ED-98/CONF.202/5
PARIS, 29 August 1998
Original: French

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL,
SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Paris, 5-9 October 1998

ED-98/CONF.202/CLD.23

This working document has been drawn up for the purposes of the World Conference on Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century - Vision and Action, and is chiefly based on the documents and final declarations of the five regional conferences (Havana, November 1996; Dakar, April 1997; Tokyo, July 1997; Palermo, September 1997; and Beirut, March 1998) held in preparation for the World Conference. Four international experts - Hebe Vessuri, Donald Ekong, Malcolm Skilbeck and Dumitru Chitoran - have prepared overviews of the Conference's four major themes, namely: pertinence; quality; management and funding; and international co-operation. Material has also been taken from the documents that have been drawn up, with co-operation from some fifty governmental and non-governmental organizations, for the twelve thematic debates which it is proposed to hold during the Conference. The findings of a number of meetings organized by institutions of many different kinds have also been consulted, in particular those of the expert meetings held in Toronto in April 1998 and in Strasbourg in July 1998. The present document also makes use of data on higher education supplied by UNESCO's Division of Statistics. The document's principal author is Professor Jean-Marie De Ketele, of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, who holds the chair of Educational Sciences at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. It has been revised by the Executive Secretariat (Higher Education Division) of the Steering Committee of the UNESCO Consultative Group for Higher Education, which is responsible for overseeing the preparations for the Conference.

Summary of the working document

1. Since its establishment in 1946, UNESCO has constantly emphasized higher education's importance to the development of societies and, in more recent years, has stressed its role in the promotion of sustainable development and the culture of peace. Throughout its history, it has never ceased to promote thinking and field activities directed towards that end.

2. In 1993, at the 27th session of the General Conference, the Member States of UNESCO adopted a resolution inviting the Director-General "to pursue the elaboration of a comprehensive policy for ... higher education ". This resolution was based on an analysis of the changes that had been observed in the world and the challenges flowing therefrom, both for society and for higher education, taking account of the close interactions between them. The Organization followed this up by publishing, in 1995, a policy paper on Change and development in higher education.

3. The World Conference on Higher Education (Paris, 5-9 October 1998) - the decision concerning which was adopted by the General Conference at its 28th session, consequent upon a proposal by the Director-General - fits into this framework and is the outcome of a long-term approach methodically constructed on a bottom-up rather than a top-down basis. Every one of the world's regions was involved in the regional conferences (Havana, November 1996; Dakar, April 1997; Tokyo, July 1997; Palermo, September 1997; Beirut, March 1998) held in preparation for the World Conference, all of them contributing and comparing their experience in respect of four major, closely interrelated themes, namely pertinence, quality, management and financing, and international co-operation. Several international or regional non-governmental organizations specializing in higher education also focused their conferences on subjects connected with the World Conference. In addition, two regional-level meetings of experts were organized, one - in collaboration with the Council of Europe - in Strasbourg in July 1998, and the other in Toronto, Canada, in April 1998, for North America (Canada and the United States, with Mexico and Puerto Rico also participating). The thinking behind these activities was based on prior analysis of changes in society and in higher education, resulting in a vision of higher education in the twenty-first century and leading to the drawing up of a priority framework for coherent action.

4. The preparatory regional conferences clearly showed that the various kinds of environment with which institutions of higher education interact are in the throes of change, under the influence of globalization, internationalization or regionalization, democratization, the development of mass phenomena, the relocation of economic activities, marginalization, fragmentation and the spread of technologies. Some even go so far as to use the term "crisis", in its etymological sense (from the Greek krisis, decision), with a double signification: owing to the changes in structures and therefore in underlying outlooks, we are living through a "decisive" period, one that is ushering in profound and irreversible changes, but also - and consequently - a period when "decisions" are called for.

5. In order to take sound decisions, however, it is also necessary to analyse those changes and to bring out into the open the paradoxes that come with them:

- the fact that alongside a powerful move towards globalization of the economy there exists a trend towards the creation of more and more small and medium-sized enterprises, or indeed towards an informal economy;

- a far-reaching change in the phenomena of the movement of labour, resulting from the relocation of industrial activities: firms are increasingly relocating to places where a labour force with low skills is available at very low cost, while highly skilled personnel are more and more often required to move to where goods are produced and decisions taken;

- the runaway population growth of the developing countries, accompanied by a growing demand for education which states have difficulty in meeting, but also the ageing of the population in the rich countries and the lengthening of the time spent in education - due, at one and the same time, to the demand for a higher educational level, to the difficulty of obtaining employment without a minium level of education, and to the desire on the part of governments to keep young people in education in order to reduce unemployment figures and to avoid the problems of pre-delinquency or for that matter of delinquency itself;

- the exponential growth of scientific knowledge (including IT - information technology - which offers extraordinary possibilities for networking) but at the same time a widening gap between the developed countries and the developing countries, the latter being unable, single-handed, to provide themselves with the basic infrastructure for access to that knowledge;

- the phenomenon of globalization and internationalization of culture and, at the same time, an avid, indeed frenzied, desire to defend cultural and linguistic identity.

6. These changes obviously have important repercussions on higher education, which is also beset with paradoxes:

- despite uncertainties relating to employment, there is an increase in demand and a larger intake into higher education, but at the same time a reduction, in relative terms, is occurring in the financial, material and human resources allocated to it;

- wider access to higher education is being offered, but at the same time the mechanisms of exclusion are being maintained or even, in many cases, strengthened (thus, for example, women are still under-represented in many institutions and are, almost everywhere, greatly outnumbered on the scientific and technological side);

- on the one hand, there is an enormous need to raise the level of education in response to countries' development requirements while, on the other hand, graduate unemployment is on the increase and the type of training provided fails to make graduates sufficiently capable of creating self-employment opportunities for themselves;

- higher education programmes and systems need to be internationalized, but at the same time they need to be set in context in order to respond both to regional requirements and to the characteristics of the student population in the framework of education for all, in all places and at all times;

- extraordinary developments have taken place in the various technologies, thanks to the progress made by fundamental research in universities, but at the same time those technologies are under-utilized in the training they provide;

- an impressive number of teachers are now also qualified as researchers, but proportionally less effective research is being done, and even less "contextualized" research is being carried out in those places where it is needed.

7. When confronting these paradoxical changes that are affecting society and hence affecting higher education, it is important to transcend the contradictions, i.e. not to reason in terms of "either/or" but in terms of "both the one and the other, depending on the context", since both vision and action need to be situated. Concealed behind this plurality, however, lie certain basic needs common to all humanity. It is for that reason that, if vision and action are to be situated, they should be inspired, first and foremost, by a universal vision, a vision of the organizing of a fairer and more equitable society.

8. This vision may be described as centring around the following principles:

i) The universality of higher education presupposes universal access for all those who possess the requisite abilities, motivation (access and merit) and suitable preparation, at all stages of life.

ii) The universality of higher education presupposes the employment of varied forms of intervention to meet educational needs for all and at all stages of life.

iii) The universality of higher education implies that its purpose should be not only to train but to educate.

iv) The universality of higher education implies that it should have a function of vigilance and of consciousness-raising.

v) The universality of higher education implies that it should have a guiding ethical role at a time of crisis of values.

vi) The universality of higher education implies that it should develop, throughout all its activities, a culture of peace.

vii) The universality of higher education implies that it should build up links of universal solidarity with other institutions of higher education and with other institutions of society.

viii) The universality of higher education implies that it should work out a mode of management based upon the dual principle of responsible autonomy and transparent accountability.

ix) The universality of higher education implies that it should be at pains to stipulate standards of quality and relevance that go beyond standards specific to particular contexts.

x) The universality of higher education implies that its ultimate axiological principle, subsuming all the others, should be to work for the unity of women and men within a framework of mutually supportive differentiation and complementarity.

9. The contextualized and, at the same time, universal nature of higher education makes it easier to relate thinking about it to the four pivotal issues on which the discussions of the regional preparatory conferences focused, namely, pertinence, quality, management and funding, and co-operation.

10. The pertinence or relevance of higher education must essentially be considered in relation to its role and place in society, to its mission of providing education, research and the services ensuing therefrom, and also to its links with the world of work, in the broadest sense, its relationship with the state and with sources of public financing, and its interactions with the other levels and forms of education.

11. Relevance means:

- getting together with politicians, in order that countries' and regions' development needs may be made central to the political vision and to decisions for action; that economic considerations should be subservient to social considerations and not the reverse; that higher education should correspondingly be able to concert its efforts to identify its missions of training, research and the provision of services and should, accordingly, have available to it the resources it requires;

- getting together with the world of work, in order that it may help, by means of the missions it performs, to face up to changes and anticipate them; to develop an enterprising attitude by means of suitable training facilities; to maintain a spirit of vigilance and consciousness-raising so as to introduce into business firms a concern to make human beings and society - and not merely financial imperatives - central to economic activity;

- getting together with the other levels of the education system, so that it links up into an unbroken educational "chain";

- getting together with culture and individual cultures, in order that cultural heritages may be preserved, disseminated and made to bear fruit, thus carrying forward the quest for the universal through the plurality of its manifestations;

- getting together with everyone, in all places and at all times, by means of more flexible training facilities, so that learning throughout life may be achieved;

- getting together with students and teachers, so that they come to be regarded as emergent individuals and as resources to be managed in accordance with the principles of equity and merit.

12. The aim of getting together in this way is to move towards harmonious, sustainable development and to correct imbalances. This implies:

- both further internationalization and further contextualization, in the design of programmes of teaching and research and the networking of those programmes as well as in the application of standards ("think globally and act locally");

- more fundamental research and more applied research, since they cross-fertilize each other and are essential to development, thought of in other than merely short-range terms;

- increased, priority concern for the problems standing in the way of sustainable development, such as poverty, hunger and violence, or problems in health, education and the environment.

13. Quality is inseparable from social relevance. The implication of the quality requirement and of policies aiming for a "quality safeguard" approach is that improvements should be sought, at the same time, to each of the component parts of the institution and to the institution as an integral whole, functioning as a coherent system.

14. The quality of higher education is dependent on:

- the quality of the staff, which implies: acceptable social and financial status; a will to reduce inequalities such as those relating to gender; a concern to manage staff in accordance with the merit principle and provide them with the in-service training they need in order to fulfil their role in a changing society; the establishment of incentives and structures to encourage researchers to work in multidisciplinary teams on thematic projects, thus breaking with the habit of exclusively solitary scientific work;

- the quality of curricula, which calls for: special care in the definition of the objectives of the training provided in relation to the requirements of the world of work and the needs of society; an adaptation of teaching methods to make students more active and to develop an enterprising spirit; an expansion of, and greater flexibility in, training facilities so as to make full use of the possibilities afforded by IT and to take the characteristics of the context into account; the internationalization and networking of curricula, students and teachers;

- the quality of the students who constitute the raw material of higher education, which requires: special attention to their problems of access in the light of criteria related to merit (abilities and motivation); proactive policies for the benefit of the disadvantaged; exchanges with secondary education and with the bodies involved in the transition from secondary to higher education, to ensure that education is an unbroken chain;

- the quality of the infrastructure and of the internal and external environment, not forgetting the infrastructure connected with the use and development of IT, without which networking, distance education facilities and the possibility of a "virtual university" could not be envisaged;

- the quality of the management of the institution as a co-ordinated and coherent whole, interacting with its environment, it being impossible for institutions of higher education to exist as isolated enclaves.

15. The quality of higher education is closely dependent on systemic evaluation and regulation. This entails inculcating a culture of evaluation within the institution, i.e. a concern to set up systems for the gathering of relevant, valid, reliable data to enable those with a role to play in this respect to take the necessary decisions to improve activities and outcomes. It also entails inculcating a culture of regulation, i.e. a participatory, interactive process of identifying, on the basis of the information gathered, the strategies to be put into operation to improve the effectiveness of the action undertaken or, if need be, to readjust objectives and activities. It further entails developing a culture of autonomy, responsibility and accountability.

16. The management and funding of higher education are posited on its being regarded as a set of sub-systems (missions, structures, resources, culture, admissions, validations, management) interacting with one another and with the local national, regional and international environment.

The management of institutions of higher education cannot be reduced to bookkeeping operations based solely on economic criteria; the criteria of equity and social relevance in the activities of teaching and research and the provision of expert and consultant services must take precedence over the other criteria, at the same time ensuring balanced management.

This means:

- overcoming the tension between the economic view of the institution of higher education (as a "business") and the cultural view (as an "ivory tower responsible for the conservation and development of knowledge"), and instead to promote a societal concept of higher education, comprising autonomy and independence of thought, truth-seeking and scientific rigour, responsiveness to the environment's economic, cultural and social needs, and hence willingness to play its part in sustainable human development;

- overcoming the tension between short-term and long-term considerations, by adopting, in response to the needs of the environment, a forward-looking mode of management, anticipatory capabilities and a concern for universal ethics;

- overcoming the tension between checks and freedoms, by putting in place quality safeguards and a culture of responsible autonomy and accountability.

17. The funding of higher education runs up against the huge challenges of mass admissions and the increase in the services required of it. Confronted with these challenges, the regional conferences were of one accord in stressing:

- on the one hand, the state's obligations towards education in general and higher education in particular, so as to guarantee the right to education and allow access to higher education by the greatest possible number, in all places and at all times in relation to merit, in order at the same time to allow higher education to fulfil its missions, given the close link between countries' levels of education and their development;

- on the other hand, the need to find training facilities that are more flexible, more modular, more economical, better managed, and better adapted to the needs and characteristics of their target populations;

- and the need to look for resources to complement state funding, which entails balancing inputs from some of those who benefit directly or indirectly from education against the requirements of equity.

18. A universal vision of higher education implies multiple forms of co-operation involving all the institutions whose mission it is to work towards sustainable human development and a culture of peace.

19. In response to the changes affecting society and higher education at the dawn of the twenty-first century, a new policy of co-operation needs to be thought out:

- taking account of the phenomena of regionalization and globalization, and of the fact that society is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based society, co-operation policies must keep both abreast and ahead of these developments by making teaching and research programmes more international while endeavouring to improve quality, but at the same time establish mechanisms to combat polarization, marginalization and fragmentation;

- taking account of the arrival in force upon the scene of IT, co-operation policies must enable the developing countries to equip themselves with the means of access to it, so that these new technologies may be a way of reducing inequalities in relation to knowledge and the development of knowledge rather than a way of further widening the gap between them and the developed countries;

- in order to put into reverse the process of decline affecting institutions in the developing countries, the least developed in particular, co-operation policies should aim for greater interdependence and closer partnership between the world of work and higher education, by way of a joint effort to define relevant training policies, in collaboration and exchanges of resources, in the availability of expert services, in participation in market research and research into changing requirements, in evaluating alternative scenarios, in new technology research and development or transfers of knowledge, and in investigating the social and economic impact of certain options;

- taking account of higher education's responsibilities in respect of the training of teachers and educators, policies for stepping up co-operation with other institutions of higher education and other levels of education should be implemented, so that education becomes an unbroken chain;

- taking account of the internationalization of the activities of teaching, research and services, UNESCO should strengthen its UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs programme and take the lead in further developing and co-ordinating networks involving students, teachers, researchers, managers and decision-makers, networks being at the very heart of internationalization and co-operation.

20. In order for such new co-operation policies to be possible, a forward-looking, co-ordinated form of co-operation must be developed. As UNESCO has frequently pointed out and as the regional conferences have recalled, it is vital that the intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental organizations concerned with development and development funding and also the academic community should look upon the institutions of higher education in the developing countries as being essential to the overall development of the education system and to the promotion of endogenous capacities. The requisite forward-looking, co-ordinated management of co-operation may be described in terms of a certain number of pivotal themes for thinking and action:

- strengthening the key components in the integration and co-ordination of sectors, institutions, agencies and resources, in order to ensure better horizontal co-operation;

- defining a relevant policy and an overall plan of action jointly with the various partners involved, on the basis of an analysis of past or ongoing experience and of anticipation of their knock-on effects and the new priority challenges to be met;

- helping managers in defining, implementing and following up their co-operation policies and in pooling their experiences;

- establishing permanent "observatories" to keep track of developments in the key components of society and future-oriented studies to guide co-operation;

- re-asserting the importance of good local experts and well-trained local managers;

- establishing within each institution of higher education a unit with responsibility for co-operation for a higher level of professionalism;

- involving young people more closely in co-operation so as to develop the culture of peace and help to bring in a more human, more sustainable form of development.

