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International Issues

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATIONThe Boston College Center for International Higher Education

Number 33 Fall 2003

2 Updated Definition of InternationalizationJane Knight

3 Defending Academic Freedom as a Human RightBalakrishnan Rajagopal

5 The Costs and Benefits of World-Class UniversitiesPhilip G. Altbach

9 Evolving Great Universities in Small and Developing CountriesPang Eng Fong and Linda Lim

10 U.S. Higher Education: Long Reach Abroad with Tight Borders atHomeThomas J. La Belle

12 Cambodian Accreditation: An Uncertain BeginningDavid Ford

14 American Accreditation of Foreign Universities: Proceed—withCautionBarbara Brittingham

15 Russia: Alliances with State-Run OrganizationsDmitry Suspitsin

17 The Gulf: Privatization and AmericanizationJames Coffman

19 High Fee Market for Australian Universities?Simon Marginson

20 Japan’s National Universities and ReformMartin Finkelstein

22 Will New Higher Education Legislation Be Approved in France?Christine Musselin

24 Chinese Universities and the Central GovernmentKathryn Mohrman

25 News of the Center27 New Publications

Departments

Special Focus: “World Class”—Meanings and Implications

Countries and Regions

Special Focus: Accreditation—The Debate Continues

Special Focus: Private Higher Education

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E-Learning International Issues

Updating the Definition ofInternationalizationJane KnightJane Knight is adjunct professor at the Comparative International Devel-opment Education Centre, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,University of Toronto. Address: 62 Wellesley Street West, Suite 1906,Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2X3. E-mail: janeknight@sympatico.ca.

For over 20 years now, the definition of international-ization has been the subject of much discourse. In-

ternationalization is not a new term. The term has beenused for centuries in political science and governmentalrelations, but its popularity in the education sector hasreally only soared since the early 1980s. Prior to this time,international education was the favored term and still isin some countries. In the 1990s, the discussion on usingthe term international education centered on differenti-ating it from comparative education, global education,and multicultural education. Today, in the first decadeof the 21st century, another set of related terms is emerg-ing that includes transnational education, borderless educa-tion, and cross-border education.

The term borderless first appeared in Australian andU.K. reports in 2000. Basically, the term refers to theblurring of conceptual, disciplinary, and geographicborders traditionally inherent to higher education. It isinteresting to juxtapose the term borderless educationwith cross-border education. The former termacknowledges the disappearance of borders while thelatter term actually emphasizes their existence. Bothapproaches reflect the reality of today. In this period ofunprecedented growth in distance and e-learningeducation, geographic borders seem to be of littleconsequence. Yet, there is growing importance attachedto borders when the focus turns to regulatoryresponsibility, especially related to quality assurance,funding, and accreditation.

New Working DefinitionIt is interesting to look at the way in which defini-tions can shape policy and how practice can influ-ence definitions and policy. Given the changes in therationales, providers, and the delivery methods ofcross-border higher education, it is important to re-visit the question of definition and ensure that themeaning reflects current changes and challenges. Itis increasingly clear that internationalization needsto be understood at the national and sector level aswell as at the institutional level. Therefore, a newdefinition is needed that encompasses both levels andthe dynamic relationship between them, as well asreflecting the realities of today.

A challenging part of developing a definition istaking into account its application to many differentcountries, cultures, and education systems. This is noeasy task. At issue is not developing a universaldefinition but rather ensuring that the meaning isappropriate for a broad range of contexts and countriesof the world. Thus it is important that a definition doesnot specify the rationales, benefits, outcomes, actors,activities, or stakeholders of internationalization as theseelements vary across nations and from institution toinstitution. The critical point is that the internationaldimension relates to all aspects of education and the rolethat it plays in society. With this in mind the followingworking definition is proposed:

Internationalization at the national, sector, andinstitutional levels is defined as the process of integrating aninternational, intercultural, or global dimension into thepurpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education.

The term borderless first appeared inAustralian and U.K. reports in 2000.Basically, the term refers to the blurringof conceptual, disciplinary, and geo-graphic borders traditionally inherent tohigher education.

Key ConceptsThe above specific terms and concepts were carefullychosen for the proposed working definition of inter-nationalization. The term process is deliberately usedto convey that internationalization is an ongoing andcontinuing effort. The term process denotes an evo-lutionary or developmental quality to the concept.Process is often thought of in terms of a tripartitemodel of education—input, process, and output.However, the concepts of input and output were in-tentionally not used in the above definition—eventhough in today’s environment accountability andtherefore outcomes are stressed. If internationaliza-tion is defined in terms of inputs, outputs, or ben-efits, it becomes less generic as it must reflect theparticular priorities of a country, an institution, or aspecific group of stakeholders.

International, intercultural, and global dimension arethree terms that are intentionally used as a triad.International is used in the sense of relationshipsbetween and among nations, cultures or countries.But we know that internationalization is also aboutrelating to the diversity of cultures that exist withincountries, communities, and institutions, and so

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intercultural is used to address this dimension.Finally, global, a controversial and value-laden termthese days, is included to provide the sense ofworldwide scope. These three terms complement eachother and together depict the richness in the breadthand depth of internationalization.

International, intercultural, and globaldimension are three terms that are in-tentionally used as a triad.

The concept of integration is specifically used todenote the process of infusing or embedding theinternational and intercultural dimension into policiesand programs to ensure that the internationaldimension remains central, not marginal, and issustainable. The concepts of purpose, function, anddelivery have been carefully chosen and are meant tobe used together. Purpose refers to the overall roleand objectives that higher education has for a countryor the mission of an institution. Function refers to theprimary elements or tasks that characterize a nationalpostsecondary system or individual institution.Usually these include teaching, research, and serviceto society. Delivery is a narrower concept. It refers tothe offering of education courses and programs eitherdomestically or in other countries. This includesdelivery by traditional higher education institutionsbut also by new providers such as multinationalcompanies that are often more interested in the globaldelivery of their programs and services than theinternational or intercultural dimension of a campusor research and service functions.

One of the previous definitions that has beenwidely used to describe internationalization is “theprocess of integrating an international or interculturaldimension into the teaching, research, and servicefunctions of the institution.” This definition does notconflict with the updated definition: in fact theopposite is true, the definitions are verycomplementary. Because the new definition includesthe national and sector level and also the growingnumber and diversity of new education providers anddelivery methods, the more generic terms of purpose,function, and delivery are used instead of the specificfunctional terms of teaching, research, and service.By using the more general terms, the proposeddefinition can be relevant for the sector level, theinstitutional level, and the variety of providers in thebroad field of postsecondary education.

Internationalization and GlobalizationThe dynamic relationship between internationalizationof education and globalization is an important area ofstudy. In order to acknowledge, but not oversimplifythe complex and rather contentious topic of globaliza-tion, parameters need to be established to frame the dis-cussion. For the purposes of this discussion anonideological definition of globalization is adopted: theflow of technology, economy, knowledge, people, val-ues, and ideas . . . across borders. Globalization affectseach country in a different way due to a nation’s indi-vidual history, traditions, culture and priorities. Global-ization is positioned as a multifaceted phenomenon andan important environmental factor that has multiple ef-fects on education.

Globalization clearly presents new opportunities,challenges, and risks. It is important to note, however,that the discussion does not center on the globalizationof education. Rather, globalization is presented as aprocess impacting internationalization. In short,internationalization is changing the world of educationand globalization is changing the world ofinternationalization. In fact, substantial efforts have beenmade during this past decade to maintain the focus onthe internationalization of education and to avoid usingthe term globalization of education. This has had mixedresults but some success has been achieved in ensuringthat the relationship between these two terms isrecognized, but that they are not seen to be synonymousand are not used interchangeably.

Defending Academic Freedomas a Human Right: AnInternationalist PerspectiveBalakrishnan RajagopalBalakrishnan Rajagopal is the Ford International Assistant Professor ofLaw and Development and director of the Program on Human Rightsand Justice, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. E-mail: braj@mit.edu.

Defenders of academic freedom in the United Stateshave argued for it as a professional or constitutional

right of the individual or, less frequently, as an institu-tional right of the academy. Its practice has been quitevigorous in this country, especially when compared withits fate in closed political systems such as China’s. Sincethe terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, per-ceptions of threats to academic freedom have changed.Now, it seems, the war on terror has extended toacademia.

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Before one can defend academic freedom, however,it must be defined. A principal question is whether itlimits an academic’s freedom to expressive and associa-tional activity in that person’s field of specialization, orwhether it provides for a general freedom to engage inany expressive activity that does not constitute a viola-tion of existing laws. Does it, for example, prohibit anengineering professor from expressing her views on warin the classroom? An unduly narrow definition of aca-demic freedom does not fit its historical development inthe United States. Nor does it reflect the role of the aca-demic as a citizen.

But how real is academic freedom forall academics in the United States rightnow, regardless of their national back-grounds and citizenship status?

Historically, academic freedom in the United Stateswas influenced by 19th century German ideas, but it hasbeen defended at least since the formation of the Ameri-can Association of University Professors and the adop-tion of its 1915 Declaration of Principles on AcademicFreedom. But how real is academic freedom for all aca-demics in the United States right now, regardless of theirnational backgrounds and citizenship status? Should itconcern us that foreign-born U.S. academics have fewerrights than their native-born peers? If so, how shouldwe react? I will argue that it is important to protect theacademic freedom of everyone in U.S. academia, includ-ing the foreign born. A startlingly high number of for-eign-born academics and students are in the UnitedStates, and therefore, many people could potentially beaffected adversely by ill-conceived measures that inter-fere with basic rights. Such a possibility must concernus all in the current political climate. Since foreign-bornfaculty, researchers, and students are not entitled to fullconstitutional protection under U.S. domestic law, theonly way to ensure academic freedom for them wouldbe to argue for it as a human right.

How serious is the threat to academic freedom andhow widespread is it globally? Worrying signs suggestthat as freedom of expression, opinion, and associationcome under threat as a result of the global war on terror,academic freedoms are also being targeted. In the UnitedStates, some academics have reportedly been pressuredbecause of their views on the antiterror war. A numberhave been singled out for being unpatriotic and danger-ous by conservative foundations; others have been moredirectly challenged over their selection of course mate-rials or their opinions.

As I noted, a major concern is that in the UnitedStates, many academics may potentially be subject toharsh laws that do not provide basic guarantees of rights.A 1999 survey by the U.S. Department of Education re-ported that out of a total of 590,937 faculty members inthe United States, 94.4 percent were U.S. citizens, and5.6 percent were noncitizens. This statistic is important,because in the United States, as in many other countries,not all constitutional rights automatically apply to non-citizens. Partly because of this difference in the treatmentof citizens and noncitizens in the domestic laws of manycountries, most countries have agreed upon a universalset of minimum human rights that apply to everyone intheir territories.

But how secure is academic freedom as a constitu-tional right for U.S. citizens? As I said above, it has tra-ditionally been defended in the United States on twogrounds: as a constitutional and legal right of the indi-vidual under the First Amendment and as an institu-tional right of the academy. As the U.S. Supreme Courtfamously stated in 1967 in Keyishian v. Board of Regents,“academic freedom . . . is . . . a special concern of theFirst Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that casta pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.”

A better approach is to defend aca-demic freedom as a human right.

Human Right to Academic FreedomAs I have pointed out, a focus on constitutional rightsfor individuals remains inadequate for protecting theacademic freedom of all scholars in the United States. Abetter approach is to defend academic freedom as a hu-man right. To say that something is a human right is toassert two things: first, that protecting such a right doesnot depend on national legal systems, but on interna-tional law; and, second, that transnational action, includ-ing that by international agencies, becomes legitimatefor protecting such rights. In the current political climate,only this argument has a reasonable prospect of ensur-ing uniform respect for the academic freedom of all schol-ars working in American institutions of higher education.

Academic freedom can be asserted as a human rightin two ways. One is to defend it as a human right to freeexpression; the other is to defend it as a human right toeducation. Freedom of opinion and expression areprotected as human rights by Article 19 of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR), a treaty ratified by most countries, includingthe United States. The right to education is guaranteedby Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic,

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Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which mostcountries have ratified, although the United States hasnot. The ICCPR does not subject the right to holdopinions to any restriction, while freedom of expressioncan be curtailed only on specified grounds, such asprotection of public order or national security, throughlegal measures that are deemed necessary. The covenanttherefore subjects academic freedom to restrictionssimilar to those imposed by U.S. law. For example, theUnited States could legitimately discriminate againstnoncitizens under the ICCPR and prevent the applicationof Article 19 to private educational institutions. Fornoncitizen scholars working in the United States, thisdoes not provide extra protection.

