Globalization and Higher Education Policy Reform

Abstract

Documenting and analyzing higher education policy reform trends is difficult to accomplish for any one country, let alone to accomplish on a global level within the limits of a single chapter. I recognize that higher education trends are context-specific and often are tied to the swinging pendulum of political change. Some trends, however, are so significant that they span political boundaries, permeate diverse cultures, and influence both market-leading and market-laggard higher education institutions (HEIs). In this chapter, I outline a number of global higher education trends in the comparative, international, and development education literature. Several case study examples are provided from multiple geographic regions, including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

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1 Introduction

Documenting higher education policy reform trends is difficult to accomplish for any one country, let alone to accomplish on a global level within the limits of a single chapter. I recognize that higher education trends are context-specific and often are tied to the swinging pendulum of political change. Some trends, however, are so significant that they span political boundaries, permeate diverse cultures, and influence both market-leading and market-laggard higher education institutions (HEIs). In this chapter, I outline a number of global higher education trends in the comparative, international, and development education literature. Several case study examples are provided from multiple geographic regions, including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

2 Organizational Element Shifts

Universities and HEIs are among the oldest organizations on the earth. Traditionally resistant to change, HEIs can take years to begin or finalize a change process. Circumstances that impact one or more of the primary higher education organizational components—strategy, structure, technology, and culture—may take months, years, or decades to accomplish recognizable, let alone sustainable, change. These circumstances may stem from necessary changes within an HEI or from one or more external forces. The primary components of organizations do not operate within a political vacuum but rather must conform to one or more political environments. This is especially the case when it comes to the primary organizational elements of HEIs (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

Four essential higher education institutional com

Strategy is positioned at the apex of the four-component figure because—at least in theory—strategy should lead institutional culture, technology, and structure (Jacob 2009). Most successful higher education administrators recognize the importance of a guiding strategy. Included in this strategy are HEIs’ vision and mission statements, list of core values, strategic plan, and annual operating plans. The political environment has a huge role in the direction of higher education institutional strategy. Higher education strategy traditionally hinges upon the type of HEI. If an HEI is owned and operated by a nongovernmental organization (e.g., for-profit organization or a business, an individual, or a church), then the strategy is largely based upon the sponsoring organization or individuals’ strategy. Government HEIs generally have guiding strategies in alignment with the current political ideology (Zajda 2014a). Strategic reforms are often required to bring HEIs in alignment with the political environment. These reform efforts may be in direct alignment or contrary to sponsoring organizational strategies.

Culture is at the heart of every HEI and is established and perpetuated by a large group of well-established stakeholders. Often newcomers to a HEI have to sift through the formal culture to unearth and discover often several layers of informal culture. Despite continued pressure from internal and external forces—including the omnipresent influence globalization has on any large organization with hundreds to tens of thousands of employees and students—culture is generally the most difficult organizational element to change. It is especially difficult to implement sustained higher education institutional culture change. Regardless of periodic political shifts, academic trends, and technology innovations, institutional culture for most university personnel remains constant.

Congruence of an HEI’s culture with its local and global environment is essential for innovation and adaptation to market needs (Bartell 2003). A strong institutional culture has been likened to a Janusian culture and is considered by Cameron (1984) as an appropriate culture for HEIs in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment. Incoming students from the so-called e-generation demand a curriculum that best meets their interests and market demands when seeking employment after graduation. The global financial crisis has only exacerbated this cultural shift toward an institutional culture that better incorporates student needs and interests. But it is not always an easy or quick adjustment for every faculty member, administrator, and support staff personnel to adjust to or meet these changing needs.

