On the day that the army of Bakhtiyar Khalji arrived, Nalanda University was by far the largest in the world. Located in what is today Bihar in North-Eastern India, its students came from as far as Turkey in the West and Japan in the East, to study, in addition to the Buddhist scriptures, linguistics, astronomy, logic and medicine. Posing a threat to the occupying force, the university was ransacked and the vast library burnt. It was reported that the books were so numerous that the bonfire stayed alight for three months (Gupta 2018; Sankalia 1934).
The destruction of Nalanda at the end of the twelfth century after seven centuries of existence coincided with the development of the first universities in Europe, with Bologna, Paris and Oxford gathering together their communities of students and professors. These institutionsâin the modified forms that would emerge over the subsequent centuriesâwould come in time to dominate the global stage of higher education, in conjunction with the general cultural, political and economic ascendancy of the West in the second half of the last millennium. With only a few exceptionsâfor example, the Islamic universities of North Africa, Al-Qarawiyyin in Morocco and Al-Azhar in Egyptâthe many other forms of higher learning around the world have faded away, or suffered a more brutal fate as a result of the histories of human conflict and colonisation. While there are some distinctive characteristics in higher education institutions across different countries and regions, for the most part they follow a common epistemic and institutional model.
The global expansion of this modern institution of university has been extraordinary. Few countries in the world do not have their ownâand those that do not are often served by cross-national institutions such as the University of the West Indies or University of the South Pacific. Global enrolments in tertiary education (including non-university post-secondary institutions) have increased from 10% of the global cohort in the early 1970s, to 20% at the turn of the millennium, and to 38% in 2017, representing some 220 million students (Marginson 2016; UIS 2018). There are demand and supply drivers for this expansion. On the one hand, growth has been brought about through the pressures of increasing numbers of school leavers aspiring to upgrade their qualifications, and give themselves a better chance of chasing the scarce, high-value jobs. On the other hand, governments have been keen to strengthen their higher education systems as a means to greater economic competitiveness, forming high-level skills in the workforce and developing technological innovation for the industrial sector.
At the same time, in spite of the apparent pre-eminence of higher education in contemporary times, the sector is in the midst of something of a crisis. There are widespread concerns about quality in universities, and a sense of a loss of standards, in many cases as a result of rapid expansion. In particular, critics point to the lack of relevance of universities to the outside world, being out of touch with contemporary society, and as a result not equipping their students with the competences needed, particularly in their employment. Public funding has declined, causing difficulties in keeping pace with massification , and leading to the adoption of income-generation activities that many see as hollowing out the universityâs soul. The rise of global university rankings has also created anxiety among national higher education systems as they puzzle over how to insert their institutions into the upper echelons of elite research performance. There is, furthermore, an epistemic crisis, with the questioning of knowledge forms from twentieth-century post-modernism coalescing with populist anti-expert and post-truth movements of the twenty-first.
Nevertheless, concerns about the quality and relevance of universities have done little to dent popular demand for university credentials, or governmentsâ desires to have a âworld-classâ higher education sectorâthe latter without increased public investment, thereby passing an ever greater burden onto students and their families, and exacerbating inequalities. In the midst of this contradictory trajectory of expansion and crisis of identity, equity and funding , there has been a renewal of interest in higher education among international development agencies. Following decades of emphasis on primary education , influential organisations such as the World Bank have begun to see universities once again as central to the development project, leading to new waves of activity in higher education in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). This trajectory led to the increasing prominence of the sector in the United Nationâs Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed in 2015, in which access to tertiary education is positioned as a key target, and universities as instrumental in driving all of the goals of development.
Yet the question arises, can the university fulfil this role? Can it reduce poverty , equip people for sustainable livelihoods, develop clean technologies, protect the environment, create prosperity and ensure a healthy population? And if so, what kind of university would that be? All too often, the assumption is made that by simply expanding the higher education system, the benefits will automatically accrue, with little thought for the diverse forms that higher education may take or the nature of the link between higher education and development.
This book addresses these crucial issues of the contemporary age. For those engaged in the pressing task of promoting international higher education, the book poses the question: which higher education for which development? Drawing on empirical evidence from around the world, and theoretical work on the university, it explores the impact that higher education is currently having on society, its barriers and limitations, and ways in which its influence can be enhanced. The book argues that many of the policies currently promoted by national governments and international agencies are in fact undermining the developmental role the same organisations have proposed. If we are serious about achieving the SDGs, then we will need to imagine and create a new university: one committed to universal access , research for the public good and engagement with diverse communities. That university, in turn, has a key role to play in helping us to re-examine and reimagine our fundamental notions of education and development, and to go beyond the sustainable development goals.
The Return of the University
People might be forgiven for thinking that universities are something of a luxury in the poorest countries of the world. Why should some continue their studies to degree level when many are not even going to primary school? Why should a country be investing in libraries and laboratories when it cannot even bring clean water and electricity to all of its population? And why should states be paying the salaries of lecturers when local health workers and police are needed?
These are all valid questions, andâalong with economic analyses (e.g. Psacharopoulos et al. 1986; Psacharopoulos 1994) that showed that returns to the lower levels of education were greaterâled to a shift of attention towards primary schools on the part of international agencies and national governments from the 1990s (Bloom et al. 2006). Beyond a lack of resources to fund this level, it was considered that public higher education might actually be exacerbating socio-economic inequalities, given the apparently regressive function of giving free university places to the wealthy.
However, the tide began to turn from the start of the new millennium. The publication of the Task Force on Higher Education and Societyâs (2000) report Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise, a collaboration between the World Bank and UNESCO , showed a much stronger acknowledgement of the sectorâs role in economic development (although at the same time questioning the role of the state and recommending private sector expansion). Reports such as that of Bloom et al. (2006) also provided much stronger arguments for HEâs economic benefits, in this case in the context of Africa. Importantly, this role was now seen to be not only one of enhancing economic opportunities for those few lucky enough to go to university (enrolment ratios were still extremely low in this period), but more broadly in society, through the mechanisms of increased tax payments of graduates, creation of employment, innovation , technological catch-up and productivity gains. The large-scale rates of return analyses also started to show that the returns to higher education were increasing in relation to primary and secondary levelsâpossibly due to saturation of graduates at the lower levels, or to changes in calculations (Oketch et al. 2014).
In many cases, measurements of the impact and cost-effectiveness of higher education are unfair on the sector. The problem lies in the multifaceted nature of the work of the university, involving teaching, but also a range of other functions (a bewildering range in the case of Clark Kerrâs [1963] âmultiversity â). The misrepresentation occurs when calculations include all of the costs of these activities, but only some of the benefits. For example, dividing the total expenditure of the university by the number of students being taught often gives the impression of exorbitant expenditure in comparison to schoolsâbut fails to account for the proportion of this expenditure that goes on other publicly beneficial services such as research , health clinics, museums, community engagement and so forth.
Another reason for the rekindling of interest in higher educationâone affecting all countries, in fact particularly high-income countriesâis the new-found role for the sector within the so-called knowledge economy. The movement from the industrial to the post-industrial age has brought with it an increasing emphasis on the value of âknowledgeâ in economic success, taking the form of skills and competence in the workforce (along the lines of human capital theory ), but also innovation , knowledge production and technological development across society (OECD 2008; Task Force on Higher Education and Society 2000; World Bank 2002).
Another reason of particular relevance to lower income countries is the need for frontline professionals. The focus on primary education , along with other services such as primary health care, ignored a rather obvious point that the people staffing those services needed professional...