Asian Economic Policy Review最新文献

Higher education in East Asia has undergone a miraculous transformation in just over two decades since the turn of the century. Its quantitative expansion, qualitative improvement, and the rapid advances in academic productivity in this century are impressive achievements. Philip Altbach, a leading authority on comparative education research, once described Asian higher education from the perspective of dependency and neocolonialism, placing it on the “periphery” of the international knowledge and higher education system (Altbach, 2004). However, the argument that a structurally hierarchical “center-periphery” relationship exists between the Western and non-Western higher education systems has lost its relevance in the contemporary context. Although Horta (2023) argues the dynamic development of the East Asian higher education system from the perspective of massification and globalization, he mainly discusses its problems and challenges from a comprehensive and diverse range of perspectives. Having fully recognized the persuasive arguments presented, I humbly make the following three comments, particularly from the perspective of globalization and the internationalization of higher education.

When considering the breakthrough of higher education in East Asia, the focal point is Chinese higher education. Horta (2023) suggests that China's and other East Asian academic production systems need to be more internationalized, noting the relatively small proportion of international co-authored publications of East Asia compared with those of Western Europe. Horta also explains its background as “the governance, organisation, understanding, and application of academic freedom among other characteristics of Chinese institutions are essentially national, shaped and associated with the Chinese political regime. Moreover, these factors may not be particularly appealing to other higher education systems in the region”. Although I completely agree with Horta's observations and arguments, a more in-depth discussion of higher education in China would allow for further consideration of the development of higher education in East Asia as a whole. For example, how was China able to achieve such rapid growth in academic research productivity without “academic freedom,” which has been deemed essential for research promotion in the history of Western academia? How can China's remarkable progress of scientific and technological research be used to solve various global issues such as preventing global warming and tackling infectious diseases collaborating with the international society in the current political and diplomatic context?

East Asian intra-regional student and faculty mobility and university partnership-based cross-border activities are increasing rapidly and represent the de facto integration of higher education in the region (Kuroda & Passarelli, 2009). Policy discussions on Asian region

I have served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as dean of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. As a result of these 15 years of experience in academic administration, I learned quite a lot about the history of these institutions, their competitors, and their modes of operation and financing. Urquiola's (2023) account of the origins and current industry configuration of American higher education is precise and accurate. Since it has evolved to be a very complex system, this is no small achievement.

A distinctive, and I would say nearly unique, feature of the American higher education complex is the relatively large size of the private sector and the fact that it operates alongside and competes with a similarly large set of public sector institutions. In most countries, the public sector dominates, and even what is sometimes called the private sector has a much larger element of public sector funding.

As a result of this unusual configuration and the fact that (excluding federal research funding) public sector institutions are largely funded at the state level, it is a highly decentralized system. Urquiola correctly makes the point that this contributes to a high degree of product differentiation across the system and probably an unusual amount of experimentation. Perhaps this is in part what Urquiola means by laissez-faire in this context. It also leads to a relatively high variation in quality.

As Urquiola documents, US higher education in the early years consisted of small, mainly local, mainly religious in origin colleges with no ability or pretense to conduct research or advance scientific and technological frontiers. This changed dramatically at the end of the 19th century when a version of the German Research University model was imported and adapted to US conditions. Johns Hopkins is widely viewed as a key early adopter and leader, with others like Harvard following quickly.

Leadership played a key role within and across institutions. Significant expansion of federal government funding for research was, and continues to be, an important enabler. Urquiola suggests that an increasingly technologically sophisticated set of industrial sectors may have provided additional impetus, and that may be true, though it is hard to document. It is important in this context, to emphasize that government funding is critical. Even the institutions with the largest endowments could not come close to funding research at the levels and costs that characterize the present system.

The development of an American version of the research university began a process of differentiation in the entire sector. A few public institutions followed with support from their states, but not all. A group of colleges decided to remain 4-year colleges, to focus on education, not compete in the research sphere, and like the elite research university, restrict their size so they became increas

Yonezawa (2023) points out that the Japanese government started to put Japan's top universities at the core of the national economic policy in the last couple of decades. Improving the quality of Japanese universities and establishing closer collaborations with the government and industry are now considered essential for reinvigorating Japan's economic growth. The government wanted the universities to provide the seeds for new businesses through innovative research and equip students with new skills fit for the future labor market. Yonezawa (2023) describes how the government tried to achieve these goals, especially during the Abe administration (2012–2020). Yonezawa claims the policies were unsuccessful and lists several major reasons for their failure.

