When state centralism meets neo-liberalism: managing university governance change in Singapore and Malaysia

With strong intention to enhance the global competitiveness of their university systems, both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have introduced reforms along the lines of ideas and practices embedded in neo-liberalism. In the last decade or so, we have witnessed reforms being introduced to the higher education sectors in these Asian states, particularly when corporatization and incorporation strategies are adopted to transform national/public universities. With particular reference to how academics evaluate the impact of the reforms on their academic life, this article reports and analyses findings generated from campus visits and field interviews conducted in Singapore and Malaysia from 2007 to 2009. Although the senior management of corporatized/incorporated universities in these Asian states has been given more discretion to decide how to operate their universities, most of the front line academics that we interviewed have not experienced major differences in university governance after the reforms took place. Instead of feeling ‘emancipated’ and ‘empowered’, many academics feel more pressures and control from the university administration and government ministries. Despite the fact that both the Singapore and Malaysia governments have tried to embrace the ideas and practices of ‘neo-liberalism’ to transform university governance, academics still see the state’s reluctance in withdrawing from steering/controlling higher education development. Such observations clearly reflect the ‘clash’ of two major governance philosophies, namely, ‘state centralism’ and ‘neo-liberalism’. In short, this article critically examines how far the proposed university governance reforms by adopting the corporatization/incorporation strategies have actually transformed university management and academic life style in Singapore and Malaysia.     

Positioning higher education for the knowledge based economy

This article questions the assumption that increasing competition among higher education institutions is the best method of achieving a strong higher education sector in developing countries. It notes that there has been increasing emphasis on the importance of higher education institutions for sustainable development, particularly because of their importance to the global knowledge economy. For the same reason, the appropriate management of the relationship between the state and higher education institutions is vital to a strong and dynamic future for these institutions. This paper proposes a menu of options for higher education governance, grouped around ‘state-centric’ and ‘neo-liberal’ models of development. The ‘state-centric’ model proposed is based on a variety of examples of high performing Asian economies, in particular, while the ‘neo-liberal’ model is based on emerging trends in higher education management in countries such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper suggests that despite pressure across the globe to encourage a market among universities, this may not always be the most efficient use of resources, or the best way to integrate universities in a country’s drive for economic growth.     

Changing concepts of equity in transforming UK higher education: implications for future pedagogies and practices in global higher education

This paper is about changing concepts of equity in UK higher education. In particular, it charts the moves from concepts about gender equality as about women’s education as a key issue in twentieth century higher education to questions of men’s education in the twenty-first century. These changing concepts of equity are linked to wider social and economic transformations, the expansion of higher education and the growth in the knowledge economy, or what has been called ‘academic capitalism’. Feminist theorists and activists, often called second wave feminists, developed concepts of gender equality in education, including higher education in the twentieth century, and these have been incorporated into higher education and policies with the expansions of higher education, especially around notions of widening participation. Notions of widening participation in policy and practice arenas focus on equity as about social class, socio-economic disadvantage, ethnicity and race, rather than specifically on gender questions. Equity is now twinned with diversity and where gender is now invoked it is largely about young and working class men’s disadvantage in relation to higher education. In this paper, I will also provide research evidence from the UK’s Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) which has been the UK’s biggest ever initiative in education research about equity and diversity as currently conceived in UK higher education. I will show how gender has been incorporated with diversity questions and has lost its critical and feminist edge. I conclude with addressing questions about the future of higher education policies and practices to address questions of equity and diversity, attempting to counter the systemic inequalities in current forms of UK higher education. There are opportunities for developing new, critical and feminist pedagogies. More inclusive or ‘connectionist’ approaches, rather than ‘teaching to the test’, would engage socially diverse men and women students in a range of higher education subjects and settings.     

