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International Issues

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATIONThe Boston College Center for International Higher Education

Number 30 Winter 2003

Accreditation and Quality Control

2 Foreign Study: Patterns and ChallengesPhilip G. Altbach

3 Corporate Universities: Redefining the BrandScott Taylor

5 E-Learning: Expanding the Bottle to Fit the GenieSimon Marginson

8 E-Learning in Asia: Supply and DemandAlan Olsen

9 Cost Sharing and Access in AfricaBruce Johnstone and Pamela Marcucci

11 Funding and Regulating in LithuaniaLiudvika Leisyte

14 The Unesco Forum on Quality ReviewJudith S. Eaton

16 Accreditation in the Gulf: The Case of QatarAmy Kirle Lezberg

17 Malaysian Private Higher Education and International LinkagesMolly N. N. Lee

19 Research Priorities for Redirecting American Higher EducationPatricia J. Gumport and Colleagues

22 German Higher Education in the European ContextUlrich Teichler

24 A Decade of Reform in ArgentinaMarcela Mollis

26 News of the Center26 New Publications

Departments

Special Focus: E-Learning

Special Focus: Funding and Regulating

Countries and Regions

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Foreign Study: ChangingPatterns and CompetitiveChallengesPhilip G. AltbachPhilip G. Altbach is J. Donald Monan S.J. professor of higher educationand director of the Center for International Higher Education at BostonCollege.

Foreign study is already big business internationally,but it has somehow either been ignored or written

off as an intellectual enterprise rather than a potential“profit center.” Now, academic institutions, governmentagencies, private corporations, and even individual en-trepreneurs are seeking to cash in on the growing tradein higher education. Our concern here is with one as-pect of this trade—the flows of foreign students. Some1.8 million students now study outside their own coun-tries—with by far the largest number travelling fromdeveloping and middle-income countries to a smallnumber of industrialized nations. Worldwide, most in-ternational students are self-supporting, paying univer-sity fees and their own living expenses. There is aconsiderable flux introduced into this marketplace ascountries seek to maximize their advantages, increasetheir influence, and above all earn more money from thetrade in degrees.

Ancillary industries have emerged around the edgesof the flows of international students, seeking to servespecific market niches and to earn a profit as well: forexample, recruiters, expediters, counselors, testers,credential evaluators, and a huge English-languageindustry to provide the language skills needed forinternational study. The underside of the foreign studymarket consists of enterprises that falsify admissions andlanguage tests, provide fraudulent degrees, and producefake visas and other documents.

Most of the emphasis is on opening up markets forforeign study, increasing flows, and maximizing themarket potential of foreign study. Few are concernedabout how foreign study serves the public good in boththe sending and receiving countries or how increasedflows might contribute to brain drain. Fewer still worryabout the huge financial cost of international study—funds largely flowing from the countries least able toafford the expenditure to the richest academic systemsin the world.

For example, international education contributedU.S.$11 billion to the U.S. economy in 2000, much of itcoming from 73 percent of international students whohave non-U.S. funds as their primary source of support.International education is one of Australia’s top-earning

exports, contributing more than A$4.4 billion to theeconomy (U.S.$2.6 billion) more profitable than beef orwool and considerable emphasis is being placed onfurther improving educational export income. In theUnited Kingdom, 58 percent of students fromCommonwealth countries are self-funded. If one addsnon-Commonwealth students, the proportion isconsiderably higher. These students pay much higherfees than do local U.K. (or EU) students.

Ancillary industries have emergedaround the edges of the flows of inter-national students, seeking to serve spe-cific market niches and to earn a profitas well: for example, recruiters, expe-diters, counselors, testers, credentialevaluators, and a huge English-lan-guage insdustry.

Patterns of Financial FlowsInternational students are increasingly seen as incomeearners by the host countries. Worldwide financial cut-backs to higher education and a growing marketizationof the universities make income generation an ever moreimportant factor. Nonetheless, there are variations inpolicy. The English-speaking countries are without ques-tion at the forefront of looking at international educa-tion as an income earner. Some continental Europeancountries still charge very low fees, or have no fees atall, and few charge non-EU students more than domes-tic students. This includes such major host countries asFrance and Germany, which rank as number three andfour internationally (following the United States and theUnited Kingdom). Japan, which has come close to reach-ing its goal of hosting 100,000 international students,does not charge foreign students more than domesticstudents, although significant tuition is charged at boththe public and private universities. Costs vary amonghigh-fee Anglo-Saxon countries. American private uni-versities are by far the world’s most expensive institu-tions, for both domestic and international students,although the high price is mitigated in some cases byscholarship assistance. U.S. public universities typicallycharge international students (and domestic out-of-statestudents) a higher tuition than in-state students arecharged. The United Kingdom has a policy of chargingnon-EU international students the “full cost” of instruc-tion, but fees are still less than in the United States. Feesin Australia and New Zealand are cheaper still.

E-Learning International Issues

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Flows and PatternsThe overarching reality worldwide is that demandexceeds supply for higher education. In manydeveloping countries a foreign degree has greater cachetthan a local qualification. It is also true that in somecountries local students unable to qualify for localinstitutions can gain admission to institutions overseas.For these reasons, overseas study continues to flourish.While the numbers of students from industrializedcountries going abroad is also increasing modestly, thedominant flow is from South to North. There was a 7.4percent increase in the number of U.S. students studyingabroad, and EU programs have boosted Europeannumbers although not by as much as anticipated byplanners.

Although U.S. international enrollments werewidely expected to go down in the aftermath of theevents of September 11, this does not appear to be thecase. In 2001–2002, 582,996 international students werestudying in the United States, up 6.4 percent from theprevious year. India has replaced China as the largestsending country. Japan has also significantly increasedits numbers of international students, with 95,500 as ofMay 2002, up 21 percent from a year earlier and close tothe Ministry of Education’s goal of 100,000. Asiaaccounted for 92.8 percent, with most coming fromChina, Korea, and Taiwan. It can be said that Japaneseenrollments have become regionalized rather thaninternationalized. U.K. numbers are also up, due in partto aggressive marketing overseas by British universitiesto attract high-fee-paying international students. Thegovernment has also supported an increase in non-EUinternational enrollments in order to increase revenues.Australia and New Zealand have also been marketingtheir universities and have successfully attracted moreinternational students, mainly from Asian countries.Although international study in EU countries hasincreased due to major initiatives in recent years, thenumbers have not grown as much as hoped by EUofficials. A few countries have largely ceased to attractinternational students—the former Soviet Union was atone time a major host for international students, andCzechoslovakia and Romania were also destinations.Now, these countries attract few foreign students.

Future ProspectsFor the immediate future, the numbers of internationalstudents will continue to increase, with some changesin destinations as well as in the sending countries. If U.S.visa restrictions become very onerous, it is possible thatfewer students will choose to study in the United States.The overall attraction of the United States, however,

seems certain to continue due to the perceived qualityof American higher education, the attractions of Ameri-can society, and the possibilities of the U.S. job market.With fiscal pressures on European universities increas-ing, it is questionable how long fees for non-EU studentscan be kept low. It is likely that aggressive marketingwill continue to boost numbers for such countries as theUnited Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Japan’sprospects for attracting students from beyond its imme-diate regional area are limited because of the difficultiesof learning the Japanese language. Africa and LatinAmerica, which at present send only modest numbersof students abroad, may play a greater role in the future,although economic difficulties will hinder dramaticgrowth.

The longer-term future is less clear. The impact ofdistance provision of academic degrees, “twinning” ar-rangements that will permit students from countries suchas Malaysia and China to earn “overseas” degrees whileremaining at home, the establishment of off-shorebranches of European and American universities in Asiaand elsewhere (Singapore, for example, is counting onsuch imports to permit expansion of local enrollmentswithout major new expenditures), and other innovationsmay affect the international student mobility.

International initiatives in higher education are bigbusiness. These initiatives will continue to influenceglobal academic development. What is less clear isexactly what direction change will take—and how thepublic good can be served in the new global highereducation marketplace.

Corporate Universities and theRedefinition of a MedievalBrandScott TaylorScott Taylor is a lecturer in organizational behavior and internationalmanagement and organization, at the Birmingham Business School,University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. E-mail:s.taylor.2@bham.ac.uk.

Recent debates on the nature of international highereducation and the “pseudouniversity” are central

to understanding a new managerial initiative, the cor-porate university. High-profile initiatives such asMotorola University in the United States, Barclays Uni-versity in the United Kingdom, and the Shell Open Uni-versity on mainland Europe are all examples of asignificant innovation recognizable to both educational

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analysts and management scholars. Reliable estimatesare elusive as to the number of these pseudouniversities,but without doubt a discourse on corporate university(CU) initiatives is gaining in visibility and popularity.

The aim of this article is to bring together insightsfrom previous work on the corporate classroom, and toreport on initial findings from our own three-yearresearch project into CU initiatives in the UnitedKingdom and Europe. Defining a CU has been somewhatproblematic. Previously well-drawn boundaries betweeneducation and business, and between universities andother educational institutions, are becoming increasinglyblurred. Indeed, the rise of CUs may be seen as part ofthis process, since they are designed to increase exchangebetween the corporate world and education and to serveas leaders of the initiatives. Our research proceeds fromtwo basic factors: that a CU is owned (and controlled)by a single corporation and that a CU draws the majorityof its students from within the corporation. In addition,the use of language from the educational world to labelthe initiative is for us a crucial aspect of CU construction.

Practitioner accounts of managing corporate trainingand development through CUs abound, yet extended,empirically informed analysis is rare. Despite an increasein attention to both human resource development atwork and the governance of established state-accrediteduniversities, neither educationalists nor managementresearchers have explored the nature and meaning ofCUs in any depth. The field is thus left open to “insideraccounts” relating the positive effects of CUs indevelopmental terms and in relation to business benefits,justifying the appropriation of higher educationterminology and symbolism along the way; or toconsultants with an interest in portraying CU initiativesas positive and worthwhile, retelling and retailingsuccess stories.

The Corporate ClassroomDespite the freshness of their label (first noted in theearly 1980s), CU initiatives are by no means the firsttime that business and education have come together.From the beginnings of the industrial era in the UnitedStates, capital owners sought to influence the nature ofthe “products” supplied by educational systems. As theskills required for employees changed in the mid-19thcentury, factory managers found that new recruits werenot arriving at the workplace with the desired vocationalskills—so they began to found company-owned schools.Earlier writers suggest that such schools had theadditional function of introducing prospectiveemployees to the discipline of new industrial work

organizations, an issue that is reinforced in the CUsknown as “corporate boot camps.”

This corporate response to educational “failings”continued to stimulate educational initiatives throughoutthe 20th century. One of the first CUs, MotorolaUniversity, was in part established to provide basicliteracy and numeracy training to lower-level employeeswho had escaped the state education system withoutthese skills. Other CUs, such as that of British Telecomin the United States, focus on retraining in order to meetchanging demands placed on employees as technologiesare replaced and working practices redefined. Still othersemphasize a role as “broker” or “gatekeeper” inexplaining the types of training and developmentavailable to large corporations, filtering the possibleoptions. Yet others, such as the CUs of Gemini Ernst &Young or Boeing, are seen as strategic centers for theorganization, a free space within which senior managersand high-flying potential leaders can come together in aluxuriously appointed and protected space to debate anddefine corporate goals.

This corporate response to educational“failings” continued to stimulate edu-cational initiatives throughout the 20thcentury.

Higher Education Symbolism and PracticeFor some people, the term corporate university trans-lates as little more than a hollow shell or “Trojan Horse.”CUs are seen as the products of adoption and adapta-tion of a prestigious label by managers to lend legiti-macy to essentially in-house training activity focusedonly on corporate aims. For others, the central tenets ofhigher education, as encapsulated in the idea of theuniversity, stand in contrast to operations within CUs.Critics conclude that the nature of the corporate prod-uct is inferior to the reality and philosophy of the uni-versity as it has developed over 500 years. For example,the concept of academic freedom to do research andpublish without institutional interference is fundamen-tal to higher education, whereas neither self-directedresearch nor publication of findings are key aspects ofcorporate university activity. Further, the norm of inde-pendent critical analysis may be seen as essential to in-dividual and institutional identity in the academy; theseare also not traits that are valued in the corporate con-text.