Broken down into two types of technology, this organizational element is essential at every level of higher education reform. Hard technology refers to the state of an HEI’s technological infrastructure, including facility capacity, distance learning abilities, computers, and software. Soft technology relates directly to the quality of an HEI’s human resources, including all faculty, administrators, students, and support staff. Individual and collective knowledge, interpersonal networks, and associations are directly linked to institutional soft technologies. Both hard and soft technologies are integral to the existence and future of HEIs. Hard technology almost always changes at a faster pace than notoriously slow HEIs (Hawkins 2007). Innovation often supersedes political reform efforts but is often closely aligned with market trends and employment demands. With the rapid evolution of hard technologies, graduating students are required to adapt. An eclectic mind-set toward continual skills acquisition and remaining up-to-date with hard technologies is as important for today’s higher education instructors and graduates as any previous certification programs or traditional curricula used to be.

The most effective culture change agents understand the importance of values and norms that exist with each HEI. Sometimes these norms and values have existed for generations. HEIs which can best adapt their institutional culture to align with market demands and student interests are most likely to succeed in this hypercompetitive and resource-limited environment.

Both formal and nonformal organizational structures exist within every HEI. Organizational structures include faculties, schools, departments, centers, and institutes within HEIs. Structures also include the way in which personal and institutional relationships function within these same organizational units (faculty relationships with others in their same department), with other units within the same HEI (e.g., relationships between faculty members and administrators from different schools or different departments), and with external agencies (such as with government and accreditation agencies), HEIs (including partner and competitor HEIs), businesses (including those that hire recent graduates or contribute in one way or another with HEIs), and individuals (e.g., students, parents of students, alumni, sponsors, etc.). Facilities management is an often overlooked and underfunded organizational structure area that works behind the scenes at all HEIs. Too often sponsoring agencies fail to recognize the importance a well-administered and operating facilities management team can play in student and personnel satisfaction, beautification of campuses, planning for capital expansions and mergers, and maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Formal higher education structures include the way in which people and organizational units associated with HEIs are organized and how these individuals and units are theoretically supposed to function. Nonformal structures include the way in which personal and institutional relationships may actually function that differs in one or more ways from the formal structure. For instance, a faculty member in one department may hold much closer personal networks and relationships with colleagues from another department or school than he/she does in his/her own department. The formal higher educational structure does not necessarily reflect reality.

Global influences have helped change both formal and nonformal higher education institutional structures (Zajda 2014b). With the rapid increase in technology communication in recent years—the modes, manners, and speed in which we can communicate with others within our HEIs and across the globe have forever changed—there is an increasing trend to branch out of traditional formal communication and reporting structures. The global financial crisis in recent years has implanted an indelible footprint on HEIs. Among the higher education organizational structure shifts resulting from this global financial crisis include greater competition for already diminished financial resources and demands for greater outputs from already limited human resource capacity.

3 Innovation in Higher Education

Innovation depends on so many factors, but the political environment is among the greatest influences that enables or prevents innovation in higher education. Figure 2 provides an overview of the factors necessary to cultivate innovation at the higher education level.

Fig. 2

Political environments that lead to innovation in higher education

The figure is based upon the overall framework introduced by Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan (1979), with a subjective-objective x-axis and a regulation-change y-axis. Ethics, core values, and human rights are essential elements in both preventive and enabling political environments and should not be compromised regardless of the innovative approach advocated by governments, HEI administrators, faculty members, students, and all others within and who have an influence upon higher education at all levels. Ethics include establishing institutional review boards (IRBs) that ensure all research activities are conducted in accordance to international human rights related to research as outlined in the Nuremberg Code (1948), Declaration of Helsinki (1964), ¹ and the Belmont Report (1979). Academic freedom differs depending on the country and even within many country contexts. Some governments curtail academic freedoms for various reasons that prevent higher education faculty members and students from researching and publishing about politically sensitive or controversial topics, even if their research and publications adhere to the strictest scientific standards and protocols. In this regard academic freedom can be highly regulated or at the center of radical changes in virtually every field of academic study. Academic freedom is widely recognized as a key ingredient to foster innovation in higher education.

