A Typology of Admission Systems Across Europe and Their Impact on the Equity of Access, Progression and Completion in Higher Education

PurposeThis study explores how career training with mentoring (CTM) programs work in Nigerian higher education (HE) institutions to foster students' career development and employability of graduates. It also explores how Nigerian HE curriculum can be adequately used to facilitate CTM as well as possible constraints to effective implementation of CTM programs in Nigerian HE institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on interviews with well-qualified and experienced experts from six Nigerian public universities (each from the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria), and 20 industries also within the same 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria that were selected for this study using a purposeful sampling technique. The study interviewed 33 experts comprising 21 senior academics at Nigerian universities and 12 industry executives to reveal substantial information about CTM programs in Nigerian HE institutions.FindingsDrawing on the three key themes that emerged during the thematic analysis and linked to social cognitive career theory, it is clear that participants are convinced that CTM can enhance clarity about students' career ambitions, career interests, personal development plans and employability. Findings show that there are some career-related programs or activities that Nigerian HE students are presented with, but the programs have not been effective as to offer graduates quality career guidance and employability skills that employers demand. Acknowledging these, participants recommend establishing CTM centres in all Nigerian HE institutions to provide students with the opportunity to receive quality career advice, coaching and mentoring services while schooling.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study shed light on varying resources required to cope with the demands of labour market in terms of supply of competent workforce that can contribute to Nigeria's economic growth and development. The findings are highly relevant for Nigeria and other developing countries' policy and research initiatives that aim to promote social inclusion and equity and improve better working conditions for all. The findings also have implications for career development and employability of HE graduates in developing world context.Originality/valueUnderstanding the role that CTM programs can play in facilitating career development and graduate employability can arguably be of importance within the developing world context. This study, therefore, provides significant suggestions on how to build sustained HEIs and labour market partnership to foster career development and employability of HE graduates through establishing CTM centres in every Nigerian HE institutions.

This paper uses register data to study how a particular age reward feature affects admission into two highly competitive study programs: medicine and law. The Norwegian admission system to higher education is centralized, and applicants compete in two quotas: one quota almost entirely based on grade point average from upper secondary education and one quota where students can compete with improved grades and where being older automatically increases the chance of acceptance, by awarding age points. For these study programs, we find that the admission system creates a waiting game, as gaining admission in the second quota is nearly impossible without accumulating a substantial amount of age points. If age predicts completion in higher education, this waiting game might be justified. However, if anything, we find the opposite to be true. Our paper suggests that age should carry less weight in admission decisions and that countries and/or higher education institutions should carefully consider how their admission system affects student incentives and how applicants are selected.

For a long time, the French education system has been characterized by strong institutional disconnection between secondary education (enseignement secondaire) and higher education (enseignement supérieur). This situation has nevertheless started to change over the last 20 years as the “need-to-adapt” argument has been widely used to push for three sets of interrelated reforms with the official aim of improving student flows to, and readiness for, higher education (HE). The first reforms relate to the end-of-upper-secondary-school baccalauréat qualification and were carried out in two waves. The second set of reforms concerns educational guidance for transition from upper secondary school to HE, including widening participation policies targeting socially disadvantaged youths. Finally, the third set has established a national digital platform, launched in 2009, to manage and regulate HE applications and admissions. These reforms with strong neoliberal leanings have nevertheless been implemented within a system that remains profoundly conservative. Changes to the baccalauréat, to educational guidance, and to the HE admissions system have made only minor alterations to the conservative system of hierarchical tracks, both at the level of the lycée (upper secondary school) and in HE, thus strongly weakening their potential effects. Moreover, the reforms themselves combine neoliberal discourse and decisions with other perspectives and approaches aiming to preserve and even reinforce this conservative structure. This discrepancy is evident in the conflicting aims ascribed both to guidance and to the new online application and admissions platform, expected, on the one hand, to raise students’ ambitions and give them greater latitude to satisfy their wishes but also, on the other hand, to help them make “rational” choices in light of both their educational abilities and trajectories and their existing HE provision and job prospects. This mixed ideological and structural landscape is also the result of a significant gap in France between policy intentions and implementation at a local level, especially in schools. Several factors are responsible for this discrepancy: the fact that in order to ward off criticism and protest, reforms are often couched in very abstract terms open to multiple interpretations; the length and complexity of the reform circuit in a centralized educational system; the lack of administrative means through which to oversee implementation; teachers’ capacity to resist reform, both individually and collectively. This half-conservative, half-liberal educational regime is likely to increase inequalities across social and ethnoracial lines for two main reasons. The first is that the potential benefits of “universal” neoliberal policies promising greater choice and opportunity for all—and even of policies directly targeting working-class and ethnic minority students, such as widening participation schemes—are frequently only reaped by students in academic tracks, with a good school record, who are mostly upper- or middle-class and White. The second is that, under the traditional conservative regime, in addition to being the victims of these students’ advantages and strategies, working-class students also continue to be channeled and chartered toward educational tracks and then jobs located at the bottom of the educational and social hierarchy.

