Anthony Welch and Attaullah Wahidyar
The purpose of this paper is to review the development of quality assurance (QA) processes in higher education in Afghanistan and chart and assess the current achievements and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the development of quality assurance (QA) processes in higher education in Afghanistan and chart and assess the current achievements and challenges. Drawing on fieldwork, documentary research and secondary sources, the analysis seeks to integrate these elements into an integrated overall analysis of the phenomenon of QA in Afghan higher education, including its evolution over time, with some attention given to the implications for future development.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is based on field study, conducted by one of the authors, interviews with the Ministry of Higher Education officials by the second author, collection and analysis of policy documents and review of relevant literature.
Findings
Key findings reveal some tensions between stated policies regarding QA in Afghan higher education: limited finance, growing levels of insecurity and limited capacity within the Ministry of Higher Education, including staff training. Some barriers within higher education institutions are also pointed out in both public and private higher educational institutions.
Research limitations/implications
Implications of the research are that although further funding is needed to institute QA in higher education institutions, both public and private, this is unlikely in the current circumstances, with donor funds limited and commitments not always fulfilled. Anti-corruption measures will continue to be important, and declining security, in some provinces more than others, will likely limit the effective implementation of QA measures.
Practical implications
Given current conditions in Afghanistan, there are clear practical limits to what can be achieved in strengthening QA in higher education. The undoubted enthusiasm of the people, however, means that the situation must be addressed as far as possible. Greater engagement with regional QA networks, more training for QA assessors and greater regulation of the burgeoning private sector would go a long way to bring about improvement, as would ongoing efforts to rein in corruption.
Social implications
An important move regarding direct social implications would be to maintain and strengthen moves to engage more women in higher education, including higher proportions of (senior) female administrative and academic staff. Although barriers to women’s empowerment are by no means restricted to the higher education sector, it should show the lead in both enrolment and employment.
Originality/value
While QA in higher education is a major focus of higher education literature, there are less research studies on QA measures in developing country contexts and even less on fragile states such as Afghanistan. But for the country to prosper, good quality higher education is vital, and a study of the implementation of QA measures is an important contribution.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine key challenges to effective regionalism for Indonesian higher education (HE), including charting its international engagement in regional…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine key challenges to effective regionalism for Indonesian higher education (HE), including charting its international engagement in regional HE networks and associations, and links to China and the Islamic world.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on empirical and documentary analysis, the article examines key challenges to effective regionalism for Indonesian HE.
Findings
As a leading stakeholder within ASEAN, Indonesia could be expected to play a major role in such regional networks as ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) as well as APRU, SEAMEO RIHED, and the like. Yet, even relative to some of its regional neighbours, (Singapore, Malaysia, and the somewhat anomalous Australia and New Zealand), the Indonesian HE system is peripheral, with a relatively minor presence in the international knowledge system.
Research limitations/implications
The world's most populous Muslim‐majority nation, and a rising regional power, including within ASEAN, nonetheless Indonesia confronts key challenges in its HE system, both national and international. The rising demand for HE cannot be filled by public sector HEIs alone, while the proliferation of private sector HEIs, some unaccredited, poses significant issues for quality control and governance. Adding to this are external challenges, including the monitoring of international programmes and partnerships. Financing of HE is a further significant constraint, while corruption is also a major influence in Indonesian society, including in HE (thus further raising the governance stakes).
Originality/value
The two examples cited – of Islamic higher education, and of China‐Indonesia relations – each demonstrate the extent, and the limits, of regionalism in Indonesian HE.
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This chapter looks at how various scholars have attempted to structure the “infinite field” by defining the appropriate theory and methods. These efforts have centered on a…
Abstract
This chapter looks at how various scholars have attempted to structure the “infinite field” by defining the appropriate theory and methods. These efforts have centered on a conception of what it would take to make comparative education a “science,” and how one could achieve “objective knowledge.” While these concerns were important for comparative educationists throughout the nineteenth century, who mostly favored a historical approach, the debate became more heated and more urgent in the 1960s when a number of key players published competing positions. This coincided with a time when the claim to a basis in science was being used to introduce a range of new subjects to higher education and establish disciplines like sociology on a firm institutional footing. Subsequently some of the heat went out of the debate about theory and method. A number of possible causes can be identified, including (i) that it became apparent comparative education was not going to achieve disciplinary status on a par with sociology; (ii) de facto comparative educationists handed the palm to Bereday, and carried on doing comparative education as he had described it; and (iii) the appetite for global theorizing waned to be replaced by partial theories, many of them based on general concerns for social justice and drawing on a broadly Marxist definition of “science.” The chapter concludes with reflections on the fact that healthy debate about methodology and theory can drive the development of the field, and that in the absence of explicit debate there is the danger that certain assumptions, especially assumptions that do not recognize the importance of context, can come to dominate the field by stealth.
