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Tertiary education in Ghana has seen rapid advancement over the past two decades. This growth is the result of transformative policy reforms such as upgrading polytechnics into higher education status; the establishment of the University of Development Studies (UDS) in the northern part of the country; the amalgamation of existing Colleges of Education into degree awarding institutions; the creation of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to provide supplementary financial support for infrastructure, faculty research and development; expansion of distance education programs; modification of the student loan scheme; and a conducive regulatory environment that encourages private sector participation in higher education provision. In spite of these developments, the system continues to face several challenges such as limited funding to support academic programs; limited participation rates for low-income students, females, and minorities; difficulty recruiting and retaining young academic and research faculty; inadequate research capacities; limited ICT infrastructure to enhance instruction and curriculum delivery and inadequate facilities to support science and technology education; etc. This chapter focuses on the state of public higher education in Ghana with emphasis on current growth and challenges. The chapter offers descriptive analysis based on government policy reports and documents, enrollment data from universities in Ghana, and data from the Ministry of Education and the National Council for Tertiary Education in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the role and influence played by the discipline of accounting through its association with the multiple logics of government reforms to transform the public tertiary education sector in New Zealand.

The study adopts a case study approach utilising multiple data collection methods. Neo-institutional theory provides an insightful complement to neo-liberalism and enhances the understanding of institutional logics driving government reforms and the transformation of public tertiary institutions.

The findings reveal that accounting has become a powerful conduit for the exercise of the neo-liberalism reforms by government and implemented by managerial control over public tertiary education institutions.

By addressing a gap in the literature, the paper shows how political and economic neo-liberal policies have been implemented in tertiary education with the discipline of accounting being adopted as a prime driver of these reforms. The paper has significant implications for educational management, academics and learners in understanding how and why the inherent nature, objectives and processes of the overall educational experience have undergone a radical reformation.

New Zealand is one of the first countries to implement these educational reforms and adopted “accounting technologies” to reduce costs and improve performance. But the reality has often been very different. Most of the government’s original objectives have not been fulfilled and the reforms have been costly for the academic profession. This paper provides a valuable source of learning for academics, managers and politicians.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the affordability of private tertiary education for households in Malaysia.

The relevant literature is reviewed to provide an overview of the affordability of private tertiary education. Data are obtained randomly from a private university in Malaysia and the results are analyzed using the one‐sample t‐test and one‐way ANOVA.

The proxy of affordability, which is the average household income, reveals the per capita average is more than three times the national average, which points out the non‐affordability of students from low and average earning households to afford private tertiary education in Malaysia. Financial assistance of students at the tertiary level is insufficient and may warrant further policy and administrative improvements to reach deserving students. There is also difference in income and hence affordability between urban‐rural households, a perspective that demands changes in the current income distribution policies. In order to address the issues highlighted in this study, salient suggestions have been proposed.

This paper reinforces the need to address the issue of affordability of tertiary education and its significant importance, especially to developing countries.

The aim is to assess how a policy of tertiary education for all affects the shape of the unconditional earnings distribution.

The paper discusses the quantile-regression literature looking at the link between education and wage inequality, also proving new evidence based on unconditional quantile regressions.

The findings support the idea that a policy of tertiary education for all increases the overall level of wage inequality.

The research has implications for public policy and administration. Among the limitations, the paper does not deal with distributional aspects related to other outcomes (e.g. health outcomes) of the policy of interest.

The analysis highlights a series of potential government interventions aimed at reducing the wage-inequality externalities of the policy of interest.

A policy of tertiary education for all, by itself, is not useful to fight wage inequality.

This paper belongs to the small group of studies using unconditional quantile regressions to study the link between education and wage inequality. It is the first study specifically looking at the distributional effects of a policy of tertiary education for all.

For much of its 43-year history, the community college sector in Jamaica has been plagued by perceptions of inferior status and mediocre tertiary education offerings. The Jamaican colleges have responded to the criticisms by aggressively pursuing quality assurance initiatives such as program accreditation, expanded course offerings, and ongoing curriculum review. This chapter traces the birth and development of the community college movement in Jamaica and the Caribbean and acknowledges the significant achievement of the Jamaican colleges in increasing access to tertiary education. The chapter also examines threats to the open access policy that may have serious implications for education equity and quality. These include inadequate funding, limited infrastructure to support the curriculum, low enrolment of specialized groups, and unsatisfactory completion and graduation rates. Recommendations for policy and practice are proposed.