The effort to defend academic freedomas a human right makes sense from atheoretical perspective as well.

In 1999, through the ICESCR, the United Nationsrecognized academic freedom as part of a human rightto education. As the organization’s Committee on Eco-nomic, Social, and Cultural Rights stressed, the “rightto education can only be enjoyed if accompanied by theacademic freedom of staff and students.” The commit-tee further emphasized that, in its experience, “staff andstudents in higher education are especially vulnerableto political and other pressures which undermine aca-demic freedom.” This approach—recognition of the im-portance of core civil and political rights, such asacademic freedom, for the protection of economic, so-cial, and cultural rights such as education—is an inter-esting and innovative way to defend academic freedom.Unfortunately, the covenant does not mention in anydetail issues such as individual academic freedom, uni-versity autonomy, or the right of members of academicinstitutions to participate in self-governance. Such mat-ters are left for the jurisprudence of the committee.

The effort to defend academic freedom as a humanright makes sense from a theoretical perspective as well.There are at least two ways to understand academic free-dom. One is as an individual right, a collection of all theexpressive freedoms that any member of the academiccommunity has as an individual, including the rights tofree expression, opinion, and association. This view de-fines academic freedom as a subset of a larger categorythat needs no special protection. The United States,where academic freedom is subsumed under the FirstAmendment, takes this approach, as does South Africa,where the constitution mentions it as part of the right tofree expression.

A second way to think about academic freedom isas a right to education that has individual and collectivedimensions that can only be discharged through com-plex relationships between students, faculty, institutions,the government, and the society. In this sense, academicfreedom is not only an end, as it is under an individual-istic conception. It is also the means for realizing otherimportant ends, including individual freedoms that gobeyond expressive freedoms to encompass all freedomssuch as nondiscrimination. The ICESCR expressly statesthat education “shall be directed to the full developmentof the human personality.”

Indeed, a human right to education injects an ethicaldimension into academic freedom by broadening theobjectives of education. That is, academic freedom existsso that individual professors and their institutions canpursue important educational objectives. Conversely, theright to academic freedom can be defended as anessential part of a right to education. In other words,academic freedom is not simply an individual right tosomething, but it is also a collective right for therealization of important societal goals. In our global age,these goals are themselves global, embodied in the ideaof human rights.

A different version of this article appeared in Academe, the journal

of the American Association of University Professors.

The Costs and Benefits ofWorld-Class UniversitiesPhilip G. AltbachPhilip G. Altbach is Monan professor of higher education and directorof the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

Everyone wants a world-class university. No countryfeels it can do without one. The problem is that no

one knows what a world-class university is, and no onehas figured out how to get one. Everyone, however, re-fers to the concept. A Google search, for example, pro-duces thousands of references, and many institutions callthemselves “world class”—from relatively modest aca-demic universities in central Canada to a new college inthe Persian Gulf. This is an age of academic hype, withuniversities of different kinds and in diverse countriesclaiming the exalted status of world class—generallywith little justification. Those seeking to certify “worldclassness” generally do not know what they are talkingabout. For example, Asiaweek, a respected Hong Kong–based magazine produced a ranking of Asian universi-ties for several years until their efforts were so widely

E-Learning Special Focus: “World Class”—Meanings and Implications

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criticized that they stopped. This article attempts theimpossible—to define a world-class university, and thento argue that it is just as important for academic institu-tions to be “national” or “regional class” rather than toseek to emulate the wealthiest and in many ways mostelitist universities.

This article attempts the impossible—todefine a world class university.

Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard for almost 40years in the late 19th century, when asked by John D.Rockefeller what it would take to create the equivalent ofa world-class university, responded that it would require$50 million and 200 years. He was wrong. At the beginningof the 20th century, the University of Chicago became aworld-class institution in two decades and slightly morethan $50 million—donated at the time by Rockefellerhimself. The price has ballooned, not only because ofinflation but because academic institutions have becomeimmensely more complex and expensive. The competitionhas also become much fiercer. Now, it might take morethan $500 million along with clever leadership and muchgood luck.

There are not many world-class universities. Highereducation is stratified and differentiated. We are concernedhere only with the tiny pinnacle of institutions seeking tobe at the top of national and international systems of highereducation. In the United States, the number of topuniversities is small. The Association of AmericanUniversities, generally seen to be the club of the elite, hasjust over 50 member universities (many of which are notworld class), a number that has grown only modestly sinceit was established in the early 20th century—out of a totalof more than 3,500 academic institutions. Even in theUnited States, very few universities have managed to clawtheir way up to the top echelons. In other countries, thenumber of top-tier institutions is also limited, even when,as in Germany, all universities are basically treated the samein terms of budgets and mission by the government. Themost elite universities are located in a small number ofcountries—in the mid-1980s, the Asian Wall Street Journallisted among the top 10 only 4 not in the United States(Cambridge and Oxford, Paris-Sorbonne, and Tokyo).

It is, of course, the judgment of others that carries auniversity into the rarified ranks of world-classinstitutions, and no one has figured out how to conductan appropriate international evaluation. We do notprovide such guidelines here, but this discussion maybe the first step toward at least developing relevantcriteria.

DefinitionsFew have attempted to define a world-class university.The following characteristics are by no means agreedupon by teams of experts—this is an effort to create somebenchmarks that will provide the basis for debate andanalysis. The dictionary defines world class as “rankingamong the foremost in the world; of an internationalstandard of excellence.” Fair enough, but in higher edu-cation, who decides? We can at least point to some rel-evant characteristics necessary for world-class status.

Excellence in research underpins the idea of worldclass—research that is recognized by peers and thatpushes back the frontiers of knowledge. Such researchcan be measured and communicated. But if research isthe central element, other aspects of a university arerequired to make outstanding research possible. Top-quality professors are, of course, central. And to attractand retain the best academic staff, favorable workingconditions must be available. These includearrangements for job security—many countries call ittenure—and appropriate salaries and benefits, althoughacademics do not necessarily expect top salaries. The bestprofessors see their work as a “calling”—something towhich they are committed by intellectual interest andnot just a job.

Excellence in research underpins theidea of world class—research that isrecognized by peers and that pushesback the frontiers of knowledge.

Academic freedom and an atmosphere of intellectualexcitement is central to a world-class university. Thismeans that professors and students must be free topursue knowledge wherever it leads and to publish theirwork freely without fear of sanction by either academicof external authority. Some countries permit unfetteredacademic freedom in the nonpolitical hard sciences, butplace restrictions on it in the more sensitive socialsciences and humanities. In most countries, academicfreedom also extends to expression of opinions bymembers of the academic community on social andpolitical issues as well as within the narrow confines ofprofessional expertise.

The governance of the institution is also important.World-class universities have a significant measure ofinternal self-governance and an entrenched tradition,usually buttressed by statutes, ensuring that theacademic community (usually professors, but sometimesincluding students) has control over the central elementsof academic life—the admission of students, the

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curriculum, the criteria for the award of degrees, theselection of new members of the professoriate, and thebasic direction of the academic work of the institution.

Adequate facilities for academic work are essential—the most advanced and creative research and the mostinnovative teaching must have access to appropriatelibraries and laboratories, as well as to the Internet andother electronic resources. With the increasingcomplexity and expansion of science and scholarship,the cost of providing full access becomes ever higher.While the Internet has meant some cost savings and haseased access to many kinds of knowledge, it is by nomeans a panacea. Facilities go beyond labs andlibraries—staff and students must have adequate officesas well.

Academic freedom and an atmosphereof intellectual excitement is central to aworld-class university.

Finally, and central to the academic enterprise,adequate funding must be available to support theresearch and teaching as well as the other functions ofthe university. Not only is maintaining a complexacademic institution expensive, support must beconsistent and long-term. The cost of maintaining aresearch university continues to grow because of theincreasing complexity and cost of scientific research.Universities cannot benefit from many of theproductivity increases due to automation—teaching andlearning still generally require professors and studentsin direct contact. Funding is a special challenge in thepresent environment because governments aredisinvesting in higher education in many countries.Academic institutions are everywhere asked to pay foran increasing part of their budgets through tuition andfees to students, generating funds by consulting andselling research-based products, and other revenuegenerating activities. The fact is that public support isnecessary for research universities everywhere. Only inthe United States and to a lesser extent Japan do privateresearch universities of the highest rank exist. And inthe United States there are significant governmentsubsidies through government research grants andaccess to loans and grants to students. The top privateinstitutions have significant endowments as well. TheAmerican tax system, which provides for tax-freedonations to nonprofit institutions such as universities,is a major factor in permitting the growth of world-classprivate universities. Research universities have theability to generate significant funds through a variety of

means, but there is no substitute for consistent andsubstantial public financial support. Without it,developing and sustaining a world-class universities isimpossible.

CaveatsA realistic and objective perspective is needed whenthinking about world-class institutions of higherlearning. For most countries, even large and relativelywealthy ones, only one or two world-class universitiesare possible or even desirable. For many countries, aworld-class university is beyond the ability of the nationto support. Research universities are at the pinnacle ofa differentiated academic system in a country—the restof the system is just as important as its top.

Even the best universities are not the best ineverything. Harvard does not rank at the top inengineering, for example. It might be more appropriatefor many countries and institutions to focus on buildingworld-class departments, institutes, or schools—especially in fields that are of special relevance to thenational or regional economy or society. For example,Malaysia has focused on such disciplines are informaticsand rubber technology, areas that are important to thelocal economy. A small number of highly rankedinstitutions are somewhat specialized. For example, theCalifornia Institute of Technology is a small universityfocusing almost exclusively on the sciences, yet it ranksfourth in the United States according to U.S. News andWorld Report. The Indian Institutes of Technology, whichspecialize in limited fields, are highly regarded in Indiaand internationally. At the same time, these institutionsprovide educational opportunities in a wide range ofdisciplines, permitting students to choose and ensuringthe possibility of interdisciplinary work.

A realistic and objective perspective isneeded when thinking about world-class institutions of higher learning.

No one has figured out how to rank universitiesinternationally, or even within countries in ways thatare acceptable to the academic community or that canwithstand serious critiques. There are many rankingsof academic institutions—and these generallyemphasize the characteristics relating to researchuniversity status. Yet, few of these have beenconducted by official organizations or reputableresearch organizations. Newspapers or magazineshave done most and, as noted, only a few are takenseriously. Thus, we have neither national rankings

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that make sense nor a widely accepted definition ofwhat a world-class university is so that such aninstitution can be recognized or, for that matter,aspired to. It is not enough to quote what U.S.Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said aboutpornography, “I know it when I see it.”

Overemphasizing attaining world-classstatus may harm an individual univer-sity or an academic system.

OveremphasisOveremphasizing attaining world-class status mayharm an individual university or an academic sys-tem. It may divert energy and resources from moreimportant—and perhaps realistic—goals. It may fo-cus too much on building a research-oriented andnecessarily elite university as the expense of expand-ing access or serving national needs. It may set upunrealistic expectations that harm faculty morale andperformance.

The concept of a world-class university reflectsthe norms and values of the world’s dominantresearch-oriented academic institutions—especiallythe United States and the major Western Europeancountries. The idea is based on the German researchuniversity that came to dominate academic thinkingat the end of the 19th century, especially with theacceptance of this model in the United States, Japan,and other countries. While all of the world’suniversities are essentially in the Western tradition,the world-class ideal of the research university is aspecial variation of that tradition. The Americansociologist David Riesman observed in the 1950s thatU.S. universities were missing out on diverseacademic goals and ideas because of a “meanderingprocession” that almost all were following in an effortto become like Harvard, Berkeley, and a few other keyresearch-oriented institutions. The same criticism canbe made now, as universities around the world seemto be orienting themselves to this single academicideal. Institutions, and nations, need to carefullyassess their needs, resources, and long-term interestsbefore launching into a campaign to build world-classinstitutions.

Universities operate in both national and globalcontexts. The world-class idea is in the global sphere.It assumes that the university is competing with thebest academic institutions in the world and is aspiringto the pinnacle of excellence and recognition. Nationaland even regional realities may be different. They

relate to the need of the immediate society andeconomy and imply responsiveness to localcommunities. The nature of academic performanceand roles may differ when relating to these differentcontexts. To label one world class while relegating theothers to the nether regions of the academic hierarchyis perhaps inevitable, but nonetheless unfortunate.How to relate to these varying realities is not easy,but it is of central importance.

