Competition or collaboration: policies and practices in international higher education

Abstract

Universities in the twenty-first century experience numerous competing drivers that shape their sense of purpose and role in society, their perspectives of knowledge and its production and their overall sense of being in the world. One major force is marketplace discourse, in particular neo-liberalism and competition, which is discordant with the discourse of academic collaboration and collegial sharing. This review essay examines what it means to ‘be’ a university in light of these overarching discourses and what is envisioned for universities of the future. In particular, the essay focuses on how universities around the world respond to the tensions of competition agendas in local contexts. How are global policies on education as a tradeable commodity shaping university policies, discourses and practices? How is competition moulding the overall notion of a university education? What is imagined for the future of universities, given the dissonance between competition and collaboration agendas and practices in higher education? These questions are explored through reviews of two recent books that focus on global shapings of higher education institutions: ‘‘Being a University’’ by Ronald Barnett (2011) and ‘‘Higher Education, Policy and the Global Competition Phenomenon’’ (Portnoi et al. 2010) edited by Laura Portnoi, Val Rust and Sylvia Bagley. Barnett’s book is used primarily to outline the characteristics of various universities’ being and becoming. Portnoi et al’s work provides clear illustrations of the lived experience of higher education in the current globally competitive age. Three broad questions frame this review: • How do universities currently see themselves as being in a globally competitive market? • How does the globally competitive agenda operate in practice in different universities? • What could universities ‘become’ in the future?