Comparing the Open University Systems of China and India: Origins,Developments and Prospects

The national open universities of China and India are unique adaptations of the open university model that emanated from the UK. These institutions have expanded to become the largest universities in the world as measured by current enrollment of approximately four million each. This article comparatively analyzes how these open universities have differentiated themselves from the open university model and from each other amidst similarities of outcome and differences of approach. Historical contexts, national governance of higher education, institutional administration, curriculum and international operations are the foci of analysis. The article contributes to the literature on national and local forces that shape higher education systems and aims to spur collaborations between the institutions in question for mutual benefit.     

Global university rankings and their impact on the internationalisation of higher education

Global university rankings are a worldwide trend that emerged in times of the globalisation and internationalisation of higher education. Universities worldwide are now striving to become “world‐class” institutions and are constantly aiming to improve their ranking position. Global rankings of universities are thus perceived by many as an ultimate tool for assessing the level of internationalisation at individual higher education institutions. This article first discusses the meaning of and relationship between the globalisation and internationalisation of higher education, as their influence on the emergence of global rankings is undeniable. It then outlines the methodological designs of four main global university rankings which serve as key prerequisites for the subsequent analyses of both the international(‐isation) indicators that these rankings include and of the international ranking initiatives that focus exclusively on the international outlook of higher education institutions. In the concluding discussion, the article reveals that, due to the predominantly quantitative orientation of global university rankings (on the internationalisation of higher education), their results should not be generalised or understood as a means to improve the quality of (internationalisation of) higher education.     

Academic quality,league tables,and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems

The global expansion of access to higher education has increased demand for information on academic quality and has led to the development of university ranking systems or league tables in many countries of the world. A recent UNESCO/CEPES conference on higher education indicators concluded that cross-national research on these ranking systems could make an important contribution to improving the international market for higher education. The comparison and analysis of national university ranking systems can help address a number of important policy questions. First, is there an emerging international consensus on the measurement of academic quality as reflected in these ranking systems? Second, what impact are the different ranking systems having on university and academic behavior in their respective countries? Finally, are there important public interests that are thus far not reflected in these rankings? If so, is there a needed and appropriate role for public policy in the development and distribution of university ranking systems and what might that role be? This paper explores these questions through a comparative analysis of university rankings in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.     

Redefining the Region Served by a University—The Baltic Sea Region Revisited

This article outlines the co-operation links of the University of Turku in Finland. Currently it has bilateral agreements with thirty-nine overseas universities plus links with a number of nongovernmental organizations devoted to higher education. The University of Turku is reevaluating these links so as, in the future, to stress those with its immediate international (Baltic) neighbours. It is in the process of contributing to the establishment of a formal Baltic Sea Region University Network and participation in European Union-sponsored Northern Dimension-sponsored projects. The university links parallel and intersect those also established internationally by the city of Turku. International strategies have become a major part of the total activity of the University of Turku.     

Managing the Process of International Collaboration in Online Course Development: A Case-Example Involving Higher Education Institutions in Ireland,Switzerland, Austria,and the United Kingdom

There has been significant growth recently in online learning and joint programmes of education involving collaborative partnerships between and among higher education institutions in different jurisdictions. Utilising an interdisciplinary team model (Care and Scanlan 2001), we describe in this article the process of collaboration among four European institutions in Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in order to develop and deliver an accredited online course on the management of work-related stress for health and social care workers. This course was also one of the first to pilot a system of equivalency between two European vocational and higher education credit schemes to promote learner mobility and recognition of a new international qualification. Although this process of collaboration occurred within a pan-European context, important lessons may be drawn from this explanation that are of potential interest to the wider international audience.     

