Universities,dependency and the market: innovative lessons from Kenya

Higher education in developing nations is typically viewed from a dependency perspective – institutions are seen as merely recipients of Western knowledge, aid and reform efforts. Nevertheless, universities in both the centre and the periphery are dealing with tensions between protecting the public good and embracing neoliberal values based on a market approach to higher education. In the USA and Europe these competing interests are typically cast as mutually exclusive. Our study on the market approach to higher education in Kenya, however, suggests that public and private interests can be complementary, contributing to a re-envisioning of the traditional mission of higher education. This article seeks to examine more fully the nature of reform efforts at two universities in Kenya, to elucidate lessons for universities undergoing market-oriented reform in the West and to suggest a reciprocal relationship between institutions in Africa and Europe, upending the centre-periphery paradigm.     

“I never thought this could be for me”: aspirational capital,identities, and political engagement among first-generation college students in São Paulo

ABSTRACT

Today, young adults from lower-income backgrounds are pursuing educational trajectories that would have been distant dreams for their parents. In many Global South countries, this expansion has followed a neoliberal logic in which private universities purport to provide students skills and increased earning capacity, and employers the necessary human capital to compete in global markets. This article examines these processes in Brazil, where federal policies have contributed to a dramatic growth in private, for-profit higher education in recent years. Building on ethnographic research in São Paulo’s expansive peripheries, our analysis examines three inter-related themes: higher education and life aspirations; intersectional identity construction; and political/community engagements. We argue that while neoliberal ideologies and policies are a key component of Brazilian higher education, many first-generation college students actively – and critically – challenge everyday oppressions and create new life possibilities in the context of enduring inequalities.     

地方院校体育资源向社区体育开放的现状及对策

采用问卷调查法和访谈法,对蚌埠市七所地方院校体育资源向社区体育开放的现状进行了调研。结果显示,地方院校虽在体育专业人才、场地设施、教育信息等资源方面具有一定优势,但在参与社区体育活动、开放场馆设施、提供体育健身娱乐服务指导等方面力度不够。为了使地方院校体育资源更好地向社区体育开放延伸,就必须建立同社区体育联系协调的专门组织机构和培训机构,并构建合理有效的高校体育资源开放保障体系,以推动学校体育和社区体育的共同发展。     

社区和成人高校教育资源的融合与利用

社区教育是社区工作和教育工作的有机结合。开展社区教育离不开社区内各类教育资源,尤其是高等院校的教育资源,同时各高等院校也离不开社区的支持。在教育资源的融合与利用方面,成人高校独占优势。社区和成人高校可以在教育管理资源、优质课程资源、人力资源、信息网络资源、产学研资源等诸多方面加以融合与利用。     

Labor market conditions and college graduation: Evidence from Brazil

College students graduating in a recession have been shown to face large and persistent negative effects on their earnings, health, and other outcomes. This paper investigates whether students delay graduation to avoid these effects. Using data on the universe of students in higher education in Brazil and leveraging variation in labor market conditions across time, space, and chosen majors, the paper finds that students in public institutions delay graduation to avoid entering depressed labor markets. A typical recession causes the on-time graduation rate to fall by 6.5% in public universities and there is no effect on private institutions. The induced delaying increases average graduation by 0.11 semesters, consistent with 1 out of 18 students delaying graduation by one year in public universities. The delaying effect is larger for students with higher scores, in higher-earnings majors, and from more advantaged backgrounds. This has important implications for the distributional impact of recessions.     

大学群落的地域性经济贡献探究——以美国波士顿地区的8所研究型大学为例

大学聚群现象是现代高等学校发展中的一种常见形态,众多大学聚集在一起形成了大学群落.本文以美国波士顿地区的8所研究型大学②对波士顿地区的经济贡献为例,探究大学群落地域性经济贡献的内容与途径,以期为我国的大学群落在积极发展与所在区域的关系方面提供借鉴.     

美国社区学院通识教育特色及其启示

美国是现代大学通识教育的发源地,经过三次通识教育运动,逐渐奠定和形成了美国高校推行通识教育的坚实基础和传统。社区学院是美国高等教育大众化的重要承担者,也是美国高等职业教育的主要表现形式。在社区学院推行通识教育是美国高等职业教育的突出特色之一,其实施特点表现在如下方面:以学生和社会需求为中心,重视基础学科和实用技能培养,具有良好的法律保障及强有力的师资队伍。其对我国的启示是:树立正确的通识教育理念,理顺通识教育管理体制,创建多元化的通识教育实践。     

Performance measurement and accountability in higher education: the puzzle of qualification completions

This study explores difficulties in the conceptual positioning of the higher education performance indicator of qualification completion within a standard logic model taken from the public sector performance literature, involving inputs, processes, impacts and outcomes. Organisations are held to be more accountable for the delivery of outputs than the achievement of impacts. Two differing perspectives – (1) that completions are an output measure, and (2) that completions are an impact/outcome measure for tertiary institutions – are explored. Close analysis indicates that the differing perspectives derive from quite different conceptualisations of the student: (1) that the student is a simple customer of educational services, and (2) that the student is a co-producer with the institute. Given their potential impact on institutional accountability, these different perspectives have significant implications for systems of educational policy, specifically in relation to the application of external performance standards to universities.     

