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Places of Inquiry identifies basic conditions and trends in modern systems of higher education that link or dissociate research, teaching, and student learning (“study”). The book is structured in two major parts. Part I, “Distinctive National Configurations of Advanced Education and Research Organization”, in five chapters organized by country, contrasts the national arrangements of the basic elements in the five major nations of Germany, Britain, France, United States, and Japan. These chapters give play to historical determination of national peculiarities and unique arrangements. Chapter 1 particularly highlights the preeminent role played in the construction of the modern research university by nineteenthcentury developments in the German system. Emerging disciplinarians learned by trial and error to use the laboratory and the seminar in a framework of university institutes. In “the institute university”, the academic research group was born, with Humboldtian thought serving as a useful covering ideology.Chapter 2 portrays English universities, in contrast, to be focused historically on elite preparation of undergraduates—a “thin stream of excellence”—in the small worlds of Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Here, in this model, against the grain of the structure, research-centered academics learned to use the apprenticeship model for a very limited number of “research students” who were supported for advanced study toward a late-developing Ph.D. “The collegiate university” has been very different from the German configuration.Chapter 3 presents the highly unusual historical arrangements in the French setting where the universities became in effect the party of the third part, caught between the elite nature of the grandes ecoles and the domination in research of a nonuniversity research establishment. An outside set of research institutes has provided the main research base, and university research-oriented activities had to be brought into alignment with it. The genetic imprints of the system, in contrast to both the German and the British, have been one of subordination of the university, with much broad structural separation of research activity from university teaching and the university education of students. A picture of historic subordination is also found in the case of Japan (Chapter 5), where much displacement to industry has taken place. Students graduating from first-degree study have been snapped up by industry and offered better opportunity, including in research, than what the university could offer. Advanced education at universities became severely constrained. In Japanese terms, Japanese graduate schools, although formally modeled after the American structure, became “empty show windows.”The chapter on the United States traces the development of a highly competitive system of higher education in which a graduate level, separately organized within universities from undergraduate programs, provided a broad foundation for small-group laboratories and seminars in which research activity could be a means of teaching and a mode of study. Peculiar American conditions of weak secondary schooling and generous admission to higher education left much general or liberal education to be accomplished in the undergraduate years, preempting specialization. Emerging disciplinarians tried repeatedly in the mid- and late-nineteenth century to build their new research interests into the undergraduate realm. It did not work. The emergent solution was a vertical one, to add a formal graduate school on top, with its arms in the graduate programs of the departments making it “the home of science.”This major internal differentiation, in comparison to the other four major international models, made the American university a “graduate department university,” with extensive provision developing in the last half of the twentieth century for research-based teaching and learning. What the German system had been able to do on a small scale in the nineteenth century, in the context of elite higher education, the American system developed systematically the capacity to do on a much larger scale, in the context of mass higher education on the road to universal higher education.Part II of the volume, entitled “The Research-Teaching-Study Nexus,” offers a conceptual framework for understanding how modern systems of higher education do or do not effectively bring research into alignment with advanced university teaching and advanced student training. The concept of a research-teaching-study nexus serves as leitmotiv. In Chapter 6, devoted to “forces of fragmentation,” adverse conditions for this nexus are largely subsumed under the twin concepts of research drift and teaching drift, with certain interests of government and industry strengthening inherent tendencies, already stimulated by mass enrollments and great growth in knowledge, for research on the one side and teaching and learning on the other to drift apart.But the nexus survives, often with great resilience and strength, and, in Chapter 7, the central part of the conceptual analysis takes the form of an explanation of how a modern integration is most strongly effected. Supporting conditions and processes are identified at three levels: whole national system, where differentiation, decentralization, and competition serve as broad enabling elements; the individual university, where diversified funding and deliberate organization of advanced education play an increasingly large determining role; and the basic unit (departmental) level within universities, where the activities of research, teaching, and study are located. At the base, operational conditions are captured in the twin concepts of research group and teaching group, each dependent on the other and closely intertwined in a veritable double helix of linkage and interaction. These twin settings for professors and students permit the linked transmission of tacit and tangible knowledge.As both the tacit and the tangible components of specialized knowledge bulk ever larger, they cannot be suitably conveyed by undergraduate or first-degree teaching programs alone, or by historic mentor-apprentice relationships alone. The research-teaching-study nexus is increasingly enacted by operational units of universities that bring together an advanced teaching program and the learning-by-doing of research activity. In this organizational nexus we find the heart of the graduate school phenomenon.The concluding chapter (Chapter 8) goes beyond analysis of the research-teaching-study nexus by offering three broad conclusions for the understanding of modern higher education: first, that inquiry remains the central activity, the dynamic element, in the university complex; second, that complexity and contradiction in university activities are inevitable and will continue to grow, ruling out simple solutions to long-term problems and placing a premium on how individual universities go about organizing themselves; and third, that research and teaching have an “essential compatibility.” Research activity itself is a compelling and rich basis for teaching and learning, primarily in graduate education in the arts and sciences but also secondarily in both advanced professional education and undergraduate or pre-advanced education. The much-voiced view that research and teaching are incompatible is short-sighted and regressive. The incompatibility thesis should give way to a more fundamental understanding in which research activity is seen both as a compelling form of teaching and as a necessary method of learning.For all modern and modernizing systems of higher education, the book emphasizes the great importance of organizing master's and especially doctoral work so that the activities of specialized research groups interact with structured teaching programs.In sum: Places of Inquiry concentrates on graduate (advanced) education, a level of higher education that has been rarely studied. It depicts distinctive configurations of academic research and advanced training in the five major national systems of higher education of the late twentieth century. It highlights research activity as a basic for teaching and learning. And it identifies generic conditions that pull research, teaching, and study apart from each other, and conversely and most important, focuses attention on the structures and processes that work to keep these central university activities closely linked.