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Beyond these definitional issues, our researchfocused on what were perceived as the key questionraised by CU activity: what motivates managers to talkabout and set up institutions that draw on the symbolismand practice of higher education (and what docorporations gain)? This question may be consideredfrom two perspectives: from inside the corporation andfrom inside the academy. The second viewpoint is easierto locate, through published criticism of CUs. There hasbeen considerable academic resistance to corporate useof terms such as university, institute, academy, or college.Indeed, some countries (such as the United Kingdom)have placed legislative constraints on the use of theseterms since they fall into the category of “protectedbusiness names.” Moreover, academics have questionedthe commitment of corporations with CU initiatives touphold educational standards or norms. Two argumentsare emerging: first, as outlined above, that CUs are notcommitted to any of the tenets that make up the idea ofthe university; second, that the term university (andtherefore any cultural capital accruing to it) will bedebased if large corporations are free to apply it to anymanagerial initiative.

The importance of the corporate mar-ket to higher education is easy to over-look

Managers in our study, however, express littleinterest in these issues. The use of educational symbolsand terms is seen as having two purposes. First, trainingand development (traditionally known as a “Cinderella”activity in companies, bullied by the ugly sisters offinancial constraints and production imperatives) arebeing raised in status and legitimated through relabeling.Second, the visible commitment that a high-profile CUinitiative constitutes enables senior managers to stakeclaims for a place at the educational policy table,rendering them better able to voice corporateperspectives in state education debates.

Mutual (In)comprehensionIt has been suggested that any institution that is not anestablished university should be relabeled as a special-ized training institute or a corporate training institute,and provided with their own accrediting bodies andaward structures. These steps would return the symbol-ism (and value) of academia, so long in the making, backto the academy, and therefore protect it. This straight-forward solution is challenged, however, by the actions

E-Learning E-Learning

of academics at established universities who have en-thusiastically responded to corporate requests for greaterflexibility in the boundaries between the academy andcorporations. In short,“the university” may be a lessunique label than we assume.

The importance of the corporate market to highereducation is easy to overlook. People may not noticestudents being quietly funded by their employers andresearch projects and academic posts being funded bymultinationals. Higher education, it is argued, has beengetting progressively closer to corporations, and thepotential threat this poses to academic freedom is welldocumented. Less expected, perhaps, is the intrusion oflarge corporations into the world of higher education asemulators or competitors, and this is largely the way thatcorporate universities have been perceived to date. Moreresearch and thought are needed before we can claim tounderstand corporate universities. Our research to datecertainly indicates that CUs in the United Kingdom andEurope are more complex and meaningful initiativesthan academic commentators have assumed so far.Beyond the symbolism and badging lies an importantand far-reaching shift in corporate practice. Perhapsthrough seeking to understand what a corporateuniversity is (for), we might come to better understandwhat higher education is (for).

This article is summarized from Corporate Universities:

Historical Development, Conceptual Analysis, and Relations

with Public-Sector Higher Education (London: Observatory

on Borderless Higher Education, 2002). Additional information

is available from OBHE, 36 Gordon Sq., London WC1H, OPF,

UK. Website: www.obhe.ac.uk.

E-learning: Expanding theBottle to Fit the GenieSimon MarginsonSimon Marginson is director of the Monash Centre for Research in Inter-national Education at Monash University, and an Australian ResearchCouncil professorial fellow. E-mail: simon.marginson@ education.monash.edu.au.

Electronic distance learning poses a new and diffi-cult set of problems for educators and governments,

problems both political and pedagogical. The mysterydeepens when we contemplate electronic learning acrossinternational borders. While there has been much hypeabout the Internet as a learning medium, its educationaland social potential is as yet unclear. Equally unclear isthe global policy framework in which e-learning will be

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developed and regulated, which is the issue discussedin this article.

Should it be left to the commercial sector to shapethe new educational prototypes and play out the patternsof global influence on the basis of free trade? Does thismean that we must accept any and every e-mail operatorwho offers “prestigious unaccredited degrees” inexchange for a credit card number or uses the weak linksin the national and international structure ofaccreditation in order to gain legitimacy as a bona fideeducational institution with the right to tradeeverywhere? Or should cross-border e-learning—likeconventional delivery—be subject to national andprovincial government policies and the academicprocesses of accreditation and quality assurance?

If so, what regulatory mechanisms are needed tomanage what is an essentially global form of education,in a world in which policy and regulation continue to bepredominantly national in character and in which,nevertheless, direct institution-to-institution dealings areincreasing, facilitated by electronic communications?

Should cross-border e-learning—likeconventional delivery—be subject to na-tional and provincial government poli-cies and the academic processes ofaccreditation and quality assurance?

The Difficulty of Regulating E-learningThe higher education communities of the world havebeen curiously slow to tackle cross-border e-learning. Inthe GATS negotiations, the United States, Australia, andsome other countries have sought to retain “nationalcharacter” protection in relation to their public institu-tions while at the same time exempting e-learning fromthose constraints, giving the fledgling commercial indus-try a free hand in that part of the sector. Thus, on the onehand, it is argued that e-learning is pedagogically equiva-lent to face-to-face learning, in order to support a com-mercially motivated claim for equal status; while, on theother hand, it is argued that e-learning should be sub-ject to a distinct and more laissez-faire mode of regula-tion. Such a double standard threatens to create all kindsof future problems for institutions and national educa-tion policies, the more so if even half the claims aboutthe transformative potential of e-learning turn out to becorrect.

Why is regulating e-learning proving to be soproblematic? First, e-learning is still new, and though

large-scale distance education in broadcast mode is wellestablished, Internet degrees have yet to becomeestablished on an equivalent basis. Second, becauseregulation is predominantly national, global systemsrelatively undeveloped, and e-learning readily crossesborders, regulating it requires unprecedentedinternational cooperation. Third, the potential of thetechnologies is open-ended. There is genuine uncertaintyabout how to define the field—the more so becausepersons with regulatory power are rarely at the forefrontof technological change—coupled with a reluctance tobe prescriptive, given that many interests (tertiaryinstitutions and companies) have staked a claim. Fourth,policies on educational internationalization are rarelyintegrated with policies on distance learning and oneducational technologies.

A further difficulty is that debate about theregulation of e-learning is polarized in an unhelpful way.The advocates of an “e-revolution,” are excited aboutthe potential of technology, but with a narrow and oftenpurely commercial take on the policy issues, and arepredisposed in favor of market solutions. However, theskeptics about the e-learning hype focus on a broaderset of educational and policy issues but without graspingthe technological potential. This polarization readilybecomes aligned with the all-too-familiar split betweeneducation as a private good and education as a publicgood (market freedom versus political democracy) asexemplified in the GATS debate. In between areinnovators attempting to reconcile technology, pedagogy,efficiency, learner empowerment, greater access, globalawareness, and national development.

A further difficulty is that debate aboutthe regulation of e-learning is polarizedin an unhelpful way.

Can E-learning Be Regulated at All?Distance learning takes a wide variety of forms, in whichdistance-based communication via the post, broadcast,or computer screen is combined with on-site learningcenters or shorter periods of face-to-face classes. Whileface-to-face learning programs often draw on “distance”techniques such as printed reading materials, e-mail, andchat-rooms, an irreducible distinction exists betweenprograms that are predominantly face-to-face and con-ducted in “bricks and mortar” institutions with staff andbuildings and programs that are predominantly distancebased. It is important to emphasize that, pedagogically,e-learning is a distinct, exciting, and in many respects

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unknown mode of learning. As such, it needs to be sub-jected to forms of pedagogical development and qualityassurance that recognize its distinct character and po-tentials, not treated as the “same” as face-to-face learn-ing.

The ultimate challenge that e-learningcreates for regulators is that it is techni-cally possible to conduct an e-learningoperation over the Internet withoutmaintaining a corporeal educationalinstitution.

The ultimate challenge that e-learning creates forregulators is that it is technically possible to conduct ane-learning operation over the Internet withoutmaintaining a corporeal educational institution. Bricks-and-mortar institutions can be subjected to nationalcontrols based on territorial sovereignty. So far, theInternet has eluded such controls, except for extreme andcounterproductive controls such as blocking Internetmessages or refusing to facilitate its development. Giventhat face-to-face tertiary education retains dominantstatus, as numerous studies of student views attest, thisproblem is not as significant as often suggested (thoughthe potential of Internet-based operators to fleeceunsuspecting customers is a concern). The largerproblem is that in the absence of an agreed internationalframework of accreditation and quality assurance,governments and accreditation agencies in one countrycannot readily control Internet communications comingfrom bona fide institutions in another country.

In the absence of an international regulatoryframework, e-learning enables First World operators tomake developing countries a cultural offer they cannotrefuse. Because of the pecuniary attractions of a reputableEnglish-language degree, even in electronic form,unregulated e-learning will undermine nationaleducation systems and the policies and values that theyare designed to express. In this context, the GATS deal—continued national control of national institutions whilegiving cross-border commercial educational operatorsa free hand—is not as generous as it seems. It is a simplesolution, by-passing the technical difficulty ofmonitoring the Internet and the diplomacy of cross-border negotiations, but over time its protective functionwill become eroded.

Global Public Goods in E-educationA key conceptual and policy difficulty in the presentdebate is that the public good is seen as confined to thenation-state, while the private good takes both local andglobal forms. Thus when state-financed public univer-sities from one country deliver foreign education on thesoil of another country, whether in the form of conven-tional or Internet-based delivery, they are seen to do soas commercial operators that should be regulated by atrading regime rather than by educational policies. It ismore useful to recognize that tertiary education createsboth public and private goods, and both the public andthe private goods take global (as well as local and na-tional) forms. These global public goods include culturalexchange on the basis of national diversity, the circula-tion of knowledge, and the development of globallytransferable skills and personal attributes. Regulatoryframeworks that facilitate international relations in edu-cation on the basis of mutual respect, with all nationssigning off on outcomes, are another kind of global publicgood.

In the absence of an international regu-latory framework, e-learning enablesFirst World operators to make develop-ing countries a cultural offer they can-not refuse.

Rather than treating e-learning as equivalent to face-to-face learning for the technical purposes of qualityassurance, while exempting it from internationalregulation, we would be better to do the opposite onboth—regarding e-learning as distinct for the techniquesof quality assurance, treating it as a separate mode, butsubjecting it to the same regulatory requirements formutual recognition and accreditation as are applied toface-to-face learning. It should not be left to evolveindependently of policy. This will require nationalgovernments and independent accreditation authorities(depending on the regulatory regime in the countryconcerned) to regulate the educational activities of theirown nationals that operate abroad, including electronicoperations.

This article is based on the author’s address to the 2002

International Symposium of the Council for Higher Education

Accreditation.

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E-Learning in Asia: Supply andDemandAlan OlsenAlan Olsen is director of strategy policy and research in education inSingapore and Sydney. E-mail: Alan.Olsen@spre.com.sg.

Few data are available on the demand for electroni-cally delivered higher education, or e-higher educa-

tion. Market research findings tend to be held tightly bymarket researchers and their clients. Data are availablein the public domain about demand for higher educa-tion, and its supply, enabling a less direct exploration ofdemand for e-higher education.

Global Demand for Higher EducationIn 1995, IDP Education Australia modeled the globaldemand for higher education. Changes in populationand in participation rates are the two drivers of growthin demand. Looking ahead to 2025, growth in participa-tion rates is the major contributor to growth in demand.As per capita incomes increase, so do participation rates:as incomes rise, demand for higher education grows.Global demand for higher education was projected togrow over the years 1990 to 2025, at the unsurprisingrate of 3.5 percent per year.

Demand was forecast to grow from 48 millionenrollments in 1990 to 159 million enrollments in 2025.Demand from Africa was expected to grow from 2million to 15 million and demand from Asia from 17million to 87 million. Of the increase of 111 million, 70million would occur in Asia. The 1995 figures now lookconservative. More recent modeling suggests that by2020 China will be unable to supply the 20 millionuniversity places needed to meet the demands of itsdeveloping economy, and that in the long term thedemand for international education in China will farexceed the capacity of the global education industry toprovide enrollments. Similarly, in 2015 India will beunable to supply 9 million university places.

These bleak forecasts of unmet demand have beenmade at a time of growing reluctance on the part ofgovernments globally to fund the increasing demand forhigher education.

