipment, etc.). v. A nonfunctional academic and administrative control. vi. Absence of a quality assurance system for both public and private higher education. vii. Admission of foreign students is still problematic. ix. A survey on research in seven private higher education institutions in Burundi highlighted that none of them is undertaking research activities. NDAYISABA (2013) raises the main problems of the general orientations of higher education: i. Resources clearly insufficient compared to the specifications (infrastructure, equipment). With regard to methodological approaches, the pedagogy practiced in the Burundian universities is the pedagogy of transmission with a memorization, collective, and frontal approach. It is a deductive pedagogy: the knowledge is taught and the student has only to reproduce the same content during the examination. While the logic of current research recommends the practice of a pedagogy of construction with an active, individual, interactive, cooperative, accompanying approach, i.e., an inductive pedagogy where learners build their own knowledge, their knowledge to do, and their knowledge to be with the help of the lecturers and from the confrontation of what they have learned with the real life. This old fashion pedagogy is worsened by a lack of academic tools and material. The audit carried out in 1993 indicates that the University of Burundi had about 191.917 books and 1.846 titles of periodicals. Between 1988 and 1993, the library used to receive an average of 7,257 books per year but since the crisis of 1993, the pace of acquisition of books has slowed down so much that today the library has practically no books (Ndayisaba 2013). The other bitter reality is that the library is not computerized and is also overexploited since it serves the students of Ecole Normale Supérieure as well as those of private university institutions. The Science faculty laboratories were planned to receive 30 students, but they serve
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300–400 students today thus rendering the equipment old rapidly. The situation is the same in regard to the laboratories of the Sport Institute (ITS) and the Faculty of Applied Sciences which serve both the University of Burundi and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Analyzing the evaluation system in Burundian higher education, Professor Evariste Ngayimpenda (Ngayimpenda 2008) puts that the cause of the large number of failures during the evaluation is the fact that the lecturers think that the seriousness of their courses is manifested when a large number of students fail during the examinations. As far as human resources are concerned, NGAYIMPENDA mentions that overall, the number of lecturers who have a doctorate very low. At University of Burundi: the lecturers’ qualification, which was 50.9% in 1986, dropped to 43.4% in 2000, rising slightly to 48% in 2002–2003, 4, 5 (Ngayimpenda 2008). This seems to be explained by the fact that the best lecturers have moved to more motivating countries and that the people who have been sent to study abroad do not return to the country because of the crisis related to socio-political conflicts. The situation is not even improving significantly as lecturers’ qualification rates and student-toteacher ratio exceed generally accepted standards. Lecturers holding a doctorate degree represented 55% of UB’s faculties and the average lecturer/student ratio is 1/34 while the lectures having a doctorate to students ratio is 1/58 with peaks reaching 1/137 in the Institute of Applied Pedagogy (Ngayimpenda 2008). In private education institutions, MIDENDE (2008b) mentions that “On average, out of 10 lecturers who lecture in the private Higher Education Institutions of Burundi, 9 are part-time.”
Harmonizing the Conditions of Access to Higher Education The aim of the Ministerial Ordinance N 610/2240 (2011) was to harmonize conditions of access to higher education. It determines the conditions for access to private higher education with a view to harmonizing all levels of the
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education system and to promoting quality conditions. Sebudandi (2012) mentions that before this ordinance, the conditions of access to the National University of Burundi and in the private universities were so different that the equivalence of degrees delivered by these institutions seemed illusory and this ordinance not only harmonized them, it also created opportunities for cooperation and academic exchanges between the public and the private universities. Consequently, to have the benefit of the scholarship, the students, regardless of the institution where she/he enrolls, must have at least a score of 50% in the Government Exam. Nevertheless, compared to Public higher education, the general conditions of access to private higher education are a little less demanding but are in a proximity allowing comparison with the procedures at the National University. From now on, only the students who hold the diploma in general pedagogical or technical humanities, with a grade of at least 30% in the Government Exam, will be able to enroll in private universities (Sebudandi 2012, p. 36)
The Introduction of the Bologna Reform The government of Burundi took the decision of reforming its higher education and adopted the Bologna system in 2011 (Law N 1/22 of December 30, 2011). The introduction of Bologna system in Burundi intervened in the period where the higher education was in real need of such a reform. Not only has it helped the mobility of lecturers and students and rendered ease the equivalence of degrees abroad, but it also allowed clarifying and giving indispensable definition to certain concepts, filling many gaps in the functioning and organization of higher education, especially as far as degree equivalence is concerned. The harmonization of the criteria for access to higher education allows comparability between the public and the private sector and builds bridges between the two. In addition, this reform also has the advantage of integrating Burundian higher education in the
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region and in the world. It introduced new ways of lectures organization throughout cycles, the type of degrees to be delivered, and the teaching programs. From that time on, all the higher education institutions have the same curriculum and program cycles: (1) Bachelor for 3 years, (2) Masters for 2 years, and (3) Doctorate for 3 years. The law introducing the Bologna system (Law N 1/22 of December 30, 2011) affirms also the moral obligation of the government to provide support to private universities by reverting to benefits previously enshrined in other legislation. These benefits range from granting plots of land, to granting scholarships to students on the basis of clearly defined criteria, equipment, and operating grants taking into account the curricula and the size of the students who took registration in that university. The novelty is that the government will be able to associate itself with private promoters, for the organization within a public or private institution, of courses or training programs, which it considers as priorities, through an agreement between both parties. In addition, the reform put in place the National Commission for Higher Education, with institutions reporting to the Minister in charge of higher education and research.
Students’ Enrolment in Public and Private Institutions in Burundi The evolution of students is exponential and the private sector is getting more and more students compared to the public institutions (see Fig. 1). As far as gender balance is concerned, a great number of female students prefer the private institutions. Among other reasons, one may mention the existence of many different faculties, allowing female students to make a choice on what they consider more interesting according to their career ambitions. It is worth mentioning also that length of the period of study in private institutions is shorter than in public ones, where there are more and more strikes causing irregularities in the academic calendar.
Conclusion In conclusion, Burundi has undertaken significant reform in its higher education but much still remains to be done, especially regarding the quality of infrastructures, academic equipment, and quality assurance. Another significant challenge is the massive number of professors who are approaching the age of retirement while there are
Evolution of the number of students in higher education in Burundi 70000 60000 50000 40000 30000 20000 10000 0 2012
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Burundi, Fig. 1 Students’ enrolment Higher Education in Burundi (2012–2017).
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no young doctorates who will replace them because, since independence, it is just in 2018 that the first doctoral school in the country has been put in place and so much has yet to be done in this area.
References Decree N . 100/081 of August, 2001 on modalities for the encouragement of private education. Décret-loi n 1/11 du 18 avril1992 portant cadre organique des associations sans but lucratif. Evariste, Ngayimpenda. 2008. Etude sur l’Université du Burundi, Bujumbura, février. Hakiza, Gaston. 2008. La Régie des œuvres Universitaires, les Services sociaux aux Etudiants et le Patrimoine de l’Université du Burundi. Ministère de l’Education Nationale et de la Recherche Scientifique – Coopération franc¸aise, Bujumbura, février 2008. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Burundi#His tory. Accessed 9 Nov 2018. Law N . 1/22 of December 30, 2011 on the reorganization of Private Higher Education in Burundi. Midende, Gilbert. 2008a. Etude sur les établissements privés d’enseignement supérieur du Burukndi, Rapport définitif. Midende, Gilbert. 2008b. Etudes préparatoires à la mission d’audit de l’enseignement supérieur au Burundi: Etude sur les Etablissements Privés d’Enseignements Supérieur au Burundi. Ministerial Ordinance N . 610/2240 of October 7, 2011. Ndayisaba, Joseph. 2013. Mise en application du système BMD: Bilan 1ère année, Université du Burundi. Sebudandi, Christophe. 2012. Analyse du fonctionnement et du financement de l’enseignement supérieur privé au Burundi.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia Leang Un and Say Sok Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia
Higher Education System Development Cambodia is a poor but emerging economy, and its attempt to build a postindependence modern state was short-lived and bumpy. After 1953, the
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country enjoyed relative peace, stability, and progress for 17 years, before plummeting into protracted wars, a genocide, and foreign occupation and embargo between 1970 and 1991. Since 1993 it began to rebuild itself after immense destruction, with injection of huge foreign aid followed by the first postwar general elections, and has now become a capitalist “quasi-democracy,” with significant, yet questionable, economic development and social progress. The turbulent history has a severe repercussion for its higher education (HE) development. Before 1953, few higher education institutions (HEIs) existed; hence, afterward the country started to erect HE virtually from scratch, with a peak of eight HEIs in the 1960s before plunging into wars and genocide. The Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) has the most disastrous effect on HE since HEIs were arbitrarily shut down and the educated were targeted, and when the regime ended, most of the rest fled the country, leaving subsequent regimes with few capable human resources (Wan et al. 2018). Between 1979 and 1991, HE was supported by the socialist bloc states, and public investment was limited. Some specialized public HEIs began operation to supply graduates to the public sector. Even after the 1993 elections, HE was not a number one priority, and in the 1990s, it was predominantly driven by external support mainly to expand language education (English and French) and to support several studies, resulting in some reports on HE reforms (Denham 1997; Sloper 1999). The July 1997 unfortunate brief fighting between the two major ruling parties (see Peou 2000; Roberts 2001) had delayed any serious intent to reform. Yet, a notable development was in 1997 too, when privatization was initiated, allowing businesses to operate private HEIs and public HEIs to offer fee-paying academic programs. Since then HE has experienced significant, yet worrying, transformation. It has moved from “limited access” to “mass” education, in terms of HEI, lecturing staff and student numbers. HEIs skyrocketed from 8 in 1997 to 121, of which 73 are private (see Fig. 1), and the gross enrollment rate increased from 1% in the early 1990s to 16% in 2014–2015 and 11% in 2016–2017 (Mak
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia, Fig. 1 Number of HEIs in Cambodia (Source: Department of Higher Education, MoEYS)
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1980
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia, Fig. 2 Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary, both sexes (%) (Source: http://uis.unesco.org/country/KH as of 30 April 2018)
et al. forthcoming). In absolute terms, between 1993 and 1997, there were around 10,000 students per annum. The number has soared quickly, reaching 219,069 (43.69% female) in 2015–2016, of whom 10.84%, 79.49%, 8.55%, and 0.56% were enrolled in associate, undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs, respectively. Fifty-eight thousand nine hundred eightyeight students graduated in 2015–2016 (MoEYS 2018) (see also Fig. 2). The rapid increases in HEIs, lecturers, and students with little state supervision and funding raise the concern about education quality and relevancy to labor market and national
development needs and result in oversupply of graduates in certain areas, mainly businessrelated, and undersupply of graduates in STEAM-related majors and for the public service sector. That students commonly enroll in multiple programs (usually two) is noteworthy; a common combination is IT/English and a “specialized” major.
Higher Education Governance System-level governance is fragmented and umbrella institutions are nonexistent. By law, the
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Supreme National Council of Education shall be established to guide overarching education development, but this has not yet materialized. HEI supervision falls under 16 ministries: 73 under MoEYS, 25 under MoLVT, and the rest sparsely spread among others. While the two big ministries supervise over two-thirds of the HEIs, which are competing to produce similar graduates (as there is no clear-cut operational definition of what is academic and vocational/technical and hence division of labor), there are no permanent coordinating bodies between them. HE management is directly supervised from the center, and provincial line departments and district offices are not involved. The “academic stream” is governed by the General Directorate of Higher Education (GDHE) of MoEYS, with its two departments, the Department of Higher Education (DHE), in charge of associate and undergraduate programs, and Department of Scientific Research, overseeing graduate and postgraduate programs and research, and the “technical and vocational stream” by the General Directorate of Technical and Vocational Training of MoLVT. The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) has significant control over financial management and government funding. Another important body is the Accreditation Committee of Cambodia (ACC), a young accreditation agency established in 2003. While some countries in the region give accreditation agencies a buffer status, ACC is a governmental agency. It was previously housed under the Council of Ministers (CoM) over a decade. A major reform occurred since 2014, from when firstly its secretariat and then its reshuffled governing board (or committee) have been affiliated with MoEYS. ACC has arguably achieved quite little in terms of quality assurance and accreditation. So far, it has only accredited foundation year programs (which is currently pending) and is yet to accredit any institution, let alone to move toward program-level accreditation. In the past 3 years, it has “pilot assessed” some four-dozen HEIs, pending formal institutional accreditation to kick-start in late 2018. Its impact on quality perception is not promising too (see Chet 2009; Un and Sok 2014; Vann 2012). The future direction of public HE is also being placed under the newly established
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body in 2014, when the Rector Council of Cambodia, comprised of 18 public HEIs with the task “to strengthen cooperation and development amongst and to improve education quality in Cambodian public HEIs” was established. The council still needs to do more to live up to its mission and goals (Un and Sok 2014; Mak et al. forthcoming). Public and PAI HEIs are run like government agencies, with top administrators directly accountable to supervising ministries. Although a board of directors (BoD) exists at many public HEIs and all PAI HEIs, institutional power often rests in the rector of a university or director of an institute. Such boards are usually headed by a prominent political figure from the technical supervising ministry (up to a minister or even a deputy prime minister for some HEIs) and comprise mainly of representatives of concerned ministries, with no or few external representatives and minimal staff representation, although there is a slight variation across HEIs in terms of member composition and size (Chan et al. 2008; Sok 2016; Mak et al. forthcoming). Besides the elected staff representative(s), other nonelected members are appointed by the respective ministries. Governing boards are established as a stand-alone body with no permanent secretariat and affiliated committees, crippling the boards from meaningfully fulfilling its mission. Board meetings at some HEIs are often infrequent, and such meetings are often conducted to update and review activities executed by university/institute administrators rather than to set vision and strategic directions and mobilization of external funding (authors’ personal communication with experts and those involved in BoD meetings). Paradoxically, while the law restricts the presence of political appointees in such boards, it is common to see their presence. An attempt to devolve more institutional power to public HEIs was the introduction of Public Administrative Institution (PAI) system in 1997 (revised in 2015) and to HEIs in 2003. The decree and associated sub-decree to establish a PAI HEI, inter alia, mainly stipulate the establishment and functions of the governing board and financial management. However, the reform is slow and selective. As of 2010, only ten HEIs
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had been granted the status, and many public HEIs are reluctant to become PAIs, for fear of stringent financial control from the government and loss of government subsidy. Each PAI HEI sub-decree categorically requires it to have a BoD as the highest body for policy directions and to which the rector/director is accountable. The sub-decree, among others, stipulates BoD composition and selection process and responsibilities of the board and rector/director. Even with this reform, the board composition is still government centric and small and narrow in representation. Their board members (except for staff representatives) and administrators at all levels are still appointed by the government. Touch et al. (2014) suggest that PAI HEI institutional governance is generally a business as usual – i.e., top-down, centralized, and lacks broad participation from staff and concerned communities. Public and PAI HEIs have quite limited, albeit variable, codified institutional autonomy and devolution of authority at the institutional level, although they have significant (de facto) power. The limited autonomy manifests in the institutional structure, line of accountability, and processes in decision-making: for example, small boards making up mainly of government representatives and appointees; establishment, modification, and nullification of HEIs and dependent faculties/units and programs approved by the government; all levels of administrators being appointed by the government and civil servants and accountable to the government; and centralized decision in certain key areas (especially those to do with money) to the university/institute level. In terms of academic freedom, HEIs have considerable autonomy in curriculum designs, mode of instruction, student admission and research policy, awarding degrees, and so forth, although the curriculum and any revision must be approved by supervising ministries in form. Staff and students have substantial academic freedom, although in practice some degree of selfcensorship exists, and institutional power has tilted toward university/institute administrators, especially the rectors/directors. While academic and personnel management (i.e., curriculum and on-contract staff) has been quite decentralized to the faculty and department levels at respective
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HEIs, financial management is centralized, and there is little authority authorization to dependent faculties/units in this matter. Institutional autonomy in personnel (i.e., civil servant) management is quite restricted. Besides the wage-earning (non)teaching staff, all other staff are civil servants; hence, their selection, appointment, promotion, and firing must conform with the Law on Common Statutes of Civil Servants, and their remuneration is determined and paid for by the government. In principle, when an HEI needs full-time civil servants, it must submit a proposal to its supervising ministry, and once it is approved, in principle, the ministry is responsible for organizing an exam to recruit and then appoint them. Promotion and firing of civil servants shall be processed up to the ministerial level too (Un and Sok 2014; Mak et al. forthcoming). Financial autonomy is quite restricted too, especially over the management of government budget. Government budget allocation is done through line-item budgeting and political/historical funding model, and it must be approved by the MEF and supervising ministry. Expenditure and procurement shall comply with rules and regulations issued by the MEF, with large packages generally managed by the technical supervising ministry (Ting 2014; Touch et al. 2014; Mak et al. forthcoming). There are complaints about slow fund disbursement and inflexible budget reallocation in principle, even among PAI HEIs (authors’ communication with experts and HEIs). At the institutional level, revenue management is generally handled at the university/institute level, with little meaningful devolution of such authority to dependent faculties/units and little participation from faculty members. In this sense, at many HEIs, even very small expenditure of a few hundred dollars needs approval of the rector and/or vice rector for finance. Public and PAI HEIs, however, have significant power (de facto, for public ones), especially to manage the self-generated revenues and on-contract services. The self-generated revenue is put in HEI-managed accounts in a private bank, and they have the decision-making power on how to spend it, including to hire and pay on-contract staff, top up civil servants for extra classes/work, purchase study materials and office equipment,
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etc., as they see fit, with little involvement of or approval from the government. With the revenue, they have complete control over the management of casualized contract staff – both academic and nonacademic and on-contract services (mainly teaching) they purchase from the civil servant staff. At some HEIs, the on-contract staff forms a majority of the staff. While teaching staff (on-contract and civil servants) are paid in hourly wages, office holders, including the top administrators, and governing board members (at many HEIs) are paid monthly salary top-up with other benefits. At HEIs where the boards are functional, such top-up is approved by the board, while at those that are not fully functional, such is decided upon by the top administrator(s) themselves. Institutional governance via institutional statutes and regulations is yet to be meticulously codified or even formalized at the HEI level, leaving significant decision-making power to certain individuals or groups, and management by committees is currently an alien notion (see Un and Sok 2014; Wan et al. 2018; Mak et al. forthcoming). Cambodia does not have a law or specific sublaws on private HE, and stipulations about private HE are seen briefly in the Education Law and various sub-laws. Within this context, private HE must undergo the same legal governance requirement as in the case of public HE. Private HEIs formed an association called the Cambodian Higher Education Association in 2004 with only 13 members, but now increasing to 98 members including non-tertiary institution with the mission to strengthen private higher education quality through exchange of information and ideas and promotion of members’ interests. The association has conducted a number of activities each year, although its contribution to higher education quality enhancement is not known, albeit questionable to some (Feuer 2016). Within this context, private HEIs are generally profit-oriented family businesses and run like a private enterprise, perhaps a main difference between them and other registered large private companies being that they are yet to pay corporate taxes; no law exists to regulate how they manage the profits too. Governing board members of private HEIs usually comprise shareholders, a few invited prominent figures (usually with prominent
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political positions), and few staff and student representatives, and private HEIs must inform the supervising ministry of the board composition regularly. Some members are appointed or elected pro forma with little rigor in (s)election, and the boards are reportedly dominated by the shareholders. The day-to-day institutional management is the responsibility of hired administrators, and (deputy) rectors/directors are selected and appointed by the board and are paid in monthly salary. Like public HEIs, they can devise their curriculum, with pro forma approval from concerned ministries, award degrees, set admission policy, etc. They have complete control over financial arrangements and expenses and personnel and administrative management with virtually little meaningful oversight from the government. While administrative staff often work full time, lecturing short-term, contracted staff are often casual hourly wage earners, and many are staff of public agencies and HEIs. Overall, the management of private HEIs is mainly in the hands of the business owners and their relatives, who usually sit on the board and/or run key positions within the HEIs themselves.
Finance/Funding Systems Cambodia’s government expense on HE is one of the lowest in the region in any methods of measurement. In the 1990s, MoEYS spent on average 2% of its education budget on higher education, and this has increased modestly to around 4% in 2013 and 9% in 2016 (see also Fig. 3). The latest expenditure on higher education was estimated to be much less than 0.1% of GDP – compared to the world average of some 1% (Mak et al. forthcoming). Per-student expenditure is very low too (Table 1). Although the figures below may not accurately reflect the reality because many HEIs are not under MoEYS, existing data indicates that HE receives little in absolute terms. Between 1994 and 1999, approximately $4.5 million was spent on HE; it was around $4 million in 2005, slightly over $10 million in 2012, and $6,928,267 in 2016 (excluding civil servants’ wages) (Ting 2014; MoEYS 2016; Mak et al. forthcoming). A few
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia, Fig. 3 Education expenditure in Cambodia (Source: Ting 2014) Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cambodia, Table 1 Expenditure on education in Cambodia 2008 2009 2010 Government expenditure on education As % of GDP 1.67 1.53 As % of total 8.39 7.71 government expenditure Government expenditure per student (in PPS) Primary education 117.03 119.27 Secondary education Tertiary education 205.96 162.52
2011
2012
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2014
1.51 7.68
1.56 7.54
2.02 9.91
1.9 9.09
129.43
148.12
165.84
174.38
2015
2016
2017
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Source: http://uis.unesco.org/country/KH as of 30 April 2018
large public HEIs based in Phnom Penh the authors interacted indicate that the government funding forms some 10–30% of their annual expenditure, while the other 70–90% is covered by self-generated budget, mainly through feepaying academic programs. Other smaller and provincial public HEIs have much larger share of the expenditure covered by the government and much less revenue from tuition fees and other sources (Ting 2014; Mak et al. forthcoming). Since 2000, funding consists of “current budget” (commonly referred to as non-PB) and
“priority action program.” The latter was created to protect the education sector from budget cuts and recently renamed “program budget” (PB) (vs. non-PB). Non-PB covers recurrent operation costs such as civil servant salaries, basic utilities, and other costs. PB supports activities aiming to improve teaching and learning qualities such as mission to workshops, student scholarship subsidy, and classroom renovation. PB expenditure has increased quite significantly, and there is a slight decrease in non-PB expenditure, which signals a move toward a purely program-based budgeting, planned to introduce in 2015 (Ting
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2014; MoEYS 2016). Capital budget is often funded by foreign donors directly to respective HEIs and hence varies from HEI to HEI. Records of capital and recurrent budgets supported by the government are sometimes unclear. Since 1997 the government has granted scholarships (mainly “free seats” and a small amount for living stipend for some of them) annually to high school leavers (currently standing at some 4000–5000), through merit and quota-based allocation. An amount of $130 per scholarship student per year to cover tuition fee is often paid directly to select public HEIs. However, an increasing trend is that public HEIs that can generate significant revenue are requested to cover the scholarship awardees (i.e., tuition fees and stipends) via their self-generated budget, and private HEIs offer merely the “free seats” to the scholarship recipients. For fee-paying programs, different HEIs charge different tuition fees, but on average, students pay $280 per year. The real cost has been decreasing, resulting from a race-to-the-bottom competition to attract students as all HEIs depend heavily on student fees for operation. Fees charged by selected private HEIs can be as low as $100 per year for an undergraduate degree, compared to over $600 in 1997 (Orivel 2009; Ting 2014) and currently charged by prominent public HEIs. Staff salaries represent the largest share of expenditure: 55% for public and 53% for private HEIs surveyed. For private HEIs, another large expenditure (15% on average) is on renting campus buildings. Limited fund is spent on libraries, laboratories and student services, and research and development (R&D) (Ting 2014). With little R&D funding from the government and HEIs themselves (and other funding sources), some staff at selected prominent HEIs are only involved in R&D as collaborators or consultants in projects funded by external sources (Kwok et al. 2010). R&D funding from the government is, however, slowly emerging. From 2010 to 2015, through a project funded by the World Bank, $5.5 million was allocated as competitive grants to select HEIs for R&D activities, and 22 HEIs received such grants to conduct 45 projects. Since 2015, the MEF has earmarked $1 million each year for MoEYS to allocate for
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research activities; however, the fund has so far been used for other purposes by MoEYS rather than to foster the university research culture, and financial operation mechanisms for such fund are yet to be adopted. Selected public and private HEIs have allocated a small amount of their self-generated budget for research and innovation too, although at some HEIs, the actual execution of this budget is opaque or nonexistent, at worst (authors’ communication with selected HEI administrators).
Academic Profession, Students, and Administrative Staff Finance/Funding Systems Teaching personnel and their involvement in institutional management are critical for HE expansion and assurance of quality and relevancy to the society and economy. Yet the increase in teaching staff is not proportionate with the increase in students, resulting in larger class sizes, bigger staff-student and student-laboratory/library ratio, more shifts at many HEIs, and at a compromise of quality. While teaching staff increases around twofold (13,502 in 2017–2018), student number increases over five times in the past decade, and like many students who study at more than one HEI, many of them work at more than one place. Staff recruitment seems to be quite stagnated in the last couple of years too. Another growing concern is staff under-qualification and limited opportunity for self-improvement such as in new andragogy and exposure to international experience. Teaching staff with doctoral degrees is very small (7.54%). The majority holds a master’s degree (69.23%), and undergraduate degree holders are substantial (23.51%) (MoEYS 2018). Such statistical figures for administrative staff are unavailable, yet anecdotal evidence suggests that their qualifications are not promising too. Institutional management by the academic board and faculty-level council and associated committees at all HEIs, be it public, PAI, or private, is an alien concept, let alone practice, in Cambodia, and this has generally relegated the teaching staff to take up mainly/solely teaching portfolio, with little involvement in research and community
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services and hindered the development of institutional academic culture and rule-based governance and institution (Un and Sok 2014; Mak et al. forthcoming). Teaching staff at public HEIs are full-time civil servants and centrally recruited as discussed earlier. To recruit them, HEIs must request to their supervising ministries; then the ministries will conduct the exams. In principle, they are competitive, although gender equity (and other factors) is considered. Since 1997 public and PAI HEIs can recruit on-contract (non-) teaching staff, and they have sole authority in the recruitment process; private HEIs likewise have such discretion. MoEYS has set certain eligible criteria for lecturing staff which is that they must hold higher levels of qualifications, one of which is a master’s degree/undergraduate degree with at least 3 years teaching experience and a doctoral/master’s degree with at least 5 years teaching experience to teach in bachelor’s and master’s programs, respectively. Doctoral programs are limited in number, although recently joint doctoral programs with overseas HEIs are under arrangements at some HEIs. Civil servants’ salary is low, although it is rapidly increasing over the years and is paid directly from the treasury to their respective private bank accounts. Currently, the salary and allowances are on average $160 dollars (DHE as cited in Ting 2014), although this varies slightly, depending mainly on civil servant ranks and classifications. Teaching staff and some administrative staff can, however, earn more extra income from teaching in fee-paying programs or a private HEI, usually paid per hours and varies based mainly on qualifications; competent staff can also earn extra through consultancy work and/or external research collaboration. In 2013 the Decree on Professoriate was enacted, albeit not yet in force. Currently, all teaching staff (except for some at two universities) are simply classified as lecturers. Once the decree is implemented, there shall be three ranks of professors, assistant, associate, and full, and teaching staff with master’s degrees can apply for assistant and associate professorship positions; those applying for full professorship must have PhD degrees. Employment history (mainly teaching)
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and publications are two key criteria for appointment and promotion. HE is mainly a teaching industry, and staff involvement in R&D and administrative work is limited. Due to a lack of clear academic rank systems, career paths, and academic and research culture, teaching staff focus chiefly on teaching to get as much pay as possible. ACC caps the maximum teaching hours at 24 hours per week, although some teach 30 hours plus and at multiple HEIs, leaving little time for research and community services. This limited involvement in research is clearly illustrative in publications Cambodia produces. According to the International Science Ranking, between 1996 and 2012, Cambodia produced 1556 articles. There was a slight increase in 2012, as 226 were written by Cambodians – albeit not necessarily by university lecturers (Sok 2014). Private HEIs and fee-paying programs at public HEIs set up their own enrollment criteria: the main (mostly, only) criterion being a high school certificate for undergraduate programs or a certification of Grade 12 completion for associate programs, regardless of disciplines. The criteria for scholarship programs at public HEIs are generally more rigid, determined by respective HEIs, and may differ across programs. Until a few years ago, students sat in competitive entrance exams; this has been discontinued at almost all public HEIs or programs, and selection is based on overall Grade 12 score and score on selected subjects and other considerations such as gender, geographical location of residence, and poverty for bachelor’s degree programs. This selection is managed by DHE. For non-scholarship students, the access to higher education both public and private depends on the individual purchasing power, the ability to pay the fee and to bear the living expenses. As a consequence, a majority of students enroll in business-related subjects along with other two popular fields of study, namely, English language and IT. Enrollment in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)-related and creative and liberal arts fields of study is relatively lower. There has been significant increase in female students over the years, at 43.69% of the gross enrollment in 2015–2016 (MoEYS 2018).
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Over the past decade or so, there has been a consensus that postsecondary students and graduates have been concentrated in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, and few other large urban provinces. According to a few studies which mainly received information and feedback from the private sector and less so the training providers, many graduates are reportedly underemployed and lack adequate competence to perform in their job (mainly in the private sector) as the skills and knowledge they acquire from HEIs do not respond to the current labor market need. The studies do not examine their contribution to broader national development, including the public sector, social progress, and citizenship building, as such studies were conducted by private firms or individual(s) and which were mainly commissioned or funded by development agencies interested in promoting neoliberal economy. Public debate or discussion in this area is currently muted too. Labor force is mainly to fill up “lowto-medium-skilled jobs” for all sectors, and new recruits and existing employees lack, in order, technical, socio-emotional, and cognitive skills (see Bruni et al. 2013; Chhom and Madhur 2015; HRINC 2010; Lonn and Khieng 2015). Interpreting in this narrow way, the current mainstream Cambodian higher education is recommended to be diversified more into the direction of STEM and TVET (technical and vocational education and training) with a focus on delivering graduates and less so other products to serve the economy, especially the so-called private sector.
Other Main Issues Another big issue is teaching and curriculum. Teaching is generally rote-based and teachercentered with little opportunity for the teachers to enhance their skills and andragogy and exposure beyond their respective institution(s). In many instances, curriculum (or even syllabi and textbooks) is copied from other institutions of better standing, without consideration of local contexts and needs. Textbook writing or compilation is much less frequent and is not incentivized, and for a majority of courses, the teachers simply
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adopt a foreign language textbook. Distance education, curriculum innovation, and research and library facilities need vast improvement, especially toward solving the private labor market need (economic prosperity), social/public issues (social progress), and the need of the students and local communities. Internationalization needs more attention too. While some countries in the region take proactive approaches to internationalization, Cambodia does not properly regulate foreign investment on HE and adopts a laissez-faire approach to this matter.
References Bruni, M., L. Luch, and S. Houch. 2013. Skills shortages and skill gaps in the Cambodian labour market: Evidence from employer skills needs survey. Bangkok: ILO Country Office for Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Chan, R., et al. 2008. Directory of higher education institutions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Camprobe. Chet, C. 2009. Higher education in Cambodia. In The political economy of educational reforms and capacity development in Southeast Asia, ed. Yasushi Hirosato and Yuto Kitamura, 153–165. Netherlands: Springer. Chhom, C., and S. Madhur. 2015. Cambodia’s skill gap: An overview. In Cambodia education 2015: Employment and empowerment, ed. Khieng Sothy, Madhur Srinivasa, and Chhem Rethy, 6–28. Phnom Penh: CDRI. Denham, P.A. 1997. Higher education in Cambodia: Perspective of an Australian aid project. Canberra: University of Canberra. Feuer, H.N. 2016. Recovering from runaway privatization in Cambodian higher education: The regulatory pressure of ASEAN integration. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 31 (2): 648–683. HRINC. 2010. Higher education and skills for the labor market in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: HRINC. Kwok, K.W., et al. 2010. Scoping study: Research capacities of Cambodia’s universities. Phnom Penh: Development Research Forum. Lonn, P., and S. Khieng. 2015. Shaping and scaling up TVET in Cambodia. In Cambodia education 2015: Employment and empowerment, ed. Khieng Sothy, Madhur Srinivasa, and Chhem Rethy, 87–120. Phnom Penh: CDRI. Mak, N., S. Sok, L. Un, R. Bunry, S. Chheng, and S. Kao. (forthcoming). Governance and Finance of Public Higher Education in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute. MoEYS. 2016. Annual congress report. Phnom Penh: MoEYS. MoEYS. 2018. Annual congress report. Phnom Penh: MoEYS.
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906 Orivel, F. 2009. Financing higher education in Cambodia. Manuscript report for the World Bank. Peou, S. 2000. Foreign intervention and regime change in Cambodia: Towards democracy? New York: St. Martin’s Press. Roberts, D.W. 2001. Political transition in Cambodia 1991–99: Power, elitism and democracy. London: Curzon. Sloper, D., ed. 1999. Higher education in Cambodia: The social and educational context for reconstruction. Bangkok: UNESCO. Sok, S. 2014. Notes for the higher education Sub-Technical Working Group meeting (unpublished report). Sok, S. 2016. Higher education governance reforms in Thailand and Malaysia and policy implications for Cambodian reform. Phnom Penh: MoEYS. Ting, L.H. 2014. A policy paper on Cambodia’s higher education financing and financial management. Manuscript for HEQCIP. Touch, V., N. Mak, and V. You. 2014. Governance reforms in higher education: a study of institutional autonomy in Cambodia. In N. V. Varghese and M. Martin (Eds.), Governance Reforms in Higher Education: A Study of Institutional Autonomy in Asian Countries. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning, pp. 49–65. Un, L., and S. Sok. 2014. Higher education governance in Cambodia. In Leadership and governance in higher education: Handbook for decision makers and administrators. Germany: RAABE Publishing. Vann, M. 2012. Stakeholders’ perceptions of quality in Cambodian higher education (PhD thesis). Australia: RMIT University 2012. Wan, C.D., S. Sok, S. Morshidi, and L. Un. 2018. Governance of higher education in Malaysia and Cambodia: Running on a similar path? Journal of International and Comparative Education 7 (1): 49–63.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Canada Creso Sá Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
The decentralization of Canada’s higher education system reflects the country’s broader political system: a highly decentralized federation in which provincial governments are regarded as equals, rather than subordinates, to the federal government. The provincial governments hold on to
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their constitutional responsibilities vigorously, which include the governance of higher education. A result of this political decentralization is the evolution of provincial higher education systems along different paths, which has created differences in institutional arrangements found across the provinces. In the absence of national-level policy or coordination, debate on Canadian higher education is segmented by the peculiarities of the ten provinces. Attempts to generalize across these jurisdictions inevitably result in the loss of nuance about regional variation. While a review of this nature cannot do justice to the “different systems, different perspectives” (Jones 1997) that constitute the Canadian higher education system, the focus is on identifying common themes and highlighting persistent features.
Systems Development History Canada’s first higher education institutions were established by colonial legislatures in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Private colleges with ecumenical affiliations emerged as the primary institutional model, continuing long after the Dominion of Canada was established in 1867 (Jones 1996). Originally comprised of four provinces (Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick), the federation grew to include all ten provinces by 1905 (with the exception of Newfoundland and Labrador which joined in 1949). Up until the end of World War II, Canadian higher education was a small and elite system comprised of private, public, denominational, and nondenominational institutions. A surge in enrollment expansion occurred after World War II, as the federal government sponsored university education for returning soldiers (Cameron 1991). A broader trend of rising demand for higher education in the postwar economy compelled universities to request commensurate financial support from federal and provincial governments, and both levels of government supported the operating expenses of universities. Provincial higher education systems underwent sizeable transformations as
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massification occurred. Some provinces that had one public university created new institutions; private religious universities became secular to qualify for government funding; and other systems merged or consolidated existing institutions. Some provinces created new vocationally oriented college sectors to teach skills relevant to the labor market. Provinces varied in the degree to which they separated the college and university sectors, but none was as radical as the Québec restructuring of the postsecondary system with the introduction of an intermediary institution between secondary schools and higher education: the CEGEPs (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel). This new type of postsecondary institution offered vocational programs and required two-year preuniversity programs for secondary school leavers. Alberta, British Columbia, and Québec were more influenced by the “California model,” which emphasized building institutional pathways and university transfer programs. In Ontario and Manitoba, the sectors were much more separate with little mobility between the two sectors (Skolnik and Jones 1993). Across most provinces, sectors were relatively homogenous with little differentiation in terms of institutional missions. By the 1970s, the provinces had more diverse higher education system comprised of both university and college sectors, with provincial funding and coordination. The key distinguishing feature between colleges and universities was the degree granting authority of the latter. Once established, these systems remained largely unchanged in the following decades as the provincial governments continued to encourage enrollment expansion in a climate of more limited funding growth. In the early to mid-1990s, the federal government dramatically reduced subsidies to the provinces used to fund social services, in an effort to reduce the federal deficit. To cope with this loss of revenue and as part of their own austerity programs, provincial governments promoted adjustments in higher education finance. While some provinces like Ontario relied on fee increases, shifting more of the costs of higher education to students and their families, Québec maintained a low-fee regime (Fisher et al. 2009). In the late
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1990s, the federal government reinvested in higher education through student financial assistance and research support, a trend that continued well into the 2000s as discussed below. Canada’s Higher Education Today With 9,984,670 square meters of landmass, Canada is the second largest country in the world geographically (World Fact Book 2017), but has a population of 36 million, making it smaller than Poland or the US State of California. Given the vast geographic and population differences found across Canada’s provinces and territories, the scale of these provincial higher education systems differs vastly. Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, has a population of 148,600. In contrast, Ontario has a population of almost 14 million and a complex system that now includes 20 publicly supported universities, 24 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology, and other private and theological institutions. The expansive northern territories are scarcely populated. Networks of satellite campuses and online programs help serve these small and isolated northern communities. Table 1 below summarizes the size of each province and accompanying enrollment figures to give a sense of the diversity found between provincial jurisdictions. International student enrollment now is around 10% of the total enrollment figures, continuing a twodecade trend of increasing international student enrollment. Some figures suggest that there are 163 public and private universities in Canada (CMEC 2013). This number includes small institutions affiliated with larger universities, as well as small private theological institutions. Around 90 universities are described as “public”; they are independent not-for-profit institutions that receive sizable government funding. This unique relationship reflects the secularization of the denominational universities during the postwar era of massification. The remaining private universities are largely niche institutions with small enrollments that cater primarily to the needs of specific religious communities. There are also around 183 public colleges and career institutes that provide technical and vocational training. Historically, British Columbia and
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Canada, Table 1 Postsecondary enrollment figures by province: Full time (part time) [2014–2015]
Newfoundland and Labrador Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Québec Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia Territories Total Canada
Population 53,0100
Total area km2 405,212
148,600 949,500 756,800 8,326,100 1,398,000 1,318,100 1,150,600 4,252,900 4,751,600 119,100 36,286,400
5660 55,284 72,908 1,542,056 1,076,395 647,797 651,036 661,848 944,735 3,921,739 998,670
University 14,451 (3486)
College 6444 (2784)
Total 27,168
3648 (603) 36,612 (7314) 17,052 (3681) 210,540 (103,542) 435,405 (81,264) 36,057 (10,035) 30,480 (5352) 108,351 (20,499) 112,062 (65,688) N/A 1,004,652 (30,1461)
2184 (117) 9123 (2154) 6339 (1248) 19,8648 (23,196) 224,829 (80,964) 9825 (6015) 9537 (11,196) 42,918 (12,261) 43,263 (51,795) 1344 (2649) 554,454 (194,379)
6552 55,200 28,320 535,923 822,465 61,926 56,565 184,026 272,808 3993 2,054,943
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM, Table 477–0019
Alberta have had colleges with strong transfer functions inspired by the model found at American land grant institutions. As noted above, Québec’s CEGEPs also incorporate a mandatory twoyear preuniversity program. Ontario’s colleges have historically run parallel to universities providing technical and vocational training. The New Brunswick colleges are directly under control of their provincial ministry, while individual governing boards under sector-wide legislation operate the colleges of other provinces. Provincial college systems have played a critical role in contributing to Canada’s lead among OECD nations in having the largest share of tertiaryeducated adults in the country (OECD 2016). Private career institutes that provide training in specific trades can also be found in all provinces. Provincial governments much more closely regulate the public college sector, leaving private institutions largely accountable to market forces.
Governance In the early twentieth century, provincial governments were often unsure as to what degree they should be involved in publicly supported universities (Cameron 1991). Having reviewed the nature of institutional relationships elsewhere,
Ontario’s Royal Flavelle Commission (1906) determined that public universities should operate with considerable autonomy, and adopt a bicameral model of governance, comprising a governing body and an academic senate. Although the Commission was specifically tasked to address the governance of the University of Toronto, the model it proposed was disseminated among universities across Canada, which was granted a considerable degree of autonomy in governing their own affairs (Boggs 2007). The role of the federal government in Canadian higher education has changed notably over time. Up until the postwar era of massification, the federal government played a modest role. Through direct grants to the universities, the federal government funded the postwar veteran program, and subsequent enrollment expansion saw universities asking both federal and provincial government for more financial support. While federal support was needed in the era of rapid higher education expansion, its direct involvement in providing funding complicated the existing relationships between universities and the provinces, ultimately calling into question the provincial jurisdiction as outlined in the Canadian Constitution (Jones 1997). To avoid further political contestation, the federal government shifted from providing operating grants to
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universities to providing unconditional transfers to the provinces by the mid-1970s (Fisher et al. 2006). Under this arrangement, the size of the transfers became an important point of negotiation between the federal and provincial governments until the late 1990s, when they were eliminated as part of the federal austerity program to eliminate the national deficit. Since then, research and innovation policy has been the key vehicle for federal influence over universities, as discussed below. At the institutional level, most Canadian universities operate under the bicameral model of governance, but it is not the exclusive model. A few universities have a unicameral governance system that covers all the areas of university policy and a few have a hybrid or tricameral governance model. In the typical bicameral model, a governing body is typically comprised of community members, along with student, faculty, and alumni members. In contrast, the senate is typically wholly comprised of students, faculty, and administrative staff. The governing body is usually responsible for financial and administrative matters, while the senate has the authority for all academic decisions, which also differ in different provinces as well as in different institutions. Both governing bodies are usually comprised of various subcommittees that carry out the specific work tasked to them (Jones et al. 2001). The tricameral governance model includes three legislative bodies: the governing board, the senate, and additionally the university or educational council (Herbert 2004). The tricameral governance system is found at Queen’s University and the University of Saskatchewan. Queen’s University has an additional university council that is responsible for student nonacademic or welfare issues (Jones et al. 2001). The degree of autonomy of universities stands in marked contrast to the government’s close regulation of the college sector. Colleges have historically been seen as government policy instruments that could be managed in ways that universities could not. The degree of “closeness” in management between college sectors and their respective ministries varies across the provinces, reflecting the greater variety of their institutional form (Dennison and Gallagher 1986). Still, colleges
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are generally more hierarchical and responsive to government directions than universities. With high rates of participation in higher education across provinces, policymakers are increasingly focusing on introducing quality assurance mechanisms, although these measures do not challenge the traditional autonomy of Canadian universities. In recent years, quality assessment has emerged alongside the expansion of degree granting authority to nonuniversity institutions in several provinces (Weinrib and Jones 2014). This has included the creation of councils to review new degree program proposals in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta. Provincial governments such as Ontario have also implemented multiyear agreements with individual universities to establish their institutional expectations and goals (HEQCO 2013). As provincial governments that experiment with mechanisms that can ensure autonomous institutions are accountable for quality, they have resisted more robust assessment mechanisms. In general, quality assurance processes focus on new programs within a context of institutional responsibility for quality assurance, which is monitored by an external agency (Clark et al. 2011).
Funding Canadian institutions receive their income from primarily two sources: government grants and tuition. The provincial operating grants that institutions receive vary in each province based on different allocation mechanisms. They often have funds embedded within them that facilitate specific initiatives. In Ontario, for example, the majority of grant funding is based on historic enrollment figures with certain small grants to support new enrollment (90%). A much smaller amount (10%) is based on performance indicators and specific policy initiatives (Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities 2015). With government operational grants unable to keep pace with the growing needs of institutions, governments have allowed universities to increase tuition fees over the past two decades (Rexe 2015). Québec stands apart from the other provinces in maintaining the lowest university tuition
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fees in the country. Moreover, Québec college students are not required to pay tuition fees (Fisher et al. 2009). There is a growing consensus that students should be responsible for contributing financially to their education as the main beneficiaries of their degrees. Depending on the political and economic context of the time, most provinces have alternated cyclically between tuition fee increases, freezes, and reductions as they continue an upward trend overall (Fisher et al. 2006; Rexe 2015). Tuition fee debates tend to focus on the university sector since tuition fees to attend college in most provinces are much lower than in the universities. The federal government plays a critical role in supporting student financial assistance, largely through the Canada Student Loan Program (CSLP). In some provinces, the federal and provincial government work together to provide financial assistance through Integrated Student Loans and Grants. Other provinces offer Canada Student Loans alongside distinct provincial systems. Québec independently operates its own distinct student loan program. In 2013–2014, the CSLP awarded 368,000 grants totaling $715.3 million and provided close to $3 billion in loans to some 500,000 students (Employment and Social Development Canada 2016). With the growing importance of tuition fees to offset government operating grants, the federal government has also introduced various other initiatives to limit the debt students accumulate to pay for higher education (Shanahan and Jones 2007). One of the most lasting initiatives is the Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). In operation since 1972, the program encourages families to save for higher education in special savings accounts that accumulate nontaxable interest. The federal government plays an equally critical role in providing research funding. Three federal granting agencies disburse most available funding for academic research: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). SSHRC has an annual budget around $350 million, which is dispersed between supporting scholarships, research, and cultural initiatives
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(Government of Canada 2016c). NSERC’s annual budget of $1.1 billion similarly supports fellowships and scholarships, research initiatives, and university-industry partnerships (National Sciences and Engineering Research Council 2016). Every year, CIHR invests approximately $1 billion to support health-related research, threequarters of which goes toward investigator-driven or open research through foundation grants, project grants, training programs, fellowships, and scholarships. The remainder targets priority research initiatives addressing pressing health issues (Government of Canada 2016a). The federal government also supports university research through other specialized agencies and programs. With the federal reinvestment in research in the late 1990s following a period of retrenchment, new agencies were created to support targeted programs, including the Canada Research Chair (CRC) program, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Genome Canada (Fisher and Rubenson 2010). Investing around $265 million annually, the CRC funds 2000 research professorships, aiming to attract and retain productive researchers for Canadian institutions (Government of Canada 2015). The Canada Excellence Research Chairs program was subsequently launched in 2008, providing teams of researchers with up to $10 million over 7 years to establish ambitious research programs at Canadian institutions (Government of Canada 2016b). The CFI supports major research infrastructure investments, often associated with CRC initiatives. Genome Canada is an agency established by the Canadian government that supports genomic research and technology development (Genome Canada 2012). The provinces play a secondary role in research funding, generally focused on areas of technology relevant to regional industry, and also providing matching funds to federal programs (Sá 2010).
Faculty Universities are responsible for hiring their faculty and staff as employees. Faculty careers follow the general American pattern: faculty members are expected to divide their time
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Canada Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Canada, Table 2 Full-time teaching staff at Canadian universities, by rank and sex (2010–2011) Rank Full professor Associate professor Assistant professor Rank below assistant Other ranks Total
Male 11,447 9550 5446 1612 431 28,486
Female 3499 5923 4715 1875 436 16,448
Total 14,946 15,473 10,161 3487 867 44,934
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generally have higher teaching loads than their counterparts at universities, and in most provinces, they are not expected to conduct research. However, recently many colleges have emphasized applied research to meet the needs of local industry, sometimes along the provision of applied degrees as in the case of Ontario colleges (Hurley and Sá 2013).
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM, Table 477-0017
Universal Access in an Era of Austerity
between research, teaching, and service, and universities employ a tenure track system for continuing faculty, comprising the ranks of assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor. Table 2 summarizes the most recent national data available on Canadian university faculty and is distributed by rank and sex. The Changing Academic Profession Project (CAP) survey of professors provides us with the most recent, illuminating description of the current state of affairs among Canadian faculty. While a crisis of the professoriate has been declared in other countries (Altbach 2004; Finkelstein 2010; Gould 2006), the large sample of CAP survey respondents indicates that Canadian faculty have high levels of job satisfaction and continue to feel comfortable with their sense of autonomy and self-regulation (Gopaul et al. 2016). These levels of job satisfaction are higher than those of their peers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (Jones 2013). Unfortunately, national data on part-time faculty are not available. There is a clear understanding that universities have increasingly relied on contract faculty to meet the pace of enrollment growth. In practice, this has resulted in increased reliance on part-time, contract (nontenure) university instructors who are represented by different labor unions and do not enjoy the same benefits and security as tenure-stream faculty (Field et al. 2014; Rajagopal 2002). Some universities have also introduced a teaching stream designation to professorial ranks to emphasize the important role lecturers play in undergraduate education (Saunders 2011). Data is not available at the national level addressing college instructors either. They
Canada is among the world leaders in postsecondary participation and attainment rates. In fact, Canada leads the OECD in the share of its adult working population (25–64 years old) with tertiary education at 55% (OECD 2016, p.37). Nevertheless, access continues to be an everpresent policy concern across provinces. This is driven in part by demographic concerns about Canada’s aging population and the perceived imperative to increase participation rates at all levels of higher education, including graduate studies, to ensure economic competitiveness (Jones and Weinrib 2011). The access policy agenda is also motivated by a desire to improve participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, resulting in targeted policy initiatives. The most challenging among these groups is Canada’s aboriginal population, whose rates of educational attainment lag behind the general population. Some rural northern universities across Canada have specific mandates to support the needs of aboriginal communities (Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada 2010). The access imperative for domestic students has coexisted with a recent but growing interest in recruiting international students (Sá and Sabzalieva 2016). Tuition fees from international students have become an increasingly important revenue stream for some universities, particularly those located in regions with declining populations. A generally pro-immigration stance in Canada has favored recruitment to the extent that international students are viewed rather positively as potential – and desirable – immigrants. Still, decisions about student recruitment that take place within colleges and universities are separate from shifting immigration regulations that have at
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times posed obstacles for overseas students to remain in Canada. In a climate of shrinking government support for higher education and universal access, institutions and governments continue to explore various cost-saving and revenue-generating strategies. Viewed as a way to increase efficiencies, institutional differentiation has for the past few decades been a central policy issue in multiple jurisdictions (Clark et al. 2009). The historic divisions between the sectors have become increasingly fluid as provinces take steps to foster institutional diversity to broaden access to degree programs (Jones 2009). Provinces began allowing colleges to offer degrees as a means of expanding access to underrepresented groups. The expansion of baccalaureate degrees at the college level contributed to the development of new institutional forms in some jurisdictions. British Columbia has transformed some of its community colleges into teaching-focused universities, which operate a range of undergraduate programs alongside their more traditional vocational offerings. Similarly, two institutions in Alberta are recognized as baccalaureate and applied studies institutions, offering applied degrees. Others have granted colleges some limited degree granting ability. For example, Ontario recognized three colleges as “Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning,” allowing them to grant 15% of their programs as applied degrees, while other colleges in Ontario are limited to 5% (Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities 2003). Concerned about potential isomorphic effects emerging from their higher education systems, some provinces have outlined clear differentiation models to maintain differentiation. In 2007, Alberta introduced a six-sector model, clearly demarcating the role of different institutions within the Alberta higher education system (Alberta Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education 2007). British Columbia has also differentiated its universities into three separate categories: research-intensive universities, teaching universities, and special purpose universities. The introduction of teaching universities in 2008 was the result of two decades of “mission creep,” as a group of community colleges expanded their
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degree granting authority to become university colleges and subsequently teaching universities (Clark et al. 2011). In contrast to the system design initiatives seen in the Western provinces, Ontario is attempting to facilitate differentiation by negotiating strategic mandate agreements with individual institutions and changing the current funding formula, which primarily incentivizes enrollment (Levy 2016). Whether provinces are establishing new hybrid institutions or increasing access to degrees, these challenges to traditional binary sectors have raised numerous questions and challenges for the future of higher education systems. Increased degree granting at colleges has resulted in targeting faculty with PhDs and the promotion of applied research (Hurley and Sá 2013; Skolnik 2013). The increased teaching loads at the new hybrid institutions might foster a teaching culture that focuses on undergraduate teaching excellence and not research. With a growing demand for baccalaureate degrees in most major population centers, it is likely that provincial governments will continue to develop system diversification strategies.
Conclusion The degree of decentralization present in Canadian higher education has resulted in a distinct set of provincial and territorial systems that have adapted to the needs of their jurisdiction over time. To outsiders, this degree of decentralization seemingly presents an endless array of nationallevel challenges from a lack of an integrated national system and central policy coordination. Despite these perceived challenges, Canada’s multiple systems have continued to perform well in terms of absorbing the demand for multiple forms of postsecondary education and allowing different kinds of institutions to flourish. The general configuration of Canadian higher education has evolved without major disruptions or discontinuities in recent decades, despite the ongoing pressures for maintaining high levels of participation while promoting cost-effectiveness. Among the provinces that introduced changes in governance and institutional differentiation, the
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overall tenor of reform has been to expand the provision of degree programs efficiently, facilitate access, and avoid duplication. Nonetheless, the fundamental character of Canada’s provincial higher education systems has not been challenged, nor is there any meaningful national agenda to that effect.
References Alberta Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education. 2007. Roles and mandates policy framework for Alberta’s publicly funded advanced education system. http://advancededucation.alberta.ca/media/133783/rmpf. pdf. Accessed 16 Feb 2017. Altbach, Philip G. 2004. The deteriorating guru: The crisis of the professoriate. International Higher Education 36: 2–3. Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. 2010. Answering the call: The 2010 directory of Canadian university programs and services for Aboriginal students. http://www.afn.ca/uploads/files/aucc-directory_ 2010.pdf. Accessed 17 Feb 2017. Boggs, Andrew M. 2007. Ontario’s Royal commission on the University of Toronto, 1905–06: Political and historical factors that influenced the final report of the Flavelle commission. MA thesis, University of Toronto, Toronto. Cameron, David M. 1991. More than an academic question: Universities, government and public policy in Canada. Halifax, NS: Institute for Research on Public Policy. Genome Canada. 2012. Genomics: Genome Canada strategic plan 2012–2017. https://www.genomecanada.ca/ sites/genomecanada/files/publications/gc_strategic-planfull-version.pdf. Accessed 16 Feb 2017. Clark, Ian D., Greg Moran, Michael L. Skolnik, and David Trick. 2009. Academic transformation: The forces reshaping higher education in Ontario. Montreal: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University. Clark, Ian D., Richard J. Van Loon, and David Trick. 2011. Academic reform: Policy options for improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of undergraduate education in Ontario. Montreal: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University. CMEC. 2013. Education in Canada: An overview. Ottawa: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. http:// www.cmec.ca/299/Education-in-Canada-AnOverview/index.html#04. Accessed 5 Feb 2017. Dennison, John D. & Gallagher, Paul. (1986). Canada’s community colleges: a critical analysis. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Employment and Social Development Canada. 2016. Canada student loans program annual report: 2013–2014. https://www.canada.ca/en/employmentsocial-development/services/student-financial-aid/studentloan/student-loans/reports/cslp-2014.html
913 Field, Cynthia C., Glen A. Jones, Grace Karram Stephenson, and Artur Khoyetsyan. 2014. The “Other” university teachers: Non-full-time instructors at Ontario universities. Toronto, ON: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Finkelstein, Martin J. 2010. Diversification in the academic workforce: The case of the US and implications for Europe. European Review 18 (1): 141–156. Fisher, Donald, and Knell Rubenson. 2010. Canada. In National innovation and the academic research enterprise: Public policy in global perspective, ed. David Dill and Frans A. van Vught. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Fisher, Donald, Kjell Rubenson, Jean Bernatchez, Robert Clift, Glen A. Jones, Jacy Lee, Madeleine MacIvor, John Meredith, Theresa Shanahan, and Claude Trottier. 2006. Canadian federal policy and postsecondary education. Vancouver, BC: Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education and Training, University of British Columbia. Fisher, Donald, Kjell Rubenson, Glen A. Jones, and Theresa Shanahan. 2009. The political economy of post-secondary education: A comparison of British Columbia, Ontario and Québec. Higher Education 57 (5): 549–566. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-0089160-2. Gopaul, Bryan, Glen A. Jones, Julian Weinrib, Amy Metcalfe, Donald Fisher, Yves Gingras, and Kjell Rubenson. 2016. The academic profession in Canada: Perceptions of Canadian university faculty about research and teaching. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education 46 (2): 55–77. Gould, Eric. 2006. Professor or Knowledge Worker? The politics of defining faculty work. Higher Education in Europe 31 (3): 241–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 03797720601058690. Government of Canada. 2015. Canada research chairs: About us. http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/about_us-a_ notre_sujet/index-eng.aspx. Accessed 15 Feb 2017. Government of Canada. 2016a. Canadian institutes of health research: Funding overview. http://www.cihrirsc.gc.ca/e/37788.html. Accessed 15 Feb 2017. Government of Canada. 2016b. Canada excellence research chairs: About us. http://www.cerc.gc.ca/ about-au_sujet/index-eng.aspx. Accessed 15 Feb 2017. Government of Canada. 2016c. SSHRC grants and scholarships budget 2015–16. http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/ about-au_sujet/facts-faits/budget-eng.aspx. Accessed 17 Feb 2017. Herbert, Brenda. 2004. Governance and administration in Canadian universities. MA thesis, University of Northern British Columbia. Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. 2013. Quality: Shifting the focus: A report from the expert panel to assess the strategic mandate agreement submissions. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. Hurley, Peter, and Creso M. Sá. 2013. Higher education policy and legitimacy building: The making of a new academic credential in Ontario. Higher Education Quarterly 67 (2): 157–179. https://doi.org/10.1111/ hequ.12010.
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Jones, Glen A. 1996. Governments, governance, and Canadian universities. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, ed. John C. Smart, vol. XI, 337–371. New York: Agathon Press. Jones, Glen A., ed. 1997. Higher education in Canada: Different systems, different perspectives. New York: Routledge. Jones, Glen A. 2009. Sectors, institutional types, and the challenges of shifting categories: A Canadian commentary. Higher Education Quarterly 63 (4): 371–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2009.00439.x. Jones, Glen A. 2013. The horizontal and vertical fragmentation of academic work and the challenge for academic governance and leadership. Asia Pacific Education Review 14 (1): 75–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12564-013-9251-3. Jones, Glen A., and Julian Weinrib. 2011. Globalization and higher education in Canada. In Handbook on globalization and higher education, ed. Roger King, Simon Marginson, and Rajani Naidoo, 222–240. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Jones, Glen A., Theresa Shanahan, and Paul Goyan. 2001. University governance in Canadian higher education. Tertiary Education and Management 7 (2): 135–148. https://doi.org/10.1080/13583883.2001.9967047. Levy, Sheldon. 2016. Next steps in strategic mandate agreements and changes in the college and university funding formula [Memorandum]. Toronto, ON: Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development. Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. 2015. Focus on outcomes, centre on students: Perspective on evolving Ontario’s university funding model. http:// www.tcu.gov.on.ca/pepg/audiences/universities/uff/Uni versityFundingFormulaConsultationReport_2015.pdf, Accessed 16 Feb 2017. National Sciences and Engineering Research Council. 2016. NSERC dashboard. http://www.nserc-crsng.gc. ca/NSERC-CRSNG/Dashboard-TableauDeBord_eng. asp. Accessed 17 Feb 2017. OECD. 2016. Education at a glance 2016: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. 2003. Backgrounder: Institutes of technology and advanced learning. Rajagopal, Indhu. 2002. Hidden academics: Contract faculty in Canadian universities. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Rexe, Deanne. 2015. Thawing the tuition freeze: The politics of policy change in comparative perspective. Canadian Political Science Review 9 (2): 79–111. Sá, Creso M. 2010. Canadian provinces and public policies for university research. Higher Education Policy 23 (3): 335–357. https://doi.org/10.1057/hep.2010.12. Sá, Creso M., and Emma Sabzalieva. 2016. Public policy and the attraction of international students. Toronto: Centre for the Study of Canadian and International Higher Education, OISE-University of Toronto. Saunders, Leslie. 2011. Teaching stream positions: Some implications. Toronto, ON: Council of Ontario Universities.
Shanahan, Theresa, and Glen A. Jones. 2007. Shifting roles and approaches: Government coordination of postsecondary education in Canada, 1995–2006. Higher Education Research and Development 26 (1): 31–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360601166794. Skolnik, Michael L. 2013. College baccalaureate degree approval processes in other jurisdictions. http://www. collegesontario.org/research/DegreeGranting/College_ Baccalaureate_Degree_Approval_Processes_in_Other_ Jurisdictions.pdf. Accessed 17 Feb 2017. Skolnik, Michael L., and Glen A. Jones. 1993. Arrangements for coordination between university and college sectors in Canadian provinces. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education 23 (1): 56–73. The World Factbook. 2017. Central Intelligence Agency, United States of America. https://www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html Weinrib, Julian, and Glen A. Jones. 2014. Largely a matter of degrees: Quality assurance and Canadian universities. Policy and Society 33 (3): 225–236. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.polsoc.2014.07.002.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cape Verde Pedro Videira1 and Pedro Nuno Teixeira2 1 CIPES & DINAMIA’CET - ISCTE-IUL, Matosinhos, Portugal 2 CIPES - Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies and Faculty of Economics U. Porto, Portugal
Introduction The Cabo Verde archipelago is located 480 km off the western African coast at roughly the same latitude as Senegal. The islands were settled in the fifteenth century by white colonialists and African slaves, which gave rise to a very significant Creole population which lasts until today. In 1975, following an 11-year war between the Portuguese colonial authorities and nationalistic movements, the islands became independent. Since 1990, the country has been a representative and constitutional democracy benefitting from political stability and free multiparty elections. The implementation of market-oriented policies in the 1990s has led to steady economic growth in an economy which, in the absence of natural resources, benefits from the islands’ strategic
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location and is mostly service-oriented. Even though the archipelago of Cape Verde has a population of around 550,000 people, there is a very significant diaspora, and most Cape Verdeans in fact live abroad, mostly in Portugal, France, and the Netherlands. According to the World Bank, Cape Verde is as a lower middle-income country, with a GDP of USD 1.9 billion, a per capita GDP of around USD 3654 a life expectancy at 72.5 years, and an adult literacy rate of 87%.
Arts School of Mindelo, the Intercontinental University of Cape Verde (UNICA), and the University Institute of Education (IUE). In terms of enrolment, the latest available data (for the academic year 2014–2015) (Ministry of Education 2017) show 12,538 students enrolled across the 10 institutions, a majority of whom in private institutions (7341) and with a clear majority of women. The share of female students for that year was 59% overall, slightly higher for bachelor (60%) and postgraduate (70%) programs and a bit lower for master (42%) and PhD (50%) programs. This means that almost one in every four young Cape Verdeans at the age to be in higher education is enrolled in one of these institutions, a number which compares very favorably with other countries in the region. The most represented areas of study were Economic and Juridical Sciences (34.8%) and Social Sciences and Humanities (31.5%), with the Exact Sciences and Engineering and Life Sciences and Health accounting, respectively, for only 19.1% and 14.5% for enrolled students. Only 3.3% of the students were enrolled in master’s programs and 0.1% at the doctoral level. In terms of staff’s academic qualifications, of the 1308 teachers in higher education institutions in 2014–2015, 189 had a PhD, 625 a master’s, and 494 only an undergraduate degree (Ministry of Education 2017). Even though the more qualified teaching staff may be unevenly distributed across the existing institutions, these ratios are rather encouraging given the late development of the system. One concern though relates to the high proportion of teaching staff in partial forms of employment which in some institutions represent over 70% of all staff (Rodrigues 2019).
Development of Higher Education Although literacy rates and income are relatively high when compared to other countries in the region, tertiary education in Cabo Verde is a relatively recent development. The emergence of higher education in Cabo Verde dates back to 1979 with the establishment of the “Teachers” Training School later called “School for Secondary Education Teachers Training” (EFPES) to train teachers at the primary and secondary level; of the “Nautical School,” later “Nautical Training Center” (CNF), to supply the personnel needs of the merchant and fishing fleet; and more recently of the “National Institute for Agrarian Investigation” (currently INIDA) focused on rural development. These institutions were primarily focused on providing muchneeded trained personnel to strategic sectors of the new country’s economy and administration. It was only in 2001 that the first university in Cabo Verde was founded, namely, the Piaget Institute of Cabo Verde (Uni-Piaget), a private institution with close links to another one in Portugal. This was followed by the establishment in 2008 of the first (and only) public university, the University of Cabo Verde (Uni-CV), which aggregated the previously dispersed institutions of higher education and research existing in Cape Verde into a single public institution. Currently, besides the Uni-Piaget and Uni-CV, the higher education system in Cape Verde comprises eight other smaller private universities, namely, the Lusophone University, the Superior Institute of Economic and Management Sciences (ISCEE), the University of Mindelo (UM), the University of Santiago (US), the Superior Institute of Social and Juridical Sciences (ISCJS), the International
Higher Education Governance The autonomy of higher education institutions in Cabo Verde is nowadays very comprehensive (Teixeira and Videira 2015). The first public higher education institutions had little autonomy in management aspects such as administrative, financial, and assets’ management, as well as in academic aspects such as scientific, pedagogical, and curricular dimensions. Previously, decisions regarding the creation of degrees and approval of
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curricula and programs in disciplines, as well as those relating to the appointment and management of staff and the administration of resources, were centered on the Ministry of Education, as the government’s oversight entity. The Decree-Law 2/2010 and the Decree-Law 22/2012 have introduced significant changes in the higher education governance and regulation. The different levels of tertiary education were reformulated, a credit system based on the Bologna process was introduced, and the mechanisms for quality assurance and accreditation were established. Nowadays, both the public and the private universities enjoy a high degree of autonomy at all levels and can thus create, suspend, and terminate degrees and independently interpret government policies without being subject to government decisions. The governing bodies of the universities, namely, the Rector, the University Council, and the Administrative Council, the academic units, and the universities’ service departments can all operate autonomously, and the university can define its own mission and purposes. In terms of the governance structure of the public university, the model followed appears to be eminently collegial with the highest deliberative body being the University Council (which represents the various estates of the academic community). The latter takes the most important decisions of the institution, particularly those related to the definition of the strategy and development lines of UniCV, the creation, amendment, suspension, or termination of the units and degrees and the approval of internal regulations. The Council for Strategy and Governance is an advisory body that seeks to involve external stakeholders, and the Council for Quality and Office for Quality Control and Monitoring seeks to improve the quality and the design of instruments for performance, both internally and in relation to external entities (Varela 2013). The state holds primarily supervisory functions over both the public university and the private institutions. The main functions of the state include fixing the annual enrolment figures, the tuition fees, the management forecasting instruments (strategic plan, annual and multi-annual work plan, and budget drafts dependent on the state budget), and the instruments of accountability (annual activity report and management
accounts). As for quality assurance mechanisms, in 2014–2015 the first external evaluation of all higher education institutions was implemented. However, the result from that evaluation is yet to be made public. There are some concerns, namely, among public officials, about the quality of higher education’s provision. Although the existing legislation addresses that issue extensively, it seems that the actual implementation of legal norms regarding quality assurance is still clearly insufficient. More recently, in 2018, the supervision of the system was transferred from the General Directory of Higher Education to the newly created Agency for the Regulation of Higher Education.
Higher Education Funding and Access The main usual sources for financing higher education, public and private funding, are recognized by the state and used in a complementary form in Cape Verde. As the sole public institution, UNICV is the only one directly receiving funding support from the government. However, since the amount allocated is insufficient to cover the institution’s costs, the students and their families are called to address this budgetary deficit through the payment of tuition fees. In private institutions, the financing is completely dependent on the tuition fees and other costs supported by the students. The Decree-Law of 2010 in fact establishes that even though the state may be called upon to subsidize and support students from low-income families, the responsibility for financing higher education rests with the students themselves (Delgado 2015). In any case, since the beginning of the century, there was a clear inversion on the policies relating to scholarships directed at helping young Cape Verdeans to have access to higher education. While in 2002 3 out of every 4 scholarships were for students to study abroad, by 2012 only 628 scholarships were for students going abroad, and 2592 were directed at students enrolled in national institutions (Rodrigues 2019). The high proportion of students receiving some sort of financial support by the state helps to explain the high enrolment rates in the country and ensures a relatively equitable access to higher education of students from low-income families.
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Conclusion The higher education system in Cape Verde is therefore still at a very early phase of development. Besides its late development, the system is still dealing with major challenges in the regulation of a rapidly expanding and diverse system. Moreover, the presence of a significant private sector adds further to the regulatory challenges. Like many other higher education systems in developing countries, the system needs to cope with the pressures to expand access with the concerns with the quality and relevance of the education provided to a growing number of students. Last, but not least, it needs to find sufficient resources in a context of scarcity and pressing needs in other areas of public services.
Cross-References ▶ Autonomy and Accountability in Higher Education, Africa ▶ Financing Higher Education in Africa, An Overview ▶ Higher Education Expansion in Africa and Middle East
References Delgado, Paulo. 2015. Reformas Educacionais e o Acesso ao Ensino Superior: os Casos de Cabo Verde e do Brasil (1990–2012). Thesis presented at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. Ministry of Education. 2017. Statistical annual report 2014/2015. Cidade da Praia: Directorate for Planning, Budget, and Management. Rodrigues, Luis. 2019. Potencial Transformador do Ensino Superior em Cabo Verde. Revista Teias 20 (56): 11–35. Teixeira, Pedro, and Pedro Videira. 2015. Higher education in Lusophone countries: One language, many stages of development in higher education. In Leadership and governance in higher education handbook for decisionmakers and administrators, ed. S. Bergan et al. Berlin: Raabe Academic Publishers. Varela, Bartolomeu. 2013. Evoluc¸ ão do Ensino Superior Pu´blico em Cabo Verde: da Criac¸ ão do Curso de Formac¸ ão de Professores do Ensino Secundário à Instalac¸ ão da Universidade Pu´blica. Praia: Edic¸ões UNI-CV.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central African Republic Georgette Florence Koyt-Deballé University of Bangui, Bangui, Central African Republic
General Setting The Central African Republic was part of the French African colonies. It is geographically surrounded by the Republic of Chad in the north, The Republic of Cameroon in the west, The Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the south, and the two Sudans in the east. It was formerly called Ubangi-Chari and was declared a republic by the president Barthelemy BOGANDA on December 1, 1958, who changed the name of the country to Central African Republic (CAR). It became officially independent from France on August 13, 1960. The last census was held in 2003 and the different projections estimate that in 2018 the population was of 5,745,135 inhabitants. The country spreads over 622,984 km2 so the population density is of 9.22/km2. Higher education in the Central African Republic took place in Brazzaville or in France, but since 1969, it is governed by the Decree on the organization and functioning of the Ministry of National Education. It is divided into two components: public higher education, which is the largest in terms of student enrolment and personnel, and private higher education, which is made up of small institutions. When the neighboring countries had social crises, many students came from Chad, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, etc. For other reasons, some were from France, Great-Britain, Benin, Togo, Congo Brazzaville, Mali, and Senegal. After the start of the crisis in CAR in 2012, most foreign students left the country. There were only 5% of them in 2017–2018.
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Public Higher Education: The University of Bangui Public higher education is represented by the University of Bangui alone to this day. Its creation follows the disengagement of the Central African Republic from the Foundation for Higher Education in Central Africa (FESAC), comprising four states of Central Africa (Republics of Central Africa, CongoBrazzaville, Gabon and Chad) with headquarters in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. The University of Bangui (UB) was created by an Ordinance on November 12, 1969. It has legal personality and also administrative and financial autonomy. Its general organization is laid down by Decree on August 22, 1985. The Higher Institute of Rural Development (ISDR) of Mbaïki was created in 1970 within the framework of the “Foundation for Higher Education in Central Africa” (FESAC), under the name of the Institut Universitaire de Technologie Agronomique (IUTA) which later became IUTAF by integrating forestry training. After the dissolution of FESAC in 1971, the IUTAF was attached to the University of Bangui. This institution took its current name of Higher Institute of Rural Development (ISDR) of Mbaïki in 1981. The National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure have also been attached to the University of Bangui but not the Primary School Teachers Training School. INSERM became the Faculty of Health Sciences. The University of Bangui started with 200 students. The number increased steadily to reach 12,157 in 2016–2017. The students of the University of Bangui pay every year 4,500 FCFA which is about 7 Euros. Workers or civil servants pay every year 21,000 FCFA which is about 32 Euros. These are the cheapest fees in the subregion. About 3,000 students from both public and private institutions in CAR and about 450 of those who study abroad receive scholarship paid by the government every year. The Decision-Making Bodies The statutes of the university stipulate that the minister in charge of higher education is the
chancellor of the University. He is seconded by the Rector and by the members of the general directorate for Higher Education and Research. Some of them have been introduced to Quality Assurance, but no document about this has been produced yet. The decision-making bodies responsible for determining the main orientations of the activities of the University of Bangui are: • At the political level: The Board of Ministers • At the administrative level: The Board of the university • At the scientific level: The Scientific Board of the university • At the academic level: – The Council of Faculty – The Scientific Council of Faculty – The Council of Department The Management Bodies Implementation of the decisions is carried out under the supervision of the Rector, assisted by a Vice-Rector in charge of the academic component. The management of the various constituent bodies is placed under the authority of the Deans of the Faculties and the Heads of Departments or the Directors of the Institutes and Schools of Higher Education. The management of technical, administrative, and financial services is ensured, under the coordination of the General Secretariat of the University, by the Directors of the Central Services, namely, the Director of Academic Affairs and Cooperation, the Director of Administrative and Financial Affairs, the Director of Students’ Welfare Office, and the Director of the Office of Study, Planning and Archives. The Institutions of the University of Bangui Over the years, various training institutions were set up, as well as research laboratories distributed as follows in 2017: The University has five Faculties covering the areas of Law and Political Sciences, Economics and Management, Science, Arts and Social Sciences and Health Sciences. There are also three vocational Institutions, specialized Research Institutes and Centers.
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The Academic Body At its inception, the University of Bangui mainly operated with lecturers from French, Russian, and Romanian technical assistance. Two decades later, lecturers also came through cooperation with Egypt and Nigeria. Nowadays, almost all the academic body is made up of national lecturers, all grades combined. They fall into two categories: permanent staff and temporary staff. The temporary staff consists of practicing specialists, who bring experience from the labor market. Their annual contract is renewed in case of satisfactory performance. There were 842 of them in 2014–2015. The permanent staff are recruited by the university on examination of their individual files. They were 445 in 2014–2015 but only 436 in 2017–2018. These staff are hierarchized in four corps according to the old French model: assistant, assistant lecturer, lecturer, and professor. Promotion to a higher grade is subject to an assessment based on the quality of the teaching and on the volume of scientific productions; however, that of assistant to assistant lecturer is conditioned by the defense of a doctoral thesis. Selection is made from two possible lists, namely, the national internal list and the so-called CAMES list, CAMES being the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education, a pan-African institution in charge of the harmonization of Francophone African universities and whose headquarters is in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. According to the Office of Study, Planning and Archives, the figures available concern the permanent staff. In 2010–2011 and 2011–2012, the number of lecturers is available according to the teaching institutions. The total is 354 lecturers in 2010–2011 but only 336 the following year, of which 34 were female lecturers. In 2017–2018, without distinction between the two lists, the figures were as presented in Table 1.
