Complexity Of Higher Education Research Articles

A synergistic nurturing mechanism of party building and civic management education in colleges and universities combining synergistic modeling

Abstract The Construction and practice of collaborative nurturing between party building and ideological and political management education in colleges and universities has been increasingly emphasized under the current field of higher education. Through an organic combination of party building activities and ideological and political education, this mechanism is committed to fostering high-quality talents with socialist core values. In the context of diversification and complexity of higher education, exploring an effective collaborative parenting mechanism is of great significance for improving college students’ ideological and political quality, moral cultivation and social responsibility. This study thoroughly analyzes the collaborative nurturing mechanism of party building and ideological and political education. It clarifies its components, operation mechanism and evaluation model, and provides theoretical support and practical guidance for ideological and political work. Using methods such as literature analysis, questionnaire survey and expert interviews, the study comprehensively analyzes the constituent elements, operation process and evaluation model of the collaborative nurturing mechanism of party building and ideological and political management education. The synergistic educating mechanism in the article improves the political awareness and moral cultivation of college students, in which the satisfaction of the management system is the highest (score 0.876), and the satisfaction of students is relatively low (score 0.518). The study also found that the implementation effect of collaborative parenting between party building and civic management education is closely related to its systematic, integrative, and dynamic adjustment ability. The strategic suggestions put forward in this paper to strengthen the mechanism construction, optimize the resource allocation and enhance the synergy efficiency have advanced to improve the quality and effect of collaborative parenting between Party building and Civic and Political management education in colleges and universities.

Conceptualizing international positioning strategies for Indian higher education institutions

PurposeThe manuscript reflects on the future of higher education from an emerging country perspective. The authors specifically answer how new education policies, ranking and accreditation are impacting the current state of Indian higher education institutions (IHEIs) and how IHEIs can cultivate their path towards positioning themselves internationally. This study aims to bring together existing scenarios and to serve as a springboard for future research and applications.Design/methodology/approachThe manuscript is designed and executed as a conceptual study exploring the current state and prospects for IHEIs. The study synthesizes the concepts of positioning strategies in context to IHEIs. A conceptual diagram integrating existing concepts from marketing, total quality management and business education is created to understand the phenomenon among the IHEIs stakeholders.FindingsThe authors found that IHEIs started showing their international presence yet they are facing various challenges (government bureaucracy; international salary standards; global student population; and cultural sensitivity). The authors also found that the positioning problem is not a one-time attempt; the complexity of higher education is a “wicked problem” and, hence needs to be evaluated, changed and executed continuously. The manuscript offers relevant information to IHEIs leaders and stakeholders to improve on their international positioning strategies and proposes avenues for future research.Originality/valueThe study outlines future development and positioning strategic plans that IHEIs may consider and reflect in their strategic plan. The conceptual diagram on achieving successful international positioning and problem areas is expected to act as a guidebook for the key decision-makers. The focus is on distinguishing the imperatives, creating a key guide for meeting immediate requirements, allotting assets prudently to update their international presence. The study will provide IHEIs with a new lease of life in the future.

\u2018e\u2019-thinking teaching and assessment to uphold academic integrity: lessons learned from emergency distance learning

Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on many day-to-day activities but one of the biggest collateral impacts was felt by the education sector. The nature and the complexity of higher education is such that no matter how prepared we are as faculty, how planned our teaching and assessments, faculty are all too aware of the adjustments that have to be made to course plans, assessments designed, content delivery strategies and so on once classes begin. Faculties find themselves changing, modifying and deviating from original plans to ensure accessibility and inclusiveness, this may be due to a variety of reasons such as student abilities, behaviour, disturbances and even outside factors that may be political, environmental, social etc. Majority of the time, faculty are prepared for the change that needs to be incorporated and are quick to adjust. However, no one expected the disruption to education that was caused by COVID19 pandemic. The world came to a standstill while schools and universities scrambled to push learning to the digital space. It was important to try to ensure continuity of learning for students, but the issue of integrity came to the forefront by summertime. Faculties were suddenly expected to restructure their lessons, delivery, teaching and assessing digitally, at the same time ensuring and upholding integrity of the concepts taught and assessed. This has neither been easy or straightforward because the situation was unprecedented with little or no prior documentation or guidelines to help. Recognising this gap, this paper is an attempt at providing exploratory findings from authors’ experiences in their respective institutions over the ensuing months. The paper attempts to record the changes made by the faculty and colleagues to lessons and assessments with particular focus on how technology has been used to help restructure classes, deliver lessons and assess students which have aided in minimizing the likelihood of students cheating. The paper further narrates the reflective changes that were made in response to experience, student/external examiners feedback etc.

Community engagement in Indian higher education: Financial and partnership trends

Because of the size and complexity of higher education in India, there are a multitude of strategies for addressing financial partnerships and trends. India, as the world's largest democracy and a country with a recent colonial history struggles with the pressures of tradition on one hand and outside influence on the other. It is not possible to address all of the issues and strategies in one paper. Accordingly, this paper discusses three issues that relate to the funding of higher education in India: neoliberal economics, business/government relationships, and philanthrocapitalism and their impact on the formation of private universities in satisfying the need for increased participation in higher education in India.

