Privatisation,Domestic Marketisation and International Commercialisation of Higher Education: vulnerabilities and opportunities for Chile and Romania within the framework of WTO/GATS

This chapter explores the processes of privatisation of higher education in Chile (after 1981) and Romania (after 1989), focusing on the emergence of private institutions, the expansion in enrolments in these institutions, and the relative increase in private sources of funding for the post‐secondary sub‐sector. Attention is also given to related trends in higher education in these two countries: domestic marketisation (a strengthening of an orientation toward selling programmes/commodities to students/consumers within the country) and international commercialisation (an expansion of initiatives by domestic and foreign institutions to provide distance education, study abroad/exchange, and foreign site‐based degree programmes). Of importance to an understanding of globalisation, these two societies, which at the time exhibited similar economic systems but had different political systems and were situated in different regional contexts, experienced remarkably similar processes of and outcomes from privatisation, marketisation, and commercialisation. In both cases these processes were promoted by ‘internal’ political actors but also shaped by ‘external’ forces, notably the World Bank's higher education policy recommendations and the conditionalities included in the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes ‘negotiated’, respectively, with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in order to obtain loans. As a result of these processes—occurring prior to and during the emergence of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as a component of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—higher education institutions in both Chile and Romania are much more vulnerable to foreign influence/domination, although they also have somewhat greater opportunities to broaden their role in the global ‘business’ of higher education.     

Global Trends,National Policies and Institutional Responses: Restructuring Higher Education in Malaysia

A significant global trend during the 1990s is the restructuring of higher education systems. The essence of this restructuring process is a redefinition of the relationship between institutions of higher learning, the state, and the market, and a drastic reduction of institutional autonomy. This article is an analysis of the restructuring process in the forms of privatisation of higher education and corporatisation of public universities in Malaysia. This analysis highlights the context of higher education reforms in the era of globalization, major trends in higher education reforms and Malaysias responses to these global trends. By focusing on the institutional level, this article examines the expansion and diversification of private higher education as well as the change in the governance and culture of public universities brought about by privatisation and corporatisation.     

Private Higher Education in Russia: capacity for innovation and investment

This article considers the potential role of private institutions in the development of Russian higher education. After decades of a government centralised higher education system, there is a clear trend towards the privatisation of education institutions and the diversification of education practices. Some commentators consider this to indicate that the Russian State is losing control of education; others welcome private initiatives, both in formal and informal education. Russian higher education has also been greatly challenged by the current demographic gap: the total number of secondary school graduates expected in 2012 is half that of 2006. This strengthens the competition for the enrolment of students in private and public (federal and municipal) institutions. Based on recent interviews with senior management at a number of provincial private universities, this article suggests possible avenues for private universities to extend into the education market and considers the implications.     

Private Higher Education and Diversity: An Exploratory Survey

In this preliminary review, the authors analyse the effects of privatisation on diversity in higher education (HE) systems by exploring the consequences of the establishment of HE Institutions by non-public organisations. The rising importance of privatisation in Europe (Western and transitional economies), Latin America, and Southeast Asia is analysed. Then follows detailed examinations of private-sector HE in countries representative of all these geographical areas to determine how far privatisation has stimulated diversity. The preliminary results indicate that in each case the private sub-sector has promoted limited and partial diversification. In general, though, the more recent private establishments, created to satisfy increasing demand for HE, have nonetheless focused predominately on teaching, have undertaken little, or no, research and appear to be of lower quality than the older institutions. The private sub-sector is characterised mostly by its low-risk behaviour, and a concentration on low-cost and/or safer initiatives. Public authorities must share at least a partial responsibility for some of the negative side effects of the development of private higher education.     

民办高校治理能力的特殊性与提升路径

民办高校治理能力是民办高校的利益主体共同开展治理活动、最大限度地实现办学目标的能力。主体性因素是影响民办高校治理能力的主要因素,但不同主体对治理能力的影响是不同的。社会力量投资办学的特征及举办者控制型管理模式带来了诸多利益冲突,使民办高校治理面临着与公办高校不同的难题,民办高校治理能力有其特殊性。民办高校治理能力提升需要在分类管理的框架下创新外部管理制度,通过修订章程推进依法治理,通过完善治理结构提高决策水平。     