Global demand for higher educationwas projected to grow over the years1990 to 2025, at the unsurprising rateof 3.5 percent per year.

Supply of Higher Education On-lineOn-line delivery ought to be able to supply higher edu-cation to meet much of this unmet global demand. How-ever, a number of barriers exist: cost, access to technology,mismatch of levels, and the lack of a quality assuranceframework. How can these barriers be addressed?

In terms of cost, a new generation of distanceeducation has the potential to deliver a quantum leap ineconomies of scale and associated cost-effectiveness, andto increase access to learning opportunities on a globalscale.

As described at the University of SouthernQueensland, in Australia, the Intelligent FlexibleLearning Model provides interactive multimedia on-line,involves Internet-based access to www resources, usesautomated response systems for computer-mediatedcommunication and offers campus portal access toinstitutional processes and resources. The model scansthe text of incoming electronic queries and respondsintelligently. It is flexible with respect to time, place, andpace. Critically, institutional variable costs approach zero.

In terms of cost, a new generation ofdistance education has the potential todeliver a quantum leap in economies ofscale and associated cost-effectiveness,and to increase access to learning op-portunities on a global scale.

The issue with access to technology is that, just as atechnology approaches mainstream status in developingcountries (radio, television) and becomes feasible as amedium for distance learning, other technologies(Internet) emerge that are further out of reach in thesecountries.

The African Virtual University (AVU) is committedto multimode delivery, including the use of videotape-based courses delivered by satellite, web-based courses,CD-ROMs and interactive sessions, using the Internet.AVU uses learning centers, each equipped with asatellite dish for receiving signals, large screenprojectors, at least 50 computers, Internet access, e-mail,fax, and telephone services. On-site moderators guidethe learning process.

The DIRECWAY Global Education initiative in Indiabrings together franchisees to operate classrooms orlearning centers, satellite delivery from a central studioto a transceiver connected to a local area network ofpersonal computers, and the Apollo Group’s track recordin the United States in bringing education to working

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adults.In terms of mismatch of levels, debate about unmet

demand focuses on undergraduate places, yet much ofthe supply of international on-line higher educationinvolves postgraduate courses. Presumably, marketresearch shows that it is students seeking postgraduatecourses who have the ability to pay.

At the UK e-University, a newly establishedinitiative, the first courses will be at the postgraduatelevel. The continuous market research by UniversitasGlobal appears to be pointing to a business modelinvolving postgraduate courses.

Similarly, a national survey at Australian universitiesin 2001 found that 90 percent of “fully on-line” courseswere postgraduate. Yet this does not reflect the shape offlexible provision in Australia. In 2000, 64 percent of theAustralian students in flexible learning programs and59 percent of the international students in these programswere undergraduates.

With convergence of modes of delivery, flexiblelearning is being used to enable a university to teach itsstandard profile. Once enough universities offer theirstandard profiles on-line, the dominance of postgraduateon-line course offerings will be seen as an aberration.

With regard to the lack of a quality assuranceframework, the yearning is for an international qualityframework to ensure that foreign students can beconfident that they are getting a quality higher education.

Presumably, market research showsthat it is students seeking postgraduatecourses who have the ability to pay.

The Observatory on Borderless Higher Educationdescribes genuine borderlessness: a U.K. universityproviding a degree on-line through a U.K. privatecompany, utilizing a portal in Singapore and a supportcenter in Bahrain. It would be an interesting globalquality assurance and accreditation framework thatencompasses such an example of on-line highereducation.

Responsibility for quality assurance must be on theprovider to ensure that the on-line program is at leastequivalent in standard to the same program at the homeinstitution, to ensure that the program is effective inachieving its educational objectives (the common test ofquality), to have in place a quality assurance system, andto commission independent third party evaluations ofits on-line programs.

Responsibility for quality assurancemust be on the provider to ensure thatthe on-line program is at least equiva-lent in standard to the same programat the home institution.

ConclusionUniversities see new technologies as providing deliveryto any student, anywhere, at any time. Flexible deliveryis being used as much to solve on-campus problems asto provide off-campus access. Face-to-face, distance, andopen learning modes of delivery are converging, and theboundaries between these modes are blurring. The de-mand for e-higher education is seen as a subset of de-mand for higher education. Perhaps more accurately,on-line delivery is a mode for supplying higher educa-tion. In this context, there is logic in the extent to whiche-learning is being supply driven by institutions.

This article is based on the report E-Learning in Asia: Supply

and Demand, prepared by Alan Olsen for the Observatory on

Borderless Higher Education, www.obhe.ac.uk.

F Funding and Regulating

Cost Sharing and HigherEducation Access in Southernand Eastern AfricaBruce Johnstone and Pamela MarcucciD. Bruce Johnstone is University Professor of Higher and ComparativeEducation at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and director ofthe Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education. PamelaMarcucci is project manager for the Center's International ComparativeHigher Education Finance and Accessibility Project. Address: Compara-tive and Global Education Center, Baldy Hall, SUNY-Buffalo, Buffalo,NY 14260, USA. E-mail: <DBJ@buffalo.edu>.

A 10-nation conference, “Financing Higher Education in East-ern and Southern Africa: Diversifying Revenue and Expand-ing Accessibility,” was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, inMarch 2002, cohosted by the University of Dar es Salaam andthe International Comparative Higher Education Finance andAccessibility Project of the State University of New York atBuffalo. The conference was funded by the Ford Foundation.The full report of the conference is available on the website ofthe University at Buffalo Project at: http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/org/IntHigherEdFinance/. The follow-ing article is based on this conference.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION10

The policy of cost sharing in higher education distributes the burden of funding among governments

(or taxpayers), parents, students, and donors. Businessesmay be viewed as an additional party to cost sharing,but because business’s share is generally just passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices, the incidence,or ultimate burden, of a so-called business share becomesrather hard to distinguish from a general sales tax—oreven from the inflationary incidence of deficit spend-ing. Most, but not all, of the world is moving in the di-rection of greater cost sharing, in the form of an increasein the shares borne by parents and/or students and arelative reduction in the shares borne by government (orby taxpayers and consumers). Moving toward greatercost sharing can take the form of introducing tuition orincreasing existing tuition rates, imposing almost “break-even” charges for student dining and lodging, reducingnon-means-tested student stipends (and improving re-payment collection on student loans), and encouraginga tuition-dependent private sector.

Moving toward greater cost sharing cantake the form of introducing tuition orincreasing existing tuition rates, impos-ing almost “break-even” charges forstudent dining and lodging, reducingnon-means-tested student stipends (andimproving repayment collection on stu-dent loans), and encouraging a tuition-dependent private sector.

The Necessity of Cost SharingParticipants at the Dar es Salaam conference generallyagreed that cost sharing in some form is imperative forAfrican higher education. The handful of African uni-versities—including the University of Dar es Salaam andUganda’s Makerere University—that have introducedcost sharing measures seem to be recovering from thecatastrophic defunding of higher education in most ofSub-Saharan Africa.

Tuition fees may be considered equitable whenhigher education is partaken of by a minority—anddisproportionately by the children of more affluentparents. An even more compelling—and lessideologically contestable–rationale for tuition fees wasidentified as the sheer need for revenue, stemming fromthe enormous and rapidly increasing demand (and need)for higher education and from the likely inability of thetaxpayers to meet the expanding revenue needs. This is

so not only because of the difficulty of taxation, but evenmore because of competing public demands on the samescarce public revenue.

Cost sharing is also more acceptable inthe presence of programs for means-tested grants and student loans.

Conferees stressed that the principal source of highereducation funding must continue to be the government,or taxpayers, and that cost sharing must be seen as away to supplement this revenue. The principalbeneficiaries of cost sharing must be future students (andtherefore the society), rather than the universities,university leaders, or university faculty. Likewise,university budgets must be transparent and generallyperceived to be “appropriate” for the introduction ofcostsharing to be politically acceptable. Stakeholders—especially students and their families—need to see thatthe university has cut costs, become as efficient aspossible, and has taken steps to “distribute the pain” ofthe inevitable shortfall in revenues. Opposition to costsharing is most vocal in a climate of underlying mistrustof government and university leadership.

Means TestingCost sharing is also more acceptable in the presence ofprograms for means-tested grants and student loans.Means testing is difficult in the absence of verifiablemeasures of family income and family assets—a situa-tion that characterizes nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa.Therefore, estimates of “family financial means” and“family financial need” will probably have to be used—with sufficient auditing and penalties for misreporting,to yield acceptable levels of compliance. Such estimatesmight include the parents’ occupations and educationlevels and whether the family owns a car or is entitledthrough a job to a car and driver, has running water, isfrom a remote region, or belongs to a linguistic, ethnic,or other historically disadvantaged population. Coun-tries are presently experimenting with such measures.Communicating experiences will help policymakers ar-rive at and share fair and cost-effective methods of judg-ing “family financial need.”

In any move toward greater cost sharing, specialattention must be shown to the family's willingness tosupport the higher education expenses of daughters aswell as sons. More study is needed on the extent andnature of the problem, and care should be taken not toencourage or sanctify a tradition of lesser support for

11

daughters. However, some compensation may be calledfor in the form of a higher means-tested grant fordaughters than for sons.

Student loan programs can advance thegeneral aim of cost sharing (as opposedto the aim merely of getting money tostudents with little concern for its recov-ery).

Problems of Student Loan ProgramsWhile acknowledging the poor record of student loanprograms around the world, including many failed orpoorly performing programs in Africa, such programs(or graduate taxes and other ways of deferring studentfinancial contributions) are essential for a program ofcost sharing that includes students. Student loan pro-grams can advance the general aim of cost sharing (asopposed to the aim merely of getting money to studentswith little concern for its recovery). To do so—that is, toshift a portion of higher education costs to students—the loan programs must provide for cost recovery, mea-sured in the discounted present value of the stream ofrepayments, in an amount nearly equal to (or at leastnot a great deal less than) the sum loaned or advancedto the student in the first place.

Most “failed” student loan programs throughout theworld, as well as in Africa, have failed because ofinsufficient capital (i.e., lack of savings) to make loans atreasonable rates of interest, insufficient policies andprocedures for servicing and collecting the loans (andthus high administrative expenses and default rates),excessive built-in subsidies (generally through overlylow rates of interest charged to borrowers). Theseproblems seem mainly solvable, and the conferenceparticipants thus looked forward to more success withfuture student loan programs in the African context.

As elsewhere, there is interest in Africa in the conceptof income contingent loans (or their variant, so-called“graduate taxes”), in which the repayment obligation isexpressed as a percentage of future earnings rather thanas a schedule of fixed repayments (e.g., as in theAustralian Higher Education Contribution Scheme).However, income contingent loans require a means ofverifying all (or at least most of) borrowers’ incomes fortheir working lifetimes. Such loan schemes can work ina society and an economy where most borrowers workpredominantly at one job at a time, in the formaleconomy, and where their earnings will be known to andmonitored by the government along with their income

tax and pension contribution obligations. In societies andeconomies where many of the borrowers will derivemuch of their income from the informal economy, or “onthe side” from second and third jobs, or will likely leavethe country where the loan was originated for much orall of their earning lifetimes—which is the case in mostsub-Saharan African countries—full incomes will be hardto verify and may not be legally capturable. In such cases,income contingent loans will probably not work.

According to the students who spoke at theconference, the essence of a student loan program issufficiency—that is, providing enough money to supportthe costs of living and any tuition fees. The next mostimportant features, in order, were a sufficiently longrepayment period to keep monthly (or annual)repayments “manageably low,” a low rate of interest,and the absence of a need for a co-signatory.

Funding and RegulatingLithuanian Higher EducationLiudvika LeisyteLiudvika Leisyte is a recent graduate of the master’s program in Interna-tional and Comparative Education, Institute for Educational Research,Oslo University. E-mail: liudiabroad@yahoo.com.

Lithuania’s higher education system is in a state ofconstant flux, facing major challenges of expansion,

diversification of funding, and changing regulations. Thetransition from a centrally planned economy to a mar-ket-led one has caused Lithuania to restructure the so-cial sector, including higher education. The practice ofhigher education governance through state controlengrained during the Soviet period has been shifting toone of state supervision. Tendencies toward deregula-tion have been apparent in the policy debates on highereducation, starting with the law on science and highereducation (1991), the Constitution of the Republic ofLithuania (1992), and the law on higher education (2000).

