Globalization and Higher Education: Quality Trends in Asia/Pacific

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Globalization and Higher Education Quality
Trends in Asia/Pacific

• IFE 2020
• Feb 23-March 6, 2009
• John Hawkins and Deane Neubauer

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The Capacity Continuum

• Expanding HE populations--China, Malaysia,
  Indonesia
• Contracting HE populations-Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
• Conflicting dynamics--e.g. US, Europe-slowing
  birth rate of some populations, first
  university-goers in other populations

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Capacity Issues

• Physical capacity where are we going to put the
  bodies?
• Financial capacity who pays for what, and how
  much is there?
• Human capital capacity who prepares the new
  staff required for this expanded capacity? To
  what standards?
• Managerial capacity preparing managers for
  expanded and refined managements tasks, including
  innovation and adaptation, and development of HE
  systems.

4
Quality Issues

• Creating and sustaining capacity
• Creating and assuring quality
• The continuing story of public and private
• The urge to know--league tables

5
Definitional Issues Affecting Quality

• Shifting ground of market definitions
• Linking HE standards with those of particular
  industries
• The compulsion toward equality of application for
  quality standards
• HE contestations of quality by discipline
• Multiplicity of measures provided by society for
  HE quality

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Sanyal and Martin (2007) ten core meanings of
quality

• Providing excellence
• Being exceptional
• Providing value for money
• Conforming to specifications
• Getting things right the first time
• Meeting customers needs
• Having zero defects
• Providing added value
• Exhibiting fitness of purpose
• Exhibiting fitness for purpose

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Four QA Trends

• Where no quality assessment existed-build it--the
  1990s as the decade of HE quality assessment
  program development
• Refining measurement to reflect differentiations
  of quality
• Shifting from inputs to outputs--from capacity
  for quality to demonstrations of quality
• The rise of cross-border quality assessment and
  accreditation

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Underlying QA Factors

• Conceptual
• Defining HE environments through neo-liberalism
• Shifting relationships between state and HEIs
• Changing methodologies and methods for applying
  QA to HEIs
• Internationalization and Globalization

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QA Factors

• Structural
• Privatization and incorporation movement
• Changes in funding patterns and sources
• Autonomy
• Rapid expansion of HE in given environments
• Rise of national agencies dedicated to quality
  assessment
• Diversification of HE systems
• Curricula changes and alignment issues
• Proliferation of multi-campus systems

10
QA Factors

• Social/Policy
• Public accountability movements
• Extension of managerialism
• New types of students
• Public policy responsibility for QA

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Cross Border Education

• Two views of education reactor to globalization
  actor of change
• Demand for higher and adult education--especially
  professional--increasing in most countries
• Information and communication technologies
  providing alternate and virtual means of delivery
• New types of providers international companies,
  for-profit institutions, corporate universities,
  IT and media companies

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Education as a Good and as a Commodity

• Trade talk renders education a service and not a
  commodity
• Education sector often resents language shifts
  that move initiative and regulation away from
  education policy centers and into trade centers
• GATS a wake up call It has forced education to
  carefully consider (a) significant growth in
  crossborder education that is happening
  irrespective of trade agreements and (b) reality
  and impact of multilateral trade rules on both
  domestic and crossborder higher education and
  commercial trade in education services

13
Growth and Shift to Commercial Crossborder
Education

• Crossborder educationmovement of education
  (students, researchers, professors, learning
  materials, programs, providers, knowledge, etc.)
  across national/regional or geographic borders
• Demand will increase from 1.8 million
  international students in 2000 to 7.2 million in
  2025
• 70 of demand will come from Asia Pacific
• Exponential growth predicted for programs and
  institutions/providers

14
Global Higher Education Index (GEI)

• Companies that offer education programs and
  services publicly traded on a stock exchange
• 49 Companies in five groups
• Brick and Mortar
• E-learning
• IT training
• Publishers
• Software and consultancy firms

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(No Transcript)
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1 Harvard USA 11 Yale USA
2 Cambridge UK 12 Cornell USA
3 Stanford USA 13 UC San Diego USA
4 UC Berkeley USA 14 UC Los Angeles USA
5 MIT USA 15 Pennsylvania USA
6 Caltech USA 16 Wisconsin, Madison USA
7 Columbia USA 17 Washington Seattle USA
8 Princeton USA 18 UC San Francisco USA
9 Chicago USA 19 Tokyo Japan
10 Oxford UK 20 Johns Hopkins
2/3s the Shanghai Jia Tong top universities are from English speaking countries
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Rankings Intensify Global Competition

• Universities are widely judged by research
  performance. The Jiao Tong data shape reputations
  
• Marketing (we are world-class, we are a
  research university etc.) is no longer enough -
  the data must confirm the universitys claim
• Many governments/nations now want super-league
  universities, leading to greater concentration of
  research, selective investment, more
  stratification
• Every university wants to lift its rankings
• The competition for high quality researchers
  leads to price effects (salaries rise) and
  intensifies brain drain (Simon Marginson 2007)

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The Urge to Know and Excel

• The rapid emergence of league tables, e.g.
  London Times and Shanghai Jiao Tong data
• Issues of which indicators are employed and what
  kinds of institutions will rank best on these
  indicators
• Leads to engagement of the policy process in the
  quest to have globally competitive universities

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Financing of Higher Education

• Universal trend of declining public sector
  support
• Creates possible double bind
• Declining public support draws private
  funding--accelerated by liberalization
• When private funding increases, often public
  sector response is to let support fall even more.
• Trade enters as countries without capacity or
  will turn increasingly to foreign investors,
  creating dependency nexus

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Quality Assurance

• Significant new activity--over sixty countries in
  last decade
• Historically countries have not been concerned
  with imported education
• Sectors other than education (e.g. business,
  accounting, etc.) also pursuing quality standards
  (e.g. Baldridge Awards)
• High level of non-commercial cross border
  activity also drives quality questions.
• Commercialization of accreditation through
• Export and contracting of existing agencies (e.g.
  Regional and specialized accreditation in the US.
• Invention of new international accrediting
  mechanisms
• Quality control of HE accreditation itself an
  issue
• Accreditation an important part of branding for
  trade

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Diversification and Diversity Issues

• Which courses are offered and why? Market
  selection can lead to significant bias toward
  high return courses (business, information
  technology, communication)
• What gets left behind and must the
  public/non-profit sector make up the difference?
• What happens to HE overall when research is left
  out of the equation?
• Two faces of commercialization and cultural
  diversity
• English language dominance
• Conflict over fusion or dilution of culture.
• Will commercial providers spend extra for
  relevant local content?

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Human Capacity or Brain Gain Drain?/Trade Creep
or Trade Choice?

• Trade offs as private sector provides capacity
  and crossborder exchanges increase. Who goes
  where for what and stays where for how long?
  Including migration out of HE to private sector.
• Trade creepthe quietly pervasive introduction
  of trade concepts, language and policy into the
  education sector. (Discursive shifts)
• Trade choicethe welcome investment of resources
  into HE as an export industry and its promotion.
• Mixed benefit packages for differentiated
  recipients

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Traditional HE

• Trinity of teaching/learning, research and
  service guided evolution of universities and
  contributions to social, cultural, human,
  scientific, technological and economic
  advancement of nation
• And--total development of individuals
• To what extent can these attributes be
  disaggregated and rendered by different providers?