Higher Education in the Age of Globalisation The need for a new regulatory framework for recognition, quality assurance and accreditation Dirk Van Damme.

Higher Education in the Age of Globalisation

The need for a new regulatory framework for recognition, quality assurance and accreditation

Dirk Van DammeGhent University - VLIR (B)

UNESCO Expert Meeting

Paris, 10-11 September 2001

UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11 September 2001

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Structure

• Globalisation• The impact of globalisation on higher education

– new exigencies on higher education– increasing demand for higher education– erosion of national regulatory frameworks– emerging borderless higher education market

• The need for a new regulatory framework– regulation of new & transnational providers– recognition of qualifications and credits– international quality assurance and accreditation

UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11 September 2001

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Globalisation

= Still unclear, much debated concept, but useful as a heuristic tool to understand the interrelated tendencies that define the contemporary environment for higher education:

• The rise of the network society: technological innovation, strategic importance of information and communication, the Internet

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Globalisation

• The restructuring of the world economic system: transformation to post-industrial knowledge economy, new industrial nations, new forms of dependency in developing countries, integration of world economy with liberalised trade, etc.

• The political reshaping of the post-Cold War world order: strategic shifts in power balances, emergence of new hegemonic regions, increasing global insecurity, regional and local conflicts

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Globalisation

• The growing real but also virtual mobility of people, capital and knowledge, but also new mass migrations by poor and refugees

• The erosion of the nation-state and its capacity to master the economic and political transformations, weakness of international community, growing gap between economic activity and poltical regulation

• Complex cultural developments with homogeneisation as well as differentiation

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Impact on higher education

1 New important demands and exigencies towards universities as ‘knowledge centres’– strategic importance of knowledge and information,

scientific research, development and technology

– internationalisation of research, mobility of academic profession, international market in research personnel

– international benchmarking of ‘research universities’

– new forms of knowledge production and application

– competition from other ‘knowledge centres’

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Impact on higher education

2 Worldwide increase in demand for higher education– more highly qualified knowledge workers in developed c.– massification of demand, growth of unmet demand

among upper and middle classes in many countries because of budgetary and capacity limits of public sector

– diversification of demand because of LLL and more flexible delivery modes

higher education as booming global market, massification of demand not matched by growth of public provision, leading to increase in private, commercial supply and severe problems of equity and access

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Impact on higher education

3 Erosion of national regulatory frameworks– increasing contradiction between national policy

frameworks and international environment (liberalised global market, globalised professions, international market for researchers, brain drain, competition by foreign providers, etc.)

– deregulation and institutional autonomy weaken dependence of institutions from national policy frameworks

– internationalisation strategies of institutions: from cooperation to competition, increase in for-profit internationalisation

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Impact on higher education

3 Erosion of national regulatory frameworks (cont’d)– development of international references and policies:

harmonisation and congruence (e.g. Bologna, generalisation of bachelor/master-degree systems, English as lingua franca of scientific research and higher learning, consensus on core curricula, etc.), but also differentiation

– national policies will not be annihilated completely, but it is an illusion to resist globalisation and marketisation by identifying ‘public good’ with ‘national’

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Impact on higher education

4 Emerging borderless higher education market– profitable environment for growth of private and

transnational supply of educational services

– varied ‘businesses of borderless education’

– challenging academic identity and threatening market position of ‘traditional’ universities in specific niches

– real problems of diploma mills, but also exagerated protectionist reactions of national administrations

– access, equity and quality

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Need for new regulatory framework

need for a new international regulatory framework to (counter)balance the impact of globalisation– transcending old notions of ‘public’ versus ‘private’, but

affirming the public functions and responsibilities of higher education while recognising its market possibilities

– based on self-regulation but in a comprehensive partner-ship with national states, international organisations, student unions, professions, other stakeholders

– defending the interests of learners worldwide, the international higher education community and the global ‘general interest’ in access, equity and quality

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Need for new regulatory framework

• Price/risk of not developing such a framework– liberalisation without constraints, ‘academic capitalism’

– no transparency but chaos for learners & ‘consumers’

– rogue providers, charlatans, etc.