Cultural policy, creative clusters and the complexity of higher education: notes from the case of Enjmin in Angoulême, France

This paper looks at the interplay between ‘creative industries’ and ‘cultural policy’ in France. We analyse how university stakeholder communities in the field of elite vocational training schools for ‘applied arts’ such as Bande dessinée (comics and animation) and videogaming negotiate the over simplistically reified relationship between public policies in the arts and the creative sector. The analysis relates the ‘case-studies’ of the ENJMIN (a national videogames school in Angoulême) to the long-standing French technocratic traditions of creating elite graduate schools in all fields of public policy, and, increasingly, in the creative sector. The study assesses the tension between the speed of response of policy in a rapidly changing economic environment and the creation of institutions that are supportive and respective and can deliver in a sustainable and substantial way. The paper explores how French policy manages the conflict between complex HE institutions involving loosely coupled communities with varying degrees of mutual commitment and self-identification and the creative industries as a complex, politically charged, and often emotionally laden field.

Towards deconstructive nonalignment: a complexivist view of curriculum, teaching and learning

Complex systems are open, recursive, organic, nonlinear and emergent. Reconceptualising curriculum, teaching and learning in complexivist terms foregrounds the unpredictable and generative qualities of educational processes, and invites educators to value that which is unexpected and/or beyond their control. Nevertheless, concepts associated with simple systems persist in contemporary discourses of higher education, and continue to inform practices of complexity reduction through which educators and administrators seek predictability and control. I focus here on two specific examples of complexity reduction in higher education, namely, the widespread adoption of 'constructive alignment' as a curriculum design principle and the similarly widespread imperative for teaching to be an 'evidence-based' practice modelled on Western medical science. I argue that a totally 'aligned' curriculum risks being oppressive, but that tactics of deconstructive nonalignment can be deployed to mitigate this risk. I also argue that acknowledging the complexity of higher education should dispose researchers to value multiple and diverse concepts of evidence rather than reduce them to understandings privileged by Western medical science.

The Student Loan Crisis and the Future of Higher Education

The crisis in student loans has grown to the point that outstanding student loan debt will likely exceed $1 trillion in early 2012. Yet employment prospects for college graduates have grown alarmingly bleak, particularly since 2008. The downturn in the world economy since 2008 is itself, in substantial measure, the outcome of the historic peaking of world oil production rates within the past six years. With the onset of permanent oil production rate declines within a few years’ time, the world economy faces an epoch of contraction destined to last decades. These broader economic developments are setting the stage for a tragic bursting of the bubble in student loan debt. The situation also raises acute moral questions revolving around a basic conflict between the interests of the institutional complex of higher education and the masses of students who financially sustain that complex.

The Social (and Economic) Implications of Being an Educated Woman in Iran

In this essay, Mitra Shavarini captures the lasting impact of violent political conflict on educational access in postrevolutionary Iran. While the Iranian Revolution took place nearly thirty years ago, its impact continues to reverberate throughout Iranian society, particularly as it relates to the lives of women. Captured here is a powerful conversation that helps us conceptualize the subtle nature of what that struggle is about for young women in Iran. Discussing the social meaning and gendered complexity of higher education in Iran, Shavarini raises important questions about women gaining ground for their rights in this context.

Lecturers on teaching within the ‘supercomplexity’ of Higher Education

While a vast literature exists on students and their learning, work on lecturers and their teaching continues to lag some way behind. This paper explores the notion that the complexity of Higher Education (HE) today significantly impacts upon what goes on in the classroom through a two-tiered study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore lecturers’ perceptions and experiences of teaching a specific module. Interviewees raised issues pertaining to the wider departmental, institutional and socio-political context. Consequently, focus groups were run with key people in the University to explore their perceptions of teaching and learning within the current HE climate. The findings suggest that lecturers perceive numerous external factors to impinge upon their teaching and attempt to militate against these in various ways in order to achieve ongoing enhancement of learning for students.

The EFQM Excellence ModelR: Higher Education's Latest Management Fad?

Robert Birnbaum argues that higher education tends to adopt management fads – newly conceived techniques enjoying brief popularity but which fail to live up to their promoters’ claims – at the point when the corporate sector and government are discarding them. Although fads may have failed in these sectors because of various reasons, their failure usually to engage with the complexity of higher education's structures and processes makes their failure here virtually inevitable. The European Foundation for Quality Management Excellence Model, it is argued here, is a classical fad in Birnbaum's sense, showing conceptual weaknesses and being unlikely to engage with the particular characteristics of higher education. The introduction of the Excellence Model into UK higher education is shown to have followed closely the path that Birnbaum has identified; there are also preliminary signs suggesting that it will decline along the predicted trajectory.

The scope and complexity of higher education

The scope and complexity of higher education