Structure Of Higher Education Research Articles

Alternative structures of higher education and the world of work

This paper attempts to identify some pointers for planners in higher education in the developing countries in order the better to relate higher education programmes to the world of work. After considering the objectives of higher education and its role in the socio-economic development of a country, the need for a relationship between the world of work and the higher education system is analysed, and the existing relationship between the two examined. Alternative higher education structures have been explored, based on existing practical experience on a worldwide level, so that planners may review the validity of these structures in their own context.

Tony Becher and Maurice Kogan, Process and Structure in Higher Education, Heinemann Educational Books, London, 1980. ix+222 pp. £12.50.

Tony Becher and Maurice Kogan, Process and Structure in Higher Education, Heinemann Educational Books, London, 1980. ix+222 pp. £12.50.

DISTANCE STUDY IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY: FERNUNIVERSITAT‐GESAMTHOCHSCHULE IN HAGEN

Distance higher education is one of the characteristic features of changes in the structures of higher education, which took place when demand for study places could not be met by the traditional “non‐distance” institutions of higher education. Further development of this forms is of great interest, especially in view of the tasks and problems facing contemporary and future higher education In this context, we present below the article written for “Higher Education in Europe” by Dr. Klaus‐Dieter Grunwald from the Federal Ministry of Education and Science, Bonn, which present development and functioning of distance study in Federal Republic of Germany on the example of the Fernuniversitat‐Gesamthochschule in Hagen.

CRUCIAL NEEDS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LIFELONG LEARNING ‐ CONCLUSIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON STRATEGIES FOR LIFELONG LEARNING

Abstract In the editorial of the Bulletin concentrating on “Higher Education and the Concept of Lifelong Education” (No.4, Vol.IV, October‐December 1979), we pointed òut that “Adaptation of the concept of lifelong education to existing structures in higher education becomes a natural consequence in the wake of technological and scientific progress together with socio‐economic development and the need for new and updated knowledge”. But life shows that in order to achieve a state of “natural consequence” a number of changes have to be made in educational policies, in the attitude of education in the hope of influencing public opinion. This need for change is emphasized in the conclusions which are presented in the following article of the International Seminar on Strategies for Lifelong Learning which was held from 5 to 10 May 1980 at Brandbjerg Folk High School, Denmark. The article is based on the draft conclusions of the seminar by Dr. John Robinson.

Design of the master's degree in occupational therapy, part 1. A logical approach.

The function of the master's degree in a bachelor's level profession is explored, using the principles of the American academic degree structure and the professional educational structure. Based on these principles, the basic master's program in occupational therapy is viewed as being at variance with the degree structure of higher education. This argument is grounded in the fact that the basic master's program entails less complex educational objectives than does the advanced master's program.

Media Versus Lecture

In the past ten years the tasks and structures of higher education have been undergoing a process of steadily more intensive change. This has affected the self-concept of higher education, which is attempting, in the tradition of the alma mater, to defend itself from the influences of the state, of innovations, of social development, and of the growth in student numbers. The search — so far not very successful — for a new and sound self-concept, a new identity, has been made more difficult by a number of obstacles. Furthermore, even now, when the Hochschulrahmengesetz (HRG)[frameworkhigher-education law], which affords the provinces and the colleges and universities a chance to redefine the basic tasks of education in the tertiary sector, has been ratified, this search is not ended.

Financing Higher Education: The Equity Aspects

The unprecedented expansion of higher education that took place during the last 2 decades in both developed and developing countries is a well-established fact. In developed countries, enrollments in postsecondary education increased by 8.2 percent a year between 1960 and 1970. The slowdown recorded in these countries during the early seventies still allowed for a 4.3 percent yearly increase between 1970 and 1975.1 In developing countries, enrollments in higher education have increased by 10-11 percent a year since 1960, and there is no sign as yet that the trend is leveling off. These rates-which were once considered as signs of tangible accomplishments-have now become a cause for concern. The reasons for the shift in attitudes are many. First, the employment problem of highly educated manpower-once the privilege of a few emerging economies-has now spread throughout some of the most industrialized countries. Whether it is due to an oversupply of graduates from the education system or to the slackening demand for those graduates resulting from the low economic growth of the seventies succeeding to the high growth of the sixties is debatable. But the imbalances are there, thus raising doubts about the urgency of more educational growth. Second, the frustration felt over the narrow, quantitative approach toward educational expansion that prevailed during the sixties has led researchers and policymakers to introduce qualitative considerations into the picture. Increasingly, the content and structure of higher education are questioned. Its overall impact on societies is being investigated. In rich countries, traditional divisions among disciplines are broken, new streams are set up, and innovations in curricula are recorded. In poor countries, a recent trend criticizing the mere transplantation of foreign models and the replication of rich countries' standards is emerging. According to this trend, a more important objective of higher education is to make universities serve as agents of economic development. A few promising experiments designed to achieve this goal are already taking place in a number of developing countries.2