In accordance with the four key components of HEIs, strategy leads innovation in higher education. Higher education institutional strategies can range from a top-down to a bottom-up focus. Generally speaking, the more individual faculty members are able to set their own research agendas, the more they are able to build their own innovation capacity. In an ideal HEI scenario, the university-wide strategy will give latitude for individuals to excel in their individual strategic foci while at the same time enabling individuals to meet the university-wide mission, vision, and core values. Too often, top-level higher education administrators prevent fostering and enabling environment that fosters this type of innovation. Governments that interfere too much with higher education institutional strategies often inadvertently prevent innovation because of too much strategic regulation.

It is essential for governments to work with the higher education subsector by building the foundational information technology (IT) infrastructure necessary to conduct optimal research, communications, and Internet-based activities. This infrastructure capacity is required for students and faculty members to make IT a centerpiece of their research and training experiences. It is a crucial foundational cornerstone of innovation in higher education and often is linked to carefully planned IT infrastructure that includes government regulations and linkages to the private sector.

Student entrance examinations at the undergraduate level allow the top research universities in the world to be highly selective. Too often, however, required higher education entrance examinations only widen the access and equity gap between those who have the ability to pay for their higher education degree/s and those who do not have this ability. The student entrance examination requirement is a social justice issue that leaves many ethnic minority and low socioeconomic status students at a disadvantage compared to others. Affirmative action policies help to level the access to higher education playing field, but more can and should be done by governments to help the most disadvantaged student groups gain greater access to higher education opportunities.

Higher education is regulated by languages. Computer operating systems are written in standard programming codes (or computer languages) that are understood by computer programmers and software design engineers, who speak many different languages. IT uses a universal or globalized language that maintains high regulations and is easily taught to higher education students. Similarly, a handful of spoken languages are recognized as universal or global higher languages of business (English and Chinese) and regional influence (French, Spanish, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, and Swahili). The dominance of English as the global language of business is astounding; Chinese—with the sheer number of native Chinese speakers and the consistently burgeoning national economy China has had over the past 15 years—is also a spoken language of growing importance in business. Regional languages are important for political, cultural, and historical reasons and often influence innovation efforts at the higher education level throughout many regions of the earth.

Curriculum needs differ depending on the subject matter. Because education is a learning process, the curriculum is under the constant need of change as well. The bureaucratic nature of HEIs leads to a rigid curriculum and often prevents necessary changes based on new scientific research, theory evolution, and alternative and optimal mediums of instruction. Professors who have taught a course for 20 years are often reluctant to spend the time needed to update reading materials and ensure the course materials are current with industry standards and practice. The most effective higher education curricula are those which link theory and practice. This linking process is best done by building a series of curricular bridges between theory and practice that include keeping course materials up-to-date and relevant.

An enabling political environment helps HEIs establish strategic partnerships with businesses, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and other HEIs. These partnerships are essential in a world that continues to globalize and where the internationalization of higher education is becoming standard operational practice rather than an afterthought. Flexibility to reach out to local communities and overseas stakeholders helps HEIs further strengthen existing partnerships and establish nontraditional partnerships that will help them better adapt to and meet the dynamic changes of higher education demands of the future.

As centers of knowledge production, reproduction, and innovation, HEIs are often defined by their research and development (R&D) capacity. Funding is an essential component of most research initiatives. Government- and/or private-sponsored R&D in higher education are examples of effective public-private partnerships in an enabling environment. Research is at the heart of higher education. Industry advisory councils (IACs) should be established within each faculty, school, or college within an HEI to help establish public-private partnerships with key stakeholders in industry in both the public and private sectors.

An IAC should consist of representatives of current and emerging employers in a given country, who will be given an active role in providing feedback to the administrators and faculty members on the curriculum. IAC members should be broadly representative of local industry and should include participation from both government and private sectors. Recruiting private sector representatives to join an IAC is often challenging in an environment with a limited or nonexistent tradition of cooperation between academia and industry. IACs can assist HEIs by providing advice and counsel to senior administrators; strengthen relations with business leaders and stakeholders; promote the strategic mission, vision, and goals of HEIs; and assist in providing access to public and private resources.

