1. Globalization and Its Challenges to Education Last of Three Partsby Lourdes J. Custodio, Ph. D.(Editor’s Note: With permission from the author, we are serializing Dr. Custodio’s article which appeared earlier in the Philippiniana Sacra, January-April 2004 issue). Response of Higher Education to the Challenges of the XXIst Century Higher Education, which includes Colleges in the tertiary level and more particularly Universities, are considered the cradle of future decision-makers and change agents for society, since they have the age-old responsibility in training leaders for society. They are uniquely able to provide the breadth of training to equip them for a world in which interrelations among the economic, technological, ethical and social issues are of extreme importance.Universities be centers for research. Their research activities can be a source of accurate and relevant information and dispassionate thinking about society’s problems. To do this, the universities could establish linkages between academic research and industrial research, where the latter can produce wealth and give assistance to the needy as well.One of the concerns of university instruction must be to communicate to future researchers a sense of responsibility to society. Universities are deciding to a great extent the future of the nation where they are located, specifically because they have the highest intellectual reserves in their respective countries, which supply the ever-growing knowledge and trained manpower. No other institution of the intellect is better equipped to cope with the aim of contributing to a sustainable development based on scientific rigor than the universities.The quality and extension of the university’s impact upon society impose upon it moral duties and an enormous responsibility in the developing countries confronted by rapid changes resulting from the overwhelming influence of science and technology. Considering hunger, disease, illiteracy still so prevalent in many countries, the powers-that-be need sound advice to redirect the use of science and technology for the benefit of the less privileged in society and that they be pursued in line with environmental concerns. No matter how important applied research may be, if a strong financial assistance is available the highest priority should still be given to basic research, for this is the most enduring contribution of universities to society, one they are uniquely fitted to make.One of the important challenges that information and communication technologies pose to higher education is the fact that it will no longer be the main source of information and knowledge. We are living in an age of unprecedented dissemination of knowledge. When students will be familiarized with the use of these technologies, access to information will no longer need the presence of teachers, although the teacher’s action remains to be an indispensable source of knowledge and understanding. The teacher’s role will be changed as well as the form and character of higher education. The consequent new role of university mentors will be that of “a knowledge broker, a cognitive expert and an evaluator working in a team.” (Delacote, 1996).One of the new approaches to higher education in this 21st century is the “Virtual University” or the “Virtual Classroom.” This new development allows students’ access to learning experiences with richness in content and simulation that has not been achieved perhaps by the conventional classrooms. The World Wide Web is customized to become an educational environment that can support collaborative learning and knowledge construction, which provide special tools for both learners and educators. There is a further development of this new type of education in our knowledge-based society better known as E-Learning.Politicians require high quality advice in matters and areas such as education, public welfare, health, new technologies, energy and many others. Scientists and experts can bring into the political scene a wealth of experience and wisdom, independence of thought, critical views, disinterestedness, and broadness of outlook that would be for humanity’s welfare.The universities of our times are called upon to interpret new cultures in a lucid and critical manner. This should be at the core of their social function and their role as social critics. Teaching, learning and pursuing research must be enriched with new cultural perceptions. Universities must become credible and competent partners in the on-going dialogue about emerging cultures, both at the national and international level, for their authority in this respect is not only intellectual but moral as well.The university should be the staunchest bastion for the synthesis of knowledge and of human culture sustained by two pillars: the humanities and science. The rapid development of informatics, genetic engineering and all pervasive instant communication put into the students’ hands keys to dominate nature and an enormous recourse to power. In the era of globalization it is important to educate not only in the sciences and technology, even if they are of critical importance. These disciplines correspond solely to the homo faber, the first level of human enterprise enabling people to adjust to their changing material environment in order to survive but there is a danger of just transforming people into “globally competitive workers.” The more profoundly human activity of searching for the truth, the quest for meaning, the creation of beauty would require the arts, literature, the humanities and social sciences.The university is called upon to offer solid human formation. The university forms professionals and specialists, but above all, it should develop men and women into integral persons. They are human beings before they are professionals. Thus university education must first of all be humanistic. There is a birth of a new humanism with a strong ethical component accentuating the centrality of the human person and a genuine respect for the spiritual values of the different cultures. In this regard, there is a call upon Institutes of higher learning specializing in Information Technology to give the humanistic formation of their students its utmost importance as well (Pope John Paul II, Address on the occasion of the Jubilee of the University with the theme: “The University for a New Humanism,” 2000).The university is called upon to share actively in promoting a civilization of peace. In this era of increasing globalization, an education for peace also requires an education for the dialogue of cultures. This type of education tries to bring about changes in content, in the methods and in the social context of education in order to better prepare students for citizenship in a global age.Universities are also called upon to reconcile mass higher education while maintaining the highest standards in scholarship and research. In the re-engineering of education, critical balances need to be maintained: growth vs. equity; internationalism vs. relevance; technological modernity vs. cultural preservation; individual development vs. cohesion. (Delors, 1998)In a world where so much poverty prevails especially in the developing countries, the university must take an option of social service to society, which may be rendered through its community outreach programs in marginalized areas. Aside from contributing to development, the students’ involvement in these programs would greatly help in their acquiring a keen social awareness.In the Philippine setting, for instance, the demands of the new millennium would require the growth of higher education through partnership of the university, government and industry. This however is possible only if these sectors agree on a common purpose: to be of service to the community they serve. The