Global Higher Education Research Articles

Higher education and the COVID-19 pandemic: navigating disruption using the sustainable development goals

The COVID-19 health crisis has caused profound social and economic disruptions. Affecting everyone, its impact is not equal. Exacerbating deep social fissures and long-standing systemic inequalities, the pandemic reveals the fragilities and inequities in global higher education. Accelerating underlying trends and triggering seismic shifts in the sector, collective efforts over a period of weeks delivered massive change in a sector not known for being fleet-of-foot. As we envisage the ‘next normal’ for higher education, problems with the ‘old normal’ may be fixed and some recent innovations carried forward. Representing a period of punctuated equilibrium, COVID-19 could lead to transformation of the sector towards greater equity and impact across teaching/learning, research/innovation, community service/engagement and the staff/students’ experience. As we ask, “When will HE open again?”, and “When we do, what will it be like?” we may also find ourselves considering “Will some institutions open at all?” Seeking to navigate these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times—so-called VUCA conditions—we propose that the SDGs are positioned as a lens to re-imagine higher education in mounting an antifragility response. We examine whether a new paradigm is forming that could be more sustainable as budgets, priorities and institutional archetypes are challenged fundamentally in line with delivery against the SDGs.

The research-intensive university in a glonacal higher education system: the creation of the world-class university in China

ABSTRACT The paper employs a glonacal agency heuristic to explore how certain research-intensive Chinese universities exercise agency in response to global and national impacts in creating the world-class university. Two global forces (international scholarly discussions on the world-class university and global university rankings) and one national force (China’s Double First-Class Project) are considered. Through an in-depth document analysis of 41 Chinese research-intensive universities’ strategic plans, it is revealed that the universities have designed mainly three strategies to reply to the impacts. The first is to actively embrace global impacts, while looking for national supports for the embracement; the second is to partly draw on global forces while taking into account national considerations; and the third is to primarily draw on national forces while being minimally influenced by global forces. The three strategies point to possible ways for non-Western universities to balance global and national influences in their development, and reflect potential contributions of universities, as local organisational agencies, to global higher education.

Revisiting the Asian regulatory regimes in transnational education: how local politics (re)oriented higher education policy in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong

ABSTRACT Literature suggests that state–market relations in Asian transnational education appear as a hybrid of economic socialism and economic liberalism as well as of supra-territoriality and sovereignty. Such a notion of hybrid focuses on how Asian states manage the struggles over the meaning and value of higher education, thereby addressing various ways in which states participate in neoliberal globalisation. This paper argues that Asian states’ higher education policy choices are restricted by local politics and the resulting policy agendas. This argument explains the paradoxical situation that Malaysia continuously encounters when developing its regulatory regime to govern transnational education. The argument also illuminates the recalibrations that appeared in the transnational education policies of Singapore and Hong Kong. The paradox and recalibrations reveal how a political perspective on transnational education is important to understand Asian states’ responses to globalisation in higher education regardless of the nature of their regulatory regimes.

ՀՀ ԲՈՒՀԵՐԻ ՌԻՍԿԵՐԻ ԿԱՌԱՎԱՐՄԱՆ ՄՈԴԵԼԻ ԱՐԴՅՈՒՆԱՎԵՏՈՒԹՅԱՆ ԲԱՐՁՐԱՑՄԱՆ ՈՒՂԻՆԵՐԸ / WAYS OF INCREASING EFFICIENCY OF RISK MANAGEMENT MODEL AT THE RA HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Higher education is one of the basic preconditions for sustainable development of the state and society, economic progress, ensuring the competitiveness of the state and sustainable development. The system of higher education is one of the most important mechanisms for the development of the state, the generation of intellectual capital, and the consolidation of professional potential. In the conditions of socio-economic, socio-cultural changes of the modern economic society, one of the challenges of higher education is the professional training of competitive specialists, ensuring the efficiency of competitive universities. The solution of this problem requires the improvement of the higher education system and continuous improvement of the processes. Alongside with the development of the higher education system, there are many challenges, such as the current trends of globalization in higher education, the growth of global competition, as well as the rapid development of information and communication technologies, which directly affect the internal and external environments of educational institutions. Implementing risk management to address these challenges and providing solutions to the problems are the effective operational mechanisms including the implementation of risk management system. The latter one allows to increase the efficiency of activities in key areas for universities, as well as the quality of educational and research services. The objective of this article is to research the content of ways to increase the effectiveness of risk management models at the RA universities in the context of the higher education system. The article clarifies and proposes the definition of academic risk and introduces a risk management model with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of risk management processes and clarifies the conceptual provisions for the application of that model.

Transforming Instruction in Global Higher Education: Online Learning as Innovation During a Pandemic

Transforming Instruction in Global Higher Education: Online Learning as Innovation During a Pandemic

Higher Education Branding in Africa: A Social Media Perspective

The global higher education landscape has continued to experience changes and transformation, and there have been various contextual evidences that globalization has been a major contributor to this change. As a result of globalization, higher education institutions become more marketable and the need for brand building has increased. Over the years, there have been various attempts by higher education institutions to boost and improve their public image, and this has necessitated corporate visual identity and some changes to their names. This research is an inquiry into higher education branding in Africa using the social media perspective. Evidences were culled from the websites of universities in East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, South Africa, and Central Africa. Two institutions were selected from the regions and how they have branded themselves and established themselves on social media was considered. With various institutions offering service to members of the public, there are various avenues for dishing out information and engaging their prospective clients. The notable platforms these institutions use include Facebook, twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. This study recommends that the mandate by which each institution was established should be incorporated into their brand identities and propagated via social media. There should be an audit of all social media pages to understand engagement levels across all platforms, and to proffer other ways of branding to the institution.

The Dawn of the Academic Revolution: An Individual Contribution to Shaping the Future of Universities

A dramatic global socio-economic transformation is challenging the traditional university models. Disruptive technologies are quickly changing the way we live and work, inducing shifts in occupational structures and pushing demand toward new skills and competences. Several factors such as the rise of neoliberalism and knowledge economy, the 2008 global economic crisis, Fourth Industrial Revolution, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the continuing emergence of online learning, the amount of student debt, and employers’ dissatisfaction are generating pressure to reconsider global higher education systems. The key stakeholder groups—governments, education institutions, employers, and learners are seeking for new models that are more learner-oriented. The power struggle between various tensions within the current volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous landscape generates a range of scenarios for the universities’ futures. Regardless of which scenario prevails, it is likely that academia will undergo a significantly dynamic transformation in the near future. Following a literature review shaped by personal experience in higher education, the author analyzes macro factors that may affect higher education in the forthcoming decade, with the aim of supporting strategic planning by universities. By generating a set of potential scenarios—Transformative, Market, and Fortress, the author identifies three possible futures to add to the debate about the direction and intensity of the required higher education transformation.

Lecturer teaching styles and student learning involvement in large classes: a Taiwan case study

ABSTRACT Previous studies have indicated the challenges posed by large classes in promoting quality education and better student learning. This paper argues that empirically exploring other latent variables inherent in the pedagogical triangle of the teacher, the learner and the content hold a number of promises in elucidating the dynamics of large classes as an emerging phenomenon in global higher education. This study intends to examine how university lecturers’ teaching styles moderate the relationship between teaching job and student learning involvement in the context of large classes. A multi-aspect survey was conducted with 446 electrical engineering students from six public universities in Taiwan. The use of inferential statistics revealed marked differences in the lecturers’ teaching job involvement and teaching styles when grouped according to institutional types, positions at their respective universities, and years of service. Notably, among the various teaching styles, the expert-model and delegator teaching styles can significantly predict students’ learning involvement; the formal authority teaching style moderates the relationship between lecturers’ teaching job involvement and students’ learning involvement. General implications are drawn from these findings and are discussed as they apply to the teaching of large classes.

Development of Key Performance Measures for E-Learning Knowledge Systems: The Case of Higher Education Institutions in Taiwan

To cope with the trend of e-learning and competition in global higher education, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan has promoted the ‘Project on deep ploughing of e-Learning’ to study the establishment of university e-learning knowledge systems, which will serve as a reference for universities to develop e-learning in response to the trends of the digital age. The research team developed a preliminary draft of the e-learning knowledge system through a literature review, modified it through the Delphi technique, and finally developed an e-learning knowledge system. The system consists of two dimensions: ‘organization’ and ‘teaching team’. The organization dimension is divided into the ‘level of preparation’ and ‘execution and implementation’ sub-dimensions. The dimension of the teaching team is divided into the ‘basic ability’ and ‘course design and application’ sub-dimensions for a total of 4 sub-dimensions. The dimensions and sub-dimensions are divided into levels, sub-levels, indicators, and the content of indicators. The results of the research include 2 dimensions, 4 sub-dimensions, 14 levels, 40 sub-levels, and 84 indicators.

Legitimacy, stratification, and internationalization in global higher education: the case of the International Association of Universities

The International Association of Universities (IAU) is the only inclusive global university association, its membership barriers are low, yet few universities are members despite considerable benefits. What determines membership in this long-standing international university alliance? Reviewing recent trends toward a more networked, stratified and internationalized global higher education field, we argue that universities with a greater need for legitimation and those ‘born’ into a global era are more likely to become members of an inclusive international network like the IAU. Thus, we expect lower status and younger universities to be more likely to join. We apply regression models to test hypotheses implied by these arguments. Our findings are consistent with these hypotheses, even after controlling for other factors. We discuss these findings using neo-institutional arguments about legitimacy and imprinted logics and suggest potential analytical avenues for further research.

