This article reviews the history of world university rankings and their large-scale impact. It then analyzes some of the criticism of the world ranking systems before exploring their impact in the context of Thai universities. The authors' assertions centre on the premise that much of the criticism of these ranking systems can be divided into…

This article is written within a conceptual space that considers engineering as a heteronomous discipline. In this context, we analyse how the state has intervened in the development of the body of knowledge of engineering discipline in a developing country in a process known as decolonisation and the political dynamism this has created. We take…

Establishing a national university has been widely viewed by smaller developing countries as a means of asserting sovereignty and driving the country's economic, social, and cultural development. This has been particularly true in the South Pacific, despite the existence of the regional University of the South Pacific. Building a national…

Assessment remains a power nexus in Higher Education, where remnants of coloniality pool. The power that assessment holds makes it an important site for decolonisation. The purpose of this article is to present an experiment, and open a discussion, on the decolonisation of assessment. We argue that bringing assessment into the decolonisation…

In recent years, there has been sustained criticism of current practices of higher education internationalisation in wealthy industrialised countries. This criticism is underpinned by an increasingly broad range of theoretical perspectives, resulting in calls for change which range from the minimal to the radical. In this paper, I reflect on the…

Despite being accepted as a key function in research management, research planning seems to be a neglected practice in some higher education institutions, particularly in economically disadvantaged countries such as Vietnam. This paper addresses a research gap in this area by examining (1) the practices of research planning at four leading…

Despite the growing complexity and multidimensionality of the system of international research collaborations, the colonial discourse casting the collaborative relationships in terms of polarized North--South antitheses persists and continues to exert influence on the nature of power distribution in the relationships, as well as on the…

The authors analyze the recent undertaking in El Salvador to establish an innovative model of industry-higher education clusters that would facilitate collaboration between academia and the private sector -- sectors that traditionally had not worked together because of historical distrust -- to develop the skilled workforce needed for the…

This article discusses the recent expansion and democratization of Brazil's higher education system from the beginning of the twenty-first century to the present, concluding with its contemporary clash with the far-right government, which has placed universities and scientific knowledge under attack -- an experience had around the globe. In the…

Efforts to emphasize higher education's role in development have grown in recent years, but important questions remain about the motivations and effects of these initiatives. In this paper, we employ the concept of a 'modern/colonial global imaginary' to consider the impact of the enduring power relations and uneven politics of knowledge in the…

By international standards, American colleges charge high tuition, and students must often take out loans to cover the cost of their higher education. This has prompted many to wonder why the United States cannot copy the higher education policies of certain other rich countries, such as Finland, where students at public universities pay zero…

Many educational institutions in the United States are currently offering programs through distance learning, and that trend is rising. In almost all spheres of education a developing country like Bangladesh needs to make available the expertise of the most qualified faculty to her distant people. But the fundamental question remains as to whether…

Scholarly relations between developed and developing countries have long been characterized by imbalances and asymmetries. The "centers" in the North give direction, provide models, produce research and function as the pinnacles of the academic system while institutions in developing countries copy their development from the…

The decolonialisation of the higher education curriculum and free higher education were two of the burning issues during student protests that erupted across universities in South Africa at the end of 2015. Although the president announced free higher education in December 2017, the country can scarcely afford it, with many universities already…

This paper explores the interplay of control and trust in a cross-national and cross-cultural professional development course. It examines the differing expectations of the overseas high-ranked education officials who were the students and of the course teachers, particularly in terms of: approaches to control of content and of interpersonal…