Posted on by Zeline Santana

Week 10, Governance reforms, autonomy , and cost

The reading Global Trends in University Governance discussed the various ways university systems go about implementing a framework which can also apply to global strategy. The reading lays out the importance of the higher education vision, governance, and funding. It is explained that the demand for higher education in terms of funding has increased over the years and support has decreased. From the reading it is very obvious that most university systems receive funds from income generated within. These funds are then used for research and other operational cost as well as salary. I am very much intrigued with funding and internationalization in community colleges. On the web, it seems like community colleges are trying to turn to international student recruitment because it will help international students in terms of cost. The question is what will be the quality of this education compared to 4-year institution. Are international students look for the prestige or the cost? (1)

Governance reforms and university autonomy in Asia focused on research that examined reforms, policies and governance structures. It looked at their impact management, but most importantly, the level of autonomy the institutions have. In Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam autonomous management structures are very high where institutions are self-governed to an extent. In the U.S this is not usually seen due to high levels of over site/control (centralized) from the state and other governing bodies. In this particular article it was interesting to see that Asian educational systems are autonomous, however, as mentioned in the article “the case studies also shows that autonomy policies need certain conditions to become successful.” This means the proper over site and control is needed to ensure accountability of the end goal or outcome. Vietnam for example experienced a lack of coordination between national and regional centers. In the U.S a decentralized form of education can be hard to accomplish due to the concern of “Who Controls What”. Overall, the U.S higher education system is so complex that for decentralization to work effectively it will needed to be more open for input from staff members, harmonization , and collaboration.

Links:
(1) http://www.internationalstudent.com/international-financial-aid/community-colleges/
(2)http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/decentralization/English/Issues/Education.html

Posted on by a.johnson1

Week 10: Article Response

In the reading, Governance reforms and university autonomy in Asia by Varghese, 5 varying Asian countries (Camodia, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Japan) were used for comparison in a research project.  Supposedly, they varied in terms of economic and educational development. I found it interesting that these countries had differing higher education systems than America, such as ministries of Education, yet they made moves to reform their governance systems (in its early stages) to compete with the progressive usage of market mechanisms that other institutions practice. One key concept from this reading focused on creating academic and administrative autonomy. Unfortunately Cambodia is the lowest income country amongst the five and experienced difficulties with this adoption.

Previously, the government/ministry of education shared governance with higher education institutions but held high responsibilities such as hiring college presidents, determining the tuition costs and determining which students to enroll. China, like other market based countries transitioned to allow central government to have limited power or more of a policy coordinating function.  Autonomy is supposed to encourage institutions to function better because they are in charge. With the shift to autonomy, faculty members were happier because they were given academic freedom and it allowed them the opportunity to change the curriculum and offer new and exciting courses. Departments within these institutions have the ability to offer incentives to high achieving employees and budget their own funds, which is better than the top down method previously enforced. There are some setbacks, the administrative staff feels like they do not have as much autonomy as expected and their workload has increased. The workload for faculty has increased as well, but with the addition of academic freedom, it seems bearable. Sound a lot like problems within higher education institutions in America. These Asian countries made quality assurance mechanisms to improve quality, facilitate evaluation, and enhance both autonomy and accountability. The reading Global trends in university governance by Fielden suggest that quality assurance systems should be renewed every 5 to ten years. However, I fear the evaluation is too far spread out (every six years for Japan) to remain competitive and adaptable and since quality is not defined, I am not sure they are successfully measuring quality. Therefore, they may encounter similar issues that American institutions have been struggling with assessment.

 

Posted on by Victoria Tsang

W10 – Japanese Higher Education Governance

This readings talked about the governance of higher education and the different models and frameworks used in a number of countries, specifically Cambodia, Japan, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Having studied Japanese language and culture in high school and in college, I was interested in learning more about the governance of higher education in Japan.

The IIEP on governance reforms and university autonomy in Asia mentions the switch in Japan from a state controlled national university system to national university corporations in 2004, which increased institutional autonomy on various levels from organizational structure to the hiring of faculty and staff. After the switch, there was also a surge in private universities because the requirements to being recognized as a university in Japan were relaxed when reforms passed to change the national universities into national university corporations. In the same paper, professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo, Amano Ikuo, talks about the various trends that pushed Japan to reform and change its higher education system to the way it is today and the unique factors affecting Japan. It was interesting to learn about how the bubble economy burst at the beginning of the 1990s continues to have effects on the higher education system in Japan. This coincides with the intense round of reforms mentioned in the IIEP report how the Japanese government began to change the public universities to meet the knowledge economy demands, and there was also the formation of the various evaluation systems, ranging from self-evaluation in the beginning to ultimately the formation of a national evaluation agency (NIAD-UE).

One of the factors Amano Ikuo mentions in the his paper is the dramatic changes in population composition from 1980 to the present (which in the case of the paper was 2013). In the span of a decade, from 1980-1990, there was a sharp increase in the population of 18-year-olds from about 1.5 million to just over 2 million. This also led to an rapid increase in the formation of more universities to meet the demands (public universities also enjoyed pretty much a monopoly on higher education), but immediately after the initial decade, Japan experienced and continues to experience a decline or stagnation in the population of 18-year-olds, which resulted in the loss of enrollment and the struggle of the universities to change their ways of attracting and recruiting students. And with the switch in governance in 2004, the funding sources also changed and became more of a competition for research funding and public funding amongst all the various types of institutions. While it seemed like a good idea to make sure the institutions kept up their standards and quality, Amano Ikuo mentions that many of the institutions struggle to get enough funding and increasing turn towards conducting revenue-generating activities, which we’ve learn from previous classes could cause negative impacts on the quality of education offered.

Another thing mentioned by Amano Ikuo is the strive for internationalization and how Japan lags behind on that aspect, and in order to improve its global rankings, Japan has increasing put more emphasis on internationalization of its higher education system. Because Japan previously had a self-reliant system (or “closed” system) in terms of technological advances, this has caused the country to fall behind other OECD countries in joining the evermore globalized world and economy. This goes back to what was mentioned in a previous class discussion about Japan’s constant efforts to be a global hub for knowledge and technology, and how those efforts continue to fall short. Overall, Japan is admirable for its consistent efforts to ensure quality, but there is still much room for improvement if it wants to go up in the global rankings.

Posted on by m.fernandez

W10: Governance Reforms

In contrary to many countries, China moved away from a centralized higher education system to where the government will act a facilitator. It is interesting to see some countries finding that centralizing their systems while China felt it was better to just facilitate it from a government level. Thay also moved to cost sharing policy where students had to pay fees and also began to accept students who would pay for tuition fully by private sponsors. In China private higher education is a new idea as higher education was predominantly public and students did not contribute as much financially. In the reading , Vietnam is the poorest of the group that was observed in the study but one of the first to move toward private higher education which makes sense as they were looking for ways to increase revenue. They even moved to internationalization of higher education sooner than the other countries. To improve their higher education system they went through reform on curriculum and teaching methods. This reform was implemented in 1987 which is rather early compared to the other countried but have these reform plans set out until 2020 to increase enrollment and diversity through university research. As the smallest country in the study it seems that Vietnam had one of the most advanced thoughts in higher education. Cambodia spent aprtion of the 1990’s looking for qualified teaching staff to refill positions that were vacant due to foreign staff leaving. The same idea Vietnam included in their higher education policy, Camodia did in 2000 where fee paying and government sponsored students were allowed to enroll. I wonder if there was controversy due to the fact that not all the teachers were qualified to teach and if the reform hired enough to make the institution worthy of the tuition fee paying students and government sponsored students were paying. In the study Japan was the most successful in higher education out of the other countries. It is interesting to see that they are the only country that introduce a slef-evaluation and external evaluation systems to ensure that they are meeting the changing requirements. Japan finally had an accreditation system put in place for all higher education institutions by the NIAD-UE since 2004. Though all these countries are located in Asia they have had very different approaches in bettering their higher education system but were effected by their different economic-socio statuses. At this time each country had moved toward some form of evaluation for teaching and curriculum development. Economicaly, they have also moved toward allowing students to pay certain fees or tuition and have opened up to private higher education.

Posted on by e.truong

W10: Governance models in higher education

It is important to understand that every country organizes and categorizes higher education institutions in different ways. As noted in the Fielden article on global trends in university governance, there are several different governance models that vary in degrees of state involvement. Some countries have state controlled governance models, where the Ministry of Education considers higher education institutions as state corporations and have the most control over decision making. On the other hand there are other countries which have very “independent” governance models where the only relation higher education institutions have with the state is with its funding. Fielden also mentions that the trend in higher education governance is to move towards a more autonomous model, which is consistent with the Varghese and Martin article on governance reform in Asia. The Asian countries Varghese and Martin mentioned were more centralized models with heavy state-involvement. However, reforms over the years have given much of the influence and power over to the institutions now. One of the main reasons why institutions are reforming is because autonomy would allow for academic freedom, which is important in academia and education. Maybe as information and knowledge becomes more free flowing people will understand internationalization and why it is necessary for higher education across the globe to internationalize.

Although, higher education systems like the US are independent in Feilden’s spectrum, they may not be as autonomous as one might believe. For example, CUNY’s latest battle with Governor Andrew Cuomo over his decision to cut nearly $500 million worth of state funding shows how dependent the university system is on state funding and how restricted it is due to its reliance on state appropriations. As one women said, these cuts would not be sustainable for the future of CUNY. The situation ended with the governor stipulating that CUNY and SUNY would need to work with a financial management consultant in order to find savings and to cut overhead. However, it could be problematic because it would essentially be the state intervening on the financial decisions and budgets of the senior colleges. So, although the university system is for the most part independent in its operations and academics, state control over funding could limit its autonomy in the long-run.