PerspectivesThe debate about world-class higher education is im-portant. Government and academic planners in coun-tries such as China, where several top universities areself-consciously trying to transform themselves intoworld-class institutions are considering the topic. Inother countries, such as in South Korea, people aregiving serious attention to the idea. Britain, tradition-ally the home of a number of top institutions, wor-ries that it is losing its competitive edge.

The world-class debate has one importantbenefit—it is focusing attention on academicstandards and improvement, and on the roles ofuniversities in society, and of how academicinstitutions can fit in a higher education system withina country and in the global academic universe.Striving for excellence is not a bad thing, andcompetition may spark improvement. Yet, a sense ofrealism must be a part of the equation, and sensitivityto the public good as well. The fuzziness of theconcept of a world-class university combined with theimpossibility, so far at least, of measuring academicquality and accomplishment makes the struggledifficult. Indeed, it might well be the case that theinnovative energies and resources of higher educationshould be focused on more realistic and perhaps moreuseful goals.

Acknowledgments: This article has benefited from the ideas and

writings of Wang Yingjie of Beijing Normal University, Pang

Eng Fong and Linda Lim of Singapore Management University,

and Henry Rosovsky of Harvard University. I am also indebted

to the ideas of Edward Shils, Max Weber, and John Henry

Newman concerning the nature of the university.

Internet Resources

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

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Evolving Great Universities inSmall and Developing CountriesPang Eng Fong and Linda LimPang Eng Fong is professor and director of the Wee Kim Wee Cen-ter at the Singapore Management University. Address: SMU, 469Buki t Timah Rd., Singapore 259756, Singapore. E-mai l :efpang@smu.edu.sg. Linda Lim is professor of corporate strategyand international business at the University of Michigan-Ann Ar-bor. E-mail: lylim@umich.edu.

These are challenging times for most universities, par-ticularly public universities in developing countries.

Budget constraints have compelled many to cut costsand programs. At the same time, changing expectationshave thrust upon them new functions and roles. In EastAsia, for example, public universities are expected tobecome more research oriented and link up with indus-try to enhance national economic competitiveness. Todo so effectively, it is assumed they must aspire to“world-class” status and transform themselves into in-stitutions that can compare favorably with the best inthe West.

And the best in the West, it is widely accepted,are in the United States. U.S. universities are rightlyrenowned for their excellence and creativity. Theirresearch has spawned ideas and products that havechanged America and the world. Less well known isthe fact that American colleges and universities arehighly differentiated in size and orientation. Theirdiversity allows specialization and gives the systemresilience. American universities, especially theresearch-oriented ones, however, are not without theircritics. Detractors have indicted them for being toofocused on research to the detriment of their teachingand public service obligations.

The U.S. Model: Can It Be Emulated?The issue for universities in small or developingcountries is whether the U.S. research universitymodel is the right one to emulate, given that it hasevolved in response to particular conditions andcircumstances. A related question is whether less-well-endowed countries are prepared to give theiruniversities the resources over an extended periodof time to enable them to compete for faculty withhighly ranked U.S. universities.

In most other countries, national universitiesare state-funded comprehensive institutions. Theydon’t have the scale and diversity of the UnitedStates or its ready access to a huge global pool ofscholarly talent or to ample research funds fromprivate as well as state sources.

In U.S. research universities, faculty researchin most scholarly disciplines is evaluated in termsof publication in peer-reviewed academic journals.In this process, scholars in the same field reviewresearch paper submissions and decide whetherthey are worthy of publication in a particularjournal. The most “highly ranked” journals tendto be those with the “purest” disciplinary focus.

Faculty whose interest is interdisciplinary andtopical, or in place-specific or policy-orientedresearch, may have difficulty getting published inthe top “internationally refereed” journals, thusdefined. Research questions important in smalland developing countries may not be of interest tothe global discipline. And empirical data may notbe avai lable for sophis t icated tes t ingmethodologies to be used.

Much depends on the subject area or disciplineconcerned. In pure science, there may be only asingle global benchmark for research excellence.But in the humanities, social sciences, and manyprofess ional disc ipl ines , g lobal disc ipl inarybenchmarks may not adequately capture local andregional specificities.

In most other countries, national uni-versities are state-funded compre-hensive institutions. They don’t havethe scale and diversity of the UnitedStates or its ready access to a hugeglobal pool of scholarly talent or toample research funds from privateas well as state sources.

IntangiblesThe “global standards” that are the hallmark ofU.S. research universities may be adapted withsome effort by other countries. More difficult toreplicate are the intangibles such as the strong tra-dition of academic research and debate, protectionfor academic freedom, intellectual autonomy, fac-ulty governance, and cultural tolerance and diver-sity.

These intangibles both encourage research andenable teaching pedagogies that interactivelyengage students and lecturers in critical thinkingand open discussion. They attract people to jointhe profession despite monetary rewards oftensubstantially below those in other sectors andprofessions.

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The Importance of a Local CoreIn East Asia, as in other regions, universities are partof the national intellectual capital. While there is grow-ing acceptance that foreign ideas and talent are neces-sary, it is also important to nurture a core of local facultyto give stability, local character, and cultural and intel-lectual rootedness to publicly supported universities.

Foreign scholars hired mainly for theirorientation toward publication in inter-national referred journals are unlikelyto have the knowledge, interest, or in-centive to advance locally relevant re-search.

Evaluating faculty for promotion primarily on thebasis of research publications in “top international(disciplinary) journals” may discourage place-specificapplied research and publication. Such an approachdeprives the nation of local knowledge and policy-relevant research. It also impoverishes the intellectualclimate and cultural life, and stunts the development oflocal capabilities.

Foreign scholars hired mainly for their orientationtoward publication in international refereed journals areunlikely to have the knowledge, interest, or incentive toadvance locally relevant research. Some may use theirpositions to enhance their own global mobility. The bestoutcome may then be an institution no different fromthat of a local branch campus of a foreign researchuniversity. The country would be subsidizing researchby foreigners for the world market. While it may addluster to the scholarly reputation of the foreigners, theresearch that is published may be quite irrelevant to theneeds of the country that finances it.

In many Asian countries, a large number of localand foreign private educational institutions alreadyexist to satisfy private demand for manpowertraining. National state institutions must play otherroles that for-profit, especially foreign, institutionscannot—that is, research (especially place-specificresearch), and engagement with the community andwith policymakers. This social and public role is vitalto the development of civil society and the quality oflife.

Balancing Global Standards and Local NeedsThe challenge for small and developing countries as-piring to create world-class institutions of higher learn-ing is to balance international academic standards with

national needs and local identity and culture. For ex-ample, Singapore, which has three universities, canbecome the place in the world to learn about South-east Asia in particular disciplines, by developing lo-cal channels for research publication by local andforeign scholars that become global standards in theirparticular scholarly niches.

As in Europe, Australia, and Japan, local institutionsand scholars must play an active role in defining trulyglobal—as distinct from derivative American—standards. At the same time, scholars who choose toconduct the kind of research favored by internationalrefereed journals should continue to do so. Flexibility,sensitive adaptation, and time to adjust and mature arekey to getting the best out of the U.S. research universitymodel.

Fortunately, some of the best features of the modelare neither costly nor time consuming to implement.They include: more nuanced admissions, student andfaculty evaluation criteria—away from narrow relianceon grades, journal article counts, and numerical rankingsand point scores; a shift from state direction to facultycontrol of academic life and institutions; and the vigorouscontention of different ideas, perspectives, and people,in the context of “safe spaces” for all intellectualdiscourse. Countries that want world-class universitiesshould also be prepared to make appropriate social andpolitical adjustments.

U.S. Higher Education: LongReach Abroad with Tight Bordersat HomeThomas J. La BelleThomas La Belle is executive director, International and Area Studies, atthe University of California, Berkeley. Address: 360 Stephens Hall, U.C.Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-2300. E-mail: tlabelle@uclink.berkeley.edu.

In the article, “Academic Colonialism in Action:American Accreditation of Foreign Universities”

(IHE, no. 32, summer 2003), Philip Altbach doesn’t seeproblems in establishing U.S. institutions abroad, buthe does see U.S. accreditation of institutions in othercountries as a means of international colonialism andstandardization. In response, this article argues, first,that it is unreasonable to disconnect the spread of U.S.higher education abroad from accreditation and, sec-ond, that the U.S. accreditation process also needs to beseen as a way of limiting foreign institutions from oper-ating in this country.

E-Learning Special Focus: Accreditation—The Debate Continues

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The Demand for U.S. AccreditationIt seems clear that through collaboration, exchange,and technical assistance, U.S. institutions have influ-enced the practice of higher education abroad formore than 50 years. This includes the offering of de-grees, certificates, and diplomas through branch cam-puses and on-line courses. It also includes the recentlargescale extension of for-profit institutions abroadaimed at purchasing and partnering with host coun-try universities that sometimes provide the facade forU.S.-based operations. Combined with institutionsfrom other countries also offering courses of studybeyond their borders, there is often considerable com-petition to meet high demand for postsecondarystudy. With so many institutions active, it shouldn’tbe surprising that some desire U.S. accreditation forboth self-protection from competition and to adoptwhat are perceived to be more-advanced U.S. prac-tices. Demand for U.S. accreditation by foreign uni-versities is also sought for at least two other reasons:so foreign students can more easily transfer to U.S.institutions and, more rarely it seems, so that theycan operate a branch campus or offer programs at adistance in the United States.

Demand for U.S. accreditation by for-eign universities is also sought for atleast two other reasons: so foreignstudents can more easily transfer toU.S. institutions and, more rarely itseems, so that they can operate abranch campus or offer programs ata distance in the United States.

Foreign Institutions Seeking a U.S. PresenceWith U.S. institutions so active abroad, one mightthink it would be logical for foreign universities tobe similarly active here. In reality, however, thereseem to be relatively few international institutionsoperating in the United States. Take Mexico, as anexample. Given the long border uniting the two coun-tries physically, and the large Hispanic population inthe United States, one might expect Mexican univer-sities to offer programs here. There are some Mexi-can institutions (Universidad de Monterrey,Universidad de las Americas, the Fundacion de lasAmericas-Puebla, and the Instituto Tecnologico deMonterrey) accredited by the Southern Associationof Colleges and Schools (SACS), the agency in thiscountry that claims to have sole authority for accred-

iting institutions south of the border. Nevertheless,only one, the University of Mexico appears to have abranch or offer programs in the United States. Thatinstitution, however, in existence in San Antonio since1944, is not accredited.

While other foreign institutions havea presence in the United States, theirnumber and visibility are minimal.

While other foreign institutions have a presencein the United States, their number and visibility areminimal. In effect, the same accreditation thatlegitimizes institutions abroad is used as a screen inthe United States to prevent foreign institutions fromoperating here. Beyond the U.S. value system, whichacts as a constraint against such operations, theprocess required to operate in the United States isexpensive and time consuming, and there is noassurance that the investment will result in a businesssuccess. If an unaccredited institution from anothercountry wishes to open a branch campus in the stateof California, the following steps must be taken:secure a business license from the secretary of state;meet the laws of the state for issuing degrees anddiplomas; become accredited as an institution; and,depending on what programs are offered, beaccredited by a particular professional accreditingorganization (e.g., nurses, school teachers, andphysical therapists).

Let’s assume that this fictional institution has itsbusiness license and wants to open a branch inCalifornia and is not accredited by the WesternAssociation of Schools and Colleges (WASC). Itsopening is governed by California’s PrivatePostsecondary and Vocational Education Reform Actof 1998, along with the state’s Code of Regulations.The application that needs to be filed looks like itcame from an accrediting organization. It requires, forexample, a statement of mission, organizationalstructure, governing board, degree programs, faculty,and methods of instruction. The issues that must beaddressed include ensuring academic freedom, meansfor guaranteeing student rights and confidentiality,class size, policies on governance, tuition and fees,physical facilities, library resources, student services,a business plan, providing appropriate access toinformation, curricula, policies regarding financialaid, student loans, graduation requirements, generaleducation requirements, transfer policies, and so on.

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U.S. Accreditation as a BarrierBeyond filing the application, which reeks of U.S. assump-tions about educational structure and organization, theinstitution needs to begin the process of becoming accred-ited by WASC. The phases to the WASC process includeestablishing a viable track record of several years as a func-tioning institution, followed by a two-year eligibility phase,and then a four-year candidacy period. While these pro-cesses are underway, the institution must be in operationand hence financed, including the implementation of theelements mentioned above.

