Susan L. Robertson, University of Bristol HERDSA, Hong Kong, 8th-10th July, 2014

A Global Revolution Ahead for Higher Education? On Navigating Between Fact Facing, Myth-Making and Risk-Taking

Auckland…March 2013..

An Avalanche is lauched…

And we sign up to a MOOC….

https://www.coursera.org/course/globalhighered

But is this a revolution?

Myth-making…

“The future looks like this: access to college level education will be free for everyone; the residential college campus will become largely obsolete; tens of thousands of professors will lose their jobs; the bachelor’s degrees will become increasing irrelevant; and ten years from now, Harvard will enrol ten million students”. Why? “Because the college classroom is about to go virtual”

(Nathan Harden, 2012, The American Interest).

The reason

“The higher-ed business is in for a lot of pain as a new era of creative destruction produces a merciless shakeout of those institutions that adapt and prosper from those that stall and die. The changes ahead will ultimately bring about the most beneficial, most efficient and most equitable access to education that the world has ever seen. There is much to be gained ” (Harden, 2012).

…an avalanche of change will sweep the system away…..

The models of higher education that marched triumphantly around the globe in the second half of the twentieth century are broken… The traditional multi-purpose university with a range of degrees and a modestly effective research programme has had its day. The next 50 years could see a golden age for higher education but only if all the players in the system, from students to governments, seize the initiative and act ambitiously…(Barber et al , 2013).

The disruption machine…

Harvard’s Clayton Christensen has replaced Michael Porter in being a global ‘ideas’ broker. His big idea is that ‘disruptive innovations’ – a cheaper, poorer quality product emerges that takes over and devours an entire industry.

Rather than focus on incremental development, he argues institutions, like HE, need to focus upon disruptive innovation (fear, anxiety, conflict) as a competitive strategy.

Christensen has spawned a huge ‘big bang’ disruption’ industry.

Fact-facing…

Universities have endured over the centuries because they are complex institutions engaged in teaching and learning, research, as well as outreach and service work.

University credentials are also positional goods, playing an important role in cultural and social re/production.

They have shown a remarkable capacity to endure over time.

And there have been other important changes afoot…

Universities are more global as they stretch out across space, whilst new regional and inter-regional HE projects are under way in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

International student mobility has been increasing over time

HE is a significant area of global competitiveness and trade.

BUT…

There are major demographic changes leading to declining student populations in some countries.

Student flows from West to East

Universities tied more closely to global competitiveness projects and proxies.

Greater penetration of HE sector by private actors.

Or are further TRANSFORMATIONS in the governance of the HE sector also part of a HE revolution (and what are the new contradictions…)?

Answer (and…)?

YES – reworking spaces Universities being reconstructed from the OUTSIDE IN – OVERNIGHT …a case of developing HE infrastructures on testosterone…in the remaking global cities, nations, and competitive regions.

YES – new forms connectivity Academics are being encourages to develop scientific collaborations across spaces to increase movement of ideas, pace of innovation, and rate of citations.

YES – competitive comparison Where space, hierarchy, temporal horizons and emotion/affect are both the object and outcome of global governing practices.

YES – mobility and vertigo The use of elevation, the loss of height, and vertigo generate existential anxiety at the level of the institution and the individuals

And MOOCs? There will be efforts to unbundle courses and claim credits, but the most likely important development is in the rise of ‘learning analytics’…

Seven Monologics to Challenge

Catastrophe talk/….

One size fits all/……

Linear development toward a knowledge economy/…….

Top performers/…….

Global as the ‘god’ optic/……..

Competitive market as the only form of productivity/………

Monopolies on data/……

thankyou s.l.robertson@bristol.ac.uk