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Inter-university Cooperation The University of Bangui cooperates internationally with other universities within the framework of the Association of French speaking Universities (AUF), the Association of African Universities (AUA), and the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES). Institutions and departments cooperate freely with their counterparts abroad. The cooperation concerns both research and teaching. The institutions agree on the contribution of each other in the realization of projects. Often, as there are no funds for research granted by the government, the researchers finance their own projects. The mobility of lecturers is generally financed by France or the Association of French speaking Universities (AUF). Financial support comes from agreements with other institutions while lecturers and their students contribute on the field. Scholarships are made available for the training of lecturers by France, China, and AUF. More and more books and articles are produced by lecturers which is a contribution to science and quality assurance.
Private Higher Education Beginning in the 1990s, several institutions were created by private developers. Some are owned by foreign investors. To date, there are several of them which are rather small in size and constitute private higher education. They teach technical subjects and mainly train middle managers. These institutions do not engage in research and do not have a research laboratory. Their major weakness is that they do not have permanent lecturers. They solicit the services of the lecturers of the University of Bangui and the specialized personnel of the private sector. Some of these private schools have just been created while others have already proved themselves after
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central African Republic, Table 1 Academic Staff of Public Higher Education by category and gender (2017–2018)
Number Total
Assistant Male Female 197 32 229
Assistant lecturers Male Female 118 15 133
Lecturers Male Female 43 3 46
Professors Male Female 25 3 28
Total Male 383
Female 53 436
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several years of existence. To date, there are 13 institutions which provide training in different fields: 1. Newtech Institute: Accounting-Management, Banking and Finance, IT management, Marketing-International Trade, Tourism and Hotel Business, Management assistant, Insurance and Banking, Management Science 2. School of Business and Accounting (HEGC): Accounting-Management, Logistics and Transportation Management, Banking and Finance, IT management, Marketing-International Trade, Civil engineering, Human Resources Management, Management assistant, Management Science 3. Modern Institute of Specialized Crafts (IMMS): Accounting-Management, Telecommunication, Electromechanical engineering, Civil engineering, Management assistant, Economics-Management, Maintenance-Computer network 4. Faculty of Law WALOMBE: Law 5. University Institute of Tourism and Hotel Business (IUTH): Tourism and Hotel Business 6. African Institute of Project Management (IAMPRO): Logistics and Transportation Management, Marketing-International Trade, Human Resources Management 7. Providence Institute (IP): AccountingManagement, Logistics and Transportation Management, Banking and Finance, Human Resources Management, Management assistant, Maintenance-Computer network 8. Training Center for Informatics and Computer Maintenance (CFIMO): AccountingManagement, Logistics and Transportation Management, Banking and Finance, IT Management, Mathematics-Computer-Telecommunication, Management Science, Analyst Programmer 9. Private Center for Vocational Computer Training and General Education (CEPRIFOG): Accounting-Management 10. School of Management and Computing (EGI): Management, Computer Science 11. Private Polytechnic Institute (IPUP): Logistics and Transportation Management, IT management, Civil engineering, Management
assistant, Mechanical engineering Maintenance-Computer network 12. Higher Vocational Training School (ESUFOP): Logistics and Transportation Management, Banking and Finance, Management Science 13. Institute of Business Management (IIM): Human Resources Management Private higher education is rather expensive, but the fees vary from one institution to the other and they are not available in an official document.
The Diplomas and Degrees Public Higher Education At the University of Bangui, the denomination of diplomas depends on the type of institution. These are presented by establishment as follows: • The Faculty of Law and Economics (FDSE) delivers the Diploma of Capacity in Law, the Diploma of General University Studies (DEUG), the License, the Professional Master’s degree, and Research Master’s degree in 1 year. The split of the institution resulted in the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences (FSJP) and the Faculty of Economics and Management (FASEG). The FSJP delivers also the Doctorate in some of its sectors of formation but not in all of them. • The Faculty of Economics and Management (FASEG) at the time of the split has immediately adopted the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate (BMD) system while observing a transitional period for already graduating students. • The Faculty of Science (FS) has first of all delivered the University Degree of Scientific Studies (DUES) in 2 years and the License after the third year. Then the DUES has been replaced by the Diploma of General University Studies (DEUG) and 1 year after the License, the Maîtrise degrees were proposed. The FS has adopted the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate (BMD) system. • The Faculty of Arts and Humanities (FLSH) has a system similar to that of FS with the
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•
•
•
•
•
University Degree of Literary Studies (DUEL) in 2 years and the License at the end of the third year. Then the DUEL has been replaced by the Diploma of General University Studies (DEUG) and 1 year after the License, the Maîtrise degrees were proposed. The FLSH has adopted the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate (BMD) system. The Faculty of Health Sciences (FACSS) dispenses medical and paramedical trainings. The doctors receive a unique diploma of Doctorate in Medicine after 7 years from studies. The duration of the studies varies in the paramedical sectors, but the principle is the same, a single diploma is granted at the end of the period of studies. The Higher Institute of Rural Development (ISDR): Engineering degree of Agriculture, Engineering degree of Breeding and Engineering degree of the Forest Techniques. The Higher Institute of Business Administration (IUGE) offers the Technical university degree (DUT), the License and the Maîtrise. The IUGE began reforms to pass to the system è me Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate (BMD) and forms from the Bachelor’s to the first year of the Master’s. The Higher Institute of Technology (IST) prepares for the Technical university degree (DUT) and License, but since the transition to the BMD, it offers only the Professional Bachelor’s. The Master’s and the Doctorate are not yet in place. The Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) prepares its students to the Vocational Certificate in various fields.
Private Higher Education The private institutions award the BTS, the Technical University Diploma (DUT), the Bachelor’s and the Master’s degrees. Most have started preparing their students for the BMD, but none have yet issued the Doctorate. Their examinations are prepared under the control of the University of Bangui through the Direction of the Academic Affairs, which submits diplomas with the signature of the Rector and Chancellor.
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There are no official documents on the number of students.
Implementation of the System Bachelor’s, Master’s, Doctorate (BMD) BMD at the University of Bangui In the Central African Republic, the Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctorate (BMD) system began in 2004 with the introduction of Master’s instead of Bachelor’s, following the issuance of a decree creating Master’s degrees at the University of Bangui in December 2004. It was at that time that the University of Bangui quickly regained the momentum generated by the Bologna Process by the easiest entry (the Master’s degrees have only 4 semesters) and then the Bachelor’s that required the complete overhaul of the programs from the first to the third year. This initiative enabled the launch of six Masters during the academic year 2006–2007 with the collaboration of the universities of the north, in particular the Master’s in Geomatics and Development, Anthropology, History and Civilization in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and also Applied Biochemistry, Agronomy and Food Sciences, Energetics, Applied Geology in the Faculty of Sciences. The first Master’s degrees awarded at the University of Bangui were in Anthropology and in History and Civilization at the end of 2007. It should be noted, however, that the initiative to create the Masters was taken without any provision for the changeover of the institutions in Bachelor’s. It was after the creation of the Technical Unit of BMD in the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa that the University of Bangui began the normal process for the adoption of the BMD system. Apart from the FACSS, all the institutions of the University of Bangui have switched to the BMD system but at different levels. The BMD in the Private Institutions Given that the lecturers of private institutions are for the most part from the University of Bangui, it is obvious that the system setup reflects that at the University of Bangui.
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The Establishment of Operational Management Structures of the BMD To date, there are only three official documents on the implementation of the BMD. Several drafts have been developed but have not yet been enacted because of institutional instability linked to the multiple crises that crossed the country in recent years and especially the failure to respect the principle of continuity of the State.
Conclusion Aged nearly half a century (1969–2017), the Central African higher education knows at present a great change in both its structure and its educational system. Having inherited the French higher education system, it is gradually adapting to the changes taking place in higher education globally, while adapting its content to the local sociocultural and economic realities.
References Arrêté n 003/PM/CAB.07 du 16 janvier 2007 portant création, attributions, composition et modalités de fonctionnement des organes chargés de la mise en place et du suivi du système “Licence, Master, Doctorat” (LMD). Arrêté N 094/MENAESR/CAB/UB 04 u 26 novembre 2004 Portant organisation de la thèse de doctorat et de l’habilitation à diriger des recherches. Arrêté N 102/MENAESR/CAB/UB 04 du 6 décembre 2004 Portant création des diplômes de masters à l’Université de Bangui. Décret No. 85.264 du 22 Août 1985 portant Statuts de l’Université de Bangui. Directions des Evaluations et des Archives (B.E.P.A), Annuaires statistiques de 2016. Accessed on 8 Nov 2018. Ordonnance No. 69.063 du 12 Novembre 1969 portant création de l’Université de Bangui. Regional Convention on the Recognition of Studies, Certificates, Diplomas, Degrees and other Academic Qualifications in Higher Education in the African States. Arusha, 5 December 1981. Ratified by Central African Republic (CAR) on 01 July 2008. This convention has been revised on December 2014 and was signed by on 12 December 2014. Selezilo, A. 2015. LMD et réformes de l’enseignement en zone CEMAC. Cas de Centrafrique. Paris: Edilivre, 123p.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America Graciela Rodríguez de Flores Departamento de Calidad Académica, Universidad Don Bosco, Soyapango, El Salvador
This entry analyzes the features and conditions of higher education in Central America with a special emphasis on Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama. The information presented here is based on the available official data, with special reference to the UNESCO statistics and the Regional System of Information on Higher Education in Central America (SIRESCA), which has been organized by the Superior Council of Universities from Central America (CSUCA). Another source of information comes from the sites of the public universities, since many of them have data consolidated for the entire country. One should also note that there are some studies reporting some partial data from some countries up to 2016. Nevertheless, even when such studies are available, it was not considered in order not to affect the analysis. The author also held consultations with Dr. Maribel Duriez, Director of the Accreditation and Evaluation Council of Higher Education of Nicaragua, and Dr. Francisco Alarcón, Adjunct Secretary of Academic Affairs of CSUCA. Both specialists provided relevant information for the countries analyzed here. The entry describes the patterns of governance and regulation of higher education in Central America, some basic data on enrolment and efficiency of the national systems, the recent development of the initiatives for quality assurance, and the processes of institutional and programs accreditation present in each country and at the regional level.
Governance and Regulation of Higher Education in Central America The first university in Central America was established in 1676, in Guatemala. A bit later
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 1 Central America: Main bodies in charge of the higher education regulation Country Costa Rica
El Salvador Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama
Bodies Costa Rica’s National Council of Rectors (CONARE): founded in 1974, reformed in 1982. The Council is constituted by the Rectors of the country’s public universities and is in charge of the coordination among the universities and oversees the quality of the public offer of public higher education CONESUP (National Council of Higher Education): created by the law 6693 (1981) as an agency attached to the Ministry of Education. Plays a main role in regulating and overseeing the development of the private sector The National Directory of Higher Education (DNES), attached to the Ministry of Education, is in charge of enforcing the Higher Education Law (LES), adopted in 1995, and directed to all Higher Education system The San Carlos de Guatemala University is the only public university in the country. It was established in 1676. The university is guaranteed by the Country’s Constitution. It is an autonomous institution answering only to country’s Congress. Private universities also have their autonomy recognized by the Constitution (ar. 85). Nevertheless, their organization and roles are regulated by the Law on Private Higher Education, from the 1980s. The Council of Private Education is in charge of the overseeing and the operation of the private higher education institutions The Country’s Higher Education Law (National Congress’ Decree 142-89, from 1989) leaves all responsibilities regarding the development, organization, and overseeing of country’s higher education in the hands of the National Autonomous University of Honduras. Attached to the University, there is a Council of Higher Education which is in charge of overseeing the country’s higher education According to the law 89 (1990), the Council of National Universities (CNU) is responsible for proposing and coordination the implementation of the country’s policy of higher education. The council is also responsible for creating new institutions (private and public) and programs. It is also in charge of proposing the rules for distributing the public resources directed to higher education. The Council is formed by representatives from the country’s ten public universities The Law 52, from 2016, created the National Council of Evaluation and Accreditation of country’s higher education. The body is attached to the Ministry of Education and is in charge of the accreditation of all HE institutions and programs, both public and private. The Law also establishes that all universities and the programs offered by them should be authorized by the State. The Private sector is also under supervision of technical commissions in charge to inspect their operations
Sources: https://www.conare.ac.cr, https://www.mep.go.cr/conesup, https://mined.gob.sv/index.php/descargas, http:// www.ceps.edu.gt/ceps/constitucion_politica#constitucion, https://des.unah.edu.hn/repositorio/normativa, http://www. cnu.edu.ni, https://www.coneaupa.edu.pa/normativas/leyes, (Olivares, 2011)
other universities were created in other countries at the region. The Superior Council of Central America’s Universities, CSUCA, was established in 1948, linking all public universities in the region. The CSUCA works through projects and programs and aims to support the development and integration of higher education in the region. Besides the public universities, CSUCA also integrate some well-regarded private institutions in the region. Beside the public universities, the private sector also grew fast in the region. This sector experienced periods of extreme expansion in different countries, as, for example, the case of El Salvador, in the 1980s and 1990s. Because of these differences, each country also developed different mechanisms of management, administration, and control, each of them focusing in the particularities of the country’s private sector.
Table 1 presents the regulatory arrangements and bodies that oversee higher education development in each country. The rules for private and public universities are already established. All countries are implementing processes targeting improvements in quality and particularly focus the development of mechanisms for quality assurance in their respective systems. There is a push for the development of an integrated information system for the entire region.
Higher Education Institutions, Public and Private, in Central America Table 2 presents some basic figures of higher education in each country of Central America. As it is possible to see, the entire system enrolled approximately 1.3 million students in 2016. The
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 2 Central America: total number of Higher Education Institutions, enrolments, and gross enrolments ratio in tertiary education by country
Country Costa Rica El Salvadord Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panamá Total
Total of public institutionsa 5 1
Total of private institutionsa 53 23
Approximated total enrolmentsa 2016 217,550 180,955
Percentage of enrolments in private HEIs 2016b 50.5% 70.2%
Gross enrolment ratio, tertiary education, 2016b 54.0% 28.1%
1 6 6 5 24
14 14 51 28 183
365,647 201,821 181,761 152,219 1,299,953
42.5%c 37.0% – 34.4%c na
21.3%c 20.8%c – 47.3%c na
Na not available a Source: data collected at the Ministries of Education and Councils of Higher Education and/or authorized universities b Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org, accessed November 23, 2018 c Data available only for 2015 d Dirección Nacional de Educación Superior, Ministerio de Educación, El Salvador, C.A. 2017.
total number of higher education institutions (HEIs) in 2016 was 207, of which 88.4% were private. The participation of the private sector varies from country to country, from 14 private HEIs in Honduras up to a maximum of 53 private HEIs in Costa Rica, followed by Panama (28 private HEIs) and El Salvador (23 private HEIs). Considering the distribution of the public universities, it is worth to note that Nicaragua and Honduras have six public universities each, Costa Rica and Panama have five public universities, while El Salvador and Guatemala have only one public university each. Only in 3 countries in the region the total enrolments at higher education do not reach 200,000 students: Panamá, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Nevertheless, it is worth to note that the gross enrolment ratio in Panama reaches 47.3%, while in El Salvador it is only 28.0%. In Honduras the total number of enrolments reached 201.8 thousand of students, but its gross enrolment ratio represents only 20.8%. The larger HE system in the region is in Guatemala with a total of 365,647 enrolments. Nevertheless, the gross enrolment rate in this country is only 21.3%. The more consolidated system in the regions is Costa Rica, with a total of 217.5 thousand students, which represents a net enrolment ratio of 54.0%. The percentage of students enrolled at the private sector is large among all countries in
the region. In El Salvador one finds the largest participation of the private sector, with more than 70% of all enrolments in this sector. Costa Rica is the second one, with a bit more that 50% of the enrolments in private HEIs. In Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama, the participation of the private sector is lower. In the same order, the percentage of enrolments in the private sector in these countries is 42.5%, 37.0%, and 34.4%.
Enrolments and Grades by Academic Degree In 2016, among the youth between 15 and 24 years old, between 7.8% and 10.4%, were enrolled in vocational programs (Table 3). Guatemala and Honduras are the countries with larger percentage of enrolments in vocational education, with, respectively, 8.3% and 10.4% of the youths are enrolled in programs of this kind. It is also worth to mention the quick expansion education is experiencing in Honduras since 2014. In this country, enrolments at this level represented only 6.9% (2014) to 10.4% in 2016. Table 4 presents the distribution of the enrolments considering the different level of training, following the International Standard
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 3 Central America: percentage of youths from 15 to 24 years old enrolled in vocational programs País Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panamá
2008
2009
2010
8.7 8.7 na na 6.8
8.7 8.8 na na 7.0
8.5 9.3 na na 7.0
2011 3.6 7.4 9.9 na na 7.1
2012 4.3 8.9 9.9 na na 7.5
2013 5.9 8.9 9.4 na na na
2014 7.0 8.6 9.0 6.9 na na
2015 7.7 8.3 8.4 10.3 na na
2016 7.8 7.8 8.3 10.4 na na
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Accessed in November 23, 2018 Na data not available
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 4 Central America, 2016: distribution of the enrolments among different levels of training, Country Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panamá
ISCED 5 10.8 9.3 27.3a 5.1a 2.6 Not available
according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), and Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano (CSUCA). 2018)
ISCED 6 83.2 82.2 67.4a 92.4a 95.7 Not available
ISCED 7 5.7 8.4 5.1a 2.6a 1.5 Not available
ISCED 8 0.2 0.05 0.2a 0.03a 0.2 Not available
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Accessed in November 23, 2018 Last data available is for 2015
a
Classification of Education proposed by UNESCO, 2011 (ISCED), for the year of 2016. Considering the offerings made by the institutions in their web pages, and the information collected by UNESCO, it is possible to see a small increase in the offering of programs of short-term cycle of training (ISCED 5). Nevertheless, the larger number of positions (around 80% of all enrolments) is still offered in bachelor and equivalent programs (ISCED 6). The offers of alternatives for postgraduate studies in all countries of the region are very small. The percentage of the enrolments at the masters’ level (ISCED 7) is below 9% in all countries. Panama is the country with the larger enrolments at masters’ level (mostly professional masters’ programs), with 8.4% of all enrolments at this level. Costa Rica and Guatemala are below, with, in the same order, 5.7% and 5.1% of the enrolments at this level. The percentage of enrolments at doctoral level (ISCED 8) is very small. In most of the countries, these enrolments do not even reach 1%.
Graduates in Higher Education As one can see in Table 5, the total number of graduates in Central America is increasing. Just from 2014 up to 2015, the last 2 years with available and complete data, a number of graduates experienced an increase of 5%, coming from a total of 167.1 thousand of graduates up to 175.5 thousand of graduates. As it is possible to verify in this table, this increase is mostly given by the performance of Guatemala, where the number of graduates experience an increase of 25.7% between 2014 and 2015, and Costa Rica, where the increase in the number of graduates was 7% in the same period. As one should expect, most of the diplomas conferred by HEI in Central America are related with the completion of programs at ISCED 6. Figure 1 shows that in 2015, degrees from programs classified at this level represent 66% of all degrees granted in Central America. Other 21% of the degrees come from programs classified at ISCED 5. Postgraduate diplomas represent a
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 5 Total number of degrees granted in Central America, from 2011 to 2015 Country Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaraguaa Panama Total
2011 2,040 20,284
2012 2,598 21,666
2013 44,575 23,619
18,083 2,944
1,680 18,267 22,786
18,667 20,242 23,752 130,855
2014 46,341 22,976 26,854 21,994 22,056 26,923 167,144
2015 49,778 22,994 33,666 21,481 21,531 26,031 175,481
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Accessed in November 23, 2018 Consejo Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación (CNEA). 2017
a
ISCED 8 ISCED 7 0% 13%
ISCED 5 21%
ISCED 6 66%
ISCED 5
ISCED 6
ISCED 7
ISCED 8
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Fig. 1 Central America: distribution of grades by level of training, 2015. (Source: UNESCO, http://data. ius.unesco.org. Accessed on November 23, 2018)
very small proportion of all degrees granted in 2015 in Central America: 13% were granted by master’s programs (ISCED 7), and only 0.1% of all degrees came from the completion of doctoral training (ISCED 8).
Funding Higher Education Funding higher education is an ongoing issue in the region. Modernization, growth, and improved quality demand large investments in the system, which governments are not able or willing to face. As it is possible to see in Table 6 for most of the countries in Central America, the volume of public resources committed to education represents around 3–4% of most of the countries’ gross domestic product (GDP). In Costa Rica this figure is larger and grew from 6.63% to 7.43% since the beginning of the 2010s. In Honduras it experience
small variations around 6%, in Guatemala it oscillated around 3%, and in El Salvador and Nicaragua, the figure oscillated around 4% of the GDP in the same period. When considering specifically the public resources committed to higher education, Table 7 shows that in most countries it is below 1% of the country’s GDP. In 2016, the data available shows that only in Costa Rica these resources represent more than 1.5% of the country’s GDP.
Systems of Evaluation and Accreditation for Quality Improvement Concerns regarding the quality of higher education are widespread in the region. For several decades now, each country in the region has adopted different procedures for quality assurance with the establishment of agencies for evaluation and/or accreditation, focusing both on institutions and on programs. Some of them are mandatory for the entire national system or for parts of the system; others are elective. Table 8 resumes the main initiatives for the region. As it is possible to see in this table, Costa Rica has an established agency for accrediting programs since 2001, with national and international experiences of accreditation. El Salvador and Panama, both have established procedures for institutional evaluation. Nicaragua is in the process of consolidating its system for quality assurance, and Honduras is in the first steps of building its system for accreditation. Only Guatemala didn’t reach the social consensus necessary for building a system for quality assurance and accreditation.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 6 Central America: public resources committed to education as a percentage of the country’s GDP country Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panama
2010 6.63 4.04 2.80
2011 6.45 3.89 2.92
2012 6.68 3.71 2.95
2013 6.84 3.80 2.84 5.87
2014 6.89 3.82 2.94
4.48
4.08
2015 7.08 3.95 2.95 6.41 4.12
2016 7.11 3.86 2.83 6.30 4.11
2017 7.43 2.79 5.95 4.34
3.15
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Accessed on November 23, 2018
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 7 Central America: public resources committed to funding higher education as percentage of GDP Country Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua Panamá
2010 1.22 0.49 0.31 0.88 1.16
2011 1.26 0.36
0.70
2012 1.31 0.28 0.37 0.97
2013 1.40 0.31 0.34 1.08
2014 1.48 0.30 0.35 0.97
2015 1.57 0.31 0.40 0.87
2016 1.63 0.31 0.41
0.69
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Accessed on November 23, 2018
For the entire region, the CSUCA (High Central American University Council) has implemented several initiatives of institutional and program self-evaluation since the 1990s, targeting the public universities. These exercises were supported by the Centro American System of Evaluation and Harmonisation of Higher Education (SICEVAES). Since 2003 the region also counts with the Central American Council of Accreditation (CCA) as a regional second-level agency, in charge of accrediting the national agencies of accreditation. At the moment, the CCA is implementing a pilot project called AUDIT counting with the support from the Spanish National Agency of Evaluation and Accreditation of Higher Education. The project provides support for processes of accreditation targeting the development of a culture of evaluation, selfimprovement, and accountability inside the HEIs. AUDIT also certifies the institutions’ systems of quality assurance and supports human resource development in the area. There are also some initiatives for program accreditation. Among them, the most relevant is the Central American Agency for Accreditation of
Programs in Architecture and Engineering (ACAAI). For the 2009–2018 period, ACAAI has accredited 35 programs, in all countries of Central America. Postgraduate programs are accredited by the Agency for Accreditation of Post Graduate Programs (ACAP). Since 2009 this agency has accredited 23 programs, two of them at doctoral level.
Other Relevant Themes in Higher Education in Central America Internationalization is still a small endeavor for most of Central American HEI. However, in recent years, some universities committed resources to developing the institutional support for student and academic mobility, and there are some experiences of developing programs with double certification and the development of collaborative research projects. Concerning distance education, different HEIs in the region show diverse levels of maturity. The technology of information has been adopted by many HEIs, both as a tool for management and as
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 8 Central America, national agencies for higher education evaluation and accreditation Country Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama
Agencies and procedures for evaluation/accreditation SINAES, the National System for Accreditation of Higher Education. Works as an independent agency linked to the CONARE
Legal basis and year of establishment Established in 1999, under the Law 8256, Official Diary n. 94 from 2002, and the law 8798, from 2010
The CdA, the Commission on CdA was founded in 2000, Accreditation of Higher under the article 46 of the Education, promotes institutional Higher Education Law accreditation of the HEI that choose to submit to its procedures. CdA works under the Ministry of Education For the institutions that choose not to be accredited by the CdA, the DNES – National Directorate of Higher Education – also under the Ministry of Education (MINED), organizes institutional evaluation every 3 years and demands a report of the HEI’s activities annually The country has no system of quality assurance SHACES, The Honduras’ System SHACES was enacted by the of Quality Assurance and Council of Higher Education Accreditation of Higher under the Deal n. 2304, from Education in charge of 2010 institutional and program accreditation in the country
The CNEA, the National Council for Evaluation and Accreditation supervise the National System for quality assurance of the Higher Education. Under its supervision, all HEI are supposed to organize institutional systems for quality assurance CONEAUPA, Panama’s Council for University Evaluation and Accreditation Provides for elective Institutional and Program Accreditation
Established in 2011 by the law 704/2011
Established under the Law 20/2006, and reformed by the law 52/2015
Conditions of operation Elective evaluation and accreditation of both institutions and programs Has 160 programs recognized of quality in Costa Rica and 3 programs abroad CdA already has accredited 13 HEI. It has no program accredited to the day
It is still not completely functional. In 2016 the National Commission for Quality Accreditation in Higher Education was nominated. It still waits for changes in the country’s legal framework for launch the first processes of accreditation There is 55 HEIs that already completed the self-evaluation and have received the first visit of external peers. They are implementing the improvements aiming to the first accreditation
CONEAUPA already accredited 24 HEI and 10 programs, of which 4 are offered by public universities
Sources: based on information provided by the sites: www.universidadescr.com/blog/carreras-acreditadas-por-sinaes2018, http://cda.org.sv/sobre-la-cda, https://des.unah.edu.hn/, http://www.cnea.edu.ni/, http://www.coneaupa.edu.pa/ acreditacion, (Tünnerman, 2008)
a support for learning. There are some experiences of online programs, and the offer of this alternative path of studies is growing in the region. However, two main challenges are still present: first, the development of the infrastructure for
supporting this kind of program and, second, the need of a new regulatory framework that could lend credibility and assure quality for the online paths of learning. Another relevant barrier still to be overcome is one of cultural nature; the
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Central America, Table 9 Central America: percentage of women participation among the graduates of higher education País Costa Rica El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaraguaa Panamá
2008 66.6 58.2 60 62.9 66
2009 58.1
2010 63.25 58.74
2011 63.9 58.7
62.9 65.8
63.87 64.36
62.7 63.6
2012 58.2 65.3 61.4 65.4
2013 63.19 56.58 58.31 63.08 62.15 64.71
2014 63.22 56.38 57.51 64.83 59.67 66.12
2015 62.92 56.65 62.38 64.45 59.15 66.4
2016 62.95 55.5
61.25
Source: UNESCO, http://data.ius.unesco.org. Assessed on November 23, 2018 Data from https://siresca.csuca.org/sistema, accessed on November 23, 2018
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academics and the students need to develop a new, more proactive approach for learning, one where the student has more autonomy to manage her tasks and responsibilities. On the other hand, the universities should update their procedures and regulations, creating a more flexible management to face the new demands created by this kind of learning. Finally, one positive trait that is worth to mention regarding access to higher education in Central America is the expressive participation of women in higher education. In fact, as it is shown in Table 9 in most countries of the region, the percentage of women among the graduates in higher education is about 60%. This figure reaches a maximum of 66% in Panama, and only El Salvador and Guatemala tend to be below 60%. The small fluctuation in the data for Nicaragua should be regarded with some warry because this is only a partial information, which considers only the public sector.
Conclusion • The development of higher education in Central America has followed the pace of growth, in number of institutions, diversification of the academic offer, and student coverage, although the level of income of those who finish secondary education and enter higher education is low. • Higher education in the region is marked by the presence of the public universities and growth of a private sector with different types of educational offers which are extensive and disperse.
• The percentage of enrolments in the private sector varies among the countries in the region. Considering the profile of different countries, it is in a range of 30% up to 70% of the enrolments. • While the total number of enrolments in higher education is increasing and can be verified early, most of this growth is in ISCED 6, which grants bachelor degrees, locally known as licenciaturas. • Enrolments at the postgraduate level are low in the entire region. Nevertheless, one should note an increase in the enrolments in professional master programs. Enrolments in doctoral programs are still very low and did not experience an increase in recent years. • Female participation in higher education is larger than male participation both in terms of enrolments and graduation rates. • Regulation frameworks and rules for evaluation higher education are expanding in the region, according to the different realities of each country. However, the rhythm of this development is uneven. • Processes of quality assurance and accreditation have not had the expected impact in the region, even considering the results achieved by both regional agencies and the ones created by each country. This situation explains the slow rhythm of improvements experienced by higher education in all regions. • The level of commitment of resources to funding higher education is very low and stays around 1% of the GDB. • The use of ICTs in the management of HEI is well-established, even if the development of integrated information systems is still a
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pending issue in most countries in the region. Another area requiring more commitment is the use of ICTs as a support in the learning processes.
References Consejo Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación (CNEA). Nicaragua. C.A. 2017. Graduados 2009 – 2015, oferta educativa y matricula 2016 en el Subsistema de Evaluación Superior de Nicaragua. Consejo Superior Universitario Centroamericano (CSUCA). C.A. 2018. Marco de Cualificación para la Educación Superior Centroamericana (MCESCA): Resultados de Aprendizajes esperados para los niveles técnicos superior universitario, bachillerato universitario, licenciatura, maestría y doctorado. Dirección Nacional de Educación Superior, Ministerio de Educación, El Salvador, C.A. 2017. Resultados de la Información Estadística de Instituciones de Educación Superior 2016. Olivares, Carlos. 2011. La Educación Superior en Nicaragua. Innovación Educativa 11(57): 91–97. http://www. redalyc.org/articulo09?¼179422350011 Tünnerman, Carlos. 2008. La calidad de la educación superior y su acreditación: la experiencia centroamericana. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1414-407720080002 00005.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile Gonzalo Zapata1 and Ivo Tejeda2 1 Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile 2 Independent Consultant, Santiago, Chile
Synonyms Higher Education in Chile
Background The first university in Chile was formally created as part of the organization of the Republic, a short time after the country’s Independence, like in most of the countries of the region. The Universidad de Chile was founded in 1842 as a
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national public institution, responsible for the organization and superintendence role of the entire educational system. Formally, it was the legal heir of the Universidad Real de San Felipe, entity that granted academic certificates during the colonial period (Serrano 1993). Until the first half of the twentieth century, the Chilean university system was developed mainly under the auspices of the State, which financed in similar ways state universities (Universidad de Chile (1842) and Universidad Técnica del Estado (1947)), the universities established by the Catholic Church and their congregations (Universidad Católica de Chile (1889), (P.) Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (1928), and Universidad (Católica) del Norte (1957)), and other three private ones established by social, corporate, and private benefactors (Universidad de Concepción (1919), Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (1932), and Universidad Austral de Chile (1955)). Although graduates from all schools had to take the final degree exams under a professorial committee organized by the University of Chile, the State guaranteed a broad range of institutional and finance autonomy to the eight universities, which are called up today as the “traditional universities.” The State responsibility for education was represented by the notion of “Teaching State” (Levy 1986a), critical in the origins and development of the system. Even though education was constitutionally considered mainly as a public function, private universities were recognized as contributors to the public mission and educational role, receiving plenty of resources and a “privileged autonomy” for their functioning (Brunner and Briones 1992). These features are a peculiarity of the Chilean system that maintains a unique mixed feature of “public-private” from their foundations and up to now (Brunner and Peña 2011). The first significant expansion of higher education occurred from 1967, in the context of the university reform, somehow in line with other movements such as the 1918 Cordoba Reform in Argentina and the student’s movements of May 1968 in France. The university reform in Chile was a response to a massive national political agitation and impacted mostly the governance and organization of the institutions supporting a
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new professional orientation of educational programs and a renovated role of the university toward society (Huneeus 1988). The university system grew significantly, and public funding nearly doubled during the five following years (Bernasconi and Rojas 2004). The advance of this reform movement was abruptly impeded by the military coup of September 1973.
The Higher Education Reform (1980) A few weeks after the coup, the military government took over the eight traditional universities, assigning delegated presidents and dismantling their self-governance structures. Academic staff, administrative personnel, and students sympathizing with the previous administration were pursued, some tortured, and others even murdered. For the first time in the history of the country, institutional autonomy, academic freedom, and pluralism were proscribed (Levy 1986b). As part of the changes performed in political, social, and economic spheres (1973–1990), the military government (1973–1990) carried out a profound transformation of the institutional bases of higher education. The main changes imposed by the reform of 1980 (Brunner 1993), still influencing the dynamics of Chilean higher education, are the following: – A political intervention of all campuses of the University of Chile, State Technical University, and the Catholic University of Chile, forcing the creation of a group of “derived universities.” From the eight “traditional universities” existing at the time, the dismemberment process led to 16 public and 9 private universities, which up to date form part of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). – Diversification of the institutional framework of higher education, leading to the establishment of new private universities and the recognition of two new types of nonuniversity institutions: the professional institutes (offering 2–4-year degree programs) and the technical training centers (offering 2-year degree programs).
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– The development of a new system of official recognition for the newly created private institutions, imposing very favorable conditions and minimal authorization requisites. The military government kept a political and ideological control of the private groups forming new organizations. However, it also adopted a very flexible regulation in order to attract several business groups and entrepreneurs to the sector. In the 1990s, when the country democratized again, the number of private higher education institution officials recognized was up to almost 300. – The adoption of new rules for financing the system which drastically reduced direct state funding to the traditional universities and imposed tuition fees in all sectors while adopting a new scheme for students’ loans for supporting access. The reform of the 1980s contributed to higher education growth and differentiation, but mainly encouraged privatization, competition, and market dynamics, reducing significantly public regulation. Together with the recovery of the democracy, in 1990, Chilean universities went back to their self-governance, but under new conditions of substantial privatization and market competition. Since then, policies have focused on the excessive deregulation of the system, introducing several control mechanisms and new quality assurance requirements (Cox 1996). Meanwhile, state funding has grown primarily via students’ benefits and competitive institutional development funds, promoting greater opportunities and equity in the access to students from low-income families to the education system and investing in institutional capacity building. Despite the above, policies have not changed substantially the demand-driven financing system established by the reform of the 1980s (CAP 2008). The dynamics of the system and the speed of its transformation have been relevant, and currently there exist a relatively shared diagnostic about its achievements, but also the limitations of the higher education model and the need to move forward on structural reforms (Aequalis 2013). The current government (2014–2018) has
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proposed a large reform agenda, including initiatives to change the higher education structure, its governance arrangements, financing, and quality assurance. However, there have been enormous difficulties in designing the reform in a way that could assure sufficient political support.
Higher Education Institutions and Enrollment The Chilean higher education has experienced rapid massification reaching the level of almost universal access according to the typology proposed by Trow (2006). In 2015, the total number of students in the system reached 1,232,791, equivalent to a net enrollment rate of 37.4% and a gross (total) rate of 53.1%. The fast growth of enrollment in the last decades substantially increased the access of students from middle and low socioeconomic backgrounds. Thus, the majority of the current students come from families that only have had primary and secondary school education. The incorporation of women into higher education has also been significant during the last decades. Today the enrollment of men and women in Chile is virtually the same. The democratization of access to higher education is certainly a great achievement in the Chilean higher education. While, in the year 2003, the fifth socioeconomic income quintile had a net enrollment rate in higher education five times higher than the first quintile, 10 years later, the gap was reduced up to two times. Nevertheless, equity in access is still a matter of political concern (Table 1). A decrease in the growth rate of the Chilean higher education has been observed recently, especially in the undergraduate enrollment. Growth in undergraduate enrollment rate has dropped from an average annual rate of 7.6 points during the past 5 years to a 1.8 in 2015 (Zapata and Tejeda 2016). The number of institutions has increased accordingly. Since the 1980s, a total of 54 universities, 90 professional institutes and technical training centers, and more than 270 private institutions have been created, most of them just before the country’s redemocratization. However, with the
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile, Table 1 Gross and net higher education enrollment rate for young people aged 18–24 Years 1990 1996 2000 2003 2006 2009 2011 2013 2015
Net rate 12.8 21 22.1 26 27.4 29.1 33.2 36.7 37.4
Gross rate 15.6 26.1 30.9 37.8 38.3 39.7 45.2 51.2 53.1
Source: National socioeconomic characterization survey CASEN The government of Chile, Ministry of Social Development
passing of time, many of these institutions were closed by the authorities, or merged, or were absorbed by others, or just disappeared. From the 416 private institutions that got official recognition to operate in the late 1980s, only 35 universities, 43 professional institutes, and 54 technical training centers are currently functioning. The system is also characterized by a high level of privatism, expressed in relative size between the public and private sectors and its financing (Brunner 2008). Various reports from international organizations identify Chile as an exceptional case, which reaches a very high level of privatization in comparison with most developed countries and other countries from the Latin American region (OECD, World Bank 2009). In 2015, the public higher education sector included 16 public (State) universities distributed throughout the national territory. Public universities are quite different from each other. Some are very prestigious and research oriented, such as the University of Chile, while other are small and mostly teaching institutions. Although the sector has tripled its size since 1990, the relative number of students enrolled at the public sector has dropped from 24% to 15%. Recently, the government decided to create two new regional public universities and a network of 15 technical training centers (one for each region). It is one of the leading initiatives seeking to boost the provision of public higher education, especially in areas far from the capital, traditionally served only by private providers of technical education.
