Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution

Key drivers of a 21st century academic "revolution" are identified in a trend report produced for this week's UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education. The drivers are the massification of tertiary systems everywhere, the 'public good' versus 'private good' debate, the impacts of information and communications technology, and the rise of the knowledge economy and globalisation. All major changes in higher education stem in one way or another from these motivating forces, the report's authors say.

Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking An Academic Revolution was written by Philip G Altbach, Liz Reisberg and Laura E Rumbley of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the U.S., with input from experts and external evaluation by Jane Knight, V Lynn Meek, Marcela Mollis and Mala Singh. The report aims to highlight some of the most significant forces shaping higher education in the past decade - since the 1998 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education - and to stimulation discussion at the 2009 world conference starting today in Paris. The executive summary of the report can be accessed at http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001831/183168e.pdf.

Karen MacGregor writes on this theme in the July 5, 2009 edition of UNIVERSITY WORLD NEWS. Click the header or the link to read the report - http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090705083940943.