Global university rankings and world-class universities have become buzzwords almost in every country. Both exercise positive and not-so-positive impact on higher education systems. Universities everywhere are trying hard to improve their status and global rankings. The article reviews some of the important issues related to these two strongly…

The issue of universities' reputations has been transformed by the development of international university rankings as well as by national publicly funded teaching-quality and research assessment exercises, and by independent discipline-based and institutional reviews and guides. Strictly speaking the attribution of reputational standing is not…

This paper presents an analysis of strategic management systems of higher education institutions (HEIs) by identifying policy and strategic priorities and monitoring their implementation. The strategic priorities are contextualized within four scenarios that structure the mission and orientation of HEIs. The methodology is based on data collected…

Purpose: The paper examines the effects of individual differences on the key motivational factors affecting Chinese study abroad students. Design/methodology/approach: The current study adopts a quantitative survey approach. Students are recruited through the largest online survey provider in China. Using 335 completed questionnaires and factor…

What does it mean to be 'excellent', particularly for the higher education institution? Without a definitive answer to that question, university rankings have become a proxy for quality and excellence. As such, higher education institutions are continually seeking ways to improve their rankings, with the implication being that these rankings…

The meritocratic ideal prescribes that universities should admit students based on academic ability and individual effort. Yet as competition for scarce slots has increased, markets for services to improve the odds of admission have expanded. We use the case of a popular online forum for elite Taiwanese students seeking graduate study in the…

The colleges and universities in Taiwan are confronted with the following two problems: (1) The average youth (aged 15-29) unemployment rate is more than double the overall unemployment rate; and (2) Mainly affected by the low birth rate, the admission and vacancy rates of colleges and universities have increased, and fierce competition exists…

The past three decades have witnessed the growing influence of market forces on higher education, resulting in what is defined by Fairclough (1993) as the marketization of academic discourse. The present study attempts to examine the effect of such trend on university website homepages in China, which is an under-researched genre of higher…

The paper assesses the evolution of efficiency of Italian public universities for the period 2000-2010. It aims at investigating whether their levels of efficiency showed signs of convergence, and if the well-known disparity between northern and southern regions decreased. For this purpose, we use a refinement of data envelopment analysis, namely…

The starting point of this study is the argument that not only rankings of higher education institutions (HEIs) are inescapable, but so is the constant criticism to which they are subjected. Against this background, the paper discusses how HEIs from Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEECs) are (non)represented in the main global university…

The National Higher Education Strategic Plan Beyond 2020 aims at further strengthening Malaysian research universities and envisions that two Malaysian universities will be among the Top 100 world universities. To date there are 5 research universities in Malaysia, namely University of Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti…

This paper focuses on how people learn to become teachers. It draws on the experiences of student-teachers and tutors at a College of Education in the south of Ghana who engaged with an iterative data-generation process over one academic year. While increasing attention is given to the learning experiences of children in Sub-Saharan Africa,…

This paper presents findings from a recent study on choice-making among teachers, school leaders and parents in a for-profit British international school in Kuwait. Using a Bourdieusian field analysis, the choice-making of the various stakeholders is investigated to reveal their positionality within the school's social space, to examine the…

This study provides an insider's perspective on why engineering undergraduates at elite Indian universities lack academic motivation. Using interpretive qualitative research (actors approach), we uncover students' perceptions of academic (de)motivation and group them into three broad categories: faculty-related, course-related and…

India desperately needs good governance in colleges and universities so as to create a culture of innovation, and entrepreneurship so as to become and remain competitive in world market. Poor governance and poor leadership is observed to be the root cause for all ills in university education. Indian students and professors are brilliant but…