INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION
The Boston College Center for International Higher Education
Number 14 Winter 1999
The Boston College Center for International Higher Education provides information and support for international initiatives in higher education. Focusing especially on academic institutions in the Jesuit tradition, the Center is dedicated to comparative and international higher education worldwide.
International Issues 2 Global Challenge and National Response
Philip G. Altbach & Todd M. Davis Special Focus: Argentina 6 8 The Funding of Higher Education in Argentina
Ana Garciá de Fanelli The Buenos Aires "Model"
Philip G. Altbach Countries and Regions 10 12 14 15 17 19 20 22 23
Departments Germany: Current Issues
Barbara M. Kehm Norway: Advice to the Rector at Oslo
Arild Tjeldvoll Moldova: Development and Differentiation
Lucia Padure Singapore: Recent Trends
Jason Tan Chile: Postsecondary Education Evolution
Luis Eduardo González Israel: Student Activism and Government Response
Roxana Reichman Uganda: Problems and Possibilities
Michel Lejune Japan: A Major Reform Report
Yoshikazu Ogawa The United States: Foreign Student Flows
Todd M. Davis 25 26 29 30 IESALC: Latin American Resource Institute
Luis Yazarabal Literature on Latin American Higher Education
Liz Reisberg News of the Center New Publications 2 INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION International Issues New Perspectives on Global Higher Education Challenges A t a conference on international higher education held in Washington, D.C. on December 3 and 4, 1998, there was general agreement on the similarity in the central issues facing higher education around the world. Organized by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Council on International Exchange of Scholars (CIES)-the Fulbright Program, the meeting brought together nine key experts from around the world to discuss current and future trends in higher education. The group responded to a theme paper prepared by Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, and Todd Davis, research director at the IIE. The paper can be found in this issue of IHE. The conference featured one day of discussions of major trends and developments with a larger group of Washington-area policymakers and international education experts. Among the groups represented were the Inter-American Development Bank, the U.S. Department of Education, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Organization of American States, the U.S. Information Agency, and others. A second day of discussions with the core group of experts was held to discuss future directions for in- ternational higher education cooperation. Among the experts attending the conference were Peter Darvas, formerly director of the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute in Budapest, Hungary and now a senior staff member at the World Bank; Nasima Badsha, deputy director general of the higher education division in the Ministry of Education, South Africa; Suma Chitnis, director of the Tata Endowment and former vice chancellor of SNDT University in Bombay, India; Simon Schwartzman of the Center for Social Research on Sustainable Development in Brazil; Min Weifang, executive vice president of Peking University, China; Akimasa Mitsuta, professor at Obirin University in Japan and formerly a senior official in the Japanese Ministry of Education; Barbara Sporn of the Department of Informatics at the Economics University of Vienna, Austria; and George Eshiwani, vice chancellor of Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. The insights of these experts will soon be published in a book cosponsored by the Institute of International Education and CIHE. Copies of Toward a Global Understanding of Higher Education will be available from CIHE and IIE in spring 1999. lutions from one country or region may be relevant in another. Since academic institutions worldwide stem from common historical roots and face common contemporary challenges, it is especially appropriate that international dialogue take place. A comparative and global approach to thinking about higher education benefits everyone--the experience of one country may not be directly relevant to another, but issues and solutions touch many nations. This essay has several key aims: · to highlight issues in higher education that face many countries and about which an international discussion can contribute insights; · to contribute to the internationalization of higher education through discussion of international initiatives and linking of people and institutions committed to a global perspective and expanded international programs; · to create a network of colleagues and centers working in the field of higher education worldwide in order to foster ongoing dialogue, communication, and possible collaborative research; and · to link policymakers, key administrators, and the higher education research community in a creative dialogue on the central issues facing contemporary higher education. We see this essay, and the discussions that we hope it Global Challenge and National Response: Notes for an International Dialogue on Higher Education
Philip G. Altbach and Todd M. Davis