OUTLINE

1. Since its foundation in 1946, UNESCO has constantly emphasized higher education’s importance in the development of societies, and over the past few years has stressed its responsibilities in promoting sustainable development and the culture of peace. Throughout its history it has never ceased to promote reflection and activities on the ground directed towards that end.

2. At the 27th session of the General Conference in 1993, the UNESCO Member States adopted a resolution inviting policy-makers ‘to pursue the elaboration of a comprehensive policy covering the whole field of higher education’. That resolution was based on an analysis of the changes observed in the world and of the resulting challenges both for society and for higher education, given the close interactions between them. The Organization followed this up by publishing, in 1995, its policy paper on Change and development in higher education.

3. The World Conference on Higher Education (Paris, 5-9 October 1998), which was decided on at the 28th session of the General Conference following a proposal by the Director-General, fits into this framework and is the outcome of a long-term approach methodologically constructed not on a top-down but on a bottom-up basis. All regions of the world were involved in the regional conferences which led up to the World Conference (Havana, November 1996; Dakar, April 1997; Tokyo, July 1997; Palermo, September 1998; Beirut, March 1998), which were held in order to contribute and compare experience on four major, closely interrelated themes (relevance, quality, financing and management, co-operation). During the same period, several international or regional NGOs specializing in higher education focused their conferences on subjects connected with the World Conference. Two meetings of regional-level experts were also organized, one in Strasbourg with the Council of Europe (July 1998) and the other in Toronto, Canada (April 1998), for North American experts (Canada and the United States), with the participation of representatives of Mexico and Puerto Rico. The thinking behind these activities was based on a prior analysis of changes in society and higher education, resulting in a vision of higher education in the twenty-first century and leading to the drawing up of a coherent plan of action.

4. This approach has had the merit of bringing discipline into the debate on higher education, which, owing to its close links with society, naturally extend beyond its internal framework and affects all matters that concern humanity in this final part of the century: sustainable development - including the environment - the building and strengthening of peace, understanding among human beings, democracy, freedom and human rights, as well as everything connected with changes in work processes and in the nature of economic activities and with the extraordinary development of the new information and communication technologies. It was no accident that these matters were debated at the preparatory regional conferences. On the contrary, this was part of a highly successful strategy.

5. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the challenges are immense and it is necessary to create a matching dynamism in order to try to respond. To complete the work of the regional conferences, academics, students and policy-makers (not only politicians but also decision-makers and experts from the economic world and the social-work sector) from all the Member States and all the main NGOs concerned with, or interested in, higher education, together with the major international institutions, pooled their efforts at the regional conferences and have since continued to contribute to the preparation of twelve transverse thematic debates on the following issues:

6. This worldwide rallying of support has given rise to numerous papers, individual communications and discussion summaries. More importantly, it has motivated the whole academic community – managers, teachers and students - governments and a very wide range of social partners to realize the need for a great collective debate on the present state of higher education worldwide and its relationships with society as part of the quest for a fairer and more equitable organization.

7. This document, which is a working document of the Conference and is designed inter alia to facilitate the proceedings of the Commissions, attempts to provide an overview, assembling as exhaustively as possible the principal themes on which a common vision can be based and setting out matters for further debate. Following the methodology adopted at the preparatory regional conferences, this document consists of an introductory outline and six chapters . The first chapter diagnoses the fundamental changes which are affecting society and therefore higher education at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the aim being to show clearly the concepts and principles for action underlying the dynamic vision needed if the new challenges are to be met. The next four chapters present, in consolidated form, the findings of the analyses carried out during the preparatory proceedings with respect to the four key themes: relevance, quality, financing and management, co-operation. The concluding chapter gathers together the actions to be promoted in keeping with the vision developed. This main working document will be supplemented by other documents such as reference documents which, like the paper on statistics in higher education, will help to make the debate on these themes more concrete, or which can provide a better definition and explanation of those concepts on which there is general agreement, such as merit, university autonomy and so on. In particular, there will be a draft Declaration (accompanied by a summary and a priority framework for action to change and develop higher education).

8. The starting-point for any analysis of higher education at the end of this century is the definition of its basic task today, which is to meet the needs of society in order to help create sustainable human development and a culture of peace. This is what gives relevance to its activities in teaching, research, expertise and service to the community. This is what requires quality management and inspires its co-operation policy.

9. Higher education (i.e. post-secondary) institutions are complex systems which interact with the institutions around them, namely, with the existing political, economic, cultural and social systems. They are influenced by their local and national environment (or meso-environment) and, increasingly, by their regional and international environment (or macro-environment). But they in their turn can, and even must, influence these different environments.

10. As the preparatory conferences have clearly shown, these different environments are in the throes of change. Some people have no hesitation in speaking of a ‘crisis’ in the original Greek sense (i.e. as ‘decision’) with two aspects: owing to changes in structures and therefore in underlying outlooks we are living through a ‘decisive’ period, i.e. one leading to profound and irreversible changes, but also – and consequently - a period when ‘decisions’ are called for.

11. These changes are, of course, characterized by broad tendencies which were frequently mentioned at the preparatory conferences: globalization, internationalization, regionalization, democratization, the rise of mass demand for education, relocation, marginalization, fragmentation and the increasing use of technology. On closer inspection, however, this period is complex and riven with paradoxes which no sound analysis can ignore.

12. An initial paradox concerns the existence of a powerful movement towards globalization of the economy through the setting up of multinational corporations and financial holding companies which are becoming increasingly sprawling and hard to control, side by side with a proliferation of small and medium-sized firms(SMFs) and even the growth of an informal economy which in some countries has supplanted a planned economy.

13. On the one hand, an increasing number of business takeovers is occurring for financial more than economic reasons, involving job losses, increasingly numerous reorganizations on the basis of financial results and frequent changes in communication and personnel management policies. Enormous sums of money circulate and can wreck the economy of a whole region. This is particularly true in the case of fragile emerging stock and money markets where capital moves unhindered and a few private individuals can upset the currencies of the countries of a whole region in a few days, and thus bring about chain-reaction bankruptcies, smash growth and create social Hiroshimas (Nagels, presentation at the Brussels symposium ‘Du capitalisme au capitalisme dans le monde et en Europe: changements et alternatives, ‘From Capitalism to Capitalism Worldwide and in Europe: Changes and Alternatives’, 13 and 14 March 1998). This form of globalization tends to bring about a profound change from ‘civilized capitalism’ to ‘unbridled capitalism’. The civilized capitalism of the post-Second World War period has been built, at least in many countries, on firm foundations: full employment, a more egalitarian division of the fruits of labour, security of life and the satisfaction of collective needs, which have reached fairly high levels. Unbridled capitalism is built on the increasing powerlessness of states and even of international institutions to control the markets, to erect safety barriers, to combat greater and greater hidden unemployment and to counter the precarious situation of an increasing number of individuals, and an increasingly inegalitarian distribution of income within countries, as well as an ever more marked concentration of resources in the industrialized countries.

14. On the other hand, over and against the large anonymous blocs, local initiatives based on improvization and designed to provide the wherewithal to live or survive are being established where the need exists. In many countries, nearly all technical and vocational training is developed in this informal context. In the most developed countries a whole series of SMFs, many of them dependent on the multinationals through sub-contracting or franchise agreements, rise and fall. Others come into being as the result of a key idea or a newly acquired skill. For example, small venture-capital companies have been set up in the science parks around certain universities to develop new technologies stemming from scientific research. In addressing their employment problems, many states’ awareness is growing that these SMFs are increasingly becoming reservoirs of employment, but they are aware, too, that their existence is very frail in the face of the large anonymous units on which they depend.

15. A second paradox connected with the first concerns a profound change in patterns of workforce migration when businesses relocate. While cheap labour migrated in the past to places where businesses were situated, the converse is now taking place; firms move to places where there is a supply of cheap labour. At the same time, highly trained professionals migrate towards relocated businesses, which strangely enough recruit few highly skilled local staff.

16. The immobility of unskilled labour is encouraged by a large combination of factors. The first factor is primarily financial: when the same product costs $24.8 in wages if it is manufactured in an industrialized country and $0.28 in certain developing countries, few company managers subject to competition can afford to hesitate. The second factor is the current, increasingly drastic policy of closing the borders of the rich countries to numerous would-be migrants. This policy on the part of governments is particularly strengthened where extreme-right movements have become formidable and are seen as real dangers to democracy. The increasingly common phenomena of urban and school violence, ghettoes inhabited only by people leading a hand-to-mouth existence, long-term unemployment, the increasing number of refugees in all regions, the lack of prospects and growing feelings of insecurity all result in knee-jerk reactions of rejection and a tendency to close ranks.

17. However, this attempt to keep unskilled labour in one place goes together with increasing migration by the highly skilled labour produced by the most developed countries. Here again, several factors combine to favour this process. As they come in most cases from wealthy countries, the managers of relocated businesses prefer to place their trust in highly skilled labour trained by renowned higher education institutions, sharing as they do the same culture, values and language of international communication, and they tend to distrust local professionals regardless of their qualifications. Furthermore, experience of work in different places is regarded by them as an asset in terms of skills, adaptability and impartiality vis-à-vis local interests. Distance itself is no longer much of a drawback as a result of improved air travel, reduced costs and the numerous possibilities held out by the new information and communication technologies (IT) of staying in touch with one's professional and family circle. Those who forecast that relocations would lead to an increased recruitment of highly qualified local executives trained by local universities have been wrong. National intellectuals trained in reputed foreign universities and adapted to that environment have had more opportunity to be recruited on the spot and transferred to other places. There is thus a brain drain from the developing countries either to places where planning and designing takes place - usually in wealthy countries - or to places of manufacture in other developing countries, with no true participation in the local communities and an increasing integration into a shifting, hermetically sealed international community. Does this brain drain (a figure of 70,000 is put forward) in the direction of better living and working conditions in the industrialized countries produce a spin-off sufficient to prevent the split into rich and poor countries and regions from becoming even more marked?

18. It is important, moreover, to stress that it is not sufficient for a developing country wishing to attract relocated firms to possess a supply of cheap labour. Numerous countries, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, have had their offers rejected because of their supposed political instability and their low overall educational level in both quantitative and qualitative terms. A divide is thus also created between one developing country and another, and the gap is likely to widen with time.

19. A third paradox, which represents a genuine challenge, concerns the effects of demography. In the majority of developing countries (a large country like China is a not insignificant exception) we see runaway population growth whose effect is an increased demand for education; the public authorities are unable to find the necessary funds and are even compelled to reduce them still further as a result of a heavy public debt and structural-adjustment policies. In most of the wealthy countries, however, very low rates of population growth in recent years have gone together with ageing populations, increasingly lengthy full-time education and an ever later entry into working life.

20. Population growth is particularly disquieting in certain regions such as the Asia-Pacific region. In one of the working papers for the Regional Conference on Higher Education in Tokyo in July 1997, Senator Edgardo J. Angara (Philippines) described the situation thus: ‘The unabated growth in the populations of Asia-Pacific countries constitutes one such challenge. About 3.6 billion people, more than 60 per cent of the world population, live in the rural areas of Asia-Pacific. About 1.5 billion of them are children and young persons below 15. It is necessary to provide them the basic needs, including productive jobs. How will higher education respond?’ How indeed can we respond when, in addition, the public debts of those countries are such that the lending agencies force cuts in civil service staffs? Side by side with liberalization in the economic field, a strong increase is occurring in the importance of the private sector in the world of education. The Latin America region has experienced this in a marked fashion for some years; sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly following the same road. It is because of this strong population growth and the impossibility of adequately meeting the demand for education that an increasing number of young people in those countries enter working life prematurely, in most cases to be caught up in the informal economy with all that this implies in the way of exploitation.

21. The ageing of the population in the wealthy countries raises completely different problems. While there is also a very strong demand for education in those countries, this is due not to demographic factors but to a prolongation of education and a desire to raise the overall educational level. The extension of education is usually due to a twofold constraint: first the difficulty of finding a job without a minimum level of education; second, the resolve of governments to keep young people at school in order to reduce unemployment figures and to avoid pre-delinquency and even delinquency problems among young people left to their own devices, even if certain courses of study have a disguised child-minding role rather than an education and training function.

22. On the one hand, then, we have a mass of young people deprived of adolescence, forced to accept poor working conditions and ready to attempt the impossible in order to escape their situation. On the other, we have young people whose adolescence is prolonged, many of them with no prospects or future, full of energy which they cannot turn to good account because of their situation of long-term dependence; a not insignificant proportion of them seeks an outlet in artificial paradises (recent surveys indicate that in some countries one 12-year-old child in four has already dabbled in drugs). On one side, a hard life and a desire for possessions in order to live better in a poor environment; on the other, existential anguish and a desire to progress in order to find a more fulfilment in a wealthy environment.

23. A fourth paradox concerns the exponential development of scientific and technological knowledge, including the new information technology and the biotechnologies. As the result of increasingly fruitful scientific research, the new technologies hold out increasingly bright technical prospects for confronting the challenges of sustainable development. The regional conferences, however, showed that the countries most in need of them had difficulty in using them to solve their problems.

24. The IT offer extraordinary possibilities: electronic mail, access to the most varied data bases, distance training, buying and selling, electronic money, virtual universities and virtual exchange networks. The biotechnologies allow genetic manipulations that are capable of improving food production and combating some of the evils caused by pollution. Yet the gap between the developed and developing countries is widening rather than narrowing. ‘…harnessing this technology will require considerable investment in hardware, software and staff development’ (Tokyo, Plan, para. 3). Also there are many obstacles in the developing countries: ‘The small existing number of potential users possessing both the capability and equipment to benefit from access to electronic information networks; the scarcity and expensiveness of equipment, software and information in comparison with the North; the lack of accessible telecommunications infrastructure; telecommunications monopolies together with over-regulation and high cost; the uncertainty of electricity supply in many countries; the lack of inter-regional networks and co-operation. Over and beyond the purely technical and material aspects, one of the major conditions for introducing such facilities lies in the supplying of computers with suitable, meaningful and sufficiently good educational messages’. (Dakar, working document, para. 13). The proper use of biotechnology depends on a whole set of conditions which are far from being met in the developing countries; quite apart from the physical conditions, we should not underestimate the part played by ancestral folkways.

25. Thanks to increasingly focused technologies, production processes are becoming or able to become increasingly effective in terms of quantity and quality, but there is also a simultaneous increase in the quantitative and qualitative degradation of the environment. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 put forward clear diagnoses, however, and was a focus of awareness made much of by the media. Five years later the prevailing feeling is that, rather than improving, the situation has further deteriorated for lack of a sufficiently proactive follow-up. A major source of hope for some, science and technology are perceived as enabling the challenges of the contemporary world to be met. Viewed with suspicion by others, they are regarded as causing more problems than they solve: misuse by parties hungry for power and domination (arms production) and wealth (pollution), (bio-) ethical problems of all kinds and an instrument of inequality well conveyed in the formula used at the Havana Consultation: ‘Islands of modernity in an ocean of poverty’.

26. A fifth paradox concerns culture. A globalization and internationalization of culture is occurring. By contrast, there is a thirst, even a frenzy, to defend cultural, communal and linguistic identity.