– more protectionist approaches by national authorities, limiting international mobility of skilled labour

– higher education loosing grip on qualifications & degrees

– global professions and industries defining their own standards on skills & competences outside qualifications & degrees

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Need for new regulatory framework

1 Regulation of private & transnational providers

2 Recognition of qualifications & credits

3 International quality assurance & accreditation

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1. Regulation of new providers

• Problem:– huge differences in dealing with private & transnational

providers; increase in protectionist approaches

– limits of purily ‘national’ & ‘public’ regulation of higher education market

– blurring of the concepts ‘public’ and ‘private’; also ‘private’ & non-national institutions can fulfill ‘public’ functions

– GATS: liberalisation of higher education services

– no need for bureaucratic ‘recognition’ procedures

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1. Regulation of new providers

need for international regulatory framework for dealing with private & transnational providers, including:– an international glossary of common concepts, definitions

and terminology,

– some basic rules to grant providers the 'licence to teach',

– an internationally standardised procedure of registration (including identification of who is in control and who can be held accountable)

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1. Regulation of new providers

– some rules concerning the correct use of the basic labels,

– the removal of existing barriers to mobility of students and staff, not dealt with in international trade agreements,

– some basic elements of a professional code of good practice (building further on work done by UNESCO, Council of Europe a.o.)

– a basic arrangement of the intellectual property issues associated with private higher education, and

– an agreement on issues of consumer protection and rights of complaint.

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1. Regulation of new providers

• In self-interest of private & transnational providers• And: self-regulation of higher education sector in

order to build trust and esteem as respectable service sector

• Need for representative international associations of public and private institutions

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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits

• Problem:– context of increased global mobility of skilled labour and

globalisation of professions

– complicated bureaucratic procedures of ‘equivalence’ of foreign/private degrees and qualifications are conservative and protectionist

– the educational sector is circumvened by policies concerning professional mobility and by court decisions, but it is the public responsibility of the higher education sector to solve this issue itself at the risk of loosing grip on the essential raison d’être of higher education!

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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits

– increasing importance of credits as units of validation of learning experiences leads to issues of recognition and transferability/accumulation of credits

– importance of informal learning and its validation: outcome- and competence-oriented approaches are gaining importance, but no radical abstraction of formal & institutional components of educational process to be expected

– international accreditation cannot be expected to provide the solution to these problems of recognition of qualifications and credits

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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits

Strong need for a new ambitious international initiative in recognition of qualifications & credits– leading to more or less automatic recognition and

international transferability of foreign qualifications and credits within ‘harmonised’ higher education areas

– including a flexible ‘recognition’ system for qualifications and credits delivered by private institutions

– including internationally accepted procedures for validation of informal and experiential learning and for accumulation in a lifelong learning perspective

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3. International QA & accreditation

• Problem:– development of national quality assurance schemes in 90s:

domestic functions, not covering e-learning & transnational delivery, limited international benchmarking, not ‘readable’ to outsiders

– development of national accreditation schemes: various models and functions, often to control domestic supply side

– very limited development of international accreditation, inability of HE sector to develop its own accreditation system internationally

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3. International QA & accreditation

– but: growth of international professional accreditation, import of foreign accreditors, etc., ‘multiple accreditation’

• Huge differences of opinion regarding international accreditation strategies:– improving communication and exchange between national

schemes leading to benchmarking and mutual recognition

– ‘soft’ international validation of trustworthy QA and accreditation schemes via agreement on standards

– ‘real’ international accreditation: problem of legitimacy

– international accreditation agency: costly & bureaucratic

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3. International QA & accreditation

• My conviction is that development of global higher education market has to be accompanied by development of own trustworthy forms of international ‘accreditation’, seen as self-regulation on minimal quality standards, in order to establish international HE as a respectable and accountable service sector

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3. International QA & accreditation

• Steps that can be taken:– an agreement on a common set of definitions and a

glossary of concepts;

– an agreement on a basic set of principles, a.o.• that quality assurance and accreditation primarily are a kind of

self-regulation, owned by the higher education community and guaranteeing academic values,

• that accreditation is only possible on the basis of existing quality assurance experiences,

• that international accreditation must respect institutional autonomy and cultural diversity, and promote innovation and improvement

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3. International QA & accreditation

– an initiative to convince the international higher education community that it has to do it itself, at the risk of giving away the initiative in this crucial issue;

– an initiative to national authorities to convince them to approach accreditation internationally;

– an initiative to seek the cooperation of the internationally organised professions, students and other stakeholders;

– start of work by experts on standards, criteria and benchmarking procedures, in order to investigate the possibility of the definition of internationally agreed minimum quality standards.