This paper presents an update on some of the activities that have taken place since a World Bank report; "Guidelines for Education and Training in Environmental Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Key Issues" was published and provides details on the current situation. It shows how organizations such as the African…

The overall financial structure of US higher education has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, resulting in a significant reduction of public funding. One result of this shift has been the steadily increasing costs of tuition as an increasing portion of the financial structure of higher education is shifted to students. Increased costs to…

This article examines how stakeholders involve themselves in the higher education (HE) sector in donor-dependent Cambodia and to what extent and with what result these stakeholders succeed to collaborate, or fail to do so. This study is based on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 46 key research participants from relevant…

This book describes the history, structure and institutions of open and distance education in six countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. It discusses how open and distance education is evolving in a digital age to reflect the needs and circumstances of national higher education systems in these countries, and explores…

This article begins by reviewing developments in the field of public administration over the past 50 years and identifying factors that have served, in some cases unintentionally, to undermine public confidence in the actual practice of public administration. It then examines a number of important conditions that must be addressed in the…

Today the requirements in higher education are vast and majority of the population in the country cannot afford higher education as their per capita income is very low. Neither the government nor the private sector alone can cater to the requirements of higher education. It is in this context, one should look at the scope, feasibility,…

Background: The paper compares and contrasts the policy context of teacher training for vocational educators (VETT) in Scotland and England and locates this in its European setting. It explores the wider socio-economic context, one that emphasises lifelong learning, competitiveness and social justice. Purpose: In particular, it addresses the UK…

The concept of social innovation has recently emerged as an influential approach to address intractable social problems. Increasingly discussed in academia and policy circles, the concept draws on multifaceted practices and ideas from many disciplines. Yet despite widespread discussion and promotion, there is still limited understanding of…

The development of private higher education in Macau has experienced rapid growth in the past two decades. The purpose of this paper is to understand this trend by investigating the facts and figures supplied by official sources and to analyze the role between the Government and the private sector. This paper shows that the attitude of the Macau…

The relationship between the state and higher education institutions has always been a complex one. The "state" itself in this context is a heterogeneous mix of elite people--bureaucrats, politicians, committees of co-opted academics and business leader--and it increasingly faces pressures from diverse stakeholders, including students…

Teaching Chinese students in an American university can be both challenging and rewarding. Cultural and language differences can lead to some superficial confusion and interpretational problems. However, the vast differences in the ways Chinese students view the role of the public sector, as compared to the US, can mean that the instructors and…

This chapter provides some examples and recommendations for expanding the connections between economics and institutional research. (Contains 1 figure.)

This article discusses the research approach adopted by one higher education institution in the United Kingdom (UK) to explore employers' and employees' responses to local skills, recruitment and training issues and how these responses were used to develop a curriculum for Foundation degrees. The article discusses skills issues, the varying…

This article is based on the Keynote Address to the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), Dublin, Ireland, 7-10 September 2005. It argues that we are facing the simultaneous renegotiation of the major post-war social contract (concerning the welfare state) in Europe and the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact: the…