Globalization and University Rankings: Consequences and Prospects

This study focuses on the effect of globalization on university ranking and current developments and challenges that HEIs face in the global higher education market. It provides detailed information about the origins of international ranking systems, diversification of university rankings and strategic planning of higher education institutes. Moreover, this study describes the global university classification, continuous exposure to elite universities, neglect of the humanities, arts and the social sciences researches, limited description of methods and indigent metrics. The expected effects on ranking system amid the COVID-19 crisis are mentioned which are widely being discussed by the researchers. The study concludes that there is a threat that universities which are investing time and money in accumulating and using statistics and data for the sake of improvement in their performance for the rankings may destabilize themselves from the development in other areas such as learning, teaching or community involvement.

Publication or pregnancy? Employment contracts and childbearing of women academics in China

ABSTRACT The ‘publish or perish’ system has been widespread in the global higher education sector to incentivize academic performance. How the system affects academics in non-western countries has received scant attention. This research studies the relationship between different types of employment contracts, work pressure and the childbearing decisions of women academics in China. The data were collected in 2019 through a survey of 453 women academics working in universities in China. The research establishes a significant correlation between the types of contracts and the reproductive practices of women academics of childbearing age. In order to obtain more detailed information on the underlying consequences of the new system and the respondents’ coping strategies, interviews were conducted with women academics across different stages of their career. We found that the respondents who had not signed a fixed-term contract on average had higher reproductive intentions than those who had signed the contract. They have adapted their reproductive behaviour according to work pressure. The universities adopting such an evaluation system need to adjust the contract terms to allow women academics to be able to balance work and life. The findings contribute to the understanding of the impact of this global trend.

РОЗБІЖНОСТІ МІЖ РИТОРИКОЮ І РЕАЛІЯМИ ІНТЕРНАЦІОНАЛІЗАЦІЇ ВИЩОЇ ОСВІТИ КАНАДИ

The purpose of the article is defining the modern challenges of Higher education internationalization concerning gaps between discourses and reality in a global higher education by means of theoretical method of conceptual comparative analysis of current researches concerning HEI process on the example of Canada; conceptual approaches to studying HEI has been outlined the trend of gap appearing between the discourse and reality concerning internationalization at the national and global level. Detailed understanding of real internationalization at practice has been presented. Main challenges of HEI and perspectives of their overcoming in the context of university activity have been defined. Canadian universities chose internationalization as a key priority of strategic planning; it goes out from their official strategic documents. Johnston university outlined project «NGS» (North goes South) as a model of HEI. At the official level the project is outstanding model of HEI and an example for educational institutions. Based on the analysis of M. Larsen research, we have to mention the fact of divergence between official discourse and realities of the program. The divergence was found only after continuing, reflexive process, as authorities always shut down critics of the program. We also can state that the project had unequal relations from the very beginning between the representatives of university, who are considered to be bearers of knowledge and skills, and local partners. Only in some cases, relations reflect partnership. Although in theory international higher education has to provide critical, responsible and engaged inhabitants of the world, at practice it goes about commercialization of research, income generating and formation of international reputation. Key words: higher education internationalization, universities, gaps, challenges, perspectives.

Addressing the challenges of college health in international education

Globalization has become a major force in higher education. Yet, far too little attention has been paid to the effects of the globalization of higher education, whether positive or adverse, on student health. We examine the applicability of the perspectives on the benefits and challenges of globalized healthcare to university student health. Specifically, we question: (1) Do the international healthcare resources adequately meet the needs of adolescents who are living and studying outside their home country? (2) Is a Western framework of medicine being imposed on non-Western cultures? (3) Can student health regulations, best practices, and policies be implemented at an international level? We conclude each section with modest proposals. Our hope is that this article will start the conversation that will expand the research and broaden the perspectives on the globalization of higher education for the benefit of students and the universities and healthcare providers that serve them.

Sticky and slippery destinations for academic mobility: the case of Singapore

This article seeks to contribute to the existing scholarship on academic mobility in two ways. First, it brings together insights on academic mobility (aspirations, desperations) and higher education internationalisation to show how we may analytically organise these insights to shed light on the shifting global higher education landscape from an experiential perspective. Second, it provides fresh data on the ‘lived experiences’ of mobile faculty members based in an attractive academic destination outside of the traditional knowledge cores—Singapore. As a city state without any natural resources, Singapore has successfully transformed its economy into one that is knowledge-intensive based on combined efforts from grooming locals to recruiting foreign talents to shore up skilled manpower needs. These efforts are reflected in the university sector where Singapore’s comprehensive universities have consistently ranked high across many global university rankings. Using survey and interview data, I show how the mobility and immobility experiences of faculty based in Singapore have contributed to its making as a ‘sticky’ and ‘slippery’ academic destination. My contributions point to the need to integrate individual-level factors underpinning academic mobility decisions with systemic developments to better understand the changing global higher education landscape today.

