Universities in Latin America and in the Caribbean (LAC), and throughout the world, are facing one of the most challenging eras in their history. Globalization presents many important opportunities for higher education, but also poses serious problems and raises questions about how best to serve the common good. The traditional values of…

This note claims that contracting in education can be employed for initiatives of varying sizes and across a range of services. For policy-makers, contracting represents an effective means of introducing accountability in the education system. Contracting can also insulate governments from some of the criticism leveled at privatization. Moreover,…

This article discusses the Greek Parliament's controversial education bill passed recently that sparked riots and unrest in Athens. The government's controversial education package includes measures that would limit the number of years students can take to complete a university degree and would curtail university asylum laws. A separate proposal…

During the past thirty years there has been a worldwide shift toward neoliberal views of the role of national governments that has resulted in further globalization, privatization, and marketization of many formerly government provided services and activities. The effects of this global shift have been particularly felt in the areas of education…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth examination of the outsourcing of food services on a university campus. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses a detailed case study including interviews with university administrators, contractor administrators, and students and background information taken from student…

In this essay, the author attempts to sketch a picture of Chinese educational transformation in the post-Mao era: its primary impetus, manifestations, and nature of change. The author argues that Chinese educational retrenchment is not a reform without strategy or intended destination as claimed ("cross the river by feeling for stones").…

Seeking to raise money for new academic buildings and programs, Indiana University's board of trustees is exploring outsourcing its "auxiliary-service" units. These units manage printing and food services, the university's bookstores, campus motor pools, and other functions. To prevent job loss and wage cuts among hundreds of long-term…

In 2004, India's Congress Party wrested control of parliament from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. I present below an interview conducted with Professor Krishna Kumar, Delhi University, the new Government's choice for Director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Professor Kumar discusses the ways that…

Are we witnessing the privatization of public university research libraries? There is convincing evidence that, in an era of decreasing state support for public higher education, public universities have begun to resemble private universities, particularly in their sources of revenue. A number of indicators demonstrate that public universities,…

This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using cutting-edge analysis, Christopher Loss recovers higher education's central importance to the larger social and political…

The "Talking Stick" is published bimonthly, six times a year in January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October, and November/December by the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International. Each issue is divided into three sections: Features, Columns, and Departments. These sections contain…

This paper considers how school choice is, or is not, a form of privatization in education. Although "privatization" is a predominant reform movement apparent across the globe, the term is used imprecisely, making it difficult to assess the relationship of the movement to education. The first part of this analysis distinguishes essential…

Baltimore schools have begun their second year of a controversial $133 million contract with Minneapolis-based Education Alternatives Incorporated, a private, for-profit firm now managing nine of the city's most troubled schools. Sylvan Learning Systems, a for-profit company, administers the Chapter 1 tutoring program at six other schools. The…

The Russian entrepreneur faces major obstacles to any long-term business venture, including hyperinflation, ineffective or missing legal procedures, infrastructure problems, and corruption in government and private sectors. Encouragement of entrepreneurial enterprise formation may help creative Russians help the country find its own prosperity.…

A private organization (Education Alternative, Inc.) is presently managing nine Baltimore public schools; Christopher Whittle's Edison Project is planning similar public school management projects; a private consulting company (Public Strategies Group) recently took charge of the Minneapolis public schools. Goaded by concerns about accountability…