Developing a taxonomy of science concepts based on a scale of empirical distance

The term ‘concept’ is used in different ways within educational literature and has at least two different, although related, referents in relation to science knowledge, namely, public knowledge and private understandings. A taxonomic structure for ‘science concepts’ (public knowledge) has been developed to provide a rationale for the choice of phenomena to be used in the investigation of students’ ‘concepts’ and also to act as a frame of reference for generating insights about the data to be collected. Furthermore, it may be a useful heuristic to predict other science concepts likely to be highly problematic in school teaching situations and thus worthy of detailed research. The taxonomy, called a ‘Scale of Empirical Distance’ (SED), enables science concepts to be mapped according to their degree of closeness to concrete realities. The scale shows a recognition of the empirical basis of science concepts and the role of human senses in the perception of the material world even though “absolute objectivity of observation is not a possible ideal of science” as Harre (1972) has noted. The scale uses two binary variables, namely, ‘visual’ and ‘tactile’, to generate four categories of science concepts ranging on a continuum from concrete to abstract. Some concepts related to ‘matter’ will be classified and discussed. Specializations: science teacher education, primary science curriculum and methods, students’ personal meanings of phenomena.     

Democratization during the transformative times and the role of popular education in the philippines and korea

Comparing popular education in the Philippines and South Korea, it is clear that a number of similarities and differences exist regarding the characteristics, methods, and main fields in which popular education has operated. ‘Church-related practices,’ ‘uniting with CO movements,’ ‘an eliteled tendency,’ and ‘a disregard for the Left’ have all occurred in similar ways in both countries. While introducing the socio-political situation during 1970s and 1980s of these two countries, this paper discusses the theories and practices of popular education. Our findings indicate how popular education in both countries has played a significant role in raising the levels consciousness in the powerless and transforming societies and enabled them to establish a better community. Moreover, each country developed different concepts, initiatives and methods in relation to popular education. In addition, popular educators have been asked to play different roles in each popular education field while most methods were in fact heavily dependent upon eliteled practices.     

Managing differentiation of higher education system in Japan: connecting excellence and diversity

This article presents recent reform processes in Japanese higher education, concerning the tensions emerging within the system regarding ‘excellence’ and ‘diversity’. The article particularly focuses on how Japanese universities have reacted to the recent ‘competition’ and ‘differentiation’ policy promoted by the government, drawing on recent survey results conducted with academic managers at Japanese universities. It is interesting to examine the case of Japan, a historically diversified and differentiated national system, which has been changing rapidly with recent national ‘top-down’ policy reforms, followed by more recent and new bottom-up institutional initiatives. The study shows that universities are trying to achieve excellence, fulfilling different functions at the same time, aspiring to be excellent in teaching, research and social contribution without having institutional capacity to meet these expectations. Appropriate internal governance and external mediation mechanisms need to be created at the institutional level to manage diversification of the higher education system as a whole.     

The changing role of the state vis-à-vis higher education in a global context

Since the 1980s, a series of reforms that aimed to reconstruct the relationships among the government, the university, and the student (consumer) have been initiated in the systems of higher education. In varying degrees, these systems of higher education were affected by market forces. Given this, the relationship between the state and higher education has also been changed significantly. The purpose of this paper is to view recent changes in higher education in the historic context of globalization. It attempts to trace the source of these changes and to depict, against a new background, the new role of the state vis-à-vis higher education. It also seeks to illuminate the rationale behind the changing role of the state. By using the experiences of selected countries as illustrations, this paper will discuss the salient features of the state’s role change in various contexts. __________ Translated from Beijing Daxue Jiaoyu Pinglun 北京大学教育评论 (Peking University Education Review), 2007, 5 (1): 138–149     

Development and validation of a questionnaire measuring teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education

A lot of research has been done into the motivations in teachers in primary/secondary education and into student motivation. However, teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education are rarely studied. A growing interest exists though in the professional development of teachers in higher education, of which motivation is an important aspect. This article, therefore, focuses on the development and validation of a Dutch questionnaire for teachers’ motivations for teaching in higher education. The questionnaire is based on three earlier developed questionnaires, including the following motivational aspects: efficacy, interest, and effort. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted with the data of 231 higher education teachers. The results of our explorative study showed that after modifications, including the removal of two out of three efficacy-aspects (‘outcome efficacy’ and ‘teaching efficacy’), this instrument is sufficiently reliable and valid to use in educational practice and research. Future research into the use of the questionnaire in different contexts is desirable.     