地方高校社会责任现状与对策研究

地方高校已经成为我国高等教育的主体部分,在推进我国高等教育大众化进程中发挥着越来越重要的作用。地方高校应该根据本地区的实际情况,确定自己应该履行的社会责任。从高校的人才培养、科研创新能力和社会服务三方面来分析地方高校目前存在的问题,研究地方高校在社会经济发展中面临的战略任务与社会责任,应是当前高等教育研究中的一个重要课题。     

Gaining legitimacy: mentoring as an avenue to navigate the transition into a new academic workplace / Conseguir legitimidad: las mentorías como medio para gestionar la transición a un puesto académico distinto

This paper discusses the learning and development experiences of academics who make transitions between higher education institutions involving multiple communities. In these communities, they may act on the periphery as both newcomers and academics with established credentials that may have a significant impact on their participation. In acknowledging this, this paper uses Lave and Wenger’s concept of Community of Practice to better understand how these academics gain their legitimacy, and whether mentoring has a specific role to play in their development into full members of communities. Based on the analysis of the themes generated from 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with academics who have experienced transitions between higher education institutions, this paper suggests that restricted access to a mentoring programme may lead these academics to question their status benefits and their development into full participants of communities. Referring to the examples of mentoring programmes used in other universities, this paper shows that among experienced academics, mentoring can contribute to their development and provide a range of psychosocial benefits from the increased level of support.     

高校医疗保健机构的运行体制与管理探索

高校现有医疗保健机构存在着工作效率低、形式单一、资源浪费等诸多弊端,高校通过联合成立高校中心医院、高校医疗机构挂靠当地医院、高校联合当地社区开办社区卫生服务中心、有医护专业的高校开办两用医院、外包给优秀高校医疗机构五种高校医疗机构。对其运行体制下可能出现的管理问题给出了一些解决方案。     

Expanding higher education: institutional responses in Australia from the post-war era to the 1970s

The history of universities in the twentieth century is, at least from the perspective of growth, a massive success. Australian higher education is no exception. Prior to the Second World War, Australia had six universities and approximately 10,500 students. Now there are in excess of one million students attending 39 institutions. In each phase of student expansion, governments have sought to make universities accessible to new segments of the community, a pattern that informs contemporary social inclusion initiatives. This paper focuses on two successive periods – the 1940s/1950s and the 1960s/1970s – during which university participation expanded. Comparing two universities which were at that time very different from one another – the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales – I consider the ways both universities approached admissions to understand what each institution hoped to achieve in attracting students beyond the traditional elite. This helps move beyond government strategy and rhetoric to consider what universities believed was at stake as they enabled new students to enter their communities.     

Defining mission statements in higher education: Towards a genre perspective

Mission statements provide educational institutions with the legitimacy to market and promote services through positive statements. This study applied genre analysis to examine the function of promotional rhetoric in top 100 international universities' mission statements. Bhatia's rhetorical moves of promotional genre was triangulated with Pearce and David's components for mission-writing. It was seen that international universities rely on promotional rhetorical moves to articulate their self-concept and services. Moreover, universities actively compete against each other to secure a high position in the international ranking lists. This ensures that they obtain additional incentives that help them gain economic stability and build a reputation. Promotional genre has become a practiced culture in the professional discourse community of higher education. Hence, there is a need to allow mission statements genre membership. We suggested a genre model that can be taught and used for writing mission statements. The most recurrent moves employed suggest that the communicative purpose for mission-writing used by international universities is to target the international market and build a public image to reel in more students, thereby improving their financial status while ensuring a good reputation. Based on this study, institutions can get guidance on designing and drafting effective mission statements.     

论广播电视大学对社区教育的介入

社会的发展和教育大众化的不断推进使社区教育成为必然。社区教育存在缺资源、少机构,尤其缺乏实施高等教育层次的教育实体等问题,而地方电大在成人教育竞争日趋激烈的形势下,也在为如何谋求新的发展寻找切入点,因此电大教育介入社区教育是广播电视大学的责任,事实上也是社会和高等教育发展的必然。本文从社区教育与电大教育的发展,电大教育介入社区教育的可行胜和电大教育介入社区教育的几点思考等三个方面进行阐述,试图为广播电视大学参与社区教育提供些许参考。     

Understanding Higher Education Institutions’ Publicness: Do Public Universities Produce More Public Outcomes than Private Universities?

