Higher Education in Asia Challenges and Mitigating Strategies – An Overview

1. Higher Education in AsiaChallenges and Mitigating Strategies – An Overview

2. HE - Major Host Countries

3. HE - Major Student Sending Countries

4. Asian Educational Hubs • Across Asia, many countries are investing increasing amounts of resources into improving the quality of their higher education offer and internationalizing their study and academic bodies. Some countries have even set ambitious targets for public spending and attracting numbers of foreign students. • Prominent countries attempting to develop world class educational hubs are: • Japan • China • Singapore • Malaysia • Thailand • Source – Asian Development Bank

5. Challenges Encountered As higher education systems across Asia look forward, they face four overarching challenges: • maintaining and improving education quality, even in the face of serious financial constraints; • increasing the relevance of curriculum and instruction at a time of rapid change in labor market needs; • increasing and better utilizing the financial resources available to higher education; and • balancing the continued expansion of access to higher education with greater attention to equity and to the need to raise quality. Source – Asian Development Bank

6. Government Responses • Currently the developing member countries are more focused towards the economic crisis and following are the responses they have initiated in order to address the financial squeeze in face of rising enrolment. • Consolidation of HE administration under education/HE ministries • Differentiation of roles of HEIs • Decentralization: HEIs provided with autonomy and responsibility to • raise funds • Cost-containment • Private HE encouraged to grow • Source – Asian Development Bank

7. Recommended Strategies* • Strengthening Internal Efficiency • Improve instructional quality by enhancing the capacity of academic staff • Continue to focus and differentiate institutional missions within coordinated systems of higher education, and balance resource allocations to support those goals • Develop university-based research efforts consistent with individual institutional missions • Improve faculty incentive and evaluation systems • Strengthen the quality of private higher education • Strengthening External Efficiency of Higher Education • Improve the readiness of secondary school graduates for higher • learning • Better align university curricula and instruction with labor • market needs • Improve public-private and cross-border research partnerships

8. Recommended Strategies* – Cont’d • Improving Cost Efficiency and Sustainable Financing of Higher • Education • Encourage governments and higher education institutions to more fully implement quality assurance measures • Assist countries to assess the economic and social returns associated with different strategies for distributing support to higher education institutions • Improve the quality of institutional data, and the range of institutions from which they are collected • Map student flows, and associated financial returns, more systematically within the region • Enhance the effectiveness of equity measures by improving the evidence on which decisions are based • Improving Administration and Governance in Higher Education • Assist governments and higher education institutions in sharing effective policies and practices that support the transition towards more autonomy • Establish a regional database on effective practices in higher education governance

9. Recommended Strategies* – Cont’d • Promoting Greater Access and Equity in Higher Education • Find a more effective balance between continued expansion of access and renewed attention to improving instructional quality • Extend access in ways that promote better equity • Support the development, use, and evaluation of information and communications technology in the delivery of university instruction • Support government and university efforts to develop funding models that support wider access to high-quality higher education • Strengthening Private Higher Education • Support the development of national policies and regulations regarding the effective operation of private higher education institutions • Support universities and national higher education systems in their efforts to strengthen quality assurance and accreditation procedures for private higher education institutions • Assist governments and private higher education institutions in exploring alternative funding models for private higher education • Help create a system that brokers international partnership opportunities for private colleges and universities

10. Recommended Strategies* – Cont’d • Promoting Regional Cooperation and Cross-Border Collaboration in Higher Education • Provide a clearinghouse of information on models of regional cooperation and cross-border collaboration, and on regional experience with these models • Develop and provide information and planning tools for use by university personnel in identifying appropriate collaboration partners • Develop and provide information and planning tools for use by government personnel responsible for national oversight of regional cooperation and cross-border collaboration among higher education institutions • * Source – Asian Development Bank Publication

11. Summary • Student export from Asia has increased mainly due to a robust economy allowing affordability. • Enrolments within the Asian hubs face a growing challenge. Quality depreciation, inflexibility in research opportunities, widening student teacher ratio and unviable technical and operational programs / degrees are cited as probable reasons. • Main intention of Asian countries in developing such hubs is to attract foreign investment, retain local students, build a regional reputation by providing access to high-quality education and training for both international and domestic students, and create a knowledge-based economy. • ADB strategies have been formulated as part of a study to focus on less developed countries but which are striving to attain excellence at par with Japan, Korea and China. Example: Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka etc.