The World View

EducationUSA advisors cannot risk being tainted as representatives of any particular interest(s). Their integrity rests on their reputation for being an accurate, impartial, objective source of information about access to US higher education. The idea that in some way they should be collaborating with, endorsing, or recommending agents is preposterous.

Higher education, once a whole division of UNESCO-Paris’ education sector, has gradually shrunk to a small section that, at this writing, comprises but a few people. This is arguably a major setback for an organization such as UNESCO, which provided the venue for international HE milestones such as the 1998 and 2009 World Conferences, and a seminal, richly funded international higher education research partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. That said, stripping la maison back to the studs, and taking a moderately bullish view of the future, could also reposition UNESCO-Paris for some significant strategic opportunities.

The rush to enroll students to the Pan-African University (PAU) is well underway. The University is racing to disseminate the information on the program; to receive, screen, and select applications; to invite applicants to interview; and to guide and enroll/place students in the designated hubs. On the other hand, the faculty are also to be solicited, recruited and hired; the programs accredited; the academic infrastructure established; the governance structure put in place. All these in three months by September 2012! The Pan-African University is far from ready to enroll students by September 2012. Considerable academic, logistical, technical, legal, management, governance, and public relation activities should be undertaken before rushing students to the system. Or else, the reputation of the program may be severely damaged at the outset.

Indonesia was one of the first to give significant autonomy to a select group of its universities. In the first years of post-1998 democracy, which included significant moves to decentralise education, Indonesia introduced a significant scheme to reform its higher education system. Of more than 3,000 higher education institutions across the archipelago, four were selected for a pilot programme that gave greater academic freedom and financial autonomy. So why has the MoEC now proposed to withdraw the autonomy granted to chosen universities little more than a decade ago, with the view that, if the pilot programme was successful, it might then be extended to more and more institutions?

Executives in the Argentina's leading technology companies underscore the lack of engineers, particularly in some specialties such as electrical, electronics, civil, chemical, petroleum and mining engineering and the computer sciences. Employers say that it can take up to three months to fill a position and that a strong competition exists to attract the best graduates. Moreover, as a consequence of the lack of professionals in fields such as computing, employers hire advanced students. One negative side-effect of this practice is an increased dropout rate during the last two years of the undergraduate degree courses.

While much is still in transition, the fall of Muammar Qadhafi offers great opportunity for higher education and intellectual freedom in Libya. For Libya, a country of only six million people, transitioning and modernizing its entire higher education system cannot be done alone; it will take meaningful engagement with the international community.

Do foreign institutions complement or compete with existing public institutions in the host country, or even weaken the latter because of its ability to attract better qualified staff and students? Does it create a greater social divide between the rich who can pay high fees and the poor who cannot? Is the operation a purely commercial one, with little regard to quality or accreditation, especially as in many instances the host country may not have a quality assurance agency? Does it pose a threat to the cultural values of the host county? All these are issues of global responsibility that challenge higher education institutions in their delivery of cross-border education.

Botswana has accepted tertiary education as a critical driver in creating an “educated and informed nation” for economic diversification and global competitiveness. The government has made a strategic choice to replace diamonds and minerals with human skills as a more reliable and sustainable economic and social development strategy.