A niche in the higher education marketplace must befound to enable the institution to support itself financiallyduring this period. Competition with California’s publichigher education system, along with the extensive numberof private institutions in existence there, requires a studyof potential student demand, up-front funding, solidplanning, and considerable luck. Success depends, amongother things, on the programs and their quality, theinstitution’s credibility and legitimacy, tuition and fees (andfinancial aid), geographic access; and comparativeadvantage to the student. For example, will theinternational institution bring name recognition tolegitimate its offerings? Will the institution have uniqueexpertise or provide internships or a career connection ineither the United States or in the institution’s homecountry?

U.S. accreditation provides protection forthe dominance of U.S. higher education.

ConclusionU.S. accreditation provides protection for the dominanceof U.S. higher education both abroad and at home. It helpsto standardize practice (e.g., Carnegie unit, letter grading,and academic calendar) elsewhere based upon U.S. insti-tutional traditions. It enables foreign institutions to standout from their local counterparts and foreign competitionbased on U.S. values and legitimacy. And, such accredita-tion enables foreign institutions to transfer students to U.S.institutions as well as, potentially, to offer courses at a dis-tance or through branch campuses in the United States.Finally, holding U.S. accreditation at arm’s length for thoseinstitutions seeking to operate in the United States furtherlegitimates and protects U.S. dominance at home. As sug-gested at the beginning, it’s the long-term interaction be-tween and among U.S. institutions and others, along withU.S. accreditation, that has fed the demand for accredita-tion abroad. In effect, U.S. accreditation is only one aspectof the ongoing globalization process, one that has interac-tive and reinforcing twists and turns.

Cambodian Accreditation: AnUncertain BeginningDavid FordDavid Ford assists with curriculum development in the Department ofChemistry, Royal University of Phnom Penh. Address: Chemistry Depart-ment, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Russian Blvd., Phnom Penh,Cambodia. E-mail: dford@online.com.kh.

Much-needed, long-recommended legislation for ac-creditation of higher education institutions in

Cambodia has recently been passed, which it is hopedwill provide a framework for the orderly developmentand expansion of the higher education sector. However,some last minute amendments made to the law by theexecutive level of the government may mean that it doesnot achieve its intended purpose.

Cambodian higher education is on the periphery ofthe international scene—barely able to access it, let aloneparticipate or contribute to it. The system is so small andpoor that it is of little interest to the international marketin higher education. Few international providers haveentered, perhaps also discouraged by “unofficial costs,”estimated at 30 to 40 percent. The postsecondary sectoris small by international standards at about 51,000students, or about one-twentieth and one-thirtieth thesize of the higher education sectors of Vietnam andThailand, respectively. But a demographic bulge ofbabies born since the conflict will soon create a huge needfor higher education places. Public institutions arehandicapped by low civil service salaries and thehistorical legacies from Cambodia’s extraordinarilyturbulent recent past. Almost all of the recent growthhas been in the private sector. But in the absence of alegal framework or clear recognition and accreditationprocedures most of these institutions, with only a fewnotable exceptions, are offering a narrow range of similarbusiness-related courses with quality that varies fromgood to appalling.

In 2001, the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport(MoEYS) requested and obtained a major grant from theWorld Bank to develop a new legal framework for highereducation that would define institutions, establish amechanism of national accreditation, allow public highereducation institutions to become more autonomous,establish a credit transfer system, and rationalize thescholarship program. At the request of the MoEYS,experts from Australia, the United States, and Franceconsulted extensively with stakeholders and presenteda draft law to the Council of Ministers in March 2002.The promise of a World Bank loan and reform projectthat would have addressed many of the systemicweaknesses was given as an incentive. But the loan was

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dependent on the establishment of a regulatoryenvironment such as the new legislative frameworkwould have provided.

There was a long delay before the governmentresponded, during which an unprecedented number ofinstitutions gained official recognition. Until recently,official recognition of private institutions has notfollowed a clearly defined process. In July 2002, parts ofthe new draft higher education law were excerpted andpassed as a subdecree, on the “Criteria for EstablishingHigher Education Institutions.” But unfortunately, thenew law proved to be an impotent policy instrumentsince some institutions that the MoEYS reviewed andfailed to recommend—due to lack of adequate curricula,facilities, or academic faculty—were, nevertheless,subsequently “established.” Since the first privatepostsecondary institution was recognized in 1997 therehave been only one or two new institutions recognizedper year. But in 2002 there were 12. Like many Asiancountries, Cambodia has a long history of autocraticleadership and decisionmaking that sometimes goesagainst official stated policy.

More recently, key features of the draft law wereamended by the Council of Ministers; their removaleffectively eliminated the independence and broadstakeholder participation of the proposed AccreditationCommittee of Cambodia (ACC) and its nominationcommittee, resulting in a greater concentration of centralcontrol in spite of the government’s stated policy directiontoward decentralization. The MoEYS rejected the proposedamendments, but the law was subsequently passed by theCouncil of Ministers, as amended, on March 31, 2003.

Until recently, official recognition of pri-vate institutions has not followed aclearly defined process.

The new accreditation body and its secretariat are nowcentered in the Council of Ministers and staffed by civilservants. The participation of other stakeholders, likedonors, was reduced to a possibility of invitation only and,in the case of committee members with previousexperience in accreditation in other countries, reduced toadvisers. The final form of the law is a model of centralgovernment control, which is similar to the system ofCambodia’s immediate neighbors, Vietnam andThailand—neither of which could be said to haveindependent accreditation bodies. Members of the ACChave already been appointed by the government withoutapparent reference to the nomination procedure outlinedin the new law.

These events might be interpreted in several ways.On the one hand, the World Bank loan might not haverepresented an incentive to the Cambodian government,which may have been unwilling to increase the nationaldebt to finance developments in a sector that serves thewealthiest two quintiles of the population. On the otherhand, the notion of an independent ACC challengedsome well-established traditions of hierarchy and power.

It is an unfortunate consequence of thelast 30 years of civil disorder andCambodia’s lack of the human resourcesthat laws are being written by foreignexper ts with assumptions ofmeritocracy and independence thatchallenge cultural traditions of hierar-chy and power.

Are these events unexpected? Perhaps in light of theextensive consultations and the assurances from “thetop” that there were no serious difficulties with thedraft version, the last-minute amendments aresurprising. Are these events unprecedented? It is anunfortunate consequence of the last 30 years of civildisorder and Cambodia’s lack of the human resourcesthat laws are being written by foreign experts withassumptions of meritocracy and independence thatchallenge cultural traditions of hierarchy and power.A similar pattern of events has occurred in the forestrysector, demobilization of the military, anticorruptionlegislation, and international adoptions legislation. Inall of these cases, new laws that have challengedpowerful, politically connected vested interests havebeen obstructed, or if legislation was passed thenactual enforcement has been weak.

The immediate effect of the amendments to thenew law is the loss of the World Bank loan that wouldhave financed most of the reforms necessary tostrengthen higher education and, in particular, thepublic part of the sector. These include mostimportantly an independent and professional ACC,as well as upgrading staff, improving management,and strengthening libraries and IT networks.

It remains to be seen how the new ACC willfunction. Due to chronic shortages of humanresources, people with the necessary expertise are notavailable locally and without external funding, itseems unlikely that they will be easily recruited. Mostof the original draft law remains unchanged. Therequirements for accreditation are still in place—

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION14

including definitions of institutions, minimumstandards, the necessity for a foundation year, credittransfer, and transparent financial procedures. If theyare applied fairly, then the new law may still achieveits intended purpose of providing a regulatoryframework for the sector. But if the ACC simplybecomes a paper tiger—or worse, a tollgate—thenofficial accreditation may have little effect onimproving the quality of the higher education sector.

A weak higher education sector does not bodewell for Cambodia’s future. There is increasingrecognition of the importance of higher education innational development. Cambodia is tipped to be thefirst “least developed country” to join the WTO inSeptember of this year, and its participation regionallyis increasing. Graduating 7 to 10,000 students everyyear from narrow, weak programs almost certainlymeans that however bright the students, they will beill-equipped to satisfy the development needs of thecountry or compete internationally.

American Accreditation ofForeign Universities: Proceed—with CautionBarbara BrittinghamBarbara Brittingham is deputy director, Commission on Higher Educa-tion at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Address:NEASC, 209 Burlington Road, Bedford, MA 01730, USA. E-mail:bbrittingham@NEASC.org.

In the summer 2003 issue of International Higher Educa-tion, Philip Altbach argues against American accredi-

tation of colleges and universities in other countries. Hewrites that as an academic superpower, the United Statesshould not practice this kind of “academic invasion” andthat granting American accreditation abroad is an act of“academic colonialism.” While I agree with many of hisobservations, I wish to support a somewhat differentconclusion.

Regional accrediting agencies are approachedregularly by institutions abroad. The motivations vary,in part because American regional accreditation is boththe gold standard and not well understood. Sometimesthe reasons relate to marketing or “branding,” as wheninstitutions ask what form they have to fill out foraccreditation so they can get an .edu Internet address.Another inappropriate reason for seeking regionalaccreditation occurs when an institution mistakes it foran ISO 9000-like international stamp of quality. Indeed,

interest and sincerity and even eagerness on the part ofthe applying institution should not be sufficient reasonfor American accreditors to become involved. Norshould the siren call of international travel for staff orteam members motivate us into accrediting institutionsabroad.

What, then, are the appropriate reasons? The clearestcase for accrediting abroad involves places that identifythemselves as American-style institutions of highereducation. Attaining American regional accreditationvalidates their claims and is of great worth locally, giventhe paucity of consumer information and secondaryschool help for students choosing a higher educationinstitution. In an article in the January/February 2003issue of Foreign Affairs, “Hate Your Policies, Love YourInstitutions,” John Waterbury, president of the AmericanUniversity of Beirut, argues eloquently for this validationin places where institutions claiming to offer American-style education are otherwise essentially unregulated.Indeed, this consumer protection role is one of thefunctions American accreditation serves at home.

Also, just as in the United States, the standards ofregional accreditation, when appropriate to the founders’goals, can provide a useful framework for newinstitutions abroad, as they develop, from ideas to degreeprograms to institutions of higher education with theprobability to endure and improve. Because regionalaccrediting standards are the articulated expectations ofthe community of (American) higher education—and nota set of bureaucratic regulations—those wishing to beginnew universities find that the standards provide a usefulroadmap and that the process of peer review offerscollegial support and feedback.

The challenge here concerned definingAmerican-style higher education or thelimits to which American accreditationshould appropriately be applied.

The challenge here concerned defining American-style higher education or the limits to which Americanaccreditation should appropriately be applied. Thewidespread adoption of taught courses, credit systems,and even forms of (something like) general educationmeans that these curricular structures, at least bythemselves, do not define American-style highereducation. Increasing variation in regionally accreditedinstitutions at home also makes defining what’sAmerican about American higher education morechallenging. How do Americans define American-style

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higher education? Experience suggests there are as manydefinitions as there are American academics consideringthe question—maybe more.

Another key question, and one to which Altbachalludes, is whether regional accreditors have the capacityto accredit institutions of higher education in othercountries. Language is one issue; I would argue thatregional accreditation ought not to consider institutionsother than those using English as a principal languageof instruction and operation. Even if visiting teams canbe composed to work in another language, commissionsand their staff will have incomplete access to theinformation about the institution.

Capacity issues must also include the ability to helpthe team visitors and the commissions deal with localregulations and local culture, at least at some level. Towhat extent should the system accommodate—or evenencourage—adapting an American-style institution tolocal conditions? Inherently, having the capacity toaddress considerations will make the process moreexpensive, and the cost must be borne largely by theinstitution seeking accreditation or some beneficent thirdparty.

I would argue that regional accredi-tation ought not to consider institu-tions other than those using Englishas a principal language of instructionand operation.

Accrediting institutions abroad is not the onlyinternational activity of American accreditors—andarguably not the most important. Hostinginternational visitors who want to learn from us asthey build their own system is one useful way thatAmerican accreditors work internationally. We alsohelp build capacity elsewhere by servinginternationally on accreditation boards, participatingin the on-site visits, and working with colleagues intheir locations while they create an accreditationsystem to serve their country. National systems ofaccreditation (government systems all, unlike theUnited States) are developing throughout the world.And, as Altbach suggests, the ability of countries towork together regionally through their qualityassurance systems has great potential to support themobility of students and scholars, the cooperation ofinstitutions, and a multidimensional internationalagenda for higher education.

Russian Private HigherEducation: Alliances with State-Run OrganizationsDmitry SuspitsinDmitry Suspitsin is a research assistant at Pennsylvania State Universityand is a PROPHE collaborating scholar. The study on which this articleis based was sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. Ad-dress: 410 Boucke Bldg, International Programs, Pennsylvania StateUniversity, University Park, PA 16802, USA. E-mail: das336@psu.edu.