GENERAL INFORMATION ON HIGHER EDUCATION

The recognition of studies and diplomas is considered a prerequisite for the promotion of the international mobility of students, researchers and other university staff. For this reason Unesco, as well as some other international organizations, attach a great deal of importance in their programmes of activities to this issue. The following article, prepared for “Higher Education in Europe” by the Unesco Secretariat, outlines the main developments with regard to the problem of. the recognition of studies and diplomas in higher education with a special reference to the recently signed Convention on the Recognition of Studies and Diplomas in Higher Education in the Member States of the Europe Region.     

国际组织与中国高等教育发展

自20世纪80年代与国际组织开展合作起,我国高等教育政策及发展历程中就有了国际组织影响的痕迹.本文以世界银行和世界贸易组织与我国的合作为例,阐释了这两个国际组织在我国高等教育改革与发展中所发挥的影响,在分析合作所带来的机遇和挑战的同时,认为我国高等教育应继续积极参与国际合作,与国际组织建立更为密切的工作关系,从而扩大我国在全球经济和知识发展中的作用,并使我们更好地应对来自诸方面的挑战.     

Multilateral agencies and higher education reform in Latin America

During the last decade, the debate over higher education took up a significant space on the agendas of various international agencies, including multilateral development banks and other intergovernmental agencies. This fact points to the importance of the subject within a broader discussion that refers to national development projects and their articulation within the new international economic and political order. In this context, the purpose of this article is to discern the principal lines of argument at work and their implications for the transformation of higher education in Latin America. To this end, we have chosen four cases that we consider relevant for the region: The United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLA) and the Interamerican Development Bank (IADB). In the first part of the text we characterize the particularities of each of these organizations, highlighting their relation with the processes of educational change. In the second, we approach the subject of the recommendations made by the multilateral agencies on change in the higher education systems in the world and, particularly, in the Latin American region.     

The Restructuring of Academic Work in Australia: Power,management and gender

This paper examines how the restructuring of Australia's university system and the introduction of corporate managerialism has changed the work performed by academic staff. The paper illustrates how the emergence of higher education as both a major export industry and a vehicle for attaining greater international competitiveness has led to more intense regulation of academic work. Within a context of funding cutbacks, substantial inequities have emerged between and within universities, as they compete more aggressively for higher education markets. Hierarchical line management, with clear divisions between different categories of academic staff, has substantially replaced collegial forms of administration. This paper demonstrates how these processes have worked to undermine the effective implementation of Equal Employment Opportunity initiatives, as women remain concentrated in the lowest paid and least secure positions within universities.     

International organizations (IOs), epistemic tools of influence,and the colonial geopolitics of knowledge production in higher education policy

Abstract

While other scholars have analyzed the way that international organizations (IOs) in higher education policy may contribute to neocolonial domination, this paper illuminates not only on how IOs’ epistemic activities promulgate one-size fit all solutions, but centers the colonial structures of knowledge/power that inform the why (or logic) of these IOs’ epistemic activities and their effects. A decolonial analysis of discursive artifacts and tools such as policy reports, performance indicators, and technical assistance, of the OECD and World Bank, suggests that standardized IO policy processes and practices reproduce global inequities. In collusion with other policy actors, these IOs constitute and perpetuate coloniality in global higher education, through enacting a god-eye point of view, colonial difference, and the geopolitics of knowledge. This article proposes a set of questions that may open the possibility of ‘delinking’ from modern/colonial world systems and pushes us to decolonize our imaginaries of the landscape of global HE.     

Allocation of students in North African universities

In recent years, student bodies at public universities in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have grown rapidly, outside the direct control of university authorities. But although entry to higher education remains open to all who pass the baccalauréat examination, the prospect of continued expansion has led to reevaluations of how universities are to serve society by producing trained professionals. Government officials, school authorities, and the public have focussed attention on the entry point as a crucial moment for maintaining educational standards within universities and other higher institutes and for determining the social and economic outcomes of higher education. In this article initial attention is given to how the three North African nations differ in their policies regulating which students may study which subjects. This is followed by a discussion of the implications of these policies for the goals higher education is ostensibly meant to serve.This article is based on field research in North Africa. I am indebted to the Spencer Foundation for their support of my study.     

