From “Growth Driven” to “Regulatory Control”: Tertiary Education Governance in Jamaica and the Caribbean

Abstract

Tertiary education in the Anglophone Caribbean, particularly in Jamaica, has become highly competitive and complex and increasingly influenced by global neoliberal discourses. This free-market driven development is partly evidenced by the proliferation of national, regional, and international providers. Yet, within this seemingly unrelenting international influence, one can also detect more recent approaches by regional governments in concert and individually, through policy and systems of governance to reassert their sovereignty and retain some level of regulation and ownership of tertiary education. This chapter establishes an analytical framework for understanding these tertiary education governance changes by drawing on the principles of critical educational policy analysis. The chapter scrutinizes the multiple sources of power, international, regional, and national, that shape the rapid ongoing tertiary educational changes. Ultimately, the chapter argues that Jamaica’s tertiary education governance can be categorized as a shift from the governance mechanisms of “growth driven” to “regulatory control.” The chapter further posits that future regional shifts in tertiary education governance will be shaped by the continuing postcolonial struggles to adapt to the global order while protecting regional and national interests and aspirations.

Citation

Brissett, N.O.M. (2016), "From “Growth Driven” to “Regulatory Control”: Tertiary Education Governance in Jamaica and the Caribbean", The Global Educational Policy Environment in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Public Policy and Governance, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 217-240. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2053-769720160000026008