Book Review of "Higher Education Reform: Looking Back – Looking Forward"

Abstract

Zgaga, Pavel, Teichler, Ulrich, Schuetze, Hans. G., and Wolter, Andrae (Eds.) (2015). Higher education reform: Looking back - looking forward. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Pages: 430. Price: 72.95 USD (hardback and eBook).This substantial book is the eighth volume in the Higher Education Research and Policy (HERP) Peter Lang series, which employs comparative international perspectives to study higher education systems in transition within rapidly changing environments. series intends to explore the impact of such wider social and economic processes as globalization, internationalization and Europeanization on higher education institutions.... The four editors are firmly anchored in Central Western Europe scholarly experience and traditions. Their substantial jointly authored Introduction concludes that are many more challenging questions for higher education research than appear at first sight, before going on to explain the genesis of this book in the series of Higher Education Reform (HER) workshops held annually from 2003 in the three northern continents. Today there are many book-of-the-film type volumes that, part of the contemporary HE research business, reproduce from an often heterogeneous set of conference papers presented (heterogeneous to capture wide contributor participation) a loosely linked and not overly satisfying volume. This book is different. It draws not on last year's fest. Instead it is written thoughtfully and selectively from papers first aired at the 2011 and 2013 HER workshops in Berlin and Ljubljana.A test of success in terms of series purposes is the choice of Section themes, and the coherence provided by the editors who briefly introduce each of the five Sections. These address in turn: (A) Changing Contexts and Directions (chapters by Peter Scott and two of the editors, Teichler and Zgaga); (B) Changing Environments and Missions of Higher Education (with two European chapters and one each on the Chinese and Japanese systems); three chapters that vigorously critique new managerialism under (C) Academic Freedom: A Story Whose Ending is Uncertain. A natural sequel is (D) Globalization, Privatization and the Future, from North America, especially Mexico; and five chapters on Higher Edu- cation and Lifelong Learning. These sustain the well sourced and grounded character of the earlier Sections, concluding with a discussion of conflicting narratives on MOOCS - a subject approaching which my eyes tend to glaze over yet for me, personally and not to detract from the quality and utility of others, the most novel and stimulating chapter of all. The quality and connectivity of the whole volume make it an excellent book. There is no attempt to draw the threads together with a concluding chapter, but notwithstanding the book achieves a balance of diversity and connectivity around the Section themes. In an age of e-publishing, social media blogging, think-tank papers and other more or less scholarly material including heterogeneous conference papers struggling to present as thematic books, it is tempting to conclude that the age of the substantial hardback copy is dead. This volume suggests otherwise.Different user-readers will find different chapters more or less close to their interests. My own preoccupation and often frustrated irritation of recent years pivots around lifelong learning, both as a loose, easily trivialised and often pitifully reduced idea for which carelessness of words and meanings are much at fault, drew my attention to the final Section. I also have inexhaustible fascination with chronic tension: between general trends and unique national and regional contexts; between aspiration and observation; between the internal somewhat closed world of the university and the raging demands placed on higher education by a distressed globe across all aspects of cultural, social and economic life and its eco-systems. …