Internships are reciprocal and beneficial to HEIs, students, and employers. Internship opportunities for students help bridge the theory and practice gap by providing current higher education students with firsthand experience in their future field of employment. Employers are able to witness the amount of preparation their interns have when starting an internship and from this can provide feedback to higher education administrators on areas that they might strengthen their curriculum. Internships often link faculty members with professionals in the field who are at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies and research opportunities.

In the wake of the global financial crisis—where so many governments worldwide have been forced to limit or reduce government funding for higher education—alternative sources of revenue generation are vital. Student tuition can only be increased so much before public outcry and political opposition becomes too strong. Endowments are a key strategy of many higher education administrators in their efforts to fund increasing research and operating costs. Interest generated from large donations from individuals, foundations, and corporations can help offset increases in costs of living and inflation. While endowments provide optimal financial protection, the periodic ebbs and flows of a global market economy remind us of the volatility of this financial reliance model.

It is important to note that not all government involvement regulation of the higher education subsector is deemed negative nor are all of the higher education regulation factors listed in Fig. 2 entirely negative (both at the subjective and objective ends of the x-axis spectrum), and in some instances greater regulation can encourage greater innovation. If left unchecked, some factors listed in the enabling environment hemisphere can lead to a higher education system that supports an inequitable neoliberal agenda.

4 Higher Education Autonomy

Autonomy is where an organization has achieved a state of independence, self-reliance, and sustainable self-governance. An autonomous HEI is an independent and self-reliant institution that is free to establish its own policies, guidelines, curriculum, funding streams, and governance. The goal to achieve greater autonomy is a global trend for HEIs. Many governments are struggling to deal with the task of transitioning toward greater autonomy among higher education institutions that have for decades been highly regulated. The shift toward greater autonomy rarely occurs overnight; most successful autonomy changes take into account the four higher education institutional components as depicted in Fig. 1.

An important part of higher education autonomy is the notion of academic freedom. Freedom of expression—both in scholarly writing and in public discourse—is a foundation goal of higher education autonomy. Varying levels of academic freedom exist along an autonomous spectrum, with some HEIs highly centralized compared to others (see the y-axis of regulation in Fig. 2). On one side of this spectrum, there is little or no academic freedom and on the other side complete freedom. Great strides have been made in recent decades on a global scale, but freedom of expression remains an autonomy stumbling block for many students, faculty members, and administrators.

Government policy makers and higher education leaders supporting limited academic freedom fear that relinquishing control of what is published and permissible in academic and public discourse will ultimately lead toward a potential overthrow of government ideology (Hamilton 1995; Olson 2009). In such an environment, academic excellence is rarely achievable. Innovative thought, research, and paradigmatic shifts are restricted often in parallel with the amount of academic freedom restrictions. Some governments go to great lengths to curtail information flow via the Internet and other media outlets. But the very dynamics associated with rapidly changing technologies and the various facets of globalization prevent governments from achieving an absolute stop to academic freedom of expression.

There are too many circumstances and intervening variables involved in the global higher education labyrinth of networks. This labyrinth includes networks from within and without each HEI that prevent even a great wall from successfully keeping all marauding information out of reach. The global market economy only accentuates these porous borders (Zajda 2005, 2010).

5 Governance Reforms in Higher Education

Issues of governance are at the forefront of many current higher education reforms. Multilateral development agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (and other regional banks), International Association of Universities (IAU), and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) include governance as a primary focus of many of their higher education programs. Often multilateral higher education-funded initiatives are linked to the central incorporation of governance in the national policy framework (see, for instance, the World Bank-funded Second Higher Education Project in Vietnam and its seminal book Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise).

Leadership is often associated with governance and rightfully so as HEIs provide graduates who will become the future leaders at all levels of countries in every major social sector and of businesses in private and public sectors. Presenters at the recent Higher Education Reform Workshop covered four overarching themes of higher education governance: institutional and social reform; tighter fiscal constraints and increased accountability (especially in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and recovery period); identification and establishment of good governance principles; and quality assurance as a major component of governance in higher education (Jacob and Slowely 2010).

