International perspectives on trends and issues in higher education policy

This chapter discusses international perspectives on trends and issues in a higher education policy. Privatization and market competition can be mere fads in the higher education policy, but the pursuit of these trends from a variety of different directions would lead one to believe otherwise. Also, the significance of the lean toward competition, de-regulation, and entrepreneurialism is given some credence by the fact that it seems that kindred forces are pushing different higher education systems in similar directions. Governments in different places are formulating similar responses to the problems facing their respective higher education systems. This can be due, in part, to similar responses to similar environmental circumstances. Economic instability, rising unemployment, flagging export markets, trade imbalances, and inflation know no national boundaries. Traditional manufacturing industries are being replaced by the so-called “knowledge processing sector,” to which higher education has a particular economic contribution to make. The social service burden on national treasuries is rising everywhere, coupled with “pressures to cut government expenditure and to demand greater efficiencies from public sector institutions and enterprises.”