Relocating the education reform movement: how have universities in Taiwan experienced Neoliberalization? [Scholarly Article - Asia Pacific Education Review, 2022]

Title:

Relocating the education reform movement: how have universities in Taiwan experienced Neoliberalization? 

Author:

Ming-Te Peng

Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, London, UK

 

Published:

Asia Pacific Education Review, 6 May 2022

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12564-022-09765-6 

 

Abstract:

Based on the higher education reform experience in Taiwan, this research elucidates the conditions for the marketization of universities. It draws on critical discourse analysis to explore power relations between higher education, society, and the government and suggests that the university has always been considered a valuable resource for state development. By analyzing the heterogeneity of discourses used in official documents and the academic literature, this research identifies the social contradictions that triggered the education reform movement in the 1990s, including humanistic resistance against economic utility, educational inequality, and demand for academic autonomy. Neoliberalization in higher education is shown as a contemporary model for mobilizing academic resources in indirect but effective ways, with the aim of mapping both neoliberal practices in Taiwan and their connections with the global trend of marketizing higher education.

BOOK REVIEW - Understanding Higher Education – Critically [Authors: Chrissie Boughey & Sioux McKenna; Book reviewed by Kathy Luckett in SAJS, 2021]

Title of book:

Understanding Higher Education - Critically

 

Authors:

Chrissie Boughey & Sioux McKenna

 

Reviewed by:

Kathy Lukett

Institutional Planning Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa

 

Review published:

South African Journal of Science, Volume 117, No 11/12, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2021/12444

 

From the book review:

This book is an excellent critical introduction to contemporary issues facing higher education. It is based on the knowledge and experience of two authors who have worked in and researched South African higher education for over two decades, at both institutional and national levels in roles that have covered student, staff, research and institutional development as well as contributed to national policy development. The book offers substantial commentary and critical analysis on the following topics: policy and dominant policy discourses in higher education; the discursive positioning of students and the implications thereof for teaching and learning; the importance of knowledge for higher education curricula; and the impact of institutional history, culture and type on changes and challenges to the academic job and academic project, policy implementation and possibilities for transformation. The authors correctly argue that, although written from the South African higher education context, the book holds relevance for all readers interested in understanding more about higher education, especially for those from Southern contexts. The book is a must-read for higher education researchers and practitioners in a range of roles – senior managers, policymakers, academics and postgraduate students, especially those on higher education studies programmes. 

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), United Kingdom - Micro-credentials and credit transfer: Giving credit where credit is due (by Prof Mary Bishop)

Title:

Micro-credentials and credit transfer: Giving credit where credit is due

 

Author:

Professor Mary Bishop

MJB Consulting (Former Director of Learning ACCA Global, Visiting Chair Staffordshire University

 

Published:

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), 5 February 2021

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/02/05/micro-credentials-and-credit-transfer-giving-credit-where-credit-is-due/

From the  article:

2021 started with a whirlwind of reports – long awaited and key to the sector moving forwards. The publications being compressed into a short time frame, within the disrupted context of a pandemic, is challenging, but the issues are fundamental and in many ways collective responses to different aspects of the same questions. One area still out for consultation is the Higher Education Credit Framework for England (HECF). As a former education leader of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), one of the biggest professional bodies globally, and currently working across higher education and professional education, much of my focus is on designing integrated ways of working, including programmes and qualifications. The consultation on the HECF offers a way to respond to many of the themes emerging across the professional and higher education landscapes by looking at how we build qualifications. The current HECF Qualifications and Credit Frameworks itself is not generally the limiting factor, rather it is the way it is used which, in the UK particularly, has often been driven largely by funding requirements.  

 

The workplace continues to evolve at pace and a growing skills gap has been much debated and is the focus of the Government’s recent paper Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth.

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) - A rejoinder to Michelle Donelan: true social mobility and higher education

Title:
A rejoinder to Michelle Donelan: true social mobility and higher education

Author/Presenter:
Michelle Donelan

Published:
Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), 18 July 2020
https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2020/07/18/weekend-reading-a-rejoinder-to-michelle-donelan-true-social-mobility-and-higher-education/

From the article:
Delegates at the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) event on the 1st July were not only surprised but shocked at the speech delivered by the latest Minister for Higher Education, Michelle Donelan. Its content soon reverberated around the sector and was met with amazement and in some quarters alarm. It was closely followed by Gavin Williamson’s speech at the Social Market Foundation a week later which signalled a further rejection of the orthodoxy of the last twenty years in ending the apparent ‘50% target’ for entry into universities. However forthright the speech at NEON appeared, it should not be seen as unexpected. Doubts about widening access to higher education as a route to improving the lives of those from low income and other disadvantaged backgrounds have never gone away. These doubts have spanned the socio-economic divide from communities where higher education participation is the lowest to the thoughts of the most privileged. To see them finally come into full-view and begin to shape higher education policy again is no surprise – especially in the context of the Conservative Government’s attempt to ‘level up’ and entrench its position in the crumbled red walls of the left-behind northern towns.

Scolarly Article (March 2020) - State formation and higher education (HE) policy: an analytical review of policy shifts and the internationalization of higher education (IHE) in China between 1949 and 2019

Title:
State formation and higher education (HE) policy: an analytical review of policy shifts and the internationalization of higher education (IHE) in China between 1949 and 2019

Authors:
Jie Zheng & Dip Kapoor

Citation:
Zheng, J., Kapoor, D. (2020). State formation and higher education (HE) policy: an analytical review of policy shifts and the internationalization of higher education (IHE) in China between 1949 and 2019. Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00517-2

From the abstract:
"State policies regarding the internationalization of higher education (IHE) in China have undergone significant shifts between 1949 and 2019. This paper advances the proposition that these shifts in policies pertaining to IHE can be understood as part of a process of ongoing Chinese state formation in relation to national and global developments and does so by examining the history of IHE policy and policy changes between 1949 and 2019 to demonstrate this possibility. We consider three specific periods to make this case, including (1) the period of Marxist-Leninist Socialist nationalism, patriotism and proletarian internationalism and the early engagements of IHE (1949–1976); (2) neoliberal globalization and opening-up: a return to the international stage and further IHE (1977–2002); and finally, (3) state developmentalism and the era of globally engaged higher education (HE) (2003–2019)."