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As said before, there are also nine private traditional and their derived universities belonging to the CRUCH. These institutions also show some level of diversity among themselves, but they have a more homogeneous profile than other sectors. They correspond to the universities which, on average, maintain comparatively the best indicators of academic quality and research productivity. This sector has almost tripled in size since 1990, but also losing their relative weight in the system. During the last decades, these universities have target traditional fields of knowledge and graduate education. The growth of enrollment in the new private universities, created since the 1980s, has been comparatively much larger than the rest of the system. This is a sector with an extraordinarily level of diversity, with substantial differences in their structure, organization, type of programs, quality, size, and ideological/religious orientation. There are currently 35 private universities which concentrate more than 50% of the university enrollment in the country. Their dynamism and ability to adapt to changing contexts are quite impressive. Similarly to the private university sector, the growth in the nonuniversity sector is also very significant. As said before, until very recently, this sector was almost exclusively private. There are currently 43 professional institutes and 54 technical training centers, and its enrollment growth has remained upward. Growth is concentrated in some few large institutions organized in many branches and campuses across the country, offering a wide variety of programs and training alternatives. Student funding policies have promoted access to this sector, especially from the year 2000 onward, when the government expanded student loan opportunities and
implemented a grant program targeting technical education. Currently, the enrollment of the nonuniversity sector represents more than 40% of the total enrollment in the country. In resume, the diversity of institutions profile is also impressive. There are some elite public and private universities that show high levels of quality and have made significant contributions in many areas of knowledge. There are also several active teaching institutions that have consolidated their mission, but also with some emerging institutions that are still bracing their capacities and a few other organizations that show serious problems of quality and sustainability (Table 2). In the private sector, there is also a small group of institutions that has adopted very aggressive growth strategies. This is the case of giant corporations, which have developed interagency structures, which grouped under the same brand-name universities, professional institutes, and technical training centers. They have achieved a national presence, through campus mushrooming growth. In general, they have lower levels of quality and low prestige, several of which have been accused of circumventing the prohibition of profit, through their contracts related to real estate or counting with investments from international corporations which clearly disguise the for-profit nature of their operations (Zapata and Tejeda 2016). In this scenario, the growing concern of the public policy is how to ensure minimum levels of quality throughout the system (CAP 2008). Indicators of quality among the institutions remain fairly dissimilar. In general, a relevant number of the institutions have improved the infrastructure and resources available to students. During the decade of the 1990s and especially in early 2000, significant investments were made in infrastructure,
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile, Table 2 Total enrollment in higher education by type of institution Type of institution Public (State) universities Private traditional universities Private nontraditional universities Professional institutes Technical training centers Total
1990 61,632 50,561 19,509 40,006 77,774 249,482
1995 95,493 66,357 69,377 40,980 72,735 344,942
Source: Prepared by the authors based on data from www.sies.cl
2000 124,823 90,461 103,805 80,593 52,643 452,325
2005 146,583 101,386 193,177 114,680 63,176 619,002
2010 178,541 132,349 322,120 224,339 128,571 985,920
2015 188,804 147,532 371,132 378,802 146,521 1,232,791
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facilities, and resources of various kinds. While CRUCH universities are selective at the entrance procedures, most private institutions have no real requirements for admission, even though most institutions are making serious efforts to adjust teaching to their students’ profile. Finally, even if the majority of universities has made serious efforts in improving student retention, student’s dropout and the excessive length of years committed to undergraduate training are still issues of great concern. Academic indicators, especially work conditions, have also improved in most institutions and sectors, which positively impact over the relationship between academics and students and the academic availability and time committed to institutions. Nevertheless, the level of academic training varies significantly among universities. The number of academics holding a Ph.D. degree is still low, and most of the academics with this profile are concentrated in the traditional research universities. In the last few years, a number of private institutions, especially among those created after the 1980 reform, have fallen into malpractices, failing to their academic and financial commitments because of mismanagement, incompetence, or excessive withdrawal of profits. This has caused serious harm to public confidence in these institutions.
Higher Education Programs and Certifications The Chilean higher education system is organized by the provision of a set of academic degrees and qualifications (titles). The law distinguishes the degrees of licentiate (equivalent to a 4-year bachelor in certain specialty), master, and doctorate. These degrees can only be granted by universities with official recognition. At the same time, the law allows institutions to provide programs leading to technical tittles (equivalent to a 2-year program) or professional tittles (whose duration varies between 4 and 7 years). The law also recognizes a set of professional certifications that require the completion of a licentiate’s degree (medicine, law, engineering, among the most important). Only universities are allowed to grant the last diplomas.
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In this way, universities can grant all sorts of postsecondary degrees and titles, providing a variety of general, vocational, and professional programs, although they usually concentrate on long undergraduate and graduate study programs (4-, 5-, 6-, and 7-year programs). Professional institutes can only provide technical and short professional programs of 2–4 years. Finally, the technical training centers are allowed to teach short technical programs (usually 2 years) (Bernasconi and Rojas 2004). This rigid arrangement concurs to significant levels of atomization in the system and limits student mobility. Except for the universities belonging to the CRUCH and some private corporations that simultaneously are proprietors of universities, professional institutes, and technical training centers, there is a lower level of collaboration among institutions when it comes to recognizing students’ previous studies and allowing mobility between institutions. On the other hand, particularly since the university reform at the end of the 1960s, the structure of the undergraduate studies in Chile offers simultaneously general basic training together with specialty training. A student entering a university typically enrolls in a program ranging from 5 to 7 years, which leads to a licentiate’s degree and a professional certification that is legally recognized as enabling for professional practice. This structure, very time-consuming and tubular in its design, sustains the strong professional orientation of undergraduate programs in Chile. Except for some innovations driven by some leading universities as to promote greater flexibility between a general training level and the specialized and postgraduate studies, the system continues to maintain a very traditional and rigid profile in its study programs. In Chile, only the lawyer certification (professional title) requires an external recognition, which is granted by the Supreme Court. All other professional qualifications are formally attached with holding the correct licentiate degree. Since the reform of the 1980s, there is no additional requirement, such as to be registered in an association, in order to practice a profession. The 1980 Constitution enshrines freedom of work and membership in
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organizations or entities. The Decree Law 3.621 of 1981 transforms the mandatory nature from professional associations, eliminating the regime of compulsory tuition and normative power that was traditionally granted to these associations in Chile. This arrangement makes the licentiate degree the key piece for recognizing a professional and adds pressures against reforms at this level of learning (Bernasconi and Rojas 2004). The development of blended learning (B-learning) model and distance education is still marginal, at least at the undergraduate level. The few universities that have tried distance models have faced serious problems with public recognition and legitimacy. The first university committed to deliver all first level training through distance education was closed by the government because of its serious quality deficiencies. Currently, the only university which offers mainly distance education has failed to accomplish the requirements for accreditation, staying as a medium- to small-size institution. It seems that the possibilities of development of the distance learning in Chile have more room at the postgraduate level, where some major universities experienced with some success, usually offering hybrid training arrangements also requiring on-campus training. The development of graduate education in the country has been comparatively delayed compared to other countries in the region. However, from the 1990s onward, this level of training experienced a fast growth. Nevertheless, enrollment in graduate programs is still limited, especially at doctoral level. In 2014, there were a little more than 5,000 doctoral students enrolled in domestic programs and only about 650 graduates annually. The government designed some funding programs for promoting graduate education, in special doctoral education. There are direct funding and scholarship for students attending programs in traditional universities of greater experience and research development. However, the domestic training programs compete with a policy focused on financing doctoral studies abroad, which has a tradition of more than 60 years in Chile and that has strongly increased in the last decade.
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Regulatory Framework in Higher Education During the last decades, coordination of the system of higher education in Chile has been done predominantly through market mechanisms (Brunner 2008), in a context of great institutional autonomy and competition for resources, mainly through fees paid by the students. Although with some differences, this picture holds true both for public and private institutions. The mandatory areas of State regulation are quite restricted. Basically, it covers the process that rules the creation of new private institutions. This process includes two stages; first, there is the official recognition, which is carried on quickly and allows for a legal personality as soon as the institution meets certain requirements and provides indication of enough resources to operate. Immediately after follows a so-called licensing process, where the new institution is supervised by the National Council of Education (CNED) for a period from 6 to 11 years. During this period occurs the first evaluation that certifies the new institution has complied with its institutional project. In the cases when the performance of the institution does not assure the fulfillment of its institutional project, the CNED is empowered to establish sanctions and request the revocation of the institution’s legal permit to the Ministry of Education. Public institutions, on the other hand, are created by law, without going through a process of supervision/monitoring. Once successfully completed the licensing regime, private institutions are granted full autonomy, enjoying a high degree of freedom to carry out their functions (in the academic, administrative, and economic areas). The institutional autonomy conforms to the constitutionally defined concept of freedom of education. In the case of public institutions, it is noteworthy that although the government has a seat in their Board of Directors, there is no expectation that this representation should play an active role in the decisions taken by the board. On the other hand, as public entities, these universities are submitted to relevant restrictions in administrative and economic issues, which affect its
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borrowing capacity and encumber their administrative actions. Despite the absence of regulations and high autonomy of the institutions, the sustained increase of public resources devoted to higher education produced a large number of steering tools at disposition of the government. The best example is the processes of institutional accreditation. By law, accreditation is voluntary, but since it is a requirement for access to public funding, the number of institutions seeking to be accredited has increased steadily. Likewise, the government launched a number of funding mechanisms, mostly with a competitive nature, and focused in certain types of projects (development of infrastructure, libraries, and technology information and development of research and doctoral programs, teaching improvement, capacities of institutional analysis, etc.). In these projects, the allocation of funds considers indicators of valued outputs such as scientific publications, academic qualifications of the academics, student retention and graduation, etc. However, the strategic direction of the system is rather weak. Most competition funding target short-term performance rather than medium- or long term planning.
Governance and Regulatory Policies The lead agency for the regulation of the system and the allocation of public resources is the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), through its Division of Higher Education (DIVESUP), which is responsible for establishing the legal framework and regulatory rules governing higher education. It also advises on the design of the policies for the sector and sustains institutional relations with all institutions of higher education officially recognized. Other relevant organizations regarding the government of higher education are: – The National Commission on Accreditation (CNA), established in 2006 and responsible for the development of the processes of evaluation and accreditation of higher education institutions that have achieved institutional autonomy. It is also in charge of authorizing
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the operation and monitoring the private agencies responsible for the accreditation of undergraduate and master’s degree programs. The National Council of Education (CNED), created in 1990, responsible for approving the institutional projects and developing follow-up activities for new private higher education institutions throughout the licensing process, as described above. The National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT), created in 1967, responsible for strengthening scientific and technological research capabilities of the country and promote graduate and doctoral education. The Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), created by law in 1954. Its mission is to coordinate the work of the universities. It is currently integrated by the rectors of the 18 public (State) universities and 9 traditional private universities. Other important organizations are INGRESA (2005), which administers the loan system for students, and the JUNAEB (1964), which administers scholarships covering food and some living expenses for students.
The above scenario produces the following issues for the governance of the system: (a) there is no mesostructure or regional level governance, which implies a high degree of centralization of policy decisions, while institutions remain highly atomized, and (b) there are no instances of representation of the new private institutions, which remain with low legitimacy and capacity to articulate common interests and have weak channels to communicate with other sectors and the government.
Quality Assurance in Higher Education Chile pioneered the development of processes for quality assurance in Latin America. In a context of weak State regulation, some of the institutions started, early in the 1990s, voluntary experiences of quality assessment. At that time, some universities of the CRUCH adopted self-regulatory mechanisms.
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In the 1990s, issues of quality of higher education became a general concern, particularly since private institutions created after 1981 reached autonomy and experienced exponential levels of growth while the system as a whole experienced uncontrolled growth and even some public institutions began to offer programs under very precarious conditions (Lemaitre and Zapata 2004). An experimental and voluntary system of accreditation of programs and institutions started in 1999. This experience led to the establishment of a permanent system defined by law in 2006. The current system of quality assurance includes the following functions: – Information, in which the institutions are supposed to report the data requested by the Ministry of Education, which, in turn, is in charge of maintaining an updated system for management and public information purposes. – Licensing, supervising new private institutions, as described above. – Institutional accreditation, a voluntary process of evaluation and certification of institution’s procedures toward the attainment of its mission. It is carried out by the CNA and aims to verify and promote quality. – Accreditation of undergraduate, graduate (master), and health specialization diplomas. It is a voluntary procedure, except for teacher and medicine undergraduate degree programs, which require to be accredited to receive public funding. These processes are performed mostly by private accreditation agencies authorized and supervised by the CNA. (The law was recently adjusted, defining that teacher programs can only be accredited by the national public agency, CNA.) – Accreditation of doctoral degree programs, also voluntary but a requirement to receive public funding. This process is performed only by the CNA. The main features of the Chilean quality assurance system are as follows (Zapata and Tejeda 2016): – It is based on the principle of institutional autonomy. Institutions are free to define their
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own mission and institutional purposes, which must be entirely respected in the process of evaluation. It is a model which, in general, maintains high levels of voluntarism. It is viewed as stages of the process to the institutional self-assessment and peer assessment. It is performed by an independent and autonomous public body such as the CNA, but also by several private agencies authorized and supervised by CNA. In general, it promotes quality through strengthening self-regulation and by certification mechanisms open to public information.
In its more than 10 years of operation, the system of quality assurance has contributed to the dissemination and strengthening of the culture of evaluation and accountability, as well as to the promotion of self-regulation of higher education. The system also has contributed to significantly improve the available information about higher education and employment and the management of the institutions and reinforced their commitment to quality. It has supported improvements in the levels of internal participation, supporting the design of new curricula and innovative teaching practices focused on the students’ needs (Lemaitre et al. 2012). Some leading universities have achieved significant international visibility, strengthening their position in international ranks. However, the system also experienced significant tensions and crises. On the one hand, the direct link between accreditation and access to public financing (especially student loans) has implied that the once voluntary accreditation process is seen more and more like a compulsory process of quality assurance, which reinforced the bureaucratic controls. On the other hand, cases of corruption and influence peddling came to the public in the years 2011 and 2012, in addition to a report calling attention to the deterioration of the standards and rigor supported by CNA and the private accrediting agencies (Cámara de Diputados 2012). This scandal deeply impacted CNA. Up to 2017, it is still in a slow and arduous process recovery of trust and credibility in the eyes of the public.
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Institutional Governance, Management, and Faculty The diversity of institutions in the system is also expressed in a variety of forms of institutional governance. In this regard, many organizational types of institutions can be found: public institutions with their own statutes, institutions linked to foundations or linked to public or private corporations (both domestic and international), denominational institutions (linked to churches or religious orders), institutions connected to industry associations and businesses, and, finally, several diverse small- and medium-sized stand-alone enterprises (even family enterprises). The oldest private and public universities have high levels of complexity and are characterized by strong academic collegial authority. In the case of the public universities, the ultimate authority is represented by the Board of Directors, typically comprising representatives as of President of the Republic, of the academic community, and of external interests (regional authorities or labor representatives). The only exception is the University of Chile, where, since 2006, the highest governing body is the University Senate. In this experience, the Senate are composed of representatives, elected by academics, administrative staff, and students (“tri-estamental” senate). Traditional private universities tend to have higher councils composed mostly of representatives of their academic ranks. Catholic universities also have the presence of high-ranked authorities of the Church. In most of the universities in the CRUCH, academic authorities (rector, deans, and directors of institutes or departments) are elected directly or indirectly by the academic corps. In these processes, chair professors have stronger political voice. In recent years, traditional Catholic universities resorted to search procedures for choosing academic authorities. Usually, after the search procedures reach a name, appointment can be ratified by vote of faculty entitled with this right. Nevertheless this step is not always adopted. Inside the newly created private universities, collegial authority is weak or even nonexistent. In general, their structures tend to be relatively less complex, even though many of them mimic the academic organization adopted by the older and
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more traditional universities. While some universities of these universities incorporate a degree of academic participation, power, inside these institutions, is, typically, more vertical and centralized. They adopt a more managerial approach, counting with a professional administration, appointed by the owners, which, often, have few links with the academic world. The governance of the professional institutes and technical training centers is supposed to answer to the needs and interests of local business. According to the law, these last types of institutions can be legally organized as for-profit organizations, and management is typically vertical and centralized. There is a growing professionalization of academia during the last decades. Academic positions used to be filled by intellectuals and professionals, often with a part-time commitment to the academy, usually holding also a post as a civil servant in the government or as an employee in industry or other organizations. Since the 1990s, the number of academics holding a doctorate degree opting for a full-time academic career grew vigorously. These new professionals were first engaged by the CRUCH universities. Nowadays this profile is found in many other universities in the system. Chile has invested significant funds in expanding its capabilities in research and development by investing in the doctoral training (more usually abroad). Nevertheless, faculty holding a doctorate are still a minority in the system, although this profile has experienced a clear growth in recent years. Evaluation procedures also push for full-time academic contracts directed toward the academics with higher qualifications. The growth of academics with this profile in public and private CRUCH universities has been significant in the last decades. However, academic staff at the teaching-oriented universities, especially in the mass-driven private sector, have less stability and no full-time commitment to the institutions. Considering now the academic career and support, there is also considerable heterogeneity. Traditional universities have policies oriented to promoting faculty development such as international bids for selecting new scholars, requirements in both academic qualification and
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performance when hiring new academics, periodical performance assessment, etc. Eventually, new universities have mimicked the academic careers of traditional universities, although in some cases with adaptations that serve an academic staff less than properly qualified. There is no national career for academics or researchers, not even a recognition of tenured professors between universities. Each university has its standards, some increasingly tough, other somewhat light. The concern for research outputs is central only in a handful of universities, which are those that stand out for their greater capabilities, experience, and performance. In the search for prestige and positioning, universities do promote research. However, public funding for research is highly competitive and concentrated in the hands of the few universities with a reasonably high research performance and that benefit from the national system of science and technology. Efforts to improve teaching are more widely spread and supported by most higher education institutions. It is a serious issue, especially since the incorporation of quality assurance processes. The growing number of enrollment under nontraditional education formats has strongly challenged the institutions of higher education. Academic training in teaching capabilities has been reinforced in many institutions.
Higher Education Funding The financing scheme introduced after the reform of the 1980s was characterized by a sharp decline in public funding, distributed through few instruments and restricted primarily to the universities of the CRUCH. The funds included direct contributions to institutions considering historical
criteria (direct fiscal contribution) and a surplus dependent on the institution performance considering its attraction for students of good performance (indirect fiscal contribution), as well as a system of student loans originally administered by the universities themselves. In this sense, the reform established a system that encouraged institutions to compete for public resources. Even in the 1980s, the reduction of the fiscal contributions to the CRUCH universities rendered these institutions more dependent of tuition and fee, which raised through the time. For the new private institutions created at that time, charging tuition and fees have been virtually the only source of resources. Since the 1990s, public spending for higher education underwent a sharp increase. However, the growth was lower than the expansion of the student enrollment. The financing of higher education was mainly supported by the tuition and fees paid by students and families, reaching more than 80% of the total expenditure on higher education (Table 3). The period that elapses between the late 1980s to the present can be seen as a continuum even if some relevant changes could be noted. During this period, the role of the State in financing higher education has increased progressively. The main policies can be characterized by: – The preference for the allocation of resources through demand-driven instruments, mainly grants and loans focused on vulnerable students (and with certain requirement of academic performance). – A progressive inclusion of the new private institutions and their students as potential beneficiaries of public funds. – The introduction of a number of relevant competitive funds for institutions, all of them
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Chile, Table 3 Public and private expenditure on higher education as a percentage of GDP Origin of the expenditure Public Private Total
2006 0.3% 1.5% 1.8%
2007 0.3% 1.4% 1.7%
2008 0.3% 1.7% 2%
2009 nda nda 2.2%
Source: Compilation from OECD Education at a Glance (2007–2015)
2010 0.8% 1.6% 2.4%
2011 0.7% 1.7% 2.4%
2012 0.8% 1.7% 2.5%
2013 1% 1.5% 2.5%
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attached to performance indicators, steering institutions toward the deemed correct outputs. – A complex arrangement of quite a few financing mechanisms, to the extent that the new instruments usually resort to existing funding mechanisms. Currently, about three-quarters of the public financing goes to scholarships, grants, loans and tuition-free higher education, while the rest is distributed mainly based on historical allocation criteria (AFD) and some competitive funding. Despite the progressive inclusion of the new private institutions as recipients of public funds over the past decade, the most important distinction for financing purposes is if the institution belongs or not to the CRUCH. In this, funding are more generous to traditional universities. Only recently some instruments targeted specifically public universities, and from 2015 on, these instruments acquired greater relevance. Chile has a relatively low expenditure in research and development (R&D) compared with most developed countries, reaching 0.39% of GDP in 2015. The funding for research at universities mainly comes from the State, which provides two-thirds of the total resources allocated to the sector. Universities themselves are the second larger investor in R&D, and the private sector contributes only with a 3% (Ministry of Economy 2006). The allocation of public resources to R&D is done through competitive instruments open to all institutions, being CONICYT the leading public agency for this purpose.
Current Trends and Ongoing Changes During the past 5 years, issues related to higher education have become the focus of increased public debate, in contrast to previous decades, where the field usually was secondary in the political agenda. The sector has been subject to strong demands, controversies, and conflicts. The debate thrown light to a number of problems but have also released new actors with radical speeches that contribute little to the dialogue. The growth of
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higher education and its evolution in performance has been relevant in the positioning of higher education as a strategic sector for the national development. Despite its size and importance, the debate also put in evidence several fundamental problems. Indeed, even considering different views present in the debate, it seems to have reached some consensus in the diagnosis that most problems come from the growth under conditions of excessive privatization and deregulation, which leads to the conclusion that State should be more present both financing and regulating the system. Some policies, initiated with the return of democracy in 1990, have made progress on a set of measures that strengthened the role of the State, either extending the mechanisms of financing for higher education system (increasing the resources allocated to them) or by introducing regulatory mechanisms, such as the licensing and accreditation. However, the growth of the system went far beyond what anyone could possibly have imagined, leaving exposed a set of bad practices, abuses, and excesses by some institutions and the inability of the control system of the State apparatus to give guarantees and ensure the proper use and management of public resources, as well as the quality of higher education. In 2011, a student movement arose. Their initial demands were focused on more resources into higher education, especially student support. However, it has acquired significant proportions and high public legitimacy, partly because their demands pointed to the need of reform in a system in need of more stringent quality controls. At the same time, strong criticism was raised about the large student debt created because of the institutions’ excessive dependence on tuition and rising tuition fees. The movement was also strengthened by several cases of scandal that appeared in the press at the end of 2011 and early 2012, involving abuse by some institutions with veiled interests in profits and the inability of the quality mechanisms to identify and control this behavior (Cámara de Diputados 2012). The movement of 2011 raised its demands under the slogan of tuition-free quality public higher education (educación pu´blica, gratuita y de calidad). The main criticism of the students
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was the advance of veiled for-profit higher education, which has benefited companies and private interests, sometimes offering low-quality education at a very high cost for the students and their families (Espinoza and González 2011). The Government of Sebastián Piñera (2010–2014) was under fire because of his little ability to address the conflict. While he succeeded in advance solutions to reduce student debt and increase public spending, its more structural proposes, such as the creation of a Vice-Ministry of Higher Education, the Superintendent of Higher Education, and the changes to the accreditation system, were refused in the House of Representatives, being eventually dismissed by the next government. Michelle Bachelet (2014–2018) started her administration with an ambitious plan of reforms that included changes in the governance of the institutions and in the mechanisms for financing the system. Except for the preliminary implementation of an instrument assuring free tuition targeting students from lower-income families and some initiatives to strengthen the public sector of institutions, the bulk of her proposals are loosely articulated into a concrete proposal, reaching insufficient political support for its implementation. Tuition-free education was a central pledge of Michelle Bachelet in her electoral campaign (2013). It was advocated as a measure that would contribute to ensuring the right to education. The implementation, though, was criticized because of the magnitude of the resources involved and its regressive character. Furthermore, one should note that the policy adopted a traditional design: it is a demand-driven subsidy focused on vulnerable students, whether they attend private or public institutions. The debate surrounding the non-for-profit nature of private higher education deserves special mention. By law, universities must be constituted as non-for-profit institutions. Nevertheless, it is widely known that several private universities created from 1981 on were in practice for-profit organizations. The modus operandi was to resort to various tricks that allow the institution
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proprietors to extract surplus without necessarily breaking the law. This well-known reality had been barely addressed by political authorities until the student mobilizations of 2011. To respond the pressures posed by the public opinion, the House of Representatives (Cámara de Diputados 2012) created a special commission charged to review the practices adopted by some universities to profit. In the following year, the general prosecutor initiated an investigation involving 12 universities who allegedly profit. In 2013, the Minister of Education was dismissed after being charged for breaking the Constitution by not been able to control for-profit activities of some universities in the private sector. From 2013 to date, the Ministry of Education has been investigating the for-profit activities of some universities. Despite the fact that none of these initiatives were able to prove the occurrence of practices of crime, the investigations provide clues of the problems faced by Ministry of Education to deal with this behavior. It has few instruments to oversee the private sector. Also, the debate on this issue raised the public awareness which made the traditional universities increasingly careful in the use of their resources. Some of the new universities adopted new instruments and policies in order to distance from the bad reputation of being a for-profit institution. Nevertheless, the theme of the profit nature of some higher education organizations is a controversial topic that is far from resolved. For example, the university with the largest number of students throughout the country belongs to a for-profit international corporation. The discussion about higher education issues currently maintains a high level of polarization and is a central topic in the public debate. The reforms undertaken by the government have received criticism from practically all political sectors and higher education institutions, as to be insufficient, inappropriate, or simply ill-designed. Despite the relative agreement on the need to introduce reforms to the system, it appears that there are few points of convergence on central topics like the ways for regulating the system and how to finance institutions and support access to higher education.
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References Aequalis. 2013. Transformando el sistema de educación superior: propuesta de Aequalis para una política nacional. Santiago: Aequalis, Foro de Educación Superior. Bachelet, Michelle. 2013. Chile de Todos: Programa de Gobierno Michelle Bachelet 2014–2018. http:// michellebachelet.cl/programa/. Bernasconi, Andrés, and Fernando Rojas. 2004. Informe sobre la Educación Superior en Chile: 1980–2003. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria. Brunner, José Joaquín. 1993. Chile’s higher education: Between market and public. Higher Education 25 (1): 35–43. Brunner, José Joaquín. 2008. El sistema de educación superior en Chile: unenfoque de economía política comparada. Avaliac¸ ão: Revista da Avaliac¸ ão da Educac¸ ão Superior (Campinas) 13 (2): 451–486. Brunner, José Joaquín, and Guillermo Briones. 1992. Higher education in Chile effects of the 1980 reform (No. 29). FLACSO-Programa Chile. Brunner, José Joaquín, and C. Peña, eds. 2011. El conflicto de las universidades: entre lo pu´blico y lo privado. Santiago: Universidad Diego Portales. CAP. 2008. Los desafíos de la educación superior chilena. In Informe del Consejo Asesor Presidencial (CAP) para la Educación Superior. Santiago: Ministerio de Educación. Cox, Cristián. 1996. Higher education policies in Chile in the 90s. Higher Education Policy 9 (1): 29–43. Cámara de Diputados. 2012. Informe de la Comisión Investigadora sobre el funcionamiento de la educación superior. Valparaíso: Congreso de Chile. Espinoza, Oscar, and Luis Eduardo González. 2011. La crisis del sistema de educación superior chileno y el ocaso del modelo neoliberal. Barómetro de Política y Equidad, Nuevos actores, nuevas banderas. Nu´mero 3: 94–133. Huneeus, Carlos. 1988. La reforma universitaria: veinte an˜ os después. Santiago: Corporación de Promoción Universitaria. Lemaitre, María José, and Gonzalo Zapata. 2004. Antecedentes, Situación Actual y Perspectivas de la Evaluación y la Acreditación de la Educación Superior en Chile. Chapter in: Políticas Públicas: Demandas Sociales y Gestión del Conocimiento. Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo, CINDA. Lemaitre, María José, Daniela Torre, Gonzalo Zapata, and Elisa Zenteno. 2012. Impact of quality assurance on University work. An overview in seven Iberoamerican countries. In Enhancing quality in higher education: International perspectives, ed. R. Land and G. Gordon. Abingdon: Routledge. Levy, Daniel. 1986a. Higher education and the state in Latin America: Private challenges to public dominance. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Levy, Daniel. 1986b. Chilean Universities under the Junta: Regime and policy. Latin American Research Review 21 (3): 95–128.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, China Ministerio de Economía. 2016. Resultados VI Encuesta Nacional sobre Gasto y Personal en Investigación y Desarrollo (IþD) 2015. Santiago de Chile: Gobierno de Chile. OECD, World Bank. 2009. Revisión de políticas nacionales de educación. La educación superior en Chile. Paris: OECD Publishing. Serrano, Sol. 1993. Universidad y Nación: Chile en el siglo XIX. Santiago: Editorial Universitaria. Trow, Martin. 2006. Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since WWII. Chapter 13. In International handbook of higher education. Part 1, ed. F.J. Forest James and Philip G. Altbach, 243–280. Dordrecht: Springer. Zapata, Gonzalo, and Ivo Tejeda. 2016. Educación Superior en Chile-Informe Nacional. Annex. In Educación Superior en Ibero América: Informe 2016, ed. José Joaquín Brunner. Santiago: Centro Interuniversitario de Desarrollo, CINDA.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, China Rui Yang Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Since the Chinese Communicate Party (CCP) came into power in 1949, higher education development in China has experienced twists and turns as a result of international and domestic sociopolitical turbulences. Recent four decades have witnessed particularly impressive achievements. The system has been quickly transformed into the world’s largest in terms of numbers of students and teachers and the second largest producer of scientific papers. It has now been well established to contribute to the rise of the Chinese power.
Higher Education System Development Officially the People’s Republic of China (PRC), China is a sovereign state located in East Asia, with a history dating back to the ancient civilization. For millennia, China’s political system was based on hereditary monarchies, known as
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dynasties. Today, China is a single-party state governed by the CCP exercising jurisdiction over 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 directcontrolled municipalities, and 2 self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Covering appropriately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world’s secondlargest country by land area, with world’s largest population of around 1.4 billion. As of 2016, China is the world’s second-largest economy by nominal GDP and largest by purchasing power parity. It is also the largest exporter and secondlargest importer of goods. China has a rich tradition in higher learning. Yet, modern universities are an imported concept for China. China’s earliest institutions of higher learning appeared in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046–771 BCE). The famous Jixia Academy was established before the Platonic Academy in Greece. Chinese ancient education focused on knowledge of human society, with its central focus on political utility defined by the ruling classes. Higher learning institutions were loyal servants of the emperor. The imperial examinations and the academies were key elements of ancient Chinese higher learning. Autonomy and academic freedom – the definitive scholarly values of European universities, at least by the mid-nineteenth century – were absent in the Chinese tradition. China began to experiment with Western-style universities gradually in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first modern higher education institution in China, Peiyang University, was established in Tianjin in 1895. Chinese thinkers began to understand modern universities via Japan. During 1911–1927, China made its first real efforts to set up a “university” in the sense of the defining values of autonomy and academic freedom. A tremendous range of new institutions emerged and flourished. Different strands of China’s own evolving traditions linked up with various foreign influences, with America replacing Japan as the most favored source of influence. By 1949, 205 universities had been founded (National Bureau of Statistics of China 1986). In the 1950s, the Soviet model which emphasized the construction of industry and the
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development of science and technology dominated China. A national adjustment reduced the number of comprehensive universities from 49 to 13, while university places in the humanities and social sciences decreased from 33.1% to 14.9% (Ouyang 2004). Although the much-needed specialized personnel were trained for economic development, the narrow fragmentation caused damages to research and contributed to graduates’ limited knowledge base. The period of 1957–1966 saw strong impact of political turbulences on higher education. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), colleges and universities were often suspended, leaving an entire generation vastly uneducated. Starting from resuming the National Higher Education Entrance Examination (commonly known as Gaokao) in 1977, educational order was restored in the name of reform. Academic degree system was introduced, with Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees, and a postdoctoral research system. Chinese higher education institutions are divided into two sectors: regular and adult higher education. The regular sector is the mainstream including 4-year universities/colleges and 2/3-year specialized college programs, leading to a Bachelor’s degree and diploma, respectively. The adult sector includes 2- and 4-year diploma programs of study. Students in the regular sector are overwhelmingly full-time, while students in the adult sector are usually part-time. Higher education used to be elite in China. In 1999, China expanded higher education admission dramatically until the late 2000s. By 2017, 37.79 million students enrolled in China’s 2631 regular and 282 adult higher education institutions, with a gross enrollment rate of 45.7%. Annual postgraduate admissions reached 806,100, with 722,200 and 83,900, respectively at Master’s and doctoral levels and a total of 2,639,600 at-school postgraduate students. Teaching and administrative staff members reached 2,443,000 with 1,633,200 full-time teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 17.74:1. There were 747 private higher education institutions, admitting 747 Master’s and 1,753,700 undergraduate and associate degree students, with a total enrolment of 6,284,600 (Ministry of Education 2018a).
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Higher Education Governance Since 1978, establishing closer links between higher education and the market has been a prominent reform orientation. With the phasing out of the planned economy and the diminishing role of the state, the government became increasing reluctant to continue to subsidize students. Fees started to become a reality. The rapid expansion of higher education since 1999 further accelerated this trend. The Higher Education Law (Article 13, Chapter I) stipulates decentralization in the Chinese system by stating while “the State Council shall provide unified guidance and administration for higher education throughout the country,” the local governments “shall undertake overall coordination of higher education in their own administrative regions, administer the higher education institutions that mainly train local people, and the higher education institutions that they are authorized by the State Council to administer.” During prereform era, China employed the state-controlled model of government steerage in higher education. The national government assumed the responsibility for formulating higher education policies, allocating resources, exercising administrative controls, employing teaching and research staff, developing curriculum, choosing textbooks, recruiting students, and assigning jobs to university graduates. Government-university relationships were oneway and top-down. The 1980s saw a turning point in such relationships. Governance reforms were introduced. The core part was to change the central government’s tight control over institutions to improving institutional autonomy under the national principles and plans so that institutions can build up their direct links to industry and other sectors, and foster their initiatives and capacity to meet economic and social needs. The central government refrained further from direct control of higher education in the 1990s. Instead, it acted as a facilitator, giving institutions more autonomy in major domains including student admissions, establishment of academic programs, teaching affairs, research and development, service to local community, international exchange and cooperation, internal governance restructuring, personnel, finance, and property
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management. According to the Higher Education Law, presidents are responsible for formulating their institutional policies and development plans. Based on their own teaching needs, higher education institutions take the initiative in designing their own teaching plans, selecting textbooks and organizing teaching and learning activities. Within an institution, faculties and departments also enjoy much greater autonomy in matters relating to teaching, research, personnel, and resource allocation. The central government has given considerable autonomy to universities while remains in control over key aspects. The governance model has transformed to a semi-independent model of partially independent and partially controlled by the central and provincial governments. There is a paradox of increasing autonomy and greater accountability. Institutional autonomy has been increased across the domains of teaching, research, and administration. In some areas, institutions enjoy full freedom of self-determination, such as appointing staff and restructuring academic and administrative departments. In others, they are controlled by the governments, including the appointment of presidents and party secretaries (in public institutions). In some areas, they could initiate and act on their own, yet need to submit their proposals and documents to the governments afterwards, such as revising their disciplinary programs. Some buffer agencies between governments and higher institutions have been established for the purpose of quality assurance. They illustrate China’s semi-independence governance model. Such organizations are not entirely independent from government authorities. Instead, they are often public service units under the jurisdiction of governments, with financial support from and tasks and functions entrusted by central and provincial governments. Despite that they are extended arms of the government, they operate as professional institutions, playing an important role in quality control, performance evaluation, implementation of governmental policies, and consultation of policy-making and planning. Within an institutional, governance mechanism prescribes the President’s independent responsibility under the supervision of the CCP
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Committee. The CCP Committee has great influence on the appointment of deans and senior administrators. It consists of a panel of university leaders including the president, the CCP secretary, vice-CCP secretaries, and vice-presidents. The president and the CCP secretary are appointed by the Ministry of Education or by a provincial government depending on the institution’s jurisdiction. The appointment of vicepresidents and vice-CCP secretaries are similar but in consultancy with the president and the party secretary. While the CCP committee is the governing board of all public universities, governance mechanism in China’s public universities is president responsibility. The president is responsible for administration functioning as a chief executive official. Committees and offices under the CCP secretary and the president differ from institution to institution, with those under the CCP secretary are generally ideology-related. There are mechanisms to ensure communication and collaboration between the two systems, although there have been reported cases of conflicts between them. Institutions increasingly create their own management structures to mobilize resources and make institutional decisions. China’s public higher education institutions are increasingly corporatized especially since the 1990s. They are expected to raise a great proportion of their own revenue, enter into business enterprises, acquire and hold investment portfolios, encourage partnerships with private business firms, compete with other universities in the production and marketing of courses to students who are seen as customers, and generally engage with the market for higher education. They are run as a business producing and selling knowledge, and increasingly see their students as customers or clients, and enroll as many students as possible to improve efficiency. Most Chinese public universities have a private arm (independent colleges) to maximize financial gains. Corporation is also evident in other major aspects of university operation including research. Cost-conscious corporatized universities have caused the effect of placing technique above ends or values leading to the decline of the classical disciplines. The organizational principles employed under this
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type of regime do not engender the long-term commitment of academic staff. As the Chinese state diversifies educational services to allow and encourage the nonstate sector to establish and run educational institutions, responsibility and power was devolved from the central to local governments, communities, and nonstate actors. The retreat of the central state provides space for nonstate actors to take more responsibilities for education provision, financing, and regulation. Nonstate bodies started to provide higher education. The growing significance of private higher education in the Chinese system has led to changes to governance in private institutions. In the early 1980s, governance of China’s 30 private higher institutions was featured by the natural man (founder or owner) who took sole responsibility for policy-making and management. China strengthened its control over private higher institutions in the 1990s. While a few regulations on private higher education were issued, there was little specific on institutional governance. Among the 25 institutions in 1998, there appeared great diversity from natural man to board of trustees while some adopted the president responsibility under supervision/guidance of the senate. Private higher education was further integrated within the Chinese system in the 2000s when more regulations were issued with specific regulations on institutional governance. In 2005, 252 private regular higher institutions, 295 independent colleges (private arms of public institutions) and 1107 other private higher institutions were in operation. Most private institutions established their board of trustees while some adopted the president responsibility under the supervision of senate or CCP Committee. Governance in private higher education institutions took shape after the mid-2000s. Their governing body is usually a board of trustees. Members of the body include some from the CCP committee at the institution and representatives from the local government who often exert much influence on institutional decision-making. Overall, while governmental control remains strong, there has been a downward movement of the center of gravity in the governance of private higher education.
