scholarly journals Politics, Ethnicity, and the Mission of the University: The Kenyan Example

Author(s):  
Weycliffe Otieno

The vulnerability of the education sector to the risks of political instability became clearly evident during the flare-up of violence following the disputed 2007 presidential elections in Kenya. Whereas universities especially in the developing world have often been seen as breeding grounds for radical political ideas and student activism, the post-election violence in Kenya directly affected university education, on a scale no other event has in the country's history. And, for the first time, the crisis facing education generally, and higher education specifically, showed clear ethnic manifestations.

Author(s):  
David Willetts

Universities have a crucial role in the modern world. In England, entrance to universities is by nation-wide competition which means English universities have an exceptional influence on schools--a striking theme of the book. This important book first investigates the university as an institution and then tracks the individual on their journey to and through university. In A University Education, David Willetts presents a compelling case for the ongoing importance of the university, both as one of the great institutions of modern society and as a transformational experience for the individual. The book also makes illuminating comparisons with higher education in other countries, especially the US and Germany. Drawing on his experience as UK Minister for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014, the author offers a powerful account of the value of higher education and the case for more expansion. He covers controversial issues in which he was involved from access for disadvantaged students to the introduction of L9,000 fees. The final section addresses some of the big questions for the future, such as the the relationship between universities and business, especially in promoting innovation.. He argues that the two great contemporary trends of globalisation and technological innovation will both change the university significantly. This is an authoritative account of English universities setting them for the first time in their new legal and regulatory framework.


Author(s):  
Anne Roosipõld ◽  
Krista Loogma ◽  
Mare Kurvits ◽  
Kristina Murtazin

In recent years, providing higher education in the form of work-based learning has become more important in the higher education (HE) policy and practice almost in all EU countries. Work-based learning (WBL) in HE should support the development of competences of self-guided learners and adjust the university education better to the needs of the workplace. The study is based on two pilot projects of WBL in HE in Estonia: Tourism and Restaurant Management professional HE programme and the master’s programme in Business Information Technology. The model of integrative pedagogy, based on the social-constructivist learning theory, is taken as a theoretical foundation for the study. A qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with the target groups. The data analysis used a horizontal analysis to find cross-cutting themes and identify patterns of actions and connections. It appears, that the challenge for HE is to create better cooperation among stakeholders; the challenge for workplaces is connected with better involvement of students; the challenge for students is to take more initiative and responsibility in communication with workplaces.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. p12
Author(s):  
Dr Warrick Long ◽  
Associate Professor Lisa Barnes ◽  
Professor Maria Northcote ◽  
Professor Anthony Williams

Continual reforms in the Australian Higher Education Sector result in ongoing significant changes to the experiences of the Australian academic. As a result, massification, internationalisation and corporatization form the landscape of academia in Australia. The Australian University Accounting Academic (AUAA) faces ongoing challenges and opportunities within this dynamic academic environment, and this study explores these challenges in relation to teaching themed issues that confront the AUAA. By using a questionnaire and interviews with AUAAs, three themes emerged, being curriculum, teaching workload, and the impact of online teaching. The “ASSET” support framework is developed from these conversations with the AUAA’s to help them become an “asset” to the university during these times of disruptive change instead of allowing the system to “gazump” them.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zehorit Dadon-Golan ◽  
Adrian Ziderman ◽  
Iris BenDavid-Hadar

PurposeA major justification for the state subsidy of university education at public institutions (and, in some countries, of private universities too) is the economic and social benefits accruing to society as whole from a significantly university-educated workforce and citizenship. Based upon a broad range of research findings, a particular societal benefit emanating from higher education relates to good citizenship: that it leads to more open mindedness and tolerant political attitudes. We examined these issues using a representative sample of students from Israeli universities to clarify the extent to which these outcomes would be paralleled in the Israeli setting, where the university experience differs markedly from that found typically in the West.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a comparison of political tolerance levels between first- and final-year students enrolled in regular undergraduate study programs (of four days a week or more). However since a change in tolerance is likely to be contingent also on the amount of time that the student spends on campus during the study year, we introduce, as a control group, students enrolled in compressed study programs (of three days a week or less) and compare changes in their tolerance levels with tolerance changes of students enrolled in regular programs. Research questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate students at three universities from the three major districts in Israel–north, south and center. The achieved sample size was 329 students.FindingsUsing Difference-in-Differences techniques, we looked for any changes in students' general political tolerance, over the course of their studies. Surprisingly, we found no such effect on political tolerance attitudes. Israeli students are older and often married and though nominally full-time students, they often hold down a full-time job. Thus they come and go to attend lectures but do not otherwise spend much time on campus. Given the somewhat perfunctory nature of the university experience for most Israeli students, it does not to lead to more open-minded and tolerant political attitudes.Practical implicationsSome broader, practical applications of the research, beyond the Israeli case, are presented, particularly related to distance learning and to the impact of COVID-19. Attention is given to more recent “Cancel culture” developments on university campuses.Originality/valueThe results have wider implications, to other university setting in other countries. Changes in political attitudes may occur in university settings where campus life is well developed, with opportunities for student interaction, formally in extra-curricular events or through social mixing outside the lecture hall. Where the university experience is more minimally confined to attendance at lectures these desirable outcomes may not be forth coming. These findings are relevant to other university frameworks where campus attendance is marginal, such as in open university education and, even more explicitly, in purely internet-based higher education study.


Author(s):  
Thomas Docherty

The contemporary institution fails to understand the real meaning of ‘mass higher education’. A mass higher education should address the concerns of those masses of ‘ordinary people’ who, for whatever reasons, do not attend a university. Instead, the contemporary sector simply admits more individuals from lower social and economic classes. Behind this is a deep suspicion of the intellectual whose knowledge marks them out as intrinsically elitist and not ‘of the people’. An intellectual concerned about everyday life is now seen as suspicious, given the normative belief that a university education is about individual competitive self-advancement. This intellectual is now an enemy of ‘the people’, and incipiently one who might even be regarded as criminal in dissenting from conformity with social norms of neoliberalism. There is a history to this, dating from 1945; and it sets up a contest between two version of the university: one sees it as a centre of humane and liberal values, the other as the site for the production of individuals who conform to and individually benefit from neoliberal greed. The genuine exception is the intellectual who dissents; but dissent itself is now seen as potentially criminal.


Complexity ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Pablo Medina ◽  
Natalia Ariza ◽  
Pablo Navas ◽  
Fernando Rojas ◽  
Gina Parody ◽  
...  

In this paper, we show an unintended effect of the program Ser Pilo Paga (SPP) that was a flagship program of the Colombian government between 2014 and 2018. It was designed as an intervention in the Colombian Higher Education System (CHES) by awarding, in the steady state, individual funding to about 40,000 students. Every year, 10,000 new students were chosen from the best applicants in the top decile of the population in the entrance exam to higher education in Colombia that also came from families that live under the level of poverty according to a national survey. Our approach, based on an intensive study of the changes in the statistical distributions of the exam scores during these four years, provides evidence of student performance improvements not only of the beneficiaries of the program, but also of the whole student population. This shows that the program opened similar opportunities for all the students, especially for the poorest ones. The program drove a reduction in the gap between students of the upper strata of the population and those of the lowest strata that usually did not access a high quality institution of higher education due to the lack of funding. This result has opened a debate about the optimal way of funding higher education.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Simonne Horwitz

This paper charts the history and debates surrounding the introduction of academic, university-based training of nurses in South Africa. This was a process that was drawn out over five decades, beginning in the late 1930s. For nurses, university training was an important part of a process of professionalization; however, for other members of the medical community, nursing was seen as being linked to women's service work. Using the case-study of the University of the Witwatersrand, one of South Africa's premier universities and the place in the country to offer a university-based nursing program, we argue that an historical understanding of the ways in which nursing education was integrated into the university system tells us a great deal about the professionalization of nursing. This paper also recognises, for the first time, the pioneers of this important process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-468
Author(s):  
Luis Danilo Flores Rivera ◽  
Carlos Fernando Meléndez Tamayo ◽  
Manuel Morocho Amaguaya