The current state and development of education system in Belarus are considered. It includes preschool, general secondary, vocational, secondary special and higher education, as well as supplementary education for children and further education for adults, including nonformal education. The gross enrollment rate in secondary education (ISCED Level 2 and 3) as a share to the population at the corresponding age was 102.9% in 2015, and the enrollment rate in tertiary education (ISCED Levels 5–8) showed 93.8%. The role of universities in creating the Belarus National Innovation System is shown. The main direction of improving the activities of higher education institutions based on the “University 3.0” model is considered. The Belarussian universities actively develop their innovation infrastructure (they form their own training and research centers, research and production laboratories, centers of cooperation with enterprises, career development centers for students and startup schools). During last years 14 sectoral laboratories and 6 science technological parks were established on the basis of Belarusian universities. Belarusian universities, while determining their own development trajectory, are guided by their main mission – to promote innovation and human capital formation – for the sustainable social and economic development of the country.

Advanced education is often thought to respond to the demands of the economy, market forces create new occupations, and then universities respond with new degrees and curricula aimed at training future workers with specific new skills. Presented here is comparative research on an underappreciated, yet growing, concurrent alternative process: universities, with their global growth in numbers and enrollments, in concert with expanding research capacity, create and privilege knowledge and skills, legitimate new degrees that then become monetized and even required in private and public sectors of economies. A process referred to as academization of occupations has far-reaching implications for understanding the transformation of capitalism, new dimensions of social inequality, and resulting stratification among occupations. Academization is also eclipsing the more limited professionalization processes in occupations. Additionally, it fuels further expansion of advanced education and contributes to a new culture of work in the 21st century. Commissioned detailed German and US case studies of the university origins and influence on workplace consequences of seven selected occupations and associated knowledge, skills, and degrees investigate the academization process. And to demonstrate how universal this could become, the cases contrast the more open and less-restrictive education and occupation system in the US with the centralized and state-controlled education system in Germany. With expected variation, both economies and their occupational systems show evidence of robust academization. Importantly too is evidence of academic transformations of understandings about approaches to job tasks and use of authoritative knowledge in occupational activities.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

