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PUBLISHED DATE: - 03-07-2024
PAGE NO.: - 13-32
https://doi.org/10.37547/tajssei/Volume06Issue07-03
TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE
AMERICAS, EUROPE AND ASIA AND PIECING
TOGETHER THE KEY SUCCESS FACTORS AND
TOXIC BLIND CORNERS
Dr. Faustino Taderera (PhD)
Programme Manager, MSc in International Operations and Supply Chain Programme,
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE), College of Engineering (COE),
National University of Science and Technology (NU), Muscat, Sultanate of Oman
ORCID id:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6161-5613
INTRODUCTION
Global HEIs have done a lot to develop countries,
provide required strategic human resources and
helps systems function for national development.
However, there were many teething issues
regarding assessment, quality and employability of
graduates. Oman was no exception to this. The
Deloitte Center for Government Insights (2024)
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Abstract
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said there were some key trends shaping higher
education regardless of any country and there
were:
•
The outcomes era: where HEI must
articulate a value proposition and eliminate
inequality, facilitate access and restore
public trust which is quite low.
•
Who will be president? The president’s job
has
become
to
complicated
and
multifaceted.
•
A new playing field: College athletics is
shifting toward increased professionalism
due to new policies and practices.
•
The future of AI in higher education: HEI had
to embrace disruptive innovation which is
as good as the industrial revolution.
•
The rising influence and risks of public-
private partnerships: these partnerships
have revolutionised higher education and
dictating how institutions function, innovate
and deliver value.
Oman and the GCC have to watch these trends
carefully and manage them well for better HEI.
Al-Saiari (2023) outlined the challenges faced by
Oman higher education as moderate degree of
readiness, challenges with styles of teaching, the
learning environment and human resources, and
recommended how to handle student issues,
lecturers, curriculum, and industrial and
international cooperation for better HEI in Oman.
As one explores this massive literature review one
comes across the same issues in developed
countries also, the difference being the magnitude
and prescriptive measures. Higher education
educators were experiencing challenges and
increasing pressure to ensure that graduates were
employable. Some speculated that the lack of the
right employment skills could contribute even
more to the increase in unemployment, than does
the global recession. The researcher agrees with
this.
My research paper looks at the USA, Europe and
Asia higher education as drivers for knowledge
creation and innovation, sustainability and
industrialisation, learning from best practices and
experiences in assessment, feedback, quality and
employability issues globally. This is theory
building in the Theory of Higher Education
Management (THEM) and tries to find the place for
these three continents in higher education
management. This theory proffers that good well
managed higher education institutions produced
employable graduates who had strategic fit with
the labour market and had highly innovative
faculty who taught well and were highly
productive
in
research,
innovation
and
industrialisation as well as community service. The
gap in knowledge here is why these key issues
continued in globally when they were known? That
is what this critical literature based research will
unravel. Society is keen to know these issues fully
and take corrective measures for the well-being of
the continents’s economy and society. Very
instructive statistics were published by Statistica
giving the status of education for men and women,
boys and girls and other statistics, (Statistica,
2024),
(https://www.statista.com/topics/7785/educatio
n-worldwide/#statisticChapter). The researcher
extensively used these statistics in this research as
they were quite instructive in building a case,
besides many other sources used. You would see
the share of tertiary education amongst males and
females, and literacy rates in different regions of
the world and the reasons thereof. Are higher
education institutions in USA, Europe and Asia not
having leadership challenges as the rest of the
corporate sector and governments do naturally at
times? One American professor said some
universities suffered the crisis of leadership failure
and position drunkenness. He sighted the large
number of University Presidents (VCs in other
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countries) who are forced out of their jobs for
incompetence, position drunkenness or positional
abuse, corruption and abuse of public office before
their contracts expire. This was fact. This
phenomenon leads someone not to listen to
colleagues in the management team, which
provided checks and balances, and to fly the said
Icarat Paradox high in the sky and then fall to hell
on the ground. This was a common problem for
many leaders in any position be it in HEI, the
corporate world or government.
The job of the faculty has never been easy and was
now multi-tasked. The faculty must be a
sociologist/anthropologist
who
understands
society and cultural realities. He/she must fully
understand the politics and national ethos of any
country they work in, which means understanding
history, national development plans and priorities
and avoiding political minefields. It is not only
one’s classroom interactions with students and
other faculty that can get faculty into trouble but
could be other external factors mentioned above as
universities draw in many issues from the
communities, industry, government and wider
societies naturally. Being a good teacher was no
longer enough, but also understanding society,
sociology, anthropology, politics and economics
too. Faculty have to wear all these hats.
STUDENT ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Diversity of life experiences and opinions enriched
the educational experience, while confronting
differences can be uncomfortable, but can
contribute significantly to learning and a future
working life, (Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:77).
Higher education attainment was associated with
better health, higher employment rates, and higher
relative earnings, besides higher proficiency on
skills such as literacy and numeracy, (Bowen and
McPherson, 2016:12). The USA system of higher
education did not arise from a plan and no agency
governed it, it just happened and the USA made the
top ten universities in rankings except Oxford and
Cambridge, 146 of the top 500, 52 of the top 100,
and 32 of the top 50, (Labaree, 2017: 2;5). College
served as a turning point in the lives of almost
everyone and was a time and place where people
learnt how to better fit into the world and create a
meaning for their lives, (Selingo, 2013:168). By any
measure college graduates led healthier and longer
lives, had better working conditions, had healthier
children who performed better in school, had more
of an interest in art and reading, spoke and wrote
more clearly, had a greater acceptance of
differences in people, and were more civically
active and the same attributes passed down to
future generations, (Selingo, 2013:169). The
University of Phoenix was the largest in the USA,
University of California Berkley was the USA and
world’s best research university while Harvard
was rated best in the world and University of
Wisconsin was the best entrepreneurial university
in the world, (Clawson & Page, 2011:8-13). The
effects of austerity on HEI were laid clearly by
Altbach (2016:52-54) when he said the
implications were low salaries for the academic
profession and others working in higher education,
many graduates were deemed unemployable and
there was an overall deterioration in the quality of
higher education. Austerity started in 2008 after
the global financial crisis.