The discussion in the paper is consistent with my understanding of the Japanese government's policy toward universities, especially the former national universities. Although I mostly agree with the main conclusion of Yonezawa (2023) that the policy was not successful, here I point out several issues that need further clarification.

Thus, the whole point of creating imperial universities was to advance national goals. The imperial universities were important tools to promote the national policy of “rich nation, strong army” by expanding technological knowledge and training technocrats. After World War II, the imperial universities continued to be Japan's top universities with little restructuring and contributed to achieving the national goal of economic development by further advancing technologies and producing skilled workers for industry and government.

Second, Yonezawa (2023) argues that Japan's policy toward universities in this century has been based on the ideas of “neoliberalism,” but at the same time discusses how the government strengthened its grip over the management of universities. National universities, which belonged to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), became separate entities called Dokuritsu Gyōsei Hōjin (Independent Administrative Agency) in 2004, but they continued to receive funding for their operational expenditures from the government at gradually reduced levels. More importantly, the government changed the allocation mechanism from a formula-based one to a performance-based one, with performance assessed periodically by the MEXT. This made the former national universities rather more dependent on the government, and they competed to come up with plans that better fit the government's policy. This does not sound like “neoliberalism” at all.

Starting with the program on Centers of Excellence (COE), the government provided additional financial support for selected universities to “foster world-class universities and research.” As Yonezawa (2023) correctly points out, however, the new funding was often just enough to cover the ex

Tham and Chong (2023) examine measurement issues pertaining to indicators used in assessing the achievement and performance of Malaysian higher education. The data presented are evidence of the need to seriously rethink the measurements used for monitoring quality improvements, which are perennial higher education challenges in the Malaysian context. The study makes reference to two higher education plans, namely the National Higher Education Strategic Plan, 2007 and the National Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015, which are important vehicles to move Malaysian higher education between 2007 and 2025. It is important to reflect on Tham and Chong's findings in the context of the spirit and purpose of policies since 1970 for a more meaningful understanding of the measures adopted and narratives presented from 1970 to the present day. Nationalism, the globalization process, and the internationalization of higher education have played and continue to play important roles in the development of indicators and their measurement.

It is important to realize there are many critical political and non-political undercurrents in the formulation of Malaysia's higher education policies and the development of indicators to measure performance and achievement. Many of these are not quite apparent to academics who are not privy to the ministry's internal visioning and workings. Notably, policies may have been an outcome of serious analysis informed by evidence. Indeed, we would like to believe this would be the case. Unfortunately, there are policies that were formulated based on perceptions as time-consuming collection and analysis of evidence is a luxury for many ministries. Admittedly, policy formulation and decision-making in Malaysia have long used an approach based on intuition, perceptions, ideology, or conventional wisdom. More often, evidence is collected to support or justify policies rather than for the formulation of policies. But as Malaysian society matures within an increasingly complex policy environment, a move towards an evidence-based approach to public policymaking is critical for the integrity and reputation of the Malaysian higher education system (Morshidi & Norzaini, 2014).

In order to better understand Malaysia's higher education policies, implementation styles, and progress, in the first instance there is a need to understand the relevant perspectives to higher education that have been adopted. Notably, in explicating Malaysia's higher education, the standard approach in both official documents and academic papers is to highlight the diversity of providers, student numbers and enrolment, etc. The philosophical underpinnings of plans and policies are seldom examined. Here I would like to argue that when examining Malaysia's higher education policies and subsequently determining progress, we need to understand what perspective(s) were adopted. An understanding of these perspectives would

Over the past 20 years, Japan's higher education policy has been strongly influenced by national policies for achieving world-class excellence as a tool for economic and social development. However, Japan's universities, especially the top universities, have faced difficulties in maintaining an international presence, both in terms of academic excellence and the development of globally competitive human resources. This paper reflects on how national policies, especially economic and fiscal policies, have intervened in higher education since the beginning of the 21st century, and then investigates the impact of these policies and discusses the future perspective on Japan's higher education given the current global challenges.