Access to higher education has increased substantially in Latin America, but inequalities in access to and completion of higher education still remain. In this regard, identifying vulnerable groups and exclusion factors is a priority in Latin America’s university systems. The aim of this article is to understand in depth governing board perceptions of exclusion factors in higher education institutions in Latin America. The study has identified five key factors that help better understand exclusion from higher education in Latin America: (a) personal characteristics, (b) family situation, (c) institutional features, (d) public policies, and (e) phases of university students’ development.

Amidst concerns about achieving high levels of technology to remain competitive in the global market without compromising economic development, national economies are experiencing a high demand for human capital. As higher education is assumed to be the main source of human capital, this analysis focused on a more specific and less explored area of the generally accepted idea that higher education contributes to economic growth. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to find whether higher education also contributes to economic development, and whether that contribution is more substantial in a globalized context.\nConsequently, a multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to support with statistical significance the answer to the research question: Does higher education contributes to economic development in the context of globalization? The information analyzed was obtained from historical data of 91 selected countries, and the period of time of the study was 10 years (1990- 2000). Some variables, however, were lagged back 5, 10 or 15 years along a 15-year timeframe (1975-1990). The resulting comparative static model was based on the Cobb-Douglas production function and the Solow model to specify economic growth as a function of physical capital, labor, technology, and productivity. Then, formal education, economic development, and globalization were added to the equation.\nThe findings of this study supported the assumption that the independent contribution of the changes in higher education completion and globalization to changes in economic growth is more substantial than the contribution of their interaction. The results also suggested that changes in higher and secondary education completion contribute much more to changes in economic growth in less developed countries than in their more developed counterparts.\nAs a conclusion, based on the results of this study, I proposed the implementation of public policy in less developed countries to promote and expand adequate secondary and higher education systems with the purpose of helping in the achievement of economic development. I also recommended further research efforts on this topic to emphasize the contribution of education to the economy, mainly in less developed countries.

Dewey, Implementation, and Creating a Democratic Civic University

An entrepreneurship program in higher education aims to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and mindset needed to start and manage successful ventures. By integrating these aspects into an entrepreneurship program, higher education institutions can empower students to become successful entrepreneurs who drive innovation, create value, and make a positive impact on the world. This study aims to organize and evaluate entrepreneurship programs in higher education to provide future implications for university graduates. This study involved a bibliometric analysis in identifying, organizing, synthesizing, and analyzing the topic of entrepreneurship programs for higher education. The result is there has been a steady increase in scholarly publications related to entrepreneurship programs in higher education over the past few decades. The analysis in this study show that the papers are strongly connected through meaningful cocitations, highlighting the importance of publications published on different issues of entrepreneurship programs classified through clusters. The overall finding of the papers is that entrepreneurship programs in higher education can significantly influence students' propensity and confidence to start their own companies. Companies, universities, and governments highly value the integration of industry and education as a development strategy for schools, companies, and countries.

Qatar has gone through an educational reform in year 2000; its educational and particularly schooling system went through a major overhaul from K-12 reaching higher education providers. The major reasons for the educational reform were to increase the level of student academic achievement. Concomitantly, the rapid growth of Qatar's economy over recent decades has created a situation in which the demand for skilled labor far exceeded the supply of qualified Qatari nationals. The Qatar National Development Plan identified acute needs for highly educated and skilled Qatari nationals in the areas of health and biomedical sciences, engineering, energy and environment, and computer and information technology (Qatar National Development Strategy, 2011). Two significant higher education providers' serve post-secondary students, being Qatar University (QU) and American Branch Universities at the Qatar Foundation have grown tremendously over the years. Understanding the factors that affect Qatari students' post-secondary persistence and achievement is crucial for achieving the country's human capital growth. Tinto (1975) deposited his theory about student integration into the academic and social system of the higher education providers, Tinto suggested a multidimensional component which underlined the higher education community engaging students in all aspects of higher education including academic and non-academic. Tinto's theory basically hypothesizes that persistence is determined by the match between an individual's motivation and academic ability and the institution's academic and social characteristics. A second and major model is Bean's (1986) student's intention to stay or leave into the attrition model, derived from psychological theories and based on attitudinal research of Ajzen and Fishbein (1972) which later developed by Bentler and Speckart (1981). Key ideas from the model suggest that a strong association was related to intentions and behaviors and that an undergraduate student decision to persist or dropout was strongly related to affect. One conclusion about student engagement was students need to be satisfied and academically prepared especially those in the first years to achieve success and maintain continuous enrollment in higher education (Astin, 1985; Tinto, 2005; Kuh, 2001, 2007). Tinto's integration theory has received considerable validation of non-academic factors and impacting student continuation (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1977; Terenzini & Pascarella, 1977; Chapman & Pscarella, 1983; Pascarella & Chapman, 1983). The latter model has received empirical validation and support based on a large number of studies that looked at background information as the socioeconomic levels of students' families and its effect on postsecondary continuation in higher education (Astin & Oseguera, 2004; Sewell & Shah, 1968). With the large number of studies coming from the United States (US) and other western countries (Kenny & Stryker, 1994; Dekker & Fischer, 2008) have underlined the differences on how students develop and internalize beliefs, needs, and wants that in turn impact academic motivation to persist and succeed in higher education. While few studies have emerged from the Middle East, the recent establishment of the Middle East and North Africa Association of Institutional Research has prompted many researchers in this area to seek the understanding and experiences of students in higher education. In Qatar for instance, the first year experience study and National Association of Colleges and Employers Survey have just recently been implemented at Qatar's national public university. Faced with the danger of students dropping out from the university, and a large number of students who are likely to remain in the first years for longer years reflects the dangers of higher education being a bottleneck to economic development and human resource development (Qatar University Fact Book, 2011). One clear indication and dangers of Higher education completion rates as anywhere in the world is disparaging. It has been reported that in the US for instance 55% of undergraduates who begin study at a 4-year institution complete a degree at that same institution within 6 years of their initial enrollment and another 7% completed baccalaureate degrees within six years after attending two or more institutions (Lotkowski, Robbins & Noeth, 2004; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2007). Pascarella (1985) and Adelman (2006) came to the conclusion that continuous enrollment is the most powerful variable in explaining degree completion and time to degree. There are several factors academic and non-academic likely to affect students as they make the transition to post-secondary institutions. Many students may experience stress, anxiety, withdrawal, and even depression (Robbins, Lauver, Le, Davis, Langley & Carlstrom, 2004; DeStefano, Mellott & Peterson, 2001; Feldt, Graham, & Dew, 2011; Wie, l & Zakalik, 2005). There are also a variety of non-academic challenges that have bearing on the likelihood on academic persistence and success of students. A fairly large body of research undertaken in a number of countries have examined the experiences of international students, and compared their experiences to those students of native to the host country. Academic factors (i.e., secondary preparation) appear to influence postsecondary success (see Robbins, Lauver, Le, Davis, Langley & Carlstrom, 2004). But also a range of non-academic factors, influenced by culture and values, thus may contribute to challenges faced by students in higher education in their local context. This study attempts to address Qatari student challenges in their lives in the higher education in Qatar. The study draws on student, perceptions, beliefs, outlook and context; we approach the study through grounded means by leading interview questions through exploration and probing. The approach is grounded in ways that no specific theory drives the questions rather the responses from the interview often call upon theory to justify the findings. The sample will be made of 35 students who were interviewed through probing and questioning techniques. The questions will probe and guide students with converging responses leading to themes. The long-term goal of this line of research is to provide the Qatari society with mush needed scientific information regarding the challenges that its students face in completing their university education at the competence needed to build Qatar's human capital to support its rapidly expanding economy. Finally, we believe that is a broader regional need for specific and focued information on this topic as the study findings are directly applicable to students from several other countries in the region. Reference Adelman, C. (2006). The Toolbox Revisited: Path to Degree Completion From High School Through College: U.S. Department of Education. Ajzen, L., & Fishbein, M. (1972). Attitudes and normative beliefs as factors influencing behavioral intentions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21(2), 1–9. Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of college student personnel, 25(4), 297–308. Astin, A., & Oseguera, L. (2004). The declining” equity” of American higher education. The Review of Higher Education, 27, 321–341. Bentler, P., M. & Speckart, G. (1981). Attitudes “cause” behaviors: A structural equation analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(2), 226–238. Chapman, D., W., & Pscarella, E., T. (1983). Predictors of academic and social integration of college students. Research in Higher Education, 19, 295–322. Dekker, S. & Fischer, R. (2008). Cultural differences in academic motivation goals: A meta-analysis across 13 societies. Journal of Educational Research, 102(2), 99–110. DeStefano, T.J., Mellott, R.N., & Peterson, J.D., (2004). A preliminary assessment of the impact of counseling on student adjustment to college. Journal of College Counseling, 4, 113–121. Kenny, M. E. & Stryker, S. (1994). Social Network Characteristics of White, African-American, Asian and Latino/a College Students and College Adjustment: A Longitudinal Study. Kuh, G. (2001). Assessing what really matters to student learning: Inside the national survey of student engagement. Change, 33(3), 10–17. Kuh, G. (2007). What student engagement data tell us about college readiness. Association of American College and Universities (AAC&U).Peer Review, 9(1), 4–8. Retrieved June 26, 2015, from http://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/what-student-engagement-data-tell-us-about-college-readiness . Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Buckley, J. A., Bridges, B. K., & Hayek, J. C. (2007). Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle: Research, Propositions, and Recommendations. ASHE Higher Education Report, Volume 32, Number 5. ASHE Higher Education Report, 32(5), 1–182. Lotkowski, V.A., Robbins, S. B. & Noeth, R. J. (2004). The role of academic and non-academic factors in improving college retention. ACT Policy Report. Qatar National Development Strategy (2011). Qatar General Secretariat for Development Planning: Doha. Pascarella, E. T. (1985). Racial Differences in Factors Associated with Bachelor's Degree Completion: A Nine-Year Follow-up. Research In Higher Education, 23(4), 351–373. Pascarella, E. & Chapman, D. (1983). A m

