Changes In Higher Education Policy Research Articles

International developments in doctoral education: The case of Türkiye

ABSTRACT Doctoral education has been of significance in Türkiye particularly in the last 20 years due to the major expansion of higher education in the country. Between 2002 and 2022, the number of universities in the country almost tripled to reach 207, exacerbating the shortage in the number of academicians and researchers. This, along with the pressure to enhance universities’ performance in international rankings, has made the improvement of doctoral education a priority. Additionally, there have been political, economic and cultural changes in the country in recent years, and these as well as the influences of globalisation, massification, diversification, capitalism and neoliberalism have led to significant policy changes in higher education. In this article, an overview is provided of the developments in doctoral education in Türkiye in response to these changes, focusing on policies related to producing qualified academicians, enabling the diversification of universities through mission differentiation, and facilitating university–industry partnership approaches.

ALTERNATIVE PROVIDERS IN THE UK: UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ SATISFACTION AND CHALLENGES

In the United Kingdom (UK) higher education policy changes, especially since 2010, focus on supporting quasi-markets by allowing greater institutional competition and student choice. The decision to open-up the higher education market to alternative providers has resulted in the remarkable growth of providers gaining access to public-backed funding. There has been very little empirical study on alternative providers and/or students within alternative provider institutions, especially in the context of students studying for a degree programme. Using both the education and marketing literature, this article examines students’ perspectives on their educational experiences. This article reports on the outcomes of a small survey conducted with learners within alternative providers in the UK to capture learners’ satisfaction with their educational experience.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0927/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

China’s Higher Education Policy Change from 211 Project and 985 Project to the Double-first-class Plan: Applying Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework

This study used multiple streams framework to analyse the motivation of reform from 211 Project and 985 Project to the Double-first-class Plan in China. Results indicate that all the three streams (problem stream, policy stream, and political stream), opening of policy window and policy entrepreneurs’ effort played important roles in promoting the policy reform. However, different from Kingdon's opinion, in China's political system, the independence of the three streams is weakened, and the dual identity of entrepreneurs also makes the boundaries between the three streams blurred. Political stream plays a leading role, while China's special political system is also conducive to the convergence of the three streams. In addition, discussions on Internet also play an important role in educational policy reform. When the public is aware of the reform possibilities, the national sentiment formed by heated discussion on Internet can affect the decision and direction of the reform.

Social Work Doctoral Education in Australia: The Case for Further Development

ABSTRACT Social work education in Australia has been based in universities since the 1940s. There are now 32 higher education providers offering social work programs across Australia. The significant growth in master’s level qualifying programs in Australia, along with recent higher education policy changes, has increased the need for social work academic faculty members with doctoral qualifications. This paper presents the findings of a scoping review of literature on social work doctoral education. Despite a growing literature on social work doctoral education in international contexts, the review found that there is a lack of Australian research and evidence on social work doctoral pedagogy, the number and diversity of doctoral students, the doctoral student experience, and doctoral graduate employment intentions and outcomes. Addressing the lack of Australian research in this area would be an important step to enabling Australian social work to address future research training and capacity needs and directions. IMPLICATIONS There is a lack of research on Australian social work doctoral education and this is a neglected aspect of social work scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) research. Research into social work doctoral education would provide baseline information on the number and diversity of students, doctoral student experiences, graduate outcomes, and employment intentions. Development of social work SOTL about doctoral education would support future research capacity and enable the advancement of social work research knowledge and skills.

What is driving Taiwan government for policy change in higher education after the year of 2016 – in search of egalitarianism or pursuit of academic excellence?