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Academic freedom has traditionally been viewed as problematic in China. China’s intellectual tradition seeks unity of knowledge and action through scholar-officials and encourages Chinese academics to realize their ideals through action and direct responsibility for managing the state. The relationship between state and universities in China is more direct and less in tension than that in the West. Instead of speaking truth to power, the emphasis is to work with and even for the state. Chinese intellectuals adopt ‘constructive criticism’ to contribute to policy formation through offering professional advice, rather than taking up the role of social critics defined by the Western idea of academic freedoms. It is important to note that Chinese academics enjoy more academic freedom than what has often been taken for granted outside China. In their everyday classroom and research seminar activities, critique of government policy is normal practice. It is, however, important to point out the central control over publication by the state.
Higher Education Finance Higher education funding was previously entirely governmental responsibility in the planned system. During 1949–1985, annual funding was based on previous year’s amount with consideration of new situations to decide to increase or reduce institutional allocations. The practice was effective in an elite system (fewer institutions in a simple structure). Since 1985, the practice has changed into consolidated quota plus special funds. Consolidated quota is determined by enrolments multiplying per student funding, with consideration of institutional disparities between levels and categories in various regions. The past 35 years have seen increasingly diversified financial sources for higher education, including funds from the governments, research grants, tuitions, fees, and other revenue-generation activities. Today, governments remain the main source for higher institutions under their jurisdictions. Chinese higher institutions are generally funded through three channels: government funding, tuitions and fees, and private investment and donations (especially for prestigious institutions).
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For regional ones, the proportion of government funding is higher due to their weaker capacity to generate revenues from other sources. China’s public spending on higher education was high by international comparison until the late 1990s, with generous government allocation per student. Public spending per student has recently been decreasing while educational costs per student have increased substantially. Public funding of higher education accounted for 29% in 1984 and 19% in 1994 of total public education expenditures (World Bank 1997). Government subsidies declined as a share of total financing from 64.6% in 1990 to 53.1% in 1998. The share of financing contributed by tuition fee rose from 15.06% in 1996 to 29.29% in 2003. The private cost of higher education becomes substantial. The average cost per student to study and live on campus for an academic year far exceeds the average family annual income of the country. In 2004, higher education tuition fees grew to 5000 RMB, accommodation costs increased to 1000–1200 RMB, a student’s living costs rose to 4000–5000 RMB, making the total expense of university study around 40,000–50,000 RMB, which amounted to 4.2 and 13.6 years net income for an urban dweller and a rural resident, respectively (Li and Yang 2013). China’s basic-research spending has been historically low – about 4.8% in 2012 and 2013, compared with 10–25% in developed nations. In 2014, however, the appropriation for basic research increased by 12.5% to $6.6 billion. Meanwhile, the government’s expenditure on science and technology was set at US$43.6 billion (267.4 billion RMB), an 8.9% rise on last year. China’s total expenditure on research and development has increased by 23% a year on average over the past decade (Qiu 2014). China now devotes 2.2% of its GDP to science and technology in its current Five-Year Plan. It has overtaken the European Union in expenditure on science and technology as a percentage of its economic output. China is expected to overtake a combined pool of 34 European countries by 2018 and overtake the USA by 2022. China’s growth of research has also been exceptional, with an annual increase rate of 17% of science papers produced each year during 2000–2009 (Boehler 2014). With
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unprecedented investment in research and development, China is positioned to change the way science is practiced in the days to come.
Academic Profession, Students, and Administrative Staff Most universities in China adopt a four-level academic rank system: professor, associate professor, lecturer, and teaching assistant. Some major ones, in order to be in line with “international practice,” have recently chosen the American-style title of assistant professor to replace lecturer and require all newly-recruited with a doctorate. Doctoral graduates are usually appointed at the lecturer level initially and receive the qualification to be promoted to associate professorship after at least 2 years of teaching. However, people holding a doctorate from Western universities with some working experience overseas could be appointed at a higher level, in exceptional cases at the full professor level directly. In 2017, 2,442,995 fulltime academic staff worked at regular higher education institutions. Among them were 208,917 (64,700 female) professors, 490,184 (107,537 female) associate professors, 644,154 (352,854 female) lecturers, and 181,785 (107,537 female) teaching assistants (Ministry of Education 2018b). Productivity of Chinese academic staff varies greatly depending on institutions, disciplines, and individuals. Generally, those at national universities do far more research and publish much more than their counterparts in regional institutions. Chinese higher education system requires publications for academic promotion. Therefore, it is where their publications appear rather than how many they have published that really counts. Increasingly publication in high status refereed journals has become a major criterion of academic success. Appearing in internationally circulated journals published in English is especially prestigious. Those working at major universities especially in natural and technological sciences are particularly expected to do so. Chinese academic salaries include fixed and flexible components. The government and the institution are the two key sources of funds.
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Individual schools and colleges also provide bonuses based on the unit’s revenue. Academics often supplement their pay by engaging in noninstitutional activities, including consulting and outside lecturing. Salary is determined by their professional ranks. Gradations within the ranks are based on years of experience and level of service. Compared internationally, Chinese academics are paid poorly. Yet the situation would be much different when purchasing powder is considered. Increasingly, entrepreneurialism plays a role and income varies widely by institution, region, status, discipline, and entrepreneurial behavior. According to a survey of 18 institutions in Beijing in 2013, the lowest to highest annual incomes of a professor, an associate professor and a lecturer were respectively 49,500 (US$7984)797,000 (US$128,548) RMB, 28,000 (US$4516)671,000 (US$108,226) RMB, and 22,000 (US$3548)-570,000 (US$91,935) RMB (Zhang and Li 2013). In order to be admitted into higher education institutions at the undergraduate level, Chinese students need to sit Gaokao in their last year of secondary education. A small number of students could be exempted due to exceptional or special talent. The overall mark received by the student is a weighted sum of their subject marks, with maximum possible mark varying widely from year to year and from province to province. The admission rate is much higher than before, but is still quite low compared to that in Western societies, Japan, and Korea. The examination is essentially the only criterion for what kind institutions they can apply for: national key universities (first tier), regular universities (second tier), and technical colleges (third tier). Competition is much tougher for entry into popular institutions and programs. Postgraduate admissions are based on the results of entrance examinations administered by institutions. In 2017, China’s regular higher education institutions housed 2,639,561postgraduate students of which 361,997 and 2,277,564, respectively were at doctoral and Master’s levels; 27,535,869 undergraduate students of which 16,486,320 were in undergraduate programs and 11,049,549 enrolments in short-cycle programs (Ministry of Education 2018c). Disciplinarily, undergraduate
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students were distributed as follows: Philosophy (9666), Economics (1,961,507), Law (570,397), Education (629,323), Literature (1,535,997), History (74,618), Science (1,103,623), Engineering (5,511,445), Agriculture (283,963), Medicine (1,243,628), Management (2,989,829), and Arts (1,572,324) (Ministry of Education 2018d). Until the 1990s, university graduates in China were assigned jobs upon graduation. Today, they have to find their own jobs. Graduate recruitment has slumped recently. Chinese graduates face a daunting job market, as part of the result of China’s rapid expansion of higher education for a decade. By August 2013, around 8.5% or 530-thousand graduates in 2012 were still unemployed (Waghann 2013). A record 6.99 million students graduated from Chinese colleges and universities in 2013. Chinese state media dubbed it the hardest job-hunting season ever. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, firms are hiring 15% fewer graduates than they did a year ago. Graduate unemployment has increasingly become a worry of the Chinese government. Administrative staff members in Chinese higher education institutions are hired similarly as their counterparts in the civil service. Compared with the academic staff, they have much less work pressure. However, they are generally poorly trained and are paid substantially less than the academic staff. They also face little chance of professional development and career development. In 2017, Chinese regular higher education institutions employed 343,226 administrative personnel, 220,791 supporting staff, and 139,715 workers. The numbers were respectively 86,739, 49,909 and 39,212 in adult higher education institutions (Ministry of Education 2018b).
Teaching and Curriculum Disciplines at undergraduate and postgraduate are categorized differently by different organizations. Disciplinary categorization at Bachelor’s and postgraduate levels is the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education and the Academic Degrees Committee which is under the State Council and the Ministry of Education, respectively.
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Disciplines in postgraduate programs are divided into 13 categories (Philosophy, Economics, Law, Education, Literature, History, Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine, Military Science, Management, and Fine Arts) with 110 and 386 at first- and second-level, respectively. There are 12 disciplinary categories in Bachelor’s programs at regular higher education institutions, with 92 specialized fields and 506 specialties. As reform deepens, closer links are built between society and university academic programs. While categorization remains in the hand of state educational authorities, setting up academic programs has been gradually transferred to institutions as they are granted increasing autonomy over their curriculum and teaching as part of the reform. China requires all higher institutions offering Bachelor’s programs be evaluated regularly. The Higher Education Evaluation Center was established in 2004 as the administrative body under the auspices of the Ministry of Education to organize and implement the evaluation, based on the guidelines, regulations, and evaluation criteria set by the Ministry. It has established a 5-year cycle of evaluating institutions of higher education in a systematic and standardized manner. It maintains a database to collect the basic institutional information concerning infrastructure and other basic facilities, and makes such information available to the public to strengthen public awareness of the effectiveness of higher education institutions. Program evaluation is conducted in collaboration with higher institutions and professional agencies to combine internal and external efforts to encourage institutions to set up their internal quality assurance mechanisms. Within institutions, quality assurance has been much less systematic, depending greatly on institutional situation. However, teaching and research evaluation is conducted vigorously by regular higher education institutions as part of their academic performance assessment. In prereform era, university curriculum was set up by the state in a highly planned system designed to fulfil the needs of socialist construction. Higher education institutions were to follow orders from the above, rather than to design their own courses. Recent years have
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seen growing diversity, individualization, and comprehensiveness in university curriculum. Since the 1990s, China has implemented three major curriculum reforms in humanities education, general education, and quality education to advocate humanity, attach importance to basics, and pursue individual all-round development, respectively. The reforms have been dominated by academic elitism and confined largely to most prestigious institutions. Due to the shortage of a deep humanistic understanding the idea of a university and a prevailing pragmatic orientation, these reforms have achieved little. Training for teaching has not yet been generally required by Chinese universities. However, more and more institutions have begun to provide their newly recruited academic staff with shortterm training. This becomes even more necessary as China’s national policies require wide use of information communication technology at all educational institutions. Educational technology has become a well-developed research area paving the way for even further use of modern technologies in higher education institutions. For some time, China enjoyed an international reputation in its open and distance educational programs at tertiary level. Currently, Chinese major universities are actively exploring and utilizing the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and are developing their own version of (equivalent to) MOOCs.
Internationalization and Global Competition China’s strategy for internationalization has been featured by proactive leaning from and vigorous engagement with the outside world. Since the early 2000s, China has begun to pay more attention to exporting Chinese knowledge to the world. China is now one of the largest countries in hosting international students. In 2008, those coming to China to study (223,499) historically outnumbered those leaving China to study abroad (179,800) (Su 2009). International students in China reached 489,200 in 2017 (Ministry of Education 2018e). The two numbers have ebbed and flowed later, but both keep growing. China
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remains world’s top source of overseas students. In 2012/13, Chinese outbound students constituted nearly 29% of the global total of international students. The number of international students from the second ranked country of origin, India, was less than half that of China’s. Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that 399,600 Chinese students were admitted to overseas educational institutions in 2012 alone, which was 59,900 more than the previous year, making for a 17.65% increase (Tang 2013). Meanwhile more foreign experts work in China. In 2011, the number reached 529,000, with 35% in higher education institutions (International Talent 2013). Chinese higher institutions recruit more and more returnees. It has already been the case that a doctorate from a prestigious foreign university is expected when applying for a post at China’s best universities, although the bulk of Chinese academics are still trained domestically. Returnees are more likely to have higher positions. They also tend to be in science and technology fields. China Agricultural University, for example, has recruited 73 senior administrators since 2006, 85% of them were directly hired from overseas. Two-thirds of its newly employed professors were returnees. According to a survey of 39 higher education institutions in Shanghai in 2012, 80% of their institutional leaders, deans, and departmental heads were returnees (Liu 2012). China’s higher institutions are performing well in global rankings and making progress every year. In 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities, China has 3 in the top 100, 12 in the top 200, 23 in the top 300, 35 in the top 400, and 16 others in the top 500, featuring 51 times in the top 500. In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018, China has Peking University as the 27th and Tsinghua University the 30th, 5 in the top 200, 1 in the top 300, 4 in the top 500, and 10 in the top 600. In the QS World University Rankings 2019, China has Tsinghua University as the 17th, Peking University the 30th, Fudan University the 44th, Shanghai Jiao Tong University the 59th, Zhejiang University the 68th, and University of Science and Technology of China the 98th, featuring 40 in the top 1000. While it is necessary to note the flaws with such ranking systems, it is fair to state that such
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impressive performances by China’s top institutions indicate, at least partially, the achievements they have made. Like most of its neighbors in East Asia, China has made remarkable progress in higher education over the past decades. This is more the case in hardware terms. China’s higher education faces serious challenges in its software development. The past 40 years have seen China’s great efforts in introducing the market into its highly centralized system. Today, the system continues to be tightly controlled by the central state while disruptive forces of the market linger. The challenges faced by Chinese higher education are at two levels. At a fundamental level, China has not yet figured out how to combine its cultural traditions that remain omnipresent and ubiquitous in the society with Western values that underlie the function of modern universities. The other challenge which has more direct impact on everyday practice is China’s toxic academic culture that has penetrated deeply into and seriously damaged the Chinese higher education system (Yang 2015). Only when these challenges are properly coped with can the Chinese higher education system maintain its health in the future.
Cross-References ▶ Higher Education Hong Kong ▶ Higher Education Japan ▶ Higher Education Korea ▶ Higher Education Taiwan
Systems and Institutions, Systems and Institutions, Systems and Institutions, Systems and Institutions,
References Boehler, P. 2014. China spending more than Europe on science and technology as GDP percentage, new figures reveal. South China Morning Post, 21 January. International Talent. 2013, July 16. Importing talents: Interview with Director Zhang Jianguo. International Talent, 7. Retrieved 3 Aug 2014 from International Talent website: http://www.wetalent.com/show_renwu. php?contentid¼540&bt¼1
Li, M., and R. Yang. 2013. Interrogating institutionalized establishments: Urban-rural inequalities in China’s higher education. Asia Pacific Education Review 14 (1): 315–323. Liu, L.J. 2012, February 23. Teacher development in higher education in a context of globalization. Retrieved 31 July 2014 from Shanghai International Studies University website: http://xuefeng.shisu.edu. cn/s/52/t/31/26/23/info9763.htm Ministry of Education. 2018a. National education statistics bulletin in 2017. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018 from Ministry of Education website: http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_sjzl/ sjzl_fztjgb/201807/t20180719_343508.html Ministry of Education. 2018b. Number of educational personnel in HEIs. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018 from Ministry of Education website: http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/ A03/moe_560/jytjsj_2017/qg/201808/t20180808_34477 9.html Ministry of Education. 2018c. Number of students of formal education by type and level. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018 from Ministry of Education website: http:// www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A03/moe_560/jytjsj_2017/qg/20 1808/t20180808_344698.html Ministry of Education. 2018d. Number of regular students for normal courses in higher education institutions by discipline. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018 from Ministry of Education website: http://www.moe.gov.cn/s78/A03/ moe_560/jytjsj_2017/qg/201808/t20180808_344795.html Ministry of Education. 2018e. International students in China move to higher levels with better quality. Retrieved 29 Aug 2018 from Ministry of Education website: http://www.moe.edu.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/ s5987/201803/t20180329_331772.html National Bureau of Statistics of China. 1986. China statistical yearbook 1985. Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House. Ouyang, K. 2004. Higher education reform in China today. Policy Futures in Education 2 (1): 141–149. Qiu, J. 2014. China goes back to basics on research funding. Nature 507: 149–149. Su, Y. 2009. Numbers of students going abroad to study. Retrieved 19 Dec 2011 from http://learning.sohu.com/ 20090326/n263029186.shtml Tang, Y.K. 2013, September 2. Studying abroad. Beijing Review, 36. Retrieved 3 Aug 2014 from http://www. bjreview.com.cn/nation/txt/2013-09/02/content_56478 5.htm Waghann, J. 2013, August 11. Studying abroad: A prevailing trend for Chinese students. Retrieved 3 Aug 2014 from http://english.cntv.cn/program/ cultureexpress/20131108/101852.shtml World Bank. 1997. Higher education reform: A World Bank country study. Washington, DC: World Bank. Yang, R. 2015. Reassessing China’s higher education development: A focus on academic culture. Asia Pacific Education Review 16 (4): 527–535. Zhang, X.G., and Y. Li. 2013, January 29. Young academics deserve serious attention. Beijing Times. Retrieved 4 Aug 2014 from Beijing Times website http://sub.cssn.cn/jyx/jyx_zxjy/jyx_dxjy/201310/t201 31023_456340.shtml
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Colômbia Luis Enrique Orozco Silva Facultad de Administración, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia
The Colonial and Republican Legacy and the Colombian University System The origins of Colombian universities and the approach adopted by them, date back to the Spanish Colonial period and to private initiatives rooted in the values of the Roman Catholic Church. Although public education emerged a little after the Colonial period, in the seventeenth century, both religious and state education followed the same pattern until it was replaced by the Plan de las Escuelas Doctrinales (Plan for Doctrinal Schools) of Felipe Salazar, the parish priest of Girón [Department of Santander] in about 1789. This Plan indicated that educational establishments should accept children of all social classes, given that education benefits all people, but especially children, who are the most vulnerable (Fernán González 1978. Education and Estado en la Historia de Colombia. Controversia, No.s 77 and 78, CINEP, Bogotá). The first school dedicated to providing education to the sons and daughters of chieftains [caciques] was founded in 1554 but entered into operation only in 1576. The Colegio de San Bartolomé, entrusted to the Jesuits, was founded in 1605; the Colegio del Rosario, run initially by the Dominicans and subsequently by the secular clergy, was founded in 1654. For their part, the Dominicans founded a school in 1608 and a university in 1625, though the university only entered into operation in 1636. In the case of Colombia, therefore, it is entirely possible to speak of a “Colonial university,” inheritor of Spanish traditions of higher education and inspired either by the tradition of the University of Salamanca or that of Alcalá de Henares, depending on the case in hand. Both models declined – as they did also in Spain – with the growing Influence of the Enlightenment (Agueda
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Rodríguez 1973). Only later, in the eighteenth century, as the first glimmerings of the modernist project became apparent, did public education again become significant to the transformation of the overall educational, social, and political systems of the country (Carlos Tunnermann 1973). However, the influence of the French Enlightenment did not immediately undermine the model of the Colonial university, perhaps because the revolutionary independence movement simply replaced the peninsular authorities with Americanborn criollos, representative of the landholding oligarchy and of the burgeoning commercial bourgeoisie, who borrowed Enlightenment ideas in order to illuminate the independence movement without ever overcoming their cultural dependency. Thus, their independence project was essentially of a conservative bent, and they invested enormous effort not to bring about change, but merely to expel the Spanish. It is possible that this situation meant that educational establishments were seldomly affected by the independence movement. Rather, to the extent that they were influenced by Enlightenment ideas, this was the result of the efforts of middle-class intellectuals – of whom José Celestino Mutis, who introduced the concept of modern science and the experimental method, was the pioneer – and with them, the spirit of an enlightened society began to appear in the classroom. From that point on, the process of research began to replace syllogism, and the Colonial universities had two options: to advance a novel agenda inspired by recent modern developments in science or to remain subject to the vagaries of the political game in which the emerging Liberal and Conservative Parties were engaged. As they opted for the second option, from then until well into the twentieth century, both political parties sought to place education at their service, to the extent that the degree of hegemony they enjoyed at any given time allowed. Thus, in the Republican era, after 1810, the influence of the Enlightenment on universities acted as a cultural insurance policy that countered the vestiges of the medieval world they still displayed. But the adoption in this period of the Napoleonic model, characterized by its emphasis on professionalism and its conversion of the university into a summation of schools and the
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exclusion of research from its activities (Carlos Tunnermann 1973), was unsuccessful in offering a broad and inclusive approach and created, in contrast, an environment that was propitious to the creation of an elite, representative of the dominant sectors of society and that acted to provide support to hegemonic criollo ideas (Jaime Jaramillo Uribe 1994). It was not until the twentieth century, in 1918, that the influence of the Argentinian university reforms (known in Latin America as the revolución cordobesa) was felt and, with it, ushered in the first significant questioning of the traditional university model to occur in Colombia. In synthesis, during this period the universities represented a kind of summation of aspects of the dominant medieval approach and of the peculiarities of the Napoleonic model. They were unable to deal with the challenges faced by a country that found itself on the verge of industrialization and of an extensive process of urbanization (Luis Enrique Orozco 1998; Simón Schwartzman 1996).
The Contemporary University As the twentieth century progressed, and in particular after the Second World War, Colombia engaged in a process of modernization based on import substitution. This led to a change in the economic and social structure of the country and in the role played by the state in the process of development. From then onward, there was a significant increase in the demand for higher education. The reasons for this change were clear and included the growth of intermediate cities, the entry of women into universities, the growth of the middle classes, processes of urbanization, and rural-urban migration. Very rapidly, the country ceased to be rural, with a large peasant population and dominated by a traditional mentality. It became an urban conglomeration engaged in an incipient process of modernization, though without significant scientific or technical development. It had a closed economy, there was extensive state protectionism, and it was experiencing conflict between different mythical-religious world views. It was this growth in demand for
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higher education, satisfied to a limited degree by governments, that facilitated the development of private initiatives in the field of higher education, a process authorized by the Constitution and intended to satisfy demand in the context of an elitist, barely inclusive society, and in the absence of indicative sectorial planning. This growth in demand led to an increase in the number of academic establishments and programs and, as a result, in the number of university professors. But in the process, the inherited, traditional, nature of universities remained unexamined. In this manner an educational market was created, plagued that was plagued by information asymmetries and made up of a collection of institutions, some using educational methods and others that were technical or technological in nature. At this point, there was neither single “Higher Educational System” in place, nor any clearly defined public policy. The Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Education Superior (Colombian Institute for the Promotion of Higher Education, ICFES), responsible for developing, inspecting, controlling, and overseeing higher education, was established in 1968, though the Education Ministry had been in existence since 1902. The ultimate control of higher education had been exercised hitherto by the President’s office, which delegated decision-making to departmental governors who in turn adopted Liberal or Conservative approaches depending on the color of the government in power. This remained the case, though attempts had been made to modernize the nature of universities, in 1914 by Rafael Uribe Uribe and by Germán Arciniegas in 1935, both of whom were inspired by Liberal ideas. But neither reform gained sufficient backing in Congress to prosper. Between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s, education remained the stronghold of the two political parties and illustrated the dividing line between two opposing conceptions of the country’s development, its education, and its overall culture. The line of demarcation was the attitude of each party to religious ideas, as the 1886 Constitution designated Roman Catholicism as the official state religion. This kind of university was widely questioned by the student movements that emerged
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throughout Latin America under the influence of the revolutionary events of May 1968. This led to the politicization of the universities and the appropriation of their future by interests wanting to convert the universities into the intellectual arm of the revolution. The student radicalism led to the abandonment of the university system – and in particular of the public universities – by powerful social groups, without their being replaced by an alternative proposal. It was not until the 1990s and the promulgation of a new constitution that exerted widespread influence on the dynamics transforming higher education in the country that a new kind of relation between state and higher education developed (Brunner 2001; Luis Enrique Orozco 2001).
The Recent Evolution of Higher Education Public Policy in Colombia The forerunner of the 1992 reform of the educational sector, which constituted the first effort to develop a systematic public policy on higher education, dates to 1980 and the publication of Decree 80, by which Congress granted the President of the Republic extraordinary powers to alter the rules governing the sector. The intention was to establish the operating conditions both of public and private sector establishments in order to ensure a supply of educational services capable of meeting the growing demand for access to higher education and to respond to the problems deriving from the asymmetries of the market, improve the relevance of the service offered, and increase the efficiency of university administration. In order to achieve these aims, the policy sought to bring order to the varied range of institutions present in the educational market, create the conditions required to permit student numbers to increase, establish rules governing the intervention of the state consistent with the need for university autonomy, encourage the development of technological and technical education, avoid the atomization of institutions, and define policies for the funding of public universities. Ten years later the model had to be changed to bring it in line with the new 1991 Constitution, which recognized in full the autonomy of universities
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in academic, administrative, and financial terms, a recognition that had implications for the role of the state vis-à-vis the higher education sector. However, the reforms were in fact a repositioning of higher education in the context of a new national and international context characterized by the impact of all the aspects of globalization, new forms of knowledge production, the growing and varied social demands made of universities, and the urgency of reestablishing three central aspects, namely, the relation between the state and higher education, the new techniques for training human talent in the context of a global economy, and the impact of new technologies on processes of learning. It was in this context that Law 30 of 1992 was approved in order to reform the higher education system. The law regulated university autonomy, established a special regime governing public universities, created the Sistema Nacional de Acreditación (National Accreditation System, SNA), redefined the system in order to facilitate coordination between different educational methods, created the Subsistema de Universidades Estatales (Subsystem of Public Universities, SUE), and established a system for financing the sector.
Current Dynamics in the Transformation of Higher Education Increased Student Enrolment The most important aspect of the current situation of the higher education sector has to do with the growing rate of enrolment, which was significant in the 1980s, but grew considerably after 2000. Since then, the number of enrolled students has doubled, increasing from 926,184 in 2000 to 2,010.366 in 2014. However, this growth has not been consistent during the entire period: between 2000 and 2004, there was an increase of 187,542 in the number of students enrolled, while 10 years later, between 2010 and 2014, the increase was 422,606, almost two times greater. Students are distributed between the public and private sectors. While in 2000, there were 336,391 in the former and 597,694 in the latter; by 2014 numbers had risen to 1,113,604 and 1,024,581,
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respectively. What is significant about this evolution is the inversion of the previous tendency for there to be more students in private universities than in their public equivalents, with more now in latter than the former. On the other hand, it should be noted that this growth in student enrolment over the past two decades corresponds to a significant effort to facilitate university access for low-income students, by way of a variety of initiatives including an aggressive policy established in 1953 and run by the Instituto Colombiano para el Estudio Técnico en el Exterior (Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad, ICETEX) to provide loans and scholarships. This program has been channeling, not only the Institute’s own resources, but also monies from the private and public sectors in order to support students who wish to study abroad. The policy funds students from the poorest three levels of society using special lines of educational credit for undergraduate and postgraduate study. The Colombian National Staistical Agency (DANE) classifies the population into six levels (estratos), estrato 1 having the lowest income and estrato 6 the highest. Similarly, educational opportunities were increased in the regions through the creation of the Centros Regionales de Educación Superior (Regional Centers of Higher Education, CERES) and a Sistema de Prevención y Análisis de la Deserción en las Instituciones de Educación Superior (System for the Prevention and Analysis of Dropout in Higher Educational Institutions, SPADIES), which was established in order to encourage students to continue their studies. However, the problem of access has not been resolved, and it is believed that more than 2,500,000 potential students remain outside the system. Thus, despite the efforts of recent governments, this level of education remains very exclusive and inequitable given that the supply of places fails to respond to a growing and varied demand for tertiary education of a comparable quality to that offered in the major cities. It should also be noted that when enrolment figures are examined according to areas of knowledge, the subjects favored by students remain stable: most popular are economics, business administration, accountancy, and related subjects.
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These are followed by social sciences, engineering, architecture, town planning, and related subjects. The natural and exact sciences remain the least popular. Supply in Higher Education Turning to the matter of educational supply, during the period under observation, the number of institutions has increased by 17%. While in 2000 there were 246 higher education institutions, of which 91 were non-university establishments and 155 were universities, by 2014, the overall number had grown to 288, of which 86 were non-university establishments and 202 were universities. This prevalence of the university model is explained on the one hand by the fact that the aspiration to go to this kind of establishment is deeply rooted socially, and on the other, by the policies followed by recent governments that have been designed to limit the creation of new institutions. Of the total number of institutions mentioned above, only 34 have been accredited as high quality by the Consejo Nacional de Acreditación (National Accreditation Council, CNA). Given these circumstances, technical and technological schools are considered by society to be less socially important and valuable. Currently, 6,414 academic programs are available in the country, of which 944 have been accredited by the CNA. These figures are relatively low considering that the CNA’s accreditation system was established in 1995 (Luis Enrique Orozco 2001). Doctoral Training in Colombia As indicated above, because of the sector’s traditional teaching-centered approach, the Colombian university sector had not developed a clear proposal concerning its role in the production of knowledge or how its own approach should be articulated with the equivalent international sphere until well into the last century. Responsibility for developing research was left with individual academics without there being any significant ambition to institutionalize the activity. Note that during this period there was, similarly, no national-level initiative in existence aimed at knowledge creation, as there was no consensus concerning the role of science in national development.
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The integration of these two dimensions includes the development of a critical mass of highly trained human capital. And in an incipient manner, this was also the aim behind the creation of the Fondo Colombiano de Investigaciones Científicas y Proyectos Especiales Francisco José de Caldas (the “Francisco José de Caldas” Colombian Fund for Scientific and Special Projects, COLCIENCIAS), ICETEX, and of the first joint action plans jointly developed with the Fulbright Program to encourage postgraduate training abroad. But it was only between 1970 and 1980 that a direct interest in doctoral training in the country emerged. It was in these circumstances that two Inter-American Development Bank loans were agreed: IDB/ICFES and IDB/COLCIENCIAS, and the creation of the science, technology, and development mission, whose labors were concluded in 1990. A summary of the events of this decade, which preceded the establishment of doctoral programs in the country, might read as follows: “The feasibility of a policy to establish doctorates involves the formulation of a national development project that deals with the production of scientific and technical knowledge in society. This requires overall, lasting, and even unpopular decisions. Because the current impasse of the sciences in Colombia involves the absence of a national project, because there is no clarity and no minimal agreement concerning the role that science should play in society, and because the demand expressed by the productive sectors is limited and inchoate, the political demand for knowledge and scientific production are not really institutionalized” (José Luis Villaveces 2006). From that moment on, progress has been made in three directions: improving the qualifications of university teachers, developing scientific and technological research as a foundation of national development, and improving training for individuals who will in the future be taking complex decisions in both the public and the private sectors. And, to achieve this, proven mechanisms have been used such as the institutional organization of scientific and technological activities through the development of a system of science, technology, and innovation and the generation of a policy for science and technology that commits the most established universities to creating
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research groups and to seeking out financial mechanisms dedicated to financing activities including research (Jorge Hernán Cárdenas 1991). However, studies on the financing of doctoral programs (Jorge Hernán Cárdenas 1991) show that it has not as yet proved possible to create a fund to finance doctoral studies at home and abroad. The progress made in the development of doctoral programs over the past 15 years shows that student enrolment has increased. The largest increase occurred between 2004 – when 675 students were enrolled – and 2007, with 1,431. This amounted to an increase during the period of 112%. There was a further increase of 28% between 2009 and 2010, though the upward tendency subsequently slowed, with an increase of only 16% by 2015, in which year, 236 doctoral programs were being offered in the country. The Funding of Public Universities In Colombia, education is considered to be a right that should be guaranteed by the State, and also as a public good that requires to be managed and regulated, and which the Education Ministry has the duty to inspect, control, and supervise, in order to ensure quality and coherence between the service and the requirements of the labor markets. In this regard, the concern of recent governments has focused on ensuring quality, coverage, relevance, and efficiency, and resources have been made available for the purpose. In Colombia, higher education funding is regulated by Law 30 of 1992. Articles 86 and 87 define the rules that must be adhered to by establishments that provide the public service of education. The first of these articles indicates that universities should receive index-linked funding from the state. The second guarantees that the state will increase its funding at a rate that shall not fall below 30% of the increase in the gross domestic product (GDP). In this manner, resources are distributed according to the performance of the institutions, measured using a battery of indicators that allow the efficiency of their resource-use to be assessed. Increases in funding are calculated using the objectives established by the SUE, which was created by Law 30 of 1992. According to the terms of the agreement between
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the state and the SUE, the government shall assign resources annually on the basis of empirical indicators of the performance of the institutions (Colombian Ministry of Education Law 30 of 1992). From the perspective of supply, higher education institutions are financed by direct contributions from the national budget, resources that are complemented by contributions the Law requires to be made by regional bodies. For their part, the institutions are to generate their own resources (by selling services, consultancies, and research activities), resources that are to cover administrative costs. In recent years governments have created a new source of finances generated by the sale of stamps Pro Universidad (“In Aid of the University”), complemented by other funds provided by COLCIENCIAS, and by certain specific promotional programs originating in the Education Ministry. In 2000, state transfers corresponded to 0.55% of the 0.96% of the national budget dedicated to higher education and in 2014 to 0.39% of the 0.88%. This reflects a reduction in the contribution made by the state in 2014, for which reason resources generated by the institutions themselves became the most significant source of finance, expressed as a percentage of GDP. In terms of demand, the role of ICETEX, mentioned above, was the most significant and was made according to three principal areas of activity: the provision of credit to fund long-term access (ACCES), medium-term undergraduate support, and a postgraduate program known as País (Country) intended for students wishing to pursue postgraduate studies in Colombia. But it also offers credit with funds provided by COLCIENCIAS, companies, foundations, and departmental and municipal governments – the first three sources being the most significant. In pursuit of its objectives to promote and finance research and to train researchers both nationally and internationally, COLCIENCIAS uses its own resources to provide loans to fund academic study; cover maintenance costs for students studying abroad, up to a total of $1,600 per month; pay for medical insurance, up to a value of $400; purchase return flights; and cover costs required to present and defend a thesis and to
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pursue academic studies. Additionally, under the terms of an agreement with ICETEX, the Fundación Colfuturo provides resources for the development of human capital abroad by way of cancelable loans, or loans and grants of between $25,000 and $50,000 dollars, for a maximum of 2 years. The private sector on the other hand contributes to increasing the level of resources that are needed to provide the public service of higher education by providing employers’ contributions, donations by private individuals, contributions by the students themselves and their families, and by the financial sector. Private higher education institutions are financed fundamentally by matriculation fees (amounting to more than 80% of their income), by consultancies and research activities, and by donations, services provided to third parties and by private sector loans. Finally, the significant role recently assumed by private banks in generating resources for the education sector should be noted. Accountability in Higher Education Accountability in higher education institutions in Colombia, based on the principle of selfregulation, has its origins in Law 30 of 1992, though the measure was not implemented until 1995 with the creation and initial activities of the CAN, which is responsible for programs for the accreditation of academic undergraduate programs and subsequently of establishments offering postgraduate and other courses. Subsequently, in about 2002, other institutions were added to the system, including the Sistema de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de Educación Superior (the System of Quality Assurance in Higher Education, SACES), implemented by the Comisión para el Aseguramiento de la Calidad de los Programas de Pregrado (Commission for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, CONACES), which are responsible for ensuring that the minimum standards stipulated by the law are met. The SPADIES system (see above) was added later, to monitor the phenomenon of dropout. These components of the system are complemented by the Sistema de Información de la Educación Superior (Higher Education Information System, SNIES) and the Observatorio
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Laboral (Labor Observatory). Other bodies making up the system include COLCIENCIAS and ICETEX, and these are responsible for policies for financing science, technology, and government grants and loans. In overall terms, the effort to develop a policy for excellence in higher education has in recent years focused on establishing institutions and processes designed to oversee quality, for instance, by demanding that students take exams at the end of their courses, requesting that all new courses comply with quality standards, and encouraging voluntary enrolment in undergraduate and postgraduate academic accreditation programs. The last of these measures, though voluntary, is to an extent actually obligatory in as much as it is considered a prerequisite if institutions are interested in receiving new official resources for specific programs such as, for example, loans form ICETEX or acceptance by the Ser pilo paga Program (It Pays to be Smart). Students are only eligible if they study at accredited institutions. But despite the efforts of governments to establish public policy governing this matter, an examination of their impact shows that, in 2015, only 927 of the 11,213 existing programs had been accredited by the CNA. Similarly, only 34 of the existing 288 institutions had been accredited by the CNA by this date. Nevertheless, although there are no empirical studies that provide a quantitative demonstration of the positive impact of the policy on quality, the following positive aspects of the accreditation process in the country have been confirmed: (a) the introduction of a culture of self-evaluation, associated with permanent efforts to achieve selfimprovement; (b) the positive value of possessing information that makes it possible to confront the information asymmetries inherent to the educational market, (c) the impact of the results of the accreditation process in improving university planning, (d) the importance of the results of the accreditation process in renewing the structure of curriculums, and (e) the revaluation and improved understanding of research activities, evaluated according to international productivity and visibility as a measurement of the academic quality of programs and of educational institutions as a whole.