As in most Central and Eastern European countries,both public and private higher education institutions inLithuania expanded—going from 12 in 1990 to 35 in 2002.A number of former technicums and vocational schoolsopted to participate in a competition to become fullyfledged higher education institutions granting bachelor’sdegrees. Individuals or religious organizations created13 new private higher education institutions. TheMinistry of Education and Science tightly controlled theirestablishment though licensing and quality assurance,which slowed the process of expanding private-sector

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION12

higher education, when compared to that of othercountries in the region.

As a result, a binary higher education system wasestablished. In the same period, student numbersincreased from 59,000 in 1996–1997 to 96,000 in 2000–2001. However, public funding has been decreasingquite dramatically at the same time as demands forefficiency and quality have been growing. Subsequently,regulation and funding of the expanding highereducation sector have become key topics in the currentpolicy debate in Lithuania. How does the decreasingfunding challenge the higher education sector inLithuania, and is this drop in funds an opportunity forhigher education to become more efficient?

As in most Central and Eastern Europeancountries, both public and private highereducation institutions in Lithuania ex-panded.

Major Transformations in FundingAfter 1999 funding started to decrease from U.S.$148,700in 1999 to U.S.$129,500 in 2000. Higher education insti-tutions have faced serious difficulties in financing wages,heating, electricity, and building maintenance. Moreover,they have had to tackle the state bureaucracy’s compli-cated system of accountability and control. This led manyinstitutions facing financial crisis to search for alterna-tive sources of funding. The most immediate target toobtain extra funding was the students. Tuition and feeswere introduced, although these were not covered bythe 1991 law on science and higher education. This lackof regulation allowed for a huge discrepancy in studentfees among different institutions. Students, parents, andlobbyist groups started intense public debates on theaccessibility and the efficiency of higher education un-der the new conditions.

The Lithuanian government brought up the questionof tuition payment by students. The 2000 law on highereducation and other by-laws have introduced moreoutput-based funding formulas, and they have regulatedstudent fees contracts between the Ministry of Scienceand Education and higher education institutions bysubject. It is interesting to speculate whether these tighterregulations will allow for wider participation, keepingin mind that as of October 1, 2000, nearly one-third ofthe total student population in public higher educationestablishments was self-financed. Moreover, theincreased student fees did not offset the increasing costsand the decreasing state funding. This situation has

forced higher education institutions to establish contractswith businesses, industry, and communities. Forinstance, Kaunas University of Technology is a pioneerin this respect, receiving nearly 27 percent of its incomefrom the nonpublic sector. Their partners are localenterprises, firms, and institutions for research, design,and small-scale manufacturing.

This led many institutions facing finan-cial crisis to search for alternativesources of funding.

Changes in Higher Education RegulationThus, other stakeholders are becoming more importantin the regulation of higher education in Lithuania. Lob-byists for the so-called academic oligarchy—by which Imean the group of academics influencing decision mak-ing on the national level—increased their impact throughparticipation in buffer organizations, such as the the Sci-ence Council of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Academy ofSciences, and the Conferences of Universities, Collegesand Research Institutes’ Rectors. Student participationin governance has been growing through student unionsand nongovernmental youth organizations. For example,after passing the by-law on the new funding mechanism,a number of conferences were organized by academiclobbyists to attract attention to the critical situation inhigher education funding.

Academic associations have expressed discontentwith inconsistencies in funding policy. A new formulaof resource allocation intimidates institutions with newefficiency demands. Moreover, some members of theabove-mentioned academic oligarchy fear that the 2000law on long-term funding of science and education, withits 2001 by-law on the new order of accountability, mightdiscourage institutions from becoming more efficient.The latter regulation requires higher educationinstitutions to transfer their independently generatedincome to the state budget for auditing and subsequentlyfor earmarking. The Ministry of Finance still has animportant say in the higher education funding processin Lithuania, since it is involved in the resourcedistribution mechanism of both public and nonpublicincome of public higher education institutions.

Future ProspectsAs seen from the above examples, the contradiction be-tween policy discourse and the existing bureaucracy instate institutions still hinders the implementation of

13

higher education reform. Though the state agreed onlump-sum allocations to higher education institutionsin the 1991 law on science and higher education, the ac-countability remained strict and the real funding mecha-nism has not changed. However, one must admit that,until recently, higher education has not been a top prior-ity of the state. Thus, it might take time to develop andimplement a homogeneous strategy and coherent poli-cies, implementation, evaluation, and follow-up moni-toring. The changing role of different stakeholders andthe more aggressive participation of higher educationinstitutions in the policymaking process might be a newimpetus for further developments in the sector.

dramatic growth of private postsecondary institutions,the challenges of financing, the inevitable expansion ofenrollments, the significance of ICT on African higherlearning institutions, and the challenges of genderinequity. The journal will offer an interdisciplinary mixof policy-oriented essays and research-based articles.

The JHEA will be jointly published by the CIHE andCODESRIA and is directed by two editors-in-chief,Dr. Damtew Teferra (Boston College) and Prof. AdebayoOlukoshi (CODESRIA), and two editors, Dr. FeliciaOyekanmi (CODESRIA) and Prof. Philip G. Altbach(Boston College).

The journal is strengthened by a four-memberinstitutional editorial board: the Association of AfricanUniversities (Ghana), the Educational Policy Unit of theUniversity of Western Cape (South Africa), UN-Economic Commission for Africa, UN-ECA (Ethiopia),and the Organization for Social Science Research in Eastand Central Africa, OSSREA (Ethiopia). An advisoryboard of 20 experts from a wide array of disciplines,institutions, regions, and countries provides support tothe journal.

The JHEA will be distributed without cost to thehigher education community in Africa; it will also beavailable internationally.

The JHEA will be distributed without costto the higher education community inAfrica.

Inquires and submissions should be sent to: Dr.Damtew Teferra, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of HigherEducation in Africa, Center for International HigherEducation, Lynch School of Education, Campion Hall207D, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA;tel.: (617) 552-4413; fax: (617) 552-8422; e-mail:jhea@bc.edu; or Dr. Adebayo O. Olukoshi, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, Council forthe Development of Social Science Research in Africa(CODESRIA), P.O. Box 3304, Dakar, SENEGAL; tel.: (221)825 98 22/23; fax: (221) 824 12 89; e-mail:jhea@codesria.sn.

Further information is available at the websites of CIHE

(http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/Center.html) and

CODESRIA (http://www.codesria.org).

The initiative is being funded by the FordFoundation, Rockefeller Foundation, MacArthurFoundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The Journal of Higher Educationin Africa

In recognition of the growing importance of higher edu-cation in Africa and the need for research and analy-

sis of higher education in an African context, the newJournal of Higher Education in Africa (JHEA) has recentlybeen launched as a joint initiative of the Center for In-ternational Higher Education (CIHE) at Boston Collegeand the Council for the Development of Social ScienceResearch in Africa (CODESRIA).

The JHEA grew out of a desire to foster research,analysis, and discussion on African higher education.As the only Africa-wide journal on higher education, theJHEA will help to create and sustain a community ofresearchers and policymakers concerned with the issuesfacing African higher education institutions.

The JHEA will be devoted to all aspects of highereducation in Africa. The JHEA strives to be a centralelement in the “invisible college” of researchers,policymakers, and others who have an interest in highereducation. The JHEA will help stimulate additionalresearch on higher education in Africa—work that willhave relevance to other developing regions as well.

The JHEA will be devoted to all aspectsof higher education in Africa.

The JHEA will publish its first issue during 2003. Theeditors intend to provide a forum for the current debateon higher education issues facing Africa—such as the

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION14

F Accreditation and Quality Control

The UNESCO Global Forum:Continuing ConversationsAbout Quality Review andHigher EducationJudith S. EatonJudith S. Eaton is president of the Council for Higher Education Accredi-tation, One Dupont Circle, Suite 510, Washington, D.C. 20036. E-mail:eaton@chea.org.

On October 17 and 18, 2002, some 120 people frommore than 30 countries gathered in Paris at a meet-

ing of UNESCO’s Global Forum on Quality Assurance,Accreditation, and the Recognition of Qualifications inHigher Education. The purpose was to address the chal-lenges facing quality assurance of higher education in aglobal setting. UNESCO provided a comprehensiveagenda that included sessions on accreditation and qual-ity assurance, quality standards, access and equity,higher education and the public good, borderless highereducation, for-profit higher education, public and pri-vate higher education, and degrees and qualifications.

Driving ThemesSeveral themes emerged repeatedly during the two daysof discussion. These included the growing dominanceof the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the currentround of negotiations under the General Agreement onTrade in Services (GATS) with regard to higher educa-tion and quality assurance in an international setting,the interest in establishing a framework by which na-tional quality assurance professionals in various coun-tries can position themselves to assure qualityinternationally, and the issue of addressing fundamen-tal values in quality review, in a sector such as highereducation that serves the public good and the public in-terest.

Some WTO members may wish to offerhigher education and quality assuranceprograms, while others may wish to setconditions for such services.

WTO and GATSThe current GATS negotiations are intended to liberal-ize trade in services among the 144 WTO member coun-

tries. Some WTO members may wish to offer highereducation and quality assurance programs, while oth-ers may wish to set conditions for such services. Whilesome groups in higher education and quality assurancesupport the efforts of the WTO to ease restrictions onthe import and export of higher education and atten-dant services, others have raised serious concerns aboutthe danger of treating higher education and quality as-surance as items of trade like other services such as in-surance, computers, or banks.

What of the future and the emergingdominance of the WTO and GATS?

What are higher education and quality assurancedoing in a trade agreement? Why (using an example fromGATS) does a supranational organization of countriescare about the number of cosmetology schools in the stateof Kentucky in the United States? A technical answerwould refer to the fact that higher education and qualityassurance fall within the broad definition of “services”used in negotiations: to paraphrase the language ofGATS, human activity to satisfy a human need and nota tangible commodity. A political answer would pointto the fact that importing and exporting higher educationinvolves billions of dollars. There are many groupsseeking to expand this market in the hope of gainingeven greater profits. Those parts of the higher educationand quality assurance sector that support the GATSprovide another answer: that the presence of qualityassurance sectors in the negotiations can enhance access,equity, and student mobility.

Although only one session of the meeting wasformally devoted to GATS, the subject came up in sessionafter session, rapidly becoming an influential andsometimes defining presence in talks about qualityassurance and higher education on an international scale.Sometime, this pattern took the form of suggestions thatdecisions about quality assurance in an internationalsetting required subordination to determinations madeunder GATS. At other times, the issue of GATS evokedexpressions of concern, sometimes combined witharticulations of helplessness because the GATSnegotiations are not open to the public. There werefrequent comments such as “Well, what about GATS?”and “We have to deal with GATS.”What of the future and the emerging dominance of theWTO and GATS? Whether one supports or challenges

15

the appropriateness of negotiating the quality of highereducation as an item of trade, these negotiations willlikely drive at least some of the international conversa-tion about quality assurance in higher education.

Establishing an International FrameworkA second theme driving the discussions at the UNESCOmeeting was “What framework, structure, or mecha-nisms do we need to assure the quality of higher educa-tion?” It was largely accepted that higher education andquality assurance assume additional responsibilities inthe international sphere, although how this should beaccomplished has become the subject of much debate.

Of the key leaders in quality assurance andaccreditation in various countries, some prefer qualityreview structured around a single set of internationalquality standards, whether for institutions, programs,or quality assurance agencies. International standardscan build common understanding and form the basisfor agreement about quality.

Others believe that assuring quality in aninternational setting should build on the capacity ofexisting national quality review procedures to establishrelationships, broker agreements, share information, andassure communication about quality review practicesamong countries. Those focused on a nation-basedframework remain committed to national models forhigher education and quality assurance, arguing thatjudgments and expectations of education and quality areinseparable from the cultural and social contexts in whichthey develop.

“How can we assure that quality reviewin an international setting is about morethan market forces?”

Still others believe that relying on regionalapproaches makes sense, maintaining that areas of theworld that share geographic proximity or a commonhistory and culture can work together effectively. Thusregional frameworks are seen as a key means to worktogether internationally.

