This book covers the history and politics of higher education in Africa south of the Sahara, as well as contemporary issues, problems, and weaknesses of African universities. The need for a new look at the mission of the university in the 21st century is also addressed. Chapters cover the following topics: (1) higher education in Africa before…

Controversy abounds in states and communities across the United States about how best to manage the nation's schools. Much of the current debate over school reform can be reduced to a single question: Who should decide? This report discusses some of the ways in which policymakers have attempted to give schools greater flexibility from rules and…

This discussion of the special legal status of the University of Minnesota, known as constitutional autonomy, defines this status, states the rationale for the principle, and describes the relevant territorial act and constitutional provision. The main part of the legal analysis examines Minnesota court cases which addressed the issue of the…

This book argues that school-based management appears to be primarily concerned with dismantling centralized education systems (which have traditionally supported the work of teachers, students, and parents) and replacing them with a free-market ideology of competition and choice. School-based management separates elite policy makers and interest…

This report describes the results of eight focus groups held in four cities to explore findings of a comprehensive review of more than 30 recent public opinion polls concerning higher education. These findings were: (1) higher education enjoys a reservoir of good will; (2) a college education is seen as an essential credential for success; (3) the…

This essay is derived from a special round table on the public and private financing of higher education, jointly convened by the California Higher Education Policy Center and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. Discussions were informed by two sets of commissioned papers. One set of papers was a group of case studies that examined the political…

This paper explores the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) influence on higher education policy development in Canada and examines the impact its free-market philosophy exacts on more traditional aesthetic, humanistic, and moral educational objectives. The OECD is an international body whose primary objective is to…

Although Austrian schools legally belong to the state, the question of who has actual control remains controversial. Issues related to governance are discussed in this paper, which presents a historical overview of the development of educational policymakers' views on governance and the evolution of parents' rights, and an examination of teacher…

This paper presents a literature review on governance and structure of higher education and a case study of a governance review in Nova Scotia (Canada), paying particular attention to the role of intermediary bodies between universities and governments. Types of governing structures are described. Issues in determining the ideal structure are then…

This bilingual (English and French) report examines the debate surrounding a Task Force analysis of higher education institutions in Canada. The Task Force reported on a variety of topics regarding Canada's colleges and universities from teaching and learning through curricular design to student retention and institutional performance. In…

One of a series of studies related to the Delphi research project: "Policy Instruments for Higher Education in the Western Europe of the Future", this paper describes and analyses the recent development of the higher education agenda in the Netherlands to show that the development of higher education policy is an incremental process of…

Characteristics of U.S. higher education are identified, along with the structural features that influence the nature of research, specific research topics, and the locations of research activities. This information was obtained from several sources, including the Educational Resources Information Center database for the years 1981 and 1982, the…

The practice of providing financial incentives in higher education to reduce costs through improved managerial practices is discussed. It is suggested that for a state to adopt incentives in its budgetary practices affecting public higher education, several factors are required: the institutions, the legislature, gubernatorial staff, and the state…

The role of institutional self-evaluation is considered in the context of transition from central regulation to self-regulation in various higher education systems in Europe. A distinction is made between external steering, where regulations and decisions are made by a central state authority, to self-steering, where decisions and regulations are…

There is an increasing interest by government in accountability for higher education. Efforts such as performance budgeting, performance auditing, and state review of academic programs are becoming more common. Opponents of government involvement assert that regional accreditation reviews are sufficient to maintain quality standards. However,…