Posted on by s.ahuja1 · 4 Comments

W9-Strategic Plan Comparisons and BRIC Universities

This week’s reading expanded on our view into strategic plans, their value and effectiveness, and relevance in the development of global education at American Universities.  With three strategic plans to now inform a comparative analysis, it was definitely useful to see the diversity with which strategic plans can be approached in content, format and goal setting.  Having already read and discussed Baruch’s global strategic plan last week, it was eye opening to see the Global Education Strategic Plan for Middlesex Community College in MA and the Global Strategy & Internationalization at OHIO for Ohio University.

A few observations I noted while reading the Middlesex and Ohio strategic plans were that they certainly gave credence to the view that the Baruch strategic plan we reviewed was perhaps an initial draft and could benefit from further development and drafting.  Ohio and Middlesex seemed more evolved and sophisticated in their visions and supporting strategies.  They contained more data that was presented in more visually and organized ways which allowed a better understanding of where they stood vis a vis global education and where they needed to go.  To me, the Middlesex plan was the most effective of the three we have reviewed because I found it the most “user friendly” in being able to digest and process the material.  It also did not spend as much time as Ohio did on the introductory sections so you were able to cut right to the work they plan to do with specific deliverables and timelines.  It was a balance I thought between Baruch’s plan being not as developed and Ohio’s being perhaps too developed to the point of not being user friendly and a bit stilted.

The comparative analysis of the global strategic plans we were provided also made me realize how important planning and goal setting is in achieving successful and sustainable global education platforms.  Without a cohesive, data driven and clear path toward internationalization at the outset through solid and robust planning, internationalization with its  many facets and layers of necessary international collaboration and analysis will be on shaky ground.

Finally, the BRIC Universities as Institutions in the Process of Change shed interesting light on how higher education institutions in countries that US HEIs would need to work with for global expansion. The different trajectories of China, India, Russia, and Brazil were fascinating and made me wonder what sort of strategic planning goes into, or doesn’t go into, the HEI landscapes in those countries. Of particular interest to me was the example of rapid expansion of unaided privates which may be compromising quality for the sake of enrollment.  This observation was notable in light of quality control issues we have previously read about that exist in India which can hinder cross-border partnerships and internationalization efforts with India.

Posted on by Natallia Kolbun

W9 – BRIC Universities and Process of Change

This week’s reading BRIC Universities as Institutions in the Process of Change, I personally found very interesting and educating, as I did not know much about the commonalities and differences among BRIC countries, especially when it comes to higher education. Although India gave up a lot of its control to individual institution over the past couple of decades, Brazil, China, and especially Russia are still largely dependent on the state governance to make decisions and provide funding.

What I found most interesting is to read about Higher Education and Institutions in Russia, as I was born in Soviet Union and grew up in Belarus (now an independent country after USSR fell apart) and so this is very close to my heart. As to my knowledge the higher education systems in Russian and Belarus are not much different, the state has most of the control over curriculum, faculty, research, and funding. Despite the recent growth in private institutions that rely on tuition money to operate, as mentioned in the report, it is still largely funded by the state, pushing “elite” private institutions to attract international students and become world known, while pushing public institutions out of business. It is interesting that the reading mentions The 1993 Law on Education that “legitimized the decentralization and autonomy, self-governance, and devolution of authority, and legalized the introduction of private and nongovernmental higher education institutions” (P. 160). What was not mentioned is how highly corrupted the Russian government and so is higher education system in this country. Although the report states that most of the institutions, especially private have control over choosing their faculty and administrators, it is still highly controlled by officials with top positions and getting a job often depends on who you know who has an ability to hire. Although this might not be obvious or difficult to prove in the report, the highly corrupted culture of former USSR still exists in those countries and spreads to majority of the “industries”, including higher ed. In addition to hiring and funding corruption, admissions in Russian institutions mainly depend on “knowing people” and ability to pay someone off, despite your admission exam results.