The learning college would reflect that student
learning and the assessment of that learning was
central to the mission of the college, its philosophy,
its values, and the identity of the institution,
(Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:20), quoting Blaich
and Wise, 2010; Cistone and Bashford, 2002;
Dwyer, Millet and Payne, 2006. Assessment was a
difficult exercise which decided the fate of
students, their future and their families and had
too many interest groups like students, their
parents/families, society, employers, government,
and the college administration who are naturally
concerned about pass rates and backlash from
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students as customers for future uptake. Marks
and marking is a high stakes game with many
interest groups, i.e. colleges, students, teachers,
society, government, accreditation bodies,
professional bosdies and industry.
In the world today it was a fact that having a
diploma or degree (some credential, qualification),
was now a prerequisite to getting married. A new
middle class elite had emerged which did not want
to marry a girl without a diploma or degree. So
failure meant a girl might not be married or would
be relegated to being married by someone of a
lower social class or grade, naturally a person
without a degree or diploma, which might mean
relegation to a lower social standing or a lower
income family or marriage, as in most of the times
lack of qualifications resulted in doing lower level
or menial jobs and unquestionable poverty. Some
few people might be lucky though and still be rich
from inheritance or business, even without
qualifications, but that was definitely a tiny
minority. So, failure to get qualifications had
serious social and economic ramifications.
Sometimes the rest of the family would be having
college qualifications and for one not to get it
would be quite traumatizing as one would not fit in
the family psychologically and life would be like a
lifelong psychosomatic prison. Pressure from
family and in-group for achievement was a real
issue. Qualifications and good jobs allowed people
to drive poshy executive cars, buy good houses and
mansions, enjoy the best hotels and restaurants,
enjoy the best holiday resorts, be treated at the
best hospitals in and outside the country, join
exclusive clubs, send children to the best schools,
join boards of leading companies and government
corporations, join Chambers of Commerce and
Industry, be consulted on important issues at
company and national level as well as family and
community level, become an opinion leader and to
avoid the dreaded scourge and curse of poverty,
which is every person’s fear nowadays.
The uneducated man/woman faced the opposite of
that and lived the life of deprivation, tears, misery
and ridicule. Nodiv ever wanted that no matter
what. Education was the unquestionable panacea
to the middle class and the contest for the middle
class was via colleges and credentials then
lucrative jobs with top level decision making,
dignity and respect for life. The researcher had one
unforgettable experience whilst in the UK, when
one local driver was wishing he had a PhD degree
and said, “I wish there was a PhD in driv
ing then I
would be enjoying life like all these professors,
earning a lot of money and benefits.” It was true the
professors were some of the highest paid people in
any society who splashed their money in
supermarkets, bought or rented expensive
executive houses, visited expensive holiday resorts
and owned poshy cars, among many luxuries they
could afford. It was the same pattern in hospitals.
People loved education so much and there was an
education crazy and frenzy in every country.
A study on helping students achieve self-regulated
learning (SRL) skills was done to a pilot group of
twenty eight students studying Financial
Accounting in a South African School of
Accountancy and qualitative data was collected in
the form of written and verbal feedback from
group participants, colleagues, and through use of
a research diary, (Wilmot & Merino, 2015:n.p). The
findings indicated that guided mastery and active
learning were effective techniques for teaching
specific SRL skills to students. The feedback
provided by students also showed that the
intervention fostered student learning. The
researcher’s own teaching practice also improved
through reflecting on and making changes to his
teaching approach. HEI teachers could learn a few
lessons from these findings and reduce lecturing
and move to student centred learning.
ACADEMIC ISSUES
Good colleges have a responsibility to faculty
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growth and maximizing the potential of faculty,
(Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:21).
Former Harvard University President, Charles
Elliot, discovered three critical factors for the
success of universities and nations, (Christensen
and Eyring, 2011:48) which were:-
a.
In Europe at the time (19th Century), there
was the broad range and high degree of
specialization of European scholarship, and France
and Germany excelled in a number of disciplines;
b.
The second discovery was the apparent
connection between scholarship and national
economic productivity. He saw that the increase in
imported European goods he had seen at home
was the result of scientific discoveries being
translated into commercial practice; and lastly
c.
Despite all the superiority in scholarship
and industry, the individual citizens of France and
Germany suffered at the hands of undemocratic
governments, rigid class structures, and
exclusionary school systems. He gained increased
appreciation of democratic liberty in America and
beyond. His own rise to academic prominence as
well as that of his family politically, financially and
scholarly in USA would not have been possible
back in Europe.
Higher education had become the basic education
of the knowledge economy. Yet in transitioning,
emerging and developing countries, resources for
higher education, and indeed higher educational
systems themselves, remained inadequate, (Alon &
McIntyre, 2013: 5-27). Urgent action was needed
to expand and diversify the supply of educational
avenues to meet the fast rising demand. That
review paper, based on the ongoing research of the
authors, defined business education as the
collection of skills and abilities given by the
business disciplines and enabling the development
of an entrepreneurial society. They contended that
the
institutionalisation
of
world-class
management programmes to produce a
continuous and self-renewing stream of
intellectual capital and its retention in the
emerging economies of the world was possibly the
most significant challenge faced by business and
management education in the coming generation.
Crow and Dabars (2015:160-161) contributing to
this debate argued that discovery, learning and
societal engagement were mutually supportive
core functions of universities. They went further to
say knowledge transfer occurred through
publications, training and education of students,
employment
of
graduates,
conferences,
consultations/consultancy, collaborations with
industry, government and society as well as
obtaining rights to inventions and discoveries that
qualify for patent protection (intellectual property,
or IP) and licensing them to private enterprises.