El artículo presenta a la educación continua como un recurso fundamental y eficiente del currículo universitario y su mecanismo innovador es el empleo de las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación en todas las modalidades de estudio, metodologías y/o procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. El estudio tiene como objetivos analizar a la educación continua como eje integrador de las competencias del currículo universitario y difundir resultados oficiales del proceso. Para lo cual, se realizó un análisis conceptual y un análisis descriptivo cuantitativo con un diseño no experimental longitudinal. La investigación registró datos de una Institución de Educación Superior desde el año 2014 hasta el 2019 con un total de 190 cursos con 9276 personas capacitadas y puntualmente el último año con 46 cursos y 1559 participantes. Los resultados del estudio evidencian un crecimiento en el número de cursos, horas y participantes al proceso formativo continuo. Se identifican tendencias actuales de la educación continua vinculada a las TIC; así como requerimientos a otros tipos de programas curriculares. Finalmente el análisis establece el beneficio de la educación continua en la actualización, capacitación, formación y perfeccionamiento de competencias; además la oferta de alternativas que se ajusten a la demanda y requerimientos de los participantes para renovar nuevas competencias sea en el campo académico o laboral. La Institución de Educación Superior (IES), considerada en la investigación, fue la Universidad Técnica de Ambato (UTA), que por medio de la Dirección de Educación Continua a Distancia y Virtual (DEaDV), lidera el proceso de formación continua universitaria. La entidad ha ejecutado un total de 190 cursos con 9276 personas capacitadas; y el registro año 2019 con 46 cursos y 1778 participantes (estudiantes, docentes, personal administrativo y de servicio) de la universidad, organizaciones públicas, privadas y público en general (DEaDV, 2020). Estos datos revelan el crecimiento e importancia del proceso formativo continuo que se ha venido ejecutando. This article presents continuing education as a fundamental and efficient resource of the university curriculum, being its most innovative mechanism the use of Information and Communication Technologies in all study modalities, methodologies and / or teaching-learning processes. This study aims to analyze continuing education as an integrating axis of the competences in the university curriculum and to disseminate official results of the process. To this end, a conceptual analysis and a quantitative descriptive analysis with a longitudinal non-experimental design were conducted. We collected data from a Higher Education Institution from 2014 to 2019 with a total of 190 courses with 9276 people (specifically for last year 46 courses and 1559 participants were included). The results show an increase in the number of courses, hours and participants in the continuous training processes. Current trends in continuing education linked to ICT are identified; as well as requirements for other types of curricular programs. Finally, the analysis establishes the benefits of continuous education when it comes to updating, training and improving skills. Besides, this study also reports an increase in the offer of alternatives required by the participants to update their competencies, whether in academic or labor fields. The Institution of Higher Education (IES), considered in the research, was the Technical University of Ambato (UTA), which through the Directorate of Continuing Distance and Virtual Education (DEaDV), leads the process of continuous university education. The entity has executed a total of 190 courses with 9276 people trained; and the year 2019 registration with 46 courses and 1778 participants (students, teachers, administrative and service staff) of the university, public, private and general public organizations (DEaDV, 2020). These data reveal the growth and importance of the continuous training process that has been running.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Gorgodze ◽  
Lasha Macharashvili ◽  
Anna Kamladze

In the context of increasing numbers of students enrolling in higher education in the last decade, understanding student expectations of their universities becomes more important. Universities need to know what students expect if they want to keep them satisfied and continue attracting them. On the other hand, it is also important to know whether student expectations are in line with the purpose of the universities and the causes they serve. This research explores students’ expectations and perceptions of the university in post-Soviet Georgia, as well as whether these expectations are in line with the perspectives of university administrators. For the purposes of this research, over 800 bachelor level students of different academic programs were surveyed at five big public universities across Georgia. Additionally, 10 in-depth interviews were conducted with university administrators to learn about the purpose that public universities try to serve and to understand their perspectives on what should be expected of university. After the analysis of the results, two focus groups were conducted with the students in Western and Eastern Georgia to make sense of the findings obtained through the student survey. Finally, 4 in-depth interviews were conducted with experts to understand their perspectives on the actual findings of this research. The results suggest that employment is the main expectation from a university education. Moreover, there is a mismatch between what students identify as their primary expectation and what administrators believe students should expect. Significance and implications of these results for universities are discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Murk Fatima ◽  
Murk Khero

Student loyalty ensures management to take better strategies to improve the performance of any institute. The purpose of this research is to examine the factors impacting student’s loyalty through an empirical investigation of Higher Education Sector of Pakistan. The data for this research was collected through questionnaires from four major private universities of Karachi: SZABIST, IQRA University, Bahria University and Institute of Business Management (IOBM) with a sample size of 380. According to the nature of data, descriptive statistic and inferential statistics (regression & correlation) was used. In this research 51.6% respondents were male followed by females which are 47.9%. Results show that, female respondents are more inclined towards a university brand name and location as compare to males. On the side, males are more concerned about the universities’ market value and faculty (teachers) as the major traits while choosing a particular university as compare to females. For universities facilities both the gender male and females have not shown much enthusiasm and interest. Moreover, program offered by the university, fee structure and extracurricular activities are not the primary focus for students (both male and females) as one of the university traits. Further the results demonstrate that, academic facilities and service attitude are highly correlated and have a great impact on student’s loyalty. Moreover, campus environment having a weaker correlation also impact’s the student’s loyalty.  Other factors like, HOD and program manager have a significantly weak correlation with student loyalty and at the same time does not produce any impact. This research responded the questions raised and welcomed a wide range of discussions for the university management to work closely for student’s welfare to enhance and maintain the student’s loyalty. The study is restricted within three HEC institutes of Karachi city only due to limited time frame and financial resources available.


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