challenge to higher education then is to be able to produce renaissance men and women, morally upright and balanced persons, comfortable with the different cultures and sensitive to international standards. There is a need to form men and women ready to face both the positive and negative aspects of globalization. The leaders, managers and agents of change must be equipped with the right knowledge, skills and be knowledgeable workers able to function in the information age (Tamerlane R. Lana, O.P., Thoughts and Messages, Just from the Heart, 2002).Responsibilities of Catholic Higher EducationThe aforementioned formidable tasks can be assumed seriously and systematically from the vantage point of Catholic Higher Education, particularly of Catholic Universities. A Catholic University, by the very fact that it is a university is called upon to assume the aforesaid responsibilities.The Catholic University has the duty as well as the honor to offer confidently its service to the search for truth. It is as duty-bound to the human, as human, as it is to God and in this sense, also to the Church. The Catholic University has a unique and irreplaceable role to play precisely because it is a beacon of trust in the power of reason and in the compatibility and harmony between the two avenues to truth: faith and reason, in the midst of a skeptical and pragmatically oriented world (Cardinal Daneels, Catholic University, 2001).At the dawn of the third millennium, a Catholic University is called upon to serve the Church and society to which it belongs. It must pursue its objectives through its formation of an authentic human community animated by the spirit of Christ. The university community composed of professors, students, administrators and non-academic staff, have their respective roles oriented towards maintaining and strengthening the Catholic character of the institution. The source of unity of the university community “springs from a common dedication to truth, a common vision of the dignity of the human person and, ultimately, the person and message of Christ which gives the institution its distinctive character.” (ECE, 21).University professors are expected to continuously improve their competence and endeavor to set the content, objectives, methods, and results of research in an individual discipline within the framework of a coherent world vision. Christian professors are to be witnesses and educators of authentic Christian life, which is the result of integration between faith and life, between professional competence and Christian wisdom. They should be men and women of faith and of prayer as well. The students are challenged to combine excellence in humanistic and cultural development in their educational undertaking. Most especially, they must continue the search for truth and for meaning throughout their lives, in as much as “the human spirit must be cultivated in such a way that there results growth in its ability to wonder, to understand, to contemplate, to make personal judgments, and to develop a religious, moral and social sense.” (GS, 59). Responsibility of Catholic Universities Towards EvangelizationCatholic Universities, in as much as they belong to the Church, participate in the evangelizing mission of the Church. They must contribute to the new evangelization as well, in the fundamental activities of university life—teaching, research and community service. They should influence through the power of the Gospel criteria, judgment about scale of values, thought patterns and styles of life for people in a specific time. Their activities must be re-invigorated by greater openness to the Gospel as it comes to us through the Church. Likewise, Catholic doctrine, ethics, spirituality are to be “vitally present and operative” in all university pursuits. (ECE, 13).The Catholic Universities in Asia, in particular, need to integrate Interreligious dialogue in its task of evangelization. The disharmonies in the Asian world today can be challenged by a spirituality of harmony that is found propitious in preparing for an interreligious dialogue, which is “a part of the Church’s evangelizing mission.” “Dialogue is based on hope and love and will bear fruit in the Spirit.” (RM, 55;56).Authentic evangelization must move from a dialogue of service to a deeper dialogue of life and heart. (Ecclesia in Asia, 31) Only Christians who are well prepared and deeply immersed in the mystery of Christ and who are happy in their faith community can without undue risk and with hope of positive fruit engage in interreligious dialogue based on doctrine.In this age of globalization, fruit of the great strides made in information and communication technology whose primary engine is the Internet, Catholic Universities, in sharing in the Church’s evangelizing mission, take into account that the Church sees the Internet as a new forum for proclaiming the Gospel today. In the words of the Holy Father: “The new world of cyberspace is a summons to the great adventure of using its potential to proclaim the Gospel message.” Though he cautioned the use of the Internet with “understanding and wisdom, fruit of a contemplative eye upon the world.” He spoke of using it “in favor of the globalization of human development and solidarity, objectives closely linked to the Church’s evangelizing mission.” (Message of the Holy Father for the 36th World Communications Day, 2002). Responsibility of Schools, Colleges and Universities Towards DevelopmentThe need for an all out support for development in the present world has been a recurrent call by the Church. Pope Paul VI, in his Encyclical Populorum Progressio stated: “The social question has become worldwide… today the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to the peoples blessed with abundance.” (PP, 3). Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, recalling the 20th anniversary of Populorum Progressio noted: “The hopes for development, at that time so lively, today appear very far from being realized.” (SRS, 12) And in the Encyclical Centesimus Annus, commemorating the first centennial of Rerum Novarum, there is again a call for a concerted worldwide effort to promote development. (CA, 58)Globalization must be put to advantage by making the process enhance respect for the dignity of every individual person. It must foster the unity of the human family. Catholic Colleges and Universities alone cannot be expected to erect structures of worldwide morality, but they can do serious research and promote dialogue among policy makers regarding the global realities we face. Research and policy analysis can provide the foundation for developing a political economy that allows the poor to share in economic development.As part of its conscious response to the environmental and cultural issues created by globalization, the Church in its educational agenda for the new millennium has called for efforts at the university level within the different regions for regional concerns to have serious intellectual engagement: “In its service to society, a Catholic University will relate especially to the academic, cultural and scientific world of the region in which it is located. Original forms of dialogue and collaboration are to be encouraged between the Catholic Universities and other Universities of the nation on behalf of development, of understanding between cultures and of the defense of nature in accordance with an awareness of the international ecological situation.” (ECE, 37)Globalization must be put to advantage by making the process enhance respect for the dignity of every individual person. It must foster the unity of the human family. Globalization can generate opportunities for creativity and initiative in Catholic Colleges and Schools.Catholic Schools and Colleges can help form their students to be well-rounded persons