Responding to Massification: Differentiation in Postsecondary Education Worldwide

Description

Global massification of postsecondary education, with more than 200 million students studying at an untold number of institutions focusing on every specialization possible, necessitates a differentiated system of postsecondary education in every country. This book provides the first comparative study of how postsecondary education has evolved in 13 countries. The study offers an analysis of current global realities and how different nations have constructed their response. Our research shows that few countries have developed rational and differentiated academic systems to meet new realities. The book provides insights regarding useful approaches for the development of academic systems. The book reveals similarities and differences in the 13 case studies as different governments have expanded postsecondary education to respond to the massification of enrollment. Postsecondary education has become diversified, but for the most part not adequately differentiated in most countries. Several of the case studies underscore the challenge of sustaining differentiation within the system if credentials from non-university, postsecondary institutions are considered of lesser social status. Too often institutions that successfully address the practical needs of national economies are ultimately merged into the university system. There is an urgent need for the planning and structuring of coherent systems of postsecondary education to serve the increasingly diverse clientele in need of the skills required by the knowledge economy. This study is the first global analysis aimed at understanding how post-secondary education can be organized to meet society’s requirements and points to the need for designing coherent academic systems. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Responding to Massification (Philip G. Altbach)....Pages 1-12 Diversification and Differentiation in Postsecondary Education: What the Research Shows (Lisa Unangst)....Pages 13-25 Front Matter ....Pages 27-27 Differentiated Postsecondary Systems and the Role of the University: The Case of Egypt (Mohsen Elmahdy Said)....Pages 29-38 Differentiation within the Postsecondary Education Sector in Ghana (George Afeti)....Pages 39-50 Front Matter ....Pages 51-51 Institutional Differentiation in Australian Postsecondary Education: Hit and Miss (Leo Goedegebuure, Ruth Schubert, Peter Bentley)....Pages 53-62 A Differentiated Postsecondary Education System in Mainland China (Qi Wang)....Pages 63-73 India’s Growth of Postsecondary Education: Scale, Speed and Fault Lines (Pawan Agarwal)....Pages 75-87 The Consequences of Market-Based Mass Postsecondary Education: Japan’s Challenges (Akiyoshi Yonezawa, Yuki Inenaga)....Pages 89-99 Front Matter ....Pages 101-101 Democratization of Postsecondary Education in France: Diverse and Complementary Institutions (Sophie Orange)....Pages 103-114 The Expansion and Structural Change of Postsecondary Education in Germany (Andrä Wolter)....Pages 115-126 Diversity and Uniformity in the Structure of Russian Postsecondary Education (Maria Yudkevich)....Pages 127-139 United Kingdom: From Binary to Confusion (Peter Scott, Claire Callender)....Pages 141-152 Front Matter ....Pages 153-153 Brazilian Postsecondary Education in the 21st Century: A Conservative Modernization (Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Helena Sampaio)....Pages 155-165 Against All Odds: How Chile Developed a Successful Technical and Vocational Sector in Postsecondary Education (Andrés Bernasconi, María Paola Sevilla)....Pages 167-176 Front Matter ....Pages 177-177 The Transformation of the System of Postsecondary Education in the United States (William G. Tierney, James Dean Ward)....Pages 179-188 Front Matter ....Pages 189-189 Massification and Differentiation in Postsecondary Education: A Marriage of Convenience? (Hans De Wit, Liz Reisberg)....Pages 191-198 Back Matter ....Pages 199-212