27. One of the most important vehicles of cultural globalization is indisputably communication by image, particularly television. The latter is omnipresent in the developed countries; in the developing countries it is making increasing headway among families of all classes and is often also watched by other people in the vicinity: serials acting as vehicles for values centred on wealth and easy money, beauty, violence, sex and leisure pursuits are closely followed and are having an increasing effect on mental attitudes. Everything originating in Europe and America is automatically seen as better in the eyes of many young people: shoes or clothes of a brand seen on television are more attractive than the same articles manufactured locally. The same televised sequences are shown almost simultaneously throughout the world; the Gulf War was viewed live like a serial. Television is increasingly seen as powerfully influential. Taking advantage of liberalization, the major financial holding companies are therefore attempting to carry out sweeping takeovers with a view to becoming majority shareholders in the big television companies. In this way, what some call a ‘global village’ and a ‘one-idea system’ is developing. Other factors have, of course, contributed to this globalization of culture: the extension of communication networks through the development of IT, the liberalization of air transport, the use of English as the language of communication in many fields and the major schemes for student, teacher and researcher exchanges.

28. Yet at the same time a quest is in progress for anything that can help to give people a sense of identity. This is the reason behind the proliferation of local radio and television stations, the increased interest in local newspapers and mailshots, the support for policies of free expression for all, the renewal of community activities and initiatives to preserve community languages.

29. The changes shaking the world at the dawn of the twenty-first century are therefore complex and cannot be interpreted simplistically. As always during periods of transition, the effects of upheavals are paradoxical and difficult to control in the short term and pose challenges in the long term which may be summarized as follows: the challenge to struggle against all forms of divides (between continents, regions, communities, social classes, races, etc.) and to establish the conditions for harmonious, equitable and sustainable development. Will society have the determination to accept the challenge? And will higher education play its by no means negligible part in this vast undertaking? For every country, this is the fundamental challenge which this World Conference must address.

30. If society is changing, higher education systems are necessarily changing too, and the paradoxes are no less numerous. Let us try to pinpoint the main paradoxes in order to build up a pertinent vision of the role of higher education as this century ends.

31. An initial paradox can be seen in the fact that, despite uncertainties about employment, higher education is increasingly becoming a mass phenomenon, contemporaneously with a relative drop in the resources - financial, material and human - devoted to it.

32. Both in the highly developed and in the developing countries, the number of enrolments is rising steadily, and, what is more, in disciplines for which employment prospects are the worst. Recent international conferences have confirmed that the goal of universal access has become the general rule in the industrialized countries, where the enrolment rate of the age group most directly concerned (ages 17 to 23) is already reaching 30 to 80 per cent. Although the development of countries and regions would seem to imply training targeted at certain sectors and thus the promotion of certain disciplines not necessarily all of a university nature, students rush to enrol in the long general university courses still considered by many to be the most prestigious courses, a tendency often further encouraged by official civil service statutes and by regulations on recruitment and promotion mechanisms. In general, we can say that individual and social demand is the main driving force behind the universalization of access. Universal access tends to be the norm in most existing societies.

33. Although this expansion appears to imply a proportional increase in resources, states, and particularly those of developing countries, are proving increasingly unable to cope alone with the highly expensive development of higher education. In many countries the lecture halls are overcrowded, are not designed to accommodate so many students and do not deliver education in the right conditions. Staffing levels have not kept pace, and many establishments have been forced to reduce the number of sessions of practical work and even, in some cases, to abolish them. The imbalance between higher education institutions in the developed countries and those in the developing countries has increased dramatically: in the former, all students are increasingly provided with an e-mail address and access to the Internet; in the latter, not even the majority of teachers have this facility. Most higher education institutions in the developing countries find a very large share of their budget burdened by welfare costs (grants, canteens, accommodation, health care, etc) and have enormous difficulty in attending to the upkeep of facilities and renewing equipment in good time, and sometimes even in paying teachers’salaries.

34. This expansion without any proportional increase in resources has been accompanied by a growing number of failures. Higher education thus finds itself in a dilemma: to provide training for the greatest number in order to increase the overall educational level, or to strengthen selection mechanisms at all stages of entry.

35. The second paradox therefore still concerns the problem of expansion. While this should permit more equitable access, what happens in many cases is a strengthening of exclusion mechanisms.

36. Accepting a larger number should enable all those who have the ability and motivation (here we find the concept of ‘merit’ in its true sense) to enter higher education. It has to be stated that in many institutions this is not so. Thus, women, despite their increasing participation as students, are still under-represented in many institutions, and almost everywhere their numbers are grossly inadequate numbers in the scientific and technological subjects, at a time when unceasing emphasis is placed on the important role of women in development. Higher education institutions fail to set a good example: teachers and decision-makers as a whole are still mostly men, mainly in certain regions of the world. Low-income families cannot afford higher studies for their children because of the rising cost of such studies and the difficulty experienced by states in investing further. Restrictions on access by ethnic or religious minorities are a further problem in certain places, as also are those suffered by refugees from conflicts on various continents.

37. A third paradox concerns the simultaneous presence of an immense need to raise the educational level in order to increase the development level and the increase in unemployment among graduates.

38. Politicians and families in every country endeavour to raise educational levels. In highly developed countries, secondary education has become the general rule but, in addition, higher education has become a mandatory route for a majority of young people. In the developing countries, although the pattern is not quite the same, there is a desire to follow the same path, but the means are not available. Yet this desire is quite legitimate, since the connection between a country’s overall educational level and its development level stands in no need of proof.

39. A very recent phenomenon must, however, also be noted, namely, worsening unemployment among an increasing number of higher education graduates. This particularly affects certain developing countries where a higher education diploma used to be regarded as a passport to immediate employment in the civil service. As the result of a drop in the demand for civil servants and of structural adjustment policies, this road has narrowed, creating more and more out-of-work graduates and also causing the best brains to leave the country. This is particularly serious when we know the cost to the state of training a graduate. It doubtless also reflects inadequate planning, just as it calls into question the relevance of the training provided when graduates are unable to find a job or create their own employment.

40. The fourth paradox can be stated succinctly: too much state intervention and not enough state.

41. There is too much state intervention where the latter, realizing how much it is investing in higher education, seeks to control the use of its funds by imposing its own rules and interfering unwisely in curricula, in the recruitment of students and teachers (for example, pressure to accept a student or biased appointments and promotions), or in the allocation of resources, or by failing to observe its various commitments, including financial commitments, by the deadlines set and thus harming sound management.

42. But there is also too little state intervention when the latter has omitted to set itself a clear development policy for the country having regard to the local, national, regional and international context, when there has been no real consultation between the political and academic authorities about the role to be played in development by the higher education institutions, when there is no long-term perspective and when management by the state is essentially conducted from day to day and in reaction to events, i.e. mainly with an eye to the short term, when electoral considerations take precedence over the long-term interests of the community and when education in practical terms is not a priority.

43. Situations admittedly vary greatly from one country to another. Moreover, higher education institutions sometimes tend to strengthen unhealthy imbalances between the state and themselves. This is the case when they tend to confuse academic freedom and absence of accountability, accountability and control, academic freedom and individualism. This raises the whole question of autonomy and accountability both within the institution itself and between the state and the institution. The question is far from straightforward where private institutions are involved, particularly in countries where these abound.

44. A fifth paradox concerns the openness, lack of openness or isolation of higher education institutions: the need for internationalization but also for contextualization.

45. There has been a proliferation of university associations over the past few years: Association of African Universities, Association of Arab Universities, Association of Universities of Asia and the Pacific, Association of Commonwealth Universities, Association of European Universities, Association of Latin American Universities, Inter-American Organization for Higher Education. Numerous NGOs have been associated with UNESCO higher education work. The UNESCO UNITWIN/Chairs Programme (as of May 1998) has been able, by rallying support, to involve over 750 higher education institutions in 82 countries through 290 chairs and 30 networks. Student and teacher exchange projects have been arranged nearly everywhere in the world on the initiative not only of UNESCO but also of the most varied organizations, e.g. the UNAMAZ (Association of Amazonian Universities) network set up in 1987 and strengthened following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, the Association of Universities of the Montevideo Group, the COLUMBUS/ALFA network linking Latin America and Europe, the MEDCAMPUS Programme establishing contacts between the various countries of the Mediterranean basin, the numerous European programmes such as ERASMUS, LINGUA, COMMETT, SOCRATES, TEMPUS, ESPRIT, BRITE, SPRINT and ECLAIR, the UMAP Programme for exchanges among Asian countries, the AUPELF/UREF networks, the TOKTEN and TALVEN Programmes, the ISA network bringing together universities of the Atlantic islands, etc. This wealth of activities is the sign of a concern and need for internationalization resulting from numerous interacting factors: a knowledge explosion and the inability of any one institution to master all disciplines; research increasingly carried out in multidisciplinary teams and a need to concentrate the best specialists on a particular topic; competition in the various sectors both of education and of research and evaluation, leading to a greater quest for quality and thus an enhanced reputation; the necessity in certain sectors to have access to costly equipment and the resulting establishment of partnerships based on the complementarity of assets and skills; internationalization of the markets and a need to train students able to adapt to different environments.

46. Such international openness naturally raises many problems, such as the obligation to spell out the specifications of exchange programmes (aims, entrance requirements, content, assessment methods), to list the strong points of the institution to be proposed to the parties, to attempt to define comparable quality standards, and so on. This internationalization effort has had many positive effects. Yet it is not without danger since internationalization, if misunderstood, could cause institutions to try to gloss over certain unique features or to align courses on those of richer countries or more powerful institutions, when one of higher education’s tasks is to contribute to the development of its regional, national and even local context. Needs are far from being alike from one context to another. A paradox therefore arises inasmuch as internationalization and contextualization are both necessary. This is a challenge to be met, particularly at a time when the use of new technology can easily lead to one-way teaching in which students are viewed only as the end-products of a process.

47. A sixth paradox arises because while the majority of branches of IT originate in basic scientific research carried out in the universities and have been developed through research in the universities or in joint ventures with business, in practice they are still extremely under-utilized in teaching, which sticks to out-of-date traditions of imparting knowledge face to face irrespective of the ultimate purposes of the training. Here again we have a paradox: on the one hand openness to what is new, and on the other hand lack of openness, while noting that in this field, as in everything affecting the development of society, the big question continues to be the increasing gap between industrialized countries and the rest.

48. IT holds out remarkable possibilities of solving certain problems in higher education. Some concrete examples may be appropriate. In the past, training a future surgeon in micro-surgery of the ear involved a very heavy investment in staff and time, as the trainer was able to take only a small number of students into the operating theatre because of the limited field of vision; this meant a large number of sessions in order to cover a sufficient variety of cases. Nowadays, highly miniaturized cameras are available which are inserted into the ear and allow the operation to be filmed on the spot. A large number of students can therefore take part in such operations either as they happen or in recorded form and under infinitely better learning conditions than before. The possibility of digitalizing such films and storing them on a computer allows them to be very widely distributed, especially to medical schools whose resources are limited or which wish to use those resources for other purposes. Scientific magazines and books are very expensive, particularly for the developing countries the state of whose libraries often borders on the disastrous, and they suffer from the increasingly rapid obsolescence of the knowledge they contain. Because of the considerable progress made in data storage and the development of electronic networks, it is becoming possible to link all educational institutions to the computers they need, it being equally possible to devise schemes for distance learning and virtual universities. Teleconferences are becoming increasingly common in many countries and institutions.

49. However, in addition to a deliberate policy of furnishing the necessary means of access in a spirit of co-operation and solidarity, we have to be able to change mindsets and habits that make lecturing almost the exclusive method of teaching. Many universities have sunk enormous investment in multi-media equipment for their lecture halls and classrooms, but such equipment is often underutilized even where the visual aspect is semi-indispensable for teaching and even where personal interaction between student and subject of study object is more appropriate and less burdensome than listening to a lecture. There are many possible reasons for this resistance: force of habit, lack of training, fear of making a mistake as distinct from the feeling of security induced by the routine of lecturing, and, in particular, rigid management of the lecturer’s time in the short term. This last aspect is important: a lecture requires, or at least appears to require, much less preparation time; the use of multimedia, however, demands considerable effort and a long period of planning, and a completely different way of organizing teaching. Viewed thus, the lecturer’s work undergoes a radical change: from being someone who simply puts over a message he or she becomes a designer and manager of learning; in this way he confounds the saying that at university there is too much teaching and not enough learning. The role of the students, too, changes accordingly: they find themselves building up their knowledge and not simply absorbing it with a view to reproducing it as faithfully as possible. Here, higher education finds itself facing the need for a profound change.

50. A seventh paradox particularly concerns the universities and relates to their research task: the majority of teachers possess researcher status but, strange to say, there is much less actual research and even less ‘contextualized’ research in places where the need is greatest.

51. Research is one of the three basic tasks of the universities; in most of them, nearly all teachers claim, and officially obtain, the status of researcher, which is not the case in other higher education institutions of an exclusively professionalist nature. As this twentieth century ends, the universities are found to have lost their monopoly on scientific, and even basic, research. The multinational corporations are increasingly establishing their own research centres and more and more SMEs specialize in research and development. An increasing number of universities have reacted positively by creating science parks in their vicinity which attract and group together specialized centres of this nature, allowing partnerships useful to both sides to be established. More and more small, joint-stock, research and development companies are appearing in these science parks, the shareholders being the university and the private sector, sometimes joined by local, national or regional public bodies. This is a tendency which will doubtless increase in the years to come.

52. Certain universities have acquired a strong reputation in the research field by following a relevant scientific policy or through a policy of attracting researchers from all over in the world. This encourages a brain drain at the expense of less wealthy universities - a brain drain also caused fairly often, it must be admitted, by inadequate pay and professional prospects and by the lack of freedom in many countries - and thus actually helps to widen the gap between certain regions of the world because insufficient researchers return. Side by side with those universities, however, there is a host of others where researcher status is merely a hollow word. The reasons are many and mutually reinforcing: too many supervisory or teaching tasks for young researchers during their most creative years; absence of proper laboratories with just the right amount of staff, equipment and logistic facilities in quantitative and qualitative terms; little or no supervision by senior local academics; a cruel lack of documentation or difficulty in gaining access to computers; absence of funding; need to seek a spare-time job in order to feed the family. This situation is particularly common in the developing countries where, in addition, the requirements for ‘contextualized’ research (i.e. on pressing local problems) involving both the social sciences and science and technology are especially numerous. Paradoxically such research is entrusted to foreign graduates who are not always aware of the particular needs of that environment and who demand large salaries and expenses, which sometimes leads to recurring costs that are not easily funded. This should make us reconsider certain co-operation policies.

53. Thus higher education institutions are likewise in the throes of profound and complex change. Their contexts are extremely varied. So, therefore, are their needs and potential. The paradoxes are numerous. In the search for solutions it would be dangerous to ignore the various contradictions; choices cannot usually be expressed in terms of ‘either this or that’ but rather in terms of ‘both this and that depending on the context’, for visions and actions must be situated. Behind this plurality, however, lurk basic needs common to the whole of humanity. Thus, while visions and actions must be set in a context, they must be permeated above all else with a universal vision whose purpose is to bring about a more just and equitable society.

54. What are the foundations of a universal vision of higher education? They can be grouped together around ten closely interdependent, axiological principles forming an inseparable axiological whole, which following the theoreticians of gestalt theory could be described as a ‘good axiological form’. It is the universality of higher education, together with the fact that it takes place in a particular space and time, that constitutes the basis of these ten principles in accordance with the saying ‘Think globally and act locally’. The implications of these principles for a new pact in the field of higher education are described below in the four basic chapters of this document (Relevance, Quality, Management and Finance, International Co-operation).

55. This first axiological principle, which concerns equity, is in full agreement with Article 26 of the Declaration on Human Rights: ‘Everyone has the right to education (...): higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit’. In addition, the Convention against Discrimination in Education stipulates in Article 4, paragraph a): ‘make higher education equally accessible to all, on the basis of individual capacity’. Furthermore, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states in Article 13, paragraph 2 c): ‘Higher education shall be made equally accessible to all, on the basis of capacity, by every appropriate means and in particular by the progressive introduction of free education’. The principle of merit as understood here concerns not only students but also the academic staff of higher education institutions without distinction as to sex, religion, geographical, social or ethnic origin, political allegiance, lack of money or any other factor of discrimination. These principles confirm that access to higher education is one of the basic issues - if not the most important issue - in the process of reforming this level of education, since on it depend the policies of each country or government in this field. The reality is that inequalities regarding access persist in many countries and regions.

