Colleges and universities currently face challenges in the form of calls for increased accountability, clear economic outcomes and return on investments in education. These challenges emanate from many sectors, including students and families, employers in industry, and state and federal governments. The language of these calls for accountability and return on investment comprise a neoliberal rhetoric that posits education as a tool for economic development and prosperity, often at the expense of the more traditional purpose of higher education. This study explores this rhetoric at the federal level, as manifested in commencement addresses delivered by President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, and Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller, from 2009 to 2012. The study examines to what extent neoliberal ideology shapes the rhetoric. This study also examines whether the discourse creates an ideal to which institutions must aspire. Study findings reveal a liminal rhetoric that embraces the traditional and neoliberal agendas for higher education, and an ideal that also combines traditional and neoliberal ideologies.

The dominant global discourse in higher education now focuses on world-class universities inevitably located predominantly in North America, Europe and, increasingly, East Asia. The rest of the world, including Africa, is left to play catch-up. But that discourse should focus rather on the tensions, even contradictions, between excellence and engagement with which all universities must grapple. Here the African experience has much to offer the high-participation and generously resourced systems of the so-called developed world. This book offers a critical review of that experience, and so makes a major contribution to our understanding of higher education.

Examines the theory and practice of argument in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The book's coverage includes: the nature, forms and functions of argument, and its role in teaching; and critical analyses of the practice of argument and suggested ways to develop it in educating contexts.