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Current Changes and Future Prospects Twenty-five years have gone by since Law 30 of 1992 was passed. Public policy on higher education has gradually been reoriented through the different emphases of each succeeding government’s National Development Plan, namely, increased coverage in the Plan de Apertura Educativa (Educational Expansion Plan) of César Gaviria (1990–1994); the rationalization of spending in the Salto Educativo y Cultural (Education and Social Leap Forward) of Ernesto Samper (1994–1998); improved quality, efficiency, and fairness in the higher education system in Cambio para construir la paz (Change to Build Peace) of Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002); and increased coverage, funding, and rationalization of spending in Hacia un Estado Comunitario (Toward a Communitarian State) of Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002–2006), Estado Comunitario y Desarrollo para Todos, of the second government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2006–2010), and in the two periods of the current government of Juan Manuel Santos, whose Development Plan is known as Todos por un nuevo país (Everyone Together for a New Country). Simultaneously, each government has identified the central importance of the same factors to the higher education sector: quality, relevance, and the efficient implementation of the public service of higher education. A proposal for the systematic reform of higher education was presented during the first term of the current government in 2010. Discussion of the proposals occupied the first 2 years of the first Santos government and was rejected by all interest groups, in particular the student movement. The opposition led to the withdrawal of the project (Colombian Ministry of Education, 2010–2012). To replace the failed policy, the government introduced some of the proposals contained in it under the guise of the Law introducing the National Development Plan for his second term (2014–2018). Thus, Art. 58 of the Plan created the Sistema Nacional de Education Terciaria (National Tertiary Education System, SNET), tertiary education being defined as any postsecondary education or training. Its objective is to promote learning at higher levels of complexity
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and specialization. This measure did not alter the names given to the methods or kinds of institution already created by Law 30 of 1992 and Article 213 of the General Educational Law 115 of 1994. The Development Plan also created the Sistema Nacional de Calidad de la Educación Terciaria (National System for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education, SISNACET), with the aim of integrating and coordinating the bodies, strategies, and educational tools of tertiary education. Its objective is to ensure and promote quality in the system. Finally, the 2014–2018 National Development Plan created the Sistema Nacional de Acumulación y Transferencia de Créditos (National System for the Accumulation and Distribution of Credit, SNATC) with the goal of ensuring the success of quality control processes, accompanying the implementation of the National Qualifications Framework, introducing flexibility into the education offered by the sector, achieving integration between the different levels of education, improving capacity to deal with national and international testing, and ensuring strengthened relations between the educational and productive sectors (Plan de Desarrollo, Art. 58). In paragraph 58, this National Development Plan orders the Education Ministry to report on progress in the process of restructuring to the Sixth Commission of the National Congress. In the light of these changes, the National System for Quality Assurance will be redesigned in matters including its functions, operating procedures, and coordination. As a result of this process, the current CNA, which is responsible for accrediting the quality of programs and institutions, and CONACES – which currently focuses on monitoring the fulfillment of minimum quality standards for new programs – will both become a part of the new system currently under construction by the Education Ministry. However, it is also recognized that in themselves evaluation processes will not be able to improve quality in the absence of political will and if the institutions do not display a clear commitment to exercising their autonomy with responsibility. At the same time, there are several worrying factors, namely, that a large number of institutions and academic programs, in particular in the technical and technological fields, cannot be accredited, the scant coordination
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between the bodies responsible for coordinating processes to improve quality in the sector, the absence of a policy to offer incentives to institutions to improve their quality, and the danger that bodies such as the CNA will be converted into instruments of control rather than institutions that encourages quality and continual improvement in the country’s higher education sector (Jalil Salmi 2013). Thus, at present, it may be stated that the Colombian education system is currently in a transitional phase, marked by a concern to increase the number of mechanisms intended to control institutions that provide the public service of education but that it runs the risk of replacing a system intended to ensure the quality, relevance, and efficiency of the system, for an obsession with inspection, control, and oversight of the internal operating conditions of the sector.
References Agueda Rodríguez. 1973. Historia de la Universidades hispanoamericanas. Período hisp´nico. 2 vols. Bogot´: Instituto Caro y cuervo. Brunner, J.J. 2001. Tiempo de innovar: políticas innovativas. En: Luis Enrique Orozco s. La Educación Superior. Problema global y respuesta nacional. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. Carlos Tunnermann, Op. Cit. Carlos Tunnermann. 1973. Aproximación histórica a la Universidad y su problemática actual. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. Corredor, Carlos. 2000. Propuesta para la creación de un Sistema Nacional de becas y fondo permanente para la formación doctoral en Colombia. Bogotá: ICFES. González, Fernán. 1978. Educación y Estado en la historia de Colombia. REv. Controversia, N. 77 y 78. Bogotá: CINEP. Jaime Jaramillo Uribe. 1994. La personalidad histórica de Colombia. Bogotá: El ancora Edits. Jamil Salmi. 2013. La urgencia de ir hacia adelante: perspectivas desde la experiencia internacional para la transformación de la educación superior en Colombia. Bogotá: Ministerio de Educación Nacional. Jorge Hernán Cárdenas y otros. 1991. Doctorados. Reflexiones para la formulación de polóticas en américa latina. Tercer Mundo Editores. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia y el Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo –IDRC–. Jorge Hernán Cárdenas. 2001. Alternativas para la formulación doctoral en Colombia. Bogotá: ICFES. José Luis Villaveces. 2006. Nuevas políticas de ciencia y tecnología; en: Universidad e e investigación científica. Vessuri Eve. Buenos Aires: CLACSO.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Costa Rica Luis Enrique Orozco, S. 1998. La Universidad a la Deriva. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. Luis Enrique Orozco, S. 2001. La Educación Superior. Problema mundial. Respuesta Nacional. Bogotá: Alfaomega. Luis Enrique Orozco Silva. 2016. Informe de la Educación Superior en Iberoamérica. Santiago de Chile: CINDA/ UNIVERSIA. Luis Enrique Orozco Silva. La Educación Superior. Restos y perspectivas. Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes. Ministerio de Educación Nacional. 2010. Proyecto de Ley de reforma del régimen financiero de las Universidades. Bogotá. Rodríguez, F. 2000. Estimaciones sobre el costo y fuentes de financiamiento del sistema Nacional de becacrédito y fondo permanente para la formación doctoral en Colombia. Bogotá: ISFES. Simón Schwarstzman. 1996. América Latina. Universidades en transición. Washington, DC: OEA.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Costa Rica Eugenia Gallardo-Allen University of Costa Rica, San Pedro, Costa Rica
Costa Rica was a marginal and sparsely populated province of the Spanish Empire during the colonial period (1580–1821). Those interested in pursuing higher education were therefore forced to travel abroad, especially to Nicaragua or Guatemala, where those who chose to pursue nonclerical studies could degree in Medicine and Law, which facilitated the development of an intelligentsia with liberal ideas (González 2006). The Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás was founded in 1814, at the initiative and with the funding of the residents of the City of San José. This institution of religious orientation, focused on primary and secondary levels, would 29 years later become the Universidad de Santo Tomás, the first higher education institution in the country (Molina 2016). This university, which maintained its religious and exclusive character for men, is credited with fundamental contributions to the consolidation of the Republic, whose declaration was made in 1885. Apart from the University, there were so-called Normal Schools, dedicated to the training of primary teachers from 1838 onwards.
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Considering that its existence weakened the resources allocated to primary and secondary education, the University of Santo Tomás was closed in 1888 as part of the education reforms of the liberal government. Despite this, some faculties such as Law, Pharmacy, and Agronomy continued to function independently (Ruiz 2000). The Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR) whose educational model is based on the Córdoba Reform was created more than 50 years later, in 1940. This Reform seeks a humanistic university, of a social nature, with a democratic government with student participation, and with full autonomy in the exercise of its functions (González 2006). The period between 1940 and 1972 is marked by profound political changes that affect Costa Rican education: the civil war and the subsequent abolition of the army in 1948, which makes it possible to increase the economic resources for education and health; the Constitutional Reform, where the principles and responsibilities of the State with the educational system are established; the second University Congress, where the structure of the University of Costa Rica is consolidated as regards to its social and humanistic role. Finally, the General Law of Education was enacted in 1957, establishing the Costa Rican State Educational System as a process articulated from preschool to higher education. In the 1970s, a process of expansion and massification of higher education began. Three public institutions were created: in 1972 the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR), in 1973 the National University (UNA), in 1977 the State Distance University (UNED). The Autonomous University of Central America (UACA), the first private university in the country, was also founded in 1976. As of this moment, there is an accelerated growth in the number of higher education establishments, reaching 29 parauniversitaria institutions, 54 private universities, 5 public universities (a new public university is created in 2008, the National Technical University, UTN), 5 international universities (which offer 1302 programs in various areas of knowledge) in 2016. Added to these institutions, it is necessary to acknowledge the presence of large transnational educational
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consortia, such as Laureate and Ilimno, that acquire some domestic private institutions, and the opening of a Texas Tech University campus (Programa Estado de la Educación 2017). According to the QS-world ranking, the UCR is the most valued university in Central America (position 500–510 in the world and number 19 in Latin America), while the UNA is second in the region (751–800 in the world and 48 in Latin America), while the best-ranking private university is ULACIT (QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited 1994–2018). Higher education coverage for 2016 was 51.4% in the population from 18 to 22 years of age, corresponding to a total of 217,841 students/ people, 55% of whom were women. 48.6% were enrolled in private universities and 47.8% in public universities, while 2.9% are enrolled in parauniversitaria institutions, and 0.6% to international universities (CONARE A). Most public universities establish academic entrance exams as part of their admission process. For example, the UCR, the first to establish these types of requirements. In general, private institutions have open admission policies, only in a few programs do specific tests exist, such as in health programs. According to the Nomenclature of Degrees and titles of Higher Education (1974), there is distinction between short undergraduate studies (diploma and teaching degrees), full undergraduate studies (bachelor and licenciatura degrees), and postgraduate studies (professional specialization, master’s degree, and academic doctorate). While universities are authorized to award any type of the degrees, the parauniversitaria institutions award only diploma and teaching degrees. In 1976, it was agreed that the unified definition a credit would equal 3 full hours of academic work lasting 15 weeks and supervised by a teacher. This was done so as to facilitate the recognition of studies, qualifications, and degrees. In 2016, 46,195 titles were awarded both at undergraduate and graduate levels, 69% of which were issued by private institutions. At a postgraduate level, 3584 master’s degrees (69% of private universities) and 140 doctoral degrees (74% of private universities) were awarded (CONARE B).
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Research production is concentrated in public universities, whose investment in this area is equivalent to 0.18% of the GDP in 2015. In the same year, 2200 research projects were developed, and 422 articles indexed published, according to the Web Science database (CONARE C; Programa Estado de la Educación 2017). The funding of public education is provided by the State. According to Article 78 of the Political Constitution, at least 8% of GDP must be allocated for all levels of education, from preschool to university. Public university education is financed mainly through the Fund for Higher Education (FEES), which is established every 5 years through a negotiation process between the government and public universities. In 2010, the government and state universities set a goal for public universities to reach 1.5% of GDP; however, this goal has not been met to date, although in nominal terms funding has increased steadily. In 2010, the FEES represented 1.2% of GDP and in 2015, to 1.4%. In terms of total spending on Education, said fund represented 16.5% in 2010 and 18.9% in 2015 (Programa Estado de la Educación 2017). Conversely, private universities do not receive funds from the state, although there is a control and a regulatory framework by the state. The current political constitution (1949) sets out the principle of university autonomy, the freedom of chair, the endowment of resources and the patrimony on the part of the State for state education. There are two coordinating bodies of higher education: National Council of Rectors (Conare) created in 1974 and made up of the rectors of the public universities. Among its main functions is the creation, closure, and approval of study programs proposed by public universities. Private universities are coordinated by the Council of Private Higher Education (Conesup), an instance attached to the Ministry of Public Education, which was created in 1981 by law of the Republic. The Conesup has five members, the minister of education (chair) and the others appoints by the following institutions: CONARE, Private Universities, Professional Associations, and National Planning Office. Conesup is responsible for approving the creation of private
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universities and the approval of their study programs. In addition, private universities have the Unit of Rectors of Private Universities (Unire), whose purpose is articulation and institutional negotiation, although not all private universities are affiliated to this instance. Under the initiative of the public universities and four private universities, the National System of Accreditation of Higher Education (Sinaes) was established in 1999. Its purpose is to establish quality requirements to improve the programs offered by both public and private institutions and to provide a public guarantee of quality of education. By 2018, the Sinaes reached programs in 26 public and private universities, 5 parauniversitaria institutions, and accredited 166 programs (SINAES).
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the voluntary nature of these mechanisms has led to a limited scope of coverage. Given the limited amount of funding for public universities by the State, there has been a trend in recent years to resort to investment by international organizations such as the World Bank, which provided a loan of 200 million dollars to be executed by public universities in the 2013–2017 period. This loan aims to cover infrastructure needs and strengthen policies aimed at increasing access to higher education. In this vein, public universities have developed programs and affirmative policies with the purpose of improving access for the local indigenous population and people with special abilities, including differential income requirements, socioeconomic assistance, and academic support (Mainieri 2017).
Trends in Costa Rica’s Higher Education References In terms of public opinion, education has been, and continues to be, a relevant aspect of Costa Rican society. During the 2012–2016 period, eight surveys were conducted on the assessment that Costa Ricans have of various institutions, among which are the Judiciary, the Catholic Church, Political Parties, Social Security, and the Office of the Obudsman. The institution with the best assessment in all the studies was the University of Costa Rica, followed by other public universities, while the private universities were in sixth place (CIEP-UCR). As of 1998, private universities award a greater number of degrees than public ones, with both sectors having very similar enrollment levels, and therefore there is a concern about the graduation time in the public sector (Gallardo et al. 2012). Additionally, new actors have inserted themselves, such as international consortiums that have acquired domestic higher education institutions, and the presence of international universities. This panorama increases the concern for the quality of higher education, which has led to efforts to strengthen the evaluation and accreditation mechanisms through the SINAES; however,
CIEP-UCR. Informes de encuestas de Opinión 2012–2016. https://ciep.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/proyectos/encuestas-deopinion (consultado 1 de setiembre del 2018). CONARE A. Estadísticas de la Educación TerciariaUnesco 2011–2017. https://www.conare.ac.cr/servicios/ estadistica (consultado 1 de setiembre 2018). CONARE B. Miniestadísticas Diplomas. https://www. conare.ac.cr/servicios/estadística (consultado 1 de setiembre 2018). CONARE C. Indicadores de Investigación 2012–2016. https://www.conare.ac.cr/servicios/estadística (consultado 1 de setiembre 2018). Gallardo Eugenia, Molina Mauricio and Cordero Rebeca. 2012. Aplicación de análisis de sobrevivencia al estudio del tiempo requerido para graduarse en educación superior: el caso de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Páginas de Educación. 9 (1): 61–87, Montevideo, jun. 2016. Disponible en http://www. scielo.edu.uy/scielo.php?script¼sci_arttext&pid¼S168874682016000100003&lng¼es&nrm¼iso> (consultado el 10 setiembre 2018). González, Yamileth. 2006. Educación y Universidad. San José: Universidad de Costa Rica. Mainieri, Aida María. 2017. Innovaciones en modelos de admisión: Estudios de casos y estrategias de inclusión educación superior. Revista Actualidades Investigativas En Educación. 17 (3): 64–105. https://doi.org/10.15517/ aie.v17i3.30215 (consultado el 10 de setiembre 2018). Molina, Iván. 2016. La educación en Costa Rica de la época colonial al presente. San José: Editoriales universidades públicas.
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Programa Estado de la Nación. 2017. Sexto Informe Estado de la Educación. https://www.estadonacion. or.cr/educacion2017/assets/ee6-informe-completo.pdf (consultado 1 de setiembre 2018). QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited 1994 – 2018. Qs world university rankings. https://www.topuniversiti es.com/universities/level/undergrad/region/latin-america (consultado 1 de setiembre 2018). Ruiz, Ángel. 2000. La Educación Superior en Costa Rica: Tendencias y retos en un escenario histórico. San José: Universidad de Costa Rica. SINAES. Información General página Web. https://www. sinaes.ac.cr (consultado 1 de setiembre del 2018).
HE System Development
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire Hortense Atta Diallo1, Yao Tano1 and Georgette Agneroh-Eboi2 1 University Nangui Abrogoua, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire 2 Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
List of Abbreviations AUF CAMES DPE ECOWAS ENS LMD MESRS UEMOA UFR
Francophone University Agency African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education Direction de la Planification et de l’Evaluation Economic Community of West African States Ecole Normale Supérieure Licence-Master-Doctorate Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research West African Economic and Monetary Union Training and Research Unit
Definition Baccalaureate (or BAC): The first university degree, obtained at the end of high school, after passing a national exam. Licence: Degree obtained at the university 3 years after the Baccalaureate.
Located in West Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, with its 322.500 km2, has 23.70 million inhabitants (World Bank 2017a). The country is diversified in terms of population (24.2% of foreigners) and agroecological zones. Its economy is based mainly on agriculture. It developed rapidly from 1960s to 1970s. However, in the 1980s began an economic and social crisis. This economic situation had a definite impact on the evolution of the Ivorian education system, with the student population growing faster than the development of the institutions’ infrastructure, leading to a problem of massification. According to the World Bank (2017b): “In order to diversify its economy successfully, Cote d’Ivoire must build its human capital so as to meet labor market needs more effectively.” However, although there has been in increase over the years, the enrolment ratio in tertiary education in 2015 was only 9.16%. The Government expenditure on education was 5.03% of the GDP (UIS/UNESCO 2017). Higher education began in Cote d’Ivoire with the creation of the Center for Specialized Studies in 1958, which was transformed into a Center for Higher Education in Abidjan with three schools (Law, Humanities, and Sciences) in 1959 (Universite Felix Houphouet-Boigny 2017). On October 1, 1963, this institution was set up as a university called the University of Abidjan (Decree No. 64-42 of 9 January 1964), which later gave rise to three universities in 1996, and then since 2012, five autonomous public universities. These are: • University Felix Houphouet-Boigny (formerly University of Cocody) • University Nangui Abrogoua (formerly University of Abobo-Adjamé) • University Alassane Ouattara (formerly University of Bouaké) • University Peleforo Gon Coulibaly • The University Jean Lorougnon Guede Two public higher education institutions, the Houphouet-Boigny National Polytechnic Institute (INP-HB) and the Ecole Normale Superieur
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(ENS), located in Yamoussoukro and in Abidjan, respectively, are under the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. There are 25 private universities and more than 200 private higher education institutions under the MESRS in the country (Fig. 1). Two new public universities have since been created and were opened during the academic year 2016–2017. These are: The University of Man and the Virtual University of Cote d’Ivoire. Data regarding those two institutions are not presented in this document. In Cote d’Ivoire, one of the 19 countries that are members of CAMES, higher education
institutions are located not only in Abidjan but also in several other cities of the country. Different types of degrees are offered in the higher education system in Cote d’Ivoire. After the implementation of the LMD system in the country, the three degrees offered are the Licence, Master, and Doctorate. However, outside the university system, other institutions offer 2-years postbaccalaureate and engineering degrees. The largest student population is found at the Licence level whereas 1/4 and 1/8 of the students are registered at the Master and Doctorate levels, respectively (Table 1). Doctorate programs are generally offered by public universities.
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209 Public university Private university Other public higher education institutions under the MESRS Other public higher education institutions under Ministries other than MESRS Other private higher education institutions under Ministries other than MESRS Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Fig. 1 Number of higher education institutions by type (Source: DPE/MESRS Statistiques 2015–2016)
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Table 1 Student enrollment by level and by type of institution Type of institution Public university Private university Other public higher education institutions Other private higher education institutions Total
Licence 53,792 5,931 2,146 21,236 83,107
Source: DPE/MESRS Annuaire statistique 2014–2015
Bachelor – 320 – – 320
Engineer – 157 – 1,560 1,717
Master 13,668 2,779 608 4,781 21,836
Doctorate 4,571 48 72 – 4,691
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Higher Education Governance
sources are tuition and fees. Research grants, consultancies, and other services provide additional resources. Regarding private institutions, their financial resources are mostly covered by tuition and fees paid by the students. However, for the students allocated to these institutions by the State, there is a subsidy paid by the State.
In the public institutions, the Government, based on proposals made by the Ministry responsible for the sector, nominates the head of the institution and his team. In private institutions, the founder nominates the Directors or Rectors. He also recruits the academics and the administrative staff, while ensuring that they have the required qualifications. The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MESRS) defines and implements the State’s policy on higher education and scientific research. All higher education institutions have an academic autonomy. In the public institutions, the State oversees the financial management of the resources allocated. Thus, the management advisory board is presided by the minister in charge of the sector. Among others, he supervises the preparation and execution of the budget and examines the financial report. Regarding the internal governance, there is an increasing participation on governing/advisory bodies by representatives from outside the higher education institution, appointed by ministers or from industry. The University Council is composed of academic staff, administrative staff, and students. There are also Academic and Research Councils at the institutional level, and also in the different Teaching and Research Units and Schools/Departments.
Finance/Funding Systems In public institutions, around 95% of the budget is provided by the Government. Other revenue
Academic Profession, Students, and Administrative Staff In the 2014–2015 academic year, there were a total of 17,552 academics for approximately 204,000 students, with the number of administrative staff being about half of that of the academics (Table 2). The private higher education institutions other than universities and under the MESRS account for the majority of the students. However, the five public universities absorb the second largest number of students. The number of students attending both public and private higher education institutions is approximately the same, and the ratio academic/ administrative staff is 2:1 (Table 2). The ratio of academics to students is globally 1:6 and 1:23, respectively, in private and public universities. However, this ratio varies greatly depending on the field; it reaches 1:200 in some nonscientific fields, while in public universities it is 1:4 in some scientific and technical fields (data not shown). Regarding the rank of academics in public universities, the number of lecturers is almost three times that of the associate professors (Fig. 2).
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Table 2 Number of academics, administrative staff, and students by type of institution Type of institution Public universities Private universities Other public higher education institutions under the MESRS Other public higher education institutions under ministries other than MESRS Other private higher education institutions Total Source: DPE/MESRS Annuaire statistique 2014–2015
Number of academics 3,455 1,669 543
Number of administrative staff 1,577 3,455 366
Number of students 80,662 10,272 83,387
2,072
608
23,557
8,813 17,552
2,505 8,510
5,439 203,317
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56
277 552
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Full Professor Associate Professor Senior Lecturer Lecturer Other
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Fig. 2 Number of full-time academics by rank in public universities (Source : DPE/MESRS Annuaire statistique 2014–2015)
Other Main Issues Table 3 shows the number of international students studying in Cote d’Ivoire from different countries. Data are also presented by economic regions and by continent for non-African students. In the UEMOA countries, most international students are from Burkina Faso and Benin. Many African students studying in Cote d’Ivoire also come from outside UEMOA and ECOWAS zones. There are some students from Asia, Europe, or the Americas. In each university, there are plenty of training and research units. While the same unit can be found in more than one university, for example with the medical sciences at both UFHB and UAO, others are found in only one (Table 4). The majority of students are found in the areas of communication and humanities (Table 4). The academic year is divided into two semesters of approximately 16 weeks each, and courses are organized in Teaching Units. Curriculums are reviewed regularly in order to address the market and society needs. In most public universities, quality assurance units have been established. Although many Ivorian students study outside the country, statistics about them are scarce. With the support of the AUF, several public higher education institutions have developed their
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Table 3 Number of international students by country, economic zone, or continent Country of origin Benin Burkina Faso Guinea-Bissau Mali Niger Senegal Togo ECOWAS outside UEMOA Africa outside ECOWAS Europe Americas Asia Total
Total 469 619 2 247 157 73 310 517 831 30 14 175 3,444
Source: DPE/MESRS Annuaire statistique 2014–2015
strategic plans. They are now in the process of finalizing their first objectives and performance contracts with the State. The use of ICT in a more effective and generalized way in teaching is recent and should contribute to partially solve the problem of massification and the quality of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. The opening of universities to the private sector/industrial world is strongly encouraged,
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cote d’Ivoire, Table 4 Student enrollment by public university and by training and research unit or schools University University Felix Houphouet-Boigny (UFHB)
Subtotal UFHB University Alassane Ouattara (UAO)
Subtotal UAO University Jean Lorougnon Guede (UJLoG) University Nangui Abrogoua (UNA)
Subtotal UNA University Peleforo Gon Coulibaly (UPGC)
Subtotal UPGC Total
Number of students by training and research unit/ school Biosciences Criminology Information, Communication, and Arts Language, Communication and Civilization Mathematics and Computer Sciences Odonto-Stomatology Earth and Mine Resources Sciences Sciences of Man and Society Sciences of Material Structures and Technology Legal, Administrative, and Political Sciences Medical Sciences Pharmaceutical and Biological Sciences Economy and Management Sciences 13 Administrative Law and Management Sciences Economic Sciences and Development Communication and Society Center for Medical Entomology and Veterinary Medical Sciences 5
Number of students 2,691 778 1,718 6,125 1,965 232 1,994 8,831 2,556 6,239 2.873 745 5,189 41,936 3,029 5,134 12,060 13 700 20,936
Preparatory School for Health Sciences Natural Sciences Fundamental and Applied Sciences Food Sciences and Technologies Environmental Sciences and Management 5 Agroforestry Management Institute Letters and Arts Biological Sciences Social Sciences 4 27
2,908 1,994 1,626 333 366 7,227 949 1,378 884 2,202 5,413 80,662
Source: DPE/MESRS Statistiques 2015–2016
with the objective to substantially improve graduate employment not only in Cote d’Ivoire but also worldwide.
References Annuaire statistique. 2014–2015. DPE/MESRS, Côte d’Ivoire.
Statistiques. 2015–2016. DPE/MESRS, Côte d’Ivoire. UIS/UNESCO. 2017. uis.unesco.org/country/CI. Accessed 30 July 2017. Universite Felix Houphouet-Boigny. https://fr.m. wikipedia.org. Accessed 5 July 2017. World Bank. 2017a. Cote d’Ivoire Profile. World Development Indicators database. Last updated 20 July 2017. World Bank. 2017b. www.worldbank.org/en/country/ cotedivoire/overview. Last updated Apr 2017.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia Bojana Ćulum1 and Nikola Baketa2 1 Department of Pedagogy, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia 2 Center for Youth and Gender Studies, Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Higher Education Systems Development The Republic of Croatia has been an independent country since 1991, with a democratic parliamentary system in place. In 2015, the population of Croatia was 4,225,316 and gross the domestic product was €43,897 billion. The main sectors of the Croatian economy include wholesale and retail trade, transport, accommodation, and food services (21.8%), industry (21.2%), and public administration, defense, education, human health, and social work activities (15.2%) (European Union). Croatia has been a member of the European Union (EU) since July 1, 2013. The Croatian higher education system has a long educational tradition preserved primarily through the work of its public universities. There are eight public universities, established in three phases. The University of Zagreb, the biggest in Croatia and the oldest continuously operating university in the Southeastern Europe, was established in 1669. During the 1970s, middlesized public universities in Split, Rijeka, and Osijek were established. The Croatian university sector is characterized by the historically high independency of faculties, so the establishment of these four universities resulted from mergers of independent and legally established faculties, colleges, and higher schools. The last four public universities in Croatia (Zadar, Dubrovnik, Pula, Sjever) were founded in the period from 2002 till 2015. These are the small size universities with a more central management. At each university, teaching and research are usually carried out by one of the following constituent units: faculties, university departments, art academies, and university institutes.
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Croatia has a binary higher education system with two types of higher education studies: (a) university studies consisting of academic programs that are conducted solely at universities and (b) professional studies consisting of professional programs conducted at polytechnics, colleges of applied sciences, and universities (The Agency for Science and Higher Education 2017). The development of the nonuniversity sector was enabled by the Act on Higher Education Institutions of 1993, and the first public polytechnic was established in 1996. The predecessors were nonuniversity institutions that existed since World War II; however, they either disappeared, were incorporated into universities, or were not considered as part of the higher education system (Reichard 1992; Branković and Vukasović 2017). Most universities and polytechnics are public higher education institutions (HEIs). Private university education has just recently begun to develop with the establishment of the first private university in 2008. At the beginning of 2017 and according to the national directory of study programs, there were 8 public universities, 11 public polytechnics, 3 public schools of professional higher education, 2 private universities, 4 private polytechnics, and 21 private schools of professional higher education in Croatia (Agency for Science and Higher Education 2017). All HEIs, public or private, fall under the supervision of the Ministry of Science and Education (Table 1). The higher education system has undergone a comprehensive reform within the framework of
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia, Table 1 Student enrolment in 2015/2016
Level of study Undergraduate/bachelor Graduate/master Integrated undergraduate and graduate study Postgraduate/doctoral
Number of students enrolled University Professional study study 57,546 41,027 26,960 6,675 25,308 / 3,157
1,194
Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics (CBS 2016)
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the Bologna Process as part of the creation of the European higher education area. Since 2005, it has therefore been structured according to three cycles (undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate), with some of the HEIs offering integrated undergraduate and graduate studies. Croatia participates in a wide range of international exchange programs (including Erasmus+, CEEPUS, and many bilateral programs) allowing international students to study in Croatia and vice versa. Having courses in all institutions and at every level of study organized according to the system of transferable credits (European Credit Transfer System (ECTS)) makes it easier for international students to have their studies/credits formally recognized in their home countries and institutions.
Higher Education Governance Croatia is one of the systems newly included in the European University Association’s (EUA) Autonomy Scorecard in 2016, so most of the data presented here are based on the recent report by EUA (2017) and its country profile that analyzed the Croatian higher education system through four categories: organization, funding, staffing, and academic autonomy. Croatian universities have, by law, a dual governance structure, composed of both senate types and board types of bodies. The senate is the main governing body of the university, responsible for academic affairs, staffing, institutional management, and development of the institutional strategy. The composition of the senate varies across universities, but there are legal provisions ensuring a minimum representation of academic staff (60%) and students (15%). The board discusses the university strategy and is the expression of the university’s public accountability. The composition of the board is regulated with half of its members appointed by the senate (including at least one student) and half appointed by external authorities. Universities tend to include representatives of local or regional authorities, entrepreneurs, and representatives of chambers of commerce, who can contribute to the university’s strategy.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia
Institutional autonomy, framed by the Science and Higher Education Act which came into force in 2003, is assigned only to universities. The Act prescribes that the executive head of the university is elected, although the university decides on the composition of the electoral body. At most universities the senate elects the rector, but this may vary. By law, the rector must be a full professor, and university statutes usually restrict the appointment to internal candidates. University constituents (faculties, departments, and art academies) have their own governing structure, however, with differences related to the power that rests within the institution. As independent legal entities, faculties and art academies elect their own deans via faculty councils, the election procedure is regulated by the institutional statute, and dean’s appointment is carried out without university senate consent. In contrast, university departments are not independent legal entities. Department councils elect the chair but need a university senate consent for his or her appointment. Both deans and department chairs are members of the university senate.
Funding System The HEIs are financed through sources of their founders: the state budget; the budgets of the counties, cities, and municipalities and the Croatian Science Foundation; their own income (fees, research, projects, etc.); direct investments; donations; and other sources. The Government of the Republic of Croatia found public universities by law and public polytechnics and schools of professional higher education by decree. Local and regional authorities are able to establish schools of professional higher education through their representative bodies. However, these HEIs are treated like private HEIs. Universities receive funding for salaries (more than 80% of public funding) on an annual basis. Further funding for research and teaching is provided and allocated by the Ministry of Science and Education according to the 3-year performancebased funding agreements it signs with each
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia
university (Ministry of Science and Education). Internal reallocation of funds across these contracts varies considerably among universities. In practice universities have limited autonomy to allocate strategically the public funds they receive. Croatian universities enrol both state-funded and fee-paying students, who each makes up for about half of the student population in the system. The level of tuition fees for national and EU students at Bachelor and Master level is set by the Ministry in the 3-year performance-based funding agreements. Universities can decide themselves about the level of fees for doctoral and for international (non-EU) students. Public funds for research are allocated only via the Croatian Science Foundation with regular calls available for all disciplinary fields. Some universities allocate funds from performancebased funding agreements to research as well. Research is a mandatory part of the regular duties of academics, regardless of the funding possibilities, as contractual agreement defines all academics should allocate 50% of their working time to research and 50% to teaching.
Academic Profession, Students, and Administrative Staff Higher education staff are civil servants in Croatia, and their status is regulated by law at national level, including recruitment, promotion, and dismissal. The Science and Higher Education Act defines the academic positions which are basically divided in junior (teaching assistants and postdoctoral researchers) and senior (assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, and tenured full professor) academics. Differentiation between the junior and senior academic positions in the national system implies the division into “temporary” and “permanent positions.” Junior academics sign a fixed-term employment contract, while the candidates for the senior positions sign their permanent contract at the level of the assistant professor. The overall number of senior academic posts is regulated by the government. According to the provisions of the Act, in force since July 30, 2013, once recruited to the senior position, academics continue
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their contracts with the required reelection to the same or promotion to a higher rank every 5 years. There are no limits to the number of reelections to the same rank since a higher post must be available to be promoted to senior academic staff. The National Council of Education and Science must approve candidates for the available academic positions. Strict ministerial control over civil servant staff means universities have no option to decide about salaries and careers, and there is little scope for strategic recruitment policies although new positions may be created by universities from their own resources. The total number of academic staff in higher education institutions has increased significantly in the last 15 years, despite restrictions in public sector employment. Today around 12,000 academic staff work at HEIs. According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (CBS 2016) in the academic year 2015/2016, there were 11,883 academic staff having full-time-based contracts. While most of them (9,910) are academics of all ranks having full-time permanent employment contracts, 1,973 of them have fixed-term contracts, but still in the form of full-time equivalent. According to the CBS (2016, 2017a, 2017b), the overall number of undergraduate and graduate students was 157,666 and 162,017 with postgraduate students included. Table 2 shows the number Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Croatia, Table 2 Students enrolled in 2015/2016 – by level and the disciplinary field
Natural sciences Engineering Biomedicine and health sciences Biotechnical sciences Social sciences Humanities Arts Interdisciplinary field of science Total number of students
BA and MA 6,453 41,481 14,465
PhD 531 545 694
Postgraduate specialist 35 40 558
8,848
131
10
69,713 11,433 2,686 2,587
700 434 NA 122
422 14 8 107
1,57,666
3157
1194
Source: Croatian Bureau of Statistics (CBS 2016, 2017a, 2017b)
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of students according to discipline and level of study. The largest number of undergraduate and graduate students attends public universities (127,483), out of which 111,987 are enrolled in university study programs, 17,661 in the professional study programs, and 2,186 in the art academies. If we take into account all levels of higher education, there are 69,910 male and 92,107 female students.
Other Main Issues The National Council for Science, Higher Education and Technological Development (NCSHETD) is the principal advisory body which proposes the budget for scientific and higher education activities (European Commision 2016). It approves the establishment of centers of excellence. Centre of Research Excellence gathers and cross-links the best scientists in a particular field at a national level that are focused on contemporary research topic. They also have to be internationally competitive and recognizable group in terms of quality and scope of scientific production, capable of effective international cooperation, and have to give significant contribution to the development of science, higher education, and the economy at the national level. The NCSHETD also establishes requirements to be fulfilled by public research institutes and HEIs in order to obtain authorization for promotion and for recruiting staff for teaching positions in accordance with the Science and Higher Education Act (European Commision 2016). The Agency for Science and Higher Education (ASHE) is a national agency for quality assurance in science and higher education (Act on Quality Assurance in Science and Higher Education). ASHE is a member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education and of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (Agency for Science and Higher Education 2011). The fact that institutional autonomy is assigned only to universities reflects the quality assurance procedures and accreditation of the study programs. Private HEIs, public schools of professional higher education, and polytechnics have to apply
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for the initial accreditation of their study programs. University study programs are established and implemented by university senate after an assessment based on the internal quality assurance and quality development system. HEIs have to be accredited and listed in the register of HEIs and the register of institutions at a commercial court in order to begin their activities. The process of initial accreditation is done by the ASHE. In order to be financed from the national budget, universities need to obtain a positive evaluation from ASHE. In order to be eligible for public funding, all HEIs (public and private) have to undergo reaccreditation every 5 years.
