Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings (2008): a niche industry in formation?

The new Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings (2008) rankings were just released, and the copyright regulations deepen and extend, push and pull, enable and constrain.  Global rankings: a niche industry in formation?

Kris Olds

Higher education policy-making, stake-holder democracy and the economics of attention

In August (2008), the Beerkens’ Blog carried an interesting report on a new format being mobilized by both the Australian and UK governments respectively; to enable the public to have a say on the future of higher education. The format – a blog – is a new departure for government departments, and it clearly is a promising tool for governments in gathering together new ideas, promoting debates, and opening up spaces for stakeholders to offer perspectives.

However, though the nature of their projects were similar—to generate a Higher Education Debate about where higher education should go over the next decade or so—Beerkens’ comparison suggests that each of the two departments involved, the Australian’ Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEST) and the UK’ Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), were experiencing rather different levels of engagement with their publics. 

The question of why this should be the case, when the topic is important and widely debated, bears reflecting upon more closely. Is it because DEST commissioned an initial paper from an Expert Panel, with the result that the wider Australian public had something to get their teeth into compared with DIUS’s invitation to articulate a perspective? Or, was it a result of the fact that DIUS, a relatively new Department constructed when Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair as UK Prime Minister in 2007, has yet to be picked up on wider public’s radar? Is the Australian public more used to having their say using new web-based interactive tools, and therefore not phased when invited to do so? Or is the wider public in UK less willing to participate in a public airing of views?

Put another way, how and why is it that the wider Australian public pay attention to, and act upon, an invitation to participate, when their UK counterparts do not?

Whatever the reasons for the differences, or the merits of each of the initiatives, what is clear is that the deployment of new technologies, in themselves, do not necessarily generate participation by a wider polity. Participation is the outcome of the various players being aware of, and prioritizing, interactions of this kind. In other words, new technologies operate within an ‘economy of attention’ – a point well made by Richard Latham in his influential 2006 book The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information.

Now the essential point Latham is making is that we live in an information economy, and information is not in short supply. In fact, argues Latham, we are “drowning in it”. What is in short supply is ‘attention’! To grab attention, we need stylistic devices and strategies so that what Latham calls ‘stuff’—like debating the future directions for higher education—moves from the periphery to the center of attention.

This raises the interesting question of what stylistic devices and strategies government departments might use to ensure that they grab attention. In our GlobalHigherEd experience, simply ‘being a blog’ out there in the sea of information is not sufficient to generate attention? Moving ‘stuff’ from the periphery to the center takes thought and time; of how to catch and perhaps ride currents of interest. It means paying attention to the unique economy of attention and attempting to direct it in some way. Tags, categories, inter-textual links, networks and search engines all make up this complex terrain of attention getting/attention receiving. In this way, GlobalHigherEd (as well as the Beerkens’ Blog) has managed to contribute, to a degree, to structuring the field of attention – at least in the field of global higher education debates. This point is exemplified in Eric’s pump priming entry, loaded up today, regarding the Times Higher Education World University Ranking of 2008 that will be released tomorrow, and covered in the Beerkens’ Blog amongst several other outlets.

So, to all of you out there who really do have something to add to DIUS’s invitation to participate in wider public debates about the future of Higher Education in the UK on themes that range from part-time studies, demographic challenges, teaching and student experiences, internationalizing higher education, intellectual property, research careers and institutional performance – the soapbox is yours! DIUS really does want to hear from you.

References

Latham, R. (2006) The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Susan Robertson

Sweetening Canada’s offer in the race for global talent: a new immigration class eases the route to permanent residency for foreign students

International students are the focus of front-page news in Canada this week with the launch of the long-anticipated new immigration scheme, the “Canadian Experience Class.”

Intended to fast-track foreign students and skilled workers currently in Canada from temporary migrant to permanent resident status (and potentially to Canadian citizens), this new program continues a series of recent changes implemented by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) seeking to enhance Canada’s economic competitiveness through the attraction and retention of highly educated migrants. Details of the program are outlined here in the Canada Gazette.

Like the existing immigration points-based system, this new program evaluates applicants on a range of criteria. However unlike the traditional economic class route, this stream makes work or study experience in Canada a key factor in gaining admission. Now international students, along with workers in select skilled occupations and professions that have studied or worked for two years in Canada, may apply to become landed immigrants from within the country, no longer needing to leave to join the (backlogged) overseas queues after their studies.

