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.     

Threatening youth: political priorities and the professional response

After reviewing (autobiographically) the post‐war historical context, this article outlines some of the key elements of the current assault on public education, especially in the post‐16 sector. It then seeks to identify some of the principles on which less defensive and more proactive curricula and policy responses to this assault might be developed. These, it is argued, need to include attempts both to establish more collective and critical notions of ‘vocationalism’ focused on domestic as well as industrial labour; and, given the extent to which the ‘the youth question’ has been politicized since 1979, to redefine ‘professionalism’ in ways which explicitly acknowledge the need for those working in the public education sector to move away from their more distanced, apolitical conceptions of their roles.     

Undergraduate students who are required to withdraw from university: The role of ethnicity

A large body of international research focuses on identifying reasons why students do not ‘persist’ (Tinto, 2006 ) within higher education. Little research has focused on students whose leaving is non‐voluntary and where narratives of ‘persistence’ are therefore not as pertinent. This paper seeks to refocus some of the attention onto the distinct group of students who do not elect to leave their studies but who are, instead, required to withdraw; such students leave under ‘Academic fail’ and ‘Exclusion’ categories. More specifically, it explores the relationship between student leavers’ ethnicity and their likelihood of being required to withdraw. Utilising a large dataset comprising UK‐domiciled undergraduate students enrolled to take a degree within an English higher education institution in 2010/11, it finds that most groups of Black and Minority Ethnic students are more likely to be required to withdraw than White students. Ethnicity exerts an independent impact on a student's likelihood of being required to withdraw, when other background and on‐course characteristics are controlled for, but this impact varies by disciplinary area. It is suggested that these findings implicate factors within the higher education sector itself as key drivers in the process that leads to students being required to withdraw. Lessons are drawn out for those tasked with managing the student experience within higher education.     

Situating Vocationalism

The approaches taken to the analysis of vocationalism within the sociology of education have been dominated by the concept of the New Right and have operated within a dominant strong‐state/free market paradigm based upon an analysis of the Thatcherite project. I argue that vocationalist ideologies should be more properly linked to an emerging ‘statist’ model of capitalism in which the state intervenes to create the conditions for greater international competitiveness. However neither this, nor other legitimations of vocationalism in terms of its supposed Jit’ with a new post‐fordist economy, can be seen to cany complete conviction.     

Tanzanian Education in the Nineties: beyond the diploma disease

In the 1970s, policies restricting the growth of post‐primary education and guaranteeing government employment for the few graduates limited the spread of the ‘diploma disease’ in Tanzania. The economic crisis of the 1980s meant growing underfund‐ing of education, which, combined with bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, has led to the collapse of educational quality. Consequently, the majority rural poor have increasingly turned away from formal schooling, while the urban middle class continue to compete through education for the limited number of modem‐sector jobs. Liberalisation has resulted in rapid informalisation of the economy and the shrinkage of the public sector. But, just as previous reforms were unsuccessful in promoting rural development, so the present education system is incapable of promoting self‐employment in the informal sector. Dore predicted that, as a ‘late developer’, Tanzania would suffer an acute attack of certification sickness. That the symptoms are only now appearing among a relatively small segment of the population suggests, perhaps, that Tanzania is an even later developer than Dore imagined.     

The New Qualifications Framework: towards post‐Fordist reform?

There has been widespread discussion that a new ‘settlement’ is emerging in post‐compulsory education, a political settlement that has progressive educationists, unions, business, the Labour Party, the New Right and Government sharing a similar vision of vocational education for the 21st century. It is argued that this policy consensus is consistent with the post‐Fordist analysis of economy and that such an analysis may ‘offer bonuses to radicals’ (Kumar 1992: 66). This paper provides evidence in support of Avis (1993) that a new ‘settlement’ exists, and that a consensus has emerged in policy proposals for the rationalization of the ‘New Qualifications Framework’, a consensus in which parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications was central and supported by government in the introduction of the General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ). Yet GNVQ as part of the New Qualifications Framework has been characterized as a form of tripartite education post‐16. This paper will examine the New Qualifications Framework and argue that a settlement has emerged which will facilitate further rationalization of the post‐16 curriculum, rationalization that will provide an overarching Advanced/NVQ, Level Three Award, similar to the ‘British Baccalaureate’ or ‘General Education Diploma’ of the National Commission on Education. If the New Qualifications Framework proves credible, modularization within the framework provides a key to incremental change towards comprehensive tertiary education.     