Philip G. Altbach is J. Donald Monan, S.J. professor of higher education at Boston College. Todd M. Davis is research director at the Institute of International Education, New York. H igher education has profoundly changed in the past two decades, and those involved in the academic enterprise have yet to grapple with the implications of these changes. Academic institutions and systems have faced pressures of increasing numbers of students and demographic changes, demands for accountability, reconsideration of the social and economic role of higher education, implications of the end of the Cold War, and the impact of new technologies, among others. While academic systems function in a national environment, the challenges play themselves out on a global scale. We can learn much from both national experiences and international trends. Ideas and so- 3 will stimulate, as a first step in an ongoing discussion. We are especially concerned to link "north" and "south" in a discussion that has been for so long dominated by the industrialized countries. We are convinced that there is much that can be learned by considering the experiences of countries and systems worldwide. Background and Global Perspective While it may not yet be possible to think of higher education as a global system, there is considerable convergence among the world's universities and higher education systems. The medieval European historical origin of most of the world's universities provides a common antecedent. The basic institutional model and structure of studies are similar worldwide. Academic institutions have frequently been international in orientation--with common curricular elements and, in the medieval period, a common language of instruction--Latin. At the end of the 20th century, English has assumed a role as the primary international language of science and scholarship, including the Internet. Now, with more than one million students studying outside their borders, with countless scholars working internationally, and with new technologies such as the Internet fostering instantaneous communications, the international roots and the contemporary realities of the university are central. sector of the population. Access is an increasingly important issue everywhere, as populations demand it and as developing economies require skilled personnel. Higher education systems have also been moving from elite to mass to universal access A comparative and global approach to thinking about higher education benefits everyone--the experience of one country may not be directly relevant to another, but issues and solutions touch many nations. Higher education systems have also been moving from elite to mass to universal access, as Martin Trow pointed out in the 1960s. In North America, much of Europe, and a number of East Asian countries, academic systems approach universal access, with close to half the relevant age group attending some kind of postsecondary institution and with access increasingly available for nontraditional (mainly older) students. In some countries, however, access remains limited. In China and India, for example, despite dramatic expansion, under 5 percent of the age group attends postsecondary institutions. In some countries with relatively low per capita income, such as the Philippines, access is high, while in some wealthier nations, it remains a key point of challenge. Throughout Africa, access is limited to a tiny Demands for access come into conflict with another of the flashpoints of controversy of the present era--funding. Higher education is an expensive undertaking, and there is much debate concerning how to fund expanding academic systems. Current approaches to higher education funding emphasize the need for "users" to pay for the cost of instruction, as policymakers increasingly view higher education as something that benefits the individual, rather than as a "public good" where the benefits accrue to society. This new thinking, combined with constrictions on public expenditures in many countries, have meant severe financial problems for academe. These difficulties come at a time when higher education systems are trying to provide expanded access. Higher education's problems have been exacerbated in many of the poorer parts of the world by the idea, popular in the past several decades and stressed by the World Bank and other agencies, that basic education was most cost-effective--as a result, higher education was ignored by major lending and donor agencies. Now, higher education is back on the agenda of governments and multilateral agencies just as academe faces some of its most serious challenges. Academic systems and institutions have tried to deal with these financial constraints in several ways. Loan programs, the privatization of some public institutions, and higher tuition are among the alternatives to direct government expenditure. In many parts of the world, including most of the major industrialized nations, conditions of study have deteriorated in response to financial constraints. Enrollments have risen, but resources, including faculty, have not kept up with needs. Academic infrastructures, including libraries and laboratories, have been starved of funds. Less is spent on basic research. Conditions of study have deteriorated in many of the world's best-developed academic systems, including Germany and France. Students have taken to the streets in large numbers to protest declining budgets and poor conditions for the first time since the 1960s. There has also been a dramatic decline in academic conditions in sub-Saharan Africa and in some other developing areas. 4 INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION While these trends, and the circumstances discussed below, vary to some extent from country to country, there is considerable convergence. Academic leaders worldwide worry about the same set of topics. Specific conditions vary from one country to another, and there are certainly major differences between the Netherlands and Mali. Yet, solutions from one country may be relevant, at least in terms of suggesting alternatives, elsewhere. For example, there is much interest in Australian ideas concerning "graduate tax"--repayment schemes based on postgraduate income. The United States, as the world's largest and in many respects leading academic system, experienced the challenges of universal access first, and American patterns of academic organization are of considerable interest elsewhere. Current approaches to higher education funding emphasize the need for "users" to pay for the cost of instruction, as policymakers increasingly view higher education as something that benefits the individual, rather than as a "public good" where the benefits accrue to society. We live in a period of rapid change in higher education, a period when we can learn much from the experience of others. In short, higher education has gone global but with a variety of accents. These global concerns or issues are actually