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Rose M. Ylimaki, David Gurr, Lawrie Drysdale and Jeffrey V. Bennett
Populations in the United States and Australia are also becoming increasingly culturally diverse. In the United States, for example, it is projected that between 1990 and 2050…
Abstract
Populations in the United States and Australia are also becoming increasingly culturally diverse. In the United States, for example, it is projected that between 1990 and 2050, the percentage of the US population of Hispanic origin will be almost triple, growing from 9% to 25% (making them the largest minority group by far) and the percentage Asian population will be more than double, growing from 3% to 8%. During the same period, the percentage of Black population will remain relatively stable increasing only slightly from 12% to 14%; while the percentage of White population will decline sharply from 76% to 53%. Australia has a long history of skill- and humanitarian-based migration policy. This has resulted in a culturally diverse society, especially in parts of the capital cities of the states and territories. This emphasis looks likely to continue in the future, and will continue to change the Australian society as the humanitarian needs change across the world.
This chapter reports on a project undertaken during the author's two-term tenure as President of The World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) to document the…
Abstract
This chapter reports on a project undertaken during the author's two-term tenure as President of The World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES) to document the history of this organization. The WCCES was founded at the First World Congress of Comparative Education, held in Ottawa, Canada in 1970. The author attended that First World Congress as a young academic and has subsequently attended five of the eleven World Congresses held to date. The two-volume Proceedings of the First World Congress of Comparative Education Societies was helpful in commencing this project.
Anthony Fee, Susan McGrath-Champ and Helena Liu
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model that integrates multi-disciplinary research in relation to crisis management, and to consider its application for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model that integrates multi-disciplinary research in relation to crisis management, and to consider its application for international human resource managers in preventing and managing the evacuation of expatriate staff during crises.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper critically reviews and distils research into crisis and evacuation management, and examines its relevance to a generic framework of international human resource roles. The paper evaluates this body of literature and suggests potential research avenues from an international human resource perspective.
Findings
The review reveals a dearth of research on emergency evacuation of expatriates from a human resources perspective. The paper articulates a framework that delineates what role human resource managers could, or should, play during crisis preparation and response. This framework aims to establish a basic “roadmap” for use by practitioners and researchers.
Originality/value
Focusing on the human (rather than business) implications of crises, the paper links crisis management literature to the role of international human resource managers in supporting the health, safety, and security of international assignees during crises. A framework is presented which enables managers to map their current (and potential) contributions to preventing and managing expatriate evacuation. From this, several avenues of future research are drawn.
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This chapter delves into the controversy over detention and interrogation in the war on terror carried out by American operatives. While attending to political, legal, and ethical…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter delves into the controversy over detention and interrogation in the war on terror carried out by American operatives. While attending to political, legal, and ethical concerns, critical attention is directed at the manner by which certain interrogation techniques have been framed as being “scientific” and therefore effective in extracting truthful disclosures from terror suspects.
Methodology/approach
Drawing on extensive legal and medical literature, the critique offers a postmodern analysis by raising serious questions over the effectiveness and legitimacy of enhanced interrogation espoused by the Bush administration. By doing so, the conceits of the war on terror are exposed and confronted.
Findings
In 2014, the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program) was unclassified and released to the public. Among other revelations, the document clearly shows that interrogators and their psychological consultants committed torture. In doing so, they often relied on medical knowledge for harming, rather than healing. Ethical and legal remedies aimed at correcting those problems are recommended.
Originality/value
The chapter delivers a sophisticated critique that blends recently revealed evidence of torture with postmodern interpretation. While casting doubt on the effectiveness and legitimacy of enhanced interrogation, discussion throws critical light on incidents of human rights abuses committed by health professionals. Paradoxically, those physicians and psychologists opted to use their medical skills and expertise to inflict suffering rather than alleviating it. Those acts constitute egregious ethical and legal violations that warrant prosecution.
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This chapter explores the migration decisions and motives of a group of academics who were recruited to three Australian higher education institutions during the period 1965–2003…
Abstract
This chapter explores the migration decisions and motives of a group of academics who were recruited to three Australian higher education institutions during the period 1965–2003. The chapter furthers our understanding of historical patterns of academic mobility and the experience of academic mobility and adds to our understanding of the academic profession. The research used a micro approach to migration history and focussed on academic migrants’ decision-making processes. The research used semi-structured interviews with three groups of academics who were interviewed in 1982 and 2003. The academic migrants in this research were not committed to any particular institution or curriculum. What was most important in their migration decision was simply obtaining any academic position. Many, if not most of them, owed their academic careers to the growth in Australian higher education caused by its transition from an elite to a mass system. They obtained their academic posts because of the global nature of academic work. The question that arises from this study is what Australian universities will need to do to attract a new generation of academics as they compete in a global market for academic personnel.
Anthony Silard and Sarah Wright
This paper aims to study the differing pathways to loneliness in managers and their employees. Literature on emotions in organizational life, organizational management and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the differing pathways to loneliness in managers and their employees. Literature on emotions in organizational life, organizational management and leadership and loneliness are explored to develop and test hypotheses regarding the differential prototypical scripts that can be generative of loneliness in managers and employees.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 28 managers and 235 employees from a horticultural company based in Mexico were surveyed, using measures of perceived connection quality, loneliness and meaningful work to test three hypotheses.
Findings
Data from 28 managers and 235 staff indicate that while loneliness scores do not significantly differ between managers and their subordinates, the predictors of loneliness differ between managers and employees, with emotional connection and mutuality predicting loneliness in employees but not in managers.
Originality/value
This paper adds specification to the literatures on workplace loneliness, the loneliness associated with management roles, emotions in organizational life and emotions and leadership. The findings are discussed in relation to the literature on manager-subordinate relationships.