Vietnam is a dynamic member of the community of Southeast Asian nations. Consistent with aspirations across the region, it is seeking to develop its higher education system as rapidly as possible. Vietnam’s approach stands out, however, as being extremely ambitious. Indeed, it may be at risk of attempting to do too much too quickly. By 2020, for example, Vietnam expects its higher education system to be advanced by modern standards and highly competitive in international terms. This vision faces many challenges. The economy, though growing rapidly, remains reliant on the availability of unskilled labour and the exploitation of natural resources, and decision making in many areas of public life continues to be hamstrung by a legacy of over-regulation and centralised control. A large number of goals and objectives have been set for reform of the higher education system by 2020. The success of these reforms will have a major bearing on the future quality of the system. This sober assessment Vietnam’s global competitiveness forms a backdrop to the subject matter of this book, that is, the state of Vietnam’s higher education system. The book provides a comprehensive and scholarly review of various dimensions of the higher education system in Vietnam, including its recent history, its structure and governance, its teaching and learning culture, its research and research commercialisation environment, its socio-economic impact, its strategic planning processes, its progress with quality accreditation, and its experience of internationalisation and privatisation.

Located within the global changing contexts of higher education in the 21st century, this book examines the reform of the teaching and learning practices in Vietnamese universities under the Higher Education Reform Agenda and the influence of internationalization on the higher education sector. Specifically, it analyses the motives, current implementation, effectiveness, and challenges of these reforms, especially from student perspectives. Analyzing approximately 4300 survey responses and interviews with students, the book covers a range of key issues related to teaching and learning in higher education which have attracted attention in recent years, including: The learning environment Student support and first-year transition Student-centred teaching The use of credit-based curricula The use of information and communication technology At-home internationalization of higher education Assessment and feedback Work placements Informal learning via extra curricular activities Students’ perception of the values of university education.

This book reviews the state of education in Myanmar over the past decade and a half as the country is undergoing profound albeit incomplete transformation. Set within the context of Myanmar’s peace process and the wider reforms since 2012, Marie Lall’s analysis of education policy and practice serves as a case study on how the reform programme has evolved. Drawing on over 15 years of field research carried out across Myanmar, the book offers a cohesive inquiry into government and non-government education sectors, the reform process, and how the transition has played out across schools, universities and wider society. It casts scrutiny on changes in basic education, the alternative monastic education, higher education and teacher education, and engages with issues of ethnic education and the debate on the role of language and the local curriculum as part of the peace process. In so doing, it gives voice to those most affected by the changing landscape of Myanmar’s education and wider reform process: the students and parents of all ethnic backgrounds, teachers, teacher trainees and university staff that are rarely heard.

This book offers a critical examination of contemporary higher education reforms in Thailand situated in the broader historical, socio-economic and political changes. Through a qualitative case study with three methods of inquiry, this book explores why different 'global education policies' such quasi-privatisation, internationalization, as quality assessment (QA) have resonated in Thailand higher education sector. Grounded in policy borrowing and lending, this book uses the politics, economics and culture of borrowing to analyse major reforms in Thailand for the past one hundred years. It is argued that historical legacy, policy contexts and belief systems of policy elites play pivotal roles in facilitating policy changes or the lack thereof. While historical analysis elucidates that the Thai state has always been an active borrower of western ideas, the perseverance of the 'Thai-ness' discourse has often been used to suggest its so-called independence and idiosyncrasy. This in-depth analysis of the Thai case aims to contribute to the critical studies in Asian education, comparative higher education, policy borrowing and lending and Thai studies. The Culture of Borrowing intensively studies the policy appropriation in the Thai education system by analysing: • Selective Borrowing and the Historical Development of Thai Higher Education • The Asian Economic Crisis as Window of Opportunity: Autonomous University • Internationalization of Teaching: Quantitative and Qualitative Challenges • The Emergence of Quality Policies and their Rationales • The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Quality Policies This book will appeal to researchers in Education, particularly to scholars studying educational policies within the context of tertiary education. It will also interest scholars specialising in Asian and South-east Asian Studies.

This open access book is a result of the first ever study of the transformations of the higher education institutional landscape in fifteen former USSR countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It explores how the single Soviet model that developed across the vast and diverse territory of the Soviet Union over several decades has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, systems that have responded to national and global developments while still bearing some traces of the past. The book is distinctive as it presents a comprehensive analysis of the reforms and transformations in the region in the last 25 years; and it focuses on institutional landscape through the evolution of the institutional types established and developed in Pre-Soviet, Soviet and Post-Soviet time. It also embraces all fifteen countries of the former USSR, and provides a comparative analysis of transformations of institutional landscape across Post-Soviet systems. It will be highly relevant for students and researchers in the fields of higher education and and sociology, particularly those with an interest in historical and comparative studies. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This innovative volume makes a key contribution to debates around the role of the university as a space of resistance by highlighting the liberatory practices undertaken to oppose dual pressures of state repression and neoliberal reform at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Nicaragua. Using a critical ethnographic approach to frame the experiences of faculty and students through vignettes, chapters present contextualized, analytical contributions from students, scholars, and university leaders to draw attention to the activism present within teaching, research, and administration while simultaneously calling attention to critical higher education and international solidarity as crucial means of maintaining academic freedom, university autonomy, oppositional knowledge production, and social outreach in higher education globally. This text will benefit researchers, students, and academics in the fields of higher education, educational policy and politics, and international and comparative education. Those interested in equality and human rights, Central America, and the themes of revolution and protest more broadly will also benefit from this volume.

The volume ‘Reform of Higher Education in Europe’ is published in celebration of CHEPS’ 25th anniversary. All contributors to this book are working at CHEPS, and bring their extensive knowledge of the deep-seated reforms and changes to the field of higher education and research over the last 25 years. The chapters are each devoted to a detailed policy analysis deeply rooted in CHEPS’ quarter-century programme of theoretical and empirical research. Some contributions cover key themes of concern since CHEPS’ early years, including state-university relationships, quality assurance and funding. Other contributions cover more contemporary higher education policy issues, including European reform initiatives (innovation, the Bologna Process, doctoral training and the Erasmus programme) and debates around higher education institutions’ evolving functions, including the university’s third mission and the research function of universities of applied sciences. What unifies all chapters is their recognition that policy success is dependent on smart implementation grounded in a comprehensive understanding of highly complex policy processes. The book as a whole offers clear descriptions and analyses of how policy processes are implemented through co-ordinated institutional and stakeholder interventions. This volume seeks to enhance academic and policy-maker understanding of Europe’s evolving higher education system as it emerges as a cornerstone of the contemporary knowledge society.