East Asian economies have achieved strong progress in tertiary education since the second half of the 20th century. They have established higher education systems and institutions that are now accessible to most students. Partially thanks to the higher education systems, they have accumulated strong human capital which is pointed out as one of the major contributing factors for their astonishing economic and social developments.

Horta (2023) describes the rapid changes in the East Asian higher education systems and institutions driven by massification and globalization. It also identifies new challenges facing them, such as how to address decreasing enrollments and shrinking resources, how to embrace new technologies, and how to develop a long-term collaborative science base. This paper must be a useful reference for readers who want to understand the status and future challenges of higher education in the East Asia region.

I have some comments. First, Horta (2023) focuses on the seven economies in East Asia, such as China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Japan, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan. It would be more useful to the readers of this journal if this paper added more discussion of higher education systems in other Asian economies in the South and Southeast Asian regions and pointed out variations across Asian economies. Despite some useful discussions, the paper is limited in providing an insightful analysis when comparing the characteristics of higher education across Asia. For instance, the claim that “East Asian higher education systems are at the end of the massification era and have attained universal higher education” may not apply to many countries in other Asian regions.

Second, a further discussion of the role of higher education in Asia's economic achievements, both in economic growth and income equality, would be helpful. In most Asian economies, alongside income growth, income inequality has increased in the past decades. Highly educated and skilled workers have contributed to economic growth through human capital accumulation and technological progress (Barro & Lee, 2015). In addition, the change in human capital distribution is related to income distribution. For instance, Lee and Lee (2018) show that educational expansion and educational inequality are significantly related to income distribution in Asian economies.

Third, one important question regarding higher education is its returns in the labor market. It is necessary to conduct a careful evaluation on the change and determinants of the returns to college education (ie college wage premium) in individual Asian economies. Horta (2023) asserts that “the earning premiums for those with tertiary education have been declining” in most (advanced) economies. Horta conjectures that such a decline is due to the increase in the relative supply of college-educated workers. However,

The U.S. higher education system stands out in three dimensions. First, it has the highest number of leading research universities. Second, it displays significant differentiation: multiple types of institutions offer services that differ in cost, prestige, etc. Third, it has a laissez-faire/free-market orientation: private and public entities are free to open schools and compete; essentially all schools enjoy substantial autonomy. This paper makes the case that these features are systematically related. The development of the American higher education market—which allowed market forces to operate and lacked centralized planning—contributed to the emergence of differentiation and a set of leading research universities.

This paper aims to examine the evolution and major transition of Thailand's higher education system and its contribution to deepening and broadening local university-industry linkages (UILs), especially in Thailand's high-tech, mid-tech, and science-based industries. The ties with universities were deployed differently across sectors. Key driving factors are individual firms' strategies and efforts to upgrade their production bases in Thailand and sector-specific government initiatives to facilitate university-industry collaboration. While the UILs in the automotive sector are limited, the pharmaceuticals and electronics have shown collective effort in establishing sector-wide UILs.

Continuing the advances made in the later parts of the 20th century, East Asian economies and their higher education systems rapidly evolved in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Most East Asian countries are categorized as advanced economies with developed societies; however, issues such as aging populations, debt levels, and decreasing salary premiums for education are becoming increasingly apparent. Many of the higher education systems have reached or will soon reach a peak of massification, and a new set of challenges may emerge. In addition to ongoing challenges, for example, the need to foster further equity and internationalization, this study identifies three emergent or near future challenges for policymakers and higher education institution strategists to reflect on: the need to consolidate the system in view of decreasing enrollments; the need to reform higher education institutions to cope with potentially decreasing resources and the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and automation; and the need to realign academic research systems to ensure that the knowledge produced is more sustainable, collaborative, and meaningful.

Malaysia's higher education sector has a substantial number and diverse types of public and private providers, which have contributed toward improving access. Over time, with improved access, there are increasing policy efforts directed toward improving the quality of higher education to meet the desired human capital needed for advancing economic development. This paper assesses three key areas that have been undertaken to improve the quality of higher education, their measurements, achievements, outstanding challenges, and ensuing implications on future policy directions. The key performance indicators used for monitoring quality improvements show that some targets have been achieved. A review of the approach used to measure performance and a consolidation of the sector are needed for further quality improvement.