In 2014 the Icelandic government implemented a reform that reduced the time of all academic programs of upper secondary education from an average of four years in duration to three, aiming to increase efficiency in the education system. Drawing on critical policy analysis, this study explores wider consequences of the reform's enactment for higher…

This article explores underlying mechanisms triggering a change in conceptualization of innovation in the European Union (EU), the impact of this change on institutional demands upon European universities and implications for evaluation procedures. We mobilize the theoretical concept of critical junctures to explore significant periods that have…

Policies designed to cultivate talent within universities are central to China's strategy for reforming and improving the quality of its higher education. This study develops a goal-instrument analysis framework for a content analysis of 113 such policies. Within the context of China's Double First-Class construction, the analysis examines the…

Every province and territory in Canada has the authority to oversee higher education policies. In recent provincial and federal policy reforms, neoliberalism and academic capitalism have been gaining influence in Canadian higher education. This particularly applies to the policy reform plan "Alberta 2030: Building Skills for Jobs," which…

The year 2017 was a landmark in Taiwanese higher education when the quality assurance mechanism transitioned from being external to internal. Given that the external quality assurance mechanism was criticised for violating the autonomy of universities, the 2017 self-accreditation policy aimed to resolve the controversy and internalise a quality…

Despite the movement toward post-new public management in western countries, the new public (NPM) management model is still a popular managerialism adopted in many countries where the history of neoliberal governance is relatively short. While the principal-agent theory has been primarily used for analyzing education policy within the NPM context,…

The tension between broadening university capacity and maintaining quality is a global phenomenon. While numerous studies have analysed the enactments of various policies that aimed to address declining university quality, few have examined the underlying beliefs that define what is conceptualised as a 'quality problem' within the policy…

The intersection of arts and public policy is three-dimensional. A multitude of direct subsidy, regulatory, and support programs are advocated and managed as "arts policy," but a wide variety of non-arts-targeted realms such as tax law, public education, public health, and urban development and housing programs importantly influence…

India, with the third largest higher education system globally, has the lowest gross enrolment ratio compared to G20 nations. The National Education Policy 2020 has made a strong recommendation to enhance the gross enrolment ratio for higher education to 50% by 2035. This figure stood at 19.4% in 2010 and 28.4% in 2021-22. The study, therefore,…

The term 'Global Britain' was widely used by the UK government between 2016 and 2021 to signal its ambition to reorient the nation's foreign policy on departure from the European Union. There was, however, considerable uncertainty about what the term meant beyond this, with some commentators suggesting that it denoted a de-prioritising of…

Public policy education has rapidly spread among universities worldwide and in Turkey in the last few decades. Despite this spread, it is a question mark what competencies this education promises to future public policy analysts in today's complex economic, social, and political environment. This study first investigates the rising expectations…

We investigated U.S. state and national trends in the enrollment of students ages 6 to 21 years under the specific learning disability (SLD) category across 15 consecutive school years (2005-2006 to 2019-2020). We used multi-level modeling to estimate the effects of state and time on SLD enrollment and conducted a policy analysis of three states…

Universities across the globe are considering how to effect meaningful change in their higher education (HE) delivery in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting student learning preferences. This paper reports on a descriptive case- study of whole-of-institution curriculum reform at one regional Australian university, where more traditional…

There is a sedimented understanding that developing digital abilities is key for today's knowledge society. Accordingly, governments have invested vastly in formal education aimed at developing them. Policies and directives driving this venture need to be examined. Otherwise, their potential risks being thwarted. By means of a post-foundational…

The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is based on a quantitative and accumulative understanding of time, which increasingly frames academic practices and notions of learning in higher education (HE). By example of a recent Danish policy reform, the article explores the connections between the ECTS, new institutional…