ABSTRACT Due to global influence and local demand, Taiwan's higher education system has experienced great changes in policy agenda and system reform over the past few decades. After President Tsai took the presidential office in 2016, the Ministry of Education (MOE) shifted its focus towards universities’ autonomy and social responsibility, which encouraged institutions to strengthen their partnerships and collaborations with other ASEAN countries. Based on this new ideological and political paradigm shift, three key national higher education projects, including the new cycle of self-accreditation policy, higher education sprout project, and new southbound policy, were implemented. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present the current development of these three MOE initiatives since 2016, and analyze the paradigm shift of Taiwan higher education policymaking in terms of egalitarianism. Four major findings are addressed as follows. First, policy and politics mattered in the process of educational policy shift under a doctrine of egalitarianism; second, national accreditation continued to be used by university leaders for institutional effectiveness; third, global competitiveness in Taiwan higher education is declining gradually; fourth, the loss of Chinese students was not offset by the new Southbound program.

From Employment to Employability: Uzbekistan and the Higher Education Skills Agenda

This article outlines the origins of employability as a concept related to higher education, and its impact on Uzbek higher education policy. By arguing that the recognition of employability arose out of changes in global employment demands, and is aligned to global theories of human capital, it can be asserted that the topdown Uzbek government driven changes in higher education policy have reinforced the employability agenda. Although it is debatable whether a top-down enforced employability agenda is beneficial in terms of pedagogy, many universities are incorporating pedagogy to develop employability in their programmes. It is argued that ideas of pedagogy for employability can be best exploited if linked to the ideas of pre-professional and graduate identity, and even more so if both lecturers and students understand how learning environments can be used to best effect. Also highlighted is the fact that debates surrounding employability have taken place over recent years in primarily Anglo-Saxon contexts, and that there is a need for research in a more diverse range of higher education institutions, particularly in Central Asia.

Chasing Phantoms? Innovation policy, higher education and the pursuit of a knowledge economy in Hong Kong

ABSTRACTThis paper provides a critical account of the role of universities in the development of innovation and technology in Hong Kong.To do so, the paper examines the political economy of Hong Kong’s innovation and technology development. It outlines a finance-led regime, under which the vision of long-term innovation initiatives is transformed into short-term finance events, and the development of an entrepreneurial culture in society and in universities is neglected. The paper also suggests that the current research funding system and the rise of managerialism in the higher education sector restrict the development of academic entrepreneurship, though universities play a significant role in the innovation system. The paper closes by examining the recent changes in higher education policy and governance, the intensification of integration with mainland China and their implications for prospects of advocating a culture of innovation and promoting innovation and technology in Hong Kong.

Os perigos do conceito de impacto no ensino superior (The dangers of the concept of impact in higher education)

Os perigos do conceito de impacto no ensino superior (The dangers of the concept of impact in higher education)

The future of universities in a global risk society

ABSTRACTThis contribution concurs with Mittelman and also considers the quest for truth a core purpose of universities. However, it rejects the idea that there is one panoptical view of the world, one single truth that could guide such a quest. Drawing on a systems-theoretical perspective and its emphasis on specialization and fragmentation, I rather explore the role of universities in a world that can only partially be known. Such a perspective sheds fresh light on the rise of external quality assurances agencies as a second-order observation that enables further specialization of universities. The study of the rise of this remote steering mechanism reminds us of the limits of a country comparison that does not account of the multiscalarity of policy making, particularly in Europe. However, I will also highlight how most recent changes in higher education policy are characterized by a return to a stronger governmental oversight, undoing some of the liberalization steps taken in the late 1990s, early 2000s. This transformation not only indicates that we are moving towards an end of globalization as we know it. It can, but does not have to, undermine the universities capacity to deal with complexity, as I will show.

The appropriation of policy changes in higher education by students in sub-Saharan Africa: the case of the Bachelor-Master-Doctorate reform in Burkina Faso

Faced with the imperative to adapt to an environment marked by the internationalization of higher education and education policy transfers, universities in French-speaking sub-Saharan African countries adopted in 2006 a new policy called

Investigative minds create investigative students: English language teacher education for the 21st century

