Revolutionizing Global Higher Education Policy

The ‘traditional’ university model has been transformed globally, fueled by disruptive technologies, new learning platforms, increasing fiscal austerity, and the rise of knowledge economies. The Bologna Process, a European initiative intended to streamline higher education standards and qualifications, offers modernized, innovative pathways to learning including shortened degree timetables and a three-cycle system. Now comprised of 48 participating countries, the initiative has had a significant impact across global higher education. This volume examines the issues central to the Process as told from the viewpoints and experiences of stakeholders who have been involved with it at various stages of progression. This volume explores the significant successes and challenges the Bologna Process has faced over the last decade, where it is now, and where it is headed. It presents data on countries and individuals involved with the Process as well as students’ growing connections and concerns about Bologna reforms. It also looks ahead to the Europe 2020 goals and what these may represent to differential policy actors, not only for the group of original signatories, but for those countries newer to the Process.

The ‘traditional’ university model has been transformed globally, fueled by disruptive technologies, new learning platforms, increasing fiscal austerity, and the rise of knowledge economies. The Bologna Process, a European initiative intended to streamline higher education standards and qualifications, offers modernized, innovative pathways to learning including shortened degree timetables and a three-cycle system. Now comprised of 48 participating countries, the initiative has had a significant impact across global higher education. This volume examines the issues central to the Process as told from the viewpoints and experiences of stakeholders who have been involved with it at various stages of progression. This volume explores the significant successes and challenges the Bologna Process has faced over the last decade, where it is now, and where it is headed. It presents data on countries and individuals involved with the Process as well as students’ growing connections and concerns about Bologna reforms. It also looks ahead to the Europe 2020 goals and what these may represent to differential policy actors, not only for the group of original signatories, but for those countries newer to the Process.

Working with Underachieving Students in Higher Education: Fostering Inclusion through Narration and Reflexivity presents an international and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the relationships between narrative devices and reflexivity in higher education. Stemming from a collaborative European research project called INSTALL (Innovative Solutions to Acquire Learning to Learn), it focuses on an innovative model aimed at promoting personal resources and reflective competencies in non-traditional, disadvantaged and underachieving students. The book is divided into three parts, with the first providing an exploration of the key theoretical issues that formed the basis of the theoretical and methodological approaches in the INSTALL Project. The second part presents an innovative narrative methodology and discusses the most significant phases of the training process and of the main products. The third and last part provides a broad discussion of higher education policies and of the need to encourage innovation and reforms to improve the academic inclusion of underachieving students. Chapters in the collection examine interventions in Italy, Romania, Ireland and Spain, using a broad transnational, intercultural and comparative approach, to consider narrative tools using four channels: metaphoric, iconographic, writing, and the body. This book provides theoretical insights and practical methodologies which can be used to enhance quality teaching and innovation, as well as to help adapt to diversity in higher education. It will, therefore, be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of higher education; sociology of education; education policy and politics; cultural and developmental psychology; and narrative research, as well as to those studying counselling, mentoring and coaching

There has been exponential growth in transnational education (TNE) in the last few years as UK universities have looked to expand their markets. Recipient countries have sought short cuts to developing their higher education provision which has proved a lucrative income stream for some universities. But overseas collaborations are not without risk. Recipient countries can be concerned with external influence over curricula, quality being diluted and higher education being infected by neo-imperialism. These concerns are not without foundation. There are risks for providers too. Reputations can be damaged if academic standards are compromised. Conflicts of interest can occur between quality of provision and the pot of gold on offer. Staff can view overseas collaborations as distracting from their research and commitment to home students. Computing is a particularly popular subject for TNE, but critical thinking, analysis, independent learning, and creativity can be compromised. Preventing plagiarism is difficult. Constant changes in technology result in constant curricula revision which causes severe problems for overseas collaborations. This book focuses on TNE in the computing domain. However cross-cultural issues challenge TNE management and administration whatever the subject area. If the ever present tensions are not continuously monitored they can quickly threaten the sustainability of the collaboration. This book identifies many of the threats and some of the solutions. The readership for this book is truly global. Any international development officer in higher education considering an overseas collaboration will benefit from this book. Any academic becoming engaged in, or already involved with a TNE partnership, either as provider or recipient, will gain information and insight into the practice and issues. Researchers in TNE will discover more lines of enquiry. Students considering a course with an overseas provider or in coming to the UK to study will be better prepared thereby enabling a more fulfilling and rewarding experience. Anyone who has an interest in TNE, whether at the senior executive level, operational level, delivering programmes or as a recipient of TNE should read this book. The wealth of experience gathered here will provoke questions, prompt debate and offer solutions. It has been written by people who know the issues, bear the scars and are happy to share their knowledge. It will greatly benefit future transnational collaborations.

Every three years the world awaits the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA, the rankings of school systems overseen by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Nations around the world look eagerly and apprehensively to see where their students rank on these tests of competence in, mainly, science, math and reading. This book provides a window into PISA and its power. What exactly is PISA? How are its tests developed? Who takes the test? What countries tend to outperform and which underperform? What do countries learn from PISA? Why is PISA both revered and feared? And, most importantly, does PISA improve education globally? The first PISA, in 2000, included 32 countries. In 2018, nearly eighty nations took part in PISA. That number is expected to double by 2030. This may mean that students in over 80% of the world’s countries will take the PISA exams. This scenario has made PISA more important than ever. This book probes topics and themes related to “the world’s most important exam” and why many view a high PISA ranking—rightly or wrongly—as global education’s seal of approval. Because of this, PISA has been called a disruptor, a test which can trigger major reform in school systems around the world. But is it the PISA rankings that are the real disruptor or the decisions countries make because of their rankings? These decisions often involve systemic changes in teaching and learning which can substantially alter how a country measures and prioritizes its education system.

Highlighting the voices and experiences of Black graduate students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), this book features the perspectives of students from a variety of academic backgrounds and institutional settings. Contributors discuss their motivation to attend an HBCU for graduate studies, their experiences, and how these helped prepare them for their career. To be prepared to serve the increasing number of Black students with access to graduate programs at HBCUs, university administrators, faculty, and staff require a better understanding of these students’ needs and how to meet them. Addressing some of today’s most urgent issues and educational challenges, this book expands the literature on HBCUs and provides insight into the role their graduate schools play in building a diverse academic and professional community.

In this book, Phan Le-Ha identifies and discusses four growing self-sustained/sustaining fundamental phenomena in transnational education (TNE), namely (1) the planned, evolving and transformative mediocrity behind the endorsement of English-medium education legitimized by the interactive Asia-the West relationship; (2) the strategic employment of the terms ‘Asia/Asian’ and ‘West/Western’ by all stakeholders in their perceptions and construction of choice, quality, rigour, reliability and attractiveness of programs, courses, and locations; (3) the adjusted desire for an imagined (and often misinformed) ‘West’ among various stakeholders of transnational education; and (4) the assigned and self-realized ownership of English by otherwise normally on-the-margin groups of speakers. A focus on how these phenomena impact questions of identity and desire in TNE is a running theme. The above phenomena are discussed against the backdrop of ‘the rise of Asia’ sentiment and how this sentiment has played out in interactions and relationships between ‘the West’ and ‘Asia’ and among Asian institutions and various entities. Phan Le-Ha’s examination of the identified phenomena in TNE has been informed by her multi-layered engagement with the dialectic of the Asia-the West relationship, her critical take on certain pro-Asia and decolonisation scholarship, and her interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach to theorise the field and the specific topic under scrutiny. Phan Le-Ha shows that the current Asia chooses (not necessarily by force but largely by will and often with an informed and well-articulated agency) to go with the idea of the West and often desires an affiliation with the West either directly or indirectly, something that is getting more intense in the context of globalization, regionalization, and commercialization of education. The rise of Asia has made the idea of the West even more looked-for in Asia. TNE in Asia, in many ways, is the transforming and dynamic transit point, a layover that facilitates entry into a wanted destination – the West and/or the idea of the West. The West and Asia need one another more than ever in the context of the internationalization and commercialization of higher education. What’s more, the West and Asia have hardly ever been mutually exclusive but have rather been in an eventful love-and-obsession relationship with each other. This is the very dialectic proposition that Phan Le Ha takes throughout this book while paying specific attention to transnational higher education in the greater Asian region including the Middle East, following her several research projects conducted in the region since 2005 to date. Transnational Education Crossing 'the West' and 'Asia' explores: • English, Internationalisation of Higher Education, and Identity: Increasing Academic Monolingualism and English-only Package • Transnational Education and Dream Realization: From the Philippines to Vietnam, From Afghanistan to Dubai, From Everywhere in Asia to Thailand • Desiring International /Transnational Education: Theorisation of Key Concepts and Next Steps from Here The book will be of interest to researchers in the field of transnational education, Asia education and education policy.

This book contributes to ongoing discussions on the important role of education and on the challenging tasks facing educators today. Drawing on their long, vast and varied experience as educators, administrators and scholars, the authors deal specifically with certain fundamental issues with a view to engaging those involved in education in an examination of what underlies educational theory and practice. The book shows that education is not simply about attending school, academic institutions or any other establishment of learning or training, but, rather, is a process that looks further than the time spent learning lessons, attending lectures, doing research, acquiring knowledge, honing skills, or developing competence, important and crucial as these activities are to human development. Its greatest challenge and purpose come, instead, from life itself. For this reason, this book is about education as preparing us to live a more fulfilled life, and as a process that lasts a lifetime. All those involved in education at all stages and in various capacities will find this book both beneficial and engaging.