Strategically Managing Entrepreneurialism: The Australian University Experience

While the practice of university entrepreneurship has become an increasingly popular field of study across the globe (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Clark, 1998; Marginson & Considine, 2000), few substantive studies have considered international education from this perspective. Alongside other institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, Australian universities have increasingly pursued ambitious strategies to participate in the booming international education sector.
Undertaking a mixture of strategies from the traditional to the highly innovative, Australia's universities have aggressively and often creatively marketed their offerings in the international education market, and the sector now represents Australia's eighth largest export and third largest services export.
In order to assist in the development of an understanding of how Australia's universities have moved from government dependence to entrepreneurialism, this study focuses in particular on the management of international education as a key dimension of this trend.
While a general overview of the study's findings is presented elsewhere (Poole, forthcoming), this article seeks to contrast the management strategies, structures and systems of two universities in the study. A highly international metropolitan university recognized around the world as a leader in international education is compared with a smaller, regional institution in terms of the relative sophistication and professionalism of strategic management practices and processes. The implications of the differences arising between the institutions are discussed.     

在美国作为一个研究领域的高等教育:历史、学位项目与知识基础

在探索高等教育作为一个研究生阶段的新的学术领域在美国的崛起方面,本文提出了四个相关的主题。首先,本文追溯了高等教育作为一种学位项目的起源和程序化的发展,以及高等教育的课程发展和专业化的演变。第二,通过高等教育研究领域在研究型学位(Ph.D和M.A.)和专业学位(Ed.D.和M.Ed)的发展历史,本文指出在整个20世纪,教育学院都在力求区别对待这两种学位类型,而且努力证明这些学位类型各有其存在的原因和不同的要求。第三,高等教育研究领域的崛起逐步形成了一种知识基础,它反映了与大学历史和传统、大学管理与治理、大学课程、学生和公共政策研究领域相关的正在增长的研究生产力。与许多其他学科和专业领域一样,这种正在发展中的知识基础发轫于致力于高等教育研究的学术期刊、丛书、专著以及期刊文章。第四,在高等教育研究中心和学位项目国际化的背景下,本文对美国、欧洲、加拿大和中国正在演化中的高等教育的多学科领域提供了一个粗略的描述。     

Accountability, Assessment and Doctoral Education: recommendations for moving forward

This article opens with an overview of the pressures that have led to heightened calls for accountability in higher education, both in the US and Europe. Noting that doctoral programmes have, to date, drawn minimal attention in the accountability debates, the authors note that these programmes cannot stay forever on the sidelines. Drawing on their knowledge of the American context in particular, the authors go on to outline current efforts to assess the quality of doctoral programmes in the US with attention to how these efforts respond to accountability demands. They urge the higher education community to re-shape the accountability discussion, shifting its centre from government to higher education and the institutions training doctoral students who will become faculty. Crucially, they argue that graduate programmes should train doctoral students to undertake and use discipline-appropriate assessment measurement and scholarship as part of their future work as college and university instructors. If doctoral students emerge as faculty with an understanding of how to conduct assessments for the purpose of improving student learning, they will advance not only their fields, but higher education more generally.     

First-generation students: what we ask,what we know and what it means: an international review of the state of research

In the course of educational expansion, student populations have become more diverse. This paper represents an international literature review on the topic of first-generation students (FGS), i.e. students whose parents have not obtained a higher education qualification. On the basis of more than 70 research articles and reports on FGS from several countries, we find that the focal points in FGS research concern their pre-college characteristics, mobility factors, decisions about institution, degree and subjects, FGS’ experiences at university, and academic outcomes. Summarising the state of research on these topics, we point to two problems: (1) the international incommensurability of data on FGS due to differences in how FGS are defined and researched; (2) the depiction of FGS’ problems as individual rather than structural problems. We recommend that structural changes such as making organisational structures in higher education institutions more transparent are in order instead of offering special support programmes only for FGS.     