The term higher education governance implies that there are practices or principles of higher education good governance. Dealing with issues related to leadership, strategy, professional development, community involvement and outreach, and corruption in one degree or another has been and continues to be a challenge for higher education leaders and policy makers across the globe. Government agencies are increasingly supportive of educational reforms that include an emphasis on good governance practices at all levels. In the wake of the Enron scandal in the United States and the financial crisis that rocked global markets and destabilized traditional national financial structures worldwide in 2008 and for many years afterwards, professional schools have increasingly emphasized the importance of governance in higher education training. Courses emerged with titles like Ethics and Values; Ethics and Management; Media Ethics, Law, and Responsibility; Ethics and International Affairs; and Leadership and Corporate Accountability.

Four principles of higher education good governance deserve attention in this chapter: coordination, information flow, transparency, and accountability. Each of these elements is essential to building a viable HEI. The combination of all four elements produces a model HEI in which good governance synergy can flourish into sustainable quality improvement. The principles of good governance should be embedded in higher education institutional strategic plans and operational plans. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis or specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) analysis can help identify specific areas HEIs need to strengthen in order to be more effective. Failure to support and maintain good governance efforts in a HEI can lead to detrimental results. Administrators who elect to ignore these four principles of good governance will do so at their own peril.

5.1 Coordination

Higher education good governance starts with coordination. Nowhere is coordination needed more than by higher education administrators and policy makers. The principle of coordination is defined as leadership by example, necessity, and context. In order to be effective, coordination must be first understood (through appropriate information flow mediums), and it must be reciprocal. Effective coordination includes ensuring that diverse and multiple perspectives are included in the coordination process. Where democratic participation is essential in many areas of higher education coordination, other circumstances require alternative coordination leadership styles. The roles of higher education legislative bodies (i.e., university senate and other elected and leadership-appointed committees) are essential coordinating mechanisms within HEIs to establish ownership, stakeholder buy-in, and sustainable change. Boards of directors are important decision-making and coordinating groups that can have long-lasting influence on higher education reforms.

No single coordination model is appropriate for every context. Coordination protocols that work well for the Marriott School at Brigham Young University may not necessarily work for Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management. Coordination is best implemented if it is encouraged at the top. Some instances require different leadership styles. For instance, emergency situations at a university require different coordination efforts than nonemergency, day-to-day operations. How an HEI responds to a bomb threat or other emergencies in a specific building on campus will undoubtedly be different from coordination of the delivery of an online executive management program. Both situations require exceptional coordination models to be effective.

5.2 Information Flow

Higher education institutional strategy, culture, technology, and structure are most successful when they are understood by all stakeholders and affiliates of the HEI. This requires efficient and accurate dissemination of information. It includes ensuring that feedback loops are in place so that administrators can learn from the rest of their organization in a true learning organization fashion.

If students are to buy in and have ownership for higher education policies and procedures at their respective HEIs, they need to first understand the policies and procedures. This same principle applies to faculty members, administrators, and staff members who need to be informed about their institutional requirements in order to avoid conflict of interest, legal pitfalls, and other requirements unique to HEIs.

HEIs which have mastered the principle of information flow know how to protect, store, and disseminate this information. The most successful HEIs do not always have the most information available all of the time. In fact, once information is obtained, it is as important how the information is stored or disseminated as it is in obtaining the information in the first place. This includes meeting federal guidelines for archiving personal information on students, higher education personnel, donors, and other stakeholders. It also means that responsible administrators ensure that information submitted to their HEI is accurate, including such items as transcripts, test scores, and diplomas of student applicants; degree requirements and publication verifications of faculty members; and background checks on personnel, who are hired on part- and full-time bases.