As quoted in the Globe and Mail (Aug 13, 2008: a1), a CIC spokeswoman explained the change is part of revamping Canada’s immigration approach to compete with “rival destinations such as Australia and the United Kingdom.” This framing is significant for several reasons.

First, CIC’s language acknowledges a shift in immigration policy logic from one based on broad nation building to one based on keeping pace with other countries competing to gain advantage in their ability to attract migrants for the knowledge economy. As political scientist Ayelet Shachar (2006) has argued, the policy framework of many immigrant-receiving countries is no longer driven primarily to meet domestic needs, but to keep up with the offer on hand from other countries also trying to become the next “IQ magnet” in the ever-spiralling global race for ‘talent’. The rationale is that if international students can become permanent residents immediately after their studies, then this may have the desired effect of increasing the likelihood that many will remain post-graduation and contribute to the Canadian economy, as well as making Canada a more appealing educational destination for young migrants at the outset.

Second, from a national perspective, international student mobility has historically served a multifaceted role as both an element of international political relations (think of programs such as the Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholarships), and as an increasingly lucrative industry.

In recent years, however, many governments have also begun to place greater emphasis on the innovation and labour market potential inherent in mobile students and researchers. Canada’s new scheme – along with the recent announcement that post-graduation work permits for students would be extended to a three-year duration – indicate the heightened interest placed by the Canadian government on the potential longer-term economic contributions that foreign students can make.

So what to make of these developments?

On one hand, they certainly fit with contemporary theories in economic development planning that emphasize the importance of developing a diverse, educated and skilled labour force as a necessary context for sustained economic vitality, and the ability for universities to feed into this process at a local scale. International graduates can make particularly valued contributions to such strategies through their different academic and cultural traditions as well as transnational research and social networks. Advocates of international students will likely also laud this new initiative for enabling those already in Canada who have established ties and made intellectual, economic, and social contributions to remain with greater security, if they so choose.

On the other hand, however, there are several concerns and potential consequences worth considering.

First, this new class does not address – and may further exacerbate – existing problems of excessively long waiting lists for overseas immigration applicants.

Second, and even more disquieting, this new ‘class’ promotes unequal access to the protection and rights attributed to Canadian permanent residents by excluding lower-skilled labourers who also make important contributions to the Canadian economy and society and who comprise the majority of temporary permit holders.  It is important to ask whether Canada wants to advance a system with differential paths to citizenship based largely on the fluctuating economic valuation of certain types of knowledge.

Lastly, it also seems probable that this new fast-track scheme will become an admissions strategy for young migrants able to afford the expense of studying as an international student in Canada. While the financial picture for international students is complex, varying from high tuition fees for most undergraduate studies to receiving scholarships for funded graduate students, the financial accessibility to this potential route to citizenship complicates the already unclear picture wherein international students are desired for their future ambassadorial roles, for their financial contributions to individual institutions, and/or for their potential economic input as desired young researchers and future ‘knowledge workers’.

Time will tell if these various objectives can succeed in co-mingling or if tensions and contradictions in the diverse strategies involving the spheres of higher education, research, immigration, and economic development will emerge.

Reference

Shachar, A. 2006. The race for talent: Highly skilled migrants and competitive immigration regimes. New York University Law Review, 8(April): 148-206.

Kate Geddie

UBV celebrates 5 years of “education revolution”

The Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV) – which refers to itself as the “House of Knowledges” – is celebrating its first five years, as the Bolivarian News Agency ABN reports. According to the report, the UBV is key to the revolutionary commitment of “constructing a Venezuela for all Venezuelans, in which social justice and equality rules”. The democratisation of higher education is envisaged as being achieved through the strategy of municipalisation, which means that the state-funded university is operating in all 335 municipalities, as well as in prisons and factories, to facilitate equal access opportunities.

A related article cites Education Minister, Héctor Navarro, stating the Venezuela has already achieved the Millennium Development Goals with respect to education, as well as Venezuela being one of the countries with the highest participation in higher education relative to its population. UBV’s teaching body is currently participating in an integral programme for the “education of educators”, which is centred around the politico-ethical education of the teacher in the construction of the new subjectivity, radical pedagogy, critical epistemology, and strategic planning. UBV’s director Yadira Córdova is quoted saying:

Making revolution in a university that takes pride in being revolutionary implies constructing the revolutionary subject, a political subject capable of taking up the project of this university as part of the national revolutionary project. As part of the Latin American transformation project, as part of the project of the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the world.

