Global higher education: what alternative models for emerging higher education systems?

Higher education systems in Asia, Latin America and Africa bear prominent similarities to those in Europe.  Historically, Latin America, Asia particularly Southeast Asia, and Africa had adopted the systems of their respective colonizers who also provided the major part of the funding mechanism, teaching staff, and ideologies on higher education at one time in history.  [...]

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Towards harmonisation of higher education in Southeast Asia: Malaysia’s perspective

The idea of harmonising higher education systems in Southeast Asia was inspired by the development of regionalism in higher education in Europe, specifically the establishment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The idea of regionalism in higher education in Asia or Southeast Asia is a very exciting idea, indeed. Is this idea feasible?
Higher education [...]

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Graphic feed: new data on higher education transitions in Asia

Source: Asian Development Bank (2008) Education and Skills: Strategies for Accelerated Development in Asia and the Pacific, Manila: Asian Development Bank.

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Incorporation of State-controlled universities in Malaysia, 1996-2008: flirting with the market

All State-controlled universities in Malaysia are by definition statutory bodies and their setting up is governed by laws. Statutory bodies are established with the objective of implementing certain duties and responsibilities in line with government objectives. When statutory entities such as universities are incorporated the objectives of this exercise is different from the incorporation of [...]

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A Malaysian critique of Australian branch campus operations

Further to the debates about institutional mobility we have been profiling in GlobalHigherEd, malaysiankini recently posted this story:
Foreign universities giving it to us real good
The general public is not aware that a certain Australian university which has a campus here has little interest in developing the nation’s intellectual capital. Over the last year, it’s [...]

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Education cities, knowledge villages, schoolhouses, education hubs, and hotspots: emerging metaphors for global higher ed

Introduction
One of the rationales for the establishment of the GlobalHigherEd blog last September was to highlight and then archive information (e.g., see ‘Foreign university campuses and linkage schemes‘) about the construction of new globalizing knowledge spaces, especially when multiple institutions (and often firms) from different countries are brought together within one space. These may take [...]

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‘Branding’ global higher education services in the Netherlands

Governments are increasingly turning to ‘branding’ their higher education sector in order to promote them as globally competitive knowledge services sectors, and to secure a competitive advantage on the basis of imagined lifestyles, access of cultural experiences, a quality education, and so on. New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia, to name just a few countries, [...]

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Overseas campuses: American views and photographs

The Sunday New York Times published a general overview (‘Universities rush to set up outposts abroad’) today regarding the phenomenon of overseas campuses. This article (the first of a series this week – see the bottom of this entry for links to all of the articles when they have been published) focuses on US [...]

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From Singapore to Saudi Arabia with an eye on Malaysia

One of the interesting aspects of running a blog is seeing what entries generate relatively high hit levels, and what search engines generate links to GlobalHigherEd. One issue that is receiving significant attention is anything written on Malaysia. Interest is clearly being spurred on by problems and policy shifts being debated about with [...]

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Policy for higher education in a changing world: is Malaysia’s higher education policy maturing or just fashionable?

In many developing countries, and Malaysia is no exception, the national government has seen fit to steer higher education policy in a direction that is in the ‘national interest’. This notion of ‘national interest’ is best exemplified by the changing relationship between the state, higher education institutions and the market. We would like to think [...]

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Graphic feed: benchmarking Malaysia for the “knowledge economy”

 
Sources:
Chew, Sarah (2007) ‘Towards world class’, The Star Online, December 9.
World Bank (2007) Malaysia and the Knowledge Economy: Building a World-Class Higher Education System, Washington DC: World Bank.
 

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Global university rankings 2007: interview with Simon Marginson

Editor’s note: The world is awash in discussion and debate about university (and disciplinary) ranking schemes, and what to do about them (e.g.  see our recent entry on this). Malaysia, for example, is grappling with a series of issues related to the outcome of the recent global rankings schemes, partly spurred on by ongoing developments, [...]

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