Higher Education Challenges

779 Words4 Pages

We live in a global world and an increasingly competitive environment. Highlighted by the world conference of higher education held by the UNISCO, the modern university is facing substantial change as a result of two central trends in external environment. These trends are “acceleration in the pace of change itself and the globalization of the economy and of technology” (UNISCO, 1998, p.11) causing challenge for higher education institutes. The challenges facing higher education include internal and external factors. From one side, internal factors are 1) the “tensions between research and teaching structures” (Felt and Glanz 2002, p.18), 2) the inability of dealing with the growth of number of students entering higher education institutes …show more content…

These external changes have led to 1) rethink of the roles of higher education institutes, 2) ivolvement and intervention of external stakeholder in internal issues of higher education and research and 3) changes of students’ expectations and demands regarding university educational services (Felt, 2003). Meanwhile the growth of demand on services of higher education institutes in both developed and developing countries and other challenges facing them have led to increas of their accountability to the public and their strategies adopted for social responsibility have increased globally. Hence “[t]he role of the university in social progress is particularly crucial in emerging economies and societies. If the university is not continually rethinking itself, questioning itself, reforming itself, if it is not truly open to society, it will become an organ of under-development and will deepen discrimination instead of promoting social cohesion” (Koskos, 2007, …show more content…

Monaco stated in his article in the Composition of Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory: “…there was a need to reflect on the origins of the University, revisiting them in order to meet the challenges of today's world and to confirm the necessary integration” Monaco (2002, pp.12, 13). Vukasovic (2008) argued the need of participation of the universities’ staff and employees in the achievement of goals within the framework of social responsibility, respect for freedom, ethics and commitment. Although, society makes demands on universities and academic institutions to be more involved with social issues (Vallaeys, 2006 in Martínez de Carrasquero, 2011), universities especially in developing countries, still need to adopt and respond to these

Open Document