not discrete topic areas. They are better understood as issue clusters. Each of the following are actually related concerns that are increasingly difficult to isolate and manage in a reductionist manner. A discussion of the short list of issue clusters follows. The Issue Clusters We identify several themes that seem to us to be central to current developments in higher education worldwide. These themes deserve elaboration and analysis. They affect countries and regions differently, although we believe that all are relevant internationally, and that a discussion of implications can lead to understanding that will useful for both comparative and national analysis. · Education and work are activities that should feed one another. The links and transition points from initial education to the work force are weakly articulated. This is true in the developed world as well as in the developing world. Educators and business leaders rarely discuss, let alone agree upon, a set of skills and orientations that are prerequisites for successful employment. The formal structures by which education systems prepare students for tomorrow are simi- larly weakly developed. Models developed in Germany, through the linking of postsecondary education and apprenticeship arrangements, or the community college system in the United States are currently being explored in several areas. Professional education often links well to employment in many countries, but education in the arts and sciences is less well articulated. It is not clear how close the articulation can be, but the issues are worthy of further consideration. · While the initial transition from school to work may be poorly articulated, the demand for education throughout the life cycle is becoming apparent. Fed by rapid changes in technology and the creation of employment categories that did not exist 10 years ago, workers and employers must continually attend to the educational dimension. As the nature of work has evolved, so have the needs of those in the workforce to continually upgrade their capacities. This has led to the development of a variety of educational forms beyond the bachelor's degree. In Germany, recent changes in the degree structure have led to the modularization of graduate degrees. In the United States, certificate programs and short-term courses of study are being rapidly developed. By one recent estimate corporations in the United States alone will spend $15 billion over current expenditures by 2005 just to maintain current employee training levels. Others estimate that world wide expenditures on training amount to many billions of dollars annually to ensure that their work force has the skills necessary to compete in an ever competitive and high-velocity business environment. In many countries, especially in the developing world, graduate education is coming into its own as the need for advanced skills and for continuing education becomes increasingly clear. · It has become a point of banality to remark on the changes that technological developments have wrought. Indeed, many of the dislocations in school-to-work transition and the press for lifelong education are partially the result of these developments. More directly, however, technology has made possible a revolution in distance education that has important implications for the accreditation of educational institutions and assurance of quality in such circumstances. Technology is also beginning to have an impact on teaching and learning in traditional universities. It is also a truism that this technology is expensive, subject to rapid obsolescence, and requires high initial investment simply to get into the game. For many developing countries, cost is at present prohibitive, and it is precisely these areas where technology can provide the greatest short-term improvement. Technology is also central to the communication, storage, and retrieval of knowledge. The traditional library is being revolutionized by web-based information systems, as are the management systems of many universities. Technology is the least understood of the issue clusters discussed here, and perhaps the one with the greatest potential for transforming higher education. 5 · We have noted in passing the increase in the number of internationally mobile students. While this is an exciting and important trend, it is not without some important consequences. As the market for individuals with transnational competencies have grown, so have opportunities for individuals with marketable skills in other countries. Currently the transfer of talent has been from developing countries such as India and China to the developed world. In the United States, the stay rates for advanced students in the engineering disciplines and the sciences can be higher than 75 percent for students from particular countries. From the perspective of national education authorities, these students may represent a considerable hemorrhaging of talent that has been developed by the students' countries of origin. If nations are to develop, a means must be found by which talent can flourish in the soils that originally nurtured it. Related issues of internationalizing the curriculum and providing a global consciousness to students, including instruction in foreign language, and ensuring that the academic profession is linked internationally are central to any discussion of the internationalization of higher education. · Although seldom discussed, one of the areas of greatest expansion worldwide has been graduate education--the post baccalaureate training for the professions as well as for science, technology, and teaching. Graduate education offers great opportunities for international links and cooperation. Countries can take advantage of graduate training capacities elsewhere, and the new technologies can provide key links. Highly specialized and advanced-level teaching and research deserves careful analysis. experiencing the growth of private institutions, understanding in a comparative context the problems and possibilities of private higher education is an urgent need. · The academic