‘When one person makes it,we all make it’: a study of Beyond Welfare,a women‐centered community‐based organization that helps low‐income mothers achieve personal and academic success

Access to post‐secondary education for welfare recipients has been profoundly curtailed by social and welfare policies. However, many low‐income mothers know that post‐secondary education is the best means to escape poverty. This article focuses on five ‘student mothers’ who have persisted in fulfilling their dreams of a college education with the aid of Beyond Welfare, a community‐based organization (CBO) that helps soften the hardships of juggling family, college, and work while in poverty. Based on interviews with five Beyond Welfare participants, this article explores the organization’s role in supporting the student mothers’ personal and academic success. This article illustrates how important it is for student mothers to have a supportive community, education focused on the structural barriers to leaving poverty, and encouragement for academic success. To conclude, the article reflects on why educators need to become involved in activism and research on behalf of low‐income families.     

Mass Higher Education and the English: Wherein the Colleges?

One of the distinctive features of the English encounter with mass higher education has been the uncertain and ambiguous role of further education colleges as providers of undergraduate education. Both before and during the major expansion that marked the shift to a mass scale of higher education in England, the higher education offered by colleges in the further education sector was commonly regarded as a residual or ancillary activity; its courses mostly at levels below the first degree and its growth in numbers among the slowest in higher education. In the period that followed, these same colleges were accorded a special mission in the delivery of short‐cycle undergraduate education and, through their involvement in foundation degrees, were expected to lead a large part of the expansion in future years. The elevation of this provision, from a zone of ‘low’ or no policy to one of ‘high’ policy, has coincided with a radical reform of the planning, funding and quality arrangements for post‐compulsory education. Under conditions less than favourable to the achievement of their higher education goals, colleges remain the responsibility of one administrative sector and higher education institutions the responsibility of another.     

A Survey of the Influencing Factors for International Academic Mobility of Chinese University Students

This research aims to understand the factors influencing international academic mobility within the Chinese higher education context. The inventory of University Students’ Perceptions of Influencing Factors for International Academic Mobility was developed and tested to enquire about Chinese university students’ perceptions of factors influencing their decisions on international academic mobility. The findings reveal that ‘mobility cost’, ‘quality of host institutions’, ‘future career prospects’, ‘financial aid and employment rate and income in host country’ play leading roles in international academic mobility. Important differences were identified in ‘gender’, ‘major‐ and family‐education background’. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to predict the interest in mobility from the external factors. The results indicated that ‘future career prospects’, ‘quality of host institutions’, ‘mobility cost’ and ‘climate environment in host country’ emerged as significant favourable pull factors for Chinese university students' interest in mobility. ‘Geographical distance’ emerged as a significant unfavourable pull factor. ‘Impact from parents’ and ‘language and intercultural training of home institutions’ emerged as favourable push factors. ‘Economic situation of home country’ emerged as an unfavorable push factor.     

From reproduction to learning cultures: post‐compulsory education in England

This paper examines recent empirical work on the lived experience of learners in post‐compulsory education. The starting point is a brief examination of the socio‐economic context of the sector. Despite the sophistication of analyses of learning cultures, a more radical approach is needed. Failure to do so renders these analyses amenable to appropriation by ‘new labour’ modernisers.     

Turning to teaching: gender and career choice

As the largest public sector institution in the United Kingdom, education is a key site for studying the context of ‘choice’ and changes in the identities of professional workers in contemporary society. Recruitment and retention problems in education have led to the creation of new routes into teaching to attract career changers from other professions and occupations. In this paper we focus on career changers within the Economic and Social Research Council project ‘Primary Teacher Identity, Commitment and Career in Performative School Cultures’ who have entered teaching from other private sector occupations. We analyse these career changes in terms of ‘turning points’ in the participants’ lives in order to assess the extent to which choices are ‘self‐initiated’, ‘forced’ or ‘structural’. We are interested in the basis on which these choices were made and the impact of gender on career decisions.     

The development of adult and community education policy in New Zealand: insights from Popper

This paper examines the process by which all post‐compulsory education in New Zealand has become integrated under one administrative structure, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), with the intention of developing a single coordinated system of tertiary education. In particular, adult and community education (ACE), the least formal and organised sector, is required to develop programmes that align with an externally conceived set of priorities, which themselves arise from the Tertiary Education Strategies. Using Popper’s concepts of ‘holistic’ versus ‘piecemeal’ change, it is argued that such large‐scale change is potentially dangerous as there are likely to be unintended, damaging consequences of such policies; consequences which are difficult to fix in modern, complex societies. In particular, ACE which is built on an insider, community‐focus ethos, able itself to identify and respond to community‐learning opportunities, is likely to be changed fundamentally so that the very characteristics that have made ACE effective in the past will be lost in the process.     

