UNESCO Expert Meeting
Paris, 10-11 September 2001
Higher Education in the Age of Globalisation
The need for a new regulatory framework for
recognition, quality assurance and accreditation
Dirk Van Damme
Ghent University - VLIR (B)
Structure
• Globalisation
• The impact of globalisation on higher education
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new exigencies on higher education
increasing demand for higher education
erosion of national regulatory frameworks
emerging borderless higher education market
• The need for a new regulatory framework
– regulation of new & transnational providers
– recognition of qualifications and credits
– international quality assurance and accreditation
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Globalisation
= Still unclear, much debated concept, but useful as
a heuristic tool to understand the interrelated
tendencies that define the contemporary
environment for higher education:
• The rise of the network society: technological
innovation, strategic importance of information
and communication, the Internet
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September 2001
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Globalisation
• The restructuring of the world economic system:
transformation to post-industrial knowledge
economy, new industrial nations, new forms of
dependency in developing countries, integration of
world economy with liberalised trade, etc.
• The political reshaping of the post-Cold War
world order: strategic shifts in power balances,
emergence of new hegemonic regions, increasing
global insecurity, regional and local conflicts
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Globalisation
• The growing real but also virtual mobility of
people, capital and knowledge, but also new mass
migrations by poor and refugees
• The erosion of the nation-state and its capacity to
master the economic and political transformations,
weakness of international community, growing gap
between economic activity and poltical regulation
• Complex cultural developments with
homogeneisation as well as differentiation
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September 2001
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Impact on higher education
1 New important demands and exigencies towards
universities as ‘knowledge centres’
– strategic importance of knowledge and information,
scientific research, development and technology
– internationalisation of research, mobility of academic
profession, international market in research personnel
– international benchmarking of ‘research universities’
– new forms of knowledge production and application
– competition from other ‘knowledge centres’
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Impact on higher education
2 Worldwide increase in demand for higher education
– more highly qualified knowledge workers in developed c.
– massification of demand, growth of unmet demand among
upper and middle classes in many countries because of
budgetary and capacity limits of public sector
– diversification of demand because of LLL and more
flexible delivery modes
higher education as booming global market,
massification of demand not matched by growth of public
provision, leading to increase in private, commercial
supply and severe problems of equity and access
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Impact on higher education
3 Erosion of national regulatory frameworks
– increasing contradiction between national policy
frameworks and international environment (liberalised
global market, globalised professions, international market
for researchers, brain drain, competition by foreign
providers, etc.)
– deregulation and institutional autonomy weaken
dependence of institutions from national policy frameworks
– internationalisation strategies of institutions: from
cooperation to competition, increase in for-profit
internationalisation
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Impact on higher education
3 Erosion of national regulatory frameworks (cont’d)
– development of international references and policies:
harmonisation and congruence (e.g. Bologna,
generalisation of bachelor/master-degree systems, English
as lingua franca of scientific research and higher learning,
consensus on core curricula, etc.), but also differentiation
– national policies will not be annihilated completely, but it is
an illusion to resist globalisation and marketisation by
identifying ‘public good’ with ‘national’
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Impact on higher education
4 Emerging borderless higher education market
– profitable environment for growth of private and
transnational supply of educational services
– varied ‘businesses of borderless education’
– challenging academic identity and threatening market
position of ‘traditional’ universities in specific niches
– real problems of diploma mills, but also exagerated
protectionist reactions of national administrations
– access, equity and quality
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September 2001
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Need for new regulatory framework
need for a new international regulatory framework to
(counter)balance the impact of globalisation
– transcending old notions of ‘public’ versus ‘private’, but
affirming the public functions and responsibilities of higher
education while recognising its market possibilities
– based on self-regulation but in a comprehensive partnership with national states, international organisations,
student unions, professions, other stakeholders
– defending the interests of learners worldwide, the
international higher education community and the global
‘general interest’ in access, equity and quality
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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Need for new regulatory framework
• Price/risk of not developing such a framework
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liberalisation without constraints, ‘academic capitalism’
no transparency but chaos for learners & ‘consumers’
rogue providers, charlatans, etc.
