Coping by Copying? Higher education institutions’ student recruitment strategies

Growing national and international competition for students puts pressure on higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop marketing and student recruitment strategies; these are also driven by financial stress caused by performance-based funding mechanisms. In this paper we explore Norwegian HEIs’ student recruitment strategies. What type of student recruitment strategies do HEIs develop? How are the strategies linked to the institutions’ student market position? We combine qualitative research strategies including in-depth interviews and document analysis with quantitative analyses of the student market positions of different types of institutions in Norway.

     

Higher education institutions: as different as chalk and cheese?

Asserting that there is a lack of attention to operationalising and measuring institutional diversity in higher education, this paper attempts to fill the gap. Bearing on the use of the concept of diversity in biology, a model is proposed to conceptualise and measure diversity. The basic principles of three techniques (cluster analysis, ordination techniques, and calculating indices) are set out and examples are given of measurements of the level of diversity of different systems of higher education, such as the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom.     

In the red? Debt levels at higher education institutions in China

Borrowing from banks has become a common practice among Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs), and operating with a heavy debt load has become a characteristic of Chinese higher educational development. Substantial financial commitments acquired by HEIs during their rapid expansion since 1998 are now having serious consequences: numerous universities and colleges have found themselves with major debt problems. Some are even facing insolvency. This paper describes the background of Chinese HEIs’ debt problems, assesses the present debt and repayment situation, and suggests a possible solution for the university debt crisis, using empirical evidence from one HEI in China.     

Old Players—New Rules: Higher education institutions’ response to educational demand

Tertiary Education and Management - Performance indicators and performance-based funding are becoming integral components of higher education (HE) policy around the globe. We explore some of the...     

Higher education for sustainability: can education affect moral perceptions?

A considerable literature looks at universities’ approaches to integrating sustainable development into teaching and learning, but less is known about how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) affects student attitudes, values and norms. To our knowledge, only a few studies have quantified such effects of changes in curricula. This study contributes to this literature by quantifying and measuring the effect of a compulsory sustainability activity on students’ ethical and moral perceptions. Our results show that ESD can indeed affect moral perceptions of what constitutes socially appropriate behaviour, but not in a homogenous way. Instead, the effect varies with background characteristics of the students.     

Higher education in Turkey: Subsidizing the rich or the poor?

We investigate how the benefits of publicly financed higher education in Turkey are distributed among students with different socioeconomic backgrounds. We use a dataset from a nationally representative sample of university entrance exam takers together with data on government subsidies to public universities. We compare the characteristics of students who succeed in the exam to those who do not and those who enter public universities to those who go to private ones. Our econometric analyses based on a three-stage selection model reveal that students from wealthier and more educated families are more likely to be successful at university entrance. Unlike the findings in other countries, students who enroll in private universities come from higher income and more educated families. Among those who enter public universities, students from higher income and better educated families are more likely to go to universities that receive larger subsidies from the government.     

Higher education policy in post-devolution UK: more convergence than divergence?

Many researchers studying the impact of parliamentary devolution conclude that education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverging. They attribute this to five factors: the redistribution of formal powers associated with devolution; differences in values, ideologies and policy discourses across the four territories; the different composition, interests and policy styles of their policy communities; the different ‘situational logics’ of policy-making and the mutual independence of policy decisions in the different territories. This article reviews trends in higher education (HE) policy across the UK since parliamentary devolution. It focuses on policies for student fees and student support, for widening participation, for supporting research and for the HE contribution to economic development, skills and employability. On balance, it finds as much evidence of policy convergence, or at least of constraints on divergence, as of policy divergence. It argues that each of the five factors claimed to promote divergence can be associated with corresponding pressures for convergence.     

Old Players—New Rules: Higher education institutions’ response to educational demand

Performance indicators and performance‐based funding are becoming integral components of higher education (HE) policy around the globe. We explore some of the implications of this type of policy on Norwegian HE. We believe the case will be of significant interest to policy‐makers, stakeholders and academics alike, not least because our empirical analysis indicates that competition for students is relatively stable and not particularly aggressive across groups of higher education institutions (HEIs) and over time. Despite this fact, a few HEIs have improved their share of applications, while others have fallen behind in the competition for students. The paper is based on a unique data set drawn from the Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service during the period 2003–2009.     

Are private universities the solution to the higher education crisis in sub-Saharan Africa?