References Act on Quality Assurance in Science and Higher Education. [Zakon o osiguranju kvalitete u znanosti i visokom obrazovanju]. Narodne novine [Official Gazette], 45/09 (Uredba). https://www.azvo.hr/images/stories/o_nama/ Act_on_Quality_Assurance_in_Science_and_Higher_ Education.pdf. Accessed Mar 2017. Agency for Science and Higher Education. 2011. About the Agency for Science and Higher Education. https:// www.azvo.hr/en/about-ashe. Accessed Mar 2017. Agency for Science and Higher Education. 2017. Mozvag – Directory of accredited study programmes in the Republic of Croatia. http://mozvag.srce.hr/preglednik/ pregled/en/pocetna/index.html. Accessed Mar 2017. Branković, J., and Vukasović, M. (2017). Partial horizontal differentiation in Croatian higher education: How ideas, institutions and interests shape the policy process. In Policy analysis of structural reforms in higher education: processes and outcomes, eds. H. de Boer, J. Huisman, J. File, M. Seeber, M. Vukasovic, and D.F. Westerheijden, 53–73. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Central Bureau of Statistics. 2016. Students enrolled on professional and university study, winter semester of 2015/ 2016 academic year. First Release. No. 8.1.7. http://www. dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/publication/2016/08-01-07_01_2016. htm. Accessed Apr 2017. Central Bureau of Statistics. 2017a. Students enrolled on postgraduate specialist studies, 2015/2016 academic year. First Release. No. 8.1.10. http://www.dzs. hr/Hrv_Eng/publication/2016/08-01-10_01_2016.htm. Accessed Apr 2017. Central Bureau of Statistics. 2017b. Students enrolled on postgraduate doctoral studies, 2015/2016 academic year. First Release. No. 8.1.11. http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/ publication/2016/08-01-11_01_2016.htm. Accessed Apr 2017. European Commission. 2016. Research and innovation observatory – Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba National Council for Science, Higher Education and Technological Development (NCSHETD). https://rio. jrc.ec.europa.eu/en/organisations/national-council-sc ience-higher-education-and-technological-developm ent-ncshetd. Accessed Apr 2017. European Union. About the EU. Countries. EU member countries in brief. https://europa.eu/european-union/abo ut-eu/countries/member-countries/croatia_en. Accessed Mar 2017. European University Association. 2017. University Autonomy in Europe III. Country profiles. Brussels: European University Association. chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.eua.eu/Librar ies/publications-homepage-list/university-autonomy-ineurope-iii-country-profiles. Accessed May 2017. Ministry of Science and Education. Legislature, development strategy and funding. http://public.mzos.hr/ Default.aspx?sec¼3143. Accessed Mar 2017. Reichard, M. 1992. Politics and culture in croatian higher education: A comparative perspective on educational reform. Community Services Catalyst 22 (4): 11–21. Science and Higher Education Act [Zakon o znanstvenoj djelatnosti i visokom obrazovanju], Narodne novine [Official Gazette], 123/03, 198/03 (Uredba), 105/04, 174/04, 2/07 OUSRH, 46/07, 45/09, 63/11, 94/13, 139/13, 101/14 OUSRH.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba Marcia Esther Noda Hernández Ministry of Higher Education, La Habana, Cuba
Introduction The Republic of Cuba is located in the Caribbean Sea, at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, and is the westernmost portion of the Greater Antilles. It has a surface area of 110,860 km2 and it’s characterized by its natural beauty. The Cuban economy is based on the country’s natural resources, which are very varied and range from minerals such as nickel and cobalt to tropical landscapes that attract millions of tourists every year. Human resources are the other fundamental pillar of the country’s economy which has the highest rates of literacy, life expectancy, and health coverage in Latin America and the Caribbean. Cuba is ranked 78 out of the 196 states that make up the world data population table with a population approaching 11.5 million people and
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an average population density of 104 inhabitants per km2. The essential aspects that characterize Cuban higher education can be summarized as follows: the conception of a scientific, technological, and humanistic university aimed at preserving, developing, and promoting culture, committed to the Cuban social project; the integral formation of the students based on the unity between instruction and education and on the study-work combination; the existence of national study plans updated periodically and with the necessary flexibility for their territorial adaptation; and the growing development of scientific research that qualifies as a substantial component of university work, turning universities into true research centers and achieving impact at the territorial and national levels (Alarcón Ortiz 2013).
History of the Higher Education System Higher education in Cuba is part of the national education system and is a consolidated subsystem properly articulated with the other levels of education that precede it. It covers undergraduate and postgraduate training as well as extension programs and scientific research. It began to develop almost three centuries ago, when the University of Havana was founded by the order of the Dominicans, on January 5, 1728. More than 200 years would have to pass until the creation of the Universidad de Oriente, in 1947, and of the Central University of Las Villas in 1952. The admission figures barely exceeded 15,000 students by that time. Majors on humanities predominated and the university was considered an elitist and exclusive one, not including national development. In December 1960, the Higher Council of Universities was created, with the objective of putting the university at the service and development of a new society. A year later, on December 22, 1961, an intense national campaign concluded which led to the declaration of Cuba free of illiteracy. In that same year, the free and democratic character of education was declared, and it was considered as a right and a duty of the country’s citizens.
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In the decade of the 1960s, the University Reform was developed, which provoked fundamental transformations in this level of education. Verbalism and memory training were outlawed. The government regime was modified as well as all the structure and management of the university including the structures of faculties, schools, and departments. The spectrum of career studies was restructured and widened according to the needs of the country and its development. Scientific research was established as a main goal of university work. The Cuban government, through Law No. 1306 of July 28, 1976, founded the Ministry of Higher Education (MES), in response to the need for restructuring higher education, departing from the conceptual definitions about the role of education in society. This implied improving the organizational structure and its efficiency in expanding higher education to different areas of development so that universities respond to the challenge of the expansion in undergraduate studies. Promoting university participation in the scientific research activity in the country, as well as in the organization and development of postgraduate education and the system of scientific university degrees, became of paramount importance.
Current Structure The higher education system in Cuba is composed by 52 public institutions, among which the University of Havana, the Central University Marta Abreu de las Villas, and the Technological University of Havana José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE) stand out for their category of excellence granted by the National Accreditation Board of the Republic of Cuba. The number of people with complete higher education at the end of 2015 was 1,165,002, according to the 2012 Census, which represents 12.6% of the adult population at that time. The gross enrollment rate is approximately 16%. The social composition in higher education is not different from the broad social representation
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba
of previous educational levels, which in Cuba have been practically universalized during years of a profound, remarkable educational revolution. This process is characterized by its tuition-free character, the wide coverage achieved, the diversity of courses offered, as well as the admission possibilities and the support of a housing system. In the last decade, there have been transformations aimed at the improvement of education, particularly those related to the search for higher levels of quality in the professional training, from a greater integrality characterized by the unity between education and instruction, the achievement of greater effectiveness in educational work and training of values, with an increase in the quality, efficiency, and rationality of management and integration of university processes based on the improvement of the training process in the academic year. Universities intensify educational innovation which undoubtedly strengthens training, extension, and research based on a better and more comprehensive response to territorial needs. Each year undergraduate enrollment exceeds 200,000 students, together with more than 500,000 professionals who are trained in master’s programs, postgraduate specialties, courses, trainings, and doctoral studies within and outside the country. In the last 3 years, there is a growing tendency to grow, both in the undergraduate and postgraduate programs, as can be seen in the data shown in Table 1. There are 94 5-year undergraduate courses, covering all areas of knowledge. The model of the formation of Cuban higher education has a broad profile, based on the integration between research work and preprofessional practice as its fundamental components (Brunner and Miranda 2016). For each university major, a document Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba, Table 1 Annual evolution of university enrollments 2015–2018 Academic courses 2015–2016 2016–2017 2017–2018
Undergraduate enrollment 165,926 218,643 245,938
Graduate enrollment 415,384 417,299 422,153
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Cuba
called “model of the professional” is designed. This document takes into account modes, fields of action, and functions of each future professional. The abovementioned elements constitute the starting point for the design of curriculum, and as such they reflect the general objectives to be achieved in each major, a pedagogical expression of the social mission that each university fulfills. This broad profile model that has been applied in Cuban higher education since the early 1990s has been thoroughly validated. The university career is a stage in the training of a professional, and this must be complemented with job training and the subsequent postgraduate studies. Hence, the improvement of the system of relationships established with the different organizations that receive the graduates in the training stage and the relevance of postgraduate programs that guarantee a lifetime education are topics of systematic debate in the higher education system and within the universities themselves. This has served to confirm that professionals who acquire a deep, basic training and learn the most general skills of a certain professional profile are much better suited to gain the needed, updated knowledge and skills through postgraduate activity. They should also develop the new skills required to satisfy the growing, changing demands and working conditions and the development of society. In Cuba, the State finances all education, from preschool levels to postgraduate education, and this is totally free for Cuban citizens living in the country. Approximately 10% of the gross domestic product is dedicated to education and 2–3% in particular to higher education.
Quality Assurance Quality management systems have been developed with a focus on processes in higher education institutions, which are based on the University System of Accreditation Programs, (Resolution 100 2000) which begin to bear fruit in terms of higher levels of accreditation of programs and institutions and above all in the
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development of a culture of quality in the university community of the country and its preparation for such purposes. The National Accreditation Board is the state agency that is responsible for evaluating and certifying quality; it is made up of experts from all over the country who are distinguished by their prestige as university professors and researchers (Espí Lacomba 2012; Lemaitre 2008). External evaluations are developed by peer evaluators prepared for this purpose within the group of academics in the country. This evaluation process carried out by chosen experts is completely free. Educational institutions and programs are equally assessed: university majors, master’s programs, postgraduate specialties, and doctorate programs. These evaluation processes are voluntary, although once the period of validity has elapsed (usually 5 years), the program or institution loses the granted category, unless renewed (Noda Hernández and Surós Reyes 2016). Additionally, the development of a system of evaluation and control of university management permits its continuous improvement and the increase of the quality of training of both undergraduate and postgraduate student (Nicado García and González Noguera 2016).
Scientific Research and Postgraduate Education In Cuba there are four categories that are given to faculty depending on the time of service and the results of their teaching and scientific work: fulltime professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and instructor. In the structure of teaching categories of the full-time faculty, there is a growing tendency to improve the teaching categories in its composition. Science in the University is organized by projects (currently 1729) which are mostly associated with national priorities and enterprises. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics and Information of the Republic of Cuba, 80,953 people are currently investigating, of which 4618 are
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic
full-time researchers; some 20,000 professors do research partially, while they carry out teaching or administrative tasks; and approximately 50,000 are students, out of which 4000 are ranked as of high level of achievement. The academic postgraduate level is aimed at the culmination of specialties as well as master’s and doctorate programs. Another aspect of the postgraduate course is the continuous professional formation aimed at updating and reinforcing the training of all university graduates in the country: professional improvement and academic training, responding to the growing needs of university graduates throughout the country, specifically their continuous training.
Projections The last few years have seen the growth of the network of teaching units, that is, entities of production or services where students perform their preprofessional practices that promote greater integration between teaching, production, and research at the university level. In this period, the state to ensure a work placement for each graduate of the university day courses, at the time of graduation, has been maintained. Faced with the challenges of the contemporary world and its crisis, the Cuban University declares its solidarity character and fights for the defense of human rights and for democracy, equality, and social justice which are key concepts of its daily work together with quality, relevance, efficiency, and sustainable development which will lead to an integrated and innovative university.
References Alarcón Ortiz, R. 2013. The quality of Cuban Higher Education: Contemporary challenges. Pedagogy 2013. Brunner, J., and D. Miranda 2016. Higher Education in Ibero-America. 2016 Report. Universia. CINDA. Chile. Espí Lacomba, N. 2012. The role of evaluation and accreditation agencies in the mutual recognition of degrees in Latin America and the Caribbean, IV International
Workshop on Evaluation and Accreditation in Higher Education, UNIV 2012, Havana, February 2012. Lemaitre, M.J. 2008. Current trends in higher education in Latin America, Diploma in Management of University Quality, Antenor Orrego Private University, Trujillo, Peru, January 2008. Nicado García, M., and R. González Noguera. 2016. The continuous improvement of quality: an experience at the University of Computer Sciences 10th International Congress of Higher Education “University 2016” Havana Cuba. Noda Hernández, M., and E. Surós Reyes. 2016. The role of evaluation and accreditation of programs and institutions in the context of university innovation. University course 2016. Resolution 100. 2000. University system of accreditation programs (SUPRA) Minister of Higher Education. Havana. Cuba. Standard NC ISO 9000:2005. Quality Management Systems. Fundamental principles and vocabulary. Cuba. Standard NC ISO 9001. 2008. Quality Management Systems. Requirements Cuba. Standard NC ISO 9004. 2009. Quality Management Systems. Guidelines for Performance Improvement. Cuba.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic Vladimír Roskovec and Helena Šebková Center for Higher Education Studies, Praha, Czech Republic
Development of the Higher Education System The Czech Republic (CR) is a parliamentary democratic state in Central Europe. It came into existence on 1. 1. 1993 after the division of former Czechoslovakia, which was established in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. CR is a relatively small country (78,886 km2) with 10.5 million inhabitants, three-quarters of whom live in urban areas and most of whom are of Czech nationality; other nationalities living in the country include the Slovak (3.1%), Polish (0.6%), German (0.5%), and Romany (0.3%) minorities. The capital and largest city is Prague with over 1.2 million
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic
residents. CR is a highly industrialized country with a rich cultural history. It joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004. The roots of the development of higher education go back to medieval times when Charles University, the first university in Central Europe, was founded in Prague in 1348 by the Czech King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Over the centuries, several other higher education institutions (HEIs) were founded, mostly after the political changes in 1918, 1945, and 1990. In 1990, very soon after what was known as the “Velvet Revolution,” in which students and HEIs played an important role, a new Higher Education Law was passed. It returned academic freedom and academic rights to HEIs, gave them a high level of autonomy and self-governance, stressed the connection of higher education with research, and introduced the principle of accreditation. A further important milestone was the Higher Education Act of 1998, which distinguished between public and state HEIs and enabled the establishment of private HEIs. Public and state HEIs are established by the Act, whereas private ones must obtain state permission from the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (hereafter referred to as the Ministry). The ownership of the state property used by public HEIs was transferred to the HEIs themselves. The Act legalized the three-level structure of degree programs: bachelor, master, and doctoral. In some fields of study, however (e.g., medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, law), the previous long master programs (4–6 years) have been preserved. The Act distinguished HEIs of university type (with all types of degree programs accredited) and nonuniversity type (with mostly bachelor programs and no doctoral ones). Nonuniversity HEIs are not divided into faculties. Both types of HEI are expected to provide relevant basic and/or applied research, development, and other creative activities. In 2015, the Czech higher education system was composed of 26 public HEIs (2 of them of nonuniversity type) with 143 faculties, 2 state HEIs (Police Academy and University of Defence) and 41 private HEIs (most of them of the nonuniversity type). The degree programs
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic, Table 1 Six largest public higher education institutions in the Czech Republic
University Charles University, Prague Masaryk University, Brno Palacký University, Olomouc Brno University of Technology Czech Technical University, Prague Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague
Year of foundation 1348
Number of students enrolled (2015) 47,000
1919
33,000
(1577) 1946 1899
20,900 20,700
1707
20,200
1952
19,200
Source: Statistical yearbooks on education (various years)
offered by private HEIs focus primarily on economics and the humanities. Table 1 shows the six largest (public) HEIs, with year of foundation and the number of students enrolled in 2015. The number of students at Czech HEIs has increased considerably since 1990. In the years after 1990, higher education massification led to “universal” (more than 50% of a given age cohort) access which was reached roughly in 2010. After this date, student numbers stagnated or even decreased due to both the decline of the demographic curve and restrictions of funds provided by the Ministry. The large changes of numbers in master programs reflect the gradual introduction of the new structure of degree programs according to the Bologna Process after 1998 (see Table 2). Most students (88.3%) are studying at public HEIs; the two state HEIs have a fairly stable number of students of about 4000 (1.2% of the total number), while the 34,800 students at the 41 private HEIs represent about 10.5% of the total number. Most graduates in bachelor programs continue their study in master programs, at the same HEIs or at the others. In 2015, about 80% of bachelor graduates went on to study for a Master degree.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Czech Republic, Table 2 Number of students according to degree program (1990–2015) Year 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Number of students (in thousands) Total Bachelor Master 118.2 148.4 193.1 34.7 11.4 294.8 154.8 24.1 403.1 249.8 86.6 331.3 193.7 81.9
Long-cycle master
PhDs
131.7 93.5 40.7 31.8
15.3 22.4 26.0 23.9
New enrolments Number In % of 19-year-olds 24.5 14 43.6 23 45.4 30 68.0 49 81.6 62 55.7 56
Source: Statistical yearbooks on education (various years)
The proportion of women is about 56%, with exceptions in long master programs (65%) and doctoral programs (44%). Foreign students make up about 13% of the total. Major areas of enrolment at public HEIs: technical sciences (25%), economics (18%), humanities (15%), pedagogy (12%), science (10%), and medicine and pharmacy (10%). At private HEIs, most students are enrolled in economics (45%), humanities (30%), and law (10%).
Higher Education Governance The distribution of competences and responsibilities between individual state bodies and HEIs has been relatively stable since 1998. The system has been regulated by the Higher Education Law issued in that year, which demarcated the state competences (represented by the Ministry) and “moved the system from a full institutional focus to a more mixed and balanced state-institutionmarket focus” (File and Goedegebuure 2003). The steering instruments at the central level applied to public HEIs are only indirect. For implementing strategic goals and for developing higher education (system steering), the Ministry can make use of the instrument of the distribution of financial support from the state budget to the HEIs. The Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior have similar instruments available with regard to state HEIs. As far as the private HEIs are concerned, the interventions from the central level are limited to the state permission and quality assurance (accreditation).
In addition to the Ministry, the Accreditation Commission was a very important body at the state level until 2016. It issued opinions on requests for accreditation to provide degree programs and to carry out habilitation procedures and procedures for appointing professors, and on requests for state permission to establish a private HEI. The relevant decisions were issued by the Ministry. By means of an amendment to the Act that came into force in September 2016, the National Accreditation Office (NAO) was established replacing the previous Accreditation Commission. It has similar tasks, but the power to award the accreditation has been transferred from the Ministry to the NAO. It can also, under strict conditions with regard to quality assurance, award institutional accreditation (see section “Other Main Issues”).The executive body of NAO is the board consisting of a chairman, 2 vice-chairmen, and 12 members who are appointed by the government. The important and influential “buffer bodies” between the Ministry and the HEIs are the Czech Rectors’ Conference, composed of the rectors of all HEIs, and the Council of HEIs, composed of the representatives of the Academic Senates of public HEIs and their faculties and the representatives nominated by private HEIs. The Students’ Chamber of the Council of HEIs enables students to have an influence on strategic issues at the national level. The Ministry is obliged to consult these bodies on all important issues concerning higher education, in particular the budget and proposals for new legislation. As a result of long-term experience, the required consultations have come
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to be viewed as a useful necessity, rather than as a legal obligation. The governing bodies at public and state HEIs are the Rector, Academic Senate (AS), Scientific Board, and Board of Trustees. Their rights and responsibilities are defined by the Act, and the details are set out in the internal regulations of each HEI. The Rector is in charge of the whole institution and he/she acts and decides in its name. However, a number of fundamental decisions are made by the AS. The AS elects a nominee for the post of Rector who is appointed by the President of the CR. The Rector can nominate several Vice-rectors for individual areas of governance. Members of the AS are elected from the institution’s academic community by academics and students; the proportion of students in the AS is determined by internal regulations (the Act stipulates that their proportion must be between onethird and one-half). The AS decides on the institutional budget, the strategy documents, and the annual reports on activities and on financial management. It also approves internal regulations and the establishment (or closure, merging, or division) of parts of the HEI. The Scientific Board approves the degree programs and research plans and plays an important role in the habilitation procedures and procedures for appointing professors (see section “Academic Profession, Administrative Staff”). Its members are nominated by the Rector from distinguished personalities in the areas of study and research offered by the HEI; at least one-third of its members must be from outside the HEI. The Board of Trustees is composed entirely of members from outside the university who are appointed by the minister after consultation with the Rector. The Board of Trustees is supposed to ensure proper use and maintenance of the HEI property. Another important role of the Board is that its external members bring new ideas into HEIs and are invited to express their standpoint on all important activities provided by the HEI.
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The governing bodies at faculty level are the Dean, the Academic Senate of the Faculty, and the Scientific Board of the Faculty. Their competencies are analogous to the Boards of the HEI as a whole. Faculties are to a large extent independent from the HEI, but they are not the legal persons. The internal structure and governing bodies of private HEIs are not regulated by the Act but in many cases follow the structures and governing bodies of public HEIs.
Funding Higher education provided by public and state HEIs in the Czech language is in general free of charge and these HEIs are financed predominantly by the state. Students must pay fees only when the period of their study exceeds the standard period by more than 1 year. Teaching activities of public HEIs are financed by the Ministry. The main portion of the institutional budget provided by the state is determined by the number of students in individual study programs multiplied by the coefficient of economic demands (there are 7 coefficients, from 1.0 for humanities and economy to 5.9 for arts). The remaining portion is allocated according to indicators of quality and performance (results in R&D, international activities, etc.). The number of students is not limited (there is no numerus clausus), but the Ministry lays down rules for the number of financed students in the next year (e.g., an increase of only 2%). The Ministry also provides public HEIs with funds for their advancement and international cooperation, scholarships for doctoral students, and funds for the construction and maintenance of buildings and for equipment. State HEIs are financed according to similar rules by the relevant ministries. The income of private HEIs comes mainly from tuition fees which vary between 20 and 60 thousand CZK per semester. Nonprofit private HEIs can exceptionally obtain a contribution from the Ministry.
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Support for students (social scholarships, scholarships for accommodation) is provided by the Ministry to all HEIs. In the years 2010–2015, the state contribution to HEIs for the activities mentioned above was about 22 billion CZK per year. The financial support for R&D makes up a significant part of the HEIs’ budget. For some public HEIs, it is greater than the funding for teaching. The state institutional support (in 2015 about 5 billion CZK) is distributed according to research results in past years. HEIs also apply for targeted support (grants) from various national and international agencies and programs. The total public expenditure for R&D at HEIs is around 15 billion CZK. The total public support for HEIs now constitutes about 2.8% of the state budget and 0.8% of GDP. Considerable support in recent years has come to HEIs from EU Operational Programmes. HEIs have other incomes from commercial R&D activities, lifelong learning programs, property rental, or other activities.
Academic Profession, Administrative Staff The Law defines the following ranks of academic staff: lecturer, assistant, senior assistant, associate professor (docent), professor, and “researcher” (who usually has limited teaching duties). Academics of all ranks teach and also carry out research or other creative activities. Other specialists may take part in teaching on the basis of special contracts. The academic degree of Ph.D. (or its equivalent) is a necessary condition for the position of senior assistant and for higher ranks. An associate professor for a given field of study is appointed by the Rector on the basis of the procedure called habilitation, in which the scientific or artistic capacity of the candidate is verified by the defense of a habilitation thesis and his/her teaching skills by delivering a special lecture. Both are assessed by the scientific board of the faculty. The procedure for
appointing a professor begins with the scientific board of the faculty and is completed by the scientific board of the HEI, on whose recommendation the appointment is made by the President of the CR. The criteria for both procedures are generally quite strict, so the average age of newly appointed professors is around 50 years. The titles of associate professor or professor are not tied to a particular HEI. They are awarded for life and valid throughout the country. Academic staff numbers have not changed much in recent years. The data from 2015 are as follows (with the number of women in brackets): lecturers and assistants 3050 (1580), senior assistants 12,300 (4900), researchers 6000 (2150), associate professors 4630 (1130), and professors 2610 (380). Administrative staff at HEI level are responsible to the Bursar, at the faculty level to the faculty Head of Administration and Finances. The Bursar is subordinated to the Rector, the faculty Head of Administration and Finances to the Dean. In 2015, there were about 20,250 (13,100) administrative and other employees at HEIs. Public and private HEIs have their own internal salary regulations and they are free to determine the number of academic and administrative staff.
Other Main Issues The amendment of the Higher Education Act in 2016 placed increased emphasis on quality assurance and introduced some changes in this area at both internal and external levels. HEIs need to have a functioning internal system of quality assurance and the Act stipulates its basic features. HEIs have to produce a self-evaluation report periodically and publish the general results of the evaluation in the annual activity report. The NAO can now decide on and award the institutional accreditation (for 10 years) which enables an HEI to decide independently about new degree programs in designated areas of education. (The Act lists 37 such areas.) The Act now also
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distinguishes between academically and professionally oriented degree programs. The use of new technologies has been developed gradually, predominantly in combination with distance modes of education or in particular in combination with both distance and on-site modes of education. It represents the priority of some HEIs which have suffered from the demographic decline (which was expected in the time period 2011–2025 and has already begun) and which rely on nontraditional, older, and already employed students. The proportion of students in the distance and combined modes of education among the total number of students increased in the process of massification and reached its maximum around 2010: at public HEIs it was almost 24%, at private HEIs 63%. In recent years, the proportion has been slightly decreasing. The unemployment of HEIs’ graduates was 2.6% in 2014 which was among the lowest in OECD countries. State and institutional policies have strongly supported the internationalization of Czech higher education since 1990. Czech representatives have started to work for important international organisations (OECD, UNESCO, Council of Europe), and individual HEIs have developed partnerships and cooperation with foreign HEIs through agreements, various projects, and memberships in international organizations and associations. The CR and HEIs have also played an active role in the Bologna process from its beginning. The number of foreign students is continually increasing: in 2000 it was 7500 (3.5% of the total number), while in 2015, it was 42,200 (12.9%). More than half of them come from Slovakia (Slovak students can study in Czech). About 25% of degree programs are accredited in foreign languages, predominantly in English, and 4% are of a joint/double/multiple degree type. The available data about Czech students studying abroad shows that in the academic year 2012/ 13 altogether 3.5% of all Czech students graduated abroad (the EU-28 average is 2.9%) and 2.9%
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of all students had studied abroad (EU-28 average 3.1%). The participation of students and academics in mobility programs has increased significantly in the last 10 years. In 2014, the number of both outgoing and incoming students was nearly 13,000, while 20% of academic staff spent a period abroad (teaching, researching, or attending conferences). More than 5% of graduates have had a study related period abroad at least once during their studies (the national goal is 10%).
References Act No. 111/1998 Coll. on Higher Education Institutions and on the Amendment and Supplement to Some Other Laws (the Higher Education Law) amended and consolidated [online]. https://portal.gov.cz/app/zakony/ zakonPar.jsp?page¼0&idBiblio¼46613&nr¼111~2F 1998&rpp¼15#local-content (in Czech). Other data source. http://media.ehea.info/file/Czech_ Republic/54/6/National_Report_Czech_Republic_2015_ 566546.pdf Statistical Yearbooks on Education (in Czech). http://www. msmt.cz/vzdelavani/skolstvi-v-cr/statistika-skolstvi/roc enky, http://www.msmt.cz/vzdelavani/skolstvi-v-cr/ statistika-skolstvi/statisticka-rocenka-skols, students: http://dsia.uiv.cz/vystupy/vu_vs.html
Further Reading Beneš, Josef, and Vladimír Roskovec. 2009. Higher education in the Czech Republic 2008. Prague: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. File, Jon, and Leo Goedegebuure, eds. 2003. Real-time systems. Reflections on higher education in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. Brno: Vutium. File, Jon, Thomas Weko, Arthur Hauptman, Bente Kristensen, and Sabine Herlitschka. 2006. Country note. Czech Republic. OECD thematic review of tertiary education. Prague: Centre for Higher Education Studies. Santiago, Paulo, Karine Tremblay, Ester Basri, and Elena Arnal. 2008. Tertiary education for the knowledge society (OECD thematic review of tertiary education: Synthesis report). Paris: OECD. Šebková, Helena, ed. 2006. Tertiary education in the Czech Republic. Country background report for OECD thematic review of tertiary education. Prague: Centre for Higher Education Studies.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Denmark Hanne Foss Hansen University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
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professions and administrative staff. The final section includes the conclusion as well as a discussion of future challenges. The analysis is based on documentary material in the form of statistics, analyses, evaluations, etc. and on findings from scholarly research projects.
The Landscape Introduction Denmark is a small country situated in Northern Europe. It has a long history in higher education with the University of Copenhagen established in 1479 (Hansen 2000). Post-World War II history of HE is one of expansion organized in a setting of the Nordic welfare model. This means that welfare provision including higher education is based on the principle of universalism and funded through taxation. Further the higher education grant and loan scheme offering students financial support is generous compared to most other countries. In Denmark, the higher education landscape is structured with four qualifications levels: a short-cycle academic professional level, a firstcycle bachelor’s level, a second-cycle master’s level, and a third-cycle PhD level. Educational programs are offered by three different types of institutions: academies of professional higher education, university colleges, and universities. In this chapter, the Danish higher education landscape will be more thoroughly described and analyzed. The following questions are addressed: (1) How is the landscape organized overall and which are the tasks and structures of the different types of institutions? (2) Which are the major transformations that have taken place in the higher education system in the last decades? The analysis is structured in four sections. The next section presents the landscape and the tasks and structures of the different types of institutions. Following this a section analyzes transformations related to the following themes: (limits to) growth, the implementation of the Bologna process, governance, mergers, and research funding. The third section is concerned with the academic
The Danish higher education landscape mainly consists of three institutional types: nine academies of professional higher education, seven university colleges, and eight universities. Besides, educational programs in, for example, architecture, music, art, maritime, and police education are offered by other types of institutions. Only around 2% of the total number of students admitted each year are enrolled in these other types of institutions. Therefore, they are not included in this analysis. The academies of professional higher education offer academic professional programs as well as certain professional bachelor programs within the technical and business fields. They are regional institutions, all of them with several campuses. The university colleges offer mainly professional bachelor programs, mostly directed toward welfare provision in the public sector by training teachers, pedagogues, nurses, social workers, etc. University colleges are also regional institutions. However, two institutions are located in the capital region of Denmark. Universities offer bachelor, master, and PhD programs organized mainly according to a 3 + 2 + 3 structure. In addition, they are responsible for the major part of public research activities including giving scientific advice to public authorities, a task until 2006 located at governmental research institutes (GRIs). All three types of institutions are selfgoverning institutions but have boards with a majority of external members. The boards have the overall responsibility for the budget as well as for appointing the principal/vice chancellor and for entering into a development contract with the Ministry of Higher Education and Science.
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Denmark, Table 1 Number of institutions, students, and employees as well as shares of students and spending in different parts of Danish higher education (2016)
Academies of professional higher education University colleges Universities
Number of institutions 9
Number of enrolled students 25,855
Number of employees (fulltime equivalents) 2,300
Share of students admitted (2016) 17%
Share of spending: education (2016) 11%
Share of spending: research (2016) Very low
7
70,000
7,400
33%
29%
3%
8
160,000
33,500
48%
53%
84%
Sources: Danske Professionshøjskoler (2016) supplemented with figures from the three types of institutions interest organizations
Educational funding is results based primarily based on the number of students passing exams and not related to the development contracts. The three types of institutions are organized in separate networks and interest organizations. Table 1 summarizes key figures for 2015/2016 on the three types of institutions. The table shows that the university part of the system is by far the largest measured in the number of students and employees. The universities enroll around 50% of the overall number of students, university colleges enroll around 30%, and the academies of professional higher education most of the rest. In terms of research, the universities spend nearly 85% of the national research budget.
Transformations The Danish higher education system has gone through a considerable transformation in recent decades. Several streams of change have been interacting. Four streams of change are of importance to both academies of professional higher education, university colleges, and universities. One stream concerns a dramatic increase in the number of students and the share of youth population enrolled in higher education. A second stream concerns changes related to the implementation of the Bologna process, a third changes in governance systems and leadership, and a fourth stream of landscape changes in the form of mergers. Finally, in relation to the universities, a stream of change in research funding is also of
importance. The five streams are analyzed separately below and the interactions between the streams are discussed. Limits to Growth Since World War II, the history of the Danish higher education system has been mostly one of expansion and massification (Ahola et al. 2014). Governmental goals concerning the share of a youth cohort embarking on higher education programs has been steadily increasing aiming at 60% of a cohort having a higher education by 2020, of which 25% were to have a master level degree. And the goals seem to become fulfilled. However, limits on higher education intake have been introduced in period following economic recession after 2008. Previously this had been the case in the 1970s and has been the case again in recent years. The present government has abolished the target figures and introduced cutbacks as well as some limits to individual rights to education. Bologna Process: Translation and Implementation The Bologna Process aiming at increasing mobility and homogenizing program structures across European HE was initiated in 1999. Denmark has implemented the major goals to a large degree, including the ECTS system, the 3 + 2 + 3 degree structure, and the qualification framework (Hansen 2012; Ahola et al. 2014). Quality assurance was implemented first by establishing the Danish Evaluation Institute (EVA) in 1999 and
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later by establishing an accreditation institution (Hansen 2014). The Bologna Process has restructured the HE system into an increasingly competitive market recently supported by developing a system with easily accessible transparent data, for example, on student assessments of programs, job possibilities, and other things. Cross-university moves of students from between bachelor and master’s level have become common. The number of Danish students studying abroad has been rising as well as the number of international students coming to Denmark. But even though flexibility and mobility have increased, most university bachelor candidates still progress to a master’s program as there is no real labor market for university bachelors. Also in some fields, it continues to be difficult for professional bachelors from university colleges to become enrolled in master’s programs at a university. In recent years, there has been a strong employability focus in Danish higher education policy. It has become mandatory for educational programs to have advisory panels composed of labor market representatives. In addition, student admission is increasingly restricted for programs having a high share of graduates not being employed. The match of programs with labor market demand has high political priority. Analyses have shown that the degree of match with labor market demand differs across fields. In particular, match problems in the field of the humanities have been discussed (Udvalget for Kvalitet og Relevans I de Videregående Uddannelser 2014; DEA 2016). Governance and Leadership Following the student rebellion in 1968, a democratic institutional governance system was introduced at universities. Academic staff, administrative staff, and students were represented in all decision-making bodies, and leaders were elected at all levels. In 1993, a reform was passed incrementally moving the system toward the direction of putting more weight on leadership. In 2003, a new university law introduced a corporate-like governance structure including boards with appointed leaders and a majority of external members. Former democratic decision-
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making bodies except for study boards were turned into advisory councils. The reform transformed the university governance structure radically and became a prerequisite for further reforms. The reform has strengthened the universities as strategic actors launching strategy work and strategic development initiatives. In addition, a stricter human resource policy has been introduced. The legitimacy of such leadership initiatives is often questioned among scholars. Mergers The institutional structure of Danish higher education has been markedly changed and centralized through several waves of mergers. In 1998, there were 195 higher education institutions (Undervisningsministeriet 1998). Today there are little more than 30 institutions in total. Each of the three parts of the system has its own structural transformation history. The academies of professional higher education were established in 2009 in a process in which higher education programs formerly located at institutions responsible for vocational education and training were transferred to and merged with this new type of institution (Rambøll 2013). The merger history of the university colleges had started long before. In the second half of the 1980s, teacher colleges were closed down. In 2000, a reform urged institutions to voluntarily reorganize into centers for higher education. In 2004, altogether 23 centers were established formed from 96 previously independent institutions (Rigsrevisionen 2004). In 2007, further mergers had reduced this number to 14 centers. In spring 2007, it was decided more coercively to establish the present university colleges. In the university field, both mergers of universities and mergers of universities and governmental research institutes (GRIs) were put on the agenda in 2001. However, only a few mergers saw the light of day in the following years. In 2006, a coercive process resulted in a large merger reform in the framework of which 12 universities and 13 GRIs were transformed into the eight universities and a small number of national GRIs (Aagaard et al. 2016). The aim was to strengthen quality in both research and education.
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Concerning academies of professional higher education and university colleges mergers have resulted in regional higher education systems with multi-campus structures, while university mergers have resulted in a structure with several multi-campus universities distributed all over the country. For example, the University of Aalborg located with its main campus in the northern part of Jutland has established a large campus in Copenhagen. Research Funding The transformation of the Danish research funding system has largely mirrored international trends (Aagaard 2017). First, there was an almost uninterrupted growth. Especially the so-called Globalization Agreement from 2006 increased investments in research. Even in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008–2009, growth continued. Cuts have been introduced only in recent years. The prior broad political agreement about high ambitions in the fields of higher education and research has been replaced by ambiguity. The present government has not supported the exemption of the field of higher education from the general austerity policies. Second, a rather stable Humboldt-inspired floor funding model with few strings attached to public funds has been transformed into a complex multi-tiered system. Parts of the basic university funds for research are now distributed in the framework of a results-based system. Different types of funding councils including important centers of excellence initiative (Langfeldt et al. 2013, 2015) have been established beside the classical research councils. Funding from private foundations as well as international funding especially from the EU is increasingly important. Finally, PhD education has been boosted. From 2003 to 2010, the number of enrolments in PhD programs more than doubled (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet 2017). In recent years growth has stopped, but intake levels have been maintained. Interactions Between Streams of Transformation Comparing the five streams of change, it becomes visible that international and national agendas
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tightly interact in the development of both educational and research policy. The Bologna Process in higher education and the initiatives triggered by the EU research policy have been important influences on Danish reform policies. Furthermore, at the national level, the university governance and leadership reform of 2003 was a prerequisite for both the merger reform and the investments following the Globalization Agreement, including the PhD boost. Finally, the institutional aspects of reforms reflect not only educational and research policy agendas but also overall public-sector reform agendas. Not only in HE but also in many other policy fields, the confidence in strengthened management and leadership as well as merger reforms has been important and popular policy initiatives. A strong believe in economies of scale has been a characteristic of public-sector reforms.