为什么高等教育市场不遵循经济学教科书

2013年11月1日至3日,第十届北京论坛教育分论坛成功举行。论坛以"高等教育的全球参与和知识共享"为主题,邀请了来自中国、韩国、马来西亚、老挝、以色列、美国、加拿大、巴西、德国、英国、希腊、挪威、澳大利亚、南非和中国香港等15个国家和地区的30位学者到会演讲,来自校内外的50多位师生参与了会议讨论。     

Leadership in democratic citizenship education: politics and praxis

Globalization and neoliberal practices have influenced leadership in education in various ways, including through curricula. One of the most vital sections in curricula is citizenship education. Supranational and international organizations, as well as governments, have advanced interest in elementary school, particularly kindergarten, curricula. This article sheds light on how leadership in democratic citizenship education influences kindergarten curricula in Ontario (Canada) and Hellas (Greece) as well as within a global context. The kindergarten education curricula of Ontario and Hellas are compared and supplementary reports published by supranational and international organizations are analysed in terms of democratic citizenship education, utilizing a critical pedagogic perspective through critical discourse analysis. Recommendations for future citizenship education and practices are provided.     

Modernization of Russian higher education: exploring paths of influence

This article discusses the changes in Russian higher education policies and the role of international organizations—the World Bank and OECD—in promoting education reforms in this country. General and specific recommendations offered by the World Bank and the OECD expert teams to improve Russian higher education are analysed to determine if any of their suggestions have been considered and applied in recent government policies. We explore the mechanisms though which new policies are implemented at the institutional and national levels. Finally, we suggest that higher education institutions and the Russian government experience coercive, mimetic, normative and discursive pressures emanating from these global policy actors.     

New public management as a global education policy: its adoption and re-contextualization in a Southern European setting

In the education sector, new public management (NPM) has crystallized in policies such as school autonomy, professionalization of school principals, standardized evaluation and teachers’ accountability, and it has been widely disseminated by international organizations, such as the OECD, which enjoy a great prestige when it comes to frame education reforms in European countries.

This article analyses the way NPM has been constructed as a global education policy, and its adoption and re-contextualization into the Spanish education context. This article shows that the reasons for adopting NPM are not so different from those prevailing in other countries where these policies have been implemented before. Counter-intuitively, although NPM is a reform programme traditionally initiated by conservative governments, in the Spanish education field, as also happened in other Central and Northern European countries, it has been adopted and regulated with social democratic governments. In all these countries, social democrats have tended to embrace NPM as an attempt to address the legitimacy crisis of the welfare state and of public services in particular.

Nonetheless, in Spain, the NPM reforms have been re-contextualized and regulated in very uneven and paradoxical ways. For a combination of political, institutional and economic reasons, the final form adopted by the NPM approach is far from the model advocated by the international community and is deeply contradictory.

Our arguments are based on intensive fieldwork that include, on the one hand, interviews with key education policy-makers and stakeholders and, on the other, document analysis of policy briefings, press releases and legal documents.     

知识管理在中美教育机构中的应用研究

目前知识管理在教育机构中的应用较为滞后 ,但其思想和方法同样适用于像大学、教育管理部门这样的组织机构。教育机构也可以通过实施知识管理达到提高响应能力和工作效率的目的。在高等教育中 ,知识管理工作体现在面向学生的教学和管理活动中。通过对中美两国教育机构调研的数据分析可以看出 ,在与知识管理相关的因素分析上 ,如知识管理的实施与激励形式、作用力和学校规模等方面 ,中国学校与美国学校在认识上具有不同的相关程度。这些差异反映了两国知识管理发展水平的不同 ,同时 ,对中国的高校实施知识管理具有启发意义 ,即知识管理本身本非目的 ,而是一种手段 ,应将它同具体的工作有机结合 ,才能取得更好的效果。