The study assessed the stakeholders prioritization of key performance indicators (KPIs) on public and private tertiary educational projects in Osun State, Nigeria intending to enhance their performance.

The study used a total enumeration survey to purposively select built environment professionals working in the Physical Planning and Development Unit (PPDU) and procurement units of 17 tertiary educational institutions (7public and 10 private) in Osun State Nigeria for data collection. A quantitative research approach was adopted for the study using a questionnaire. A total of 102 questionnaires were retrieved from the respondents and used for analysis. Analysis of data was done using frequency, percentile, mean score (MS), Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, t-test, and Analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The study found that in the overall opinion of the respondents the most prioritized KPIs for tertiary educational projects are for the project to meet specifications (MS = 4.17), the project must be on time (MS = 4.01), and efficient use of resources (MS = 3.96). The important KPIs for the public tertiary educational projects is that the project should meet specifications (MS = 4.08), deliver the projects on time (MS = 3.96), and be under cost (MS = 3.84). While, the most prioritized KPIs for private tertiary educational projects are for the project to meet specifications (MS = 4.25), efficient use of resources (MS = 4.14), on time, and doing the right thing (effectiveness) (MS = 4.06) each. More findings indicated that there is no significant difference in the manner built environment professionals prioritized KPIs. However, there is only a 7% significant difference in the manner professionals working in the public and private tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria ranked KPIs.

There is a significant difference in the ways and manner built environment professionals working with the public and private tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria view resource utilization on their projects. As such, working environment either as public or private has a significant impact on resource utilization for tertiary educational construction projects.

The study compared opinions of professionals working with public and private tertiary educational institutions on KPIs to enhance project performance.

Despite several research efforts tackling construction project risks globally, tertiary education building projects are not devoid of experiencing risks with cascading effects on projects. In the past decades, there has been increasing application of linear assessments of risks in construction risk management practices. However, this study aims to assess the influence of risk factors on the success of tertiary education building projects using a structural equation modelling approach. This study will further reinforce the risk factors that require attention because risk factors are not linear but interdependent.

A quantitative research method was undertaken in this study, where data collection was achieved via a structured questionnaire survey. In total, 452 questionnaires were administered to client representatives, consultants and contractors involved in executing tertiary education building projects across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were found usable for the analysis, implying a response rate of 61.73%. The Cronbach α test, average variances extracted and composite reliabilities values show high reliability and internal consistency of the instrument used for data gathering. Furthermore, the study adopted percentile, mean, correlation, regression analysis and structural equation modelling for analyzing the data collected upon which the study’s inferences were based.

The study found that three out of six criteria for measuring the success of tertiary education building projects were significantly affected by risk factors while using the structural equation modelling technique. With this non-linear method of assessment, completion to time was significantly impacted by environmental risk factors. In addition, safety performance was also significantly influenced by logistic, environmental and legal risk factors; furthermore, logistics, design and environmental risks significantly affected profit. However, completion to cost, standard/quality and end-user satisfaction was not significantly affected by the risk factors in tertiary education building projects.

The quantitative data used for the analysis are limited to the tertiary education building projects from selected five tertiary education institutions in Ondo State; therefore, the results do not indicate all tertiary institutions in Nigeria. In addition, the findings are based on building projects that were procured through a competitive tendering arrangement only and thus considered a limitation for this study.

Not all the risks significantly influence the tertiary education building projects. Therefore, risk factors with a significant effect on the success indicators of tertiary education building projects should be prioritized for a successful project. While risk factors have not affected the completion to cost per se, the study implies that the resultant effect of risks on other success indicators could have a cascading effect on these projects in terms of cost and time overruns. These results may assist during the project risk management while also addressing complexity and uncertainty to avoid chaos in a tertiary education building projects.

The study found significant construction risk factors impacting the success of tertiary education building projects using a non-linear methodology, an extension beyond the usual linear method of assessment of risk impacts on the project performance.

This paper aims to investigate the strategy, accounting and accountability interface in sustainability implementation in a large public tertiary education organisation in New Zealand.

The study uses ethnography as an “engaging research” to help explain the real-life enactment of accounting and accountability in advancing/deterring sustainability initiatives. The study draws upon neo-institutional theoretical perspectives to help interpret the findings.

Accounting and accountability are powerful conduits for strategy implementation. Successful sustainability strategy implementation requires the embedding of financial accountability within the implementation process.

A strong ideological commitment from senior management is required to firmly embed sustainability in the tertiary organisation's belief systems, values and norms to get wider organisational acceptance and institutionalisation. Accounting needs to take a position of centrality within organisations to help facilitate sustainability implementation.