56. Education for all assumes that education does not stop with schooling but extends to every phase of life in order to give a fresh chance to those who have not benefited from it, to permit the process of updating necessitated by changed situations or simply to continue one’s personal development. Higher education must be viewed as a system of continuing education and training.

57. Education for all throughout life also means that higher education must take account of the characteristics of individuals and their circumstances. It must therefore provide suitable education and training facilities: part-time training, linked work and training, distance learning, capitalizable modules, virtual universities, decentralization of training groups. Higher education exists to serve individuals and not vice versa. It must therefore take risks, try out new arrangements, fertilize these new arrangements by exchanges of experience and make full use of the potential of new technology and distance learning.

58. It is not enough to train students or adults; higher education must go much further in educational task, i.e. it must contribute to the fulfilment of human beings in all their aspects and improve general well-being on this planet. As pointed out by the expert meeting in Toronto in April 1998, it is necessary to ‘reaffirm the central task of higher education of training and educating in a long-term perspective, not only with a view to short-term adjustment to the labour market but also for personal development and with an eye to a contribution by individuals to social and economic development through citizenship education and lifelong training’. A course is never neutral; it is therefore important to use it as a vehicle for humanist values. Training courses as a whole must be viewed as preparation for better living together; higher education institutions must therefore teach their students to be entreprising, to create opportunities and not to expect a job as a right.

59. As a fount of training, education, expertise and research, higher education must be careful to make its intellectual resources and independence of thought available for the purposes of vigilance and consciousness-raising. These two functions consist in identifying situations, in their various economic, social, political, scientific and technological components, in which the True and the Just are flouted. They consist in anticipating the consequences of such situations. They consist, finally, in studying tendencies which affect the future of society and the scenarios that are most likely to build better and sustainable development, bearing in mind the principle that the future is constructed less according to what is technically feasible than according to what is possible and desirable socially.

60. In all its activities, higher education seeks the true and must ceaselessly track down what is false, flush out fallacious arguments, and furnish proof of its statements. But it must also ceaselessly place all its activities at the service of what is just, i.e. what is in keeping with universal basic rights, in this case human rights, the rights of the child and rights concerning respect for nature and rights to a quality environment.

61. Faced with the perverse effects of poorly understood globalization and the dangers of unbridled – that is, uncivilized – capitalism, faced, too, with the rise of selfish interests and an all-pervading relativism, higher education must proclaim loudly and clearly a scale of universal values in which the universal ‘We’ takes precedence over ‘I’, in which science and technology are employed for the benefit of all humanity and not in the selfish interests of various powerful parties, and in which solidarity comes before competition. This role begins in the higher education institutions themselves, in their method of organization and in the climate which they create in their midst.

62. A culture of peace starts by respecting and making allowance for other people with all their differences, rights and duties. It implies participation, involvement, a sense of responsibility and respect for commitments. This culture of peace therefore begins within the institution itself. But working for a universal culture of peace also means that higher education must develop research on this theme (e.g. study the factors which trigger off murderous conflicts, wars, violence, disturbances, hatred, etc.) and devote an important place to it in its curriculum.

63. In addition to the strategic alliances necessitated by international competition and by a concern for effectiveness and efficiency, higher education must develop alliances based on solidarity. These must be true examples of solidarity and not relations of dominance of weak institutions by more powerful ones. Each partner has its own riches, which are not solely material, and shares them with an eye to complementarity and to a mutual quest for equity and quality. The UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs programme networks and the programmes of other organizations inspired by the same ideals must continue work in this spirit. It is important, too, that the universities of the North, which attract researchers from the developing countries and thereby contribute to the brain drain, should help such researchers return to the higher education institutions of those countries in a true spirit of solidarity.

64. In order to discharge the different tasks already mentioned and make itself available to all, higher education must be in a position to resist pressures which might cause it to swerve from its path. This does not mean that it should take refuge in an ivory tower; on the contrary, it must ensure that it has a clear understanding with the political authorities, who are responsible for proposing development projects, concerning the part that it will be playing in them, and that it is autonomous and responsible for the internal management of such projects; at the same time, it must arrange for clear accountability at the various internal and external levels regarding the results of its activities. Responsible autonomy and accountability are two inseparable aspects of clearly understood academic freedom.

65. A quest for quality and relevance have always been features of higher education. Essentially international while forming part of a particular context, it creates links with other institutions. This implies efforts to implement curricula and qualifications that are comparable - which does not mean that they should be uniform.

66. The one and the many are two inseparable facets of the True and Just; this is what underpins their universality. The City of Humanity can be built harmoniously only on such foundations. It cannot be built by the machinery of opposition, but rather through processes of differentiation, complementarity and solidarity. The same applies to the identity of local, national and regional communities. The World Conference should therefore take universality in differentiation as its overriding concern and thus seek to avoid the clashes and rifts of all kinds which are features of higher education on the world scene today and, more generaly, of society itself.

67. ‘The relevance of higher education is considered primarily in terms of its role and place in society, its functions with regard to teaching, research and the resulting services, as well as in terms of its links with the world of work in a broad sense, relations with the state and public funding and interactions with other levels and forms of education.’ (Change and Development in Higher Education: Policy Paper, UNESCO, page 8, section VI).

68. The question of relevance arises even more strongly during periods of change when paradoxical situations abound and when the forces in society pull different ways. At such times, higher education must more than ever play a fundamental role by placing all its resources and its spirit of independence in the service of what is relevant to humanity and society in general.

69. The role of politicians is first of all to define the broad outlines of an overall development policy for the zone (province, country or region) for which they are responsible and to ensure consistency between the various development sectors and components. One of the essential functions of higher education is to give politicians, members of governments and also parliaments the relevant information stemming from their research activities, so that all parties concerned may make the proper choices in full knowledge of the facts.

70. When politicians and higher education meet, both must be clear about their roles: that of the politician is to make choices and to decide on guidelines on the basis of well-founded opinions; the role of higher education is to analyse, evaluate and anticipate according to criteria of truth and justice. Higher education fails in its duty when it neglects its functions of vigilance and consciousness-raising or fails to analyse the major issues confronting society.

71. Analyses and evaluations of changes in society and of the effects of policies mean that higher education must attribute great importance to consultation and to the critical analysis of data bases when they are available or to the establishment of such data bases when they are lacking. Here again, higher education must ensure that partnership agreements are struck with the authorities concerned by such data bases and must clarify with those authorities the ethical rules for their use.

72. The role of politicians is also to allocate the resources they manage in a manner consistent with the main guidelines laid down, and equitably between the various sectors. In a world where the pressures of economic liberalism are very strong, the politician must ensure that resources are properly shared between the economic and social sectors so that the economic side serves the social side and not vice versa. For its part, higher education must realize that if it undertakes its tasks properly it will be a very important vehicle for economic and social development. For it is higher education that trains the leaders of tomorrow. From its midst are recruited most decision-makers and politicians. It is responsible for training the majority of teachers, educators and researchers. It is therefore entitled to claim the resources needed to address such important tasks, just as the politician is entitled to demand an account of the share taken up by higher education in the country’s development, given the available resources. This meeting against a background of mutual responsibility should, as demanded by those attending the Palermo Regional Conference, be the subject of a ‘new and explicit educational contract between the different partners, setting out rights and responsibilities for all concerned’ (Results, pages 11-12).

73. Among the obstacles to a harmonious meeting between the state and higher education must be mentioned the often cumbersome nature of the legal and juridical structures governing higher education. The regional conferences mentioned the inertia of certain administrations, the slowness of reactions, the fussiness of certain checks and even pressures from some authorities to obtain privileges. In some regions of the world where private higher education is highly developed, a marked imbalance is found between public institutions, which are often subject to such dysfunctionality, and private institutions, which are highly flexible in their operation and insufficiently restrained by the demands of overall harmonization policy. The Havana Regional Conference called for a reform of legal and juridical structures and for consultation at regional level leading to their harmonization (Havana, para 8).

74. The globalization of the world economy, the increasing size of multinational companies, their international influence and the increasing difficulty of maintaining their policies, the modernization of production processes involving an increase in the educational level of an increasingly large part of the labour force and the headlong advance of technology bringing with it a need for lifelong training represent changes which are bringing higher education into increasingly frequent contact with the world of work.

75. One of the first fruits of such contact lies in the fact that the business world can bring to higher education its entrepreneurial spirit, its concern for effectiveness and efficiency, its feeling for competition and its attention to skill; conversely, the world of higher education can contribute to business the wisdom stemming from its legendary impartiality regarding phenomena and appearances, its power to look ahead and concern for the long term, the multiplier effects of the results of its basic research and its concern for the universality of what is true and just for the development of a more harmonious world.

76. As their very existence is liable to be affected from day to day, businesses are accustomed to adapt to changes in the market, and they even try to nudge it in a direction favourable to them. The higher education institutions, particularly those in the public domain, have no such powerful incentives. This is particularly true as regards the task of teaching (competition between leading-edge research centres, however, is very strong). Yet it is essential that higher education should adapt to changes in the world of work, although without losing its special identity and its priorities regarding the long-term needs of society.

77. One of the first changes concerns curricula, which are too often directed at piling up knowledge. While there was a time not too long ago when one person could master all the knowledge existing in a particular field, this is now impossible: knowledge in chemistry doubles in less than six years; in informatics it doubles in less than five months. It is necessary for ‘the emphasis now placed on the transmission of knowledge …’ to ‘switch to the process for generating it’. (Havana, Declaration, para. 6). Similarly, participants in the African regional conferences said that ‘It would be more profitable to define educational programmes henceforth in terms of expected outcomes and not simply in terms of facts to be transmitted and reproduced’: they wanted ‘genuine education programmes…’; in their view, the priority aims of programmes should be formulated in terms of ‘analysis of complex situations, teamwork, higher cognitive skills, the inculcation of responsible citizenship and the development of a culture of peace’ (Dakar, para. 21).

78. More than ever, higher education must adopt a reactive and proactive attitude towards the labour market by analysing, forecasting and preparing for the emergence of new areas and forms of employment. Here, too, university research must acquire data bases in order to observe, analyse and anticipate trends in the world of work more effectively (Tokyo, para. 8). ‘Observatories’ can be created to monitor short and long-term trends and needs in this field (Beirut).

79. Side by side with major companies with subsidiaries in many countries, there are numerous SMFs providing a multiplicity of jobs. While more difficult to study because of their numbers, varied nature and less formal status, they are still an important field of economic activity in both the developed and the developing countries. Higher education should give them more importance and promote more constructive relations with them (Palermo, para. 22). Likewise, highly developed informal economies in the poorest countries should be another important field of study with the aim of better understanding their emergence, the way they operate, the way they develop in-house skills, their contribution to the country’s development or under-development, the values of solidarity or, conversely, the exploitation phenomena to which they give rise.

80. Partnerships with firms both great and small are increasingly necessary at both basic-training and continued training levels, the latter being destined to assume even greater scope in the future. The joint organization of training courses, cost sharing for certain types of training, linked work and training, the mutual lending of both human and material resources and technological transfers represent potential fields for partnership to be developed in a spirit of respect for the specific characteristics of each partner’s tasks (Tokyo, paras. 8 and 9). This means helping to train graduates who, having learnt to learn and undertake, are in a position to generate their own jobs (Havana, para. 6). It means encouraging higher education to develop projects which will assist the creation of new businesses (Tokyo, para 8). ‘Business incubator enterprises must be established with support from governments, the productive and service sectors and local communities (Beirut). It means further promoting the recruitment of local graduates by international companies and contributing in this way to the reduction of unemployment among higher education graduates (Havana, para 6). But it also means imbuing the enterprise concerned with a desire to put people and society, and not just financial considerations alone, at the centre of economic activity.

81. With a few rare exceptions, the initial training of teachers and many social workers is the responsibility of higher education. This is an important responsibility involving an active approach aimed at bringing higher education into touch with the other levels of the education system so as to form an ‘educational chain’ (Palermo, section II). This contact becomes necessary if we want the education system to form a consistent whole whose subsystems or levels are structured around a common educational project which is itself geared to the interests of a project for harmonious and sustainable development over space and time. A permanent concern of all parties should be the necessity for high-quality basic education accessible to all and secondary education that will help prepare students to take courses at higher levels, as well as to give them immediate training for active life by qualifying them to embark on a broad spectrum of activities.

82. Given the given impact of the role of education in development, academic research must take as one of its priorities the analysis and assessment of the various levels of the education system in close touch with the world of work without subordinating itself to it, and as part of a blueprint for society in which humanity and the collective well-being are the centre of attention. Such research must be essentially multidisciplinary because the economic and social components are closely linked; we must therefore not underestimate the importance of developing high-quality research in the social sciences on this basis (Palermo, section III).

83. One of the meeting-points between higher education and the other education levels is, undeniably, continuous teacher training. Knowledge is evolving at an ever-increasing pace; teachers need refresher courses. Contexts and needs change and the school cannot remain indifferent. IT is invading all areas of life; it is therefore becoming a basic tool in which education is necessary as early as primary school. Networks are multiplying in all sectors; schools must organize themselves accordingly with the assistance of higher education experts. Pedagogical research has made enormous strides in recent decades and it is for the higher education institutions to pass on the results acquired through a deliberate policy of ongoing training.

84. Culture is universal, one and plural. Culture is not a gift but is built up in space and time. It is a constant quest for the true, the beautiful and the just in places of all types and in never identical epochs. It is a heritage which must not be lost and the quest for which must list it as a precious asset; it is also a heritage which must be dispersed more widely and made to yield fruit in order to press ahead with the quest for the universal through this plurality of forms (Tokyo, para. 1). Science, education and culture are inseparable, as proclaimed in the UNESCO Charter.

85. Just as the identity of every healthy human being is built up through a complex process of identification and differentiation and not of fusion with the Other, so the identity of a healthy human community is built up through a process both of identification with a specific culture and of differentiation, not opposition, with respect to other cultures. Just as a fulfilled person is a being who is constantly evolving, so a specific culture is not fixed but is built up by contact with other cultures. More than ever, higher education must get together with other cultures in order to help build culture in its universal aspect: ultimately, a culture of peace.

86. At Jomtien in 1990, the final declaration expressed the hope that education for all would be a reality by the year 2000. However, even though school attendance rates have risen overall, they are stagnating and even falling back in certain regions of the world where structural adjustment policies have been carried out at the expense of social needs and where genocidal campaigns have led to the disappearance of up to 50% of the teaching body. Yet the need and demand for education are growing remorselessly under the twofold pressure of population growth in the developing regions and the desire to raise the overall educational level for the sake of better development and an assured place in world competition. ‘Population projections suggest that the world population will continue to increase from the present figure of around 5.5 billion to a population of between 11 and 14 billion by the end of the next century. Although average population growth rates are declining worldwide, the present populations continue to rise in developing regions where efforts to reduce fertility levels have met with limited success. Unless rapid population growth can be reduced, additional pressure will be put on natural and environmental resources and governance problems will increase’ … ‘Over the past two decades, higher education has undergone dramatic and quite fundamental change and many of the forces which produced these changes continue to operate. Particularly important have been quantitative expansion in student enrolments, funding constraints and privatization, reorganization of systems and diversification in structures and changes in curriculum design and delivery.’ (Vessuri, Working Document on Pertinence, p 2).

87. The challenges are therefore enormous, especially as the preparatory regional conferences, while calling for the most extensive democratization, urge that ‘Member States should take on principal responsibility for funding for higher education… We strongly advise that the economic conditions of families be taken into consideration and that the only criteria for access or non-access should be merit.’ (Dakar, para. 40). The Latin American Conference stressed the need to ‘ensure that advanced education is universal, that it offers a high quality and that it is permanently subject to revision, so as to increase the spaces for new generations’. (Havana, Action Plan, para. 5). At Beirut it was stated that special measures were required in order to facilitate access by those engaged in active life or who had dropped out.

88. Access for all combined with the need to promote lifelong education calls for greater flexibility and considerable diversification in higher education training arrangements. ‘Governments must expand and diversify opportunities for every citizen to benefit from higher-level skills, training, knowledge and information which are the qualifications for entry into the world of work.’ (Tokyo, Action Plan, para 5). This diversification must take varied forms: ‘…greater emphasis on a regionalization of specific disciplines. This could be a means of getting institutions to serve the specific needs of disadvantaged areas and groups. These programmes should target specific needs that will generate employment or create jobs: training programmes and structures should be flexible in order to adapt rapidly to changing needs. It would also be necessary to develop (in consultation with appropriate stakeholders) a wider variety of short duration programmes’ (Dakar, para 18). ‘Modern information and communications technology provides considerable promise to enhance teaching and learning in higher education by both on-campus and distance education students, and disabled students who tend to be denied access to … technical and scholarly information resources, and to facilitate communications among researchers and teachers … Already the notion of the virtual university is being actively explored within the region. At the same time, harnessing this technology will require considerable investment in hardware, software and staff development, while deliberate efforts to ensure that the human and social interaction elements are not undervalued’. (Tokyo, Declaration, para 3).

89. Getting together everywhere by all means and at all times. ‘The nature itself of contemporary knowledge – in a process of constant renewal and most sudden and dramatic growth – fully agrees with the current notion of permanent education … permanent education should also enable any person – at whatever stage of his/her life – to go back to the classrooms and find in them the opportunity to be a part of the academic life once again’. (Havana, Declaration, para 5) …’new policies and new paradigms for higher education founded on such concepts as … lifelong education’ (Tokyo, Plan, first para.). ‘Establishments will have to turn into pertinent centres for facilitating professions to be up to date, duly retrained and reconverted. Hence they will have to offer a solid training in the basic disciplines, along with a wide diversification of programmes and studies, intermediate diplomas and links between courses and subjects. (Havana, Plan, para 3). This permanent education implies that ‘it is essential to define the links in the overall ‘educational chain’ and the relations between them so that individuals can independently manage their learning at whatever level’. (Palermo, section II). This also implies ‘a new approach to curriculum development, taking into account multi- and inter-disciplinarity and flexibility of choice but in a coherent system which allows for modularization, credit transfer, the validation of work experience and the organization of the academic year in semesters’. (Palermo, section II, seventh para ). Programmes must be organized so as to stimulate the entrepreneurial abilities of students based on flexible, innovating and interdisciplinary approaches. (Beirut)

90. Getting together with the student is more than a problem of access; it is also one of genuinely meeting the student as an evolving person and being.

91. Beyond the formal curricula, the environment in which the student moves is an educational or anti-educational factor. A dirty environment is no sort of training in environmental concern or a feeling for the beautiful. An environment where a frantic spirit of competition prevails does not educate in solidarity. An environment where teachers do not respect their commitments (unjustified absences, delays, etc) does not educate in responsibility. Higher educational institutions must be designed and managed as educational spaces and not only as places of training (Dakar, para. 21).

92. ‘A changing society demands people to have a comprehensive, general and professional education. The latter must encourage the development of a person as a whole and should favour his/her personal growth, autonomy, socialization and the skills to turn the assets that perfect it into elements having real value.’ (Havana, Plan, para. 3).

This integral training and the acquisition of an entrepreneurial spirit begin with the active participation of the students not only in education activities but also in the management and life of higher education institutions: ‘… student involvement in decision-making bodies should be given a considerable boost …’ (Dakar, para. 47). Higher education institutions must be made more aware of students’ concerns by taking their needs into account and adopting measures enabling them to play an active part in decision-making processes in the institutions (Beirut).

93. Teachers are primary resources on which depend to a great extent the relevance and quality of higher education within its three basic tasks: teaching, research and services. Meeting the needs of teachers so that they can perform their tasks is therefore fundamental in accordance with the Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher education Teaching Personnel approved by the General Conference of UNESCO in November 1997.

94. This means, first of all, managing careers (selection, appointment, advancement, promotion) on the basis of merit, i.e. of profiles of required skills. ‘Governments, Parliaments and institutions of higher education should pay particular attention to the draft Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher education Teaching Personnel’ … (Tokyo, Plan, para. 19).

95. Next, this means enabling them to maintain and update their knowledge through various initiatives, such as sabbatical years, study tours, time spent at centres of excellence, attendance at scientific meetings, networking, access to the IT. It also means allowing them to acquire the new skills required by developments in higher education. ‘The shift from teaching to learning implies self-managed learning, a coaching role for the teacher … a new definition of scholarship balancing discovery and transmission, as well as the integration and application of knowledge. A crucial lever for change is a creative and well-defined personnel policy which opens up teaching as a career, supported by appropriate staff development programmes. Particular attention should be paid to the promotion of opportunities for women, including in top positions in higher education’ (Palermo, II, fifth para.).

96. Personnel management necessarily involves the introduction of a culture of assessment but this must be done in a spirit of willingness to meet the other side halfway and take the general background into account, and thus in a spirit of instructive dialogue. Self-assessment must accompany external assessment, there must be attention to facts and results and not judgement about individuals, there must be discussion with the persons concerned of the meaning to be attached to the results, negotiation of the decisions to be taken and contracts agreed, without forgetting follow-up.

97. The potential impact of higher education on a country’s development stands in no further need of proof. Imbalances between the various regions of the world are increasing. Within the developing countries in particular, imbalances of all sorts (between urban and rural areas, between the sexes, between minorities and majorities, etc.) are persisting or becoming more acute. Higher education institutions do not possess the financial and human resources to respond in isolation and with a quality level sufficient to meet all needs and demands. A joint internationalization and contextualization policy is therefore necessary at both the education and research levels.

98. Internationalization implies increased networking, which means that institutions must carry out a whole series of operations and communicate the results among themselves by making use of advances in information and communication technology: identification of strong and weak sectors in the field of both education and research (both tasks are closely linked); the grading of local and national needs according to importance; identification of priority needs which can be met with the existence of an adequate critical mass of resources in quantitative and qualitative terms and, conversely, those that cannot be met; identification of potential complementarities inside and outside the country; development of a policy which, instead of scattering resources, focuses them on the creation of local, national or international centres of excellence situated in one and the same place or operating on an exchange basis or even at a distance, as the case may be; a policy of linking these centres of excellence around a coherent project conceived as a development process lasting several years.

99. Such internationalization, however, must go hand in hand with contextualization, i.e. the taking into account of the presence of important specific goals, of standards specific to certain contexts, and of differentiated conditions for accomplishing the tasks of education and research.

100. Excessive emphasis on applied research in response to immediate needs is liable to dry up the principal source for the development of knowledge and its transfer to applied research and research and development. An over-emphasis on basic research means taking the risk of isolating oneself from the needs of the world of work and society or assigning this task exclusively to bodies whose concern for short-term profitability does not help sustainable development; it also means ignoring the increasingly obvious fact that the distinction between the two types of research is becoming ever more tenuous and that numerous questions of fundamental research arise from problems originally posed by applied research (see Dakar, para. 24 and Palermo III, first para.).

101. By the same token, higher education must pay greater heed to mixing the various disciplines. ‘Genuinely interdisciplinary research spawns the new disciplines of tomorrow and is more likely to be relevant to industrial opportunities and the resolution of industrial or societal problems. One challenge is how to stimulate interdisciplinary research proactively when institutions are normally organized on discipline-based departments and when much external evaluation reinforces this, by itself reviewing disciplines and implicitly discouraging interdisciplinary connections. The rigid disciplinary boundaries between the hard sciences and the social sciences and the humanities that limited the comprehension of the fundamental processes of nature and society are already breaking down in some fields. There must be a stimulus to the creation of interdisciplinary programmes, and resources must be ensured for collaborative research among different disciplines and involving groups around thematic projects’ (Vessuri, Working Document on Pertinence, p.11). Moreover, as pointed out by experts from the Council of Europe meeting in July 1998 (working document ‘Higher Education and Research), ‘By becoming the main source of wealth for individuals and nations, science is giving higher education an increasing role in lifelong education, while simultaneously its cumulatively segregative character requires higher education to provide a counterweight to its economist tendency.’

102. Sustainable human development cannot be brought into being without the existence of a culture of peace in places and at times at which wars, massacres, disturbances and disputes are sapping the economy, generating insecurity and strengthening imbalances. Conversely, a culture of peace cannot develop in contexts where development levels are tending to stagnate or even fall back, and where private short-term interests take precedence over the quest for sustainable human development for all. ‘Institutions of higher education should adopt a proactive policy in this connection and invest all their energy into fighting poverty, environmental degradation, discrimination of all kinds, and the ravages of conflicts’ (Dakar, para 50). ‘Higher education establishments have a key role to play … by contributing to equitable and sustainable development and to the culture of peace … actively promoting intellectual and moral solidarity’ (Palermo, I, 1^st para). ‘On the basis of respect for human rights, active citizen participation and mutual respect’ (Beirut).

103. ‘The requirement for quality has become a major concern in higher education. This is because meeting society’s needs and expectations towards higher education depends ultimately on the quality of its staff, programmes and students, as well as its infrastructure and academic environment. The search for ‘quality’ has many facets and the principal objective of quality enhancement measures in higher education should be institutional as well as system-wide improvement’ (UNESCO, Change and Development in Higher Education, XV)

104. Quality is not easy to define. The quality of higher education is a multidimensional concept. As stressed by Donald Ekong, one approaches it through the composite concept of ‘quality assurance’, which implies that ‘All the policies, systems and processes are directed to ensuring the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of educational provision within an institution. A quality assurance system is the means by which an institution confirms to itself and to others that the conditions are in place for students to achieve the standards that the institution has set’ (Ekong, Policy Paper on Quality)

105. Defined in this way, the concept of quality assurance implies that quality can be understood as adaptation to what is required by the institution, i.e. that the goals set have been reached in a manner consistent with fixed quality criteria. This definition is still very relative and leaves the door open to different interpretations as to the level required, owing to the diversity of tasks and goals and also to the influence of contextual factors on the choice and practicability of performance criteria.

106. These considerations and the analyses made at the regional conferences lead to the conclusion that ‘quality is inseparable from social relevance’ (Chitoran and Dias), that is, it is a quest for solutions to society’s needs and problems, particularly those connected with the building of a culture of peace and sustainable development. They also lead to the conclusion that quality is not centred exclusively on products but also on the processes initiated by the system when it operates as a coherent whole in order to ensure this social relevance.

107. If, as regards the world of work, we have to say that the chief wealth of leading-edge enterprises lies in the quality of their human capital, this is all the more true for higher education establishments, so complex and demanding are the tasks (education, research and services) required of them. On the part of teachers and researchers they demand not only particularly great ability but also involvement and ethical values meeting the requirements of a quality directed at social relevance.

108. A quality assurance policy therefore means identifying the required skill and attitude profiles before laying down a policy of teacher and researcher selection based essentially on merit, and applying it rigorously. But this also means managing careers so that progressively evolving needs match the available skill and attitude profiles, which calls for policies for the continuous training of teachers and researchers and the appropriate back-up strategies.

109. A quality assurance policy also implies working to motivate staff. This starts with a policy of conferring on teachers a suitable social and financial status comparable with their opposite numbers in industry (Wilson, Palermo, Results of Case Studies, para. 5). This furthermore implies policies to counter certain imbalances and develop ‘well-articulated policies, remove gender inequity in education and, more importantly, promote the advancement of women in the entire society. This should include measures implemented by the institutions of higher education themselves. We suggest that meaningful affirmative action be taken in all possible directions. Women’s associations and networks should be fully supported. A systematic and coherent policy of gender research and case studies should be implemented and their findings widely published…’ (Dakar, para. 45).

110. As a result of the various developments in society and the higher education institutions, staff quality is going to depend increasingly on two types of major change. The first change concerns the training of teachers, who are increasingly having to adopt more innovative and interactive teaching ideas and methods, to use the resources offered by the new IT and to encourage their students to use them. ‘Teachers and professors … must be offered a training that enables them to integrate the use of ITs to their teaching programmes. This training will prepare them to act as multipliers of the use of these technologies’. (Havana, Plan, Com. 4, para. 2). The second change concerns the introduction of incentives and structures requiring researchers to work in multidisciplinary teams focusing on thematic projects and thus to abandon their habits of working exclusively in solitary isolation.

111. ‘Insufficient attention, and insufficient resources for research’ (Dakar, para. 9) is one of the worrying problems which higher education must tackle and whose nature varies with the region. In the developing countries, the burdens of teaching and supervision are sometimes such that high-quality research is impossible and researcher status is an empty word or is useful only for demanding additional funds. In certain very-low-income countries, the living conditions of teachers/researchers are such that moonlighting takes up the bulk of the time of those doing research. In the more developed countries, the problems are different: some teachers divest themselves of their teaching duties because research is better for their career and because scientific criteria are the main factors in appointments and promotions. Others have chosen to invest first and foremost in teaching for reasons of personal preference or because of difficulties in doing research, depending on the case. If such an investment is not properly recognized by the establishment in its career management, the establishment will find that it is harbouring a great many frustrated individuals who may have a negative effect on a high-quality research policy.

112. These are worrying problems. The Palermo regional conference ‘called for a re-examination of the applicability of this Humboldtian principle, i.e. the necessary link between research and teaching, to all academics in all institutions’ (Ekong, Paper on Quality, p. 11) In addition to the reasons we have just mentioned there is another argument: ‘There is an increasing trend of evaluation of research quality being linked to allocation of research resources, with the object of "selectivity" or concentration of resources to departments or institutions where the research is perceived to be of higher quality’ (Ekong, ibid, p.12) This deserves close attention in order not to generate a whole series of perverse effects.

113. An increasing number of factors have an impact on the need to modify curricula and can therefore affect their quality: the knowledge explosion and the burgeoning of new disciplines; the increasing need to adopt a multi- and trans-disciplinary approach in order to understand natural and societal phenomena; diversification and regionalization of education courses; the proliferation of short courses and the need to provide crossovers between the various short and long courses; the desire for greater social relevance in a changing world. These pressures compel higher education to adopt three major types of qualitative change in their curricula: changes in goals, in methods and in the structure of curricula as they relate to one another.

114. Comparable goals and standards are important and concern both basic training and education in values consistent with the axiological principles set out in Chapter 1 and with the need for social relevance which has been frequently referred to. Basic training must not be viewed simply as the accumulation of knowledge but must be directed at acquiring skills, the chief ones for each student being: their ability to mobilize their knowledge and related skills in order to analyse complex situations, resolve the problems they pose, be capable of teamwork, be capable of providing logical justification for their choices and show foresight. Value education will develop the capability and habit of reacting as a bona fide committed intellectual and as a responsible and co-operative citizen in order to build sustainable development and a culture of peace.

115. To ensure that such basic education and training are of high quality, it is important for them to be rooted in real-life settings and not to be just a formal exercise that has no meaning and is non-transferable. The place where training takes place and its immediate environment are the initial means of exercising the aforementioned skills and attitudes and thus of responding to the explicit or implicit demands of the environment. The networking of physical or virtual exchanges provides more extensive possibilities, making it possible to attain universality through comparison with other contexts and thereby also to reach a better understanding of the specific features of local contexts. Students thus learn, together with the partner institutions, to pinpoint common goals and specific goals more accurately and to distinguish more clearly between what is transferable as such and what must be adapted.

116. While the quality of curricula is contingent on the quality of goals, it is also highly dependent on the quality of teaching methods. As a result of mass education - without any proportional increase in resources - and the use of new technology, higher education faces the temptation to make greater use of transmissive teaching in large groups, which it is difficult to reconcile with the goals set out above. To meet the increasingly crucial challenge ‘to respond to the mass phenomenon and not diminish, and even increase quality’, this means a big effort of imagination by higher education. Methods which involve students more deeply in the management of their learning and the use of certain facilities offered by IT, whether in real time or at a distance, are routes which should be explored and cross-fertilized through exchanges of experience.