Environmental degradation, economic and political threats along with ideological extremism necessitate a global redirection toward sustainability and well-being. Since the survival of all species (humans, animals, and plants) is wholly dependent on a healthy planet, urgent action at the highest levels to address large-scale interconnected problems is needed to counter the thinking that perpetuates the “folly of a limitless world.” Paralleling critical societal roles played by universities – ancient, medieval, and modern – throughout the millennia, this chapter calls for all universities and higher education institutions (HEIs) generally – estimated at over 28,000 – to take a lead together in tackling the pressing complex and intractable challenges that face us. There are about 250 million students in tertiary education worldwide rising to about 600 million by 2040. Time is not on our side. While much of the groundwork has been done by the United Nations (UN) and civil society, concerns remain over the variable support given to the UN-2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially in light of the negative impact of global biodiversity loss on achieving the UN-2030 SDGs. Ten propositions for global sustainability, ranging from adopting the SDGs at national and local levels to ensuring peaceful uses of technology and UN reforms in line with global socioeconomic shifts, are provided for consideration by decisionmakers. Proposition #7 calls for the unifying One Health & Well-Being (OHWB) concept to become the cornerstone of our educational systems as well as societal institutions and to underpin the UN-2030 SDGs. Recognizing the need to change our worldview (belief systems) from human-centrism to eco-centrism, and re-building of trust in our institutions, the chapter argues for the re-conceptualization of the university/higher education purpose and scope focusing on the development of an interconnected ecological knowledge system with a concern for the whole Earth – and beyond. The 2019 novel coronavirus has made clear that the challenges facing our world cannot be solved by individual nations alone and that there is an urgency to committing to shared global values that reflect the OHWB concept and approach. By drawing on our collective experience and expertise informed by the UN-2030 SDGs, we will be in a much stronger position to shape and strengthen multilateral strategies to achieve the UN-2030 Transformative Vision – “ending poverty, hunger, inequality and protecting the Earth’s natural resources,” and thereby helping “to save the world from itself.”

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 chapter attempts to articulate a possibility for integrating a number of perspectives in studying higher education as a scholarly subject in current social science. We begin with the reasons for such an undertaking and its relevance. We then develop several basic definitions in order to establish a common conceptual basis for discussion. The final section presents new institutionalism as one of the ways to integrate several approaches in understanding higher education.

This chapter is rather theoretical and methodological in its outlook. We develop the basic approach that, in many respects, is still a work in progress. We take in this approach a set of arguments that open up new research agenda rather than settled a perception to be accepted uncritically.

Due to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, education has been disrupted right from kindergarten to University. Globally, states are advocating for online learning. The COVID-19 pandemic had led to the closure of universities and it was not clear how long this would last. e-Learning was crucial. Lecturers were asked to complete their syllabuses and continue to teach and administer tests remotely. So far, there is a dearth of information on how Kenya’s higher education responded to the pandemic through online learning. This qualitative study utilized online platforms (zoom and Skype) for interviews. This study employed a constructivist approach to explore the faculty officials’ perception of online learning in Kenya’s institutions of higher education. Approximately 45 faculty officials from public universities were involved in this study. The study was carried out in three public universities in Western Kenya. The participants argued that online education was beneficial and primarily promoted online research and enabled them to connect with other practitioners in the global community. There were challenges associated with online learning for instance unreliable internet. This study’s results are hoped to inform the ministry of education and higher learning policies on making online effective and efficient to both the students and the lecturers. This will also be a fairer spring-ball for Kenya toward the realization of Vision 2030.

This chapter provides an in-depth examination of the quality assurance process in the higher education system of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in terms of standards, processes, and procedures. More specifically, the chapter aims to examine the impact of the quality assurance process on the quality development of education in Iraq and Kurdistan Region, as well as identify the challenges that staff (top management and faculty members) face at various higher education institutions therein. For this purpose, a qualitative/quantitative analysis was conducted, which involved reviewing existing official policies, reports, and forms; interviewing top officials (presidents, vice-presidents, quality assurance directors) at a few higher education institutions (public and private); and developing a survey questionnaire that detected the perspective of top officials and faculty members regarding the level of impact quality assurance has had on the development of higher education. A total of 284 university staff members were surveyed from different universities in Iraq and Kurdistan. A total of 29 universities from Iraq and Kurdistan were represented in the survey. The respondents came from a variety of colleges and departments at public and private universities, with 79% of respondents coming from public universities. Study results demonstrate that quality assurance has contributed significantly to the improvement of university staff performance. There are a number of recommendations made within this chapter for educational leaders, which could lead to the further development of quality practices and the upgrading of the higher education system.