If used appropriately, information flow can also help higher education administrators get a message out to all key stakeholders as well as the public. This includes helping to dispel inappropriate gossip or rumors before they get out of hand or countering an inaccurate media report about your HEI by publishing a press release or news conference on the controversial topic or issue. Successful brand-name recognition comes from mastering the principle of information flow.

HEIs can do better in disseminating positive information about themselves for marketing and professional exposure purposes. The silo syndrome so pervasive in many HEIs—where faculty members from the same department seldom if ever talk to one another, let alone attempt to understand what others in their department are doing with their respective research, interests, and outreach initiatives—is a major obstacle for many departments and HEIs.

Better use of information technology (including websites, blogs, and the media) is essential in mastering the principle of information flow within an HEI. Internet-based videoconference and other communication mediums can help break distance and culture barriers and maximize the use of already limited resources. But IT has its limits too, so established policies that are in alignment with government policies (i.e., Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [HIPAA] and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act [FERPA] in the United States, the Privacy Law in Australia, and the Data Protection Act in the United Kingdom) are an essential component in any higher education information flow initiative. Learning how to harness the latent IT information flow potential is an essential strategy for achieving good governance.

5.3 Transparency

The third key principle of higher education good governance is transparency. Involvement and inclusion are important not only for effective coordination and information flow efforts but also to ensure people are provided with facts and knowledge of higher education decisions and operations. The need for greater transparency in higher education finances has only been exacerbated by the recent and ongoing global financial crisis. Fiduciary responsibilities are paramount in meeting seemingly endless requirements of government and private sponsors, grant agencies, and local community commitments.

Effective higher education administrators understand the importance of transparency in virtually all areas of higher education governance. When it is possible, transparent leaders inform others of why certain decisions were made. Sometimes decision making contains sensitive privileged information that cannot be disseminated for one reason or another. Nothing is more frustrating for students than to not know why her tuition continues to climb on an annual basis while funds seem increasingly tight. Where information is unavailable—or even worse misunderstood—dissonance, contention, and ignorance prevail. Understanding is nearly impossible to achieve in a nontransparent higher education environment. And it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a higher education change effort to succeed where it is not understood.

5.4 Accountability

If higher education good governance starts with coordination and is operationalized through information flow and transparency, then accountability is the central principle that provides an anchor to the other three. Without accountability the other three principles are shallow with no solid foundation to build upon. Being accountable is being an effective leader. It includes the essential leadership characteristics of being ethical, honest, and transparent. Responsibility is an underpinning of accountability, and it should guide all decisions and actions of higher education leaders.

Accountability also means the ability to stand by one’s decisions. Higher education leaders are human and therefore prone to make mistakes. The best higher education leaders, however, learn from their mistakes. When mistakes happen, the principle of accountability leads individuals to recognize their mistakes, make restitution for their mistakes when appropriate and when possible, and strive to not make the same mistake again. Wise higher education leaders not only learn from their own mistakes but also learn from others.

Ethical leadership is a growing field in management studies and is an increasingly important characteristic employers look for when interviewing recent higher education graduates (Cavaliere et al. 2010; Liveris 2011). In the post-Enron world we live in, the foundational accountability characteristic of ethical leadership will continue to be a key characteristic for higher education leaders and graduates.

6 Quality Assurance

Global standards in higher education require HEIs to adjust and meet these standards or in many cases be left behind. Quality assurance and quality improvement initiatives are at the forefront of government and profession-based attempts to provide national and global standards of excellence. Most countries have established national policies regulating the training of teachers, medical doctors, and lawyers. In some instances accreditation of these and other professions is maintained by government agencies. In other contexts independent accreditation agencies provide this role. In some instances both government and independent accreditation is sought after, especially for HEIs desiring to achieve world-class status (Bigalke and Neubauer 2009; Zajda 2014b).

