University - Postcolonial - A Contrasted Picture, Indian Higher Education System: The Crippled Giant, A Peripheral World Of Learning
knowledge globalization landscapes development
The late twentieth century saw a renewed interest in the postcolonial development of higher education systems within broader literature on globalization and education policies. Particularly, efforts by international institutions, such as the World Bank, to prevent the global and local effects of the so-called knowledge divide, led to a number of policy documents and initiatives aimed at leveling the pace of changes and development in higher-education landscapes of rich and poor countries. Policy in this domain seemed largely influenced by studies that presented the gradual domination of managerialism in the organization of both teaching and research, the commercialization of research, and the outsourcing of many services to create leaner structures as inevitable consequences of globalization and the "knowledge explosion." As a result, most developing countries were restructuring their already inherited systems of higher education along similar patterns to those observed in the West and the Pacific Rim. How this process—sometimes described as the "recolonization" of education—translates into actual higher education landscapes around the world seems to depend on a number of contextual variables.
Additional Topics
A closer look at local and regional situations reveals persistent differences, in terms of institutional management, relations to the state, enrollments, and patterns of participation and academic careers. Beyond similar policy agendas, these realities signal contrasted histories and unequal states of development of higher education. The fortune of universities and university education in countrie…
The dilemma facing higher education worsened through the 1980s and 1990s due to a massive south-north intellectual migration flow. The movement illustrates in itself the role higher education plays in keeping up the tight and imbalanced links initiated in the colonial era. Alongside the development of local elitist systems of higher education, and in reaction to the growing attractiveness of North…
In 1962, UNESCO and the Economic Commission for Africa organized a conference on the Development of Higher Education in Africa in Tananarive, Madagascar, which highlighted many of the challenges of the African universities. The conference focused on problems related to staffing, financing, and content of higher education, with particular attention to the Africanization of staff and curriculum. The…
The postcolonial era is marked in most countries by attempts to combine the quality of teaching inherited from highly elitist higher education systems and the necessity to widen access to higher education to "bridge the development gap" and to strengthen democratic institutions. However, political developments since the 1960s, economic choices, and global pressures show that higher e…
Ajayi, J. F. A., Lameck K. H. Goma, and G. Ampah Johnson. The African Experience with Higher Education. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996. Altbach, Philip G., and Suma Chitnis, eds. Higher Education Reform in India: Experience and Perspectives. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993. Dunne, Mairead, and Yusuf Sayed. "Transformation and Equity: Women and Higher Eduation in Sub-Saharan Africa.&…
Citing this material
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments