Higher education as an urban/national/global services industry

I strongly believe that any post in a higher-ed blog that prominently displays a picture of a bottle of good New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc has a high probability of being worth reading. A recent post in GlobalHigherEducation adds considerable support to that theory.  Kris Olds and Susan Robertson, the co-editors of said blog have reprinted a contribution that they wrote for the UK Higher Education International Unit’s most recent newsletter.  The subject is an increasing emphasis on the international aspect of higher education as an economic engine of national economy.  The reason for the photo of the NZ Sauvignon Blanc being prominently displayed in that article is that a recent report in GlobalHigherEducation shows that trans-national higher education brings more money into New Zealand annually than do international sales of their (justly) vaunted wines.  Olds and Robertson also point to reports from other countries showing similar high economic impact of the globalization of their higher education systems.

Olds and Robertson raise three issues regarding these studies.  I recommend you refer to their post to see their complete discussion, but I want to emphasize the first of the issues that they raise:

We would argue that these numbers are being constituted, and debated about, in the context of an ideological transition – one that increasingly enables views to emerge of higher education as a driver of economic versus cultural-political change....Thus, a new organising logic, to use Saskia Sassen’s phrase, is emerging: one that reframes higher education as an urban/national/global services industry, for good and for bad.

I agree completely with this argument, and believe that we are witnessing an evolution (perhaps radical) in the way that higher education is viewed.  One sees some of our educational leaders continuing to argue that higher education should be (better) supported because of the importance of its “higher goals”: liberal learning, preparation of future generations to create healthy societies, etc.  Such arguments are met with applause from academe, but increasingly are dismissed politely by  political leaders and society in general.  I am not aware of any recent case in which these arguments have led to any increase in support whatsoever.  

Where we do see some increases coming, even in these hard times, is when Market-State arguments are made - arguments about the technologies created as part of our higher education “industry”, about the skills that are taught that lead to increased economic power of the country.  As noted on these pages before, the Market State does not support activities for reasons of public policy (e.g. preparation of future generations to create healthy societies), but because it needs to purchase outcomes (e.g. new technologies).  "Services industry" seems to fit well into that picture!

As suggested by Olds and Robertson, this is not necessarily a change to be applauded, but it does need to be understood if higher education is to be able to cope in appropriate ways with a significantly changed context.     

Comments

[Chris Simpson]

We are never going to know what works best for us until we've tried a number of different things. I think we've ridden this train as far as it will take us and to make decisions based upon other people's experiences as well as our own.

[Boys Boarding School Shropshire]

I agree I think in these testing times we may need to embrace practices and issues we may not have dealt with before, and perhaps do things a different way.