Indeed, there appears to be some reason to share the Venezuelan optimism. The graphs shown here, produced from data obtained from the World Bank and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), confirm that under Chávez, participation at all educational levels has substantially increased (including nursery, not displayed in the graphs).

Source: Produced from Education Trends and Comparisons, at http://go.worldbank.org/JVXVANWYY0 (accessed 20/05/2008).

Source: Produced from Social Indicators and Statistics (BADEINSO). Last accessed 20/05/2008, http://websie.eclac.cl/sisgen/ConsultaIntegrada.asp

Nevertheless, there is reason for concern with respect to justice and equality. While under the Bolivarian government all social strata have gained in access to higher education, the very large gap between the poorer and wealthier sectors remains wider than in the early 1980s. One conclusion, then, that we might draw is that the wealthy, in fact, remain the absolute winners of the past decades.

Thomas Muhr

Video feed: Chambre 124, Cité International Universitaire de Paris (dir. Fabio Brasil, 2006)

Part 1 (7:28 mins)

Part 2 (6:53 mins)

First Latin American ad/venture for ‘for-profit’ globalising university, Apollo Global Inc.

Last week the recently launched Apollo Global Inc., a subsidiary of the Apollo Group and private equity firm The Carlyle Group (specializing in buyouts, venture and growth capital, leveraging finance around the globe), announced that it had agreed to acquire Universidad de Artes, Ciencas y Communication (UNIACC), an accredited, private arts and communications university in Chile, as well as it related entities.

This is the first ad/venture for Apollo Global Inc. since it was created in 2007 – to drive forward global investment in higher education in those countries are seen to have attractive demographics, good levels of economic growth and a regulatory environment that does not inhibit FDI in the education sector. The country region to be given to ‘thumbs up’ by Apollo Global Inc. is Chile.

According to Apollo Global Inc. Chairman, Greg Cappelli:

We have been working diligently to identify opportunities that will create value for Apollo shareholders, and we believe UNIACC, coupled with Chile’s table economic environment, strong student enrollment trends, and openness to foreign investment, is an excellent fit.

What makes Chile a particularly attractive country to invest in, according to Apollo Global Inc., is that growth in the private higher education sector outpaces that of the public sector. This view is shared by industry analysts (see, for example, the excellent Observatory for Higher Education’s report in 2007 on Latin America by Sylvie Didou Aupetit and Lisa Jokivirta), who argue that is the massive growth in student enrolments in higher education systems in Latin America that has promoted the surge in the number and diversification of foreign providers operating in the region since the early 1990s.

In the main, language has been regarded as the main barrier to widening out the range of players in the field, beyond those that reflected old colonial histories – Spain and Portugal. However, it is also evident that the strong commitment to the idea of education as a public good in many Latin American countries has created a less than welcoming environment for foreign investors – particularly for-profit firms.

However that said, the 2008 foreign education landscape in Latin America, and Apollo Global Inc. first venture into Chile suggests that there are significant changes taking place. A range of European universities (aside from Spain), including those from Germany (U of Heidelberg), Italy (U of Bologna), France, Belgium, Canada and the USA have all made major investments in the Latin American region.

On the for-profit front, Apollo Global’s first big investment takes it into a geo-economic and political sphere that has, so far, been dominated by Laureate Education Inc. (previously Sylvan Learning System). Laureate’s Latin American operations are located in Central and South America. It first entered the Latin American market when in 2000 it acquired both the Universidada de las Americas (UDLA) in Chile (established in 1988 ) and one of Mexico’s largest and more prestigious universities founded in 1960, the Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM). Since then Laureate has rapidly advanced its commercial interests in Latin America, acquiring not only more universities in Chile, but developing a presence in a range of other Latin American countries, including in Ecuador (2000), Costa Rica (2003), Peru (2004), and Panama (2004), Honduras (2005) and Brazil (2005).

So why should Apollo Global Inc. acquire UNIACC? For one thing, it is one of the leading arts and communications universities in Latin America. It was also, in 2004, the first Chilean university to teach a fully on-line undergraduate program. Since then, new on-line programs have been added.

The value for Apollo Global Inc. in buying up UNIACC, is to not only to secure the ‘local brand value’ of UNIACC (and hence keeping off the agenda for Apollo Global charges of imperialism and neo-colonialism), but also because UNIACCs recent capability to deliver on-line programs, potentially positions Apollo Global Inc. as a supplier of cross border services within the region.

Let’s see whether Apollo Global also learnt a lesson from one of its parent companies, who were recently charged with aggressive recruiting practices in the US.

Susan Robertson