As for how best to create an international frameworkfor structuring relationships to serve higher educationand quality assurance, the realization may grow thatthere is space for a range of mechanisms—national,regional, and international—to meet specific needs andchallenges to assure quality.

Fundamental ValuesDuring the two days of the Global Forum, values ques-tions about international quality review were raised re-peatedly—including “How can we assure that qualityreview in an international setting is about more thanmarket forces?” “What is our commitment to the publicgood?” “What is the ‘public interest’ in an internationalsetting?” “What are the potential good and the poten-tial harm of the ‘market’ in an international higher edu-cation context?” The discussions have focused on accessand equity for students as well as the relationships be-tween developed and developing countries.

“How can we assure that quality reviewin an international setting is about morethan market forces?”

The values discussions also examined the issue ofestablishing frameworks that allow higher education andquality assurance to reflect the culture and values of asingle society while operating in an internationalenvironment.

Perhaps the conversation on public good issues willresult in the identification of values held in commonacross countries, accompanied by fresh notions of the“public interest” that are not confined to nations butencompass the international sphere. Progress in this areamay alleviate some of the tension between a policy ofupholding nation-based values and culture that havedefined higher education and a consideration ofinternational standards of quality.

Continuing ConversationsThe UNESCO meeting demonstrated the key themes inthe ongoing conversations concerning higher educationand quality assurance. It will be necessary to addressthe many questions associated with establishing a frame-work within which national, regional, and internationalstructures and standards of quality can be developed andimplemented. These conversations will proceed againstthe backdrop of a worldwide commitment to rearrangeboth opportunities for and barriers to trade among na-tions—including, for better or worse, higher educationand quality assurance.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION16

Accreditation in the Gulf: TheCase of QatarBy Amy Kirle LezbergAmy Kirle Lezberg is a visiting professor at the University of Qatar, P.O.Box 2713, Doha, State of Qatar. E-mail: alezberg@qu.edu.qa oralezberg@aol.com.

I n 1999, impelled by a worldwide initiative ofUNESCO, the six states of the Gulf Cooperating Coun-

cil (GCC)—Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the UnitedArab Emirates, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—be-gan formal consideration concerning establishinga regional accrediting agency. Although the recommen-dations were positive, it was clear that several yearswould pass before the agency (if it became a reality)would begin to function, and therefore several of theindividual countries decided to start the process inter-nally. Qatar, which had no separate ministry of highereducation and only one national university, was wellpositioned to adopt the U.S. model, establishing a sys-tem that would depend on peer review by institutionalfaculty and administrators, rather than the government-driven model frequently found in Western Europe, andcould directly involve representatives of many constitu-encies outside the national government.

It was determined that the standardsfor Qatar should build upon those usedby the NEASC and that the university asa whole (rather than just its individualprograms) should be evaluated.

As part of an effort to establish standards andimplement self-evaluation and institutionalimprovement, the president of the University of Qatar,Dr. Abdulla Al-Khulaifi, empowered the academic vicepresident to set up and chair a committee withrepresentatives from each of the six colleges comprisingthe institution. Assisted by a former staff member of theNew England Association of Schools and Colleges(NEASC), the committee undertook what was thenation’s first participative process that would establishregular, written procedures to assess the current statusof the institution and suggest improvements. After areview of the standards at the Quality Assurance Agencyof the United Kingdom and at several U.S. regionalaccreditors, it was determined that the standards for

Qatar should build upon those used by the NEASC andthat the university as a whole (rather than just itsindividual programs) should be evaluated. In addition,the committee decided to have its findings validatedthrough a visit by the Quality Assurance Agency of theUnited Kingdom, which would indicate how theuniversity was conforming to its own standards as wellas how conforming to those standards would position itin terms of international standards of excellence in highereducation.

Throughout the two-year process of establishingstandards and assessing compliance, the UniversityEvaluation Committee, as it was called, determined thatits most pressing issues were, first, credibility—that is,there had been too many attempts at writing reports onthe university’s status that read more like public relationsdocuments than serious self-studies. A number ofcomplaints had been brought by faculty and others (oftenreported in the local press) that were extremely criticalof the university. Many faculty believed that, absentmeaningful follow-up, the effort required to establishstandards would scarcely be worth their time and energy.Second, a cultural centralization and authoritarianismmeant that most evaluations were carried out at thebehest of the administration with little or no participationby the nonadministrative faculty who were actuallycarrying out the university’s mission. Third, thecommittee cited the long tradition of teacher-centerededucation and called for a substitution of credentialingand rote memorization of material with student-centeredlearning that would allow knowledge to be applied innew and challenging situations. In addition, the State ofQatar was engaged in importing highly reputableinstitutions (e.g., Cornell Medical School, VirginiaCommonwealth University School of Art and Design)with the standards enforced by outside agencies, withoutreference to internal personal or political considerationsand with no provision for collaborating with theuniversity to establish joint projects as models ofexcellence.

The earliest task of the committee wasto confront, rather than ignore, theseobstacles to its success.

The earliest task of the committee was to confront,rather than ignore, these obstacles to its success: first, asalways in accreditation, the description of theuniversity’s performance in each area was accompaniedby an analysis of whether the university met the standardas well as a realistic projection of what the university

17

needed to do in order to remedy its deficiencies. Moreimportantly, and in order to lend the study credibilityby presenting a balanced picture, the discussion of eachstandard had to be followed by a list of the university’sfive greatest strengths and five greatest weaknessesrelating to that standard. The committee’s insistence thatfor each of the areas under consideration—mission,faculty, programs, library, governance, planning andevaluation, research, physical and financial facilities, andstudent services, etc.— there be a balanced view of eachfacet of the institution was very different from previousreports. The existence of these lists, which were widelydistributed, made it equally difficult for administratorsand faculty to discount the study’s findings as obviouslybiased toward one side or the other.

Impelled by the needs of the globalmarketplace as well as the concern ofthe government, the university has de-veloped learning objectives for all itsprograms and is mapping places in thecurriculum where the outcomes for theseobjectives can be found as well as thevarious ways of assessing their degreeof achievement.

To ensure that this not be perceived as a documentprepared by and for the central administration, thecommittee arranged various kinds of feedback:newsletters on its progress, universitywidepresentations, and workshops where methods forassessing were demonstrated and practiced, with thenew emphasis on outcomes. Questionnaires on various(sometimes sensitive) topics were distributed to multipleconstituencies on campus and then followed up byinterviews with faculty and administrators chosen bothhierarchically and at random. Not only were the resultingcomments discussed and incorporated into the finalreport but frequent feedback assured those who hadparticipated (as well as others who had withheld theirparticipation because of previous experiences) of thedispositions of their comments.

The institution moved (or, rather, is moving) slowlybut inevitably toward becoming learner- rather thanteacher-centered. Impelled by the needs of the globalmarketplace as well as the concern of the government,the university has developed learning objectives for allits programs and is mapping places in the curriculumwhere the outcomes for these objectives can be found aswell as the various ways of assessing their degree of

achievement. Several of the best and most innovativeteachers at the institution have begun to experiment withalternative ways of teaching and assessing their students;later this year a series of workshops will be held at whichthese instructors will describe their experiences and modelthe ways in which their approach can be generalized.

The university community realizes that the road tocomplete implementation is long and that, in fact, thecycle of assessment, analysis, and revision is a never-ending search for excellence. Nevertheless, as the GCCmoves toward establishing a regional accrediting agency,the University of Qatar is well positioned to assume aleadership role in overcoming entrenched obstacles(some of them cultural) to develop into a universitywhose graduates will be able to move effortlessly intothe world of work as it evolves into new and as yetunknown fields. The three-year activity in establishingand beginning to implement American-styleaccreditation has, therefore, more than validated thepsychological and physical energy expended.

International Linkages inMalaysian Private HigherEducationMolly N. N. LeeMolly N. N. Lee is associate professor in the School of EducationalStudies, Universiti Sains Malaysia. She is also a collaborating scholarin the Program for Research on Private Higher Education. Address: Schoolof Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800,Malaysia. E-mail: molly@usm.my.

IHE devotes a column in each issue to a contribution fromPROPHE, the Program for Research on Private Higher Edu-cation, headquartered at the University at Albany. PROPHEand the CIHE are partners in a cooperative effort supportedby the Ford Foundation to build and disseminate informationabout private higher education globally. See http://www.albany.edu/~prophe.

In many parts of the world, the need for increased access to higher education has led governments and edu-

cators to look for alternative sources of financing as wellas cheaper and innovative modes of delivery. Private-sector higher education and transnational education con-stitute recent developments in many higher educationsystems. In Malaysia, private higher education has ex-panded tremendously since the 1980s. Malaysia offers acase in which the response for cheap, innovative accesshas largely involved foreign linkage programs.

Countries and Regions

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION18

The Impetus for International LinkagesPrivate colleges in Malaysia are not allowed to conferdegrees, and many private universities lacked the ex-pertise to design their own curricula when they werefirst established in the mid-1990s. Yet demand remainsstrong for degree programs and professional courses inthe education market. Therefore, many private highereducation institutions established formal arrangementswith foreign universities to offer educational programsranging from certificate courses to postgraduate programs.

The impetus to form international linkages can beviewed from the perspective of the foreign as well asthe local institutions. Ongoing budget cuts for highereducation in countries like Australia have madeuniversities there keen to “export” their educationalprograms to secure additional revenue. For localinstitutions, international linkages represent a means ofacquiring and delivering an additional or new course atminimal cost. Furthermore, they provide localinstitutions with the opportunity to enhance staffdevelopment in new fields of study. Moreover, if aparticular program is popular, it then translates into anadditional source of income for all parties concerned.

Private-sector higher education andtransnational education constitute recentdevelopments in many higher educationsystems.

Accredited ProgramsUnder the validation and accreditation arrangement, alocal institution conducts a program on behalf of a for-eign institution, consortium, or professional body. Thecurricula, syllabi, and examinations are set by the for-eign institution, and the local institution assumes respon-sibility for teaching the programs and conducting theexaminations without further inputs from the foreigninstitutions. Such programs can be found from thepreuniversity level all the way up to the postgraduatelevel. A very popular overseas preuniversity course isthe GCE A-level examination from the United Kingdom.Private colleges offer a wide range of courses that pro-vide practical, employment-oriented training in techni-cal, trade, and craft areas. Many of these courses lead toformal awards of certificates, diplomas, and higher di-plomas from foreign bodies such as the Business andTechnology Education Council in the United Kingdom.Another form of validation and accreditation is from

foreign professional or subprofessional examinationbodies related to different fields in commerce, trade, andindustry. These examination bodies are not teaching in-stitutions but, rather, councils that represent their spe-cific skill or trade. They are responsible for devising thesyllabi and conducting examinations. Private collegesin Malaysia offer these professional or semiprofessionalcourses and help to conduct the examinations set by thesebodies. An example of a foreign professional examina-tion body is the Chartered Association of Certified Ac-countants in the United Kingdom. The external degreeprograms offered by the University of London in law(LL.B) and business administration (MBA) can be in-cluded in this category of foreign-linked programs.

The impetus to form international link-ages can be viewed from the perspec-tive of the foreign as well as the localinstitutions.

Twinning ProgramsIn the twinning or split degree programs, the local insti-tution is linked directly to one foreign institution or aconsortium of universities that sets the curriculum, tests,and institutional standards of the program. Usually theforeign institution provides on-site supervision to en-sure quality, and in this connection the local institutionpays the foreign institution some kind of royalties or fran-chise fees and administrative costs. Under the terms ofthe twinning arrangement, transfer students are guar-anteed a place at the foreign institution. This arrange-ment allows the partial completion of a foreign programat a local institution. Qualifying students would thenproceed to the final segments of the program at the for-eign institution. However, since the Asian currency cri-sis in 1997, the Malaysian government has approvedprivate colleges to offer programs in which students canstudy the whole three-year foreign degree program inMalaysia, without going abroad to the twinningpartner’s campus. Twinning programs are extremelypopular among students qualified to do a degree pro-gram because they can get a foreign degree at a reducedcost. The wide range of available twinning programsincludes fields of study such as business and commer-cial studies, engineering, computer studies, law, science,the arts, medicine, pharmacy, and many others. The for-eign universities include institutions in Australia, NewZealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, or the UnitedStates.