Government policy needs to incorporate specific concepts of sustainability into the tertiary education strategy and funding framework to make public tertiary organisations accountable for sustainability to the wider society.

This study provides unique insights into the sustainability implementation process. It complements existing literature on sustainability accounting and accountability.

The non-performance of construction projects in meeting the set objectives has continued to draw researchers worldwide. Despite this, little attention is accorded to public tertiary education building projects in Nigeria. Therefore, on this background, this study aims to assess the perceptions of stakeholders on the level of occurrence of risk factors in the public tertiary education building projects (TEBP) to enhance the performance of these projects.

The study adopted a quantitative method of data collection via a questionnaire survey. In total, 452 questionnaires were administered to the respondents comprising client representatives, consultants (quantity surveyors, architects, services and structural engineers and builders) and the contractor. The respondents were involved in the conception and execution of TEBP across five public tertiary education institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. Of 452 questionnaires, 279 were retrieved and found suitable for analysis, indicating a 61.73% response rate. The reliability analysis for the research instrument was 0.965 via the Cronbach α test, indicating the high reliability of the instrument used for the data collection. Moreover, the clusters of risk factors also had reliability values that ranged between 0.719 and 0.875.

The study found inflation, delayed payments in contracts, high competition bids, delay in work progress and occurrence of variations are the most frequently occurring risk factors in public TEBP. By contrast, difficulty to access the site, environmental factors and pollution were found to be low-weighted risks with the least likelihood of occurrence. The results of this study indicated the existence of significant differences in some of the risk factors in terms of the level of risk occurrence in TEBP. The risk factors were eventually clustered into eight major groups for TEBP. The post hoc comparisons using the least significant difference test also indicated differences between the contractors and consultants in the ranking of risks occurrence in TEBP, but no significant differences between clients/contractors and clients/consultants.

The findings in this study are limited to the public TEBP procured via competitive tendering; therefore, the results might not be applicable when other procurement methods are being considered. Besides, the study classified the project participants based on organizations and not on the different ownership status of the projects, such as federal or state government-owned TEBP. However, the literature shows that likelihood of risk occurrence could vary due to the degree of project ownership.

The information provided with respect to the most frequently occurring risk factors would enhance the performance of public TEBP.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the subject within a previously unexplored context where insights were provided on the most frequently occurring risk factors on the public TEBP.

The six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have witnessed a significant jump in the quality of education since only the 1970s—becoming sovereign because of boom in oil resources and petrodollar prevalence—to the extent that the level of their higher education system nearly fulfills all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards. Among successful criteria undertaken by the most GCC universities are establishing partnerships with other foreign universities in developed countries and following international organizations’, such as UNESCO and the World Bank, recommendations by focusing on establishing knowledge economies in line with globalization. Looking into the GCC success stories, the focus of this research paper is Egypt, after the country’s last revolution on January 25, 2011. The Arab Republic of Egypt has a strategic location worldwide, is a vital peace keeper, especially in the Middle East and the Arab region, and has a rich oriental heritage: cultural, social, and traditional, in addition to its unique pharaonic history. Suggested selection of some tools of assessment would be elaborated in the Methodology section to assess the quality of national tertiary education. This chapter aimed at generally highlighting some aspects of evolution of national post-secondary system during the last two decades in an effort to come up with findings and recommendations to promote country’s higher education system. As in many other developing countries, in Egypt the university constitutes a social and political hope, and is one of the pillars of social mobility and economic development for the country. However, professional endeavors are repeatedly turned down in finding a suitable job or at least entering the labor market, resulting in a rise in unemployment rate. This is due to, on the one hand, the nature of the labor market, hence the fact that the supply of graduates exceeds the market demand for them, and on the other hand, the negatively affected quality of higher education, especially in the public sector, mainly being overloaded, which produces weak qualified potential employees. This—among other factors—contributes to the downfall of country’s economy. Many who graduate from a stronger private system encounter difficulties in either being classified as overqualified, and hence get refused and are unemployed, or are placed in a position that under evaluates their capabilities, and hence with time lose enthusiasm or escape (brain drain). In conclusion, conducting a comparison between Egypt’s private and public universities, as expected beforehand, would be in favor of the former because of having better facilities and qualified faculty, earning higher salaries, in addition to the use of advanced equipment and technology in academic research. Therefore, this research intended to expand in future the comparison to include other countries from the Middle East and North Africa region—similar to Egypt in its economic and social compositions—for mutual benefits of learning from the best practices and successful models.