THE INTERNATIONAL IMPERATIVE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Transcription

1 THE INTERNATIONAL IMPERATIVE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

2 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON HIGHER EDUCATION Volume 27 Higher education worldwide is in a period of transition, affected by globalization, the advent of mass access, changing relationships between the university and the state, and the new technologies, among others. Global Perspectives on Higher Education provides cogent analysis and comparative perspectives on these and other central issues affecting postsecondary education worldwide. Series Editor: Philip G. Altbach Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, USA This series is co-published with the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

3 The International Imperative in Higher Education By Philip G. Altbach Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, USA SENSE PUBLISHERS ROTTERDAM / BOSTON / TAIPEI

4 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN (paperback) ISBN (hardback) ISBN (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands Printed on acid-free paper All rights reserved 2013 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

5 Table of Contents preface introduction ix xi part 1 globalization and its implications 1 The Imperial Tongue: English as the Dominating Academic Language 1 2 Globalization and Forces for Change in Higher Education 7 3 The Complexities of Global Engagement 11 part 2 global issues 4 Corruption: Challenge to Internationalization 15 5 Access Means Inequality 21 6 What International Advice Do Universities Need? (with Jamil Salmi) 25 7 The Perils of Commercialism: Australia s Example (with Anthony Welch) 29 8 Reforming Higher Education in the Middle East and Elsewhere 33 9 The Subprime Market and International Higher Education 37 part 3 mobility, brain drain, and brain exchange? 10 Brain Drain or Brain Exchange? The Complexities of 21st-Century Brain Exchange Another Week, Another Scandal: Immigration Dilemmas and Political Confusion (with Liz Reisberg) Getting Graduates to Go Home: Not So Easy (with Wanhua Ma) 57

6 part 4 the academic profession 14 Academic Salaries and Contracts: What Do We Know? (with Iván F. Pacheco) The Intricacies of Academic Remuneration Academic Career Structures: Bad Ideas (with Christine Musselin) Academic Salaries, Academic Corruption, and the Academic Career 73 part 5 rankings and world-class 18 The Overuse of Rankings Ranking Season Is Here Hong Kong s Academic Advantage (with Gerard A. Postiglione) The Challenges of Building a World-Class University: Lessons from Slovenia 95 part 6 branch campuses and franchising 22 Is There a Future for Branch Campuses? Twinning and Branch Campuses: The Professorial Obstacle Franchising the McDonaldization of Higher Education 111 part 7 knowledge distribution 25 The Costs and Benefits of Open Access Anarchy, Commercialism, and Publish or Perish (with Brendan Rapple) 119 part 8 agents and recruiters: a global dilemma 27 The Ambiguities of Working with Third-Party Recruiters (with Liz Reisberg) Agents and Third-Party Recruiters in International Higher Education 129

7 part 9 academic freedom 29 Academic Freedom: A Realistic Appraisal Meddling or Steering : The Politics of Academic Decision Making in Hong Kong (with Gerard A. Postiglione) 139 PART 10 asian perspectives 31 The Asian Higher Education Century? The Humanities and Social Sciences in Asia: Endangered Species? 149 part 11 china 33 Chinese Challenges: Toward a Mature Academic System Chinese Higher Education in an Open-Door Era 157 part 12 india 35 India s Higher Education Challenges Getting Value for Money in Higher Education (with Pawan Agarwal) India s Effort to Join 21st-Century Higher Education (with N. Jayaram) The Achilles Heel of India s high-tech Future: World-Class Universities Kerala: The Dilemmas of Equality in Higher Education (with Eldho Mathews) India s Open Door to Foreign Universities 187 about the author and coauthors 193

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9 Preface All but three of the contents in this volume appeared in International Higher Education, the quarterly publication of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education since Three essays appeared in Global Briefs for Higher Education Leaders, a collaborative project of CIHE and the American Council on Education. This book is a sequel to International Higher Education: Reflections on Policy and Practice, published in 2006 by CIHE and which included articles from International Higher Education written prior to that date. The essays were selected for their timeliness and have not been updated for this book. In some cases, statistics and other details may have changed since original publication. The work of the Center for International Higher Education is funded by the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, with assistance from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We are indebted to Edith S. Hoshino, who edited all of the essays in this book as well as the Center s other publications. Subscriptions to International Higher Education are available free of charge. Please access the CIHE Web site (http// IHE is also available in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese editions. Philip G. Altbach Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts May 2013.