providing them with the knowledge and skills to make a difference in society, with the moral and ethical courage to make difficult decisions and a faith commitment to fashion a more humane global community.There is a need for training young leaders as stakeholders within the globalization process. As it intensifies, globalization makes young people increasingly dependent upon public and collective practices of those generations that precede them. For this reason, it is now absolutely crucial for the young people, especially young leaders to ask if they are becoming more the victims or the beneficiaries of the globalization process.We cannot just teach about globalization as if it were a simple uncontroversial matter, as if the answers to the thorny question it throws up were cut and dried. For young people to engage with a subject matter like this, they need to be involved in value judgments and decisions for themselves about how the world, their world, should be run.In the case of Catholic colleges and universities, we should now be confronted with the question: To what purposes are the sciences and the arts that they teach going to serve? What sensitivity to social justice, dedication to the common good is being instilled upon the students? Catholic Higher Education, in particular, produce specialists, doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects, teachers, nurses and theologians. There is a need to ask if they have been formed as persons who are deeply concerned about progress for the disadvantaged. The student’s formation in the Social Teachings of the Church and their active participation in the various community outreach programs organized by the university are expected to create a social sensitivity in them. We can then justly anticipate that the men and women formed this way will have a service mentality and “love of preference for the poor.”For the world of the new century, it is no longer enough to make education a personal, individual quest. We have to understand how our lives are vitally linked to Earth and all who live in it. The idea of community is expanded from purely human to total life community. Since our decisions resonate through this single moral ecology, we must understand ourselves as citizens of a global community whose decisions shape the world for better or for worse.This calls for a commitment to solidarity within new emerging global realities. Solidarity is the virtue, the habit of the heart, which binds us emotionally and practically to the world. Solidarity combines a sense of justice with active compassion. It makes us aware that the quality of our lives is intrinsically linked with the quality of the lives of others, especially those who are most threatened or left out. Solidarity combines rigorous intellectual inquiry with personal contact and commitment. This means that educating the whole person necessarily includes educating for justice, because none of us can truly flourish while others are being shattered or excluded. I cannot be whole if most of the world is broken. To deliver economic prosperity and human rights, governments are accountable for ensuring the common good. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, articulated this well: “If globalization is to succeed, it must succeed for poor and rich alike. It must deliver rights no less than riches. It must provide social justice and equity no less than economic prosperity and enhanced communication.” (Paul I. Locatelli, S.J., Education for Globalization, 2002).With regard to the global market systems, it is important to note that the assumption made that all human behavior is motivated by economic enlightened self-interest is not really correct. In a free market system the person can become merely a consuming and producing entity, not a full human being. Educators must address the complexities of human motivation and the ambiguities of markets. We must ask how it is possible to advance the benefits of globalization while eradicating the deep contradictions in the distribution of resources, wealth and power. (Locatelli, 2002).In the UNESCO Report, we read that at the dawn of this 21st century, 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty. Some experts even estimate that 2.5 billion survive with $2 per day. Over 800 million persons are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and over a billion have no access to health services or basic education; 1.4 billion are deprived of drinking water; 1.2 billion are not even connected to electricity networks and more than 4.5 billion do not have basic telecommunication. Thus they have no means of access to the new technologies, the very keys to tomorrow’s economy and the possibility of distance education. (Jerome Binde, A New Humanism for the Third Millenium, 1999). There is a call for measures to bridge the “digital divide”, which separates the rich and the poor on the basis of access to the new information and communication technologies. There is however a caution pointed out in making information and communication technology available to as many people as possible. All the measures to be adopted must respect three basic principles, namely, “the importance of truth, the dignity of the human person and the promotion of the common good.” In this connection, another “divide”, which operates to the disadvantage of women, needs to be closed as well. The extension of basic communication service to the entire population of developing countries is a matter of justice. The information and communication technologies propel and sustain the process of globalization, leading to a situation where commerce and communication are freed from the restraints of national frontiers. Although the motive of this is to create wealth and promote development, the distribution of benefits has been unequal. While some countries as well as corporations and individuals have greatly increased their wealth, others have been unable to keep up or have even become poorer. It is even worse since it is perceived that globalization has been imposed upon some countries. It is a process in which they are unable to participate in an effective way. The words of Pope John Paul II were brought to the fore to conclude the address of Archbishop Foley: “This growing sense of international solidarity offers the United Nations System a unique opportunity to contribute to the globalization of solidarity by serving as a meeting place for States and civil society in a convergence of the varied interests and needs.” (Archbishop John P. Foley, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations dedicated to Information and Communications Technology, 2002).Without question, the flow of capital and technology and information into the poorest countries would create economic value for the people and improve their absolute standard of living. But without just political and economic systems, it is unlikely that the quality of life of ordinary people in these poorest countries will improve. In the process of globalization, we are gaining new understanding of our world. People are not motivated by economic enlightened self-interest alone. Love of family and tradition, the appeal of a common cause, generosity and benevolence, responsibility for future generations, religious faith and nationalism are also important, as well as fear of uncertainty, ethnic and racial defensiveness, ancient grievances, prejudice and yearning for a simpler, pre-modern world. (Locatelli, 2002).The best things in life happen only when we share them in common: conversation, family, friendship, art, education, celebration and ritual. The purpose of global politics is to expand our moral sympathies so that we experience solidarity with peoples of other cultures, so that their flourishing is seen as an integral part of our own. The tradition of Catholic social teaching insists that all those who are excluded from participation in society due to poverty, illness, hunger and homelessness make an urgent claim on us. Those properly educated in solidarity are in the best position to raise those questions. (Locatelli, 2002).The challenge of globalization at the dawn of the new millennium will require a response from Catholic teachers and educators of schools of all levels, marked by competence, skill, disinterested service, a sense of interdependence and concern for an all encompassing human progress. We know its ultimate secret: the ingenuity, justice and love preached by the Gospel.Let me close this attempt to describe and understand the phenomenon of globalization and the challenges posed by this extremely complex reality to Schools, Colleges and Universities by saying that with earnest efforts and dedication of the educative communities making these institutions of learning, these challenges could be transformed into “great opportunities for creativity and initiative” to fulfill their avowed mission of service to society and thus serve as a beacon of hope at the dawn of the 21st century.