Reconsidering the social and economic purposes of higher education

In this article I seek to reconsider the social and economic purposes of higher education. It begins with the premise that there appears to be a general trend towards governments positioning higher education primarily in terms of the economic role that it can fulfil. Such a trend, however, has attracted considerable criticism. In this article I argue that the problem for higher education is not it having an economic role, but the narrowness of the way in which that role is often conceptualised. Drawing on critical theory I explore the interrelation of economic and social factors within higher education and the wider society in which it is situated. This article argues for a redefinition of the purposes of higher education to ensure that both universities and workplaces are sites of human creativity and that the profound and exciting work within institutions of higher education benefits all members of society.     

Reconsidering regionalisation in global higher education: student mobility spaces of the European Higher Education Area

This paper examines international student mobility between member states of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), a group of 47 countries that committed to reforming their higher education systems to improve the comparability and compatibility of degrees. While increased student mobility is a key goal in its official documents, little research has empirically investigated student mobility patterns in respect to the EHEA. The analysis employs multivariate techniques to identify trends in student mobility between 1999 and 2009, using a spatial approach to visualise the relationships between member states as constituted through student mobility flows. Results show that within the analysis timeframe student flows in the EHEA became more even in their distribution, but that in terms of the relationships between states, the EHEA became more centralised and segmented, meaning that key actors mediated exchanges between peripheral states and the region was more easily divided into self-contained clusters. These trends indicate a need to critically reconsider the nature of the EHEA and its role in the globalisation of higher education.     

Reconsidering usage of blogging in preservice teacher education courses

The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers' perceived benefits of instructional blogs, classroom community, course satisfaction, and learning. The data were obtained via surveys administered throughout Fall 2009. Fifty preservice teachers from two undergraduate courses participated in this study. Results indicate that students did not utilize the full benefits of blogging. Students mainly used blogs for information sharing, rather than discussion or reflection. Additionally, preservice teachers' course satisfaction and perceived learning were found to be related to their feeling a sense of learning community.     

我国近代高等教育学制与高等教育现代化

中国近代学制的建立与发展极大地推动了高等教育的现代化进程,并在此期间受到了许多西方包括日本等国影响,但学术界对其发展过程是依附还是借鉴分别持不同观点。通过分析中国近代高等教育学制的嬗变来反思中国高等教育的现代化进程,势必对高等教育未来的发展有所帮助。     

谈高等教育的e-学习

阐述了e-学习的理论内涵，介绍了高等教育领域e-学习的表现形式，论述了高等教育e-学习的特点，指出了e-学习对传统的高等教育的模式、教育思想与教育理念产生的冲击，是对传统教育模式的补充。     

Women in higher education

The high level of admissions of women into higher education in Japanis analysed in the context of examining revised views about the highereducation of women resulting from changes in the traditional view of therelationship between higher education and social values. Despite the shiftin womens educational expectations, there is still clear evidence that agender track continues; typically men congregate in four year institutionswhilst women focus on Junior Colleges and on particular courses of studydeemed to be appropriate for women. The gender track is furtherdemonstrated by detailed studies of the Junior College and the WomensCollege. Womens employment opportunities are shown to have been affected byrestrictive attitudes of employers which tended in the past to impose onwomen particular modes of employment. The reasons for the emergence of achange in these attitudes in the latter part of the 1980s are explored andthe impact of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1986 is examined. Thearticle concludes by considering the wider implications for women, both inthe work-place and in society more generally, of these developments. It isnoted that highly educated Japanese women tend to hold more conservativevalues and may see their education as an expression of their social statusrather than a way of increasing their earning power. The recentestablishment of a number of courses in Womens Studies may well have aninfluence upon future developments in ideas about women and higher educationin Japan.     

高职英语教育中的文化教育

语言教育与文化相辅相成、密不可分。如今高职英语教学中普遍缺失文化元素,语言知识和文化渗透并未得到同步。该文以对语言与文化关系的论述为基础上,深入探索了语言教育和文化教育的变迁以及文化教育融入英语语言教育的重要性,论证了在英语教育中融入文化元素的具体途径。     

民办高等教育在高等教育体系中的定位

传统的高等教育类型划分影响了民办大学的准确定位 ,对民办高等教育发展产生了消极影响。本文提出民办高等教育应该属于综合类高等教育 ,民办大学有条件办成以全日制本专科教育为主的综合大学 ,而不是高等职业技术学校     

高教大众化与高教结构调整

文章论述了我国高等教育大众化的根本目的，指出，企图仅依赖普通高校的扩招来实现我国高教大众化不仅不现实，也不能适应社会对多层次、多类型人才的需要。面对国际竞争，结合我国实际，应当发展多种形式的高等教育，高等职业技术教育就是其中重要的一种。     

Financing higher education in Pakistan

A recent shift in the allocation of public expenditure towards higher education prompts several questions: Is this allocation economically justified? Are these resources well utilized? Is there significant cost recovery of these expenditures? If not, who benefits from the subsidy these expenditures represent? Are there alternative means of financing higher education? This paper attempts to provide answers to these questions, which can be briefly summarized as follows: Estimates of social rates of returns do not support the reallocation of public expenditures away from primary towards higher education; low retention rates and high failure rates suggest that the internal efficiency in the utilization of these expenditures is low; currently, almost all public expenditures on higher education represent a subsidy; given the tax burden and enrollment ratios by income group, the lower income groups seem to be gaining most from these subsidies; a start has been made at private sector higher education with the opening of two professional universities, but the prospects of general universities currently opening appears to be dim. Pakistan has a well designed loan program in operation although its quantitative impact is currently limited.