more protectionist approaches by national authorities,
limiting international mobility of skilled labour
– higher education loosing grip on qualifications & degrees
– global professions and industries defining their own
standards on skills & competences outside qualifications &
degrees
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Need for new regulatory framework
1 Regulation of private & transnational providers
2 Recognition of qualifications & credits
3 International quality assurance & accreditation
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September 2001
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1. Regulation of new providers
• Problem:
– huge differences in dealing with private & transnational
providers; increase in protectionist approaches
– limits of purily ‘national’ & ‘public’ regulation of higher
education market
– blurring of the concepts ‘public’ and ‘private’; also
‘private’ & non-national institutions can fulfill ‘public’
functions
– GATS: liberalisation of higher education services
– no need for bureaucratic ‘recognition’ procedures
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September 2001
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1. Regulation of new providers
need for international regulatory framework for
dealing with private & transnational providers,
including:
– an international glossary of common concepts, definitions
and terminology,
– some basic rules to grant providers the 'licence to teach',
– an internationally standardised procedure of registration
(including identification of who is in control and who can
be held accountable)
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September 2001
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1. Regulation of new providers
– some rules concerning the correct use of the basic labels,
– the removal of existing barriers to mobility of students and
staff, not dealt with in international trade agreements,
– some basic elements of a professional code of good
practice (building further on work done by UNESCO,
Council of Europe a.o.)
– a basic arrangement of the intellectual property issues
associated with private higher education, and
– an agreement on issues of consumer protection and rights
of complaint.
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September 2001
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1. Regulation of new providers
• In self-interest of private & transnational providers
• And: self-regulation of higher education sector in
order to build trust and esteem as respectable service
sector
• Need for representative international associations of
public and private institutions
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September 2001
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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits
• Problem:
– context of increased global mobility of skilled labour and
globalisation of professions
– complicated bureaucratic procedures of ‘equivalence’ of
foreign/private degrees and qualifications are conservative
and protectionist
– the educational sector is circumvened by policies
concerning professional mobility and by court decisions,
but it is the public responsibility of the higher education
sector to solve this issue itself at the risk of loosing grip on
the essential raison d’être of higher education!
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits
– increasing importance of credits as units of validation of
learning experiences leads to issues of recognition and
transferability/accumulation of credits
– importance of informal learning and its validation:
outcome- and competence-oriented approaches are gaining
importance, but no radical abstraction of formal &
institutional components of educational process to be
expected
– international accreditation cannot be expected to provide
the solution to these problems of recognition of
qualifications and credits
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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2. Recognition of qualifications/credits
Strong need for a new ambitious international
initiative in recognition of qualifications & credits
– leading to more or less automatic recognition and
international transferability of foreign qualifications and
credits within ‘harmonised’ higher education areas
– including a flexible ‘recognition’ system for qualifications
and credits delivered by private institutions
– including internationally accepted procedures for
validation of informal and experiential learning and for
accumulation in a lifelong learning perspective
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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3. International QA & accreditation
• Problem:
– development of national quality assurance schemes in 90s:
domestic functions, not covering e-learning &
transnational delivery, limited international
benchmarking, not ‘readable’ to outsiders
– development of national accreditation schemes: various
models and functions, often to control domestic supply side
– very limited development of international accreditation,
inability of HE sector to develop its own accreditation
system internationally
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September 2001
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3. International QA & accreditation
– but: growth of international professional accreditation,
import of foreign accreditors, etc., ‘multiple accreditation’
• Huge differences of opinion regarding international
accreditation strategies:
– improving communication and exchange between national
schemes leading to benchmarking and mutual recognition
– ‘soft’ international validation of trustworthy QA and
accreditation schemes via agreement on standards
– ‘real’ international accreditation: problem of legitimacy
– international accreditation agency: costly & bureaucratic
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September 2001
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3. International QA & accreditation
• My conviction is that development of global higher
education market has to be accompanied by
development of own trustworthy forms of
international ‘accreditation’, seen as self-regulation
on minimal quality standards, in order to establish
international HE as a respectable and accountable
service sector
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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3. International QA & accreditation
• Steps that can be taken:
– an agreement on a common set of definitions and a
glossary of concepts;
– an agreement on a basic set of principles, a.o.
• that quality assurance and accreditation primarily are a kind of
self-regulation, owned by the higher education community and
guaranteeing academic values,
• that accreditation is only possible on the basis of existing quality
assurance experiences,
• that international accreditation must respect institutional autonomy
and cultural diversity, and promote innovation and improvement
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September 2001
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3. International QA & accreditation
– an initiative to convince the international higher education
community that it has to do it itself, at the risk of giving
away the initiative in this crucial issue;
– an initiative to national authorities to convince them to
approach accreditation internationally;
– an initiative to seek the cooperation of the internationally
organised professions, students and other stakeholders;
– start of work by experts on standards, criteria and
benchmarking procedures, in order to investigate the
possibility of the definition of internationally agreed
minimum quality standards.
UNESCO Expert Meeting, Paris, 10-11
September 2001
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