Private higher education: challenges for Australia and beyond

Among the chief characteristics of the post‐industrial society are ambiguity and paradox. In Australian higher education, as in other sectors of Australian Society, these have found expression in individualism, private initiative and entrepreneuship.

The ‘privatization’ of higher education now includes the imposition on enrolment charges, the re‐introduction of ‘full cost’ fees, especially for private overseas students, moves towards the deregulation of salaries and conditions of employment of academic staff and the establishment of new ‘self‐contained’ and ‘hybrid’ private higher education institutions.

In response to these developments, debate has tended to centre upon a number of mythologies which inter alia assert that private higher education is new to Australia, that it is foreign to the Western academic tradition and that such education avoids the employment of public funds. Moreover, it is claimed that while private higher education is ipso facto elitist, it will, through competition, result in a more effective and efficient public sector.

The above mythologies are examined in the light of past, present and proposed developments in Australian higher education, with particular note being taken of the establishment of the Bond University in Queensland.     

Learning to work in the creative and cultural sector: new spaces,pedagogies and expertise

The paper questions the link that policy‐makers assume exists between qualifications and access to employment in the creative and cultural (C&C) sector. It identifies how labour market conditions in the C&C sector undermine this assumption and how the UK’s policy formation process inhibits education and training (E&T) actors from countering these labour market conditions. It demonstrates how non‐government agencies (‘intermediary organizations’) are creating new spaces to assist aspiring entrants to develop the requisite forms of ‘vocational practice’, ‘social capital’ and ‘moebius strip’ (i.e., entrepreneurial) expertise to enter and succeed in the sector. It concludes by identifying a number of: (a) new principles for the governance of E&T at the national level; (b) pedagogic strategies to facilitate ‘horizontal’ transitions into and within the C&C sector; and (c) skill formation issues for all E&T stakeholders to address.     

The influence of teachers on the development of political radicals: a case study of members of the Scottish Socialist Party

While there is a wealth of literature on radical adult ‘popular’ education for change, most of it looks forward and speculates on the educational processes best able to help ‘the oppressed’, ‘excluded’ or ‘disadvantaged’ become critically‐aware ‘subjects’ of social change. Within a critical education framework, recent research looked in the opposite direction, identified adult activists already critically‐aware and worked backwards through their life histories to find the educational experiences seen as most influential in their development. Examining questionnaire responses, this article analyses how members of the Scottish Socialist Party perceived the influence exercised by their teachers, from primary to tertiary education, in the development of their beliefs and identity as activists. Comparisons are made with research in ‘active citizenship’. The research suggests there is more potential for radical education within the formal sector than is often believed and teachers contribute to this process in sometimes contradictory ways. The findings feed into debates in the UK and other countries, particularly in Latin America, about where popular educators should direct their energies, within state structures or outside, in social movements.     

Darren: a case study in school–college liaison

Some recent attention has been directed towards the role that post‐16 colleges can play in providing young people at risk of exclusion from school with opportunities to experience ‘alternative’ curricula and ways of learning. In this article the case of ‘Darren’ is considered, a boy for whom education in a mainstream secondary school setting appeared to have grown increasingly disjointed and irrelevant. This ‘case’ is used to highlight some of the challenges involved in school–college liaison in supporting young people who experience social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD).     

Rolling out ‘good’, ‘best’ and ‘excellent’ practice. What next? Perfect practice?

The identification and dissemination of ‘good practice’ has for years been a central part of the Government's strategy for radical change of the education system. ‘Good practice’, however, is no longer good enough, nor is ‘best practice’. The requirement now for post‐compulsory education and training (from which all our examples are taken) is nothing less than ‘excellent practice for all’. This article critically examines these highly significant shifts in the rhetoric of policy, finds them wanting and argues that we need to face up to the complexities involved in deciding not only what is ‘excellent practice’ but also in working through all the stages which would be needed to transmit it throughout the sector. In particular, recent documents from the Quality Improvement Agency and the Learning and Skills Council on the pursuit of excellence are critically appraised. The views of those practitioners who are part of the authors' project in the Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme are also explained in relation to ‘good practice’. The authors attempt to explain the frenetic activity of politicians and policy makers in this sector, and end by moving from critique to construction by considering what can be rescued from the inherently contestable notion of ‘good practice’, and, in doing so, draw heavily on the work of Robin Alexander.