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Credit Transfer ProgramsCredit transfer programs allow for the conferment of adegree by the accumulation of credits. Under this ar-rangement, students can accumulate credits locally thatare then transferable to one of the foreign-linked uni-versities for the completion of the degree program. Ba-sically, a student intending to study overseas collectssufficient credits through a local private college and thenapplies for entry to a foreign university. The credit trans-fer program grants students greater flexibility to chooseamong a group of foreign universities or programs. Theprogram has proven very popular among students whoplan to go and study in the United States.

Foreign Branch CampusesBesides these three groups of foreign-linked programs,other forms of international linkages are making a sig-nificant impact on the private higher education scene inMalaysia. One form is distance education programs.Many of the postgraduate programs, especially MBAprograms offered by foreign universities, are deliveredthrough the distance learning mode. Another form is theestablishment of branch campuses by foreign universi-ties on Malaysian soil. Today, there are four foreignbranch campuses, and the first of these was MonashUniversity Malaysia. Not all the international linkagesare with Western countries. Higher education and train-ing institutions from India, like the Manipal MedicalUniversity, have also set up private colleges in Malaysiathrough joint ventures with local partners.

In the twinning or split degree pro-grams, the local institution is linked di-rectly to one foreign institution or aconsortium of universities that sets thecurriculum, tests, and institutional stan-dards of the program.

ConclusionThe emergence of international linkages in higher edu-cation is not unique to Malaysia. In fact, this case studyon Malaysia shows the multiple forms of transnationaleducation that are also found in other countries. In a rap-idly globalizing education and human resource market,higher education and training are no longer confinedwithin national boundaries. Through innovative andstrategic partnerships, educational programs are offeredoffshore across national borders. With advanced infor-

mation communications technologies, distance learningprograms are provided electronically as well as throughface-to-face instruction. In this new borderless educa-tional arena, students and academic staff move to andfro across nations.

Beyond Dead Reckoning:Research Priorities forRedirecting American HigherEducationBy Patricia J. Gumport and ColleaguesPatricia J. Gumport is associate professor of education and director ofthe Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research at Stanford Univer-sity and executive director of the National Center for PostsecondaryImprovement. Address: 508 CERAS, School of Education, StanfordUniversity, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Website: http://ncpi.stanford.edu.

For 30 years, a staple of higher education policy inthe United States has been promoting access, based

on the rationale that higher education serves not onlythe individual student but also society as a whole, byproducing an educated citizenry and a productive na-tional workforce. Yet American higher education’s verysuccess at extending access and expanding knowledge,together with major societal changes in demographics,technology, the nature of work, and the demand for edu-cation—have resulted in a terrain that is both altered anduncharted. American colleges and universities, alongwith the public agencies that support and monitor theirefforts, find themselves relying on a kind of dead reck-oning to plot their future course.

Access to What?Higher education in the United States continues to en-joy broad public support, and there is little examinationof what students are gaining access to. Much of highereducation’s traditional language no longer describesactual conditions, notwithstanding its continued rhetori-cal appeal. Discrepancies between ideals and realities,between assumptions and data, render obsolete guide-lines that were once effective. Research is needed, notonly for more complete information, but also to help re-orient higher education within this new landscape. Newquestions informed by current knowledge can yield afresh assessment of higher education’s purposes and

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION20

effectiveness, and the insights from that research canstrengthen higher education’s role in improving the livesof students and the vitality of society as a whole. Webelieve the set of research priorities and enquiries pro-posed here will advance both policy and practice to en-hance learning for students of all backgrounds. Weaddress two primary audiences: public officials directlyresponsible for public appropriations to higher educa-tion; and institutional leaders—including executives,trustees, and faculty—who decide how and for whichpurposes their institutions expend their resources.

In spite of 15 years of the assessmentmovement and increasingly vocal de-mands for improved student learning,fundamental practices of teaching re-main largely unchanged.

Improving Educational Quality and Institutional PerformanceIn spite of 15 years of the assessment movement and in-creasingly vocal demands for improved student learn-ing, fundamental practices of teaching remain largelyunchanged. Colleges and universities struggle to exhibitthe qualities of learning organizations, including thewillingness and ability to define priorities, measureprogress, create feedback loops, and apply what islearned to improve products and services.

Creating more effective learning organizations. Recentresearch has shown that organizations can improve theirpractices through developing a culture of evidence andreflecting upon their outcomes. What kinds of processimprovements do exemplary departments or units makein response to assessment-based feedback? How andwhen do external accountability measures align withinternal quality improvement processes?

Linking knowledge about learning to the practice ofteaching. Higher education has never had well-developedprocesses for linking the purposes of teaching topedagogical methods and evaluation techniques;advancements in communications and informationtechnology have made the task of developing suchprocesses even more complex. How can researchfindings on learning inform the design of educationalprocesses and student assessment measures? Whatdesign principles and criteria generate the most effectiveapproaches for applying technology to enhance learning?Which policies, incentives, and resources supportinstitutions and faculty to develop better instrumentsand measures of student learning and to use them intheir teaching? Which information technologies promote

learning efficiencies and under what circumstances? Towhat extent do external accountability mandates alignwith institutions’ own internal quality processes, andwhat are the effects of misalignment?

The changing academic workforce. In the past decade,the profile of academic professionals has been completelytransformed. The growing disposition is to viewresponsibilities once integral to the faculty role as discretetasks taken up by separate personnel (e.g., contentexperts, course designers, assessment experts, advisers).Market environments have always rewarded prestige,and one effect of the prestige factor in researchachievement has been to reduce a tenure-line facultymember’s accountability in the areas of teaching andadvising. Many of those who fulfill an institution’steaching responsibility now hold part-time, adjunct, andnon-tenure-track term appointments. These trends arenot confined to higher education but exemplify largertransformations in the American workforce and in thenature of work.

Which academic roles require full-time, tenure-linefaculty, and which are suitable for non-tenure-lineacademic professionals? To what extent doesdisaggregating the faculty role make higher educationinstitutions more accountable and cost-effective? Underwhat conditions are adjunct faculty—either because ofor despite their engagement outside the academy—effective in promoting student learning and civicengagement?

Higher education has never had well-developed processes for linking the pur-poses of teaching to pedagogicalmethods and evaluation techniques

Balancing Market Forces with Higher Education’s PublicPurposesThe past three decades have seen policymakers increas-ingly allow markets to replace direct public investmentas an instrument of achieving the public good. More-over, increased reliance on revenue from tuition and fees,combined with a gradual movement from grants to loansin federal student financial assistance, have shifted muchof the burden of financing higher education to studentsthemselves. Without a fuller understanding of how mar-ket forces affect the decisions and culture of campus set-tings, colleges and universities risk becoming merelybusinesses, paying only symbolic homage to the socialcharter that distinguishes them from for-profit enter-prises.

21

What happens to management culture, resourceallocation, and traditional academic governance whenmarkets increasingly influence institutional decisionmaking? What is the impact of market forces onacademically important fields that do not have alucrative proximate market? Under what conditions domarket forces work against an institution’s commitmentto building a diverse faculty or student body? Whathappens to legislative influence as state revenueconstitutes a declining share of public institutions’revenues?

Further, given the current societal proclivity toregard higher education as a private good and studentsas consumers, research needs to examine the impact ofstudents’ exercising their prerogatives as shoppers. Howdoes student consumer interest in courses and subjectsaffect the status of different academic units withininstitutions? To what extent has convenience become aprimary determinant of student choice and, in turn,institutional success? What is the return on publicinvestment in higher education when studentsincreasingly define their own paths of study, largely apartfrom degree requirements?

What happens to management culture,resource allocation, and traditional aca-demic governance when markets in-creasingly influence institutionaldecision making?

Drawing New Maps for a Changing EnterpriseColleges and universities of all types are responding todramatic changes in the students whom higher educa-tion serves, in students’ own purposes and paths throughhigher education, and in the academic workforce. Yetthe image of the academy that most public officials, par-ents, faculty, and administrators retain more closely re-sembles campuses at the time when they themselveswere undergraduates. Even the terms of reference havecome to mean different things to different people: Whatis meant by “core curriculum,” “faculty,” or “student”today? Organizationally, colleges and universities areforming new collaborative agreements—with for-profitand nonprofit organizations—without precedents toguide them. We need new maps, using new definitionsand new kinds of data, to understand this changing ter-rain.

What types of instruction and delivery are servingwhich students with what results? What administrativemoves support faculty to address differences betweenoutdated conceptions of undergraduates and thestudents currently enrolled? Which policies constrain orpromote persistence and degree completion amongunderrepresented students? Which investments intechnology and distributed learning are payingdividends? Which interorganizational collaborations aresuccessful and why?

What types of instruction and deliveryare serving which students with whatresults?

Bearings for the FutureThese research priorities were identified during a year-long agenda-setting initiative. Our charge was to iden-tify the most pressing issues confronting U.S. highereducation now and in the coming decade, propose spe-cific lines of inquiry, and develop a persuasive rationalefor investing in state-of-the-art knowledge to furtherhigher education’s improvement. We offer these ideasin the spirit of helping universities and colleges to re-tain their strength, fulfill the terms of their social char-ter, and recapture the legislative and public imaginationthat higher education is critically important to both thestudents it educates and the societies it serves.

The National Center for Postsecondary Improvement (NCPI) is a

collaborative research venture between researchers at Stanford

University, the University of Michigan, and the University of

Pennsylvania. The findings and opinions expressed in this report do

not reflect the position or policies of the funding agency, the U.S.

Department of Education. For more information and the full text of

this essay, please visit the NCPI website, at http://ncpi.stanford.edu.

Visit our website for downloadable back issues ofInternational Higher Education and other publicationsand resources at http://www.bc.edu/cihe/.

Internet Resources

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION22

German Higher Education in aEuropean Context

Ulrich Teichler

Ulrich Teichler is professor and director of the Center for Research onHigher Education and Work, University of Kassel, Germany. Address:E-mail: teichler@hochschulforschung.uni-kassel.de.

Responsibility for the provision of higher educationhas always varied from country to country. In con-

tinental European countries it has traditionally beenviewed as the duty of the state. In several of these coun-tries, governments have even funded institutions notunder direct government control. In the United King-dom, by comparison, institutions—though state-ap-proved by royal charter—have been considered to beindependent entities that fund themselves through en-dowments, state support, and tuition fees. In the UnitedStates, private and public institutions have had much incommon regarding funding, management, and super-vision. Other governments have provided the nucleusof higher education, while private institutions havesupplemented the core.

In the wake of higher education expansion, growingfiscal problems, and the increasing popularity ofneoliberal economic doctrines, private funding and theprivatization of higher education institutions havegained ground in many countries traditionallydominated by public higher education. The debate overprivate and public funding, however, often involves aconfusing mix of three issues: student costs, the role ofpublic subsidies, and the level of governmentsupervision.

Student Costs and Public SubsidiesThe rationale behind public and private subsidies canbe explained first by looking at the costs individualstudents incur. A recent study shows that tuition feesare charged in about half of the member states of theEuropean Union and tend to be very small as comparedto those charged by the national universities in Japanor by state universities in the United States. Theproportion of students receiving grants and loans tocover living expenses varies among EU countries fromless than 5 percent to more than 90 percent. Levels ofpublic subsidies seem to vary depending on the conceptof the social role of students.

Some countries see students as children in society’sfamily. That family is expected to care for the students,and the students’ study opportunities depend on the

family’s ability and readiness to pay (e.g., Greece).Students may also be seen as children in a family systemwith strong welfare components. In many cases, whereparental income is low, the public steps in with grantsand loans (e.g., until recently, the United Kingdom).Alternatively, students may be viewed as investors intheir future. A student’s future prospects are what count,not the current social situation. Not a single EU countrypursues this model consistently, but some componentsof the model can be observed in Sweden and theNetherlands. Finally, a society may view studentsprimarily as prospective workers and young citizens.Substantial grants are provided irrespective of parentalincome or students’ potential income after graduation(e.g., Denmark and Finland).

While these beliefs are broad generalizations aboutvarious societal images of students, they stronglyinfluence decisions on the appropriate levels of publicsubsidies to both public and private higher educationinstitutions.

The debate over private and public fund-ing, however, often involves a confus-ing mix of three issues: student costs,the role of public subsidies, and the levelof government supervision.

Supervision of Higher EducationThe distinctions over government supervision betweenpublic and private institutions are not always obvious.For example, an institution’s legal status may be neitherclearly public nor private, making it a matter of inter-pretation whether the institution is semipublic or semi-private. In other cases, the official status might be private,but the government may clearly retain a supervisory role.There are also umbrella organizations of various collegesthat are partly private and partly public (e.g.,Fachhochschulen in Switzerland and ammatikorkeakoulu inFinland). Finally, private institutions might be publiclyfunded. This holds true for most universities in theUnited Kingdom, private universities in the Netherlandsand Belgium, and for colleges of theology in Germany.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD) classifies higher educationinstitutions into three categories: public, government-dependent private, and independent private institutions.Most German, French, U.S., and Australian institutionsare in the first category. Most Dutch and Britishinstitutions fall into the second category, and mostJapanese institutions are in the third category. The

23

distinction between the second and the third categorylies primarily in the level of government funding. Publicuniversities enrolled 81 percent of all university studentsand 69 percent of students from other programs in 1998in OECD member countries; government-dependentprivate universities enrolled 9 percent of universitystudents and 18 percent of students from other programs;and independent private universities enrolled 10 percentof university students and 13 percent of students fromother programs.

The proportion of students receivinggrants and loans to cover living ex-penses varies among EU countries fromless than 5 percent to more than 90percent.

Private Higher Education in GermanyIn recent years, reports have mushroomed in Germanyabout the establishment of private higher education in-stitutions. Private institutions generally have been wel-comed because they are perceived as contributing to thediversity of higher education and providing adminis-trative and educational models that might trigger re-forms in the public sector.

According to OECD statistics, all Germanuniversities are public. However, in 1998 official Germandocuments listed 75 (22 percent) of the approximately344 higher education institutions in Germany as“nongovernmental” and as accommodating about 2percent of all students. These institutions can becategorized as church-related colleges of theology orsocial work; private universities pursuing a specificeducational philosophy; outsourced segments of publicinstitutions of higher education (i.e., specific divisionsthat generate income or need specific administrativeflexibility not provided in the public sector); andspecialized colleges for business studies and a few otherfields, primarily funded by donations and tuition fees.

The last two categories emerged in the 1990s andoften claim to be different from public universities inseveral respects. Some underscore a utilitarian approachand state that the curriculum is geared toward superiorjob marketability. Several call themselves “European” or“international” universities, showcasing a high ratio offoreign students and staff and requiring all students tospend a study period abroad. Many of these collegesattempt to distinguish themselves by declaring to bestudent-friendly campuses with close faculty-studentrelationships. Several of these colleges contend that they

are “elite” institutions. Finally, some claim to have a veryflexible and efficient management style.

All higher education institutions in Germany mustapply for approval from the respective Land in whichthey are located. Public institutions of higher educationare supervised by the 16 Länder governments. Noapproved private university in Germany is owned by aforeign entity. Efforts are being made, however, toestablish a university in cooperation with a private U.S.university.

Despite the tremendous growth in the number ofprivate institutions and other privatization efforts inGermany, these endeavors have turned out to be lesssuccessful than public debate might suggest. Fewdonations have been received and institutions have beenhesitant to charge high tuition fees.

Despite the tremendous growth in thenumber of private institutions and otherprivatization efforts in Germany, theseendeavors have turned out to be lesssuccessful than public debate might sug-gest.

Components of Privatization in the Public SectorMoves toward privately funded higher education insti-tutions are weak and tentative in Germany and mostWestern European countries. Rather, public institutionsare gradually taking on some components of marketregulation and privatization. Stagnant government fund-ing, rising costs, and increasing student numbers areforcing higher education institutions to look for othersources of income. Governments are simultaneouslymoving away from complete control of higher educa-tion toward less direct regulation through contracts, in-dicator-based funding, and evaluation. Generally, highereducation is being more strongly shaped by competi-tion and incentives than in the past. These factors haveled to a growing diversification of funding patterns inmany countries. In Europe, the privatization of selectelements of public institutions appears to be the domi-nant trend, while the establishment of independent pri-vate institutions remains the exception.

This article is based on a presentation made at WasedaUniversity, Tokyo, on invitation of the Research Institute forIndependent Higher Education.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION24

A Decade of Higher EducationReform in ArgentinaMarcela MollisMarcela Mollis is director of the Research Program on ComparativeHigher Education and professor of comparative education and historyof education at the Instituto de Ciencias de la Educacion, University ofBuenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail: marcela@rcc.com.ar.

This article examines the impact of international poli-cies and economic trends on the Argentine higher

education system. The intention is to explore how re-cent government policies interacted with factors withinthe society and higher education to shape the institu-tional picture of the higher education system of today.

A Decade of ChangesThe economic crisis of December 2001, which forced thepresident to resign before the end of his term in office,makes it necessary to come to terms with the last 10 yearsof higher education reform from the perspective of in-ternational policies and economic trends and local re-sponses to them. According to Nobel Prize–winningeconomist Joseph Stiglitz, Argentina is not solely respon-sible for having entered the most catastrophic period inits economic history. The economist states that some ofthe negative consequences of “neoliberal” policies on so-called “emerging economies” might have been avoidedhad the state not been replaced by market forces in allcases. While the Argentine public sector was internation-ally condemned for its inefficient administrative control,little criticism was directed at privatization efforts—which also did not alleviate Argentina’s problems.

Stiglitz further asserts that the market economy didnot bring the expected social benefits to emergingeconomies. Problems such as high rates ofunemployment, poverty, and violence increased despitemeeting the financial conditions set by internationalagencies like the World Bank that promoted theprivatization of national enterprises and related fiscaladjustments. Moreover, local responses by the Argentinepolitical ruling class to privatization efforts were stronglyinfluenced by self-interest and the desire to accumulateindividual wealth.

Both international and local policies anddevelopments have strongly impacted the purposes andperceptions of Argentina’s public higher educationinstitutions. Traditional university roles such as fosteringdemocratic values, developing civic-minded citizens andpublic officials, and forming future national leaders nolonger predominate. They have been replaced by thetraining of human resources to meet the corporate labor

market.

Reconsidering the Value of UniversitiesAs in the case of other major social institutions in Ar-gentina, universities have been undergoing dramaticreorganizations in a context that takes the globaleconomy rather the nation-state as its point of depar-ture. This new “common sense” acknowledges the so-cial value of higher education—but primarily for its rolein meeting labor market demands and enhancing na-tional competitiveness.

The traditional knowledge-based responsibilities ofuniversities—such as research, teaching, and communityservice—have increasingly been located within thedemands of the labor market. One of the key topics onhigher education’s new economy-driven agenda is thegathering of graduates’ performance information. Publicand private universities must obtain feedback about theirgraduates’ earnings once they enter the labor market.Universities are considered to be successful to the extentto which their graduates’ earn high salaries. Accordingto the former rector of one of the most prestigious privateuniversities in Argentina, “the worth of a university isexpressed through its graduates’ earnings.” Thisstatement confirms the growing presence of a business-like approach to higher education. Moreover, efficientuniversities are those that meet the requirements set bylarge companies searching for candidates. This newunderstanding, shaped by business interests, makesuniversities beholden to the corporate sector.

Both international and local policies anddevelopments have strongly impactedthe purposes and perceptions ofArgentina’s public higher education in-stitutions.

Despite these developments, there has been adramatic increase in the rate of unemployed universitygraduates due to the recession in the industrial sectorand the enactment of structural adjustments in the publicsector during the 1990s. Thus, the relationship betweenthe labor market and university graduates in Argentinahas been primarily influenced by sweeping economicpolicies and secondarily by individual universityperformance. While the private sector blamesuniversities for their graduates’ failures in the labormarket, the unemployment rate in Argentina has reached

25

its highest level in history (25 percent of the active popu-lation) making it virtually impossible for a substantialnumber of graduates to find work. The private sector issilent in this regard even though it is critical to take intoaccount these broader economic conditions. Such silencehelps sustain negative public opinion about traditionaluniversity functions.

The Changing Role of the StateFor over 170 years, there have been state-funded andstate-owned institutions of higher education in Argen-tina. The state has also legalized professional and aca-demic degree-granting universities. Thus, historically,the state has served as provider and subsidizer, not asregulator, of higher education. This pattern still prevailsin spite of the higher education law enacted in 1995 thatestablished the National Council for University Accredi-tation and Evaluation (CONEAU), which introduced astate regulatory function. The CONEAU has the powerto accredit new institutions, set mandatory standards,and accredit some graduate and postgraduate programs.The CONEAU conducts institutional assessment that areto be made public upon completion.

Beyond the emergence of the role of the state asregulator through the CONEAU, the higher educationlaw also authorized universities to establish their ownsalary scales, to decentralize fiscal control of institution-generated funds, and to create societies, foundations, orother forms of civic associations intended to increaseinstitutional financing and to enhance relations betweenthe universities and faculties with the community.

The growth in the number of privateuniversities and tertiary institutions dur-ing the 1990s is striking.

Increased Social Demand for Higher EducationIn addition to the expectation that they will participatein evaluation and accreditation processes, as well as gen-erating new sources of funding from the private sector,universities also face the challenge of responding to anincreased demand for higher education. There were 149students per 10,000 inhabitants in 1980 compared to 478students in 2000. Currently, more than 1,700,000 students,representing 15.6 percent of the total enrollment in theeducation system, attend institutions of higher educa-tion in Argentina. The higher education system is dividedinto two tracks, the university and the nonuniversitytrack. The latter track consists of primary and second-

ary school teacher training institutions and vocationaland technical training institutions. In 2000, roughly 75percent of the students in the higher education systemwere on the university track, while 25 percent were onthe nonuniversity track.

The growth in the number of private universities andtertiary institutions during the 1990s is striking. Therewas a widespread perception that traditional universitieswere not meeting the needs of the lifelong learningcohort, and subsequently new providers like elitistprivate universities entered the field to meet marketdemands. In contrast to the 11 public universities createdin the last decade, there were 27 private universitiescreated in the same period. At present, there are 91universities and colleges. Though public universitiesenroll the bulk of higher education students, there wasan increase of 369 percent in enrollments in thenonuniversity private track from 1980 to 2000, in contrastto a 226 percent increase in the university track.

The current status of higher educationin Argentina requires critical reflectionon the global and local policies that haverecently been adopted.

The higher education landscape in Argentina is alsobeing changed by the unregulated establishment of newbranches by public and private universities. Extensionesaulicas (classroom extensions) in various academic andpreprofessional areas are being created regardless of theirquality. Most of these courses are short-term (2 to 3 years)and charge fees. The global trend in the privatization ofhigher education is certainly visible in Argentine highereducation.

The current status of higher education in Argentinarequires critical reflection on the global and local policiesthat have recently been adopted. New developmentshave made little to no contributions toward thestrengthening of democratic values or to theimprovement of institutional quality in Argentina. Onthe contrary, they have undermined public perceptionsof public universities. While institutions shouldimplement improvements, the traditional missions andfunctions of higher education should not be entirelyabandoned.

Visit our website for downloadable back issues ofInternational Higher Education and other publicationsand resources at http://www.bc.edu/cihe/.

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INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION26

News of the Center and the Program in Higher Education

In December 2002, the Center cosponsored an international conference on the future of Asian higher education inNagoya, Japan. Researchers from 12 Asian countries discussed papers on the future of Asian higher education sys-tems. These papers will be published as a book. Among the participants were Prof. Weifang Min, executive vicepresident of Peking University in China, Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, former secretary (minister) of education of thePhilippines, and other key higher education experts. The research project and conference are being cosponsored bythe Center for Studies in Higher Education at Nagoya University in Japan, and funded by the Toyota Foundation,the Japan Foundation Asia Center, and the Japanese Ministry of Education. The project codirector is Prof. ToruUmakoshi of Nagoya University.

Women’s universities are the focus of a new research effort at the Center. The role and function of universitiesfor women worldwide will be researched, with the aim of better understanding this segment of the academiccommunity. Center graduate assistants Francesca Purcell and Robin Helms are involved in this effort. The Center’scollaborative research project on private higher education continues. Working with the Project on Research on PrivateHigher Education at the State University of New York at Albany, directed by Prof. Daniel Levy, Alma Maldonado-Maldonado and Zhu Hong are developing a comprehensive bibliography on private higher education and a listingof doctoral dissertations on the topic. The work is supported by the Ford Foundation.

Center director Prof. Philip G. Altbach has been appointed visiting professor at the University of HongKong. He will spend several weeks there in May 2003. He recently was a speaker at the conference on globalizationand Catholic higher education, cosponsored by the International Federation of Catholic Universities and the Vatican’sCongregation on Catholic Education. The conference took place in December 2002, at the Vatican in Rome.

New Publications

Arimoto, Akira, ed. University Reformsand Academic Governance Reconsidered:Report of the Six-Nation Higher EducationResearch Project. Hiroshima, Japan: Re-search Institute on Higher Education,Hiroshima University, 2002. 114 pp. (pb).Address: RIHE, 1-2-2 Kagamiyama,Higashi-Hiroshima 739, Japan.A report of a multination study of aca-demic governance and reform, this vol-ume reports on this topic in suchcountries as Germany, Japan, Singapore,the United Kingdom, Canada, and Swit-zerland.

Braxton, John, William Luckey, andPatricia Helland. Institutionalizing aBroader View of Scholarship ThroughBoyer’s Four Domains. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2002. 162 pp. (pb). ISBN 0-7879-5841-7. Address: Jossey-Bass Pub-lishers, 989 Market St., San Francisco, CA94103, USA.A volume in the ASHE-ERIC HigherEducation Report series, this book fo-cuses on the operationalization of ErnestBoyer’s recommendations for expand-ing the definition of scholarship to in-

clude the scholarship of discovery, ofteaching, of integration, and of applica-tion. These categories, the authors argue,can be included in the evaluation of theacademic profession.

Carchidi, Daniel M. The Virtual Deliveryand Virtual Organization of PostsecondaryEducation. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,2002. 232 pp. $80 (hb). ISBN 0-4159-3088-X. Address: RoutledgeFalmer Publish-ers, 29 W. 35th St., New York, NY 10001,USA.An analysis of postsecondary institu-tions involved in virtual education,mainly through the Internet, this bookprovides case studies of several U.S. vir-tual institutions. Among the cases are theNational Technological University, theUniversity of California Extension Cen-ter for Independent Learning, the Colo-rado Electronic Community College,and several others. The author concludesthat these institutions are still in an ex-perimental stage.

Clote, Nico, et al., eds. Transformation inHigher Education: Global Pressures andLocal Pressures in South Africa. Lansdown,South Africa: Juta, 2002. 509 pp. (pb).

ISBN 0-7021-5834-8. Address: Juta andCompany, POB 23409, Lansdowne 7779,South Africa.An extraordinarily comprehensive anduseful analysis of South Africa’s highereducation experience, this book consid-ers higher education transformation inboth the global and South Africa con-texts and provides analysis of such top-ics as funding, student issues, staff andthe professoriate, leadership, the role ofresearch, private higher education, anda range of issues relating to change. Thisbook provides insights into the processand problems of change that will be use-ful to other developing countries.

Cohen, Robert, and Reginald E. Zelnik,eds. The Free Speech Movement: Reflec-tions on Berkeley in the 1960s. Berke-ley: University of California Press,2002. 672 pp. $19.95 (pb). ISBN 0-520-23354-9. Address: University ofCalifornia Press, 2000 Center St.,Berkeley, CA 94704, USA.This comprehensive group of essays onthe Free Speech Movement and relatedevents at the Berkeley campus of theUniversity of California in the 1960s pro-vides a thoughtful analysis of these key

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events by many of the participants. TheFSM was the beginning of the major stu-dent movement in the United States inthe 1960s, and as such has a central placein the history of student activism.

DiGeorgio-Lutz, Joann, ed. Women inHigher Education: Empowering Change.Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. 192 pp.$64.95 (hb). ISBN 0-89789-887-7. Ad-dress: Praeger Publishers, POB 5007,Westport, CT 06881, USA.A selection of essays without anoverarching theme on women in highereducation, this book includes such top-ics as women and leadership, barriers towomen scientists in higher education,teaching in various areas of women’sstudies, and others. The material relatesto the United States.

DÌaz-Briquets, Sergio and Charles C.Cheney. Biomedical Globalization: The In-ternational Migration of Scientists. NewBrunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002. 209pp. $39.95 (hb). ISBN 0-7658-0104-3.Address: Transaction Publishers, 35Berrue Circle, Piscataway, NJ 08854,USA.This volume reports on a study of for-eign biomedical researchers working inthe United States. The role of the Na-tional Institutes of Health in fosteringexchanges and research programs ishighlighted. The research is based oninterviews with the researchers and isone of the first studies to obtain firsthandperspectives. The authors point out thatthe NIH channels foreign researchersinto the U.S. labor market.

Forest, James J. F. and Kevin Kinser, eds.Higher Education in the United States: AnEncyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio Publishers, 2002. 2 volumes. (hb).ISBN 1-57607-248-7. Address: ABC-Clio,POB 1911, Santa Barbara CA 93116, USA.A comprehensive encyclopedia concern-ing all aspects of higher education in theUnited States, this two-volume set fea-tures basic essays on most key topics re-lating to higher education ranging fromacademic administration to women inhigher education and workforce devel-opment. Each essay has a useful bibli-ography.

Guerrero, Andrea. Silence at Boalt Hall:The Dismantling of Affirmative Action.Berkeley: University of California Press,2002. 262 pp. $19.95 (pb). ISBN 0-520-23309-3. Address: University of Califor-nia Press, 2000 Center St., Berkeley, CA.94704, USA.This book provides a journalistic accountof the role of affirmative action and thepolitical campaign that resulted in theending of the policy that gave prefer-ences in admission to students fromunderrepresented racial groups at theUniversity of California’s prestigiouslaw school. Boalt Hall was one of the firstlaw schools in the United States to insti-tute affirmative action and also one ofthe first to be forced to eliminate it.

Hartley, Matthew. A Call to Purpose: Mis-sion-Centered Change at Three Liberal ArtsColleges. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,2002. 150 pp. (hb). ISBN 0-415-93566-0.Address: RoutledgeFalmer, 29 W. 35thSt., New York, NY 10001, USA.In three case studies of small under-graduate liberal arts colleges in theUnited States, this book focuses on theintersection between institutional andcurricular change and the mission andpurpose of these colleges. The institu-tions selected all have a focus on spe-cific missions.

Hawkins, Brian, et al., eds. Technology Ev-erywhere: A Campus Agenda for Educatingand Managing Workers in the Digital Age.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers,2002. 146 pp (pb). ISBN 0-7879-5014-9.Address: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 989Market St., San Francisco, CA 94103,USA.The focus of this volume is on the use ofInformation Technology on campus—stressing the training of IT personnel, theuse of IT for administration, leadership,and human resource management. Thevolume is sponsored by EDUCAUSE, aU.S. organization stressing the use oftechnology in higher education.

Hayes, Dennis and Robin Wynyard, eds.The McDonaldization of Higher Education.Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 2002. 232pp $64.95 (hb). ISBN 0-89789-7. Address:Bergin & Garvey Publishers, POB 5007,Westport, CT 06881, USA.This volume takes as its point of depar-

ture sociologist George Ritzer’s idea ofthe McDonaldization of modern soci-ety—taking Max Weber’s concept of ra-tionalization and extending it to modernsocial institutions, including the univer-sity. The essays in this book are broadlycritical of the direction of university sys-tems worldwide, examining such topicsas markets and higher education, bu-reaucratization in the university, digitaltechnology and its implications, teachertraining, and other subjects. The datarelate to a number of countries.

Hewitt, Steve. Spying 101: The RCMP’sSecret Activities at Canadian Universities,1917–1997. Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2002. 295 pp. $30 (hb).ISBN 0-8020-41493. Address: Universityof Toronto Press, 10 St Maryt St., TorontoM4Y 2W8, Canada.A detailed analysis of the activities of theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police andother police agencies in surveillance ofstudents, professors, and others at Ca-nadian universities. These activities in-cluded keeping files on many prominentacademics.

Hirsch, Werner Z. and Luc E. Weber, eds.Governance in Higher Education: The Uni-versity in a State of Flux.London:Economica, 2001. 204 pp. $19.95. (hb).ISBN 2-7178-4190-3. Address:Economica, Ltd., 9 Wimpole St., LondonW1M 8LB, UK.A series of essays on the broad theme ofacademic governance by key leaders inhigher education in Europe and NorthAmerica, this volume considers suchtopics as new missions for the univer-sity, decision making and change, gov-ernance and globalization, and patternsof organization in the universities.

Hochschul-Informations-System, EuroStudent: Social and Economic Conditions ofstudent Life in Europe, 2000. Hannover,Germany: Hochschul-Informations-Sys-tem, 2002. 118 pp. (pb). ISBN 3-7639-3042-6. Address: HIS, Goseriede 9,D-30159 Hannover, Germany.This volume offers a comprehensiveoverview of eight European countriesconcerning student life. The focus is onsocial and economic factors, includingdemographic characteristics of students,social class backgrounds, sources of in

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION28

An Initiative in International Higher Education

ISSN: 1084-0613

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Our WebsiteThe Center’s award-winning website is a useful source of information and analysison higher education worldwide. All back issues of International Higher Education areavailable, and an index provides easy access to articles by topic and country. Centerpublications are also available, and links to relevant higher education websites andinformation are provided. We are a featured e-link of the World Bank and otheragencies.

The Program in Higher Education in the Lynch School of Education, Boston CollegeThe Center is closely related to the program in higher education at Boston College.The program offers master’s and doctoral degree study in the field of higher educa-tion. The program has been preparing professionals in higher education for threedecades. It features a rigorous social science–based approach to the study of highereducation, combining a concern with the broader theoretical issues relating to highereducation and an understanding of the practice of academic administration. TheAdministrative Fellows initiative provides financial assistance as well as work ex-perience in a variety of administrative settings. Specialization is offered in highereducation administration, student affairs and development, international higher edu-cation, and other areas. Additional information about the program is available fromDr. Karen Arnold, coordinator of the program in higher education, Lynch School ofEducation, Campion Hall, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Fax: (617)552-8422. E-mail: <arnoldkc@bc.edu>. More information about the program—in-cluding course descriptions and degree requirements—can be found on-line at theprogram’s website: <http://infoeagle.bc.edic/bc_org/avp/soe/hea/JEA/html>.International Higher Education is available full-text on our website. Web-based sub-scriptions are also available.

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analysis of higher education. We are convinced that an international perspective will contribute to enlightened policy and prac-tice. To serve this goal, the Center publishes International Higher Education, a book series on higher education, and other publica-tions. We sponsor occasional conferences on key issues in higher education and maintain a resource base for researchers andpolicymakers. The Center welcomes visiting scholars for periods of study and reflection. We have a special concern for academicinstitutions in the Jesuit tradition worldwide, and more broadly with Catholic universities. The Center is also concerned withcreating dialogue and cooperation among academic institutions in industrialized nations and in developing countries. We areconvinced that our future depends on effective collaboration and the creation of an international community focused on theimprovement of higher education in the public interest.Our work is supported by the Ford Foundation and by the Lynch School of Education atBoston College. We are indebted to these funders for core sponsorship.

come (including employment), state as-sistance to students, living arrange-ments, and other issues. Data arereported comparatively and also foreach individual country. A CD-Rom withadditional data is provided.

Nicholls, Gill. Developing Teaching andLearning in Higher Education. London:RoutledgeFalmer, 2002. 196 pp (pb).ISBN 0-415-23696-7. Address:RoutledgeFalmer, 11 New Fetter Lane,

London EC4P 4EE, UK.A guide for new teachers in higher edu-cation, this book, written from a Britishperspective, deals with planning andpreparation for teaching, assessment

Soliday, Mary. The Politics of Remediation:Institutional and Student Needs in HigherEducation. Pittsburgh: University ofPittsburgh Press, 2002. 224 pp (hb).$32.50. ISBN 0-8229-4186-4. Address:University of Pittsburgh Press, 3400

Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.An analysis of the complex and contro-versial subject of remedial programs inhigher education, this book is a casestudy of the City College of New Yorkand its English writing program. Theauthor argues that programs that assiststudents to perform effective in under-graduate programs are important in anopen admissions context, and that theprograms are important for the institu-tions as well as for the students.