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Since the Asia and the Pacific Regional Convention was adopted in 1983, the regional committee has been meeting biannually to examine the progress made and obstacles encountered by signatories in the application of the Regional Convention. This publication reports the results of the ninth session of the committee meeting which was held in Seoul in May 2007. The publication provides 10 country reports along with the committee's discussion on the revision of the Convention and the results of the Seminar on Regional Harmonization, which was held back-to-back with the ninth session.

The report contains the following sections: Introduction; Opening ceremony; Election of office bearers and presentation of country reports; Report from the Working Group on Revision of the Asia-Pacific Regional Convention; Seminar on Regional Harmonization: Establishing a Common Higher Education Area; Closing ceremony; Annexes: General information; Programme; List of participants. The CD-ROM contains the 10 country reports for: Australia, China, Holy See [Vatican City], India, Republic of Korea, Lao PDR [Laos], Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. Also included are the highlights of the meeting of the Working Group on Revision of the Regional Convention: Bologna Process, Lisbon Recognition Convention 1997 and International Cooperation; Brisbane Communique; revision of the Arusha Convention for African States; UNESCO-OECD Guidelines and UNESCO Portal of Higher Education Institutes; and the UNESCO-APQN [Asia-Pacific Quality Network] Toolkit: Regulating Quality Assurance in Cross-border Education. Show less

This document reports on a project which uses experts’ perceptions to describe and compare the salient features of the governance of the higher education systems in a range of countries relevant to Australia’s situation. The emphasis is on the relationships between the national government (or regional governments if appropriate) and higher education institutions, considering institutional autonomy and the government’s role (legal and de facto) in respect of seven main topics: staff; students; curriculum and teaching; academic standards; research and publication; governance; and administration and finance. A sample of twenty countries was analysed in three groups each with a different tradition of university autonomy (an Anglo-American group including Australia; a European group including Russia; and an Asian group). Show less

Reviewing the recent development of international higher education, one can find a general tendency: Americanization. Whether it is in Europe or in Asia, US higher education has been used as the model for inspiration of regional integration or reform. This is especially the case in China. Since 1978, Chinese higher education has experienced a system shift from the Soviet model to the US model. But Chinese higher education is still Chinese, though it has borrowed many ideas from the US. Experiences show that contextualization of American ideas produced the uniqueness and the specific problems for Chinese higher education. This paper will discuss some of the unique characteristics.

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Drawing upon fieldwork conducted in an elite Chinese university and English language literature of audit culture in higher education against the backdrop of Chinese higher education in transition, this paper has discovered that Chinese higher education is undergoing an auditing process. However, this Chinese audit regime is not only guarded by a quantifiable scientism, but also by ideological control of communism and a Confucian guanxixue and paternalism to form a new synthesized pattern of governance, and thus is a different form from neoliberal audit culture in the West. Lastly, the paper warns against the threat posed by the collusion of economic and administrative rationalization to academia in China.

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The rise of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as a new destination for international students has been widely reported in both the domestic and international mass media, but academic research into this phenomenon and its theoretical implications are lacking. The purposes of this article are threefold. First, by examining the dynamics underpinning the PRC's efforts to shape the inflow of international students, it reveals the major strategies that have enabled China to become a key competitor for international students. Second, it argues that China has emerged as a destination of choice for international students, not as the result of neo-liberal ideology or the pursuit of economic gains, but because of state-directed efforts to improve its international political and academic relations. Third, drawing upon China's experience, this article improves our understanding of the role of the state in shaping international relations, higher education and international academic mobility, as both a rule-taker and a rule-maker in the context of globalisation.

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Due to the quality lack of Chinese higher vocational education, this paper analyzes the quality of the higher vocational education, from the point of dominant and recessive qualities of cultivating talents respectively. Based on the present situation of vocational education, this paper puts forward to apply the general education of international advanced universities, to improve the quality of education, moreover, proposing practical ways to implement intrinsic quality development of higher vocational education in China.

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This special issue focuses on ‘Basic education reform in China: globalization with Chinese characteristics’, edited by Yonbing Liu and Yanping Fang. Feature articles include: ‘Global characteristics of school transformation in China’ by Jessica Harris, Yong Zhao and Brian J. Caldwell (p. 413-426); ‘China’s basic education reform: an account of an international collaborative research and development project’, by Janette Ryan, Changyun Kang, Ian Mitchell and Gaalen Erickson (p. 427-441); ‘Autonomy as an element in Chinese educational reform: a case study of English lessons in a senior high school in Beijing’, by J. Mark Halstead and Chuanyan Zhu (p. 443-456); ‘A study of language learning strategy use in the context of [English as a foreign language] EFL curriculum and pedagogy reform in China’ by Yuanfang Yu and Bing Wang (p. 457-468); ‘Sexuality education in China: the conflict between reality and ideology’ by Ling Li, Mark E. King and Sam Winter (p. 469-480); ‘Malnutrition in China’s rural boarding schools: the case of primary schools in Shaanxi province’ by Renfu Luo, Yaojiang Shi, Linxiu Zhang, Chengfang Liu, Scott Rozelle and Brian Sharbono (p. 481-501); ‘Development challenges, tuition barriers, and high school education in China’ by Chengfang Liu, Linxiu Zhang, Renfu Luo, Scott Rozelle, Brian Sharbono and Yaojiang Shi (p. 503-520); and ‘My name is Money’: name choices and global identifications at a South-Chinese university’ by Paul McPherron (p. 521-536 - indexed separately at TD/TNC 99.155). Show less

In a context of intensified globalization, the importance of international governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations as influencers and shapers of the global environment is becoming prominent. Participation in international organizations leads to active incorporation of nation-states with worldwide connotations. In higher education, nation-centric policies are no longer sufficient and cannot adequately engage with the new global realities of transnational economic, political and cultural interconnectivities. A global convergence of educational policy has been placed highly on the agendas of national governments and international organizations. Increasing international activities in the arena of education raise the question as to what extent international organizations are complementing or even partly taking over the design and provision of education policies. Using examples of higher education practices from China, this article explores the role played by international organizations in the transformation of mode of governance in Chinese higher education. It examines how international organizations ‘lend’ their ideas for circulation, and how the local and the global play out. It analyses what circulates internationally as ‘reforms’ and its impact on the actors that move and translate such practices into local contexts, exploring the relation of the global in local situations and the complex impact of policy borrowing.

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In the era of globalization, China, Korea and Japan have put forward favorable policies to develop higher education. The essay is aimed to make a comparison of their various policies. The conclusion is that, when facing similar forces and problems against the background of globalization, the guidelines and goals of the key construction projects in higher education demonstrate convergence, meanwhile, due to different development status and governing patterns in higher education, the policy contents and implementation procedures tend to be divergent.

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This chapter provides an insight to the changes that have taken place in higher education in China in the 1990s. According to the author, China’s education system has changed from a ‘social institution’ aimed at the ideological remoulding of youth to an ‘enterprise’ responding to the demands of a market-oriented economy.

The monograph from which this chapter is taken can be found at TD/TNC 64.431. Individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 64.432 to TD/TNC 64.442. Show less