Higher Education

Significant differences persist between national higher education systems. One is whether traditional universities have remained a distinct sector within higher education—characterized by student recruitment from elite social groups, graduate entry into leading professions, and by academic and theoretical rather than applied and practical courses—or whether unified systems have been established. Most European and North American systems conform to the former binary model. In Germany and the Netherlands universities continue to be distinguished from Fachhochschulen and HBO schools respectively, while in US states, such as California, three-tier systems have been established headed by research universities. In France it is the grandes écoles, such as the École Polytechnique, rather than the universities, that form the pinnacle of higher education.

A second key difference is whether most scientific research is done in universities and other higher education institutions or in specialized research establishments. In Britain and most other Commonwealth countries and some other European countries, such as Sweden, and in the United States, universities are leading research institutions. However, in France research is also undertaken by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), although CNRS units are often based on university campuses. In Germany a significant amount of research is still undertaken in independent Max Planck institutes. In much of central and Eastern Europe universities have regained their stake in research that during the Communist era had been lost to specialized institutes of the academies of sciences.

However, these differences are tending to diminish as all higher education systems and institutions confront the global pressures of post-industrial society, and adopt similar organizational strategies. Binary systems, their structures predetermined by the state, are being replaced by unified systems in which market-led differentiation plays a bigger part in determining the fortunes of individual institutions. Funds for research are being targeted and the views of industrial and other “users” given greater weight, even when research continues to be carried out in universities. At the same time specialized research laboratories are being integrated into the wider higher education system.

Other differences, of institutional ethos and academic cultures, are also important. Three broad strands have been identified within the modern university tradition. The first emphasizes the development of scientific knowledge, and so research and graduate study, and has been most eloquently realized in the Humboldtian traditions of the German university. The second emphasizes professional formation. It is best represented by the French grandes écoles. The third emphasizes a liberal and critical education. It is represented by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in Britain, and in the United States by the University of Chicago, with its “Great Books” tradition, and other elite universities and liberal arts colleges.

These differences, too, are tending to diminish. As most nations develop mass higher education systems, these must incorporate features of all three, the scientific, professional, and liberal-critical strands within the university tradition. Many students who now enter higher education lack the traditional academic culture that characterized entrants to a more educationally, and socially, selective system. The growing number of higher education graduates means they no longer only enter the leading professions and follow elite careers. New subjects have entered the higher education curriculum, some in response to scientific advances, but many to provide more vocationally relevant outcomes. A new emphasis has been placed on responsiveness, to students and employers.

Many higher education courses are now modular in structure. In such programmes, instead of following a three- or four-year degree course with restricted options, students can choose from a range of separate modules. They are awarded points, or credits, for successful completion of these modules. Degrees, and other qualifications, are denominated in credits. Students are free not only to accumulate these credits but to transfer them from one course, or institution, to another. Most British universities have either introduced, or plan to introduce, modular course patterns, although their impact on student choice has so far been limited. In Sweden and several other European countries, similar points schemes have been introduced. Most American higher education courses have always been organized in terms of electives, or optional courses. The development of modular courses has often been accompanied by a switch from the traditional academic year of three terms to one of two semesters. The success of the British Open University in distance learning has led to the widespread adoption of new teaching technologies, which in turn have reinforced the move towards student-centred learning and assessment.

The most significant developments of recent years have been the growth of new kinds of university and the increasing popularity of so-called borderless education. These new institutions include corporate universities created by the merger of company training and research departments in response to the challenges of the new knowledge economy, and for-profit universities, the best example of which is the University of Phoenix based in the United States. Major research universities have also established global alliances such as “Universitas 21”. New partnerships between global multimedia and communications corporations and major universities have also been developed. Many higher education institutions have also exploited the potential of new information and communication technologies to develop new approaches to distance education, especially in business and management and computing. These new forms of globalization are beginning to replace more conventional types of academic exchange among the world’s universities.

As a result of all these changes, the purposes of higher education have been transformed. Universities are no longer exclusively engaged in the refinement, preservation, and transmission of authorized knowledge, organized within disciplines, and the initiation of young people, generally from privileged social backgrounds, into a settled intellectual culture. Traditional disciplines have been undermined by epistemological doubts and reductionist imperatives, and skills and knowledge redefined in terms of their social and vocational relevance. “Ownership” of the process of learning within higher education is now shared with students, many of whom are no longer young or privileged.