profession is in crisis almost everywhere. There is a rapid growth of part-time faculty members in many countries, and traditional tenure systems are under attack. The professoriate is being asked to do more with less, and student-teacher ratios, academic salaries, and morale have all deteriorated. The professoriate is being asked to adjust to new circumstances but is given few resources to assist in the transition. Without a committed academic profession, the university cannot be an effective institution. The academic profession is in crisis almost everywhere. Although seldom discussed, one of the areas of greatest expansion worldwide has been graduate education. · The privatization of higher education is a worldwide phenomenon of considerable importance. In Latin America and some parts of Asia the fastest-growing parts of the academic system are private institutions. In Central and Eastern Europe, private initiative is also of considerable importance. Public universities are in some places being "privatized" in the sense that they are increasingly responsible for raising their own funds. They are asked to relate more directly to society. Students are increasingly seen as "customers." The expansion of the private sector brings up issues of quality control and accreditation since in many parts of the world there are few controls as yet on privatesector expansion. Access is also a central issue. As some developing areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, will soon be · Access and equity remain central factors, but in the current policy context are sometimes ignored. While academic systems worldwide have expanded dramatically, there are problems of access and equity in many parts of the world. Gender, ethnicity, and social class remain serious issues. In many developing countries, higher education remains mainly an urban phenomenon, and one that is reserved largely for wealthier segments of society. Although women have made significant advances, access for women remains a serious problem in many parts of the world. · Accountability is a contemporary watchword in higher education. Demands by funding sources, mainly government, to measure academic productivity, control funding allocations, etc. is increasingly a central part of the debate on higher education. Governance systems are being strained, sometimes to the breaking point. To meet the demands for accountability, universities are becoming "managerialized," with professional administrators gaining increasing control. The traditional power of the professoriate is being weakened. · Expansion brings with it increased differentiation and the emergence of academic systems. New kinds of academic institutions emerge, and existing universities serve larger and more diverse groups. In order to make sense of this differentiation, academic systems are organized to provide coordination and the appropriate management of resources. These are some of the key topics that affect contemporary postsecondary education worldwide. While this is by no means a complete list, it provides the basis for discussion and cooperation. International and comparative analysis can help to yield insights on how to deal with these topics in individual countries. 6 INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION Special Focus: Argentina The Funding of Higher Education in Argentina
Ana Garcìa de Fanelli
Ana Garcìa de Fanelli is director and senior researcher in the Higher Education Department at CEDES (Center for the Study of the State and Society) Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a member of CONICET (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research). Address: Sanchez de Bustamante 27, Buenos Aires (CP 1173), Argentina. Fax: (541) 8620805 E-mail: . T he funding of Argentine higher education has been changing since the mid-1980s. Important changes have occurred both in funding sources and in the way public resources are allocated to the national universities. The new funding mechanisms were introduced into a higher education context with the following key elements: · The slight increase in the public funding had not kept up with the significant expansion in student enrollments. However, due to political and social pressures, public universities continued their open-admissions policies. Expenditure per student at the national universities is slightly over $2,000, and higher education public funding represents 0.5 percent of GNP. · Ups and downs in public expenditure from the 1970s to the 1990s, linked to the overall economic situation, made it difficult to carry out long-term institutional planning. Existing funding was almost exclusively allocated to covering teaching and administrative salaries. · The national universities receive their public funds through a mechanism based on the institution's previous allocation and lobbying activity in Congress. · The national universities depend exclusively on public funds for income. · Inadequate financial resources exist for funding research projects, scholarships, equipment, library facilities, and laboratory materials. Public expenditures in R&D amount to barely 0.3 percent of GNP. · Student dropout levels are high, as is the number of students taking more than the average number of years to obtain their degrees. Private Funding and Changes in the Allocation of Public Resources Public universities are now trying to diversify their sources of income mainly through contracts with commercial organizations, employers, and others as well as by charging fees to graduate students. Still more controversial is the issue of charging tuition for undergraduate programs, concerning which strong political opposition prevails. The government is also trying to increase the role of private financing by encouraging the creation of private institutions. The number of private universities increased from 23 in 1987 to 46 10 years later. As in many Latin American countries, two factors explain the policy of permissive authorization of private institutions in Argentina. The first is the understanding that the private sector can relieve the government