(Dr. Lourdes Custodio, Ph.D., Dean Emeritus of the College of Education, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, is currently also a Professorial Lecturer at the UST Graduate School) <br /> <br />Leaving For A Living<br />With the strident ‘migration mentality’ and debilitating economic quagmire haunting no end, more Filipinos are driven, or forced, to work or earn for a living overseas—what with the damning risks and social costs. Meanwhile, the unabated flood of labor migration has precipitated a burgeoning unprecedented number of children left behind without parents.<br /> <br />Abstract<br />The study was conducted to answer the following questions: (a) What are the<br />various modes and forms of international education in a globalized higher education<br />environment? (b) How ready are Philippine higher education institutions for international<br />education? (c) What is the implication of having the various modes of international<br />education in the Philippines?<br />Two categories of activities of international higher education were found: (a)<br />activities stemming from the traditional spirit of internationalism (ethos of international<br />cooperationism & appreciation of an international quality) and (b) variations of open<br />market transnational education that were born out of the agenda of globalization.<br />Exemplars of these were described. It was also noted that even those activities born out of<br />internationalism seem to have been transformed recently in ways that converge with the<br />agenda of globalization.<br />The prospects of internationalizing higher education in the Philippines were<br />contextualized within the present education system that is experiencing problems related<br />to efficiency, quality, equity in access, and other external factors. Given this context, it<br />was suggested that participation in international education programs might be limited to<br />students from high-income families, and to institutions with strong financial resources<br />that can be channeled to development programs that will enable them to meet the<br />requirements of these international activities. There is a strong likelihood that<br />international programs might lead to the intensification of the existing weaknesses in<br />Philippine higher education.<br />All things considered, it seems that Philippine higher education could best benefit<br />from international education activities in terms of improving the quality of programs and<br />resources. Thus, it is suggested that quality improvement be a primary consideration in<br />engaging international higher education. In this regard, more specific issues have to be<br />addressed related to the focus of quality improvement, the status of local institutions in<br />international partnerships, and the strengthening of local networks.<br />Finally, the prospects for improving the consequences of internationalizing<br />Philippine higher education amidst the globalizing environment will depend on the<br />prospects for (a) strengthening the quality and the efficiency of Philippine higher<br />education, (b) improving access to quality higher education, and (c) creating the external<br />environment that will be conducive to and supportive of international education activities.<br />v<br />Executive Summary<br />Part 1. The principal aim of the study is to review current perspectives and<br />information relevant to the following research questions:<br />1.1 What are the various modes and forms of international education in a<br />globalized higher education environment?<br />1.2 How ready are Philippine higher education institutions for international<br />education?<br />1.3 What is the implication of having the various modes of international<br />education in the Philippines? In particular, what is the implication of the entry<br />of foreign schools in the country in terms of the efficiency and equity issues<br />related to the delivery of higher education services?<br />Part 2. The problem of defining international higher education<br />2.1 Most universities that exist today are creations of nation states; their<br />characters and functions are largely shaped by the agenda of nation states.<br />2.2 Different countries engage the concept of internationalization differently and<br />for different purposes. Thus, the concept of internationalization might be<br />best approached with reference to specific approaches and constructions of<br />internationalization in domains of policy, process, types of activities, among<br />others.<br />2.3 We can discern two strong agenda in various internationalization activities:<br />(a) the tradit ional internationalization, which is consistent with the spirit of<br />cooperation among nation states of the old world order, and (b)<br />globalization, which involves the discourses of integration of economies,<br />competition, mass culture, distributed knowledge production systems, and<br />high technology.<br />Part 3. Models of international higher education<br />3.1 One category of models can be described as those stemming from the<br />traditional spirit of internationalism or the ethos of international<br />cooperationism and the appreciation of an international quality. Another<br />category can be characterized as those variations of open market<br />transnational education that were born out of the agenda of globalization.<br />3.2 Specific activities that could be classified as being originally conceived in<br />the spirit of internationalism include: (a) international student mobility, (b)<br />faculty exchange and development, (c) research collaboration, (d) foreign<br />language study, (e) building international perspectives, and (f) international<br />networks.<br />3.3 Current practice in these activities featuring internationalism have been<br />transformed in ways that make them more attuned to the realities and<br />requirements of globalization.<br />vi<br />3.4 Exemplars of open market transnational education include: (a) distance<br />education, (b) locally supported distance education, (c) twinning programs,<br />(d) articulation programs, (e) branch campuses, (f) franchising agreements,<br />and (g) international quality assurance systems.<br />Part 4. An overview of Philippine higher education<br />4.1 Several observations have been made suggesting that Philippine higher<br />education suffers from several forms of internal and external ineffieciencies.