高校办学自主权变迁的实证再研究(二)--高校内部学术决策权运行现状

在我国政府持续下放办学自主权的同时,高校内部也急需调整组织结构,提升高校学术自主能力。为此,高校一方面设立各种专业学术治理机构,为校级学术权力的行使提供基本的组织载体;另一方面普遍进行校院两级管理体制改革。实证研究表明,在高校内部学术治理机构建设方面,各种专门化的学术治理机构普及程度非常高,且大多数改革是自发进行的,决策内容涵盖与学术事务相关的所有综合决策、人力资源专项决策和学术事务专项决策,机构职能定位以咨询议事为主,机构人员仍然以高层行政管理角色为主,通过参与以及专业权威影响行使权力;在纵向分权方面,无论是否实行校院两级管理,高校一旦获得更多的办学自主权,在"如何提供"生产决策方面,都基本下放到了院系层面,使其在学术治理方面获得更多的影响力和自主性,而校院两级管理改革更加提升了二级学院整体的决策权力水平,资源配置方面尤为显著。     

When marketization encounters centralized governance: Private Higher education in Egypt

The growing presence of private higher education institutions, including international branch campuses (IBCs), can potentially lead to transformations in governance and evaluation modes in contexts of state-centric steering. This paper addresses these transformations in the context of Egypt. The paper shows a hybrid progression in the legal and discursive practices governing private institutions, and a shift towards more procedural autonomy specifically in relation to IBCs. The system, however, continues to rely on a centralized a priori evaluation mode and strict controls. This reflects the inherent tensions within systems of centralized governance and weak institutional autonomy to shift into a posteriori evaluation modes, despite the forces of marketization.     

Higher education and training policy and practice in South Africa: impacts of global privatisation,quasi-marketisation and new managerialism

Trends suggest that business practices and private sector ideas and values are increasingly permeating public funded higher education institutions world-wide. The impact of business practices and values on higher education policy and practice is discernible in the growing dominance of global privatisation, quasi-marketisation and new managerialism in the higher education sector. However, reactions of different role players and responses of higher learning institutions to these external demands have varied according to local conditions and institutional types. This article contributes to the debate on the increasing permeation of business practices and private sector ideas and values on higher education in South Africa after apartheid using the case study of the University of Pretoria. It begins with the review of debates on higher education on this topic in general, and then moves on to analyse these debates in South Africa using the resource dependence theory and structuralism as conceptual frames. It argues that: (i) the increasing marketisation and quasi-marketisation in higher education and training could be attributed to the influence of neo-liberalism and new managerialism; (ii) changes in higher education provision, policy and practice in South Africa need to be understood in terms of marketisation and quasi-marketisation rather than in terms of privatisation; (iii) although the influence of these external forces is unlikely to be reversed, provision, policies and practices must be tempered by imperatives of redress and equity in South Africa; and (iv) the case study of the University of Pretoria reported here is used as an example of the extent to which institutions are becoming entrepreneurial.     

Colleges and the Governance of Higher Education

The governance of higher education in colleges and college sectors that offer other types of education and training is distinctive in four main respects. First, governance structures are frequently separate and different for higher education and for other segments of tertiary education. Second, the size and scope of the higher‐level education taught by individual institutions will bear on the extent to which the management and governance arrangements in colleges are joint or divided. Third, the growth of small and distributed forms of higher‐level education has created specific problems and dilemmas for national and sub‐national governance. Fourth, the multiple missions of many colleges continue to pose questions about their educational and organisational coherence and governability. It is only in recent years that a base of evidence has been available to comprehend these developments, although definitional difficulties and data deficiencies remain.     

论民办高校章程的制定与完善

章程是民办高校依法成立的前提要件,也是其依法治校、自主管理的基本依据。充分认识民办高校章程的内涵与作用,是组织制定民办高校章程的重要基础。制定和完善民办高校章程,必须遵循主体明确、依据充分、要件齐全、权责对等和程序公正原则。     

Blurred Vision?: Public and Private Higher Education in Indonesia

If, as some have argued, private higher education is now the most dynamic segment of higher education, it is also the case that its growth, partly in response to the increasing mismatch between spiralling demand and limited state capacity, is often ad hoc. The article examines the contours of this trend in Indonesia, where the balance of public and private higher education has shifted sharply over the last two decades. While the private sector has been responsible for much of the expansion in higher education, its role in relation to quality is more questionable. Indonesia’s economic burdens, sharply exacerbated by the effects of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, make it likely that the trend towards privatisation, including of its public institutions, will continue. Together with the current rise of trans-national higher education, however, this is only likely to sharpen existing difficulties around longstanding issues of quality, equality, and regulatory capacity.     

Higher education reform in Romania

This paper reviews the crisis in Romanian universities since the country's political transition in 1989, and describes the government's strategy for revitalizing the higher education system. Attention is drawn to the expansion of access to higher education, the dramatic increase of enrollments in social science fields, the spontaneous establishment of private higher education institutions, and to the many difficulties institutions are experiencing in coping with these changes especially because of resource constraints. Comprehensive reform of the role of the state in the financing and governance of higher education are proposed. The government's reform strategy involves accreditation of public and private institutions, establishment of open transparent mechanisms for allocating institutional and research funding, as well as changes in the structure of academic employment. Successful implementation will require strengthening the fragile management capacity of the Ministry of Education and the higher education institutions.     

Does the Affiliation of Universities to External Organizations Foster Diversity in Private Higher Education? Chile in Comparative Perspective

The expansion of private sectors of higher education has usually been regarded as a factor of diversification in higher education systems. Some of this differentiation has been found to arise from the affiliation of private institutions with organizations outside the field of higher education. This article reports the results of a study of this form of interorganizational relationship in private universities in Chile. Cases include universities founded or sponsored by religious, business and military organizations. A typology of private universities is proposed, on the basis of the forms affiliation (or its absence), was observed to take in the cases examined. Weak and strong forms of affiliation are described, and affiliated universities are compared to “proprietary” universities, i.e., those owned by individuals who govern them from their positions in the board of directors, and “independent” universities, in which governance lies with internal – academic or administrative – constituents. Albeit derived from the case of Chile, the typology could be applied to the analysis of private higher education in other national systems. The second part of the article seeks to ascertain whether affiliation operates as a source of differentiation in Chilean private higher education. Results show that, compared to the other types of private universities, the affiliated ones possess distinctive mission statements and declarations of principles, consistent with the orientations of their sponsor institutions, they tend to be smaller, and to have more full-time and better qualified faculty. Some receive financial support from their sponsor organization or its members. Distinctiveness was not found in indicators of prestige and student selectivity, nor in tuition levels, program offerings, curriculum design, the weight of research and graduate programs in their functions, student socioeconomic profile, and faculty involvement in governance. This is not to say that there are no differences in these dimensions among private universities: much diversity exists, but most of it cuts across all categories of interest for our study. Overall, affiliation does not appear to be a strong factor behind the diversification that exists in the Chilean private university sector.     

Distinct pathways: tracing the origins and history of private higher education in South Africa

In much of the literature on the privatisation of higher education, it appears as both a relatively recent phenomenon, and one that is homogenous in its causes, forms and effects. Drawing on the case of South Africa, this study challenges these assumptions, suggesting that without a sense of the long history of private provision and its interwoven relationship with public higher education in that country, it is difficult to appreciate fully the effects of global and local dynamics. The paper draws on an empirical study conducted in 2001 to provide a historical sweep of private provision prior to 1990, before tracing the origins and history of contemporary cases. The analysis demonstrates that there are four distinct pathways to the establishment of private institutions, related to global pressures towards the marketisation and diversification of higher education. Distinct forms of private providers are shaped by the complex global, national and historical dynamics and relationships with the public higher education sector described.     

Turning around low-performing private universities in China: A perspective of organisational ecology

While China has a long history of private institutions of higher learning, they disappeared almost entirely after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and did not re-emerge until the 1980s. Their reappearance is one of the ramifications of economic marketisation and privatisation in China. But private higher education institutions are now facing new challenges and competition in the education system. Approximately 500 of them were shut down between 2000 and 2009 for financial, legal or other reasons. Looking through the theoretical lens of organisational ecology – a sociological theory that applies ecological principles to organisational studies – this paper traces how the social and economic environment induced the re-emergence of private universities in China and how it has had an impact on their non-linear pattern of development. Using a number of relevant theory fragments from the overarching framework of organisational ecology as tools, the author then explores possible strategies for turning around low-performing private universities in China.     