The present paper concerns itself with the recent policy changes in higher education across South- East Asia that advocate a shift toward competency-based learning. The change impacts also on English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) programs that seek to prepare pre-service teachers for a career that, increasingly, requires from teachers to be imaginative, innovative and intellectually engaged lead- ers. However, research shows that the new policies present numerous challenges to lecturers in lan- guage teacher education programs in South-East Asia: old habits persist and role models are missing. The present paper addresses the need for examples of quality practices in language teacher education and shares with readers the researcher's own experiences in addressing the new challenges in the Aus- tralian context. The principle that informed the researcher's own teaching model drew on the under- standing that the new career descriptors of school teachers emerged from the world that is becoming increasingly aware that schools belong to community, and that community is not a closed enclave but a conglomerate of "conversations", past and present, in which we participate as professionals. Hence, the key aim of the approach described in this paper was to design strategies that would enable pre-ser- vice people to expand their concepts of their professional community and expose them to ideas that they identify to be interesting, informative and inspiring their interest in future professional development.

Higher education reforms: Latin America in comparative perspective

This article introduces a special issue of EPAA/AAPE devoted to recent higher education reforms in Latin America. The last two decades have seen much policy development in higher education in the region, examined and discussed by scholars in each country, but dialog with the international literature on higher education reform, or an explicit comparative focus, have been mostly absent from these works. By way of presentation of the papers included in this issue, we first provide an overview of major policy changes in higher education in the Latin American region since the 1990s. We then turn to the six works in this special issue to describe the theories and methods supporting them. Next, we illustrate how general analytic categories can be derived from single or multi country case studies to illuminate themes capable of cutting across the particulars of national contexts, with their unique traditions, policy paths, and politics. Our three common threads are, first, the types of drivers for reform, that is, how policy change originates, either bottom-up from the institutions, or top-down from the government, and various possibilities in between. Second, understanding challenges to institutional autonomy in a continuum of intensity of state intended intervention in higher education. Third, explaining different levels of strain between public and private sectors in higher education based on conditions of competition for economic resources. While the papers in this special issue do not cover all countries, nor all issues on which policy has been crafted in the last two decades across the region, the collection of articles herein account for topics of enduring importance: faculty work in Ecuador, financial aid in Colombia, public policy decentralization in Argentina, quality assurance models in Colombia and Uruguay, the emerge of new institutions and universities in Argentina and Uruguay, and social justice, access, and inclusion in higher education, in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. The articles presented in this special issue provide much insight onto higher education policy in Latin America and, additionally, offer ample opportunity to develop social science knowledge on the basis of strong comparative work.

Europeanization, Policy Transfer or Domestic Opportunity? Comparison of European Impact in Higher Education Policy

The study conceptualizes three distinct functions European initiatives have in national policy changes: providing a model (Europeanization), providing a communication platform (policy transfer) or providing a legitimizing label (enabling opportunism of domestic policy entrepreneurs). Building on the example of higher education policy changes in four European countries – Belgium/Flanders, Croatia, the Netherlands and Serbia ‒ the study demonstrates that Europeanization, which is the role that can potentially lead to convergence, is actually not the most prominent one. In most cases, European initiatives primarily serve as legitimizing labels for pre-existing policy preferences, thus leading to convergence of policy rhetoric and ideas, while allowing for significant diversity of policy instruments and outcomes.

‘Should I stay or should I go?’: Dilemmas and decisions among UK undergraduates

There is increasing concern about high rates of dropout from universities, especially among students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In the UK this is related to recent changes in higher education policy, especially the imposition of a higher fees regime and the uncapping of student numbers. While recent research has explored the demography of students who drop out, less is known about the reasons for dropping out, or indeed the reasons why some students who are unhappy with their student experience nonetheless stay on. This article uses data from a longitudinal qualitative study, the Paired Peers project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, to explore this issue in detail. A typology of reasons for dropping out is offered: homesickness; loneliness and a sense of not fitting in; problems with academic study, including having chosen the wrong course; and money issues. The first two appear the most powerful; the notion of ‘fish out of water’ derived from the work of Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) is used to explain it. The article also explores the motivation of those who experience these problems and report high levels of stress, but nevertheless decide to stay on.