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11 Introduction The two main drivers of higher education transformation worldwide massification and the global knowledge economy continue to produce unprecedented change, making it ever more difficult to understand the nature of change and how to adjust to changing circumstance. Our aim is to illustrate key challenges in short essays highlighting key issues. There are several iron laws of massification trends that are the inevitable result of the dramatic expansion of enrollments in the past several decades. Among these are: Higher education, on average, has decreased in quality. As access has been widened to ever-larger groups in the population, the academic preparation and probably the native ability of many students has decreased. Less money is spent on each student, and the conditions of study have deteriorated. There is much greater inequality in higher education worldwide. This includes academic institutions, student access, and other aspects. Top universities, usually established institutions, remain excellent and probably on average have improved. But academic institutions at the bottom of the hierarchy have not improved and are perhaps worse. Many of these institutions are demand absorbing private schools with inadequate staffing and facilities. Massification requires a differentiated academic system with institutions serving varied needs and populations thus there is more variability among institutions. Many countries have not yet created such systems, although they will inevitably emerge. On average, the quality of the academic profession has deteriorated. A growing number of academics do not have advanced degrees, and financial and other pressures have made an academic career unattractive to the best and brightest. The private sector, much of it for-profit, expands dramatically, now accounting for a majority of enrollments in many countries. With notable exceptions, the quality of the new private sector is poor. Globalization also produces realities that affect higher education. An international knowledge network dependent on the Internet, increased use of English as the main scientific language, and growing linkages among academic institutions is a central reality of academe. Universities, especially those at the top of the academic system, are increasingly part of the global knowledge network. The traditional academic centers, especially in the large English-speaking countries, dominate the world system; and many

12 xi philip g. altbach universities especially in the developing world find themselves involved but peripheral in the network. International student mobility increases, with flows largely from developing and middle-income countries to the traditional academic centers. The brain drain what is commonly referred to as brain exchange also expands, flowing largely from developing and middle-income countries to the main centers, in North America and Europe for the most part, although there is considerable variation such as within the Middle East. The articles included here reflect a set of academic values, and thus many have a point of view. I see higher education as a public good benefiting the entire society as well as individuals. Thus, higher education deserves support and funding by society because universities benefit society as well as the individual. Increasingly, private good arguments dominate debate about higher education, with the result that individuals are increasingly asked to pay most of the cost of higher education, the private higher education sector has expanded dramatically, and public universities are privatized as public funding is reduced. In part this trend is an inevitable result of massification as governments are unable to pay the full cost of mass higher education systems; but the private good philosophy strengthens the trend toward privatization, much to the detriment of traditional academic values. Linked to a commitment to the public good, there is a certain skepticism concerning a growing commercialism in higher education, as well as a belief that a not for profit orientation serves academic institutions, students, the professoriate, and society. The rise of the for profit higher education sector, the increasing commercialism of international education programs, and similar trends do not seem to be in the longterm-based interests of higher education. The dramatic increase in inequality in global higher education is seen as a problem and a negative trend. In particular, the disadvantages faced by academic institutions and systems in the developing world, are deeply problematic. These inequalities result from basic structural factors for the most part but are exacerbated in some ways by globalization. The essays in this book focus on a range of issues that have global relevance. Some discuss how individual countries cope with certain central global challenges, while others analyze key global realities academic mobility and the brain drain, the challenges faced by the professoriate, aspects of globalization such as the impact of agents and recruiters in student mobility, and branch campuses and franchising academic

13 introduction xii freedom and a special concern with the two largest academic systems (India and China).

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