Competition for attention was so crude
universities had to use advanced marketing
strategies to get students, research funding,
collaborative arrangements with industry,
graduate employment and to get the ear of
government and investors. Lowell of Harvard
University after World War 1, explored the
freedom of professors to speak according to
conscience in two realms:- the classroom and the
world beyond it but said they had to do that
responsibly and carefully to protect their
institutions and themselves, (Christensen &
Eyring, 2011:94). GCC professors had achieved
quite a number of accolades globally, although
research funding continued to be an issue of
concern.
The challenge in American education was that the
public expect universities to successfully graduate
all students who enter universities yet the public
school systems found it difficult to produce
college-ready graduates which complicates this
conflict. Any university that gave these high risk
students an opportunity to study then encounters
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criticism because not enough of them graduate,
(Lombardi, 2013:26). This was a very tricky
situation
for
universities.
Society
and
governments, rightly or wrongly, argue that so
much has been invested in students right from
kindergarten up to high school, and these lower
graded students cannot just be left to sit at home
or join industry at lower levels as labourers or
operatives, when they could be nurtured to enable
them to contribute at a higher level to national
development, their lives and communities. This
was a highly controversial issue with few solutions.
A look at the new Saudi Arabia Neom City project
tells you the whole story of the ridiculously
attractive salaries and conditions of service
(Middle East Eye, 2024), a real paradise
(https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/foreign-
executives-chalk-million-dollar-salaries-neom-
report). This includes salaries for academics there
too and would outcompete rivals in the GCC.
But how could one push up salaries and job
security when there was a crisis in HEI in countries
like the UK? Some UK HEI were patients in the
intensive care in hospital due to funding shortfalls,
(The
Week,
2024).
(https://theweek.com/education/uk-
universities-why-higher-education-is-in-crisis).
On the other extreme companies will be arguing
that they wanted the best graduated students as
employees as the basis of their competitiveness is
firstly determined by the quality of the
labourforce. The elitist top companies set high GPA
and passes as minimum standards for graduate
trainees which the lower GPA students naturally
cannot achieve. The question then which lingers in
every person’s mind is –
where will these lower
performers work even after allowing them into
colleges/universities? A new unemployment
problem haunts these lower grade graduate
students, sometimes for life. They hop from one
interview to another being rejected and failing,
that is if they manage to be shortlisted at all. Some
firms disqualify them at shortlisting stage. So,
academics and others would always ask whether
admitting them in colleges had any benefit or value
as most of them struggled to get jobs as a norm. Off
course some are well connected and easily got jobs
after graduation ahead of high fliers because of
cronyism called Wasta in Arabic. This was very
common in the GCC. This American scenario may
be found in some countries too as the same modus
operandi is used in private colleges/universities
who do not get state funding. They cannot get
scholarships either due to their low GPA. But many
of the lower GPA students do excel after college no
doubt. The socialization they get in colleges does
sharpen and transform them a lot. Some end up
with PhD degrees, not uncommon.
Education could only be improved through:
smaller class sizes, higher teacher salaries, longer
school years, more computers in classrooms,
allowing students and their parents to choose their
schools and better facilities, (Best, 2011:42-43). He
argued further that children raised from upper
income families always did better than those from
poor families because they had better educated
parents who viewed school as especially important
and who could give their children a host of
experiences, encouragement and opportunities
that improved their chances of doing well in
school. He said the opposite was the case for poor
parents who have less or no books, computers, less
money and no special experiences. This all works
against good school and college performance and
results.
Students faced many challenges nowadays like:-
high tuition fees, high student loan debt, failure to
repay loans for education and weak employment
prospects for graduates. Mettler (2014:189)
criticized class sizes saying they had swelled and
classes were being taught by adjunct or temporary
faculty and there was less support for students
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which was now affecting graduation rates
downwards. Where was the solution for all the
myriad of problems facing students and society?
Some of the pressure was piled on academics to
find out solutions, some impossible because of
circumstances and reality, some possible to solve.
TOO MANY PHD DEGREE HOLDERS AND LESS
JOBS
The USA reported that unemployment amongst
PhDs was now very high and that was a barometer
of the reality in the whole world. The major cause
of this was the mass production of PhD degree
holders. One USA professor gave a very dawning
bleak outlook of the PhD unemployment scenario
as it is. He said it was now much easier to go to
paradise or heaven than to get a job in academia.
This was not overstating it but reality. The jobs
were too few versus the massive number of PhDs
available and graduating, and it was now more of a
closed market where one gets jobs from the
network rather than straight recruitments (your
own PhD university or industry network). Using a
network or headhunting had one big advantage of
screening undesirable characters. Those were
people who were known and would not come and
cause problems and chaos upon recruitment, like
conflicts, disrespect and eccentric behaviour. Many
universities have suffered as a result of this.
Labour laws were so tight such that dismissing any
employee was not easy at all, quite traumatizing
and costly, sometimes at the Labour Courts.
Universities just like other employers and
industries, wanted amenable team players rather
than fanatics and eccentric characters who wasted
valuable time in conflicts and chaos, sometimes
causing other employees stress and depression,
including leaders of higher education like HODs,
Deans
and
the
VC
(absents, conflicts,
incompetence, mistreating students and other
staff).
If one looks at how long a PhD degree holder serves
it gives a glimpse of the problem. Academics
normally serve up to 70 years in the field then bow
out. But some in Europe and USA continue beyond
that as long as they are in good health. Their skills
are so important to all countries that governments
want them to continue serving to help drive HEI
and to do consultancy in industry, research, and
skills transfer and training of junior and middle-
level academics. Their presence also gives solid
psychological assurance to students and other
stakeholders that the best brains are here to serve
you. It was also a very strong branding and
marketing strategy for universities which
attracted students, investors, donors and funders
alike. These mature seasoned academics are the
custodians of their rich globe-trotting history
spanning the whole world, unique tested superior
knowledge, institutional memory, superior
brainpower, superior research capabilities,
superior knowledge and societal problem
solutions reside in them at the highest levels. Every
university needs them for objectivity, checks and
balances and credibility. Only those without a full
understanding of this complex industry would not
have these senior seasoned academics on campus.
Without these senior academics a university is like
a roofless house and mansion, untenable and risky.
Goldstein and Holden (2010:151) quote two
leading authorities on universities, starting with
the philosopher Alfred North White who said that
universities created the future, while Drew Gilpin
Faust, president of Harvard University, said that
universities created the future in two fundamental
ways, which was by educating those to whom the
future belonged, and by generating the ideas and
discoveries that could transform the present and
build a better world. This was undeniable.
Looking at academic jobs localization in Saudi
Araba, the GCC gigantic economy, it was reported
that one regularly saw expatriate academics from
3rd world or developing countries and Asian
countries who had been terminated running from
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college to college to try and get a fresh new
contract and avoid going back home to face a cruel
harsh economy where thanklessly low salaries and
benefits are paid (electricity, internet and water
supply were regularly disrupted), where
infrastructure was so poor and corruption was the
order of the day, even in NICs (in some countries
there might be wars, hyperinflation, political
unrest and conflict, which would be a threat to life).
Surely who would question anything given and
offered by an employer when coming from those
trouble spots and troubled economies?
Quality of life mattered all the time.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives were:
a.
Exploring global historical perspectives of
global HEI and issues faced.
b.
Identify challenges faced globally on the
same issues.
c.
Scientifically find out the magnitude of those
issues globally.
d.
Advance research-driven solutions for a
progressive global HEI system that addresses key
success factors fully.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
These are:
a.
What are the global historical perspectives
of global HEI and issues faced?
b.
What are the challenges faced globally on
the same issues?
c.
Scientifically what is the magnitude of those
issues globally?
d.
What are the research-driven solutions for a
progressive global HEI system that addresses key
success factors fully?
SOCIETAL ISSUES AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
Higher education was humanity’s primary enabler,
its principal path on curing diseases, advancing
technology, enhancing communication, creating
decent communities, making transportation safer,
and even predicting the weather, appreciating
beauty, inspired by creativity, understand our past,
discern the consequences of our politics,
comprehend, respect, and transcend difference,
made sense of our emotions and assess our values,
(Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:4). A free modern
society and economy required a culture protecting
and
inspiring
individuality,
imagination,
understanding and self-expression that drives a
nation’s indigenous innovation, Antony, Cauce &
Shalala (2017:5), quoting Edmund Phelps.
Students were at the heart of the university, and
the needs of industrial and postindustrial societies
and the emphasis on obtaining diplomas and
degrees have all contributed to the demand for
higher education, as in many countries a university
degree was a requirement for a middle-class
occupation, (Altbach, 2016:43). From the analysis
that has been done right through, it is quite clear
that credentialing had become too important and
had become a passport to better professional jobs,
prosperity, recognition, respect, job security and
better jobs. It was the make and break in modern
society. In 1994 the USA Congress prohibited
mandatory retirement for tenured faculty as part
of legislation against age discrimination, (Antony,
Cauce & Shalala, 2017:6). There is a critical
shortage of top grade tenured faculty globally and
the USA was acting to extend access and use of that
critical expertise for national economic gain, which
is very correct and strategic. The UK and the rest of
Europe mostly do that. Why do some GCC and
other 3rd world countries insist on retirement age
of 60 years when globally it is not economically
good to do that, and ruinous for countries that are
robbed of critically important strategic skills and
expertise that take decades to create and produce?
Oman abolished the retirement age for academics
a few years back, a smart futuristic move. It is high
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time such national policies are done away with.
Instructors
were
responsible
for
dual
competencies which were mastery of both the
subject matter and the art of conveying it for
maximum student learning, (Christensen & Eyring,
2011:259). But learning took two to tango.
Students must have the motivation and
commitment to learn too.
The urgent questions of the contemporary world
–
on the environment, economic development,
health care, international relations, to name a few
–
increasingly demanded intellectual synthesis,
skills and capacities that span different fields and
the essential work of research universities must
address those questions, (Antony, Cauce & Shalala,
2017:11). Unlike a car, college requires the buyer
to do most of the work to obtain its value and the
value of a degree depends more on the student’s
output than the college’s curriculum: the courses a
student takes, his/her intellectual curiosity,
participation in class, his/her focus and
determination
–
all contribute far more to his/her
educational outc
ome than the college’s overall
curriculum, much less its amenities and social life,
(Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:13), quoting
Hunter Rawlings. It is not a secret that a few
students did not want to attend college but are
forced by parents and peer pressure to do so, is
reality the world over.
It said good teaching and appropriate assessment
were found to have an unexpected effect.
Specifically, good teaching was found to only have
a positive impact on surface motive, while
appropriate assessment was found to negatively
influence students’ deep as well as surface
approaches. These findings highlighted the need to
re-examine the role of teacher-centered pedagogy
and the nature of student assessment in university
teaching, (Yin, Wang & Han, 2016:39-57). But
many authors say they opposite on this. As GCC
HEIs grapple with their myriad of challenges they
need to take these researches into account.
Social diversity would increasingly characterize
university life in decades to come; diversity in
terms of race, class and gender among others,
should inform universities shaping of their student
and faculty populations, (Antony, Cauce & Shalala,
2017:14). Higher education was every country’s
most powerful path to change and thus to social
and economic growth and every
national’s future
depended on higher education as it does on
nothing else, (Antony, Cauce & Shalala, 2017:15).
THE STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVES AND OTHER
ISSUES
A study of Chinese students revealed that the
quality of undergraduate teaching was an issue
under heated dispute in China. The study also
revealed the desirable effects of clear goals and
standards, an emphasis on independence, generic
skills, and an appropriate workload on students’
approaches to studying (measured by the Study
Process Questionnaire) and course satisfaction
(measured by the Overall Satisfaction Scale).