Although comparatively young, state universities in sub-Saharan Africa have accomplished alot. They have almost replaced expatriate faculty with indigenous staff and help foster intellectual communities. Some have developed relevant curricula and have produced the skilled human resources required to staff and manage public and private institutes. However, universities in the sub-region face formidable problems, viz: increased enrollments; fiscal challenges; quality issues and rising graduate unemployment. To help solve some of these problems, private universities are increasingly been seen as alternative routes to higher education achievement. Based on empirical data, this paper examines some of the challenges/opportunities that private universities face in sub-Saharan Africa.     

A world apart? Higher education transformation in the US and South Africa

Higher education transformation is context dependent. However, through a comparison of transformation in South Africa and the United States, this paper highlights challenges and issues confronting higher education leaders and policy makers. Contrasting the experiences and issues of transformation in a long-standing democracy and in a newly emerging one surface key elements such as the structures of national mandates, challenges of urgency and abundance, the importance of a language of “transformation”, and issues of legitimate and tested decision making processes. This paper raises some of the implications for effecting change based upon this trans-national comparison, and concludes with implications for leaders interested in affecting transformation.     

Higher education cooperation in ASEAN: building towards integration or manufacturing consent?

The triad of cooperation, international exchange, and integration among institutions of higher education has become the new norm in the global experience of learning and academic training. The goal of improving and standardising the academic experience across countries is now typically also associated with fostering cultural and political ties and complementing processes of cultural integration and economic growth. Behind the rhetoric of many new initiatives, however, is a competition of geopolitical proportions, in which various national or regional systems of higher education try to shore up their positions or conquer new territory. In this paper we assess these discursive and material battles over institutional hegemony in Southeast Asian higher education by drawing on the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse. We critically address the competitive negotiation over higher education taking place between international and Southeast Asian educational players, asking whether these contribute more to integration than reinforcing dominant higher education domains.     

Higher education and women’s empowerment in Pakistan

This paper summarises the findings of a 2005 doctoral study by Malik which explored to what extent participation in higher education offers empowerment to women in Pakistan. A survey instrument was used to question female faculty members and female students from 10 public universities in Pakistan; 1290 students and 290 faculty members responded. Subsequently, semi‐structured interviews were held with 10 faculty members and 10 students. Respondents highlighted economic independence and an increased standing within family and society as the main benefits of higher education participation. A major finding is that participation in higher education enables women to impact on a number of discriminatory practices simultaneously and thereby effect change for the better. The main recommendation is that future educational strategies be developed with the aim of further promoting gender equality in all areas of education in Pakistan, but particularly with the aim of increasing female students’ participation in higher education.     

Higher education: discipline or field of study?

Tertiary Education and Management - Higher education, or more strictly higher education studies, is sometimes referred to as a discipline, though it is more often referred to as a field, sector or...     

Lost in translation? Comparative education research and the production of academic knowledge

The worth of academic knowledge tends to be tested against global metrics of citations and articles published in high-ranking English language academic journals. This paper examines academic knowledge production in three local fields of research with different national languages (English, Finnish and French). It focuses on knowledge production on the topic of apprenticeship where there are distinctive differences in the three local research fields and the associated patterns of academic publication over a 15-year period. The findings suggest that publication patterns are still largely tied to the respective national languages. Concerns are raised about the limited visibility of non-Anglophone local contexts and conceptual frameworks as filtered through global academic knowledge production processes. The language practices in the production of academic knowledge need to be challenged to ensure that knowledge from these sources is not lost in translation or in the re-contextualisation for global audiences.     

Unfreezing higher education institutions? Understanding the introduction of quality management in teaching and learning in Germany

Quality management (QM) in teaching and learning has strongly “infected” the higher education sector and spread around the world. It has almost everywhere become an integral part of higher education reforms. While existing research on QM mainly focuses on the national level from a macro-perspective, its introduction at the institutional level is only rarely analyzed. The present article addresses this research gap. Coming from the perspective of organization studies, it examines the factors that were crucial for the introduction of QM at higher education institutions in Germany. As the introduction of QM can be considered to be a process of organizational change, the article refers to Kurt Lewin’s seminal concept of “unfreezing” organizations as a theoretical starting point. Methodologically, a mixed methods approach is applied by combining qualitative data derived from interviews with institutional quality managers and quantitative data gathered from a nationwide survey. The results show that the introduction of QM is initiated by either internal or external processes. Furthermore, some institutions follow a rather voluntary approach of unfreezing, while others show modes of forced unfreezing. Consequently, the way how QM was introduced has important implications for its implementation.