Blogpost #4
PAF 9399 International Higher Education
Sabrina Kader
International Organizations and its Influences in Higher Education
Higher education is situated in a boundless environment that is shaped by global networks, information, finance, history and law. Global organization such as OECD, World Bank, UNESCO are the main actors for the global shaping of higher education system. The outcome policies in higher education are most of the time a result of a big competition and cooperation between the countries.
The OECD, the organization for European Economic Cooperation, is created in 1961. Many countries are commonly concerned about their higher education system. The OECD works as a network of the policy makers to provide a clear understanding about higher education system. It includes 30 member countries, most of them are developed countries. The OECD works as a benchmarking that allows the countries to evaluate their higher education performance and compare their policies with each other. It also helps the countries to work as a team and learn from each other. It enhances the dialogue between them to provide an effective policy that promote the global higher education (Rizvi, Lingard, 2009).
The Higher education program of the OECD is responsible for managing a series of events throughout the world that makes the organization’s members benefit from the best current policies in higher education system. These events allow the members to connect physically or virtually to come out with new policies and formal articles. Other counties that are not members of the OECD can also participate to some of the conferences to make the worldwide benefits from the conferences a positive outcome. Example of the conferences include “Higher education’s role in creating national skills strategies” held in 2015, “Global Citizenship and higher education” held in the same year, and “What Works”, a conference about higher education about entrepreneurship and innovation, held in 2012. system (OECD WEBSITE, 2017).
World bank is considered as an important source of resources and information for developing countries. It includes 189 members from 170 countries. All the members aim to reduce poverty and expand knowledge all over the world. As higher education is considered as the main instrument that reduces poverty and promote life style, the world bank decided to focus its interests toward the developing countries especially after the World War 2 that devasted these countries. The main concept of this bank is that their members can borrow money from each other with a lower interest rate, However, the interest rate varies form a country to another. The variation is based on the financial market of the country, If powerful countries decide to borrow money they will benefit from low interest in comparison to the developed countries that will have the highest interest rate. In my opinion the world bank serves more the interests and the wellbeing of the developed countries than the developing ones.
UNESCO is the only UN organization with an authority in Higher Education. It develops the policies of higher education and promotes the equal access to a successful higher education system for some better learning outcomes. It also provides knowledge and actions to promote higher education system. One of its important program for higher education is the UNESCO Chairs Program. It is created in 1992 and includes 116 countries. The purpose of this program is to promote the inter-university networking. This exchange of knowledge and resources will promote the development of societies.
One of the purpose of international organizations is to shape the global higher education. The outcomes of this action varies from a country to another. For example, while the United States’ higher education have the heaviest influence in defining the global trend, the developed countries suffer from the brain drain phenomenon; I mentioned this on my previous blog about Kenya where most of the scholars have migrated to the developed countries in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia as a result of advertisement of the developed countries for their universities to attract the perspective students (Simon Marginson, 2006).
Sources
THE OECD AND GLOBAL SHIFTS IN EDUCATION POLICY Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard
CAN MULTILATERAL BANKS EDUCATE THE WORLD? Claudio de Moura Castro
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/tertiaryeducation
“What Works” in Higher Education/https://www.oecd.org/education/imhe/whatworksinhighereducation.htm
Dynamics of National and Global Competition in Higher Education by (Simon Marginson, 2006) /https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-004-7649-x