This survey provides unprecedented scope and detail of analysis on higher education in the Asia-Pacific region. In this era of global integration, convergence and comparison, the balance of power in worldwide higher education is shifting. In less than two decades the Asia-Pacific region has come to possess the largest and fastest growing higher education sector on Earth. The countries of East and Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific together enrol 50 million tertiary students, compared to 14 million in 1991, and will soon conduct a third of all research and development. In China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Singapore, ‘world-class’ universities are emerging at breakneck pace, fostered by modernizing governments that see knowledge and skills as key to a future shaped equally by East and West, and supported by families deeply committed to education. But not all Asia-Pacific countries are on this path, not all reforms are effective, and there are marked differences between nations in levels of resources, educational participation, research, state controls and academic freedom. Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic responses to globalization provides an authoritative survey of tertiary education in this diverse and dynamic region. Its 23 chapters, written by authors from a dozen different countries, focus successively on the Asia-Pacific as a whole, the strategies of individual universities, and national policies and strategies in response to the global challenge.

Education in South-East Asia is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in South East Asia. With chapters written by an international team of leading regional education experts, the book explores the education systems of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. The diverse range and forms of culture, religion and politics embedded in the region are exhibited in the distinctive education systems that inter-relate in one of the most integrated regions in the world. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this Handbook will be an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

The rise in demand for higher education in the Asia-Pacific region is an undeniable reflection of the growing pace of globalization and the subsequent pressures imposed by it. Aspiring to become globally competitive and to position favourably in the global university league tables, governments in Asia have either engaged in a serious quest to become a regional education hub or they have concentrated on developing transnational higher education to create more opportunities, in order to meet their citizens’ pressing demand for higher education. Internationalization of Higher Education in East Asia critically examines and provides comparative perspectives on the major strategies that selected Asian countries and societies have adopted to transform their higher education sector and enhance their national competitiveness in the increasingly globalized world. This volume by leading scholars in the field of education development and policy studies makes critical reflections on how Asian governments in particular and universities in general have responded to the growing challenges of globalization by promoting more internationalization, student mobility and entrepreneurship in higher education. This book is an essential collection for policy makers, researchers and postgraduate students studying higher education, Asian education and international education.

This book discusses higher education research as a field of study in Asia. It traces the evolution of research in the field of higher education in several Asian countries, and shares ideas about the evolving higher education research communities in Asia. It also identifies common and dissimilar challenges across national communities, providing researchers and policymakers essential new insights into the relevance of a greater regional articulation of national higher education research communities, and their further integration into and contribution to the international higher education research community as a whole.

Although late to industrialize, East Asia has witnessed rapid development whilst maintaining some of the highest educational enrollment rates and indicators of academic achievement globally. From major players, such as China, to small city-states, such as Singapore, economic success and the growth of education have seemingly unfolded simultaneously. This book seeks to better understand the relationship between these powerful economies and their commitment to educational expansion. Exploring the universalization of upper secondary schooling, it assesses the social foundations of the region’s economic development. Chapters covering each of the countries of East Asia trace how upper secondary school functions as the support for the mass manufacturing labor force, which has been instrumental in East Asian economic expansion. These analyses then compare the experiences of the different nations along two major axes: the relationship between public and private provision and the balance between general and vocational tracks. Finally, the analyses go on to examine recent trends, including the slowing of social development and declining fertility, and ultimately asks, can East Asia maintain its world leading development and educational standards in coming decades? Combining a wealth of quantitative data and policy analyses, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian and international education.

This book discusses mass higher education development in East Asian countries by means of three main issues: the strategy for higher education development; the way professors and students in the region are experiencing the rapid developments; and the challenges imposed by mass higher education. These challenges include the quality of education as well as structural changes in the rapidly developing systems, funding sources for supporting mass higher education, and job markets for college graduates. Part I discusses how the East Asian countries have accomplished or are in the process of accomplishing the rapid development of higher education. Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong serve as case studies of mass higher education in the region. The case studies introduce and discuss national strategies to develop higher education, funding sources and mechanisms, and initiatives to assure quality of education in a period of rapid growth. Part II and Part III of the book focus on the phenomena of mass higher education in the region and the influence on academia. Mass higher education changes professors and students, who are different from those in elite higher education. Part III further discusses the challenges posed to Asian mass higher education. The Comparative and International Education Society Higher Education (HESIG) has awarded Mass Higher Education Development in East Asia the Higher Education SIG Best Book Award 2015.