Institutional Diversity in Ontario’s University Sector: A Policy Debate Analysis

In order to meet the demands in a cost-effective manner of an emerging knowledge society that is global in scope, structural higher education policy changes have been introduced in many countries with a focus on systemic and programmatic diversity. There has been an ongoing debate about institutional diversity in Ontario higher education, especially within the university sector, for at least five decades. This paper will provide insight into issues of quality, accessibility, and funding through the lens of the current policy debate about institutional diversity by using document and policy analysis, and by drawing on a number of semi-structured interviews with senior university and system-level administrators.

Higher Education Policy Change in Europe: Academic Research Funding and the Impact Agenda

In the policy period following the Lisbon Strategy of 2000, European governments increasingly regard universities, and the research they produce, as key to enhancing economic performance. With this heightened respect for the value of university-based research, comes an impatience to see returns on the public investments made. We analyze how policy is being used to influence the academic research process through the evaluations and funding allocation that accompany public funding. This paper features examples from the European Union and recent policy developments in two nation states to investigate how policy seeks to enhance the non-academic impacts of academic research.

Higher education policy change and the hysteresis effect: Bourdieusian analysis of transformation at the site of a post-apartheid university

In this article we focus on constraints to post-apartheid transformation in the higher education sector of South Africa via a case study of an attempt to introduce a new curriculum for the Bachelor of Education. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were the main data-gathering method. We use Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of field, capital, habitus and hysteresis to explain why transformation proved difficult in this case. We analyse the higher education field that gave rise to this curriculum with a brief historical overview of the position of Afrikaners as the dominated part of the dominant white group in the early years of the twentieth century. Their lack of cultural, economic and intellectual capital gave rise to a position-taking that placed Afrikaans language universities in general and Faculties of Education in particular into the heteronomous part of the higher education field. At first the curriculum, and their intellectual habitus, was in synch. However, it started to drift apart because of a number of economic and political changes that made their position at the heteronomous part of the higher education field increasingly untenable. Because of their insulation from the wider higher education field, academics in the Faculty of Education were at first only vaguely aware of the implications of these changes. However, when a dean was appointed in 2000 with a mandate to transform the curriculum for the BEd, they experienced hysteresis, and they were no longer feeling at home in the field. This explains why the new curriculum was consequently substantially subverted.

The recalibration of neoliberalisation: repoliticising higher education policy in Hong Kong

This article analyses a recent policy change in higher education in Hong Kong to determine the significance of politics in the conceptual understanding of higher education governance. To achieve this objective, the article examines the tension between the global agenda, which is characterised by neoliberal ideology and practices, and local needs, which explain the political interests of governments in higher education policy and justify government intervention in higher education. The article initially delineates neoliberal reforms in the 2000s and subsequently reviews the ideology of governance and the regulatory regime in the Hong Kong higher education system. Then, it analyses the recent policy change. Based on this analysis, the article argues that higher education governance in the city is undergoing a paradigm shift, with which the essence of governance has shifted from managing globalisation to managing the tension embedded in the global-local dynamics of agenda setting in higher education policy.

Higher education policy change in the European higher education area: divergence of quality assurance systems in England and the Netherlands

In the context of globalising higher education (HE) policies, there is an increasing interest among scholars in detecting patterns of policy change, including the rate and magnitude of policy change and the direction of change (convergence or divergence) This paper adds to that literature by comparing the pattern of policy change and by providing theory-based explanations for HE policy change. The national quality assurance (QA) policies for universities in England and the Netherlands were compared (1985–2005) based on an analytical framework drawing on new institutionalism. Key findings were that both QA systems moved in the direction of an extrinsic QA orientation, but the differences between the two systems were larger in 2005 and in 1985. The degree of policy change in England was more incremental, the Dutch case showing rather radical change in 2002. These dissimilarities can be ascribed to the different policy change mechanism: bricolage and translation.

What Will English Higher Education Look Like in 2025?

In light of the recent higher education policy changes in the UK, a scenario study was carried out – based on the Delphi-method – exploring the longer term impact (2025) of the policies on English higher education. The two scenarios are briefly presented below.