<br />Some of the issues related to efficiency include: (a) the lack of a rational<br />system for the establishment of public higher education institutions, (b) poor<br />efficiencies in size, (c) poor student flows, (d) the lack of articulation<br />between performance in fiscal planning, and (e) the lack of a rational system<br />that ensures that program offerings address national development<br />requirements.<br />4.2 Many indicators of quality higher education point to current weaknesses in<br />the inputs, processes, and outputs of Philippine higher education. Some of<br />these indicators relate to: (a) faculty credentials, (b) instructional/library<br />facilities, (c) the nature of the curriculum, (d) poor average performance on<br />licensure examinations, and (e) low proportion of institutions with<br />accreditation.<br />4.3 Access to quality higher education is brought about by three related factors:<br />(a) geographic distribution of institutions, (b) the strict admission<br />requirements, and (c) the high cost of tertiary education.<br />4.4 There are other factors in the external environment of Philippine higher<br />education that strongly influence the efficiency, quality, and equity in access.<br />These factors are: (a) the absence of a credit market for higher education, (b)<br />the availability of public information on options and returns of the different<br />higher education institutions, and (c) weak external governance by the<br />CHED.<br />Part 5. Prospects, issues, and consequences of internationalizing Philippine higher<br />education<br />5.1 International student and staff mobility from the Philippine to other<br />countries will be limited by the availability of financial resources for this<br />purpose. The option shall be available for students from high-income<br />families, and for institutions with large financial endowments that can be<br />used for this purpose.<br />5.2 The stronger Philippine institutions can position themselves as a<br />destinations for student and staff mobility if they can develop well-defined<br />niches in the higher education market based on areas of strength around<br />which they can develop internationally or regionally competitive programs.<br />5.3 The ability of institutions to develop effective truly international programs<br />will be limited by the availability of appropriately trained faculty members,<br />adequate libraries and research facilities, among others. Thus, we can<br />expect that it would be the strong institutions that can develop and maintain<br />such programs.<br />5.4 Similarly, it is very likely that the elite institutions would be in the best<br />position to participate in international research collaborations. The larger<br />majority of institutions do not have the resources to be attractive partners<br />for collaboration. The CHED can rationalize its research development<br />program so that there can be a more effective means of developing the<br />research infrastructure and capabilities in Philippine universities, so as to<br />enable more international research collaborations.<br />5.5 The elite institutions will again be in the best position to participate and to<br />benefit from international networks, as such networks typically have certain<br />quality and efficiency requirements that participating institutions should<br />meet.<br />5.6 The local market for foreign distance education programs is likely to be<br />small, as the cost of such programs make this option available only to a<br />very small segment of the higher education market.<br />5.7 Although the local market for twinning and articulation programs may be<br />small because of the high costs of such programs, they may be quite<br />attractive because of the opportunity to obtain international credentials. In<br />this regard, the elite institutions might experience some competition, as the<br />twinning and articulation programs target the traditional clientele of these<br />elite institutions. The elite institutions might need to explore avenues for<br />allowing their students to obtain international credentials to be more<br />competitive in this area.<br />5.8 Programs of open-market transnational education might not affect the lowend<br />and middle-level institutions as the latter institutions cater to students<br />from low- and middle-income families that generally cannot afford these<br />transnational education programs. Thus, there will be no changes in the<br />options of their traditional market.<br />5.9 Participation in international quality assurance systems is likely to be<br />limited to the elite institutions, as well, as the resources that are required for<br />this purpose are largely unavailable for most low-end and middle-level<br />institutions.<br />5.10 Generally, participation in international education programs might be<br />limited to students from high-income families, and to institutions with<br />strong financial resources that can be channeled to development programs<br />that will enable them to meet the requirements of these international<br />activities.<br />5.11 There is a strong likelihood that international programs might lead to the<br />intensification of the existing weaknesses in Philippine higher education<br />(i.e., no improvement in quality of most institutions, lower external<br />efficiency as institutions address global requirements, and more inequitable<br />access to quality education).<br />5.12 However, there is still the possibility that middle-level institutions may<br />benefit from some of the activities of international education (e.g., the<br />viii<br />benchmarking for international standards of quality), particularly if these<br />initiatives are supported by the appropriate government agencies.<br />5.13 All things considered, it seems that Philippine higher education could best<br />benefit from international education activities in terms of improving the<br />quality of programs and resources. Thus, it is suggested that quality<br />improvement be a primary consideration in engaging international higher<br />education. In this regard more specific issues have to be addressed related<br />to the focus of quality improvement, the status of local institutions in<br />international partnerships, and the strengthening of local networks.<br />5.14 The prospects for improving the consequences of internationalizing<br />Philippine higher education amidst the globalizing environment will<br />depend on the prospects for (a) strengthening the quality and the efficiency<br />of Philippine higher education, (b) improving access to quality higher<br />education, and (c) creating the external environment that will be conducive<br />to and supportive of international education activities.<br />1<br />International Higher Education: Models, Conditions and Issues<br />Allan B. Bernardo, Ph.D.<br />De La Salle University-Manila<br />Part 1<br />Introduction<br />The internationalization of higher education institutions is a natural and inevitable<br />consequence of the continued globalization of economies. For one, higher education<br />institutions are now being called to produce professionals for an internationalized<br />economy. Moreover, the opening of national boundaries to foreign institutions that seek<br />to offer higher educational services is a scenario that is very likely to become a Philippine<br />reality in the medium-term. There is a need to understand the possible forms of these<br />developments and to assess how the Philippine higher education system will respond to<br />or be affected by these developments. Understanding these phenomena should provide<br />important insights and guides for policy formulation on these issues, as well as for local<br />higher education institutions as they seek to redefine their goals and operations in an<br />increasingly global educational environment.