Striving for excellence is not always an easy task and often takes a significant investment in limited resources (time, money, and leadership at all levels). Quality assurance in higher education stems from a rich literature of quality assurance programs that originated in business and medical fields (Doherty 2008). The term quality is context dependent and often political by nature. Sustainable higher education quality assurance initiatives should take into account the four principles of good governance and work within the framework of the four essential higher education institutional components outlined in Fig. 1.

Some of the most fundamental quality assurance practices include accreditation; benchmarking; networking; conducting periodic self- and external studies of departments, schools/faculties, and HEIs; total quality management; and force field analysis. The most successful higher education administrators are those who recognize that quality assurance is a continual improvement and learning process. It involves the skill of reflection or what I call reflective quality assurance by learning from past successes and mistakes. This reflection process must be made a priority by higher education administrators at all levels. The excuse that “I am too busy” or “I don’t have time to devote to reflection and feedback following each major initiative” only prevents leaders from learning by doing. Reflective quality assurance practices activate a synergy effect where individuals can learn so much more from their past by taking careful account of what they learned and from the collective feedback they received from participants in major and minor change efforts.

Governments with a long-term objective to join the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) must meet the requirements outlined by the European Union, which is based on the Bologna Magna Charta. ² This is no easy task and often takes substantial curricular adjustments for countries which have expressed a desire to join the European Union, including Kosovo, Romania, and Turkey. Meeting the EU higher education standards requires substantial quality assurance procedures and practices to be put in place and to ensure that all of the Bologna Process and the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) Programme standards are met for student and faculty mobility, teaching, research, articulation of coursework through the European Credit and Accumulation System (ECTS), and recognition by other EU member states of student degrees upon graduation.

National and global rankings are becoming increasingly political and are often perceived to be linked to higher education institutional quality, regardless of the methods employed by the ranking institution (Deem et al. 2009; Portnoi et al. 2010). Brand-name recognition tends to be linked in many ways to global rankings, especially for the top-tiered research universities. Among the most influential ranking systems, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, and QS Rankings by QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. often influence senior administration decisions on what quality improvement foci should be made as part of strategic planning and quality assurance initiatives in the future.

7 Conclusion

Higher education reforms are often linked to global markets and technology changes. Global, regional, national, and local factors are all relevant in shaping the political reform efforts in higher education. In this chapter I have identified and discussed several leading higher education policy reform trends at the global level. Each policy reform must take into account certain institutional elements common among all HEIs—strategy, culture, technology, and structure. Strategy is at the forefront of most significant and sustained higher education changes. Innovation trends in higher education—where HEIs are traditionally viewed as centers of innovation, R&D, and technology transfer—are outlined in Fig. 2 and emphasize the need for a greater balance between government regulation and enabling environments that foster creativity and innovation. At no time should matters of human rights, research ethics, and core values be compromised regardless of the innovative outcome.

Academic freedom is central to many higher education policy reform efforts, and results of academic freedom can be viewed along a spectrum of options depending on the national and institutional contexts. Quality assurance is at the forefront of most policy reform efforts, among which include the four principles of good governance: coordination, information flow, transparency, and accountability.

Many of the trends identified and described in this chapter highlight the need for current and future higher education leaders to understand the global nature of higher education. Higher education change initiatives in one country no longer operate in a vacuum and have an influence, to some degree or another, on the global higher education landscape. Similarly policy reform efforts that prevent an equitable balance of greater collaboration, networking, social justice, quality assurance, and innovation in higher education will have negative lasting consequences on international higher education. It is my desire that the suggestions raised in this chapter will help bridge these negative potential consequences by encouraging higher education leaders to carefully consider the international impact of existing higher education policies and especially when forging new ones.

Notes

• 1. The Helsinki Declaration was subsequently revised in 1975, 1983, 1989, and 1996.

• 2. The various European Union agreements in recent years include the Lisbon Convention on Recognition of Degree Certificate Qualifications in the European Region, Lisbon, 1997; EHAE, Bologna, 1999; Salzburg Declaration on the Social and Civil Responsibilities of Universities, Salzburg, 2001; and Convention on HEIs, Salamanca, 2001.