117. With increasing openness to training throughout life and in different places, curricula will have to adapt teaching methods to the characteristics of the population concerned: an adult with professional experience does not react in the same way as a young person just out of adolescence; an adult sent by his or her firm to acquire skills relating to a change of job does not have the motivation or needs of an unemployed adult who comes to study of his or her own volition in the hope of acquiring qualifications that will be useful.

118. The increasing openness towards greater flexibility and lifelong learning schemes is leading, and will increasingly lead, higher education institutions to carry out a fundamental re-consideration of their curriculum structures so as to create a linkage, or an ‘interstructuring’, of curricula.

119. Against the background of a growing internationalization of curricula, higher education is being compelled to re-think the ways in which it organizes its curricula; it no longer does this in isolation but in conjunction with other institutions, and taking into account the increasing readiness to accept lifelong training. It is therefore necessary to continue the effort begun by the student and teacher exchange networks to define more explicit conditions for entering and leaving curricula and programmes that are open to exchanges.

120. Students form the raw material of higher education and are therefore a precondition for its quality. Access to higher education must therefore be governed by the merit principle, i.e. by the right skills profile. ‘Determined efforts are necessary to increase access to higher education, especially for currently poorly represented groups. Distance education and open learning can play a major role in widening access’ (Tokyo, Declaration, para. 9). Efforts are likewise needed to increase access to higher education ‘for all groups in society’ (Beirut).

121. Higher education must therefore increase the number of initiatives in order to ‘guarantee the principle of universal access’ (Havana, Plan, para. 4) and governments must establish positive-discrimination policies for those with fewer opportunities or in order to redress certain balances. The Latin American and Caribbean Regional Conference even goes as far as to call for ‘free higher education in order to improve equity and ensure an adequate quality and effectiveness of studies’ (Havana, Plan, para. 4). This demand, which is based on a literal interpretation of a clause in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 13, para 2c), has financial implications and raises particularly acute problems in regions of the world where the states’ public debt is particularly large.

122. Access to higher education by all students who merit it implies consultation with the secondary education sector and with the bodies involved in the transition from secondary education to higher education. Such consultation must take place in a spirit of mutual co-operation so that the ‘educational chain’ (Palermo, II, second para.) is strong and leads to high-quality secondary and higher education. An ‘observatory’ storing information on the follow-up of secondary students as they pursue their university careers would be particularly useful for providing the two types of establishment with useful pointers on how to improve the quality of education, ensure an improved policy of access according to merit, and look out for imbalances between sub-populations with different characteristics so that access is made more equitable. Higher education must collaborate on improving secondary education, ensuring that pupils leaving school at that level have mastered the necessary life skills, including those needed to pursue higher studies (Beirut).

123. Student quality viewed in a spirit of greater equity implies that educational establishments must not confuse ‘elite’ and ‘merit’. The concept of elite indicates a quest for the particular, while the concept of merit indicates a quest for the universal.

124. Student quality also implies that students must not be left to their own devices during their studies but must be active participants in the life and management of the institution in order to develop an enterprising spirit, a feeling of responsibility and a culture of solidarity. It is important, furthermore, for institutions to set up structures that will provide social, psychological and educational guidance and assistance, so that students with problems can feel that there is solidarity and a determination to ensure that all those who deserve it reach the end of their training.

125. The quality of education and research assumes the existence of an adequate physical infrastructure that matches needs. It also assumes, however, that such infrastructure is maintained and managed in the best possible way in the institution’s interests, and not mainly for the convenience of the managers.

126. These conditions are far from being met in too many higher education institutions. In some institutions in developing countries, the libraries are now no more than book deposits dating back more than ten years; laboratories are rooms with out-of-date equipment which is particularly useless because the basic items for experiments are lacking; lecture halls are designed for half or one third of the numbers using them; paper is a rare commodity which it requires long, costly and often fruitless efforts to obtain.

127. The quality of infrastructure will depend in the future on the attention paid by higher education establishments to the development of the new IT, distance learning and the virtual university. The initial outlay for their use is substantial. The investment needed to keep up with their headlong development is by no means negligible. The funding of research in this field calls for large sums and thus for access to the foundations, which are increasingly tending to redirect their investment to a few recognized centres of excellence, especially in the industrialized countries. All these considerations explain the disarray among those who see the gap between rich and poor regions widening. While they recognize the importance of IT in improving the quality and relevance of higher education, they find it difficult to see how, without massive aid in conjunction with genuine co-operation between the state and external funding sources, establishments will be able to resolve problems as ordinary as: ‘the scarcity and high cost of equipment, software and information in comparison with the North; lack of accessible telecommunications infrastructure; the telecommunications monopoly joined to over-regulation and high cost; instability of the electricity supply in many countries; lack of networks and interregional co-operation’ (Dakar, para. 13). However, if it is borne in mind that IT is already producing radical changes in learning methods (Beirut), priority will clearly have to be given to this topic.

128. It is still worth stressing that the new technology opens up extraordinary prospects for learning and for the diversification of institutions, but the latter must bear in mind that, while it alters relations between teachers and students, it does not eliminate the need for direct contact between student and teacher and among students themselves, who depend on this interaction for their social development.

129. Besides the quantity and quality of infrastructure, attention must be drawn to the quality of the living environment in the higher education institution and to the quality of the external environment. While the educational institution is a place of training which must stimulate students to take responsibility for their training, it is also a place of education: the living environment must bear tangible witness to the concern for what is beautiful (architectural design, room for the cultural dimension), true (unhindered access by students to data bases, places for debate) and just (participation in social projects, solidarity movements). But the university cannot be an inward-looking island; interactions between the internal and external environment must be creative, such as the reciprocal relations between campus and town, the pooling of certain resources, exchanges of data bases, and telecommunication networks. Such partnerships must be aimed at creating a mutual quest for quality in the interests of improved development.

130. Quality and quality-assurance concepts increasingly go together with concepts of assessment and assessment culture, as mentioned by all the regional conferences. By analogy with the concept of quality control dear to businesses in recent decades, the concept of assessment has been too narrowly equated with monitoring the relationship between actual and required performance. Nowadays, however, assessment is interpreted more broadly to denote a process of gathering and processing of relevant, sound and reliable data so as to enable the parties concerned to take the necessary decisions in order to improve actions and results. Assessment as a form of control is an excessively static and restrictive process which is perceived as penalizing; assessment as a decision-making aid is more dynamic and transparent and is seen as having a training function. Control is too often seen as a judgement on individuals; assessment, on the other hand, relates to collective actions and results which must be constantly improved and made more relevant.

131. Thus, if we wish to meet the challenges to higher education throughout the world, a culture of evaluation must be established and reinforced in all institutions (Tokyo, Plan). This therefore means that goals must be clearly explained by and with the parties concerned in liaison with higher authority in order to make sure that the specific goals are consistent as a whole. This also implies that these goals are expressed as relevant and observable indicators for the efficient collection of data.

132. This culture of assessment and self-assessment must be introduced and strengthened at all levels, from the students to the highest authorities, including teachers (these are still more accustomed in too many institutions to assess rather than to self-assess or be assessed) and researchers (where genuine research exists, there exists also a culture of assessment also exists which is carried out by the scientific community). But the institution must also introduce a culture of assessment both overall and with reference to the external, social and professional environment, in order to answer the following crucial question: does the institution contribute through its educational, research and service activities to the sustainable human development of the environment in which it is situated?

133. An assessment culture entails the setting up of banks of sometimes recurring data in order to analyse how the effects of actions change over time; other data are of a one-off nature, being targeted at specific actions which have a location in time and space but form part of an overall project. The gathering, management and analysis of these data bases consume energy, money and time. It is therefore important to ensure ‘a balance between the costs and the level of quality improvement achieved’ (Ekong, page 11).

134. A culture of assessment means a culture of regulation, i.e. a shared and interdependent study on the basis of a compendium of relevant information, of the strategies needed to improve the effectiveness of the operations launched or, if necessary, to readjust the goals and actions. A regulation culture essentially involves a culture of participation by those concerned by a project.

135. Participation begins with participation by the students. It answers a dual purpose: firstly training, since it is impossible to imbue them with an enterprising culture without involving them in their training project, and secondly, opening-up to the outside world. The passion, generosity and even idealism of youth are essential forces which complement those of adults, who can help them with their experience and know-how in introducing key ideas and putting them into practical effect. Ideas govern the world, but know-how is needed to translate them into action and results.

136. A regulation culture entails the creation of communication facilities in the institution, with the participation of all concerned. All too often, malfunctions occur in the system for want of communication. All too often, the steps taken to deal with them prove ineffective because there was no real prior consultation. Yet it is not sufficient to create communication structures. Such structures are too often misused: participants arrive misinformed or inadequately informed; the structures become talking shops designed to consolidate or demonstrate power; decisions are taken in haste after long and frequently sterile discussions. A culture of regulation implies professionalism: properly prepared and managed communication arrangements; an ability to delegate to competent individuals so that they can prepare reliable dossiers; building on past experience; determination to assess the results of the decisions taken.

137. The autonomy of higher education institutions must be strengthened and be accompanied by a high level of responsibility and accountability with the broadest possible participation of students, teachers and administrators in decision-making processes (Beirut).

138. ‘Knowledge is a social asset that can only be generated, transmitted, criticized and recreated for the benefit of society, in plural and free institutions that have a full autonomy and academic freedom. However, the latter must also have a clear awareness of their responsibility and a will of service that cannot be turned down. Hence they will be prepared to search for solutions to the demands, needs and lacks of society. This is indeed a society it should be accountable to – as a requirement – in order to exercise fully its autonomy’ (Havana, Declaration, para. 2).

139. ‘This will require a culture based on autonomy for higher education institutions as well as of their constituent units … it will also require solidarity and responsibility towards the institution as a project for promoting local development … Thus the need for accountability, which is indissociable from the concept of quality’’(Dakar, para. 12).

140. This culture of autonomy, responsibility and accountability implies from the outset that teachers/researchers should have improved ‘living and working conditions and emoluments of academics’ (Dakar, para. 34). Although this problem is particularly crucial in many developing countries, it nonetheless raises its head also in the highly developed countries where, in high-value-added sectors, one sees a draining away of the talent needed by the university whenever there is an excessively marked imbalance between salaries in higher education and those in business (Palermo).

141. Forging a close link between a culture of accountability (and therefore of assessment and regulation) and a culture of responsible autonomy (linked to the concept of merit) is one of the major challenges to higher education institutions in the next century.

142. Looked at from the management viewpoint, a higher-education institution may be regarded as a global system composed internally of interacting subsystems and involving complex interactions with the outside world.

143. A higher-education institution interacts, in the first place, in various ways with the meso-environment (the local and national settings), which imposes on it certain requirements (for example, civil-service status, regulations, etc.) and provides it with certain resources (such as a (variable) proportion of its funds). But it also exists in a macro-environment which acts as a vehicle for certain geopolitical phenomena that exert pressure on it (see Chapter 1). While these environments exert various pressures, in its turn the higher-education institution influences these different environments, especially through what is called the ‘educational income’.

144. A university education institution is composed of a set of sub-systems: for example, the university as a global system consists structurally of sub-systems in the form of faculties and departments. Over and beyond the structural level, however, it is also worth considering the level of the functions characterising both this global system and its structural sub-systems.

145. The university education institution is composed crosswise of five interacting systems/functions and sequentially of two systems/functions relating to the flows that cross it (see figure).

146. From the sequential viewpoint, two systems govern the transformation process, namely the admission system for students, who form the higher-education institute’s ‘raw material’, and the validation system, which specifies the characteristics which this raw material must possess when it leaves the institution.

147. Viewed crosswise, the global system exists and evolves according to five fundamental systems: tasks, structures, resources (financial and human), culture (and sub-cultures) and management. This last system determines whether the seven systems composing the global system interact smoothly. Contrary to the narrow and outdated view sometimes taken of it, the management system does not consist solely in administering the institution’s finances and material resources.

148. ‘… the management of higher institutions cannot be reduced to financial management based on purely economic criteria. One should take into account some criterion of equity (such as women’s or underprivileged persons’ access to higher education) and the criterion of social relevance applied to teaching, research and consultancy activities’ (Dakar, para 44). This extract sums up fairly accurately the concerns of all the regional conferences regarding ways of managing higher education and its funding.

149. The management of higher-education institutions is subject to ever-increasing pressure from a socio-economic environment in the throes of change.

150. At Palermo the European Agenda for Change in Higher Education in the 21st Century stressed a number of points: the impact of European integration; the increasing demands made on higher education for quality services; an increasing trend towards the globalization and harmonization of teaching, learning and research; the substantial contribution of higher-education institutions to building the greater Europe of the future.

151. The Tokyo Regional Conference emphasized sharing of the expertise and experience of higher-education institutions and called for closer links between training, research, trade, transport improvement and rapid communication. It also asked for the pursuit of regional social goals to be encouraged and for national cultural heritages - the basis of identity - to be safeguarded.

152. The Dakar Regional Conference perceived globalization as a transcendent economic force based on distant power sources. Seeing the widening gap between developing regions and the others, it considered globalization to be much more of a threat than an opportunity: brain drain towards the highly developed countries; baneful effects of structural-adjustment policies on the social, cultural and educational sectors; increasingly severe public debt; flight by high-value-added industries to other regions; increased poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease and illiteracy; conflicts of all kinds; degradation of the environment. Yet, despite these dramatic findings, it clearly recognized that protectionism is no solution; a different vision, not governed primarily by anonymous economic imperatives, must be brought into play with the aid of states and higher-education institutions in a spirit of mutually dependent internationalization. The Beirut Conference was in favour of integration processes, which should start at the cultural and educational levels.

153. The Latin American and Caribbean Conference shared this view and stressed the disparities not only between but also within regions, using a revealing expression: ‘islands of modernity in an ocean of poverty’. At that conference, Juan Carlos Hidalgo (‘Financing of Higher Education’, pages 5-7) drew attention to two major types of approach by the university at the dawn of the 21st century, which he called the ‘university-company’ and ‘university-society’ approaches. The main features of these approaches are summarized in the following table:

154. These ideas may seem rigid and it is true that elements of both systems are found in many institutions. However, in certain universities which are considered to be particularly successful, there are fairly strong pressures in favour of the first approach, even if this exists side by side with forces favouring a more traditional approach centred on the disinterested pursuit of knowledge paying no attention to pressures from the external environment (see the summary of case studies discussed in Palermo). The conclusions of the various regional conferences reject the first approach but they also agree that the universal university cannot accept out-of-date ‘ivory tower’ attitudes and must move towards a more societal approach (the second one) which combines concern for autonomy and independence of thought and the quest for truth and scientific rigour with an effort to respond to the economic, cultural and social needs of the environment and hence determination to play its part in sustainable human development.

155. The first approach (‘university-company’) is an essentially short-term approach: training must provide rapid responses to duly observed needs and guarantee a return. Basic research, whose results are difficult to pin down in the short term but essential in order not to suffocate applied research and the development of new technology, must be restricted to a few centres of excellence in countries which can afford to fund it. Under this approach, such centres are not necessarily situated in higher-education establishments; some of them are already integrated into major multinational companies and this will happen even more frequently in the future. Wealthy countries and multinationals supported by all-powerful financial holding companies are thus increasingly taking over the development of knowledge as a source of wealth and power but not necessarily as a source of sustainable human development. When this approach is adopted we can therefore also expect research in the human sciences and the arts to be neglected since their economic and financial value is practically nil. We can also expect, the various types of disparities and inequities to become more pronounced. This management model for higher-education institutions, which emphasizes the short term and leaves the long term in the hands of interests which are too exclusively financial, is accordingly not recommended by the regional conferences.