Emerald Studies in Higher Education, Innovation and Technology seeks to provide a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach to these interconnected topics and invites proposals from all scholars working in these fields. The underlying purpose of this series is to demonstrate how innovations in education, educational technology and teaching can advance research and practice and help us respond to socio-economic changes and challenges. The series has a broad scope, covering many topics, including but not limited to learning analytics, open and distributed learning, technology enhanced learning, digital pedagogies, data mining, virtual and augmented realities, cloud computing, social media, educational robotics, flipped classrooms, active learning, innovation networks and many more.

The transition from upper secondary school to higher education is a major change in students’ lives. Supporting students to make informed decisions based on a realistic view of higher education is one of the key elements to ensuring their motivation in future studies. Cooperation between upper secondary and higher education is one model for providing students with realistic views. However, little research has been produced from this cooperation. Therefore, the aim of this paper, based on mixed-method research, is to produce new insights into the opportunities provided by institutional cooperation by analyzing the views of Finnish upper secondary school principals (N = 94). The data were gathered using an online survey and analyzed via qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics. The results indicate that principals consider cooperation with higher education institutions to be beneficial but there are some challenges in its implementation, such as the different structures of upper secondary schools and universities and inadequate information about possible opportunities. There are also great differences in upper secondary schools’ levels of participation. Distance to the nearest higher education institution and the size of the upper secondary school affected the participation models. There is a need to support cooperation between institutions to ensure equal possibilities for students, such as common structures, better information, as well as a multitude of different opportunities.