Molecular modeling: A powerful tool for drug design and molecular docking

Molecular modeling has become a valuable and essential tool to medicinal chemists in the drug design process. Molecular modeling describes the generation, manipulation or representation of three-dimensional structures of molecules and associated physico-chemical properties. It involves a range of computerized techniques based on theoretical chemistry methods and experimental data to predict molecular and biological properties. Depending on the context and the rigor, the subject is often referred to as ‘molecular graphics’, ‘molecular visualizations’, ‘computational chemistry’, or ‘computational quantum chemistry’. The molecular modeling techniques are derived from the concepts of molecular orbitals of Hückel, Mullikan and ‘classical mechanical programs’ of Westheimer, Wiberg and Boyd.     

Interprofessional Activity in the ��Space of Reasons��: Thinking, Communicating and Acting

The paper analyses a form of interprofessional working and learning (IPWL)—the fleeting spatial and temporal constitution of project teams with little prior history of working together—that is an increasing feature of work in the global economy. The paper argues firstly: (i) this form of working and learning is relatively under-researched in professional, vocational and workplace learning (PVWL); and, (ii) the research traditions—Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and Cultural Anthropology/Symbolic Interactionist (CA/SI)—that some researchers in PVWL have drawn on to investigate IPWL do not allow them to capture the cognitive and symbolic complexity of this activity. Secondly, it is possible to reveal the nature of this complexity when the concepts and methods associated with CHAT and CA-SI-based approaches are supplemented with the concepts of ‘inference’, ‘space of reasons’, ‘restructuring and ‘recontextualisation’ (Guile, 2010). The paper demonstrates this claim by reinterpreting a classic study of the aforementioned form of working and learning undertaken by Hall, Stevens and Torolba that drew on concepts and methods from CA and SI (2002).     

Changing Spatial and Synchronous Structures in the History and Culture of Learning

This paper argues that the conceptions of ‘space’ (and increasingly ‘time’) in the discussion of ‘the university’ (in its most transcendent sense) have gone through four distinct phases in the UK. Using a Heideggerian conception of ‘space’ where usefulness is more important than proximity, the ‘ancient’ universities were ‘useful’ to the gentry and thus were ‘closer’ to them than to the excluded ‘local’ poor in the institutions’ vicinities. The ‘civic’ universities on the other hand stressed ‘localism’ as part of their mandate – to educate the people of their locality (but only those of the new industrial middle class). The ‘Robbins’ universities were a partial return to the ‘ancient’ notion of learning as a ‘lived’ activity, providing scenic landscapes on green-belt campuses where students could ‘retreat’ from the ‘real world’ for the duration of their studies. The ‘spatial’ quality of these places was thus part of a conception of higher education as ‘lifestyle choice’ where young people moved away from their locality to study. As such ‘proximity’ was an issue only insofar as the greater the distance from one’s point of origin the better for successful immersion in the growing student ‘culture’. The ‘new/post-1992’ universities partially retained their polytechnic mandate to educate local people, but embraced a colonialist impulse regarding local space usage. ‘ ‘The discussion can be further refined to argue that these four stages are merely two phases which have repeated themselves: from ancient ‘exclusivity’ to civic ‘localism’ and back to Robbins era ‘exclusivity’ and thence to post-1992 ‘localism’ once more’. The opening up of higher education via the Internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries provides for the possibility of the growth of entirely non-spatial and asynchronous learning experiences, and as such we may well be on the verge of the fifth stage of university development.     

