Changing Relationships Between Higher Education And The State

Examining the patterns of change in relationships between higher education systems and the state throughout Europe, the contributors explore the main theoretical and policy options available to policymakers, and the issues they raise for governments, institutions and academics. The book covers the following themes: - the funding of higher education - the impacts of quality assurance and evaluation - higher education and graduate employment - managing diversity in higher education systems - the impact of change on the internal structures of higher education institutions. Changing Relationships Between Higher Education and the State provides both descriptive models of the relationships and authoritative and incisive analysis of the politics, economics and organisation of advanced learning in Europe today.

In most countries in the world, school education is the business of the state. Even if forms and functions differ, the imparting of elementary knowledge is universally regarded as a public function. Yet this is neither self-evident nor self-explanatory. The degree of involvement of state agencies in the supervision, financing and organization of the school system sometimes varies so much that the usual assumption of a common understanding of ‘the state’ seems to be an illusion. Making international comparisons and focusing strongly on the historical conditions of the current form of state education, this volume paints a nuanced picture of how the relationship between ‘education’ and ‘state’ has been and is conceptualized. Insights into this relationship are gained by considering and analysing both specific processes such as financing and bureaucracy; and conceptual ideas, for example community, authority, and political utopias. The book presents comparative studies and analyses of regional and local conditions, arguing that the history of each country or region is critical to educational success, and the relationship between the education and the state must be reconsidered, both internationally and historically, in order to be of actual conceptual value. Education and the State presents a broad variety of approaches and examples that provide a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between education and the state. It will be of key value to academics and researchers in the fields of the history of education, the politics of education, and educational administration.

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The ‘state’ itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people - bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader - and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students (themselves an increasingly diverse community), staff, families, employers and businesses (local, regional and multinational). This volume explores the rapidly evolving relationship between the state and higher education in Europe and in East Asia through a combination of empirical studies, secondary analyses and personal observations from many of the leading scholars in the field of comparative education studies. A scenario emerges where the state seeks to encourage stakeholder influence, while, at the same time, acts to moderate such influence in order to ensure that wider objectives are satisfied; markets are controlled, elements of demand and supply are manipulated and funding is targeted to meet particular policy priorities through a model that is described as ‘controlled stakeholder steering’ which offers a new explanation of the relationship between the state and higher education, certainly in the countries addressed in this book.

In most countries in the world, school education is the business of the state. Even if forms and functions differ, the imparting of elementary knowledge is universally regarded as a public function. Yet this is neither self-evident nor self-explanatory. The degree of involvement of state agencies in the supervision, financing and organization of the school system sometimes varies so much that the usual assumption of a common understanding of ‘the state’ seems to be an illusion. Making international comparisons and focusing strongly on the historical conditions of the current form of state education, this volume paints a nuanced picture of how the relationship between ‘education’ and ‘state’ has been and is conceptualized. Insights into this relationship are gained by considering and analysing both specific processes such as financing and bureaucracy; and conceptual ideas, for example community, authority, and political utopias. The book presents comparative studies and analyses of regional and local conditions, arguing that the history of each country or region is critical to educational success, and the relationship between the education and the state must be reconsidered, both internationally and historically, in order to be of actual conceptual value. Education and the State presents a broad variety of approaches and examples that provide a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between education and the state. It will be of key value to academics and researchers in the fields of the history of education, the politics of education, and educational administration.

This text addresses the reforms in the financial and administrative structure of higher education, government intervention in introducing new managerial techniques and quality audits, and the implications of these changes for both academics and administrators. It is one of a series of four volumes which look at the educational dilemmas facing governments, professional educators and practising administrators in the current climate in education. The issues are addressed from international and comparative perspectives.

The book studies transformations of European universities in the context of globalization and Europeanization, the questioning of the foundations of the «Golden Age» of the Keynesian welfare state, public sector reforms, demographic changes, the massification and diversification of higher education, and the emergence of knowledge economies. Such phenomena as academic entrepreneurialism and diversified channels of knowledge exchange in European universities are linked to transformations of the state and changes in public sector services. The first, contextual part of the book studies the changing state/university relationships, and the second, empirically-informed part draws from several recent large-scale comparative European research projects.

The latest volume in the Routledge International Studies in Higher Education Series, Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education: The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce, reviews the implications of new forms of academic and professional identity, which have emerged largely as a result of a broadening disciplinary base and increasing permeability between higher education and external environments. The volume addresses the challenges faced by those responsible for the wellbeing of academic faculty and professional staff. International perspectives examine current practice against a background of rapidly changing policy contexts, focusing on the critical ‘people dimension’ of enhancing academic and professional activity, while also addressing national, socio-economic, and community agendas. Consideration is given to mainstream academic faculty and professional staff, researchers, library and information professionals, people with an interest in teaching and learning, and those involved in individual projects or institutional development. The following provide the key themes of Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education: The Challenges of a Diversifying Workforce: The implications of diversifying academic and professional identities for the functioning of higher education institutions and sectors. The pace and nature of such change in different institutional systems and environments. The challenges to institutional systems and structures from emergent identities and possible tensions, and how these might be addressed. The implications of blurring academic and professional identities, with a shift towards mixed or ‘blended’ roles, for individual careers and institutional development.

The marketisation of higher education is a growing worldwide trend. Increasingly, market steering is replacing or supplementing government steering. Tuition fees are being introduced or increased, usually at the expense of state grants to institutions. Grants for student support are being replaced or supplemented by loans. Commercial rankings and league tables to guide student choice are proliferating with institutions devoting increasing resources to marketing, branding and customer service. The UK is a particularly good example of this, not only because it is a country where marketisation has arguably proceeded furthest, but also because of the variations that exist as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland increasingly diverge from England. In Everything for Sale, Roger Brown argues that the competitive regime that is now applicable to our Higher Education system was the logical, and possibly inevitable, outcome of a process that began with the introduction of full cost fees for overseas students in 1980. Through chapters including: Markets and Non-Markets The Institutional Pattern of Provision The Funding of Research The Funding of Student Education Quality Assurance The Impact of Marketisation: Efficiency, diversity and equity; He shows how the evaluation and funding of research, the funding of student education, quality assurance, and the structure of the system have increasingly been organised on market or quasi-market lines. As well as helping to explain the evolution of British higher education over the past thirty years, the book contains some important messages about the consequences of introducing or extending market competition in universities’ core activities of teaching and research. This timely and comprehensive book is essential reading for all academics at University level and anyone involved in Higher Education policy.