<br />Objectives of<br />The New Role of Globalized Education in a Globalized World<br />Deane Neubauer and Victor Ordonez GUNI, May 2007 <br />As we search for new roles for higher education amidst the social, economic <br />and political changes and challenges wrought by contemporary globalization, it is useful to reflect on the historic functions performed by universities. Essentially these have been knowledge creation, knowledge transmission, and knowledge conservation. Within these essential functionalities have appeared in different societies and cultures at different times the full reach of other important social activities such as the production and reproduction of elites and professional classes, the expansion of higher education to other social strata through its democratization and massification, the creation, distillation and dissemination of scientific knowledge, the codification and conservation of linguistic and cultural practices, etc. Evident in this historical sweep has been the ability of higher education institutions to change, albeit slowly and conservatively, in the face of wide-reaching social change: to create opportunities for new kinds of inquiry, to fashion disciplines appropriate for their detailed study and transmission, and to champion, albeit unevenly, social values of open inquiry and opportunity. <br />The challenge that rapid globalization presents to universities is whether they can continue to adapt, no longer slowly or organically, but in the quantum leaps that are required by new realities. Knowledge is not what it used to be; or more accurately, the manner by which knowledge is created, transmitted and conserved now happens through modalities, institutions, and configurations unknown before, and at speeds once unimaginable. Universities no longer enjoy a priority role, and certainly not an exclusivity role in an environment of internet access, media overload, corporate and lifestyle customized offerings, and so on. They continue to play a vital role, but it must be recognized that this role must be reshaped in the context where there are competing knowledge providers, which they must recognize, network, partner with, and mutually strengthen. <br />For example, there have always been linkages between universities and the other sectors of society which it serves and for which it provides the human resource base. But with the pressures brought about by globalization, and an accelerated pace of development, these linkages take on a new urgency and primacy. The world of work has changed around the globe, and universities must prepare their graduates for careers and jobs for which academic programs do not as yet exist; for this, more intense collaboration is vital. Globalization has promoted progress, in the context of rapid and flexible competitiveness, but in largely uneven and inequitable terms. Especially in developing countries, universities are looked upon as having the potential to correct the widening equity divide by preventing the human resource base of these countries from being left too far behind their counterparts in other countries. And universities can respond to this call only if they are closely allied to the country's productive and economic sectors. As we contemplate the contributions universities will make in the future in this revised context, we see academic programs where students alternate years on campus with years working in industry, government, or the social sector. We see academic research councils which have members from industry and other sectors as full members, jointly formulating research agendas and programs of study. We see adjunct faculty posts provided to persons outside the academy who can contribute to the development of a flexible, updated human resource base needed in a globalized, rapid, competitive world. And with a slightly different twist, and one of unpredictable consequence, we see a startling increase in the privatization of intellectual property as faculty seek to own and commercialize their intellectual contributions to the overall knowledge process. <br />The globalization pressures on developing countries reproduce some of these dynamics, but create whole new sets of problems as well. Whereas their universities no longer have the luxury of developing at their own pace, at the risk of being left behind in the global race, they do not have anywhere near the needed financial capabilities of their more well-endowed counterparts in the advanced countries. Yet if their countries are not to be left behind, they have no choice but to strive to provide internationally comparable and competitive programs. This tension has brought the private sector into higher education in ways that differ remarkably from the tradition of private higher education in the developed countries, especially the United States where a tradition of higher education for the public good has resulted in a historic convergence of purpose between private and public institutions. This is less clear in the developing world, especially in the very rapidly growing economies of China and India, where the temptations to skim the market for well paying students leads all too often to an inferior and highly specialized education that pays little attention either to issues of providing higher education for the broader public good, or adding significantly to qualitative knowledge growth. At the worst this sub-sector threatens to become a net quot;
takerquot;
of the knowledge quotient rather than a net contributor. <br />In spite of these tensions one finds a firm awareness within developing countries that they cannot and indeed should not merely replicate Western higher education models. One thus observes a search for relevant and yet indigenously developed forms of higher education, in terms of delivery modes, of program content, and even of areas of research. This is especially true in the realm of knowledge conservation, particularly the preservation and enhancement of cultural and national identities and heritages. In a world in which globalization has brought the standard of English as its default language, the work of universities in preserving languages and the cultures they embody and represent is critical, and will unlikely be performed by any other set of social institutions. The consequences of possible globalization-induced homogenization, especially of the forms promoted by the mass media (and its opposite reaction of polarization of cultures), make this task of cultural and language preservation by universities vital for the promotion of a healthy and harmonious society. While repositioning themselves as effective agents in the global knowledge economy, universities must also preserve the character of their specific national higher education systems and transmit key elements of national cultural identities and traditions. Ironically, this vital role contributes to the resource tensions experienced by universities as they continue to suffer the gradual withdrawal of governmental funding for higher education. <br />The emergence of these new roles and responsibilities is changing how universities view themselves, seek resources, and respond to social signals to align their actions with perceived social needs. These forces and tensions are doing much to redefine historic notions of the public good responsibilities of higher education, especially public higher education. This may well be the starting conceptual framework from which universities in a globalized, knowledge-saturated world can articulate their distinctive arena, their unique niche in society. The new vectors include the role of university in providing service to society (far in advance of the conventional third place status traditionally handed universities in the pecking order of teaching, research, and service); the inherent tensions between serving as handmaiden of government vs. serving as its social critic; the responsibilities