Studying Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Global Higher Education: Evidence for Future Research and Practice

I present evidence that formal and informal research on ‘online education and distance learning’, followed by ‘international mobility’ and ‘public health’, are currently the three most important issues and topics facing scholars and practitioners as a result of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Using NVivo 12.0 qualitative software, I collected and analyzed data from 123 abstracts representing 147 contributors across 98 colleges and universities from the author’s forthcoming book (provisionally) entitled, Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Global Higher Education, to be published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis). Preliminary result suggests that the number of proposals submitted to the ‘online education and distance learning’ section (N = 34) suggest a major shift from international and comparative higher education scholars, policymakers and practitioners to investigate an area that is understudied, and perhaps largely overlooked in many developing and transitional economies. I provide several resource global researchers and community members could implement to publish empirical research and policy briefs surrounding the impacts of the COVID-19 on postsecondary (tertiary) education. Implications for future research and policymaking are discussed.

Accumulating academic freedom for intellectual leadership: Women professors’ experiences in Hong Kong

Intellectual leadership indicates the informal leadership of professors based on aspects such as knowledge production and dissemination, institutional services, and public engagement. Academic freedom is considered as the overarching condition for individual academics to develop intellectual leadership. Against the backdrop of internationalisation and globalisation of higher education, academics face enormous pressures to produce measurable research outputs, deliver high-quality teaching and meet all kinds of institutional requirements. In modern universities, women scholars, as the non-traditional participants in academia, must tackle with multiple obstacles and bias brought by gender intertwined with academic discipline features, higher education institutions, and sociocultural characteristics. How do women professors protect, negotiate, or strive for academic freedom? Situated in higher education in Hong Kong, this article aims to explore how epistemological norms, institutional management, and gender influence women scholars’ academic freedom. The author has analysed how sixteen established women professors in humanities and social sciences (HSS) augmented freedom using the cumulative advantage theory. The study finds that women scholars in different sub-groups within HSS had mixed views about freedom and developed diverse patterns to seek freedom for intellectual leadership.

Chinese university faculty members' visiting experience and professional growth in American universities

We empirically investigated Chinese university faculty members' visiting experience and professional growth in American universities. The major data source was qualitative semistructured interviews with 30 Chinese faculty members in the arts, engineering, natural sciences, and social sciences disciplines. The results showed that, despite challenges in preparation, language, and different academic cultures, Chinese visiting scholars were capable of navigating their host programs and achieving professional growth as they moved from peripheral to central participation in their academic community. We also critically discussed how Chinese visiting scholars' academic experience in the United States can be improved, and cast light on the globalization of higher education.

When Macao’s English-medium university meets Mainland students’ mindscape

With the globalization of higher education, the tertiary institutions in Macao have adopted English as the main medium of instruction in order to strengthen their competitiveness, having attracted a large number of Mainland Chinese students. However, little has been known about their experiences and perceptions of English use in Macao, especially in English-medium universities. In this regard, this paper takes an integrated approach of language survey and interviews, examining how Mainland Chinese students use English in different settings and perceive their English use in Macao by looking into the students studying at the University of Macau. It is found that Mainland Chinese students use English mainly in the academic-related settings inside campus, yet rarely use English in non-academic-related settings. Also, English is infrequently used due to the dominant use of Putonghua. Moreover, the paper discusses the implications for how English-medium programmes help improve Mainland Chinese students’ English learning and use, along with the practical suggestions for the universities and Macao government.

Promoting Faculty and Student-Centered Research and Innovation based Excellence Model to Reimage Universities

Universities worldwide facing a dilemma in identifying effective models of improving the quality education to their students at UG and PG levels in order to inculcate employable skills and innovative abilities as per industry requirement. Industries and industry sectors also struggling to identify young graduates who can be innovators to add new ideas and models to add values to their existing products and services to survive, sustain and differentiate in present business competition. This, in turn, developing pressure on Universities to re-define their education models including, suitable subject identification, developing and offering industry related curriculum, effective teaching – learning methodologies including suitable customized pedagogy and use of educational technology to boost the confidence and innovative thinking abilities of graduates. In this paper, we have made an attempt to analyse the present trend in global Higher Education, their effect on Indian University education, technology and its impact on university education model, how research can differentiate campus based university education, Innovations in University research including author centric scholarly publication for copyright based IPR and Student Centric Curriculum for Patent Based IPR. The paper also proposed a model of promoting research at UG and PG levels boosts the Innovative ability of students and faculty members towards excellency. Finally, the authors made some recommendations to reimage the universities towards world-class universities.