A number of countries with public higher education systems have implemented privatisation policies. In Japan, the national government introduced the National University Corporation Act (NUCA) in 2004 and changed the legal status of national universities from that of government-owned public institutions to independent administrative agencies. Its…

The emergence of a global knowledge-based economy has given rise to drastic changes in both higher education and employment. On one hand, governments in advanced societies have launched policies to expand higher education to compete internationally in educating and attracting highly skilled workers. At the same time, both global economic…

This article examines equity in national systems of education in terms of differences in student outcomes, as measured by mathematics achievement scores on Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The author uses four measures for assessing equity in student outcomes: (1) the strength of the relationship between student…

A variety of perspectives exist on the evaluation of Japan's educational reform of 2002, which has evolved since the 1980s. However, thus far, little attention has been paid to the emerging influence of civil society on educational policies and practices. This paper shows that the origin of the current educational reforms can be traced to reports…