156. The management model for higher-education institutions must take account of their function as observers and consciousness-raisers. Institutions must place their intellectual resources and independence of thought at the service of harmonious and sustainable human development. Their observer function consists in drawing attention in their own particular environment and in the external environment to situations – with their different economic, cultural, social, political, scientific, technological and ethical components – in which the True and the Just are being flouted. Their consciousness-raising function consists in anticipating the consequences of such situations, predicting the main trends affecting the future of society and imagining which scenarios are most likely to help to improve development. ‘Higher education must strengthen its capacity to perform a critical analysis, to anticipate and to have a prospective vision. It must do so in order to prepare alternate development proposals and face the emerging problems of a reality undergoing a process of continuous and rapid transformation, in a long term horizon’ (Havana, Declaration, para 3).

157. What is increasingly needed by higher-education institutions is therefore a model for forward management: there is a need for forward management of tasks in the face of an ever more rapidly changing world; for forward management of training structures in order to meet the compelling requirements of life-long education and the necessity for a more regional and international vision; for forward management of research structures in the light of the necessity for more interdisciplinary research in networked teams; for forward management of entry and departure flows with an eye to more relevant and higher-quality training; for forward management of financial, material and human resources in order better to carry out tasks and respond to trends; for forward management of sub-cultures inside and outside the institution so as to create an innovation-oriented culture serving the construction of harmonious and sustainable human development.

158. On the threshold of the 21st century, forward management implies ‘… new policies and new paradigms for higher education founded on such concepts as anticipatory capacity’ (Tokyo, Action Plan, 1^st paragraph). Among other things, it is necessary ‘to render more dynamic the reform of the study programmes, introducing flexible new mechanisms in order to satisfy in advance the needs and requirements of the labour sector’ (Havana, Action Plan, Com 1, para 6). More generally, it is necessary ‘to adopt organizational structures and education strategies … enabling them to respond with both the timeliness and anticipation needed to creatively and efficiently face an uncertain future’ (Havana, Declaration, para 4).

159. In line with the universality of higher education, forward management must concern itself with universal ethics, that is, with providing guidance in value crises. It must oppose creeping relativism and knee-jerk reactions dictated by self-interest; oppose refusals to accept responsibility and attempts to shuffle it off onto others; combat situations where ‘I’ takes precedence over ‘we’; oppose the use of technologies which do not serve the individual, community or life; set itself against competition among students. Constructing sustainable development and a culture of peace implies ethical management based on responsible solidarity.

160. A quest for quality must lie at the heart of the system whereby higher-education institutions are managed. As stated in Chapter 3, while the concept of quality control suits a closed production system in which intervention by individuals plays a minor role, it is inappropriate in an open system where human resources play a decisive role. The core of the management system must be the more open concept of quality assessment or evaluation. Quality control implies that the products of the system can be described unambiguously and indisputably by means of exact, pre-determinable indicators. Quality assessment implies that the parties involved get together and agree on quality criteria. Some of these criteria can be converted into observable indicators, while others resist such attempts; certain criteria are sufficiently comprehensive to be usable at different times and places, while others are specific to a certain category of contexts or to clearly circumscribed periods; some criteria describe the products expected, others relate to required conditions or to processes to be employed (e.g. required qualifications, use of teaching resources, evaluation of teaching practices, etc) . In every case, what characterizes quality assessment is the active participation of all parties concerned, who together analyse a body of relevant, valid and reliable data before taking decisions aimed at improving and not simply at penalizing.

161. A task-oriented management system centred on the quest for quality and relevance implies that everyone involved in a higher-education institution should resist the temptation to withdraw to a reliance on selfish or corporatist freedoms, to reject transparency and accountability and to distrust certain of the institution’s bodies or components. It is essential to link the concepts of responsible autonomy and accountability in order to recast the concept of academic freedom, whose meaning has frequently been distorted with the passage of time by withdrawal mechanisms.

162. A higher-education institution has an observation and consciousness-raising function. As a global system interacting with an external environment which can exert all sorts of pressures, for example regarding financing, its freedom must be viewed in the following terms: external authorities are responsible for defining a development policy on the basis of a set of relevant data (some of which may be the outcome of work done in higher education) and for consulting the higher-education institutions concerning their exact tasks; once these tasks have been clarified, the institutions must demand and safeguard their autonomy and responsibility for the way in which they discharge their tasks, given their available resources; but the institutions have a simultaneous duty to report on the results of their actions according as they tie in with the tasks set and the resources provided, just as the external authorities are required to account for the results of their policies (choice of priorities according to a development context not just here and now but also in the future). John L Davies (Palermo, ‘European Agenda for Change for Higher Education in the 21st Century’, page 29) has this interesting way of describing the spirit of this management method: ‘The institutions which succeed are those that manage to transcend the inflexibility of the state and of institutional structures and to incorporate innovation mechanisms permanently’.

163. A higher-education institution is a set of sub-systems. Analysis of numerous case studies of management models (see e.g. the case studies for the Palermo Regional Conference) highlights two major and opposing models: a highly centralized and a highly decentralized model. There is a mean between the two which is showing increasing signs of developing in universities which are attempting to adapt to the changes occurring in the world.

164. In the centralized model, the intermediate structures (usually faculties and departments) are convenient administrative ways of subdividing a sprawling whole into logical subsystems based nearly always on disciplines, but they derive their power from the central authorities in regard not only to important decisions but also in many cases to minor ones (for example, permission to send a fax or providing paper for a photocopier). This model still persists in some institutions, particularly in certain developing countries.

165. In the decentralized model, intermediate structures are highly autonomous and therefore possess great independence, so that neighbouring departments may operate very differently. Here the central authorities act mainly as the representative of the institution as a whole with respect to external institutions or on ceremonial occasions.

166. Particularly when pushed to extremes, both these models fail to meet the requirements of universal higher education. The centralized model tends to produce people who simply obey orders and does not stimulate the observation and consciousness-raising function of every member of the institution (students, teachers/researchers, blue-collar and white-collar staff), this task being left to the central authorities. The decentralized model tends to place the various functions side by side rather than create a coherent whole which serves the tasks of the global institution (‘the whole is not the sum of the parts’); it also tends to cling to particular characteristics, corporatist attitudes and traditional rigidities.

167. To deal with the changes, we must therefore introduce a third way: autonomous, responsible and accountable intermediate structures together with strong professional central authorities. This management model emerges particularly clearly from the case studies analysed at the Palermo Regional Conference. ‘…central levels of the university will need to be very effective in coherent strategic policy formation; redistribution of resources on strategic lines; evaluation and monitoring via improved information systems; searching for big external business and providing sensitive support to faculties…’ (Palermo, Davies, op.cit., page 31). The central level also has an important part to play in relations with the local, regional and international levels. For example, it has to play a negotiating or even a lobbying role with respect to government authorities, in order not only to safeguard its autonomy of thought and action whilst remaining accountable but also to play its part as a universal university, for example its function of observation and consciousness-raising, its duty to contribute to harmonious and sustainable human development, its concern to be able to manage student and staff flows according to the principles of merit and equity, etc. (see Chapter 1). It also has to ensure that the intermediate structures do not withdraw into themselves but become doors to lifelong education and to the creation of regional and international education and research structures leading to the establishment of centres of excellence.

168. Higher education is facing a heavy expansion which will continue increasing under the combined effect of two factors: population growth (particularly in the developing and least-advanced countries) and the demand for ever-higher levels of education. The statistics in Table 2 are particularly eloquent and show the challenges to higher education, which have considerable implications for its funding.

Table 2: Gross enrolment rates in % in higher education in 1985 and 1995 and economic dependency rate of populations aged from 0 to 14 years versus populations aged from 15 to 64 years in 1985, 1995 and 2005 (projection). Source: Unesco, World Education Report 1995.

Key:

169. The following conclusions can be drawn from this table:

• There has been an increase worldwide in higher-education enrolment rates between 1985 and 1995. This trend will probably continue, as the demand for higher educational levels is very strong.
• There has been a reduction worldwide in the imbalance between enrolment rates for girls and boys, but this imbalance has not yet disappeared, particularly in certain regions, as will be seen.
• In the developed countries, enrolment rates rose considerably between 1985 and 1995 (from 39.3 per cent to 59.6 per cent). This trend will continue, as the question of educational level is important both to families and to policymakers, despite an ageing population (see economic dependency rates).

• In the developing regions, higher-education enrolment rates are markedly lower than in the developed countries (in 1985 6.5 per cent vs 39.3 per cent; in 1995, 8.8 per cent vs 59.6 per cent). The gap has widened in 10 years, the increase in enrolment rates in the developing regions being less marked than in the developed regions. However, in actual numbers, the developing regions enrolled more students in 1995 than the developed countries (36.6 vs 34.3 million), while it was the reverse in 1985 (24.4 vs 25.1 million). This is due to heavy population growth: young people represent an ever greater part of the population even if the projections show a decrease in the level of economic dependency as a result of improved life expectancy (except in countries hit by famine or war).
• In the developing regions, the sub-Saharan African region gives cause for particular concern because it has the lowest enrolment rates (2.2 per cent in 1985 compared with 3.5 per cent in 1995). Its situation is fairly similar to that of the least advanced countries (2.5 per cent in 1985 compared with 3.2 per cent in 1995).
• In the developing regions, imbalances between girls and boys are still very great despite a slight improvement (girls accounted for 4.8 per cent in 1985 and 7.3 per cent in 1995).

170. It can be concluded from the table that higher education is facing an increase in enrolments both in percentages and in actual numbers, a demand for higher educational levels which will continue increasing in every region of the world and an increasing number of enrolments of girls, accompanied however by imbalances between regions and the sexes. Side by side with this extremely strong demand resulting from educational expansion, higher education has simultaneously to cope with an increasing demand for quality services of various kinds.

171. In the light of the challenges posed by educational expansion and the necessity of reducing imbalances between the regions and between the sexes and other segregationist characteristics, as well as ever-stronger fresh demands, what financing policy or policies should be proposed to enable higher education to carry out its tasks with relevance, quality and equity?

172. The regional conferences were agreed on stressing the state’s obligations to education in general and to higher education in particular. ‘Governments must guarantee that the right to education is fulfilled. Consequently, they must take up the responsibility of financing education within the framework and conditions and demands that are typical of each educational system’ (Havana, Action Plan, Com 3, para 1). ‘Public support for higher education is still indispensable. The challenges faced by higher education are also challenges for society as a whole’ (Havana, Declaration, para 15). ‘Governments and Parliaments must fulfil their commitments to higher education and be accountable for pledges made at regional and world conferences over the past decade with regard to the provision of human and financial resources’ (Tokyo, Action Plan, 3rd para, and Beirut, para 24).

173. It is accordingly worth examining the breakdown of public expenditure per student in higher education between 1985 and 1995.

174 This table gives rise to a number of findings:

• Expressed in (non-constant) dollars, regular public expenditure per pupil or student increased worldwide between 1985 and 1995, but not evenly between the various educational levels: it almost doubled (ratio = 1.98) for the pre-primary, primary and secondary education levels as a whole; and it increased by two-thirds (ratio = 1.67) for higher education. Expressed in more comparable terms, the share of public expenditure for the pre-higher levels rose from 17.5 per cent of per capita GNP to 18.2 per cent in ten years, which was evidence of states’ determination to put into effect the decisions taken at the Jomtien summit. This movement was not reflected at the higher level inasmuch as public expenditure dropped from 66.1 per cent of per capita GNP to 58.2 per cent. This in fact demonstrates a decision by the states to invest less in higher education or their inability to invest as much as in the past despite an increase in numbers. It may also mean that certain countries succeeded in diversifying their sources of funds or in trimming expenditure by diversifying supply in the direction of shorter or less expensive courses. Additional data would be needed to analyse the causes of this phenomenon more thoroughly. Such data would, however, be indispensable to improve the orientation of higher-education policies.
• In the developed regions, a striking rise can be observed in public expenditure on the pre-higher levels (from 17.3 per cent of per capita GNP to 19.9 per cent), together with an equally spectacular drop in higher education (from 30.5 per cent of per capita GNP to 25.5 per cent). However, there are differences between the continents: North America represents an exception (an increase from 23.0 per cent of GNP per capita to 25.5 per cent, which some will attribute to the economic dynamism in that region at present); Europe confirms the general tendency (from 36.4 per cent to 32.9 per cent); Asia and Oceania have reduced their public expenditure by nearly half in terms of the percentage of per capita GNP (from 34.4 per cent to 17.5 per cent).
• Countries in transition show a slight drop in public expenditure on pre-higher education (from 18.8 per cent of per capita GNP to 17.9 per cent) and a more marked reduction for higher education (from 26.5 per cent of per capita GNP to 21.7 per cent).
• The developing countries show a very high proportionate cost for higher education when public expenditure is expressed as a per capita GNP percentage: in 1985 the figure was 12.8 per cent of per capita GNP for pre-higher education but 103.9 per cent for higher education; in 1995, the figure was 13.5 per cent of per capita GNP for pre-higher education, i.e. an increase over 10 years, and 78.9 per cent for higher education, i.e. a cut which some will however regard as still inadequate in comparison with the other world regions.
• The situation of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa gives rise to particular concern: a student in 1985 represented 481.5 per cent of per capita GNP while a pupil represented 22.6 per cent of per capita GNP, and 10 years later a student still represents 433.9 per cent of per capita GNP while a pupil represents 23.2 per cent of per capita GNP. This shows the burden which higher education represents for those countries, which also face other formidable problems relating to health, welfare assistance to the poorest, professional training courses at pre-tertiary levels, and the environment. An analysis of this difficulty and of the ensuing imbalance would appear to deserve particular attention, using more refined statistics. Certain factors can, however, be mentioned even at this stage: saturation of university courses and a lack of diversification in the direction of shorter and less expensive professional courses; numerous repeats, which are very expensive owing to a shortage of adequately qualified teachers and, in some cases, to the advantages of student status; the fact that all the student’s physical needs are catered for on campus and the difficulty of introducing alternative arrangements such as distance learning, even though this has shown its worth in other regions of the world; difficulty of finding other sources of funding.

175 These findings are striking in that they reveal imbalances between the regions and a diversity of investment in respect both of quantity and of funding methods, for quantitative and qualitative results which are just as varied and not necessarily proportionate. Yet higher education is considered by many experts to be one of the conditions for the development of countries and regions in their different economic, cultural, social, democratic and health components.

176 As stressed by Angel Diaz Barriga and his collaborators (Havana, ‘Higher Education Financing and Activities in Latin America and the Caribbean, p.22): ‘Several difficulties exist in the establishment of higher education financing proposals. We wish to highlight two: the first is strictly related to the diverse historical conditions and numerous variables which influence financing diversification mechanisms. The attainment of alternatives depends on many factors reaching far beyond the dynamics of higher education institutions: external debt, GNP, social composition, scientific and technological development needs, formation of productive establishments, formation of the middle classes and increase of social groups classified in extreme poverty, and others, are closely related to the possibilities of diversifying the sources of economic resources. … the second difficulty is that, basically, no new alternatives exist for higher education financing.’

177 There is currently even a tendency inspired by certain neo-liberal theories to reduce the state’s financial obligations towards higher education by invoking a certain interpretation of the concept of ‘education-derived income’, i.e. the direct or indirect benefits generated by education. The argument advanced by promoters of this tendency may be summarized as follows: the human capital generated by higher education is particularly large and graduate students are the principal beneficiaries; their training has provided them with a culture and professionalism which distinguish them sharply from unqualified or less qualified persons, which provide them with greater productivity and therefore with markedly higher incomes which are ultimately due to the higher-education training received. The proponents of this idea claim that it is unjust that financing should come in the main from the community, i.e. mainly from those who do not benefit from it. In their view, this is particularly unjust because the poorest pay proportionately more tax than the wealthiest and are the ones who benefit from it the least. These same proponents accordingly advocate a reduction of state participation in the financing of higher education in favour of a quest for alternatives whereby those benefiting from higher education would make a greater financial contribution.