of some of the cost burden. The second is the belief that competition for students and teachers will encourage greater efficiency and quality within higher education institutions. The most relevant recent trends in the funding of national universities reveal new patterns in the allocation of public funds: · Greater institutional autonomy is promoted by allocating block grants to universities and allowing them to negotiate their pay scales within limits established by the government. This second policy has not been implemented yet due to the many political difficulties in negotiating wages in a context of stringent funding. · An increased proportion of public funding is to be allocated by contracts on a competitive basis. · Formula funding has been introduced to provide an incentive system for the universities. The government is turning to financial incentives as a more effective way of influencing national universities than administrative controls alone, particularly given the high degree of autonomy these institutions enjoy. Public universities are now trying to diversify their sources of income mainly through contracts with commercial organizations, employers, and others as well as by charging fees to graduate students. Both the expanded role of the private sector as a source of university financing and the new mechanisms introduced by the government to allocate public funds give more power to the market as a coordinating mechanism. Although these funding patterns are still evolving, it is possible to foresee some implications of their implementation. Governments and national universities face three major problems: First to fulfill the objective of guaranteeing more choice and competition in the increasingly diverse higher education system; second, to ensure the availability of sufficient and sound information about university performance to decide on the allocation of resources; and the third to promote the 7 managerial capacity of universities to take financial decisions and to cope with the new structure of incentives posed by the market and the government. What follows is a brief discussion of these key issues. without controlling the quality of graduates, universities may lower their evaluation requirements in order to improve their position. Autonomy under Conditions of Scarce Funding Finally, although universities will receive information (through market or government signals) on how to improve their efficiency and quality, they may fail to make use of it in a way that would contribute to these goals. Why might this happen? First, national universities cannot respond to these signals. Although, in principle, they enjoy institutional autonomy, they are not yet able to determine their human resources policy. The present regulatory framework allows them to do so, but it is quite difficult for universities to enact changes without the financial resources needed to negotiate new wage scales and labor conditions. Second, it is not easy to obtain a perfect alignment of the objectives of academic authorities and other constituencies within the university. It is almost impossible to manage an institution if the decision makers do not wield enough power and human and financial resources to do so. Third, the authority structure of national universities makes it difficult for them to respond quickly and flexibly to changing market conditions. So, most decisions concerning the sale of services and graduate programs are made through new and ad hoc structures created to bypass formal traditional ones. For example, to manage contracts between public universities and the business sector, universities set up foundations (nongovernmental organizations)--to gain more flexibility. In another example, graduate programs are administered mainly by their directors, who can determine curriculum and teaching staff salaries (which depend on revenues obtained through tuition and fees). In both cases, the decisions concerning outside contracts and management of graduate programs are formally approved by the institution's authorities, often ex post facto. Both the expanded role of the private sector as a source of university financing and the new mechanisms introduced by the government to allocate public funds give more power to the market as a coordinating mechanism. Choices and Competition Both objectives of a diversified higher education system-- greater choice and healthy competition--can only be achieved if government intervention can resolve two failures in the higher education market: the lack of information about the quality of the programs offered and the need for financial help to encourage students from lower-income sectors to access and complete higher education studies. These goals are difficult to accomplish in a macroeconomic context of budgetary restrictions. Evaluation and accreditation programs are costly, both in terms of human and financial resources. Given the work to be accomplished toward these goals and the scarcity of resources, there may not be enough "transparency" in the present heterogeneous higher education institutional market. In the same way, although public financial support to students in the form of scholarships and loan schemes were introduced in recent years, the amount of this aid is still far too low to guarantee equal opportunity. Incentive Systems Without Sound Information Recent reforms in funding mechanisms rest on the assumption that the signals conveyed by the formula reflect an efficient allocation of government resources and priorities. Likewise, contract schemes would imply that the best bid has been tendered and selected and that the government can control whether the funds provided are spent in the agreed upon manner. In fact, there are big problems, caused by imperfect information. The government does not have enough reliable information about university operations to allocate funds through inputs or performance indicators or to control ex post the fulfillment of contract goals. The use of performance indicators in a context without reliable information could produce undesired consequences. In the case of input indicators, universities could broaden the definition of "student" to increase enrollment figures. If an output indicator like the noncompletion rate is introduced Improving conditions with respect to available information, governance, and financial resources to cope with an increase in higher education demand appear to be the main issues on Ar gentina's future funding policy agenda. Improving conditions with respect to available information, governance, and financial resources to cope with an increase in higher education demand appear to be the main issues on Argentina's future funding policy agenda. 8 INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION Survival of the Fittest: The University of Buenos Aires Model for the Future of Higher Education
Philip G. Altbach
Philip G. Altbach is J. Donald Monan, S.J. professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. T he University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina's largest and most prestigious institution of higher education has put into place an educational model that, in a perverse way, has lessons for higher education policy worldwide. UBA is an institution of more than 180,000 students. It has been shaped by the educational ideas of the 1918 Cordoba reform, and these have calcified into rigid policy. Study at UBA is based on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest-- everyone can enter, but only a small minority of the students who enroll eventually earn degrees--and they do this often by sheer persistence. The UBA model should appeal to World Bank planners and other budget cutters since it provides both access to many and a decent education to a few--all at a low per capita expenditure. The cost per graduate may be high but the expenditure per student is very low in most faculties. The infrastructure is terrible (poor libraries and laboratories), but large numbers are processed through the institution. Key Characteristics Here are some key characteristics of the Buenos Aires model: · The University has totally open enrollment. Any high school graduate may enroll in any faculty without restriction--even in medicine or architecture. Unlike most European countries with similar open systems, Argentina has no rigorous high school completion exam and imposes no restrictions on fields such as medicine, where unlimited numbers directly affect quality of instruction. · UBA is completely free, with no tuition or fees for study at any level. · Most professors work part-time, teaching a course or two per term for a token payment. In most of the faculties, fewer than 20 percent are full-time professors. And full-time does not really mean a full-time commitment to the university, since professorial salaries are low--averaging around $24,000 per year for the senior faculty. This means that even full time professors must hold other jobs. There are few restrictions on such extra employment. · There is no tenure system or security of employment. Full-time faculty members are reevaluated every seven years in an open "contest" with others who may apply for their jobs, and they must compete with all applicants. · Facilities are completely inadequate for students and faculty. Part-time staff have no place to meet students or prepare for class. Many full-time faculty are without offices of their own. Campus computing and other facilities are minimal. Libraries are woefully inadequate. Laboratories are similarly poorly equipped. Both students and faculty must rely on their own resources for books and Internet access. · The dropout rate is very high and those students who complete their studies take a long time to do so. Most students hold jobs while studying, and few devote their full attention to the university. In some faculties, such as medicine, the dropout rate approaches 90 percent. Other faculties graduate somewhat higher proportions of students. · There is a one-year sequence of a kind of general education (ciclo basico comun, CBC) for entering students. The courses are overcrowded, taught by part-time staff, and by all accounts not appealing to most students. Sixty percent of those who start the CBC either drop out or do not pass the examinations, and are as a result not permitted to enter one of the faculties. Most students have virtually no contact with professors until late in their academic program, if then. · UBA remains the most prestigious university in the nation, and although it is losing ground to several of the new private institutions, graduates earn considerable status by holding a degree from the university. Even those who study there without actually completing a degree are held in some esteem. The fact is that UBA graduates are both bright and have accomplished a great deal by surviving in a difficult academic environment and obtaining their degrees. Despite these problems, most of Argentina's internationally visible faculty teach at UBA--although there is now some exodus to several of the new private universities. Implications The UBA "model" has a number of implications. The minority of full-time staff must submit to the "contest" every seven years (although somehow most faculty manage to keep their jobs), and they must report on their research activities every other year. They are also expected to teach courses at all levels, advise master's students, and direct research programs. There is little intellectual community because of the difficult working conditions, and the pressured environment in which many professors work. Despite these problems, most of Argentina's internationally visible faculty teach at UBA-- although there is now some exodus to several of the new pri- 9 vate universities. Part-time staff are happy to teach a course or two because of the prestige of holding an "appointment" at UBA. The university cares little about its students. It has no control over how many students enter each year. And it cannot control the quality of its entering students. Its only power is to eliminate students through examinations, attrition, or inattention. The students who do well tend to be those from well-off families. In this way, the university contributes to social inequality even though it has an ideology of egalitarianism. The Argentine educational system, in general, works against the poor. Half of those who enter the schools do not complete their studies. And the large majority of those who enter UBA do not finish. Those students who do complete their studies are both bright and persistent; they have to be to survive in the Darwinian system. When I expressed concern about the quality of Argentine medical doctors produced by such an unselective medical education system, I was told not to worry. The tiny minority who eventually graduate from the medical faculty are intelligent, highly motivated, and well trained. They are the survivors who are taken in hand by the professors toward the end of their course of study. The situation in other faculties is similar although perhaps not quite as egregious. The government spends little on public higher education, and is especially harsh on UBA. Argentine higher education is highly politicized, and UBA is traditionally loyal to the Radical party, currently in the opposition. The ruling Peronists are naturally not inclined to support their political enemies. Elections are coming up in 1999, and the situation may change, although overall levels of support for public higher education are certain to remain low. Not only are many of the public universities identified by their party loyalties, but the governance system that was put in place by the reform movement of 1918 further politicized academe. The reform enshrined the participation of students and nonacademic university employees in the structures of governance of UBA and all of public higher education. Students, secretaries, and other employees, and professors all vote for the rector (president) and other key officeholders. Often, candidates for high university office fight for positions based on their political affiliations. Does it Work? Yet, in a strangeway, this is an academic system that works. It offers access to many and a quality education to a few. Those who drop out before finishing their degrees do not seem to resent either the university or the government. UBA acts as a mass "parking lot" for young people who would otherwise have problems finding jobs in Argentina's difficult employment market. The university "absorbs demand" at the same time that it dampens potential social unrest. UBA keeps costs down. While it is true that the university goes against international trends by providing free tuition, it is fairly cost-effective in terms of providing access to large numbers cheaply. It does this by providing minimal services to the students, by paying full-time faculty salaries that are inadequate, and exploiting large numbers of part-time teachers who are happy to have a UBA affiliation. Money is saved by not investing in libraries, laboratories, or information technology. At UBA, "distance education" means that students and staff travel long distances to sit in crowded lecture halls. UBA acts as a mass "parking lot" for young people who would otherwise have problems finding jobs in Argentina's difficult employment market. The status quo at UBA is reinforced by a combination of powerful forces that make change difficult. The traditions, some of which are enshrined in university regulations or in the Argentine legal system, remain strong. Among these are open access, free tuition, no job security for professors, and the idea of "autonomy." In Argentina, and in much of Latin America, autonomy means that the university has legal protection from direct governmental interference in many of its activities. Until recently, there was no accountability to anyone. A new accrediting and evaluation system, run by the government, will introduce some accountability. The relationship between UBA and the government is influenced both by the ideology of autonomy and by the politicization of the university. UBA is traditionally linked to one of the political parties, and partisan politics infuses both campus decision making and the relations between the university and the government. Since the government provides all of the funding for the university, less than cordial relations create major problems. The Peronist government has cut UBA's budget, causing further deterioration in the quality of education at the university. Despite all of these problems, in some ways the University of Buenos Aires does offer a range of academic programs to large numbers of students. It has an inefficient yet effective "selection" process that works by letting everyone in and weeding out those who are not highly motivated. The university invests little in terms of salaries for teachers, libraries, or infrastructure. Thus, for those who preach the gospel of low-cost postsecondary education in order to provide access to the maximum numbers, the University of Buenos Aires may provide a useful model. Indeed, for governments seeking to maximize access without regard to quality, UBA is also worth studying. The UBA model would be even more appealing to the budget cutters if tuition could be charged. Darwin would be proud of the University of Buenos Aires. 10 INTERNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION Countries and Regions German Higher Education at the Millennium
Barbara M. Kehm
Barbara M. Kehm is on the staff of the Institute for Higher Education Research at the Martin Luther University, Wittenberg, Germany. Address: Collegienstr. 62 b, D-06886 Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany. Fax: +49-3491-466 255 E-mail: . ebates about weaknesses in West German higher education and the need for reform were almost completely set aside upon German unification in 1990. For a few years, all attention was absorbed by the transformation, restructuring, and renewal of East German higher education, after the West German model. This included efforts to update technological standards, reduce overstaffing, evaluate remaining academic staff for performance and political bias, reverse the separation between teaching and research, resolve curricular and disciplinary discrepancies, and increase enrollments. The final task was to adapt the existing East German system to that in the West by closing down many of the academies and establishing universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). Many experts favored salvaging at least some of the positive elements in East German higher education. However, no one challenged the priority placed on a rapid transplantation of the West German system of higher education into the East. In the second half of the 1990s, issues pending in the West German system were back on the agenda. Very much in the foreground of current reform debates are duration of studies, introduction of tuition fees, promoting competition and differentiation, new forms of management, lumpsum budgeting, performance-based funding, as well as teaching evaluations. The assessment of East German higher education and research has led to a critical scrutiny of West German higher education. In addition, the federal government managed to enact a new higher education framework law. The law was controversial, less because it did away with the principle of homogeneity in German higher education than because it omitted an explicit ban on tuition fees. Overall, a spirit of renewal and innovation prevails at all levels, and hopes are high for modernizing German higher education and making it more competitive and effective. Governmental Steering and Deregulation In recent years, criticisms of institutional inertia, especially in West Germany, have prompted a search for new and more flexible mechanisms to deal with problems and adapt to change. Federal and state governments are trying to reduce "overregulation" and introduce competitive elements into a rather homogeneous system. Deregulation and differentiation are key concepts in this context. D Higher education institutions themselves have welcomed and supported profile building and institutional differentiation, while rejecting the introduction of institutional rankings. The ambivalence among the actors in higher education might be based on these factors: (a) market concepts and differentiation are unfamiliar to German higher education; (b) consensus has not yet been reached concerning the indicators on which to base differentiation; (c) people are reluctant to renounce the principles of homogeneity and basic equality among institutions of one type and concerned about the fate of the potential losers in a competitive and differentiated system; and (d) institutional profile building is still rather tentative because self-marketing and niche marketing are new concepts. Very much in the foreground of current reform debates are duration of studies, introduction of tuition fees, promoting competition and differentiation, new forms of management, lump-sum budgeting, performance-based funding, as well as teaching evaluations. Institutional Autonomy Debates about a "legitimation crisis" in German higher education are centered around three themes. First, it is widely felt that higher education institutions should become more efficient and professors more accountable for their teaching and research. Second, belief in the virtue of a more or less homogeneous system of higher education has eroded. The development of specific institutional profiles, however, will lessen the need for governmental planning and shift more power to the institutions themselves. Third, a reduction in government steering and control would require university presidents or rectors, as well as deans, to assume a more managerial and professional role. However, a close look at the various models and pilot projects shows that increased institutional autonomy is not granted unconditionally. State regulation will tend to move into areas not previously subjected to control--resulting, for example, in new forms of institutional accountability. State control is shifting from a focus on input and process to one stressing output. At the same time, input and process will come under the supervision of a strengthened and professionalized institutional management, including the experimental introduction of boards of trustees. These changes will certainly affect the tradition of collegiality in academic self-governance and the participatory model of the "group university" established in the early 1970s. How- 11 ever, institutions will be better able to exercise strategic planning, generate institutional income, and implement more flexible organizational and administrative policies. Thus, not only has the relationship between higher education institutions and the state changed, but there is also a general opening up of the system to external and international modes of operation. Securing and Expanding Resources Faced with the immense cost of German unification and the general stringency of the public purse, higher education has had to absorb considerable funding cuts during the last decade. Institutions have begun to search for ways to diversify their funding base in order to improve resources and income. A number of pilot projects are working with lump-sum budgets, although most institutions still operate with line-item budgets. Institutions experimenting with lump-sum budgets, have welcomed the potential for strategic planning and flexibility in the internal allocation of funds. On the downside, conflicts previously solved in direct negotiation with the responsible state ministry have now shifted to the institutions themselves. Moreover, some state governments are seeking to introduce elements of performance-related funding. However, the question of tuition fees is probably the most controversial one currently being debated in German higher education. Many actors openly or secretly advocate tuition fees and most institutions would welcome the improvement in their financial resources. But they have so far resisted the introduction of fees for fear that the state governments might indirectly appropriate these additional funds by cutting back on the provision of basic resources. The new higher education framework law almost failed to be passed over this issue. In the long term, tuition fees are likely t