of serving as a collective and heterogeneous set of social consciences; being a predictor of and precipitator of social and scientific change, etc. <br />One likely novel pathway will be the development of new foci of inquiry and through them new disciplines. This has begun to happen with the study of globalization itself, which has produced both research and instructional programs with globalization at their center (and in a few isolated instances even service programs, albeit to this point successfully disguised as occupation-related leadership programs). One can argue, sensibly, that the pace of change under the impress of contemporary globalization has been so rapid and extensive, that much of what is taught in education, higher as well as basic, represents knowledge about a world that no longer exists. The tensions between history, conservation and irrelevance have been painfully sharpened by globalization's irreverent propulsions to change and its insensitivities to what is displaced by such changes. New research and instructional programs have an urgent responsibility to describe and analyze this emergent world. Put another way, the world that globalization has created produces consequences-problems and predicaments-that are not successfully accommodated within existing disciplinary boundaries. New knowledge constellations and modes of inquiry are required and are already forming. <br />Some of these new disciplines are likely to be formed at the edge of public policy and its many controversies. One example is global warming and climate change, problems that extend far beyond conventional disciplines and their limitations of expertise. Another example, related to the former, but with significantly different implications is sustainability, which leads to implications (and potential subfields) of social and cultural sustainability, or agricultural and rural sustainability (in what has become since the year 2000 an urbanized world). The knowledge explosion itself is likely to produce new hybrid disciplines much as they developed over the past sixty years with the creation of communications, information and computing science, and marketing. One would expect the dramatic changes in digital technologies and their virtual destruction of the practical costs of digital information storage to engender new ways of studying cultural change, consumption, and style conjoined to communication. Even as the pace of social change due to the rapid introduction of digital innovation affects society, so will higher education be pressured to study such phenomena with rigor and invent knowledge frameworks that extend both society's understanding of them as well as assisting policy responses to them. The cultural wars partially engendered and partially stirred by globalization suggest the possibility of an entirely new platform on which to erect peace studies and the serious pursuit of new inquires into the nature and resolution of human conflicts. <br />The development of these new foci of inquiry and emergent disciplines has in turn led to an evolution of new modalities to address them. In an ever more complex and interconnected society, universities now conduct their work in new ways. This is being increasingly realized in closer cooperation with other sectors of society, and with collaborators across national and regional boundaries. The ease and speed with which information sharing is transmitted has enabled a redefinition of communities of research and inquiry. They may still have higher education institutions as hubs, but they now routinely include the corporate sector, government agencies or sponsoring bodies, international academic colleagues, and civil society. Perhaps the growth industry of global higher education lies at the intersect between conventional crossborder education represented by the exchange of students and faculty, and the creation of new networks, partnerships, consortia and forms of association currently being invented and defined. The result is a global education community just beginning to take form and assess its strengths and possibilities. Like many other globalization phenomena, these events result in a radical mixing of our traditional categories of reference: promoting simultaneously homogenization and difference-a reach for the global amidst an intensification of the local. <br />Fundamentally the academic marketplace is no longer confined to national settings. More than ever, knowledge is becoming universal, escaping borders of all kinds, with unpredictable consequences. Its pursuit and advancement are based on the free exchange and circulation of ideas across scientific fields, geographic boundaries, political systems, and academic disciplines. Even as we predict a doubling of students traveling abroad within the next five years, we are witnessing the unparalleled growth of cross-border education. Both imports and exports abound in this new global market. As societies grapple with the quantum increases in demand for higher education and the inability of both their public and their private sectors to meet this demand, their governments, at first reluctantly, and then willingly, concede the access and manpower development potential of branches and programs of overseas universities. In many countries, policy frameworks governing the operation and regulation of such cross border institutions are only now being deliberated and firmed up. In such places as China, Korea, and Southeast Asia, for example, governments struggle to maintain their sense of control over the proliferation of offshore campuses, while ceding the necessity of obtaining from them the means for greater access within appropriate institutional arrangements. <br />It is clear to us that distance education is in its early, albeit dramatic, stage of development, both in cross-border higher education and within national boundaries. The open universities stand at the apex of this phenomenon, serving literally hundreds of thousands of students in each of the major open universities in Bangkok, Shanghai, Delhi, London, Arizona, and other capitals. The expanded access facilitated by contemporary instructional technology has made possible the enormous numbers and quality control mechanisms that would have been impossible under old distance education systems. And while initial course development and the prerequisite infrastructure for delivery makes this model more expensive in the beginning, successive iterations over time dramatically reduce unit costs. At the aggregate social level, as the numbers benefiting from distance education continue to grow and effective per student costs decline, the resulting capacity will address issues of access in the light of the massification of global higher education. The ultimate test will be on the quality issue, the demonstration of which advocates and proponents of distance education are holding steadfast to maintain, including the rather quiet but considerable expansion of corporate investments in their own versions of higher education to meet constant work force demands. The worst possible outcome would be for these massive distance education endeavors to shake out as second or third-rate enterprises effectively specializing in providing low unit cost education for those unable to obtain it elsewhere in the market. The best possible outcome is to see distance education, spurned along by its innovate technologies, leading more traditional educational institutions and their delivery modalities toward new ways of doing things, successfully challenging emergent student populations characterized by preferences for new learning solutions. <br />Irreducibly, the globalized world is a rapidly forming, reforming and de-forming of knowledge societies. With knowledge as the dominant currency of future growth and development, universities