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Morsy, Zaghouol & Altbach, Philip (Eds.). (1996)
Higher Education in an International Perspective: Critical
Issues. New York: Garland
212 pp.
Reviewed By Mary Ann Danowitz Sagaria
The Ohio State University
June 1, 1998
Higher Education in an International Perspective:
Critical Issues is a comprehensive overview of important and
relevant thinking and research about higher education throughout
the world. The volume is based on two special issues of
Prospects, UNESCO's quarterly review of education
(Numbers 78 and 79, 1991), which were subsequently published in
book form by UNESCO and Advent Books, Inc. under the title
Higher Education in International Perspective: Toward the
21st Century. Although the essays in the recently released
text were written several years ago, they effectively document
timely key issues such as democratization and increased access
to higher education, autonomy, imitation and dependency of
foreign models, and the role and purpose of research.
The book is in two parts and has sixteen chapters written by
distinguished educational specialists from many different
countries and regions of the world. Part one, Situation,
Challenges, and Prospects, provides a history of Western
universities by Torsten Husén of Sweden and a concise
description of patterns of higher education development evident
in the post-Second World War period by Philip G. Altbach of the
United States. This follows by a commentary on autonomy and
accountability by Orlando Albornoz of Venezuela and comparisons
of open universities by Tony Kaye and Greville Rumble of the
United Kingdom. Jandhyala B. G. Tilak of India focuses on
privatization of higher education as a policy strategy while
Abdallah Larouri of Morocco attends to the relationship between
scientific and academic research and academic development. The
observations on universities and national development in
developing countries by Lawrence J. Saha of the United States
and the analyses of financing of post-compulsory education Jean-
Claude Eicher and Thierry Chevaillier close this section.
In part two the authors provide valuable case studies, often
critical or reformist in tone, about developments in higher
education internationally. This section opens with analyses of
higher education and regional problems with François Orivel of
France focusing on French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa,
Brazilian Simon Schwartzman on Latin America and Lebanese Raji
Abu-Chacra on the Arab states. This is followed by accounts of
restructuring and change in newly industrializing countries--in
Asia written by Jasbir Sarjit Singh of Malaysia, in Eastern and
Central Europe by Jan Sadlak from Poland and Canada, and in the
European Union by Hywel Ceri Jones from the United Kingdom.
Descriptions of Western higher educational policy models include
those by Osmo Kivinen and Risto Rinne of Finland along with
those of the United States by D. Bruce Johnstone complete this
part.
The book admirably succeeds in presenting the philosophical
and intellectual forces and political and economic conditions
that have shaped higher education internationally. Important
contributions are made in excellent historical overviews and
conceptual analyses of European and United States' systems of
higher education. Most useful is the highlighting of models of
tertiary education, democratization, and diversification in
relationship to increased access and enrollment growth in both
industrialized and Third World nations.
The book makes an especially important contribution to
understanding the similarities and differences in the textures
and contours of the landscape of international higher education.
This is most vividly illustrated through the well-crafted and
documented case studies. The authors introduce various
ideological standpoints and global problems through crisp and
insightful analyses of national and regional contexts. For
example, Simon Schwartzman's assessment of Latin America
eloquently articulates the phenomenon of governments becomingly
increasingly less able to maintain, supervise and care for the
quality of higher education. This theme reverberates in other
chapters but it is most poignant in François Orivel's assessment
of the financial crises in sub-Saharan Africa and his general
conclusion that in a world--and regions--of limited resources,
emphasizing funding in higher education is inevitably being
achieved at the expense of other levels of education.
The chapters of Higher Education in an International
Perspective: Critical Issues can very easily be read as key
briefings on geopolitical areas for those with minimal regional
or country understandings as well as on higher education issues
and problems for those with a basic understanding of education.
In short, this highly readable text has continuing relevance as
a resource for both scholars and practitioners with a general
interest in higher education internationally.
About the Reviewer
Mary Ann Danowitz Sagaria is an Associate Professor in the
School of Educational Policy and Leadership, The Ohio State
University.
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