The Variety of Countries Participating in the Comparative Study

Abstract

In talking about ‘higher education systems’, we tend to refer to macro-societal entities of higher education that are embedded in nations. Higher education is viewed as being both global and international as well as national and even local (see Kerr 1990). On the one hand, higher education is international or global in many respects, such as in the belief that there are more or less common standards of truth, ways of academic reasoning, appropriateness of methodology and quality of academic work. Systematic knowledge is considered to be universal and valuable across borders, even if it is not universal. Maturation to a high level of academic work is generally viewed as a long process which requires many formative years characterised by concurrent learning and productive work. Teaching in academia is expected to lay the foundation for the subsequent productive work of graduates by both enhancing generic competencies of academic knowledge and reasoning and fostering scepticism and critical thinking. A certain degree of ‘academic freedom’ and loose coordination is viewed as essential for the stimulation of creative academic work.