Approaches of Quality Assurance Models on Adult Education Provisions

The Review of Higher Education Fall 1980, Volume 4, No. 1 Pages 25 to 32 Copyright © 1980 Association for the Study of Higher Education All Rights Reserved SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE PROFESSOR OF HIGHER EDUCATION Jack H. Cooper* No one seems to know exactly what a professor of higher education is. Indeed, he or she is often seen as a ubiquitous figure on the campus. True, he teaches courses, he may publish in a wide variety of printed matter, he may be involved in some unclear grant-projects, and he may be performing certain pro tern services in the field. Graduate students seem to find higher education to be an attractive field of study. Administrators often don’t know what to do with the program in higher education. It’s different. It doesn’t fit the academic mold(s). It seems almost exotic. It is the contention of this writer that the professoriate in higher education confronts some very special problems due to (1) the nature of higher education as a field of study, (2) the nature of the professoriate in higher education, and (3) the campus environment of higher education as a field of study. Special Problems Due to the Nature of Higher Education as a Field of Study The inability to specialize is a problem of many higher educationists. The university reward system is predicated upon specialized expertise. The professor of English may be a Milton scholar. The professor of history may be a New Deal scholar. Other professors of education will specialize in public *Professor of Higher Education, Washington State University. 25 26 The Review of Higher Education school administration or elementary school curriculum or reading. On most campuses with a program in higher education there are few faculty members to staff it. One, two, or three professors are expected to maintain expertise on the history of higher education, higher education planning and evaluation, governance and administration, finance, curriculum, students as a subculture, student personnel services, the law and higher education, higher education as a field of study, postsecondary vocational and technical education, adult and continuing education, and the community college. Such a wide scope of demand upon the professor does not auger well for any sort of cumulative expertise in a limited subfield of higher education. It almost insures that the professor be a generalist. The dissertation load is often a problem of both nature and numbers. The breadth of the field requires that the professor of higher education make some hard decisions: should he chair dissertations whose subjects and/or methodol­ ogy are those about which he has scant knowledge—thus permitting his students to exercise maximum freedom of research choice, or should he restrict sponsorship to his more knowledgeable areas of research—thus limiting his students’ research? Should faculty members in other areas of expertise be invited to chair dissertations in higher education when it appears unfeasible for the professor of higher education to so serve? And what of the comparatively large numbers of dissertation-stage students in higher educa­ tion? How can the professor control his load and still render adequate dissertation research guidance to serve students unless such activity is included as a part of load? While some universities have such a policy, others do not. The function of providing field service presents special difficulties to the professor of higher education. The adage that, “ An authority is one who is more than 50 miles away from home” applies even more to the professor of higher education. For he is in the unique posture of relating to his own kind in providing expert service. True, there is a vast status spectrum within American higher education. But the unwritten rule of consulting is that the consultant must come from an institution of acknowledged superior status to the one being consulted, and that the two institutions must not in any way compete with each other. Thus it is all right for the professor to consult with a community college in his state, but often not acceptable that he work with an ambitious regional university—nee state college—in the same state. In general, unless the professor is on the faculty of a university of the...

ПРОФЕСІОНАЛІЗМ ВИКЛАДАЧІВ ВВНЗ ЯК СКЛАДОВА ВНУТРІШНЬОЇ СИСТЕМИ ГАРАНТУВАННЯ ЯКОСТІ ВИЩОЇ ВІЙСЬКОВІЙ ОСВІТИ

This Special Issue was conceived and developed following a series of international conferences held in Asia, with a particular focus on critically reflecting upon higher education development in the region from broader social and political economy perspectives. Some of the papers in this Special Issue were selected from presentations in the East Asia Social Policy (EASP) Research Network Conference successfully held in Taiwan in 2018, while others were chosen from international events held at Lingnan University in Hong Kong presenting critical reviews and reflections on internationalization, marketization and graduate employment of higher education in Asia. This introductory article puts the discussions of the selected papers in this issue in context, with critical reflections on the key issues being examined in these papers. The Special Issue is published when the world is still confronting the unprecedented global health crisis resulted from the outbreak of the COVID‐19 pandemic. This article discusses the higher education development trends in Asia through the massification, diversification and internationalisation processes in transforming the higher education system and examines how these development trends are affected by the COVID‐19 crisis.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic significantly affected the mode of delivery in higher education worldwide, with Zimbabwe not being an exception. The goal of this study was to understand how the coronavirus pandemic positively and negatively affected teaching and learning in higher education in Zimbabwe. Literature on how higher education in Zimbabwe has been operating before the pandemic was reviewed. A further attempt was made to understand how COVID-19 changed teaching and learning in higher education institutions in Zimbabwe. In order to understand this, firstly an effort was made to appreciate how the Government reacted in a bid to control the spread of the pandemic. Secondly, the effects of the actions of the government on teaching and learning in higher education institutions were assessed. Thirdly, adaptation techniques adopted by higher learning institutions in order to survive in the new normal situation were probed. The inevitable, new strategies, which include an increase in the use of distance education, e-learning, online teaching, were appraised in order to realize their positive and negative effects on the achieving of student outcomes. The study concluded that the most significant effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning in higher education in Zimbabwe are delayed syllabus coverage by instructors, compromisation of students’ right to quality education, lack of sufficient resources for standardised learning of students, level of literacy in the computer technology on both instructors and learners and additional costs in learning such as acquiring e-learning gadgets, WIFI and internet accessibility. However, higher education benefited from the emergence of COVID-19 in advanced use of ICT, globalisation in networking by students in various Institutions through online learning and innovation by students through opening of learning forums such as Google classroom and student mobile libraries. The study advocates for continued use of E-learning methods in teaching and learning to counter COVID -19 consequences, adoption of all teaching strategies in Higher and tertiary education and maximum use of ICT in teaching and learning for sustainability. The findings will benefit Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Universities and other institutions of higher learning and research boards in Academic Institutions. Being only based on the review of literature carried out as a snapshot of an ongoing situation, the study recommends an empirical inquiry for further research, to potentially more deeply interrogate the effects of COVID-19 on both students and educators.