Higher education institutions produce a broad array of public outcomes. However, little is known about the varying levels of their contribution to the public good and what explains the variation among institutions. This study uses the theory of organisational publicness and examines how these institutions’ ownership status and resource publicness explain their outcome publicness, focusing on the expenditure for teaching, research and public service activities. The analysis of four‐year public and private universities in the 2012 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System shows that universities’ reliance on federal funding is positively associated with the percentages of the expenditure on all three activities and their reliance on state funding is positively associated with the percentages of teaching and public service expenses. The findings reveal that the proportion of tuition and fees revenue is negatively associated with the percentage of public service expenditure. The results suggest that declining state funding and increasing reliance on tuition and fees weaken these institutions’ public service function, especially in the area of community engagement.     

African universities and the state: Prospects for reform in Senegal and Uganda

Uganda's Makerere University and the University of Dakar in Senegal were for many years after independence among Africa's premier universities. Today, their facilities have visibly deteriorated and the quality of instruction the institutions provide is seriously threatened — the consequence of political and economic turmoil combined with persistent underfunding. If higher education remains supply-driven without reference to available resources, the problems of Makerere and the University of Dakar can only increase and become even more unmanageable. The governments of Senegal and Uganda are being encouraged by donors to undertake reforms to revitalize the university sector. However, it will not be possible to reform financing of public higher education, or to carry out many other reforms, unless the universities have more administrative and financial autonomy. Strategies for reforming higher education systems in these countries are proposed requiring a shift from government participation in the governance of public universities and in matters affecting their enrolments and utilization of resources to more indirect forms of control. Nevertheless, the policy implications for Senegal and Uganda are very different. In Senegal, measures to increase autonomy must be articulated with a larger role for the state in regulating the flow of students to university, rationalizing the programs of different institutions and restricting students' eligibility for support. In Uganda, there is need for greater government co-ordination of public and private investments in higher education and significant devolution of control of public universities.McGill University, Education and Employment Division, Population and Human Resources Department, The World BankEducation and Employment Division, Population and Human Resources Department, The World Bank     

Challenges to quality of English medium instruction degree programs in Taiwanese universities and the role of local accreditors: a perspective of non-English-speaking Asian country

As the numbers of international students have grown, higher education institutions in Asia have offered a growing range of English medium instruction (EMI) degree programs. But Asian governments and higher education institutions have not thought deeply about how to ensure quality of English medium instruction degree programs. At the same time, their accreditors have not been fully aware of how to establish an external quality assurance mechanism to measure the quality of these programs. This study’s main purpose is to put the quality of the EMI degree programs of Taiwan higher education institutions into the perspective of the Taiwan’s institutions and one local Taiwan accreditor. With both qualitative and quantitative approaches, a survey targeting Taiwan’s colleges and universities and interviews of Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan international reviewers and Asian higher education experts are used to examine the challenges of EMI implementation in Taiwan universities and the role of local accreditors playing in reviewing the English medium instruction degree programs.     

当前我国高等学校和教师的法律关系问题及重构

公立高等学校和教师法律关系的变化使得高等学校教师地位得以提升、权利和义务逐步得到了法律和政策的切实维护。与此同时,在市场化改革的影响之下,高等学校和教师法律关系在变革过程中也出现了一些问题。重构这种法律关系应该坚持强调高等学校和教师法律关系的复合性等原则和一些相关的教师法律制度。     

French academics: Between the professions and the civil service

In France, where most higher education institutions are in the public sector, permanent academic staff at universities and other higher education institutions are tenured and enjoy a broad individual autonomy. The number of staff on short-term contracts is limited. Most part-time staff are drawn from professionals, business executives, and administrators – in both the public and private sectors. In recent decades, the number of teaching-only faculty expanded rapidly as tenured secondary school teachers were transferred to higher education institutions. As universities have acquired some autonomy, especially in academic matters, recruitment and promotion of staff combine elements of centralisation at the national level with local processes. Some degree of pay differentiation has been introduced through a growing use of supplementary compensation. As the system evolves toward increased self-governance of institutions, the autonomy enjoyed by the faculty is seen by administrators as an obstacle to the development of institutional policies.     

Building a great public university: The role of funding at British and American universities

Public universities reflect the aspirations a state or society has for its young people and for itself. In this study we examine the level of public funding for universities and its relation to quality. We analyze funding data for British universities and a sample for American universities. Additionally, we examine data on the production of science by faculty at the institutions in our American sample. The data permit an analysis of the relation between investment in higher education and quality. We compare these data with the recent efforts to fund British universities based on measures of scholarship and scientific achievement. We conclude by examining the nature of the relationship between funding and research quality at British universities.