The expansion of the higher education sector has traditionally been associated with state-funded universities.
Governance and management of higher education
Yet this trend has been changing over time. The state is no longer the sole financier of higher education and universities no longer hold a monopoly on the provision of higher education. Nowadays, there are diversified modes of delivery and types of providers. The mode of traditional face-to-face delivery is sometimes replaced with open learning systems including open universities and virtual institutions. Non-university tertiary education is also expanding and non-state actors such as the private sector and cross-border providers are becoming important features in the evolution of higher education, accompanied by increased student cross-border mobility.
Given the dominance of public provision, the governance and management of the sector, like other public sectors, came under attack for their inefficiency and ineffectiveness. The need for reforms was felt and was influenced by the concept of ’new public management’, resulting in a move towards market orientation in higher education. The market orientation and reduced state funding led institutions to focus on other sources of income to generate resources. Another development was the transfer of authority and responsibility from ministries to universities in the form of increased institutional autonomy.
The autonomy of public institutions and the increase of non-state actors changed the governance and management relationship between the state and universities. The conditions of services, quality of provision and outcomes varied among the providers. In other words, the proliferation of providers, diversification of institutions, programmes becoming more aligned with economic markets, and variations in the quality of programmes offered by different institutions posed challenges to the management of the system. Consequently, new governance structures and management practices were implemented both at the sector and institutional levels.
IIEP carries out research studies and organizes training programmes in the area of governance and management of higher education. While IIEP activities in the 1990s centered on the management of public universities, the focus in the current decade is more on diverse areas such as private higher education, cross-border provisions, virtual institutions, changing modes of financing and institutional restructuring.
List of IIEP papers/publications on Governance and Management in Higher Education >>
Themes of Focus on Higher Education >>