have little choice but to recognize their ever-changing roles as creator, transmitter, and preserver of knowledge in the context of serving the whole of society. And, in ways that we are just beginning to appreciate, they must perform these roles not just for young adults preparing for their first jobs. The technical requirements of specific professions have become so complex and are evolving so rapidly that even the best pre-service education becomes outdated a few years after it is acquired. A recent study indicates that an engineer, for example, needs fundamental retraining to update his knowledge five years after graduation. In this light, the university must see its role in not only producing new engineers, but also in servicing the current engineering workforce with programs that keep them updated, relevant, and effective. Addressing these half-lives of professions and formed knowledge quotients will become a constant currency of universities. <br />A knowledge society is a society of lifelong learning, and with a difference. Until recently, this phrase was code for the kinds of highly optional education provided for casual learners of advancing age. Slowly the term expanded to include a measure of retraining of individuals in the work force shifting along the cycle of restructured jobs. We now, as indicated, see it as a requirement of currency , that which is required to be professionally responsible to one's knowledge obligations. This sense of the changed nature of life-long learning will, we predict, radically further transform the demand and access calculus of higher education. What is now optional will become required. <br />We already see some of implications of these outcomes in the economics of what formerly was called quot;
university extensionquot;
in many of the public and private educational institutions of the United States. What had been convenient, or service-oriented adjuncts to the quot;
realquot;
educational enterprise (and thus somewhat quot;
quaintquot;
when all was said and done) have become in many instances the new revenue centers for cash strapped universities, often serving many more students than the other branches of the institution. A further implication is the impact of all this, both for good and ill, on the professoriate, resulting in a vast expansion in the employment of part-time, contract faculty and a parallel decline in traditional tenure track positions. This shift threatens to create a true two-tier, and invidious, class system within the professoriate, but it also promises to revolutionize current patterns of retirement and the utilization of quot;
olderquot;
minds in the overall knowledge enterprise. We are currently operating a faculty structure that owes everything to the work demands and structures of the historic industrial enterprise, after which much of contemporary higher education was modeled in the industrial revolution and its successive aftermaths. People were hired and retired in relation to a then extant, but now obsolete, combination of biological aging and the need to refresh job opportunities within higher education. To deliberately over-simplify an important point, higher education aligned with the requirements of life-long learning in a knowledge society will be based on minds and what resides within them, rather than obsolete age-related notions about the bodies that carry them about. Once again, demand will redefine capacity. <br />But far beyond the essential but nevertheless limited catering to market-driven demands for professional updating, universities must serve knowledge societies in a more fundamental sense. Their ultimate responsibility is to contribute meaningfully to the total development of their societies. They must reach out to and serve the shapers of this development-the political, economic, social leaders of this society, including those responsible for the education of society at levels below higher education, assuring in particular an adequate number of well qualified teachers in school systems. Higher education must assure that society continues to be equipped to address its most pressing societal problems, expand its innovation and research capacities, and foster the values needed for a productive, cohesive, harmonious, and ethical society, in the context of good governance and participatory democracy. The overall welfare of countries will depend a great deal on the extent to which universities can play their role in support of these larger goals. <br /> <br />Conclusion <br />In the midst of these remarks lie three conundrums that need to be addressed in what generally be termed the quot;
politics and economicsquot;
of higher education in the emergent knowledge society. These strike us as issues of such prominence that they must be addressed immediately in policy processes if they have any hope of successful resolution. <br />The first is the transmutation of the quot;
digital dividequot;
problem. Initially, it referred to gap between those with computing capability and those without. Various organizations throughout the world have worked hard to bring capacity and capability to places where it was formerly lacking. Now, however, we are faced with the boundary destroying nature of digital proliferation. As indicated above, universities themselves are in danger of being hierarchically divided by their abilities to keep abreast of these developments. They represent a quantum leap change in the demands and requirements of addressing the digital divide. <br />The second is the issue of value within information. The changing economic dynamics of information and knowledge companies and the extraordinary growth of their products create an quot;
informational fieldquot;
of an extent and density never before experienced. In the midst of this explosive blizzard of information lies those coherence generating devices and processes we label quot;
search.quot;
Determining the pathways and value-ways though this information blizzard toward knowledge coherence constitutes a problem of unprecedented proportions for higher education conceived of as collections of knowledge organizations. The magnitude of new resources required by such institutions to successfully navigate these transformations will be enormous. Public policy must be fully implicated in providing the capacity to deal with these changes, or public institutions at the very least will fail to breast this challenge. <br />Finally, we touch above on the complex issue of what knowledge to conserve in a world that is being rapidly globalized. We can similarly ask the same of the two historic functions of universities-teaching and research. What to teach is an increasingly pressing dilemma, one for which universities are particularly ill-equipped to deal, given their historically conservative decision making traditions. And, with research issues, we face the prospect of extending C.P. Snow's famous quot;
two culturesquot;
problem to the whole of global education. The instrumental value of science and technology, and its imperative alignment with economic development threaten to displace the study of humanities (and to some extent the social sciences) within university priorities. <br />These are but three policy issues that globalization has imposed upon higher education for resolution. Those responsible for higher education must grapple with these and others still to emerge; and they must grapple with these with a sense of perspective, an instinct for the future, and a vision for the role of the university in that future. If they do so, higher education, no matter what forms, modalities, and linkages it will take on, will continue to be, as it was throughout history, a beacon light and an essential dynamo of development for the societies it serves. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />