When domestic Forces Meet the Global Trends: The Liberalization of the Privateness in East Asian Higher Education

Abstract

Under the intensified pressures for improving the global competence of university graduates, national governments across different parts of the globe have to, on the one hand, expand higher education enrolments, and on the other hand, assure high quality in teaching and research in order to make sure their higher education systems can compete globally. Many Asian states have been in the forefront of this effort to improve national competitiveness by raising their higher education enrolment rate. As state financing and provision alone will not satisfy the growing demands for higher education, governments in Asia adopt more pro-competition policy instruments and increasingly look to the market/ private sector in running higher education. Therefore, private higher education sector has paid for much of the higher education sector expansion, leading to revolutionary changes and imparting a growing 'privateness' to Asian higher education systems. This paper focuses on examining the socio-economic context for the rise of the 'privateness' in higher education, with particular reference to explore how the selected Asian states have responded to both the global and local forces when introducing changes and launching reforms to their higher education systems.