Academic Profession and Administrative Staff As shown in Table 1, the majority of staff in higher education is employed by the universities. In 2016, the total number of university staff was more than 33,000 measured in full-time equivalents (http://dkuni.dk/Statistik/Universiteternesstatistiske-beredskab). Of these more than 19,000 (i.e., 57%) are academic staff. The rest is administrative and technical staff, including technical staff working on research tasks. The statistics also show how many full-time equivalents are used for different tasks. Approximately 30% are used for teaching activities, 60% for research activities, and 10% for management and administration. The above numbers of academic staff include PhD students who, in Denmark, are mostly part of the hired staff. If PhD students are excluded, the number of academic staff is nearly 11,000 in terms of the number of persons employed. Of these 22% are full professors, 41% associate professors, and the rest assistant professors, post-docs, and research assistants (Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet 2016). Most full and associate professorships are permanent positions. However, the Danish system is
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not a tenure system in the sense that these positions are “jobs for life” (Enders 2015). On the contrary, there have been rounds of dismissals at several universities in recent years. Women are systematically underrepresented at the highest levels of the academic profession. Whereas men and women are equally represented at masters and PhD student levels, inequality increases when moving up the career ladder. At the level of full professors, around 85% are men (Norden 2013). In this respect Denmark differs from the other Nordic countries where there has been a more permanent political attention to improving gender inequalities in academia. To some extent, the 2003 university law mentioned above has changed managerial recruitment patterns. Recruitment of heads of departments, deans, and vice chancellors from the outside has become more common. Likewise has recruitment with a clear mandate from the manager above to change things and roll out strategies for certain key issues become more important. This has not been uncontroversial, especially not in relation to recruitments from either outside the university sector or from abroad. In several cases such recruitments have resulted in premature manager dismissals. Gender inequality also is found in university top management where female representation is about 20% (Pinheiro et al. 2015).
Conclusion and Discussion The Danish higher education landscape has gone through considerable transformation and yet retained classical characteristics. As shown in the analysis, the higher education system has been transformed through growth and massification, the implementation of the Bologna Process, and mergers as well as through leadership and governance reforms. But at the same time, the higher education system has, to a large degree, retained its classical division into institutions taking care of short-cycle, first-cycle professional bachelor and long university bachelor programs and master and PhD programs. There have been mergers in all of the sectors, but mergers between the sectors happened only to a very limited degree. In this
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respect, the higher education transformation process in Denmark has been very different from processes in countries Denmark often compares itself with, for example, Norway and Sweden, where more unitary systems have developed. To accept university colleges to develop into universities and to spread resources for research across different types of institutions have basically been non-decisions. This policy line seems to have been a wise research policy on the one hand. In an international comparative perspective, Denmark scores very well on research output and outcome (Dansk Center for Forskningsanalyse 2016). On the other hand, it has probably been a less wise educational policy. Teaching in professional bachelor programs is research based only to a very limited extent, and in some areas, there are still difficulties for candidates from these programs to continue their studies at university master level. In recent years, cutbacks, stricter dimensioning of programs not matching labor market demands, and limitations of individual rights to education have been introduced. Furthermore, a political agenda aiming at reducing the costs for the higher education grants and loans scheme have taken up much room in public discussions. There are two questions on this agenda. Should grants for Danish students in higher education be reduced, for example, following reforms in Norway some years ago? Should a ceiling be introduced on the number of European students enrolled in higher education programs in Denmark? Currently, the austerity climate related to public spending is likely to introduce considerable changes in the Danish higher education system in the coming years. Is the Nordic HE welfare state about to change?
References Aagaard, Kaare. 2017. The evolution of a National Research Funding System: Transformative change through layering and displacement. Minerva. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s112024-017-9317-1. Aagaard, Kaare, Hanne F. Hansen, and Jørgen G. Rasmussen. 2016. Mergers in Danish higher education: An overview over the changing landscape. In Mergers in higher education, ed. Romulo Pinheiro, Lars Geschwind, and Timo Aarrevaara, 73–88. Heidelberg: Springer. Ahola, Sakari, Tina Hedmo, Jens-Peter Thomsen, and Agnete Vabø. 2014. Organisational features of higher
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador education: Denmark, Finland, Norway & Sweden. Working Paper 14. Oslo: NIFU. Dansk Center for Forskningsanalyse. 2016. Links between research policy and national academic performance. Main report. Aarhus. Danske Professionshøjskoler. 2016. Professionshøjskoler i tal 2016. DEA. 2016. Universitetsuddannedes vej ud på arbejdsmarkedet. København. Enders, Jürgen. 2015. Explainer: How Europe does academic tenure. The Conversation, June 29. Hansen, Hanne F. 2000. Dynamisk inerti: Universitetssektoren gennem 35 år. In Forandringer i teori og praksis –skiftende billeder af den offentlige sektor, ed. Marianne Antonsen and Torben B. Jørgensen, 275–312. København: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Hansen, Hanne F. 2012. Universiteter i en brydningstid: Bologna, Lissabon og den danske andedam. In Hvordan styres videnssamfundet? ed. Jan Faye and David B. Pedersen. Frederiksberg: Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne. Hansen, Hanne F. 2014. ‘Quality Agencies’: the development of regulating and mediating organizations in Scandinavian higher education. In Building the Knowledge Economy in Europe: New Constellations in European Research and Higher Education Governance, ed. Meng-Hsuan Chou and Åse Gornitzka, 188–218. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Incorporated. Langfeldt, Liv, Siri B. Borlaug, Dag Aksnes, Mats Benner, Hanne F. Hansen, Egil Kallerud, Ernst H. Kristansen, Anntti Pelkonen, and Gunnar Sivertsen. 2013. Excellence initiatives in Nordic research policies: Policy issues – Tensions and options. Oslo: NIFU. Langfeldt, Liv, Mats Benner, Gunnar Sivertsen, Ernst H. Kristansen, Dag Aksnes, Siri B. Borlaug, Hanne F. Hansen, Egil Kallerud, and Anntti Pelkonen. 2015. Excellence and Growth dynamics: A comparative study of the Matthew effect. Science and Public Policy 42 (5): 661–675. Norden. 2013. The Nordic Region: A step closer to gender balance in research? Joint Nordic strategies and measures to promote gender balance among researchers in Academia. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Pinheiro, Rómulo, Lars Geschwind, Hanne F. Hansen, and Elias Pekkola. 2015. Academic leadership in the Nordic Countries: Patterns of gender equality. In Women’s voices in management, ed. Helena Desivilya Syna and Carmen-Eugenia Costea, 15–33. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rambøll. 2013. Evaluering af erhvervsakademistrukturen. Rapport. København: Styrelsen for Videregående Uddannelser og Uddannelsesstøtte. Rigsrevisionen. 2004. Faktuelt notat til Statsrevisorerne om økonomien på Centre for Videregående Uddannelser. København. Uddannelsesog Forskningsministeriet. 2016. Videnskabeligt personale på universiteterne 2015. København.
985 Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet. 2017. Ph.d.uddannelsens kvalitet og relevans. København. Udvalget for Kvalitet og Relevans I de Videregående Uddannelser. 2014. Nye veje. Analyserapport. København. Undervisningsministeriet. 1998. Det 21. århundredes uddannelsesinstitutioner. København.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador M. Amanda Johnson-Toala Navitas, Boston, MA, USA
Synonyms Higher education development; Higher education spending; Policy; Quality assurance; Trends
Definition The historical development, contemporary policy state, and trends of the higher education sector in Ecuador.
Historical Development of Higher Education in Ecuador Like many countries in Latin America, higher education in Ecuador was deeply affected by the cultural, social, and economic systems and institutions of colonial Spain. The first university in the region now known as Ecuador, Universidad de San Fulgencio de Quito, was chartered in 1586 and represented the policies of the Spanish Crown and Church. A turning point for higher education in Ecuador came with the arrival of the Jesuits. Known for their brand of education, King Phillip III received pontifical authorization to create a new university, Universidad San Gregorio Magno, in 1620. However, after the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish colonies in 1676 by King Charles III, San Gregorio Magno transferred over to the management of the Dominican order (Chacón Burbano 1996). Nine years later, San Gregorio Magno was closed and a third
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university, Santo Tomás de Aquino, was opened in 1688 (Burbano and de Lourdes 1996). Ultimately, the two remaining colonial universities would merge under the leadership of Simón Bolívar in 1826 to form Universidad Central del Ecuador, the oldest university in Ecuador today. With independence from Spain, the republican university would replace the colonial model of universities in the nineteenth century. Modeled on French universities and inspired by the seventeenth century French Enlightenment, the republican university was composed of faculties corresponding to professional fields like law, medicine, and engineering (Bernasconi 2008). During the 1800s, four universities were developed: Universidad Central del Ecuador (1826), Universidad de Guayaquil (1867), Universidad de Cuenca (1868), and Escuela Politécnica Nacional (1869; Burbano and de Lourdes 1996). Escuela Politécnica Nacional was the first polytechnic university of its kind in Ecuador. Founded by Gabriel Garcia Moreno, theocratic dictator of Ecuador, the university focused on scientific teaching and research. The university was closed in 1876 and not reopened until 1935 by then President Velasco Ibarra. La Revolución Juliana of 1925 led to the establishment of a higher education law that instilled the principles of Reforma de Córdoba of 1918 for the first time in the university system in Ecuador (Burbano and de Lourdes 1996). These principles included academic freedom and university autonomy. From 1943 to 1970, nine universities were developed, including the creation of the first private university, Pontifica Universidad Católica del Ecuador. The modern higher education system of Ecuador is rooted in the period of growth in the 1970s due to a newfound oil industry (Jameson 1997). Four public higher education institutions were created during this time: two comprehensive universities, Escuela Politécnica del Ejército (armed forces university) and Escuela Politécnica del Chimborazo; and two postgraduate institutions, Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales and Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Ramírez 2016). In 1988, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, a private university, was founded and adopted the model of the US liberal
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arts college (Jameson 1997). During the 1990s, however, Ecuador experienced an economic crisis that led to a surge in private universities in response to a weakened regulatory environment (Post 2011). This surge in “garage universities,” private universities of poor quality, would continue under the law of higher education of 2000, led by President Jamil Mahuad’s neoliberal policies (Ramírez 2016).
Recent Policy Developments With the election of Rafael Correa as 43rd president of Ecuador, in 2007, came a dramatic shift in the policy landscape of higher education in the country. The new government under Correa envisioned higher education as a vehicle to raise the country’s profile in the knowledge economy and meet its social, economic, and developmental needs (Johnson 2017; Saavedra 2012). With the new president came a new constitution with mandates related to higher education, e.g., making public universities tuition-free and establishing the regulatory capacity of the State over higher education. Further, the 2008 constitution mandated the creation of a new higher education law, Ley Organíca de Educación Superior (LOES). With LOES, new government organizations were created in order to manage the policies created by the new constitution and law, which increased government control of postsecondary education. The National Council of Higher Education (CONESUP) was replaced by the Council of Higher Education (CES) to plan, evaluate, and coordinate the system of higher education along with the executive branch of the government. The Secretary of Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation (SENESCYT) was created to develop and manage policies and practices related to research, human talent and scholarships, higher education sector data transparency, and the national university exam system. Moreover, LOES charged a newly created accrediting body with the duty of obligating the postsecondary system to standardize and raise the quality of education. The Council of Higher Education Evaluation, Accreditation, and Quality
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Assurance – now referred to as the Council of Higher Education Quality Assurance (CACES) – replaced the previous accrediting body as the overseer for ensuring universities conform to the national accreditation model. In 2012, the council, which employs an institutional ranking mechanism in order to ensure compliance, closed 14 private universities due to their inability to make rapid enough changes to meet accreditation standards (Ballas and Avilés 2016). Many in public and private higher education in Ecuador saw these new polices and mechanisms as an affront to the principles of Córdoba and university autonomy (Saavedra 2012). Top-down policy development from the Ecuadorian government required universities implement new regulations governing faculty and administration and ultimately, how universities classify themselves. From the law came a regulation laying out binding rules governing the career rank and ladder for professors and researchers related to all facets of their work. Moreover, another stipulation required the categorization of public and private universities and polytechnics that offer both undergraduate and graduate degrees to classify as a “teachingresearch” institution or a “teaching” institution. As a “teaching-research” university, the university should have a high number of faculty with doctorates and offer doctoral degrees.
The Contemporary State of Higher Education Higher education in Ecuador has developed considerably over a short period of time due to government top-down policy making and intervention (Johnson 2017). In light of the public’s criticism of a higher education system lacking standardization, accountability, and transparency, there was movement from a deregulated, autonomous, and decentralized system with loosely coupled institutions to one now centralized in the government and highly regulated (Johnson 2017; Saavedra 2012). During Correa’s tenure, public investment in higher education as a percentage of the GDP increased from 1.6% to 2%, in contrast to the average 1% of GDP of most countries in the region (Ballas 2016) (Table 1).
987 Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador, Table 1 Ecuadorian higher education sector and public higher education institutions spending (USD millions) Year 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Sector 1.003 1.200 1.390 1.522 1.410 1.429
Public institutions 891,000 1.000 1.090 1.202 1.100 1.205
Source: Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación 2017
Ecuador is host to approximately 338 postsecondary institutions – some with full accreditation by the State higher education accrediting body (CACES) and some without. There are 53 accredited 4-year or higher-focused higher education institutions, 278 institutos superior which offer 2–3-year professional associates degree programs (not all have accreditation), and three accredited postgraduate institutes/universities. Additionally, under LOES, four national universities were created, referred to as universidades emblematícas: Yachay, Ikiam, Universidad de las Artes, and Universidad de Docencia (teaching). These four emblematic universities are not required to submit to CACES accreditation according to the higher education law. Of the 60 universities and postgraduate institutions, the majority are located in the Andes and coastal regions of the country. One public university and one emblematic university are located in the Amazon region. The program PROEDUCA (Programa de Financiamiento para Instituciones del Sistema de Educación Superior), a collaboration between SENESCYT and the Development Bank of Ecuador, began in 2017 in order to not only improve higher education quality but higher education coverage in the country in hopes of providing better access to students (SENESCYT 2017) (Table 2).
Contemporary Trends and Challenges Ecuador faces challenges in terms of capacity – human and institutional. Due to the increase of students into the higher education system in
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Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Ecuador, Table 2 Combined undergraduate and graduate enrollment per university sector (2012–2016) University sector Total Public sector Private sector
Years 2012 548,614 62% 38%
2013 561,231 60% 40%
2014 563,367 58% 42%
2015 583,049 59% 41%
2016 590,080 58% 42%
Source: Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación 2017
Ecuador, capacity will remain a challenge for most institutions. Infrastructure and human capacity will need continued investment in order to maintain the policies began under Correa and continued with the current President Lenín Moreno. Likewise, due to changes in faculty qualification expectations, ensuring there are ample qualified faculty to teach an influx of students will prove formidable. According to regulations developed from LOES, many faculty at universities must be full-time and have higher-level qualifications, such as a doctorate. With a $7 million investment from the government, SENESCYT administered the Prometeo initiative to fund international researchers and faculty with doctorates to do research and teach in the country’s universities (discontinued in 2017; Ballas 2016). Similarly, SENESCYT manages the government’s scholarship program for students to study abroad. Of the approximately 11,000 scholarships SENESCYT has granted to pursue degrees abroad, 3,500 of these have been granted as part of the process to raise the education level of university faculty to doctorates (Ramírez 2016).
References Ballas, Claudia. 2016. Financiamiento de la educación superior en Ecuador. In Universidad urgente para una sociedad emancipada, ed. René Ramírez, 87–114. Quito: SENECYT & UNESCO-IESALC. Ballas, Claudia, and María Dolores Avilés. 2016. La suspension definitive de 14 universidades y el rol del estado en el aseguramiento de la calidad. In Universidad urgente para una sociedad emancipada, ed. René Ramírez, 359–372. Quito: SENECYT & UNESCO-IESALC. Bernasconi, Andres. 2008. Is there a Latin American model of the university? Comparative Education Review 52 (1): 27–52.
Chacón Burbano, Maria de Lourdes. 1996. A new model of Ecuadorean higher education: Its impact on external efficiency, innovations, and economic growth. PhD diss., University of Idaho. Jameson, Kenneth. 1997. Higher education in a vacuum: Stress and reform in Ecuador. Higher Education 33 (3): 265–281. Johnson, M. Amanda. 2017. A case of higher education reform in Ecuador: Implications for faculty recruitment, hiring, and retention. Education Policy Analysis Archives 25 (68): 1–16. Post, David. 2011. Constitutional reform and the opportunity for higher education access in Ecuador since 1950. Education Policy Analysis Archives 19 (20): 1–21. Ramírez, René. 2016. Universidad urgente para una sociedad emancipada. In Universidad urgente para una sociedad emancipada, ed. René Ramírez, 17–66. Quito: SENECYT & UNESCO-IESALC. Saavedra, F. Mauricio. 2012. Higher education reform in Ecuador and its effect on university governance. In University governance and reform: Policy, fads, and experience in international perspective, ed. Hans Shuetze, William Bruneau, and Garnet Grosjean, 161–178. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación. 2017. Rendición de cuentas 2017. http:// www.senescyt.gob.ec/rendicion/fase4/. Accessed 9 Sept 2018.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Egypt Mohsen Elmahdy Said Mechanical Design and Production Department, Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering, Giza, Egypt
Higher Education System Development Demographic, Social, and Economic Contexts The population of Egypt exceeds 95 million inhabitants according to the 2017 poll with a
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near balance between male and female citizens and is the largest among Arab countries and third in the African continent after Nigeria and Ethiopia. Egypt spans over an area of nearly 1 million square kilometers. It has a population density of 96 per square kilometer, 39.7% of the population being urban and nearly 95% living along the narrow banks of the river Nile and the Delta. The country is divided into 28 governorates under seven economic regions. The median age of the population is 24.8 years (Worldometers 2017), and, in 2016, the average illiteracy rate for the population aged 10 years and above was 18.6% (24.1% among female and 13.3% among male). The Egyptian economy is a balanced, knowledge based, competitive, diversified, market economy, characterized by a stable macroeconomic environment. The real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in 2014–2015 was about 4.2% (SDS 2030, 2015). Historical Development of Higher Education System Modern Egyptian education began during the time of Mohamed Ali (1798–1801 AC) when he established schools for engineering, medicine, and law. At that time, distinguished graduates were sent to Western Europe to pursue further higher education. Upon their return, these internationally educated graduates helped to advance the education system in Egypt. In 1908, a national university was established, and, in 1953, following the 1952 revolution, it was renamed Cairo University. The number of universities has continually increased since that time (Said 2017b). Since the 1960s, Egypt has moved from a free public higher education system toward its current system of diversified postsecondary education comprising new private universities, higher education institutes, and other new types of education, as well as free public universities and tuitionbased education in the public sector. The increased demand for higher education and the limitations of the government to adequately respond to overcrowding of the system imposed further challenges to expand on the role of private sector to provide more enrollment opportunities in diversified education tracks.
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In 1959, higher education was fundamentally transformed when a constitutional amendment established education as the right of all Egyptians, offered free at all levels. This right continues to prevail in the new constitution (Constitution of Egypt 2014). The result has been the expansion of the public system, from four universities in the 1950s to 24 in 2017, with plans to continue expansion due to increasing number of eligible candidates for enrollment within the age cohort 18–22. As a result, the total number of students enrolled in undergraduate higher education increased from nearly 0.3 million students at the beginning of the 1960s to over 2.6 million by 2016, without a corresponding increase in the educational infrastructure, thus presenting challenges for quality (Said 2017a). Public demand for higher education increased significantly in 1963 when the Egyptian government launched a scheme that guaranteed a job in the public sector to all university graduates. This decision committed the government to employing all graduates, irrespective of the need for personnel or suitable job opportunities. The overstaffing of the public sector led to the deterioration of services, burdening the system with bureaucracy and inefficiency. The decision was reversed in the mid-1980s (Said 2003, 2017a). In 1992, the Egyptian Parliament passed a law allowing the establishment of private for-profit universities. At that time, the American University in Cairo (AUC) was the only private, not-forprofit institution. In 1996, four for-profit private universities were granted authorization with successive approvals to additional private universities ongoing. As early as the 1980s, many public universities began to operate parallel, fee-based programs in which instruction was offered in foreign languages other than Arabic (Said 2017a). This new trend led to competition among public universities for getting permission from the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) to offer similar programs as they produced a significant source of revenue to fund educational activities and services, particularly to free tuition students. Fee-based programs offered by public universities allowed for increased enrollment as well as income but were heavily criticized by the
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academic and public communities for creating parallel tracks with different standards and discriminating between students who attended for free and those paying fees. The same professors were teaching both groups of students but with different remuneration schemes and often in better-equipped facilities depending on which students were being taught. The population in the age cohort eligible to enroll in higher education currently exceeds 9 million (SPU 2010; OECD 2010) and is increasing at the same annual rate as the population (around 2.2%). This poses further challenges on the higher education sector, as, according to the constitution, the government is responsible to provide free education to all citizens, at all levels.
Basic Features of Higher Education System The most recent statistics for the academic year 2015–2016 show that the total number of students eligible for admission to postsecondary education is around 600,000. The postsecondary education infrastructure in its current state, however, cannot accommodate this level of intake resulting in overcrowding and quality challenges. Over 2.53 million students are enrolled in different types of public and private institutions as indicated in Table 1. Nearly 28% of students in the age cohort 18–22 are enrolled in postsecondary education, a rate that falls short of the target of 45% established by the Egyptian government for the year 2030 (SDS 2030, 2015). The postsecondary education system includes public universities, private universities,
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Egypt, Table 1 Postsecondary education institutions, student enrollment, academic staff, and assistants (Academic year 2015–2016)
Types of institutions Public universities
New forms of delivery (public education offered for fees) Private universities Technological colleges offering 2-year degrees) Al-Azhar University Private higher education institutes offering university equivalent degrees Private institutes offering 2-year vocational certificates Total
Number of institutions 24 universities, (439 colleges), 102 other types of collegesa 124 institutes + open university
22 universities (149 colleges) 8 technological colleges + 1 adv. college + 1 technical institute for advanced industries 79a colleges (48 male +31 female) 150 institutes, 3 PG institutes, 3 academies, 11 branches for workers university (4-year programs) 14 institutes
Number of assistants and assistant lecturers 33,680 (64.9%)
Postgraduate students enrolled 362,602 (94.4%)
Number of faculty members 48,085 (77.0%)
128,555 (5.1%)
36a (0.0%)
3,018 (4.8%)
102,770 (4.1%)
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661a (1.1%)
306,046 (12.1%) 443,690 (17.4%)
17,568 (4.6%) 3,714a (1.0%)
7,236 (11.6%) 3,317 (5.3%)
8,318 (16.0%) 3,834 (7.4%)
34,403 (1.4%)
–
140 (0.2%)
126 (0.2%)
2,538,025 (50.5% male)
383,920 (52.0% male)
62,457 (61.1% male)
51,861 (45.2% male)
Undergraduate students enrolled 1,265,966 (49.8%) 256,595 (10.1%)
4,261 (8.2%) 1,642 (3.2%)
Source: Information and Documentation Centre (IDC) – Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) SPU/MOHE 2017 Available statistics from academic year 2014–2015
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technological colleges, and private higher institutes offering intermediate and advanced professionally oriented diplomas. In addition, the system includes specialized institutions such as Al-Azhar Islamic University and institutions employing new delivery systems. Table 1 provides an overview of the postsecondary education system. Over the past few years, the enrollment has been around 80% in public and 20% in private institutions, of which 5.1% of the students are enrolled in private universities. Although private investment in postsecondary education is encouraged, the stringent requirements for obtaining a government license to offer university programs slows the growth of private universities. The government needs to target reversing the 80–20% public-private mix to become 20–80% in line with the SDS 2030 directives. Postgraduate studies are concentrated at public universities with an enrollment rate of 99%. Recently, private universities have been successively authorized by the SCU to establish postgraduate studies to develop and qualify their own academic staff, once they fulfill the requirements for startup. Since their inception in 1996, private universities focused on recruiting faculty members from public universities that host approximately 80% of the academic task force, offering them more attractive remuneration schemes and benefits. This slow pace of development continues to prevail (Said 2017a). All educational institutions have their own core mission, but they are required to adhere to the global core mission specified in the SDS 2030: “A high quality education and training system should be available to all, without discrimination, within an efficient, just, sustainable, and flexible institutional framework. It should provide the necessary skills to students and trainees to think creatively, and empower them technically and technologically. It should contribute to the development of a proud, creative, responsible, and competitive citizen who accepts diversity and differences, and is proud of his country’s history, and who is eager to build its future and able to compete with regional and international entities” (MOP 2016). Private higher education institutes listed in Table 1 offer bachelor’s degrees in arts and
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sciences that are equivalent to those offered by public universities. These institutes focus on education programs in specific areas of specialization, unlike private universities that are multidisciplinary and require larger investments and must respond to strict requirements for official recognition. The quality of these private institutes, however, has been and remains a challenge. The government has established stringent conditions for granting licensure to these institutes, requiring mandatory specific numbers of qualified academic staff at inception.
Higher Education Governance Structure The main actors in the governance structure of the Egyptian higher education system are the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MOHESR) and related ministries such as the Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Planning (MOP), Ministry of Finance (MOF), and Ministry of International Cooperation (MOIC), the supreme councils of all higher education sectors, central auditing bureau and monitoring and evaluation bodies, quality assurance and accreditation agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and general public opinion, all higher education institutions, and bodies concerned with funding and financing the system. The roles and responsibilities of each of the governing bodies are clearly defined and included in the MOHESR 2021/2022 Strategic Plan (SPU 2010). The following are some of the basic features of the main players in the governance structures pinpointing their prime roles, responsibilities, and interrelationships. Organization Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities of the Main Actors The MOHESR was established in 1961 when university education became free as a constitutional right and is centrally governed by four main regulatory councils, namely, Supreme Council of Universities (SCU), Supreme Council of Private Universities (SCPU), Supreme Council of Higher Education Institutions (SCHEI), and Supreme Council of Technical Colleges (SCTC), all chaired by the Minister of Higher Education.
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Their roles and responsibilities focus mainly on developing policies and guidelines and setting strategic directives and goals related to all functions of their respective institutions, including making decisions on the maximum size of enrollment allowed for each institution based on their capacities. Legislative reform and regulatory measures, follow-up, monitoring and evaluation, impact assessment, and taking corrective actions as needed are also among their roles. One of the main drawbacks of these councils is they govern and regulate at the same time, noting that their boards are formed mainly of university presidents, thus creating an obvious situation of conflict of interest. A restructuring of the SCU has become mandatory to resolve this conflict by creating an independent regulating body similar to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) UK model. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/ The administrative structure of MOHESR is divided into three main sectors, namely, Missions & Cultural Representation (MCR), Foreign Students Affairs (FSA), and Cultural Cooperation (CC). In addition, it supervises the Egyptian cultural bureaus and centers overseas, the Academy of Arabic Language (AAL), and the national committee of UNESCO. http://www.mohe-casm.edu. eg/English/index.jsp. The MCR has a national committee that regulates the mission program, including scholarships offered through bilateral agreements, and the cultural bureaus abroad follow-up on students’ affairs and performance during their missions. The FSA sector looks after the foreign students studying in Egyptian institutions to facilitate their academic and social needs. Special attention is given by the MOHESR to this sector in an aggressive attempt to market the Egyptian higher education system to attract more foreign students’ enrollment as part of a national plan to develop the internationalization agenda. Higher education research and development is governed nationally by three main bodies, namely, the universities and HEIs, the National Research Center (NRC), and the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT) acting under the umbrella of MOHESR, in addition to research centers and institutes operating under
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different ministries. A Higher Council for Science and Technology (HCST) chaired by the minister is the national authority that regulates policies and sets the agenda and outlines research priorities of the country. ASRT operation is complemented by two main funding bodies, the Science and Technology Development Fund (STDF) and the Education Development Fund (EDF). Both entities provide competitive funding mechanisms for R&D, as well as for overall development of the higher education system to help MOHESR, universities, and higher education institutions (HEIs) fulfill their strategic objectives. Governance and Road Map for the Technical Education and Training (TVET) The TVET stream of education is considered a priority for the sustainable development of the country. In the early stages, it was limited to 2 years of study as the community colleges model. Community perceptions toward this stream of education, however, are negative considering it to be inferior. To address this social barrier and attract more students, plans by the MOHESR are set to parallel this stream of TVET education with the general university education enabling 4-year studies as well as postgraduate studies leading to diploma, masters, and PhD degrees in technology (SPU 2012). However, the chances of success depend on qualifying faculty members to cater for the technological nature of this type of education; on creating a remuneration scheme that matches, or even surpasses, that of the general academic stream; and on preparing the necessary technological infrastructure that require major investments. A National Qualifications Framework (NQF) is under preparation by NAQAAE based on the European model and will be blended within the academic programs to provide graduates with complementary professional certificates to assure their capacities and competence to meet labor market needs according to international norms. Formal TVET education is provided in postsecondary education, in technical colleges and middle institutes (formerly known as Middle Technical Institutes, MTIs), and in faculties of industrial education (known also as Industrial Education Colleges, IECs). In general, TVET
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education is classified into eight different categories according to the type of institute, namely, technical colleges, technical health and nursing institutes, private middle institutes, workers university, integrated technical education clusters (ITECs), and faculties of industrial education. All these institutes offer 2-year programs leading to a diploma; an exception is the industrial education colleges, which offer a bachelor’s degree upon completion of a 4-year program. The MOHESR has plans to expand on implementing the ITEC model which has four main components, namely, a technical secondary school (TSS) providing 3 years of study to students graduating from presecondary levels, a technical institute (TI) providing 2-year intermediatedegree programs, an advanced technical institute (ATI) offering 3-year programs that include 1 year of on-the-job training and lead to a bachelor degree in technology, and a vocational training center (VTC) providing advanced training programs teaching skills to raise the competencies levels of adults that meet labor market needs. This integrated model has been successfully implemented in three governorates and is being replicated in other geographically distributed governorates (SPU 2012; Said 2017a). Internationalization of Higher Education Efforts Higher education in Egypt has had an embedded spirit of internationalization for hundreds of years. Students from around the world, and particularly from Asia and Africa, would travel to Egypt to study in Al-Azhar University. In addition, staff members of Al-Azhar would regularly visit universities around the world to teach Islamic principles and the propagation of Islamic religion and culture. In the 1960s, during President Nasser’s era, Egypt was generously offering scholarships for students from African, Arab, and Islamic countries. Many of them became rulers and high officials in their countries in the following years (Said 2008; Said and Mourad 2008). According to the SDS 2030 directives, plans are set to attract more international students to come and study in Egypt by creating the right institutional setting in both public and private provisions.
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The government realizes the importance of internationalization of higher education and its impact on the global ranking of Egyptian higher education institutions. Public and private universities are encouraged to conclude partnership agreements and twinning arrangements with counterpart reputable foreign universities seeking student/faculty exchange and dual/joint degree programs. Successful examples of GOE efforts are the universities established and/or supported by the government through by-lateral agreements such as the EgyptJapan University for Science and Technology (EJUST) http://ejust.edu.eg, the British University in Egypt (BUE) http://www.bue.edu.eg, and the French University in Egypt (UFE) http://www.ufe. edu.eg, a growing trend among private investors that the MOHESR is encouraging and supporting.
Funding of the Higher Education System Two major obstacles confront funding the higher education system, namely, the high cost per student needed to deliver quality education and the increasingly high demand for access to postsecondary education. According to the 2015 new constitution, education is a national priority, and preset funds are allocated in the annual budget as a percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Secondary education is allocated 4% of the GDP, postsecondary 2%, and national research 1%, with constitutional recommendations to increase these percentages successively over time to reach international norms (Constitution of Egypt 2015). Funding Provisions of the Higher Education System Public and private higher education institutions (HEI) operate under different legislative and financing rules. Attempts by the MOHESR to develop unified governance legislations for all public and private higher education institutions did not succeed. Although such unified legislation would work on the academic agenda, it would not function properly on the financial front due to structural/operational differences in the existing public-private mix. The GOE established a public-private partnership (PPP) law to create an encouraging environment for government-private
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investment partnership. The success of such partnerships, however, remains to be seen and will depend on the implementation capacity of the government, with its bureaucratic regulations, compared to the fast pace of implementation of the private sector. Public universities negotiate their annual plans and budgets directly with MOP independent of the MOHESR. Public higher education institutions, however, submit their requests through the MOHESR, which also supervises their implementation. The student fees in private HEIs, with maximum limits set for annual increase, are determined by the MOHESR, based on their capacities to offer academic programs that meet quality standards specified in the National Academic Reference Standards (NARS) developed by NAQAAE. A funding formula needs to be established taking into consideration the cost of education per student as well as institutional performance to provide quality education and research services (http://www.hefce.ac.uk/). Higher Education Revenues by Sources Public universities and HEIs are provided by the GOE with about 85% of their budgets and are expected to generate the remaining 15% from other sources. These sources include incomegenerating consultancy centers; fees for laboratory certified services; fees from open and distant learning centers; nominal, non-tuition fees for all Egyptian students; and high tuition fees for parallel programs. Major universities have the capacity to generate complementary funds, while many others do not. In such cases, provisions exit for renegotiating with MOP and MOF to request extra funds to cover institutional needs. International organizations that support the GOE to reform its academic institutions are numerous and offer different types of financial and technical assistance through government and institutional bilateral agreements in the form of scholarships, grants, donations, loans, or support for the implementation of national programs and projects. These organizations include The World Bank (WB), European Union (EU), UNESCO, UNDP, USAID, JICA, DFID, CIDA, SIDA, DAAD, GTZ, British Council (BC), and Ford Foundation (FF).
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Research and Development Funding System The ASRT, supported by STDF and EDF bodies, are the main sources of funding R&D in Egypt. Complementary R&D funds come from different sources such as industry, income generation by specialized national research centers from cooperation with industry, patent rights, provision of continuing education and training to industrial employees, access to laboratory and scientific equipment in the centers, as well as manufacturing industrial products. These sources are independent from those provided by universities and HEIs.
Reform Initiatives, Support Activities, and National Responses Quality Assurance and Accreditation Efforts The Egyptian National authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education (NAQAAE) was established in 2006 as one of the outcomes of the Higher Education Enhancement Project (HEEP). NAQAAE applies its assessment procedures on all types of pre- and postsecondary education based on National Academic Reference Standards (NARS) developed in accordance with international accreditation good practices. At the postsecondary level, the focus is mainly on institutional accreditation. In 2010 the first two institutions were granted accreditation, and successively the number of accredited institutions increased to more than 100, representing nearly 40% of the total number of universities that applied for accreditation. This slow rate of accreditation makes it very difficult for NAQAAE to achieve the target of accrediting all postsecondary institutions, with reaccreditation considered every 5 years. It has become obligatory for NAQAAE to fulfill its mandate by qualifying other external bodies to help accelerate the process and to seek international recognition by renowned accrediting bodies and agencies. Academic Promotion Academic promotion of faculty members is a centralized process administered by the Supreme Council of Universities (SCU) through specialized sectorial committees in diverse disciplines.
Higher Education Systems and Institutions, Egypt
Stringent guidelines are developed, applied, and reviewed/updated every 2 years requiring quality research published in cited international journals with high impact factors. For each candidate applying for promotion, a committee of three peers from faculties other than the candidate’s reviews the research papers according to international guidelines. An appeal mechanism is available if the candidate is not satisfied with the committee’s decision. In such a case, the president of the candidate’s university has the power to return the portfolio to the evaluation committee with justification or to form another committee of five faculty members to reexamine the promotion portfolio and decide accordingly. National Reform Efforts Since the beginning of the 1990s, over a period of 6 years, Egypt implemented successfully its first national project “Engineering and Technical Education Project” (ETEP) to reform both sectors with 38.6 million US$ co-funding by GOE and the World Bank. Activities and achievements of ETEP are numerous and have been reported in detail elsewhere (Said 2003). After its successful implementation, the World Bank indicated its willingness to co-finance the reform agenda of higher education at large, focusing on access, quality, efficiency, relevance, and governance and finance of the postsecondary system. The government concern about the quality of education delivery and the overcrowding of the system led to the development of a 15-year strategic plan (2002–2017) to address all weaknesses identified. The strategy has been publicly endorsed by the academic community and culminated into 25 distinctive projects to be implemented in three 5-year phases. The World Bank funded 12 of these projects that were condensed into six milestone subprojects under a 60 million US$ co-funded project, the “Higher Education Enhancement Project” (HEEP). In addition to the legislative structural reform measures that the GOE was committed to fulfill under HEEP, the six subprojects were the Higher Education Enhancement Project Fund (HEEPF), which is a competitive mechanism to fulfill the developmental needs of public postsecondary institutions; the Information and
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Communications Technology Project (ICTP) looking into the development of the ICT backbone infrastructure at national and institutional levels; the Egyptian Technical Colleges Project (ETCP); the Faculties of Education Project (FOEP) for enhancing teacher development by improving the pedagogical content and mode of delivery, including the use of ICT; Faculty Leadership Development Project (FLDP) that focuses on capacity building and lifelong learning training activities, nationally and institutionally; and the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Project (QAAP) mandated to introduce and disseminate a culture of quality within the education system at large, establish a national quality assurance and accreditation body, and prepare institutions for accreditation. A comprehensive and wellarticulated account of activities, achievements, and lessons learnt from HEEP is included elsewhere (World Bank 2009). The second and third phases of the strategic reform plan continue to