Teaching for creativity: towards sustainable and replicable pedagogical practice

This article explores the pedagogical significance of recent shifts in scholarly attention away from first generation and towards second generation understandings of creativity. First generation or big ‘C’ creativity locates the creative enterprise as a complex set of behaviours and ideas exhibited by an individual, while second generation or small ‘c’ creativity locates the creative enterprise in the processes and products of collaborative and purposeful activity. Second generation creativity is gaining importance for a number of reasons: its acknowledged significance as a driver in the new or digital economy; recent clarification of the notion of ‘creative capital’; the stated commitment of a growing number of universities to ‘more creativity’ as part of their declared vision for their staff and students; and, the recognition that the creative arts does not have a monopoly on creative capability. We argue that this shift allows more space for engaging with creativity as an outcome of pedagogical work in higher education. The article builds on the project of connecting ‘creative capital’ and university pedagogy that is already underway, assembling a number of principles from a wide range of scholarship, from computer modelling to social and cultural theorising. In doing so, it provides a framework for systematically orchestrating a ‘creativity-enhancing’ learning environment in higher education.

Higher education and gender roles in Japanese society: An assessment of disparity

Conclusion The 1947 education reform and mass education after the period of high economic growth have greatly influenced women's higher education attainments. These changes are beginning to transform women's views towards education and more women with higher education attainment are entering the labour marker. However, as previously indicated, many obstacles to equal opportunity and results in the labour market still remain for women. Higher education for women has never had the same social impact as that for men. So far as the academic career of women is regarded as having ‘symbolic value’—it has a close relationship to marriage in Japanese society. Women's higher education is a social way of maintaining a sub-culture and traditional gender norms. Ph.D. in education (dissertation: ‘The gender roles of Japanese women’) from the University of California in 1993. At present affiliated to the PHP Research Institute (Japan) as a senior research associate. Areas of interest include comparative higher education, educational policy, and gender and education. Her most recently published works in English are ‘Higher education in partnership with industry: the necessity to employ off-the-job-training system’ in theInternational journal of lifelong education (vol. 12, no. 2, 1994) and ‘The gender roles of Japanese women: an assessment of gender roles of Japanese housewives in the United States’ inPHP research report (vol. 9, 1995).     

An Instrument for Assessing Students' Mental State and the Learning Environment in Science Education

The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a new instrument, the Mental State in Learning Environment Questionnaire (MSLEQ), to assess student's mental state in a given learning environment. The MSLEQ has high internal consistency reliability values between 0.70–0.92 as well as good construct validity and predictive validity. After conducting a factor analysis, four main factors were extracted and were described as ‘emotion’, ‘intention’, ‘internal mental representation’ and ‘external mental representation’. The important feature of this study is the construction of an economical questionnaire on the mental state in a given learning environment. The questionnaire yielded important information that can be concretely applied to science teaching and learning.     

Making the most of the mosaic: facilitating post-school transitions to higher education of disadvantaged students

Research studies of post-school education and training conducted in Australia and internationally have revealed a mosaic of students’ education and employment experiences, with a multiplicity of nonlinear pathways. These tend to be more fragmentary for disadvantaged students, especially those of low socio-economic background, rural students, and mature aged students seeking a ‘second chance’ education. Challenges faced by students in their transitions to higher education are made more complex because of the intersection of vertical stratification created by institutional and sectoral status hierarchies and segmentation, especially relating to ‘academic’ and ‘vocational’ education and training, and the horizontal stratification of regional, rural and remote locations in which students live. If we are to achieve the equity goals set by the Bradley Review (Bradley et al., Review of Australian Higher Education Final Report, 2008) we need to acknowledge and work with the complex realities of disadvantaged students’ situations, starting at the school level. Interrelated factors at the individual, community and institutional level which continue to inhibit student take-up of higher education places are discussed in the context of discursive constructions of ‘disadvantage’ and ‘choice’ in late modernity. Research highlights the need to facilitate students’ post-school transitions by developing student resilience, institutional responsiveness and policy reflexivity through transformative education.     