One of the main conclusions about the BRIC institutions is that most of them are highly dependent on state funding, which gives the government more control over the decisions individual institutions make. It seems that the economists predict that BRIC countries will step up and take top ten spots in the world’s largest economies by 2050 (which China being #1), which to me seems to be a little overly optimistic looking at it from today’s standpoint. If that, in fact, will be true, the Higher Education systems and individual Institutions will have to see tremendous amount of change in the next 30 years, to be able to step out of the current state control and become more independent and risk takers, which are willing to take curriculum and internationalization in their own hands. BRIC countries won’t be able to grow as fast as predicted if the state continues to have such control on higher ed system and individual institutions.

Natallia

Posted on by j.kalaidis · 2 Comments

W9: The Future of BRIC Universities

When I enrolled in our class, I thought the class would be more of a comparative look at higher education institutions by country, rather than a broader theme of internationalization. While I think internationalization is very interesting and is extremely important for higher education professionals to study, I’m glad that we had an option to read more about the history and the day-to-day operating of universities abroad in Carnoy’s “BRIC Universities as Institutions in the Process of Change”.

I’ve always been interested in the BRIC countries and why (and how!) they’ve been lumped together. The main reason is that they are growing economies that have become increasingly important in the overall global economy. Other than that, though, they have very little in common culturally, politically, or, as we saw in the reading, educationally.

The theme in the reading that I was most interested in was how each country is responding to increased demands from a growing number of students — or, in the case of Russia, a decrease in demand. In the case of India, China, and Brazil, their expanding economies have created a large middle class that is seeking greater higher educational opportunities. Thus, the challenge for these countries in the last few decades has been to meet the increased demand while maintaining quality. In the case of China, India, and Russia, it seems like the larger emphasis has been on accessibility rather than quality. This is not to say that these countries are not concerned about quality — their public research universities are still highly esteemed and only reserved for their very top students — but right now they seem to be more focused on pumping more and more students through the semester by any means necessary. This is not unlike the immediate postwar expansion of HEIs in the U.S. and the rise of community colleges in the 1950s-1970s.

Another theme from the reading is the organization and hierarchy of different types of universities. The main thing that stuck out to me was the large proportion of private, for-profit universities in Brazil. The target students for these for-profit institutions are generally lower-income students (similar to the U.S.). While I am skeptical about for-profit universities in the United States, it seems to make more sense in Brazil since they are better able to set tuition prices to market demands and are actually the more cost-effective option for cash-strapped students. The reading did not mention this specifically, but I am curious if Brazil has ever considered a U.S. public community-college model to serve these students.

So while these three countries are struggling to keep up with the rising demands for HEIs, Russia is having the opposite problem. “In Russia, mass universities will not be expanding, so their main role is to ‘survive’, adjusting to a host of new realities” (Carnoy, 2013, pp. 177). While the other three countries seem to be adopting a more market-oriented approach to higher education, Russia seems to be going back to a more Soviet-approach (or, at the very least, very much resisting a more market-approach to its higher education system).

This makes sense, given their very recent history. As the reading explains, many of the leaders and faculty in Russian universities were also there during the Soviet Union, when universities were heavily regulated by the state and the main curricular emphasis was on STEM disciplines to try to get an advantage in technology and science over the U.S. in the Cold War. While China has made many innovations to its higher education system, it, too, is still a product of its recent history, with the Chinese government still playing a strong role in shaping certain curricular matters (for instance, even graduate students in engineering still study political philosophy with an emphasis on communism), as well as the overtly political appointments of university administrators.

The last area I wanted to discuss was India’s emphasis on affirmative action for its disadvantaged castes. I was pleased to read of the Indian government’s financial investment in groups of people who continue to face extensive discrimination. Unfortunately, I am skeptical how much this will do to really improve conditions for these individuals if they will still face discrimination in other areas of their lives, but at the very least it is encouraging that the government is acknowledging the inequalities and is (at least somewhat) committed to improving things.

As BRIC countries have become increasingly important in global affairs, I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about their higher education systems. While the BRIC countries have one thing in common — they all have rapidly expanding economies — they have vastly different cultural, political, and economic environments, which also impacts their system of higher education. As the countries continue to expand their global influence, it will be interesting to monitor changes and innovations in their higher education systems.