Trends in private higher education in Australia

The last decade has witnessed a significant growth of private higher education around the world. The growth included the number of private education providers, and also the growing number of students. While some countries are experiencing trend growth, others are witnessing decline. Some of the reasons for the decline include increased regulation and stringent accreditation and reaccreditation of higher education institutions and courses, government policies to encourage the growth of public universities, and acquisition of small providers by large private education institutions. The growth of private higher education has increased competition, and it has also established collaboration with public institutions. The growth of private higher education has also raised concerns about ethical governance, maintenance of academic standards, and mechanisms to plan, review, and improve educational outcomes. This paper focuses on Australia where despite growth, there is limited research about private higher education. This paper reviews literature on the global growth and decline of private higher education. It then analyses the trends in Australia and possible scenarios for the future of private higher education in the country.     

国家治理视野下的高等教育治理变迁——高等教育治理的变与不变

中国高等教育治理变迁70年,大致经历了中国高等教育制度的探索与建立(1949~1977年)、中国高等教育办学体制和管理体制改革(1978~2011年)以及以治理体系和治理能力现代化改革为旨归(2012至今)三个阶段。从70年的治理变迁中不难发现,我国高等教育改革发展呈现出鲜明的中国特征,主要体现为:始终坚持和完善党的领导、政府政策始终发挥主导作用、高等学校内部治理的基本制度框架始终是党委领导下的校长负责制等。这些相关治理制度在高等教育实践中不断形成、确立、完善和定型,并逐渐成为中国高等教育治理的根本制度。同时,在这70年中,中国高等教育治理在高等学校的法律地位、学术权力在高等教育治理中的作用以及全球化背景下中国高等教育治理方式等三个方面都发生了转变。未来,在国家治理视域下,中国高等教育治理应着重考虑如何将制度优势转化为治理效能。     

Sector differences in the role of institutional research in informing decision making and governance in higher education

The intent of the authors in preparing this paper is to compare and contrast the roles of Institutional Research in informing decision making and governance in higher education. Using a case study format the authors will provide an example of a research project conducted within each of the following sectors of United States higher education system: private 4-year not for profit, public major research institutions/private specialized institutions, and a pubic state university system. The first case study from the private sector will feature a mixed methodology study that used data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and student focus groups to explore student engagement at this institution and inform faculty development. The second case study will compare the use of data for decision making from the standpoint of large public research institutions and private specialized institutions. The third case study from a state university system focuses on recent initiatives in the public sector to inform the public, the institutions, the State, and the federal government using data from institutional research offices, student engagement surveys, and student learning assessments shared through consortia and national associations. These examples will be discussed within the structure of decision making and governance in higher education.     

Party Secretaries at Private Institutions of Higher Education: Group Characteristics,Channels for Selection,and Policy Recommendations

Abstract

Research on the group characteristics and channels for selection of party secretaries at private institutions of higher education has important significance in strengthening leadership by party organizations and perfecting internal governance structures at private institutions of higher education. A survey of 293 private institutions of higher education shows that, on the whole, party secretaries tend to be more advanced in age, with a fairly reasonable ratio of men and women, while their academic qualifications need improvement. The career trajectories of party secretaries display diversification, and their power is gradually expanding. The principal channels for selection of party secretaries include appointment by the educational affairs department of the party committee, or election by the school. In the future, a qualifications-based access system should be established for party secretaries at private institutions of higher education, and the selection system for party secretaries should be perfected, with accurate positioning of their roles, and correct handling of relationships with school operators and presidents, allowing secretaries to better exercise their roles as leaders, participants, supervisors and coordinators, so as to usher in safe, stable and standardized school development.     

The long road—how evolving institutional governance mechanisms are changing the face of quality in Portuguese higher education

While a lot has been written regarding the changing management and governance arrangements in higher education, less is known about how this progression relates to quality in higher education. The purpose of this article is to describe the context of governance in Portuguese higher education institutions and how institutional governance arrangements impact on quality and quality assurance mechanisms of higher education. The study is based on four institutional cases studies, comprising two universities and two polytechnic institutions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers, middle managers, academics and students from Arts and Engineering, and documentary analysis was undertaken. The main findings show that national and institutional features of governance and management may influence the implementation of quality policy and procedures, and indeed quality improvement. The different institutional actors seem to be aware of the dynamic nature of the equilibrium between positive and negative impacts and recognise the need for checks and balances in the governance and management structures of higher education institutions, especially between collegial and managerial facets.