IHE devotes a column in each issue to a contribution from PROPHE, theProgram for Research on Private Higher Education, headquartered atthe University at Albany. See http://www.albany.edu/~prophe.

Russian private higher education is about a decadeold. While it shares many features of private sec-

tors of higher education worldwide, one of its promi-nent traits is hardly addressed in the private highereducation literature: considerable public involvement inthe creation of Russian private higher education institu-tions and continued association of private institutionswith various state-supported organizations and publicresources.

There are currently over 500 private institutions (ascompared with 620 public ones), accounting for roughly10 percent of enrollments in higher education. Generallylocated in metropolitan and large urban centers—suchas Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, and Novosibirsk—these institutions mainly offer market-related programsin economics, law, psychology, sociology, social work,business administration, and other fields that do notrequire much investment in equipment and researchinfrastructure. They are characterized by responsivenessto the needs of the labor market, flexibility of courseofferings and curricula, frequent use of learner-centeredinstructional methods, heavy reliance on part-timefaculty, tuition dependence, loose admissionsrequirements, limited concern about research, and manyother features typically ascribed to private institutionsworldwide. Only a handful of Russian nonstateinstitutions have acquired a reputation for high-qualityeducation, with the majority offering degrees that arestill questioned by employers and the general public.Like private higher education elsewhere and unlike theprivatization in industry, Russian nonstate highereducation institutions were not created by turning publicinstitutions into private but rather by organizing newinstitutions, virtually from scratch.

Russia’s private higher education institutions arecommonly referred to as “nonstate” institutions in legaldocuments and in public discourse, connoting the state’slimited role and its separation from the private sector.

E-Learning Special Focus: Private Higher Education

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While nonstate institutions are not funded by the centralgovernment, they receive considerable support andresources from other state-run organizations and agencies,and their connection to the governmental structures ismuch closer than they declare it to be. In fact, various state-related organizations have been actively participating inthe process of founding private institutions. Theirparticipation was particularly pronounced in the earlyyears of Russian private higher education development.According to the law, nonstate institutions can beestablished by organizations, individuals, or the mixtureof the two. At present, roughly half the institutions havemixed founding entities, while a quarter come fromorganizations alone, and only the remaining quarter arefounded by private individuals.

Only a handful of Russian nonstate in-stitutions have acquired a reputation forhigh-quality education, with the major-ity offering degrees that are still ques-tioned by employers and the generalpublic.

Various central government structures are involved infounding private institutions. Among their founders andcofounders, particularly in Moscow, it is not unusual toencounter state ministries and committees and subcommitteesof the state Duma (parliament). In the provinces, regional andlocal administrations and city authorities are also frequentfounding organizations. While some of these governmentalorganizations are necessary for nonstate institutions insymbolic terms, others bring real, palpable assets. Theassistance from the government does not typically involvedirect funding but rather provision of access to other resources,such as physical plant and buildings. Institutions created insuch a way usually are very willing to publicize theirconnection to the government to gain stability and socialacceptance.

Perhaps the most active actors in the founding of nonstateinstitutions are the state-supported, public colleges anduniversities, and specialized research institutes and academies,including the Russian Academy of the Sciences, the RussianAcademy of Education, and academic, research-orientedinstitutions operating under the auspices of various ministries.According to the Association of Nonstate Institutions of HigherEducation, over half the nonstate institutions of highereducation include these academic public institutions asfounding or cofounding entities.

Considerable variation exists in the kind of interactionbetween public and private institutions and in the influenceof the founding public universities and research

institutions over governance affairs of the private ones. Asizable number of nonstate institutions were created basedon decisions of public universities’ academic councils orof motivated high-ranking administrators—particularlyrectors, deputy rectors, and deans. In such instances, thenewly established private institutions have a publicuniversity and private individuals (e.g., rectors) amongtheir founding entities, and they are typically housedwithin public institutions, sharing all the resources of thefounding public university—including libraries, sportsfacilities, dormitories, research laboratories, and otherassets. Although they are separate statutory bodies legally,many nonstate institutions established in this way are quitedependent on their founding public counterparts,informally governed by rectors of public institutions, andin effect operating as branches of these public institutions.Other nonstate institutions are administrativelyindependent and are engaged in mutually beneficialrelationships with their parent public institutions.

The fact that many institutions are established byprivate individuals or businesses may often give amisleading impression of independence from state-runorganizations. In reality, many of these institutions areclosely linked to governmental structures throughnetworks of formal and informal connections and seekto take a share of public resources. Indeed, the informalinvolvement of government officials in the governanceof private companies, including higher educationinstitutions, is very common in Russia. Privatebusinesses often seek closer ties to officials and cooptthem into closer association with their companies.Additionally, these linkages manifest themselvesthrough nonstate rectors’ connections with thegovernment in cases when the rectors are former publicofficials who still retain extensive contacts in thegovernment.

Many of these institutions are closelylinked to governmental structuresthrough networks of formal and infor-mal connections and seek to take ashare of public resources.

Thus many “private” or “nongovernment” highereducation institutions in Russia are heavily dependenton interlocking relationships with the government andvarious publicly run organizations. In a country withextensive statist traditions, this nexus may be anecessary condition for the legitimacy and survival ofnonstate higher education institutions.

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Higher Education in the Gulf:Privatization and AmericanizationJames CoffmanJames Coffman is director of International English and Professional Pro-grams at the University of California, Davis Extension. Address: UCDavis Extension, 1333 Research Park Drive, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail:jcoffman@unexmail.ucdavis.edu.

The six-member nations of the Gulf CooperationCouncil (GCC)—Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman—are un-dergoing an astonishing development of their highereducation landscapes that has attracted keen interest onthe part of other Arab countries. In line with their in-creasingly freewheeling and booming private sectors,higher education has been characterized over the lastfive years by exponential growth in the number of insti-tutions, a dependence on the private sector to provideeducation that meets the needs of the market, and theunquestioned dominance of the American universitymodel.

Growth in DemandThe populations of the GCC nations are rising dramati-cally as the result of an overall annual growth rate ofover 3 percent. Roughly 60 percent of the population isunder 16 years of age. Until the mid-1990s, the govern-ments focused most of their attention and resources onhandling the exploding numbers at the primary and sec-ondary levels. The production of university graduateswas of considerably less urgency, as these countries hadgrown accustomed to the luxury of importing foreignexperts to perform the necessary technical and manage-rial functions. Indeed, universities in the Gulf rarely dateback more than 30 years; and in the case of Bahrain andOman, their two public universities came into existencejust 17 years ago. When throngs of secondary graduatesbegan pouring out of the schools in the mid-1990s de-manding university training, Gulf governments foundthemselves hard-pressed to satisfy the demand throughexisting institutions.

As Gulf nations have sought rapid modernizationover the last 30 years, they have all made the educationof females—a recognized hallmark of modernity—anelement of their educational policies, albeit within thestrict guidelines of Islam and traditional tribal customs.Females are still very rarely permitted by their familiesto go abroad for university study, thereby making localstudy their only option. Thus, while tens of thousandsof Gulf males go to universities abroad and relieve localuniversities of some of their burden, the explodingnumber of female graduates must be educated in their

countries. In general, about 60 percent of graduates ofGulf universities today are female (although only a smallpercentage of these graduates ever enter the workforce).And the fact that most public higher education in theGulf is segregated by sex makes the university enterprisemore expensive in terms of its efficient use of faculty,staff, and facilities.

World events of the last two years have given astrong impression to Gulf nationals that the United Statesis no longer a safe and welcoming place for them to liveas university students. The number of GCC studentsapplying to U.S. universities has dropped significantly.Some GCC governments have decided to transfer a largeportion of their scholarships hitherto designated forstudy in the United States to Canadian universities.Although the exact numbers are not yet known, it iscertain that at this time many students who would havenormally gone abroad to study, either on scholarship oron their own funding, are staying in their countries andseeking Western-quality programs locally. This hasfurther increased demand.

A final factor contributing to the explodingdemand for higher education is the growingpopulation of children of the enormous expatriatecommunities living long-term in the GCC. In SaudiArabia and Kuwait, expatriates make up over half ofthe population; in Qatar and the United ArabEmirates, noncitizens make up a full 80 percent of thepopulation. Once considered temporaryguestworkers, these groups have gradually becomemore entrenched and have raised families in country.The first waves of thousands of their children comingout of secondary schools are now seeking universityplaces in the Gulf. As they have usually been excludedfrom public universities as noncitizens, the privatesector is their only option.

All the GCC nations have, in the lastfive years, come to see the authoriza-tion and expansion of private highereducation institutions as the solutionto their educational woes.

Privatization as the SolutionIn a remarkable concurrence in policy, all the GCCnations have, in the last five years, come to see theauthorization and expansion of private higher edu-cation institutions as the solution to their educationalwoes. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman haveall seen their first private universities open within the

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last two years, with strong public support and praiseby their governments. Some are purely local institu-tions funded by investors, while others are either jointventures with foreign universities or satellite campusesof the latter. While the recent decision by Cornell Uni-versity to set up a full-fledged medical school campusin Qatar has received much attention, a long list of lesshigh-profile projects are in the works, involving U.S.,Canadian, British, Australian, and Indian universitiesseeking to cash in on a very promising market. TheUnited Arab Emirates, the first GCC country to autho-rize private higher education, now finds itself in posses-sion of a dizzying array of private institutions that arequickly eclipsing the government universities. The gov-ernments of Qatar and the UAE have set aside tracts ofland in order to create high-prestige “university cities”to attract Western universities. In a budding rivalry, Qatarand the UAE have both announced their ambitious de-sire to become the regional pole for world-class highereducation, eventually attracting students from theMaghreb, the Levant, the Indian subcontinent, and be-yond.

Gulf governments see privatization asmore than a simple solution to unman-ageable numbers; they have alsovaunted private higher education asa means of ensuring the quality of in-struction and the relevance to marketneeds that have been missing frompublic universities.

Gulf governments see privatization as more than asimple solution to unmanageable numbers; they havealso vaunted private higher education as a means ofensuring the quality of instruction and the relevance tomarket needs that have been missing from publicuniversities. Few Gulf education officials will disputethe fact that their universities have been characterizedby mediocre faculty, outdated teaching methods, andpoor materials and facilities. The region’s secondary anduniversity graduates have always lagged far behindgraduates in East Asia and other developing nations.As indigenization of the workforce has become a priorityin every GCC country, the fact that local graduates ofpublic universities lack the required skills has becomepainfully obvious. The prevailing notion today is thatprivate institutions will be in competition with eachother and more in tune with the needs of the privatesector, thereby guaranteeing courses of study ofinternational standard leading to employment.

The American Model Rules SupremeThe most striking characteristic of the rapidly evolvingGulf higher education sector is the wholesale adoptionof the American university model as the sole standard.While the British and Australians have set up a numberof degree programs and even campuses in the Gulf, theystill operate in the shadow of the American behemoththat has already gained preeminence throughout the re-gion. (The continental Europeans are completely absentfrom the landscape.) In his excellent description of theworldwide impact of the demand for American accredi-tation of foreign institutions, Philip Altbach states thatthe “imprimatur of U.S. accreditors is perceived to givea significant advantage to foreign institutions.” (IHE, no.32, summer 2003). Nowhere is this more true than inthe Gulf, where not only is American accreditation highlysought, but any quality university program of studymust be as thoroughly American as possible, from itsAmerican name to its curriculum, faculty, and campusarchitecture. Among the dozens of private universitiesestablished in the region within the last three years, itwould be difficult to find a single one that has not pub-licized either its partnership or affiliation with an Ameri-can university or the fact that its curriculum has beendesigned in cooperation with an American institution.Kuwait’s first private university, opened in 2002, pro-claims that “the University of Missouri at St. Louis isproviding the institution with curriculum developmentassistance, as well as an exchange program.” The newAl Mazoon College for Management and Applied Sci-ences in Oman announces on its website that the insti-tution has signed an affiliation with the University ofMissouri-Rolla, which has approved its curriculum andsyllabi. The private universities now springing up inconservative Saudi Arabia are all seeking an Americanimprimatur through some sort of collaboration.