The structure of higher education in the German Democratic Republic

The ability of the East German state to produce large cohorts of highly skilled graduates has contributed much to its becoming one of the leading industrial nations in the world. Originally reverting after the War to Lander control of the universities and colleges like the rest of Germany, the GDR soon went the opposite way from West Germany, seeing the way to a strong higher education system to be through the strict centralization of control. This article describes the three university reforms which have taken place and examines the implications of policy decisions. An investigation of the various organs of the government of higher education elucidates the disposition of authority at each level.

CONTRACTION AND MERGERS OF UNITED KINGDOM COLLEGES OF EDUCATION: SOME LOGISTIC COMMENTS

Contraction in Colleges of Education in Britain has been complicated by their role in catering for university overflow candidates. Evolution in the structures of higher education affected the chances of survival of non‐university institutions differentially. The Department of Education and Science exercised both direct and indirect powers to manage the situation in the teacher education sector; the colleges were put in the position of having to make changes in their internal structures and course patterns in a situation of considerable uncertainty, sharpened competition and reduced resources. Unit‐structured diversified courses, often certificated by non‐university bodies do not easily square with the traditional pattern of concurrent training.

The structure of higher education: A world view

This conference is about the implications of mass higher education; and I have to give a world-view in 45 minutes! If my theme is to be clear a few of these minutes must be spent on a semantic distinction. The semantic distinction is best introduced by an analogy: everyone ought to have as much food as he needs, but not everyone needs or wants to be fed on caviare. Which, transposed into the key of this address, is that everyone in a society which can afford mass education is entitled to as much education (primary, secondary, post-secondary) as he needs, but not everyone needs or wants what we in Britain call higher as contrasted with further education. But this Conference has pre-empted the term higher education, and you are an international audience; so it cannot be restricted in the way commonly understood in Britain. I have assumed that higher education, as pre-empted in the title of this conference, includes all post-secondary education, and I am going to draw a distinction between vocational higher education on the one hand and non-vocational higher education on the other hand. Notice that this distinction cuts across some familiar boundaries. It puts into the same category the education provided by the faculty of medicine at Cambridge and by the department of catering at Colchester technical college, and it puts into the same category Oxford Greats and WEA courses on archaeology. Of course the boundaries between vocational and non-vocational higher education are blurred, but by and large vocational higher education qualifies a person to pursue a specific vocation or profession; non-vocational higher education does not. It may seem a perverse distinction, but I hope to show that it does make sense. Higher education, defined in this way, is certain to become more than a minority interest. It has already, in two generations, increased by an order of magnitude, and it will do so again before the end of this century. That is why this conference has been called. That is why several countries have carried out sophisticated exercises such as the Robbins Report, the reports of the Wissenschaftsrat in Germany, and the colossal

CYBERNETIC REFORM OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Education in general, and higher education in particular, are in a state of instability, because their previous homeostasis is perturbed by several parameters. These indicate that the subsystem “education” does not fit into the operational framework of the larger system “community dynamics”. It is therefore suggested that a cybernetic approach to pedagogy can reform the present structure of higher education.

The Comprehensive University in International Perspective

Initiatives taken to democratize secondary education, business and industrial demands for manpower with sophisticated technological training, and the hope on the part of large numbers of citizens from the more modest levels of society for upward social mobility have placed new and serious strains upon the traditional structure of higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany. The Draft Plan for a Comprehensive System of Higher Education is considered by many observers to be a significant official response to the university crisis. In this study, Dr. Eilsberger, a staff member of the Federal Ministry of Education and Science, analyzes the Draft Plan and compares it to similar strategies in several other countries. His article first appeared in Die Deutsche Universitats-Zeitung vereinigt mit Hochschul-Dienst, June 1, 1972.

British Academics and the Professorship

Attitudes towards the power and status of the professorship are analysed among a national sample of university teachers in Britain. Discontent with both power ('professorial oligarchy') and status (the career expectation of a chair) are widespread and closely correlated. But political attitudes are more closely aligned to attitudes towards professorial power than towards professorial status. Cosmopolitanism as opposed to localism is correlated with critical attitudes towards professorial power and status. Together these attitudes suggest distinct social-academic philosophies which are linked to the social and political structure of society as well as to the changing structure of higher education.

Our Cultural "Exports": A View of the United States Exchange Program

The educational and cultural exchange program of the Department of State has as a major purpose and result the building of a base for international co-operation in educational, cultural, and public affairs. Such a community of interests is one of the strongest foundations for any other international relationship. Although the exchange program is by definition reciprocal, its significant "exports" include a marked increase abroad in knowledge about the United States, particularly through the development of American Studies; and the development, through the work of exchange lecturers and teachers, of closer relationships between United States and foreign scholars and academic institutions, and of the content of disciplines. World recognition of United States academic and intellectual achievement has been accelerated by the flow of foreign exchange of scholars and leaders to the United States, and American approaches to the structure of higher education have helped guide educational modernization and reforms overseas. Presentation abroad of United States performing artists, and awards to young American artists and musicians for foreign study, have helped demonstrate the vigor of United States creative life, and in return enriched American culture. Continuing efforts to build common interests in educational and cultural fields, as well as to refine the quality of United States life, are a necessity to any fruitful role of world leadership for the United States.

Book Reviews

Book review in this Article The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research By Sir Harry Melville. Public Finance By Earl R. Rolph and George F. Break. Memoirs of a Public Servant By Lord Salter. Questions in Parliament By D.N. Chester and Nona Bowring. Presidential Power By Richard E. Neustadt. Work Study in the Office By Harry P. Cemach. A Guide to Photocopying in the Office Organization and Methods Division of the Institute of Office Management Organisation et Méthodes áans l'administration publique By H.‐L. Baratin. Working with Groups: The Social Psychology of Discussion and Decision By Josephine Klein. Nursing Homes in England and Wales: A Study in Public Responsibility By Caroline Woodruff and Peter Townsend. Judicial Attitudes in Sentencing A Study of the Factors underlying the Sentencing Practice of the Criminal Court of Philadelphia. By Edward Green. The Structure of Higher Education By a Fabian Group. Fabian Tract 334.

A Fifty-Year Program?

IT WAS a summer evening of one of the early years of the century. A polyglot group of students sat around a table in a garden typical of a German university town. As usual, there was earnest discussion of what would now be called national ideologies. The attitudes were those of the dispassionately philosophical rather than of the political minded. National theories and practices of education became the centers of argument. The one American in the group was the target of many pointed questions regarding the American educational system-particularly its concept of the of and the meaning of this for human welfare. Throughout the long session, one member of the company had remained silent. Only when midnight had come and the impatient headwaiter had announced the closing time, did this silent member from China rise and request the privilege of one question. This he put to the American. Is it possible, my good American friend, said he, that the time may come when your people will discover that they cannot or will not pay the cost of money and of mind for the execution of this plan for of educational opportunity? The American's reply was brief and confident; that with its high idealism, with its vast resources, and with the things already accomplished, there was no doubt that America would reach the goal. Often has this fugitive incident come to mind during the years between-years of slow and wavering progress, years when the early confidence became a bit weakened, years when the realization that equality of opportunity was a complicated, many-sided concept. Had the man from the old East detected the flaw in the aspirations of the new West? The recollections were especially vivid during the reading of the volume of the significant Report of the President's Commission on Higher Education. Here was a new challenge to the validity of our underlying theory, and the soundness of our actual practices, of higher education. During the past generation, many more or less comprehensive, evaluating surveys of American education have been made. In the main, these have been concerned with elementary and secondary schools. From time to time particular institutions, segments or features of that conglomerate of institutions making up our structure of higher education, have been brought under critical review. The appointment of twenty-eight of the nation's educational and civic leaders as a Commission on Higher Education by