In their study of 148 students selected from 11
degrees from nine centers of the Polytechnic
University of Valencia (Spain) researchers found
that university professors could reinforce the deep
approach by placing high aims for students which
went well beyond reproducing knowledge but
using other complementary methods other than
expository teaching: problem solving, case studies,
designing projects, raising questions, discussion
and negotiation in the classroom, etc. They argued
that to accomplish that, teachers had to encourage
students to be committed, and those methods
helped do that. It also helped to introduce more
demanding evaluation procedures which did not
merely involve repeating what had been learnt, but
included training guidance that offered students
feedback, (López, Cerveró, Rodríguez, Félix &
Esteban, 2013:50-60).
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Researchers had tried to induce a deeper approach
to learning by means of student-centred learning
environments and research to determine whether
perceived workload and task complexity were
discouraging or encouraging factors for university
students was carried out. In general, results
showed no significant relationship between
perceived workload and students’ approaches to
learning. For perceived task complexity, it was
found that a perceived lack of information was a
discouraging factor for inducing a deep learning
approach. A lack of information consistently
increased students’ surface approaches to learning
regardless of the induced workload and task
complexity, (Kyndt, Dochy, Struyven & Cascallar,
2011:393-415: Online). What could be the realities
in GCC higher education where graduate fitness for
the job market has been a point of discussions for
a long time.
Results from recent research showed that use of
student-centred
learning
environments
in
education had increased and that most students
preferred teacher direction, cooperative learning
and knowledge construction, and adopted a deep
approach. Moreover, significant correlations were
found between approaches to learning and
instructional preferences. It said students adopting
a
deep
approach
preferred
knowledge
construction and cooperative learning, while
students adopting a surface approach had a
preference for teacher direction and passive
learning, (Baeten, Dochy, Struyven, Parmentier &
Vanderbruggen, 2016:43-62).
A study investigated the effects of two contrasting
learning environments on students’ course
experiences: a lecture-based setting to a student-
activating teaching environment was carried out
and involved five research conditions that went
together with one of four assessment modes,
namely, portfolio, case-based, peer assessment,
and multiple-choice testing. The results showed
that while the perceptions of lecture-taught
students were focused and concordantly positive,
students’ course experiences with student
-
activating methods were widely varied and both
extremely positive and negative opinions were
present. It concluded that students’ arguments in
favour of the activating setting were the variety of
teaching methods, the challenging and active
nature of the assignments and the joys of
collaborative work in teams, whereas students
expressed dissatisfaction with the perceived lack
of learning gains, the associated time pressure and
workloads, and the (exclusive) use of collaborative
assignments and related group difficulties. This
could be extremely useful for improvement of
teaching methods in Oman where flipped teaching
was introduced a few years back but was still in its
infancy. There is still widespread use of lecturing
and teacher-centred approaches, (Struyven,
Dochy, Janssens & Gielen, 2008:11-83).
Researchers in Pakistan concluded that the quality
of higher education was increasingly becoming an
important
issue
as
the
socio-economic
development of a country owed much to it. In their
study
on
students’
satisfaction
and
entrepreneurial efficacy done in Pakistan it was
revealed that private sector university students
are quite satisfied from the services of their
universities and their perceived entrepreneurial
self-efficacy level was also higher. The students of
public sector universities were dissatisfied and
their perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy level
was lower. Furthermore, it was discovered that
quality of services of universities had a positive
impact on students’ satisfaction and perceived
entrepreneurial self-efficacy level, (Ahmed, Lulin &
Bajwa, 2016:66-78).
Researchers in Finland researching on winners of
national teaching excellence awards from 2010-
2012 discovered that common practices included
quality assurance-related activities, researcher
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training, core analysis of content and active
participation of stakeholders. Comparisons with
earlier research showed similarities in practices
with the Norwegian Centres of Excellence. They
concluded that the research results could be
utilized as a benchmark to support development
work in higher education and researcher believes
Oman could take a leaf from this research to
improve teaching standards in universities,
(Kauppila, 2016:14-33).
A research paper in Portugal to establish if there
was a direct link between student life satisfaction
and life in general and the link between student life
satisfaction and students’ performance was
confirmed by research results. Researchers
believed that research results could assist
managers of educational institutions in creating a
strategy, l
eading to better students’ satisfaction
with student life quality and their performance,
(Mihanović & Zekić, 2016:34
-45). Researchers
confirmed that excellence in institutional,
management, instructional, pedagogical, resource
support, ethical considerations and evaluation
factor and 35 sub-components created satisfaction
in virtual universities, (Dastjerdi, 2016:46-55).
International Business Publications (2005:308)
argued that resources needed to be diverted from
other activities to educational expansion and to the
enhancement of quality, which they said remained
a problem throughout the Arab world. In the quest
to revive the social compact in higher education
Arizona State University resolved to expand
enrollment capacity, promote diversity and
provide accessibility to world-class research and
scholarship a diverse and heterogeneous student
div
that
includes
students
from
socioeconomically
differentiated
and
underrepresented backgrounds, including first-
generation applicants, (Crow & Dabars, 2015:250).
Most 3rd world countries, suffer from a certain
percentage of exclusion as governments cut down
higher education funding through austerity.
Children from poor families were finding it
increasingly difficult to finance education and
some opted out and gave up university education
altogether.
During the 20th century, American universities
and colleges were faced with many challenges
—
a
multi-fold increase in students; non-stop increases
in research output; and a barrage of critiques from
all sides about diversity, access, purpose,
pedagogy, and accountability, (Mandell, 2016:301-
305). This was a hot topic globally at the moment.
Mitchell (2016: 315-317) contented that higher
education had long been considered a public good,
with the definition of public good being defined
–
or presumed
–
variously by individual colleges and
universities. He said yet, definitions and
discussions of what it meant to serve the public
good remained tacit and in the book In Longing for
Justice, Jennifer Simpson shined a light on issues of
social justice, power, and the public good in
relation to undergraduate education in North
America, because “in North America, we never live
outside of democratic contradictions and
aspirations” (p. 214). There are many powerful
interest groups and group dynamics involved in
higher education and consensus decisions
normally prevail over singular decisions.
Clawson & Page (2011:13; 31-36) argued that
students joined colleges for good and weird
reasons some of which were:- a good life and good
job/job security, a time of freedom, an opportunity
to make friends for a life time, a chance to explore
ideas, meet different kinds of people, see the world
in new ways, a chance for party and drink. They
said that kids from poor backgrounds found it very
difficult to get places at colleges because of lack of
required fees and subsistence money, poor SAT
scores caused by unsupportive parents, divorces
and broken families, brawling families, poverty,
poor accommodation/facilities, deprivation, lack
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of access to computers/internet and lack of books
at home, attending poor rated schools, a poor
achievement and education culture at home and
social upheaval, drug peddling, getting too
involved with girls and boys, among many evils.
They said even if they got places their chances of
completing degrees were less than half those of
kids from rich well-to-do families for the same
reasons. This was corroborated in many other
studies referred to earlier on.
So why were faculty and colleges always held
responsible for students
’ failure and failure to
complete degrees when most causal factors were
outside the colleges, and resided in government
education policy, families and communities? To
extend the debate on these issues Lombardi
(2013:123) argued that teaching was a
collaborative enterprise that required the active
and engaged participation of teachers and
students. He said students who did not want to
learn or who arrived without adequate
preparation from schools and parents were
difficult to teach while teachers who are indifferent
and uninspiring made it difficult for willing
students to learn. He argued that evaluating
effectiveness of teaching and learning was no easy
task. Here was an accident in waiting and fault
lines.
Clawson & Page (2011:50-51) quoting the first
Marq
uess of Halifax said, “The right name for our
society’s current policy of charging thousands of
dollars for public higher education is ‘outrageous’
and perhaps ‘irrational’. And yet we live in a world
where to suggest that public higher education
should be
free is regarded as lunacy.” He went
further to say if public colleges and universities
were free many more people would go to school
and benefit society. This was the American higher
education system and beyond.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A research design was the comprehensive plan for
data collection in an empirical research project,
and design’s quality was measured by checking
internal validity, external validity, construct
validity and statistical conclusion validity, where
applicable, (Bhattacherjee, 2012:35-37). The
research method used in this research was
conceptual research. The paper is conceptual in
nature and is based on the review of existing
literature on global and Oman higher education
management focusing on quality, assessment and
employability issues. Conceptual research is
defined as a methodology wherein research is
conducted by observing and analysing already
present information on a given topic. Conceptual
research does not involve conducting any practical
experiments. It is related to abstract concepts and
ideas. Philosophers have long used conceptual
research to develop new theories or interpret
existing theories in a different light. Research
papers from various sources have been used as
well as books, journals, government reports,
conference papers, industry reports, professional
association reports and those of research
institutes. From these papers a conceptual
framework of higher education service delivery
has been developed.
The higher education theory was first developed to
drive production of high quality graduates for the
national economy and industry.
Watertight reliability and validity measures were
employed as expected by academic convention in
this kind of research. Thematic analysis has been
used here to group related issues and do justice.
Quoting Bodil Johnsson, (Berg and Seeber,
2016:26), explained that academics knew that
intellectual work, such as research (the creation of
new knowledge) and learning (the creation of new
knowledge in oneself), had to be measured in a
way totally different from the way we measure the
work of industrialization and that what was
needed was what she called thinkology rather than
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technology. Research showed that periods of
escape from time were actually essential to deep
thought (Berg and Seeber, 2016:63), creativity,
and problem-solving. The question now was where
would academics get the necessary escape time for
deep and serious reflection on big issues when
their schedule was so overloaded? Moreover, how
much had speed and overload in academics
negatively compromised research output and with
what consequences for quality higher education
systems? The neoliberal agenda among many
others, stood at odds with ideals of discovery,
enquiry and intellectual advancement that
academics needed to promote the research
endeavor, and academics became isolated from
each other and became compliant as resistance to
the corporatization of the academy seemed futile,
said (Berg & Seeber, 2016:70) quoting Fanghanel.
It was quite clear low research output was
affecting teaching quality as testified in this
research. Thorp & Goldstein (2010:97) argued that
it was commonplace in higher education that good
research supported good teaching. How much
research funding was available in leading
economies as well as in the GCC compared to other
countries?
THEORETICAL
AND
CONCEPTUAL
FRAMEWORKS
Trowler was for the idea that appropriate
theoretical/conceptual frameworks should always
be researched and tested for their validity. He went
further and said as research proceeded the implied
theoretical synthesis would need to be flexible to
accommodate
emerging
issues,
(Trowler,
2015:44). The researcher was guided by this
axiom.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In higher education workflow was the progression
of students from first year right up to graduation.
A barrier was anything that prevented the system
from achieving its goals. Managing barriers
maximised value to the HEI as well as its customers
and other stakeholders and was a major survival
and competitive factor. The thrust of this research
was to identify critical success factors for service
excellence
in
academic
departments
of
colleges/universities
(teaching,
regulatory
framework, students’ expectations/perceptions,
student advisory services, staff, IT systems,
Library,
support
departments,
research,
assessment, feedback, evaluation and fighting
industry competition). This research must identify
barriers facing Oman colleges and universities and
possible solutions. The focus of this research was
mainly to look at the global HEIs in USA, Europe
and Asia and take stock of their history and
operations. It was part of this research to
investigate and see how global HEI were affected
by the Theory of Higher Education Management
with focus on key issues about students, academic
work and competition and to test the relevance
and shortcomings of this theory, if any, and
contribute to theory building. This theory had
generally been tested many times in developed
countries but the industry was too dynamic and
fast-changing and new realities were needed to
keep pace with this multi-interest group industry.
The findings from this research would be quite a
breakthrough and would make an important
contribution to the management of colleges and
higher education institutions in Oman, the GCC
learning from the giants of HEI in those three
leading continents, Americas, Asia and Europe.
Conceptual framework
The Theory of Higher Education Management
(THEM)is an overall management philosophy that
is geared to help organizations continually achieve
their goals. Its measurements are given by
throughput (rate of production), inventory flow,
and operating expenses (effect on sales and
competitiveness of education services) in higher
education. A barrier is anything that prevented the
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system from achieving its goal like poor funding,
quality of new students or freshmen into the
system, high teaching loads, unattractive research
prizes and incentives, low salaries that drive away
talented academics and others and finally poor
resourcing. Managing the THEM maximised value
to the HEI as well as its customers and other
stakeholders and was a major survival and
competitive factor. The thrust of this research was
to identify critical success factors for service
excellence in knowledge development and
innovation with focus on key issues about
students, academics, faculty and resourcing issues.
This research must identify all barriers facing HEI
in the three continents and possible solutions.
The underlying theory in this research was the
Theory of Higher Education Management which
was centred on reducing barriers for service
excellence,
viability
and
competitiveness.
Investigations in this research would centre on
how the multiple variables can be managed to
contribute to success and service excellence in
global HEI. Marketing and operations theory under
which services theory falls puts the customer at the
centre of everything and said that the customer
was king of any organisation. Customer
satisfaction was seen as central to everything and
the students were the customers of HEI. Some
American books referred to students as the Kings
and Queens of HEI. The thrust of this research was
to see whether global higher education institutions
were achieving customer satisfaction all the time,
creating knowledge and having good teaching,
assessment and employability of graduates and the
barriers that they faced in achieving that, if any.
STRESS, FRUSTRATION AND ILLNESSES
AMONG ACADEMICS IN USA
Berg and Seeber, (2016:6-7), quoting a 2014
article in the Guardian Higher Education Network,
“Dark Thoughts: Why Mental Illness Is on The Rise
in Academia,” said workloads –
particularly
demands for increased product and productivity,
have ballooned amidst an uncaring academic
environment for faculty and graduate students and
the notion of students as customers combined with
greater reliance on technology had led to the
increased blurring of work and life, with for
example demands such as 24 hour limit for
responses to student queries. The pressure was
unrelenting in Europe, USA, China and the rest of
Asia, and colleges were fighting for students just
like Chinese competition on global markets. The
way Chinese textiles and toys had decimated world
markets for competitors was the way colleges
were competing for students in leading world
economies. The competition was cut-throat and
survival of the fittest. Student numbers were
declining as more HEIs were opened in the leading
world economies. We are all aware of declining
birth rates in Europe, Japan and some major
economies and the capping or reduction of
international students through harsh anti-
immigration laws there, and their negative effects
of student numbers. UK universities were
retrenching large numbers of academics as there
was a critical shortage of students because of this.
It has become a hot election issue this year
between the major political parties in the UK and
will partly decide the outcome and voting pattern.
Student recruitment is now a battleground for UK
universities.
ANALYSIS OF ISSUES
Davidson (2017:248) was blunt and to the point
when she said that society faced two dangers
which were the creeping obsolescence of HEIs and
the changing job market and economy, and both
needed to be managed carefully for success and
relevance. Turner and Solis (2017:64-76) strongly
felt that there was a need for adequate training and
professional development on differentiation of
teaching methods for better teaching and learning.
They were admonishing faculty to have a variety of
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teaching methods, an issue that was raised as a
major concern by many students and HEI players
in this literature review.
Many millions of students were coming to HEI ill
prepared for college work thus creating a danger
that they could only be graduated by lowering
academic standards, (Bok, 2017:170). The learning
college would reflect that student learning and the
assessment of that learning was central to the
mission of the college, its philosophy, its values,
and the identity of the institution, (Antony, Cauce
& Shalala, 2017:20), quoting Blaich and Wise,
2010:10-20; Cistone and Bashford, 2002:40-60;
Dwyer, Millet and Payne, 2006:60-80. A study by
the United Nations University under the Global
University Network for Innovation (GUNI) in 2008
involving 48 universities (2008:315-318) across
the world said of the Arabic Middle East region,
that a survey on leading academics revealed that
the region should prioritise the training of teaching
staff (78%) as priority number one. Some
academics were experts in their skills areas but
poor teachers. Training in pedagogics and
assessment was critical for success.
Universities could not flourish without improving
access and quality of education and the quality of
teachers there, as well as increased funding for
elementary and intermediate education, (Cole,
2009:507). From the foregoing it was quite clear
there was a convergence of theory and findings on
the grounds on issues like compulsory internship,
diversity in terms of faculty employed,
customization
of
teaching
materials,
research/teaching
nexus,
benchmarking
standards, learning/private life balance for
students, value of canteens serving good food,
objectivity in assessment, value of comprehensive
feedback to students and the value of resourcing
HEI. Alon and McIntyre (2013: 5-27) argued that
higher education had become the basic education
of the knowledge economy and yet in transitioning,
emerging and developing countries, resources for
higher education, and indeed higher educational
systems themselves, remained inadequate.
Harvard Business Review (2013:121) made the
case for strategic product fit with the market, when
they warned that suppliers needed to provide
customer value proposition by making their
offerings superior on the few elements that
mattered most to target customers, demonstrating
and documenting the value of this superior
performance, communicating it correctly and
finally that value in performance had to be proved
in practice as a customer benefit. This was
graduate finess for the labour market or industry.
Surely what mattered most for employers was
competence, performance and strategic fit in
teams. Grade inflation had eroded the value of
degrees in the USA and was a great cause for
concern for employers and industry, and degree
grades meant almost nothing and employers had
lost faith and did not use grades as indicators of
success any more, but relied on other tests of
competence in interviews, (Selingo, 2013:24).
Oman was not that bad but had its own few issues
exposed in this research. Tough accreditation
regulations and oversight by Ministry of Higher
Education, Research and Innovation (MOHERI)
had improved standards in Oman.
Diversity of life experiences and opinions enriched
the educational experience (Antony, Cauce and
Shalala (2017:77), while confronting differences
can be uncomfortable, but can contribute
significantly to learning and a future working life.
College served as a turning point in the lives of
almost everyone and was a time and place where
people learnt how to better fit into the world and
create a meaning for their lives, (Selingo,
2013:168). The feedback provided by students
showed that the intervention fostered student
learning (Wilmot & Merino, 2015:n.p), and the
faculty’s own teaching practice improved through
reflecting on and making changes to his teaching
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approach. It was contented by Best (2011:42-43),
that education could only be improved through
smaller class sizes, higher teacher salaries, more
computers in classrooms and better facilities.
Students faced many challenges nowadays like
weak employment prospects for graduates and
class sizes had swelled (Mettler, S., 2014:189), and
classes were being taught by adjunct or temporary
faculty, and there was less support for students
which was now affecting graduation rates
downwards. Labaree (2017:92) reflected saying
America had been shifting to vocationalism,
practical education and the professions for the past
150 years and away from theoretical dispositions.
This raised the obvious value of vocational
education and technical universities.
The issues dominating these findings were:- the
demand for more practicals and new teaching
methods, the call for fair assessment, balancing
classes with free time, the need for diversity in
terms of faculty which should be recruited from
the whole world rather than having most faculty
from one country only, the lack of compulsory
internship which is compromising experience in
industry for students and is one of the known
causes of graduate unemployment where it is not
done, some faculty were too shallow in their
majors and had no experience, lack of care for
students, courses needed to be updated regularly
too out of date, lack of use of simple language
understood by students, valueless courses in
degree plan, lack of customization of courses to
include local issues, lack of internship in degrees,
some academic advisers were not helpful, lack of
balance between theory and practicals, learning
was very stressful for some students because of
pressure, concern about unfair grading, some
questions being beyond the level of the students,
poor syllabi coverage, too many questions in
examinations which could not be completed within
given time, questions being too long and not clear,
lack of proper moderation of examination papers,
inadequate feedback on assessments, industrial
visits were of great value to students, and finally
some teachers did not take students for industrial
visits.
A study by the United Nations University under the
Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI)
in 2008 involving 48 universities (2008:315-318)
across the world said of the Arabic Middle East
region, that a survey on leading academics
revealed that the region had poor training of
teaching staff (50%) and that the training of
teaching staff was rated at 78% as priority number
one for that region if excellence was to be achieved
in teaching and learning. Training pedagogics to
teachers in HEI remained a challenge which had to
be addressed. But others would argue that
teachers sometimes were good but there were
partly no takers, if one considers the quality of
some of the students coming from high schools to
HEI. Christensen & Eyring (2011:125) quoted
former Harvard University President, Conant, who
said that it was important to ensure a steady
supply of well-prepared students for Harvard and
other universities. James Bray, a director of
technical Education in USA (Selingo, 2013:162)
said an education after high school should include
on-the-job training and apprenticeship as well as
experiences before college that improve the
difficult transition to college.
The work is cut out for Oman and other GCC
countries and the world at large. Higher education
is learning forever never stops.
LIMITATIONS IN THIS RESEARCH
This research faced a number of limitations. One of
those limitations was access to some documents
considered sensitive which would be out of reach.
However, researcher compensated most of those
shortfalls through triangulation of sources. That
helped to bring many issues to the fore. The
research was quite objective. Time would always
be an issue for a working academic during the
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teaching season. Having more time on the ground
could have possibly led to the unearthing of even
more issues. However, the researcher used
comprehensive diverse sources covering all issues
that normally affected HEI in any country as
reflected by the rich literature review and analysed
in this research. There was no doubt that coverage
was comprehensive. The research remains
relevant and coverage was good meeting academic
standards of rigour, checks and balances.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The debates reflected here point to the following
recommendations across Oman HEI and globally
for better HEIs:
•
HEIs needed to undertand the reasons for
high labour turnover by academics for
stability, institutional memory, branding
and quality.
•
Curricular must be revised regularly to keep
up with global trends and labour market
realities and to improve graduate
employability and suitability for labour
market.
•
Overworking by academics in advanced
economies must be reduced to protect the
health of academics and their functionality
as well as time to do research. This may be
the same situation in other countries too.
•
Since a lot of student-related issues were
mostly outside colleges but in families out
there, there was a need to involve parents
and guardian much more.
•
Governments must take tough measures to
dismantle irresponsible capitalism and
wealth accumulation and do more wealth
redistribution to drastically reduce poverty
and make resources available to ordinary
citizens. That way more students would be
supported by their families and reduce
poverty-related
student
drop-outs,
frustrations and poor performers linked to
poverty. Students’ dignity needed to be
restored and not possible with high levels of
poverty.
•
Regular compulsory structured training in
HEI pedagogics, innovation and research by
top HE experts for all faculty and support
staff was necessary as an ongoing exercise
(workshops covering teaching, learning,
assessment, research.
•
There was a real need for Oman Government
to establish more polytechnics and
vocational training colleges offering
apprenticeship training and vocational
education which produced much-needed
technicians for industry and the country in
their thousands and could absorb those not
suitable for other HEIs, but who were
vocationally minded.
FUTURE RESEARCH
America, Europe and Asia HEIs had a done a lot in
higher education which was acknowledged and
respected by the whole world, but more still
needed to be done for excellence. Issues differed
across the world where some HEI could have the
same, or different or bigger issues even of a
different dimension. Other researchers could do a
countrywide and regional surveys and interviews
involving many countries, observations with larger
numbers of students, faculty, administrators and
government and have a wider and bigger sample.
Many issues still needed answers like why those
challenges persisted when they were known, how
they could be solved, by whom, and when and what
was required institutionally and nationally to
address those issues. Was it possible to solve some
of the challenges or not? Crow & Dabars (2015:13)
contented that for any country to excel, leadership
had to come from universities when they said they
believed that the academic sector should assume
leadership in managing USA accelerating impact
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on earth, and that universities were the most
complex
and
heterogeneous
knowledge
enterprises that had ever evolved. The Theory of
Higher Education Management was an ongoing
debate in Oman HEI and globally and constraints
did affect HEIs in terms of student issues, academic
issues, trust issues and marketing/branding.
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