This headlong rush toward adoption of theAmerican educational model has certainly beenfacilitated by the Gulf region’s lack of a strong academicand intellectual tradition outside of Islamic studies. Withlittle of the historic and cultural inertia that one wouldfind in the Levant or the Maghreb, there is no realresistance to this Americanization of higher education.The cultural and religious strictures to be respected ineach country—in fundamentalist Saudi Arabia inparticular—tend to center around the logistics ofsegregation of the sexes and the inclusion of mandatoryculture and religion courses. But they do not constitutea major obstacle to the adoption of the American modeland the Western notion of secular science. Even the useof English as a medium of instruction has been embracedwithout reservation, in contrast to the bitterconfrontations in other parts of the Arab world over theuse of former colonial languages over Arabic.

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The Gulf region is one of economic dynamism,cosmopolitanism, and lofty ambitions. With their self-confidence and heady optimism, they may well succeed inbuilding up a solid base of American-model, largely privateuniversities that will offer the type and quality of training thatthe millions of students in the region will find seductive. Asan alternative to spending years in the United States, it is verypossible that in coming years thousands of students from India,Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine will seek theirAmerican degrees in Qatar, Kuwait, or the UAE in universitiesdevoid of American students. In a region in which the UnitedStates is both admired and detested, these institutions couldend up playing a cultural and political role they haven’t yetconsidered.

High Fee Market for AustralianUniversities?Simon MarginsonSimon Marginson is director of the Monash Centre for Research in Interna-tional Education at Monash University, and an Australian Research Councilprofessorial fellow. Address: Faculty of Education, Monash University, Victoria3800, Australia. E-mail: simon.marginson@education.monash.edu.au.

The Australian government has announced a majorreform of fee structures and loan arrangements in higher

education, to be introduced from 2005. The plan modifiesAustralia’s income-contingent, government-administeredHigher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS); extends gov-ernment-backed student loans to the private sector; and cre-ates the first large-scale, full-fee market in undergraduateeducation. It would generate a significant cost shift from gov-ernment to students and their families. However, the newpolicies have yet to pass the Senate, the Australian upperhouse.

Before the ReformsTwo decades ago government was almost the sole fund-ing source, and tuition was free. By 2001, following theHECS and fee-based markets in international and post-graduate education beginning in the late 1980s and theentrepreneurial transformation of the 1990s, governmentscovered only 47 percent of costs and student fees andcharges, 37 percent.

In total, 35 percent of the costs of Australianuniversities were met by national government grants forteaching domestic students; 17 percent were financed bystudents through the HECS; other government income,mostly for research, made up 10 percent; and other privateincome, 28 percent. Finally, 11.4 percent was collected frominternational students.

The HECS functions in effect as a low-interest loanfor tuition. Managed by government, not the universities,and set at standard rates varying by discipline—it coversa varying proportion of actual costs, with the balancepaid by government—the HECS is repaid throughincome tax once the ex-students’ annual income reachesthreshold level. The HECS debt accumulates and isadjusted annually via the inflation rate, with no otherinterest charge. One-fifth of students pay the HECS at adiscounted rate. Monies equivalent to student HECSobligations are passed from government to universitiesas income. The HECS is a relatively painless form oftuition charge: studies have suggested that for full-timestudents, deterrent effects are almost neutral as to studentsocioeconomic status, though the level of the HECS hasbeen raised since these studies were carried out.

New PoliciesUnder the Liberal-National party government’s propos-als, outlined by education minister Brendan Nelson,HECS-funded higher education has been fixed at a maxi-mum “learning entitlement” of five years. Universitieswill vary the HECS as they see fit, up to 30 percent abovepresent standard levels and as low as zero to boost en-rollments. The University of Sydney has already an-nounced that it will fix all HECS charges at the maximumrate and many others are expected to follow. To“sweeten” the increase in HECSs the government haspromised to raise the income threshold triggering HECSrepayments by 23 percent.

The HECS is a relatively painless formof tuition charge: studies have sug-gested that for full-time students, deter-rent effects are almost neutral as tostudent socioeconomic status, thoughthe level of the HECS has been raisedsince these studies were carried out.

In addition to HECS undergraduate (bachelor-level)places, universities will also be able to offer full-fee placesto undergraduates for 50 percent of all places in eachcourse. Many of these places are likely to be filled as thegovernment will introduce a Higher Education LoanProgram (HELP) to cover student fees. HELP loans willbe subject to interest based on inflation plus 3.5 percentand will be extended also to approved private-sectorinstitutions. The new policies would establish a viablefee-based market in both the prestigious publicuniversities, especially programs with high private

E-Learning Countries and Regions

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returns such as law and medicine, and the private sector.Public universities now enroll 98 percent of all highereducation students, but under this scenario the privatesector will grow significantly.

Part of the promised increase in publicfunds is conditional on changes to gov-ernance structures, the introduction ofperformance management, and the re-placement of collective bargaining withindividual contracts.

The higher-status “sandstone” universities ofSydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, and WesternAustralia and the newer postwar foundations of NewSouth Wales and Monash are expected to be the chiefbeneficiaries. They would charge the top HECS rate andoffer many full-fee places, ploughing increased privaterevenues into research programs, while becoming lessdependent on high-volume sales of internationaleducation. Other institutions would generate less privaterevenues; and the promised increases in public funding,via regional loadings, the conversion of marginallyfunded places to full funding, increments for goodteaching performance (agreed indicators are yet to bedevised), and higher grants per student would beinsufficient to compensate for a shortfall in revenue.

Part of the promised increase in public funds isconditional on changes to governance structures, theintroduction of performance management, and thereplacement of collective bargaining with individualcontracts. Some vice-chancellors are pessimistic abouttheir ability to secure these changes. Other changes inthe policy package include scholarships for lowsocioeconomic-status-background students, albeit atonly U.S.$1,500 per year; extra places in teaching andnursing, where there are shortages; initiatives to betteruniversity teaching; funds for promoting internationaleducation in new markets, and subsidizing off-shoreenrollment by domestic students, financed by increasedvisa charges (strongly opposed by the universities); andthe extension of audits by the Australian UniversityQuality Agency to off-shore operations that have beenthe subject of recent controversies.

However, the main changes are the variable andincreased HECS, full-fee places, and the HELP schemeand its extension to the private sector. This is a boldneoliberal reform that shifts the ground from under thesubsidized HECS as a near universal and equitable basisfor financing domestic students, substituting a high-coststatus market, with direct buyer-to-seller relations, at the

center of the system. The university sector would beremodeled to resemble secondary schools, where almost40 percent of students are in private institutions, led bya high-fee independent sector modeled on Britishschools.

The proposed policies have the support of theAustralian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee. However,student and faculty groups are opposed; the packageconflicts with a long equity tradition in universities andis publicly unpopular; and the policies have yet to bepassed by the upper house in the Australian Parliament(the Senate), where there is an antigovernment majority.The federal opposition, the Labour Party, opposes full-fee places and the proposed increases in HECS, andwould introduce a modest increase in public fundinginstead. Some kind of package will eventually pass theSenate, as Australian universities are in financialdifficulties, but whether the main features will surviveSenate negotiation is unclear.

Japan’s National UniversitiesGird Themselves for the LatestWave of ReformMartin FinkelsteinMartin Finkelstein is professor of Education at Seton Hall University andwas visiting professor, in 2002–2003, at the Research Institute for HigherEducation, Hiroshima University, Japan. Address: Department of Educa-tion Leadership, Management and Policy, 418 Kozlowski Hall, SetonHall University, South Orange, NJ 07079. E-mail: finkelma@shu.edu.

The foundation of Japan’s national universities isabout to be shaken—perhaps a lot, perhaps only a

little, depending on whom you ask—by a “new” reforminitiative of a scope perhaps not seen since the Alliedoccupation post–World War II. Betting that the “key” tothe future economic resurgence of Japan lies in the cre-ation of a world-class infrastructure for research and de-velopment at its national universities, the Ministry ofEducation has undertaken two major concurrent initia-tives designed to introduce competitive market mecha-nisms into the system: (1) the authorization for thenational universities to incorporate as public corpora-tions with a Board of Trustees, independent (at least theo-retically) of the ministry; and (2) the authorization andincentive for academic units across the public system tomove away from the tenure system toward fixed-termcontracts as the basis for faculty appointments. Boththese reforms are widely viewed (although not explic-itly advertised as such) as a new phase in the “Ameri-canization” of the Japanese system.

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During the 2003–2003 academic year, I spent sevenmonths as a visiting professor at Hiroshima University,one of the “major” national universities, and witnessedthe transition firsthand.

The BeforeFor those less familiar with the Japanese system, webegin with the basic observation that it is much morecontinental European (specifically Germanic) in organi-zation (without the Länder) than American. It is aquintessentially bureaucratic system, animated by rulesfor autonomous operation of self-contained academicunits. The Ministry of Education interacts directly withindividual academic units on the various campuses ofthe national universities—variously known as faculties(focused on undergraduate education), graduate schools,and research institutes and centers. These units are rela-tively independent of the university campus adminis-tration, a minimalist infrastructure that resemblesuniversity administration in the United States at the turnof the 20th century—albeit minus the all-powerful presi-dent (in Japan, the national university president re-sembles the titular head of a “loose” confederation ofwarlords who owe their only true allegiance to the king—the ministry bureaucracy. They operate quasi-autono-mously, but within the web of “royal” rules andregulations established by the ministry and enforced byunit administrators who serve as the “in-residence” eyesand ears of the ministry.

Over the past decade, the Japanesenational universities have been refocus-ing their energies on becoming world–class centers of research, science, andtechnology.

Over the past decade, the Japanese nationaluniversities have been refocusing their energies onbecoming world–class centers of research, science, andtechnology. So, organizationally speaking, the majordevelopment over the past decade has been the growthin the sheer number (and small size) of such autonomousacademic units at the national universities, particularlyresearch units (variously labeled institutes or centers, ofwhich any specialized academic field may boast at leastseveral) and graduate schools. Unlike most other nations,the public sector in Japan has not been asked to assumemajor responsibility for expanding access to the youngergeneration. Indeed, in Japan, it is the large andexplosively growing private sector that has over the pastgeneration expanded to absorb the masses—now 500

institutions compared to the 99 national universities. Andwhen enrollment plunges over the next decade, it willbe the private sector that will be most vulnerable; andthe national universities will be able to pursue thenational goal of research excellence relativelyundisturbed by market forces.

The Japanese academic profession hashad the best of all worlds—a markedinsularity from market forces and anextraordinary continuity in financialsupport.

At least in the public sector, then, the Japaneseacademic profession has had the best of all worlds—amarked insularity from market forces and anextraordinary continuity in financial support. Tenure hasbeen a basic condition of employment (appointment);and there has been remarkably little pressure on thepublic sector. In part, this is the way of all socialinstitutions in Japan—taking on a life of their own andbeing relatively impervious to changing externalcircumstances—as much as any defining characteristicof the university sector, per se. Moreover, and this is adefining characteristic of the Japanese enigma, thisrelative insularity coexists with an historically well-developed and lavishly (government-) supportedprogram of bringing foreign scholars to Japan andsending Japanese scholars abroad.

The After, or the In-BetweenTo what extent will Japanese higher education be re-shaped in the image of American higher education? How“independent” of the ministry will these new corporateentities be? Who will the trustees be and how will theybe selected? Will a new breed of president emerge at thepublic campuses, reminiscent of the William RaineyHarpers and Nicholas Murray Butlers of the Americanuniversity, or the corporate CEOs of today’s U.S. researchuniversities? Will corporatization give rise to a vast ad-ministrative infrastructure in the Japanese universities,heretofore barely discernible, that will compete with thetraditional faculties for influence in academic decisionmaking? Will the introduction of performance funding,a nontenure system, and other market mechanisms in-crease faculty mobility and research productivity? Or,will it lead to the “casualization” of academic labor aswe have seen in the United States and Australia and theincreasing specialization of the faculty role along func-tional lines (teachers only, researchers only, programadministrators only)? Will academic life become radi-

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cally different for the new generation of Japanese aca-demics who will be called upon to lead the Japanese sys-tem to world-class status? To what extent will the tenure(or nontenure) revolution be consummated, or success-fully resisted by the faculties? And, even if successfullyimplemented, will a fixed contract system lead to anymore mobility and productivity than a tenure system?This is a dubious outcome if we take the results of theHarvard Project on Faculty Appointments seriously (see,for example, Richard Chait’s book, The Questions of Ten-ure). More generally, will these American forms actuallytransform Japanese academic culture or merely super-impose themselves as an external shell on a functionallyautonomous system? Can competition be infused intoan inherently noncompetitive and bureaucratic culture?

These are very uncertain times for Japaneseacademics. The older generation approaches theimplementation of these reforms with considerabletrepidation—probably the first such period in a halfcentury. And the younger generation remains silent,working harder than ever and wondering about paradiselost.

Will New Higher EducationLegislation Be Approved inFrance?Christine MusselinChristine Musselin is a professor at the Centre de Sociologie desOrganisations FNSP-CNRS, 19 rue AmÈlie, 75007 Paris, France. E-mail: c.musselin@cso.cnrs.fr.

Although no new legislation has been enacted sincethe Savary Act of 1984, French universities have un-

dergone some major transformations within the last twodecades. They have coped with a second wave ofmassification (the number of university students in-creased by 72 percent between 1980 and 2000), intro-duced many job-oriented curricular reforms,enhanced their interaction with the local environment,and, above all, become institutions with more gover-nance, after the introduction of four-year contractsbetween each university and the Ministry of Educa-tion at the end of the 1980s. These developments wereable to occur even without modification of the 1984law—although the law was often described as incom-patible with strong university governance because itintroduced additional deliberative bodies, increasedthe number of elected members within them, and pre-vented professors from exercising a position of power.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to what can be achievedwithin the existing constraints. The tensions over thetransformations that have been launched mean theexisting regulations need at least to be adjusted. Somecurrent rules and statutes have clearly becomecounterproductive, retarding the emerging institutionalautonomy of French universities. This situation has beencriticized and discussed by many French academicsinvolved in university management.

Some current rules and statutes haveclearly become counterproductive, re-tarding the emerging institutional au-tonomy of French universities.

Most of the measures included in the draft versionof the higher education modernization act that wascirculated in late spring 2003 in France were intended toaddress the existing obstacles. Unfortunately, theministry’s timing for initiating this project (i.e., futurelegislation) coincided with the government’s push for areform of the pension system. As a result, the Ministryof Education faced demonstrations from many highschool teachers over the extension of the retirement ageas well as over two further measures (thedecentralization of some technical high school staff andretrenchments on nonteaching staff positions). Theproject received a rather cool reception, and many unionrepresentatives expressed their concerns about the lackof a preliminary consultation process. In order toconcentrate on just one front, the minister, Luc Ferry,decided to withdraw the project for a while and to delayits negotiation until fall 2003.

Interpreting the Negative ReactionsAt first glance, the uneasy reaction to the first draft isquite difficult to understand. First, this project, contraryto many past reforms, is not directed at completely re-forming the French university. Its content is indeed muchmore dedicated to continuing an already existing trend,following policies introduced by the previous (socialist)government. Second, and of course linked to this firstreason, most of the proposed measures (with few ex-ceptions) are not new. They suggest modifications thatwere developed, presented, and discussed in recent yearsand that everybody expected to find. Alternatively, thenew law would stipulate already implemented re-forms—such as the introduction of the licence, master’s,and doctorate structure as the new way to organize studyprograms in France. Moreover, very few of the measures

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are compulsory. Most of them offer universities the pos-sibility, if they wish to, of changing their status, mergingwith others, or redefining their internal structure, etc.

Thus, even if the way the project was prepared canbe criticized, the content of the draft should not, by itself,evoke so much dispute and should not have led someuniversity councils to pass motions opposing it. It is quitesurprising to see university bodies voting against a wholeproject (not only against some measures of it) that isintended to give universities greater autonomy and toallow them to make decisions they cannot presentlymake without the agreement of the ministry. One shouldprobably not exclude from consideration the view thatthese reactions are directed more at the government’sappetite for reforms and cuts in the whole French publicsystem (of which universities are a part in France) thanat the project itself.

Nevertheless, this opposition can also be understoodas a response to certain other aspects of the project that,first, were not part of the debates until now or, second,cannot be considered as a simple loosening of existingconstraints. The creation of “strategic boards” (comitéstratégique de pilotage) in charge of defining the generaldevelopment policy and budget of a university, with norepresentatives from the particular university sitting onthe board, clearly created opposition of the first type.The French Conference of University Presidents reactednegatively to this point, and this measure will probablybe redesigned or abandoned if the project comes underdiscussion in the fall.

This is seen by some opponents to thenew act as risking the dismantlementof “French higher education as a na-tional public service.”

But two other proposals that have evoked oppositionof the second type, are more significant because they bothentail a large potential for change: the introduction ofglobal budgets and the development of assessmentprocesses on the outcomes of the four-year contracts(between universities and the ministry). With these twomeasures, the project clearly associates more autonomyin university management with more accountability andwith output-based evaluation. If they were to beimplemented the measures could bring about someimportant changes because up to now evaluation inFrance has essentially been input-based: the ministryassesses the quality of the projects presented by theuniversities (strategic plans, research projects, andcurricular programs, etc.) rather than the results

produced by these projects. With the new act, “effectiveresults” could be preferred to “good projects.”

This is seen by some opponents to the new act asrisking the dismantlement of “French higher educationas a national public service.” This could indeed occur ifthe ministry does not develop efficient evaluativeprocesses. But one can also argue that if the ministrysucceeds in developing results-based assessment, thecontrol of the state over higher education would be evenmore effective than it is now, since the evaluation ofoutcomes (judging the attainment of objectives and theprocesses by which they are reached) often exerts a moreconstraining effect than the control on inputs.

On the whole, even if some aspects of the projectcomprise a potential for substantial change, the overallgoal still has to do with continuity and the furtherexpansion of institutional autonomy, rather than withradical and brutal transformation. Furthermore, theproject clearly does not aim simply at giving moreautonomy to university leaders but simultaneouslyincreases accountability and involves rethinking (and notsuppressing) the role of the state.

Some measures included in the projectcould benefit from reformulation, im-provement, or modification after discus-sion, but it would be a loss to the systemto reject this new act completely.

The Outlook for a Needed ProjectNo doubt, some measures included in the project couldbenefit from reformulation, improvement, or modifica-tion after discussion, but it would be a loss to the systemto reject this new act completely. The French universitysystem would then remain in its current “in-between”situation, where the central ministry is no longer in aposition, and lacks the legitimacy, to mobilize the tradi-tional steering instruments associated with centralizedcontrol and where universities are more autonomousthan before but in many aspects remain very dependanton central decision making.

Will the claims about the procedural weakness ofthe project (the lack of previous consultation) be strongerthan the need for its substantive content? Will the generaldistrust of the Raffarin government among Frenchacademics lead the latter to reject an act they would havelooked at with less reluctance if it came from anothergovernment? These are some of the questions that willreceive answers by the fall in France. A suivre !

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Center and Periphery: Changesin the Relationship betweenChinese Universities and theCentral GovernmentKathryn MohrmanKathryn Mohrman is executive director of the Hopkins Nanjing Center,Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.Address: Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced InternationalStudies, 1619 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA.E-mail: kmohrma1@jhu.edu.

As China moves toward a market system, the rela-tionship between government and individual uni-

versities is changing dramatically. Today, universityleaders can make many—but not all—decisions, report-ing their results to the Ministry of Education. This shiftof authority is not yet complete, however, so no one isquite sure what can and cannot be done. In addition,China is wisely pursuing pilot projects rather thanwholesale reform, providing somewhat greater predict-ability while still changing academic life dramatically.

Financial Reforms Universities today must raise the majority of their op-erating funds from such nongovernmental sources asresearch grants, tuition, gifts, sale of services, and in-come from university-run enterprises. Sometimes theserevenues represent as much as 80 percent of their an-nual budgets. In addition, campus administrators nowhave substantial leeway in allocating those funds.

The trend away from the center has been reinforcedby a significant reduction in the number of universitiesreceiving support from the national government. The211 Project (100 top universities for the 21st century)focused central resources on key universities, leaving therest on their own. And, as the Shanghai governmentcontributes an increasing amount to some of itsuniversities, those institutions are under both central andmunicipal control.

Chinese university leaders now spend much of theirtime worrying about finances, a change that is not justfiscal but cultural. In traditional Chinese society, scholarswere at the top of the status hierarchy and merchantsnear the bottom. Today, scholars have become merchantsin order to support the academic enterprise. The worry,of course, is the risk of going too far in responding tomarket demands. Where does one draw the line? Bothcampus and government officials worry that traditionalacademic values are being marginalized in the relentlesspursuit of money.

Academic Reforms New interdisciplinary programs are being created oncampuses to address specific opportunities, from envi-ronmental engineering to international business, and tocounteract the narrowness of many traditional programs.Key universities also are encouraged to become morecomprehensive. Formerly specialized universities cannow branch out into new fields that perhaps may bemore attractive and lucrative than their original missions.

Many campuses are creating general educationprograms, and some are even allowing students to enrollwithout declaring a major at the outset. Universities offera long list of general education courses designed toencourage creativity and critical inquiry. Unfortunately,the examination system still puts a premium onmemorization, so students who have opportunities fora broader education may have formed their intellects byrote rather than innovative thinking.

Many academic reforms parallel American highereducation. It’s almost as if some university leaders aresaying, “The United States has the best higher educationsystem in the world so let’s adopt American models.”The danger is that programs that work well in one culturemay be a mistake in another.

Many campuses are creating generaleducation programs, and some are evenallowing students to enroll without de-claring a major at the outset.

Structural Reforms Many Chinese universities have gone from an organi-zational system in which all departments reported to anacademic vice president, to one in which schools andcolleges have been instituted to put decision makingcloser to the individuals involved. Chief academic offic-ers on those campuses must be ecstatic to have fewerdirect reports, although the additional structural layerincreases the bureaucracy at a time when institutions areseeking greater efficiency.

One emerging change is the development of a creditsystem. Since transfer is virtually unheard of in Chinesehigher education, the credit system gives studentsgreater flexibility in their degree programs. They cangraduate whenever they have the proper number andarrangement of credits rather than following a lockstepcurriculum. Combined with the lifting of the age limitof 25 years for enrollment, the credit system makesChinese universities more open to older and part-timestudents.

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The Question of AutonomyThe degree of flexibility seems to vary from one campusto the next, from one week to the next. We are seeing ahybrid system with both old and new elements. Key uni-versities must raise most of their own money, but the centralgovernment controls enrollments and tuition levels, thus de-termining the income stream from student resources. Simi-larly, the number of faculty members in each program isdetermined centrally, so the expense side is also out of thehands of campus decision makers. What’s more, the Ministryof Education assigns individual students to universities andmajors. Certainly there is discussion between ministry andcampus officials, but the final say comes from the center.

Individual campuses can create their own curricula, butany new concentrations must be on the Ministry of Education’slist of 248 approved majors. In fact, many reforms occur withinpreviously approved programs because a new track can bedetermined at the campus level while a new program mustgo to government authorities. Some universities, however,are part of experimental efforts that allow them to make moredecisions unilaterally.

ObservationsIt is a time of great opportunity as well as substantial uncer-tainty. The Ministry of Education creates study groups to rec-ommend good practices in both curricular and managerial

arenas; savvy academic administrators “touch base”regularly, with the result that reforms look quite simi-lar across campuses. But Chinese politics are hard topredict so what is permissible today may not be tomor-row—and vice versa. The government clearly believesit is devolving authority, but universities do not alwaysfeel that they have increased power. Ministry officialsare also uneasy about the dangers of institutions usingtheir autonomy to chase after profits rather than enhanceacademic quality. In addition, even if top officials sup-port reforms, bureaucrats within the ministry mightremain engaged in areas that have technically been del-egated.

We are seeing a pragmatic trial-and-error methodfor university reform, with rapid adoption of successfulexperiments across the nation. One scholar described itas mo shi guo he—groping for stones while crossing theriver. Another remarked that this is a unique momentin which everything is in flux, but five years hence therelationship between government and campus maybecome codified. The pace of change, and theopportunity for change, may diminish.

In most policy systems, authority once devolved ishard to take back. With any luck, Chinese university reformwill nourish an intellectually vibrant and internationallycompetitive higher education system.

News of the Center and the Program in Higher Education

Editorial work on The Past and Future of Asian Universities, edited by Philip G. Altbach and Toru Umakoshi, ismostly complete. The Johns Hopkins University Press will publish this volume, which features essays on 12Asian countries and was funded by the Toyota Foundation and the Japan Foundation. The Center’s women’shigher education initiative continues. Graduate assistants Francesca Purcell and Robin Helms are currentlycompleting collection of data for our questionnaire on women’s universities worldwide. We plan additionalactivities as well. For the past seven years, the CIHE has hosted the editorial office of the Review of HigherEducation, one of the main journals in the field of higher education. The RHE is edited by Philip G. Altbach,with BC professors Karen Arnold and Ted Youn serving as associate editors. Roberta Bassett is the managingeditor. Our term of editorship ends in January 2004, and the editorial office will move to the University ofHouston, with Amury Nora as editor. The journal’s publisher is the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Our bibliography on private higher education in international perspective is also nearing completion.This project is cosponsored with the Program on Research in Private Higher Education (PROPHE) at theUniversity at Albany. Alma Maldonado-Maldonado is the coordinator of this project at CIHE, assisted byHong Zhu. We expect to publish a book based on this bibliography by the end of 2003. PROPHE will continuethe project with a website and additional research. CIHE and PROPHE copublished Glenda Kruss and AndreKraak’s edited volume, A Contested Good? Understanding Private Higher Education in South Africa in July as acontribution to international awareness of the growing phenomenon of private higher education. This bookwas distributed to several hundred key readers worldwide. It is available, from the CIHE, without cost tocolleagues in developing countries.

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Philippa Thiuri, a citizen of Kenya, joins the Center as a graduate assistant. She will also be working on herdoctorate in higher education administration. Other graduate assistants working with the CIHE in 2003–2004 includeHong Zhu, Alma Maldonado-Maldonado, Roberta Bassett, Robin Helms, Francesca Purcell, and Laura Rumbley.Francesca Purcell was awarded a School of Education research scholarship to pursue her dissertation research in thePhilippines. Her work relates to women’s higher education in the Philippines. Alma Maldonado-Maldonado, whois writing her dissertation on Latin American higher education research networks, has been appointed assistantprofessor in higher education at the University of Arizona, beginning in 2004. Jef Davis, who previously served as aCIHE graduate assistant, has moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he is working on his doctoral dissertation. Dr. DamtewTeferra, the editor-in-chief of the new Journal of Higher Education in Africa, also serves as a research assistant professorat the CIHE. He has recently returned from Africa, where he was a keynote speaker at conferences in South Africaand Ethiopia.

CIHE director and Monan professor of higher education, Philip G. Altbach, will be a visiting professor atthe University of Hong Kong in December 2003. He will also speak at a conference at Xiamen University inChina at that time. Dr. Altbach will participate in a conference on doctoral education sponsored by the UNESCOEuropean Center for Higher Education in Bucharest, Romania, in September. He is also a member of an OECDadvisory group, which met in Paris in June. He is working with Dr. James Forest, a gradiate of the highereducation doctoral program and former CIHE staff member and currently an associate dean at the UnitedStates Military Academy at West Point, on a major higher education reference volume to be published byKluwer Academic Publishers. American Higher Education in the 21st Century, coedited by Philip G. Altbach,Robert Berdahl, and Patricia Gumport, has appeared in a Chinese-language edition published in Taiwan.

The CIHE continues to be the home for the RoutledgeFalmer Dissertation Series in Higher Education, amajor book series that publishes many of the best doctoral dissertations in higher education. Several BostonCollege dissertations have been published in the series, including James Forest’s thesis on the role of teachingin comparative perspective, Rev. John Chen’s dissertation on the history of Beijing’s first Catholic university,and Damtew Teferra’s thesis on scientific communication in African universities within the context of externalsupport and national needs.

The CIHE continues to receive its core funding from the Ford Foundation, with additional support fromBoston College.

The African Higher Education Reference Handbook is now availableIndiana University Press has published African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook, editedby Damtew Teferra and Philip G. Altbach. This 864-page volume has essays on 54 African countries and 13 themes—including academic freedom, HIV/AIDS and higher education, and financing, among others. It includes a bibliog-raphy of books, articles, and dissertations relating to African higher education. This is the most comprehensivesource on this topic and will be of interest to anyone concerned with the future of African universities. A limitednumber of copies are available without cost to scholars based in Africa and others who are involved with highereducation. Please request copies from Dr. Damtew Teferra (e-mail: teferra@bc.edu). The book is available for salefrom Indiana University Press, 601 N. Morton St., Bloomington, IN 47404-3797, USA. The price is $89.95.

Books available from CIHESeveral CIHE books remain available without cost to persons in developing countries. Please contact the Cen-ter if you wish to receive any of these books. These publications include:Philip G. Altbach, ed., Private Prometheus: Private Higher Education and Development, 1999.Philip G. Altbach and David Engberg, Higher Education: A Worldwide Inventory of Centers and Programs, 2000.Philip G. Altbach, ed., The Changing Academic Workplace: Comparative Perspectives, 2000.Glenda Kruss and Andre Kraak, eds., A Contested Good? Understanding Private Higher Education in South Africa,2003.

International Higher Education remains available on the Center’s website. We have updated our index so it ispossible to find all past articles printed in IHE—the index is organized by topic and country for easy access.

27

New PublicationsBorgman, Christine L. From Gutenberg tothe Global Information Infrastructure: Accessto Information in the Networked World. Cam-bridge: MIT Press, 2003. 324 pp $21.95(pb) ISBN: 0-262-52345-0. Address: MITPress, 5 Cambridge Center, CambridgeMA 02142, USA.Winner of the American Society for Infor-mation Science award, this book providesa multifaceted analysis of aspects of theglobal information infrastructure. Thetopics discussed include the relationshipof books and libraries to the new infor-mation infrastructures, aspects of accessto information, the role of digital librar-ies, how local institutions can fit into theglobal structures, and others. This bookoffers an international perspective rel-evant to universities.

Cascione, Gregory L. Philanthropists inHigher Education: Institutional, Biographi-cal, and Religious Motivations for Giving.New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003. 165pp. (hb). ISBN: 0-415-93361-7. Address;RoutledgeFalmer Publishers, 29 W. 35thSt. New York, NY 10001, USA.An analysis of philanthropic giving inAmerican higher education, this study ex-amines the motivations for giving, thekinds of people who make donations, theautobiographies of donors, and relatedfactors. A special focus is on the religiousmotivations for giving to colleges anduniversities. This book will be relevant tounderstanding how people are motivatedto donate to higher education.

Eckel, Peter D. and Adrienna Kezar. Tak-ing the Reins: Institutional Transformationin Higher Education. Westport, CT:Praeger Publishers, 2003. 193 pp. (hb).ISBN: 1-57356-514-8. Address: PraegerPublishers, 88 Old Post Rd. West,Westport CT 06881, USA.Based on a study of significant aca-demic change at 23 American universi-ties, this volume discusses the role ofleadership in fostering change. The au-thors discuss what they see as key ele-ments in the change process, includinginstitutional cultures, the developmentof strategies for change, and others. El-ements of the case studies are used toillustrate successful (and unsuccessful)change.

Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Read-ing. London: Reaktion Books, 2003. 383pp. £19.95. (hb). ISBN: 1-86189-160-1.Address: Reaktion Books, 79 FarringdonRd., London EC1M 3JU, UK.While not directly on the topic of highereducation, this volume provides an analy-sis of the history of reading in many dif-ferent cultures and periods, including adiscussion of the role of publishing, theimpact of reading on educational reform,libraries, and related issues. The contem-porary period, with the expansion ofreading on the Internet and new roles fortechnology, are also analyzed. This broadand critical analysis provides an excellentoverview of an important topic.

Levin, Richard C. The Work of the Univer-sity. New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 2003. 288 pp $24.95 (hb). ISBN: 0-300-10001-9. Address: Yale UniversityPress, POB 209040, New Haven, CT06520, USA.A potpourri of speeches to a variety of au-diences, this book consists of short essayson topics such as the role of liberal edu-cation, higher education and theeconomy, community service, and others.Because Levin is the president of YaleUniversity, there are naturally a numberof essays that focus on Yale.

Marga, Andrei. University Reform Today.Cluj, Romania: Cluj University Press,2003. 292 pp (pb). ISBN: 973-610-160-6.Address: Cluj University Press, 24 Gh.Bilacu St., 3400 Cluj, Romania.Andrei Marga, a university rector andformer minister of education of Roma-nia, provides a broad perspective on is-sues relating to university reform in theRomanian context. Such issues as uni-versity autonomy, the brain drain, thecultural and economic aspects of changein higher education, and related topicsare discussed. One of the few analysesof Romania, this book is also relevantto other “transitional” countries in Cen-tral and Eastern Europe.

Miroiu, Michaela. Guidelines for Promot-ing Gender Equity in Higher Education inCentral and Eastern Europe.. Bucharest,Romania: UNESCO-CEPES, 2003. 107pp $15 (pb). ISBN: 92-9069-174-8. Ad-dress: CEPES, 39 Stirbei Voda St., RO-70732 Bucharest, Romania.

Perhaps the first study focusing onhigher education and gender equity inEastern Europe, this short book definesissues relating to gender equity and thendiscusses key topics in the Eastern Euro-pean context. Among the subjects consid-ered are the role of gender studies inuniversities, and the specific circum-stances relating to gender relations inuniversities in postcommunist transi-tional economies.

Robins, Kevin and Frank Webster, eds.,The Virtual University? Knowledge, Markets,and Management. Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press, 2002. 332 pp (pb). ISBN;0-19-925793-0. Address: Oxford Univer-sity Press, Great Clarendon St., OxfordOX2 6DP, UK.The focus of this book is on the expand-ing role of technology on higher educa-tion, but the framework is wider.Contributors look at the impact of glo-balization, pressures from the economy,mass higher education, managerialism inadministration, and related broad factorsin the context of the role of technology.The perspective is critical and most of thedata come from the British experience.

Siegel, David J. The Call for Diversity:Pressure, Expectation, and Organiza-tional Response in the Postsecondary Set-ting. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,2003. 230 pp (hb). ISBN; 0-415-94503-8. Address: RoutledgeFalmer Publish-ers, 29 W. 35th St., New York NY10003, USA.Diversity—ensuring a range of ethnicand racial variety among students andfaculty—is a topic of considerable im-portance and controversy in Americanhigher education. This book is a studyof how diversity issues are handled ata major U.S. research university. Thestudy looks at patterns of organiza-tional response to diversity issues inseveral of the schools within the uni-versity.

Taha-Thomure, Hanada. AcademicFreedom in Arab Universities: Under-standing, Practices and Discrepancies.Lanham, MD: University Press ofAmerica, 2003. 144 pp $27 (pb). ISBN:0-7618-2498-7. Address: UniversityPress of America, 4501 Forbes Blvd.,Lanham, MD 20706, USA.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION28

An Initiative in International Higher Education

ISSN: 1084-0613

Editorial Office

Center for International Higher Education Campion Hall Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA Tel: (617) 552-4236 Fax: (617) 552-8422 E-Mail: highered@bc.edu http://www.bc.edu/cihe/

Editor: Philip G. Altbach Assistant Editor: Robin Helms

International Higher Education is publishedquarterly by the Center for InternationalHigher Education. We welcome correspon-dence, ideas for articles, and reports. If youwould like to be placed on our mailing list,please write to the editor on your businessletterhead.There is no charge for a subscription.

Material in this newsletter may be repro-duced. Please cite the original source ofpublication. Opinions expressed here donot necessarily reflect the views of the Cen-ter for International Higher Education.

INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION

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.

The Boston College Center for International Higher Education provides a unique service to colleges and universities worldwide by focusing on the global realities of higher education. Our goal is to bring an international consciousness to the

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.

This books provides a general discus-sion of the concept of academic freedomin the West and in the Arab world and acase study of the views of a small groupof Arab professors on this topic. The bookis marred by many editing and other er-rors.

Teferra, Damtew. Scientific Communication inAfrican Universities: External Assistance andNational Needs. New York: RoutledgeFalmer,2003. 170 pp. (hb). ISBN: 0-415-94530-5. Ad-dress: RoutledgeFalmer Publishers, 29 W.35th St., New York, NY 10001, USA.

Focusing on two related topics in the con-text of African universities, this volume ana-lyzes the role of scientific communicationand especially how information technologyhas affected communications, and the re-lated issue of how external assistance hasplayed a role in the communications revo-lution in Africa. The author discusses howAfrican scholars and scientists work and therole of scientific communications in theirresearch.

Tiron, Stefan, Coordinator. Higher Educationin the Republic of Moldova. Bucharest, Roma-

nia: CEPES-Unesco, 2003. 113 pp. $20,£22(pb). ISBN: 92-9069-175-6. Address: CEPES,Stirbei Voda 39, RO-70732 Bucharest, Roma-nia.An overview and analysis of higher educa-tion in Moldova, this book may be the onlydetailed information available in English onthe subject. Among the topics considered arethe historical development and structure ofthe higher education system, governancepatterns at both the governmental and in-stitutional levels, faculty structure and aca-demic work, students and graduates, andrelated subjects.