Page 1
Page 1
Open and Distance Education in Australia, Europe and the Americas : National Perspectives in a Digital Age
This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. It discusses how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of national higher education systems in these countries, and explores the similarities and differences between the ways in which they are organized and structured. It is the first book to make such comparisons and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era with growing use of online education as well as open and distance education.
Open and distance education in Asia, Africa and the Middle East : National perspectives in a digital age
This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: China, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and South Korea. It describes how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of the national higher education systems in these countries. It also explores the similarities and differences between how their open and distance higher education systems are managed and structured. The book compare and draw conclusions about the nature of open and distance education in the context of various national higher education systems. In a digital era characterized by the growing use of online, open and distance education, this book will prove particularly valuable for policy-makers and senior administrators who want to learn about establishing or expanding open and distance education services. In addition, it offers a valuable reference guide for researchers, academics and students interested in understanding the different approaches to open and distance education.
Higher Education Landscape 2030 : A Trend Analysis Based on the AHEAD International Horizon Scanning
The digital transformation clearly highlights the role of universities and institutes of higher education in shaping a higher education system that is more open and provides education to everyone who can benefit from it
Financing public universities : The case of performance funding
"Financing Public Universities" addresses newer practices of resource allocation which tie funding to indicators of performance. The gist of these efforts is to raise the quality of institutional systems. Performance-based budgeting and funding of public universities is part of broader efforts to reform public management, and it is being promoted and implemented by various government agencies around the globe. In particular, European universities with their normally strong governmental ties, or higher education systems molded on European universities, are prime targets of such reforms. Performance funding has made its inroads in attempts to grant university systems managerial autonomy: autonomy was to be granted in exchange for funding modes which are tied to the measurement of performance indicators. Unfortunately, performance-based budgeting or funding measures cannot meet the various expectations: they do not raise the quality of teaching or learning; they do not raise research performance; they take back a great deal of managerial autonomy which is commonly judged to be essential for the well being of higher education institutions, in particular research universities; and they act as automata in place of proper governance and management.
Equity policies in global higher Education : Reducing inequality and increasing participation and attainment
This book discusses and analyses global policies and practices aimed at promoting equity in higher education participation and attainment. Although the massification of higher education systems has facilitated the participation of students from deprived backgrounds, socioeconomic inequalities persist in access to the most prestigious institutions and programmes. Privileged students benefit from a number of advantages in the competition for selective and scarce places: access to information, lower aversion to debt, higher expectations, better previous schooling and higher academic achievement.
Creating the European Area of Higher Education : Voices from the Periphery
This volume brings together a group of higher education researchers across Europe and looks into the implementation of the Bologna Process in the countries often attributed a peripheral status. Although it is also obvious that if the Process has a center, it stands external to higher education systems and universities it concerns. One can possibly find it either in Brussels or across the Atlantic in the United States, internationally perceived as the main competitor to European higher education. In addition to cultural and political issues the European higher education project faces in various countries, the volume pays particular attention to the role of students as well as the changing position of the intellectuals under its impact.
Cost-sharing and Accessibility in Higher Education : A Fairer Deal?
Higher education finances lie at the crossroads in many Western countries. On the one hand, the surging demand of the past three or four decades, driven by a belief in higher education as a principal engine of social and economic advancement, has led to dramatic growth of the higher education systems in these countries. On the other hand, this growth in demand was accompanied by rapidly increasing per-student cost pressures at a time when governments seemed increasingly unable to keep pace with these cost pressures through public revenues. Hence, worldwide, the most common approach to the need for increasing revenue was to use some form or forms of cost sharing, or the shift of some of the higher educational per-student costs from governments and taxpayers to parents and students.
25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries : Reform and Continuity
A result of the first ever study of the transformations of the higher education institutional landscape in fifteen former USSR countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It explores how the single Soviet model that developed across the vast and diverse territory of the Soviet Union over several decades has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, systems that have responded to national and global developments while still bearing some traces of the past. The book is distinctive as it presents a comprehensive analysis of the reforms and transformations in the region in the last 25 years; and it focuses on institutional landscape through the evolution of the institutional types established and developed in Pre-Soviet, Soviet and Post-Soviet time. It also embraces all fifteen countries of the former USSR, and provides a comparative analysis of transformations of institutional landscape across Post-Soviet systems.