Gauging primary school teachers’ environmental literacy: An issue of ‘priority’

Over the past thirty years, it has often been stated that primary school education should endeavour to improve and protect the environment through producing an ‘environmentally informed, committed and active citizenry’. Even so, existing research shows that the implementation of environmental education in primary schools is problematic and has had limited success. However, the reasons for these shortcomings are far from clear, with present research merely speculating about barriers to effective implementation. This paper presents a detailed discussion and analysis of primary school teachers knowledge and beliefs about environmental concepts and environmental education. In so doing, the paper identifies a perceived gap within the field of environmental education research and literature. This field has neglected studies of Australian primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education as a factor affecting the capacity of schooling to achieve environmental education goals. To these ends, we utilise the concept of ‘environmental literacy’ to assess primary school teacher’s knowledge and beliefs about environmental education. Based upon preliminary data analysis, we tentatively claim that current Queensland primary school teachers are variably committed to and demonstrably lack content knowledge of environmental concepts and environmental education. More significantly, these primary school teachers tend to dismiss the importance of content knowledge, preferring to focus upon attitudes towards environmental education and environmental concepts. Clearly these levels of environmental literacy are inadequate if environmentally literate students and thus an environmentally literate citizenry are to be achieved within schools. We conclude that the introduction of environmental literacy in educational policy would advance the goals of environmental education, namely the production of an informed, committed and active citizenry.     

Internationalisation of higher education: European experiences

‘Internationalisation’ is generally defined as increasing cross-border activities amidst persistence of borders, while ‘globalisation’ refers to similar activities concurrent to an erosion of borders. Study mobility is viewed as the most visible component in this framework in Europe with ERASMUS as the largest scheme of temporary mobility. ERASMUS was a trigger for a qualitative leap of internationalisation strategies and policies since the 1990s: towards cooperation and mobility on equal terms, and towards systematic and strategic internationalisation. The ‘Bologna Process’ aimed to make higher education more attractive to students from other parts of the world and to facilitate intra-European mobility; however, many other activities are needed to stimulate mobility, and the Bologna Process pursues many other objectives. It remains to be seen whether supra-national and national policies and institutional strategies will continue to opt for wide-ranging cooperation based on mutual trust or whether the ‘competition paradigm’ will determine the scene.     

The Relation between Idealisation and Approximation in Scientific Model Construction

The notions of ‘idealisation’ and ‘approximation’ are strongly linked to the question of ‘how our theories represent the phenomena in their scope’. Although there is no consensus amongst Philosophers on the nature of the process of idealisation and how it affects theoretical representation, at the level of science education much can be gained from the insights of existing philosophical analyses. Traditionally, teaching methodologies treat the observed divergence between theoretical predictions and experimental data by appealing to the more common-sensical notion of ‘approximation’. The use of the latter notion, however, to explicate discrepancies between theory and experiment obscures the theory/experiment relation. It does so, I argue, because from the viewpoint of scientific modelling ‘approximation’ either depends upon or piggybacks on ‘idealisation’.     

A case of korean higher education reform: The brain korea 21 project

The purpose of this paper is to examine current status, issues, and visions of higher education reform in Korea by focusing on ‘Brain Korea 21’ (BK21). ‘Brain Korea 21’ (BK21), is a major higher education reform project initiated by the South Korean government to prepare Korean human resources for the 21^st century. ‘Brain Korea 21’ (BK21) aims at fostering world-class graduate schools and high quality scholars by providing funds to higher education institutions. In this paper, societal, economic and educational changes which led to the initiation of BK 21 and its implementation processes are described first. Then, some resistance and controversies against BK 21 are discussed. Major achievements of BK 21 are highlighted and future directions of higher education reform in South Korea are addressed.