178. This interpretation is hotly disputed by many economists who have examined the concept of income derived from education, especially from higher education. Thus, in the opinion of Hidalgo (Havana, op.cit, page 9), ‘knowledge is not a taxable base… and education-derived income does not emerge from the education system, it is external to it. … This income is not expressed in the training process of the student, but in: (a) the personal income of the trainee that joins the labour market; (b) the productivity increase of the party incorporating the trainee to the process for the production of goods and services; (c) the productivity increase of those who directly and indirectly incorporate technical and scientific progress; (d) the productivity increase of the system as a whole resulting from the technical progress incorporated and the work qualification derived from the educational offer of the university’.

179. The education-derived income which benefits the individual should be replaced by the concept of external economy and particularly by the concept of social profitability, which denotes the indirect benefits generated by education for society. These benefits are difficult to quantify but are nonetheless real: the increased level of knowledge and skill has an impact on a country’s growth rate and competitiveness; investments made by previous generations benefit later generations; the skills of those with ability (the concept of merit) can be put to optimum use in the service of development; the raised educational level has an effect on the development of a more democratic culture and allows distancing from, and resistance to, arbitrary acts and attitudes.

180. As a whole, the regional conferences opted for this second interpretation of the concept of education-derived income and advanced arguments based on social relevance, quality and equity, three concepts very similar to the concept of social profitability used by certain economists. They therefore supported the idea that ‘…Member States should take on principal responsibility for funding for higher education’ (Dakar, para 40), but they also added that ‘However, since it will be difficult for Member States to bear the entire financial burden, additional sources should be sought’ (Dakar, para 40).

181 Jamil Salmi of the World Bank (Havana, ‘Options for Reforming the Financing of Higher Education’, page 8) has attempted to indicate the range of the different financing sources that can be found in different contexts (see Table 4).

182. Payment of fees is undoubtedly one of the most frequently mentioned sources of financing. It can take various forms: ‘direct’ payment (lump sum or payment in instalments to ease the burden) by the student or family for a degree course or one or more individual courses; tuition loans or financing for full or partial reimbursement (there are many different schemes); mixed schemes. The practice of charging fees to the student or family concerned does not exist only in private institutions; although always controlled, it has become general practice in many public universities, especially in the developed countries; amounts vary greatly from country to country.

183 While the issue of fees was much discussed by the regional conferences, the arguments against are distinctly more numerous and more frequently invoked than those in favour. Malcolm Skilbeck (‘The Management and Financing of Higher Education’, October 1997, page 11) summarizes the argument thus. The arguments advanced in favour of fees are mainly the following: (a) the needs which higher education must satisfy are extremely and increasingly numerous, and it is difficult for governments to find all the resources needed to meet them; (b) higher education offers graduates appreciable benefits of various kinds (financial, social, cultural); (c) payment of fees increases motivation; (d) cost consciousness leads to a heightened awareness of the need for effectiveness and efficiency; (e) differentiated fee structures are an aid to the diversification of higher education both within and among institutions. The arguments against fees can be summarized as follows: (a) the importance of higher education for a country’s development needs no further demonstration and the state, which is responsible for framing development policy, therefore cannot evade its obligation to give priority to the financing of higher education; (b) although individuals benefit, higher-education investment transcends the individual and represents an investment for the future (the underlying purpose of policy should be to look to long-term development); (c) motivation should not depend on financial incentives; (d) fees are not a pre-condition for greater effectiveness and efficiency, quality-assessment strategies being much more relevant and necessary; (e) it is not reasonable to charge fees during periods of economic recession; higher education is, on the contrary, an investment in research and training which will eventually make it possible to find a definitive solution to the crisis; (f) in the developing countries, most families are unable to pay even minimal fees; (g) numerous studies show that charging fees reduces access to higher education and leads to greater social inequity.

184 Despite their awareness that the question of student participation in the cost of studies could not be postponed indefinitely, the regional conferences reiterated that access to higher education should be based on merit and that this criterion outweighed all others; policies on fees should therefore give this criterion priority over all others, even if it meant introducing positive-discrimination arrangements (scholarships, reduced charges etc).

185 The situation in certain states is particularly worrying, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. ‘It is unrealistic to expect that African governments will in fact improve higher education funding in real terms’ (Skilbeck, op.cit, page 10). What routes should therefore be followed? The proposals mentioned include: (a) encouraging cheaper forms of higher education (shorter, more highly targeted courses employing some hourly-paid professional teachers and providing links between courses in order to enable students to change subjects or levels); establishing teaching arrangements not involving the on-campus costs which burden developing-country budgets (distance learning, decentralization of training, use of IT, provided the costs are carefully studied and a distinction made between investment costs and recurring costs); (c) creating regional or international networks in order not to duplicate expensive types of training in every institution and country and to provide higher-quality or less expensive education by establishing centres of excellence and distributing them at the regional or international level (although this implies open agreements and respect by each partner for its commitments); (d) obtaining the support of business and industry through sponsorships, grants and also access to various facilities; (e) in partnership with the world of work, selling training courses as part of lifelong training policy; (f) offering to the world of work, or to government, productive activities (services, consultancies, expertise, research) or production goods (agricultural or industrial products, development of new technologies) and to this end establishing a management structure for such activities so as to make them profitable to the university whilst simultaneously involving the relevant teachers/researchers; (g) developing coherent – and not scattered – co-operation policies in order to optimize the not insignificant resources which are garnered through these channels; (h) creating where possible associations of former students who will interest themselves in directly or indirectly supporting the institution which has trained them, along the lines of the associations existing in certain countries.

185 Higher education is facing increasingly formidable challenges. It will have to demonstrate great imagination, creativity, intelligence and determination in its management and financing. It must also develop suitable capability in the planning and analysis of policies and strategies, based on partnership between higher-education institutions, government and national planning and co-ordination bodies. The main purpose of management must be to act as an instrument for improving the relevance and quality of institutions and systems. While higher-education institutions must develop an entrepreneurial culture, they are still not businesses and they cannot operate on the same basis as businesses.

187 The criteria of business effectiveness are mainly economic or, more precisely, financial. The criteria of universal higher education are different: human and financial resources have an essentially social, and therefore external, purpose. Universality must therefore be governed by criteria of social relevance, service quality and equity, thus vindicating the principle that, while institutional and financial diversification is necessary, public support for higher education remains essential. Whilst retaining responsible and accountable autonomy, higher-education institutions cannot operate in a vacuum and shut themselves up in an ivory tower; they are closely linked to local, national, regional and international institutions required to determine development policies. They must defend policies which focus on forms of sustainable human development which are of general benefit.

188 Unlike businesses, which to survive must seek immediate or at least not too far distant profitability, higher education operates in the long term and its impact is all the more difficult to quantify. It must therefore develop methods of forward management both internally and in liaison with its partners. It must aim at ever increasing internationalization but also at working with local partners and serving its immediate environment, two requirements that are not incompatible.

189 In the face of complex needs, the issue of financing gives grounds for increasing concern. It is important to remember that the chief responsibility here lies with governments, but it is important too for higher-education institutions to act as genuine professionals (and train their staff accordingly) in managing the resources they receive as well as to use great imagination in generating the necessary additional resources.

190 A universal vision of higher education implies many different forms of co-operation between all those institutions who are working for sustainable human development and a culture of peace. The policy paper for the World Conference proclaims that ‘In accordance with UNESCO’s constitutional mission, the expansion of international co-operation will continue to be both its major objective and its main mode of action in the field of education. UNESCO’s agenda is to promote co-operation worldwide while searching for more effective ways to contribute to the strengthening of higher education and research capacity in the developing countries’. (UNESCO, ‘Policy Paper for Change and Development in Higher Education’, Article XXVIII).

191 As the 21st century approaches the challenges are many. Not only are profound changes affecting all elements of society but inequalities of all kinds persist and may even increase without vigorous action: regions suffering from war, famine and malnutrition, an increasingly unequal distribution of resources among the regions of the world (whether financial, material, technological or educational resources). Without a reconsideration of co-operation policies, higher education will be unable to meet the challenges it faces.

192 As this 20th century ends we are witnessing processes of internationalization and globalization in all fields. Caught in the grip of the prevailing economic liberalism, markets are becoming global: many trade transactions take place without the goods being seen or touched by middlemen; capital is circulating more quickly than individuals; businesses relocate according to the ebb and flow of advantage; highly skilled human resources are becoming increasingly mobile; the competition to win contracts demands an ever-higher level of skill in lowering costs and improving quality. But this frenzied race to achieve an ever better and cheaper product reaching the greatest possible number of people relies on the dependence of economies on the applications of advanced knowledge and research and thus on higher education. Society is becoming increasingly a knowledge society (see the report by the Delors Commission) and therefore increasingly dependent on the quality of higher education and its openness to the outside world.

193 Globalization is bringing regionalization in its train. To become more competitive, states are federating and are developing policies of economic, monetary, political and even cultural integration. Large free-trade zones are being created, e.g. the European Common Market (which signs agreements with certain sub-Mediterranean countries), NAFTA, which groups together Mexico, the United States and Canada, and MERCOSUR (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia). In Asia, many countries are signing co-operation agreements under the aegis of APEC (Asia Pacific Co-operation). On every continent all sorts of groups are being created and agreements entered into. The latter have numerous repercussions in many other domains: joint defence agreements, joint monetary policies (e.g. creation of a common regional currency, such as the Euro), cultural agreements (exchanges of productions, creation and support of major regional television networks, regional cultural events), policies on the defence or promotion of a common language. There is a considerable call for higher education for these regionalization projects, as the numerous regional-level exchange programmes bear witness.

194 Yet, paradoxically, globalization and regionalization have perverse effects which run counter to a policy of sustainable human development and which higher education cannot endorse:

1. Polarization: certain regions of the world become attractive, others become the opposite; the principles of ‘where it is cheapest’ and ‘where there is least risk’ prevail over the principles of ‘where the need is greatest’ and ‘where solidarity is necessary’.
2. Marginalization: the gap is widening between poor and rich regions as a result of an exceedingly vicious circle; without solidarity, countries with less knowledge or less power are increasingly edged out of the race for knowledge which is the basis of power, since knowledge is increasing exponentially (knowledge in chemistry currently doubles in less than 7 years; knowledge in informatics doubles in less than 6 months!); even within the poorer regions, marginalization is taking hold in varying degrees depending on the presence or absence of ‘troubles’, depending on the type of political regime, the existence or otherwise of a culture of corruption, the level of education (the Copenhagen Social Summit indicated very clearly that where educational levels rose marginalization tended to decrease).
3. Fragmentation: driven by the perfectly legitimate need to seek an identity and faced with the juggernaut of globalization and the ensuing cultural and linguistic hegemonies, many social groups are endeavouring to assert a common identity on the basis of shared characteristics (ethnic group, territory, religion, rite, custom, culture, race) and of exclusion mechanisms which enable them, in their view, to assert their identity more strongly; the result is a withdrawal into policies of ethnicization, religious fundamentalism, closing of borders and cultural extremism.

195 Both globalization which benefits only the strong and polarization, marginalization and fragmentation are policies which act as a brake on sustainable human development and a culture of peace. Co-operation cannot serve such policies. While we certainly need a knowledge society, we also need a society of interdependent citizens: that is the basic principle of true co-operation.

196 The society of the 21st century will be a communication society. This is being facilitated by enormous progress in various fields: digitization of information, storage power, information transfer technology (satellite networks and their coverage), international networking, development of virtual worlds.

197 The advent of this communication society has many consequences for the world of work: decision-making is increasingly remote from areas of production; it can be carried out in real time thousands of kilometres away; IT makes possible all sorts of remote consultation (stock exchanges, business-health indicators, lists of potential customers, lists of sub-contractors, price indexes etc); money no longer circulates in cash or paper but in virtual form; bookkeeping is becoming increasingly delocalized; areas of production, distribution and research are becoming increasingly separate geographically but increasingly linked by the new technology; as early as the stage of design the large collocated groupings are structured into sub-units which are autonomous but organized both into internal networks and into external networks linked to more flexible SMF sub-contractors; to enhance this flexibility, new structures are being created or further developed, such as temporary employment agencies, human-resource centres, auditing companies and services, recruitment companies, accountancy centres; thanks to information technology teleworking is becoming easier and new work-scheduling policies are being tried out.

198 The coming of this communication society also brings with it numerous implications for the world of culture. Because of the new communication technologies, more and more individuals have simultaneous access to the same information and have the impression of living in a ‘global village’. Information technology is therefore both a vehicle for the internalization of culture and a tool for defending cultural identity: a major challenge to which higher education cannot remain indifferent.

199 Higher education is closely linked to the world of work and of culture: it trains the experts and develops the advanced knowledge (including in IT) which the world of work needs; it is the repository of universal culture and contributes to its creation. Higher-education institutions cannot remain aloof from the IT without detracting from the performance of their various teaching, research and service tasks; in fact, they should take a part in its development and anticipate the consequences of its application in the different sectors, and thus first of all for themselves. These potential consequences for higher education are many and various.

200 At the same time there is a risk of a type of higher education developing which will be increasingly heterogeneous and inegalitarian, to the benefit of the already highly developed countries and to the detriment of the least-developed countries. The challenge for higher education is whether it will allow the vicious circle of under-development to speed up under the effects of the inegalitarian development of IT or whether it is prepared to take up the gauntlet by establishing without delay a network covering all countries and by making a considerable effort, taking precedence over all else, on behalf of the developing countries. The choice lies between a policy of marginalization, and therefore of domination and subjection, and a policy of solidarity and partnership.

201. In recent decades the model that has explicitly or implicitly dominated many co-operation policies has been rooted in the idea that economic considerations are the basis for development and thus for co-operation. This idea has led to the following approaches:

1. Priority has been given to sectors yielding a high immediate economic return (e.g. the exploitation of mineral or food resources) and providing the donor countries with large profits. The co-operation projects of those countries formed part of a profitable overall commercial policy; however, for the developing countries, the preferential support given to certain sectors often led eventually to imbalances in their system as a whole, particularly at the moment when the donors decided to withdraw.
2. The approach to this type of co-operation bears all the hallmarks of dependency: the sectors to be covered by the co-operation programmes are chosen by the donors or lenders; the sums involved are often determined before needs have been analysed with the partners; projects are often short-term ones in which no account is taken of the consequences and costs to the beneficiary country of a halt in the project; lenders distinguish not between good and bad borrowers but rather between docile and non-docile borrowers (who often include those who have drawn up a coherent and co-ordinated development policy);
3. The ‘co-operation market’ is shared mainly between a number of major fund providers, namely the international banks and the bilateral co-operation agencies which have historical links with the countries concerned;
4. Co-operation projects and programmes are often identified on the basis of vague and incomplete information and analysis: information sources are often external (i.e. coming from abroad); when they are internal, they are often manipulated to conform with the criteria set by the lender or donor; the latter often tries to devise a homogeneous approach and procedure which can be used uniformly for differing situations; this attitude is often geared more closely to policies and politicians than to the projects themselves, their performance, reimbursement capacity or the ability to pursue them (Hallak, quoted by Didriksson, Havana, ‘Reformulation of International Co-operation in Latin American and the Caribbean Higher Education’).

202. The polarization of co-operation based on economic considerations explains the small share devoted by the developed countries to education in general and higher education in particular. According to Hallak again, this share does not exceed 1 per cent of their GDP. In the case of the development banks, investment in education is the smallest of all investments.

203. A closer study of the breakdown of these investments shows:

1. In view of the tiny amount devoted to education, a dilemma tends to appear as between higher education and basic education to the detriment of the former, with no one asking about the reasons for the smallness of the funds for the education system as a whole or bearing in mind that the various education and information levels cannot be separated.
2. Historically the developed countries helped to create higher education in their regions of influence in order to train efficient managers. Their policy was to complete co-operation in higher education and then terminate it (very largely or even almost totally) as soon as the higher-education system as a whole was close enough to a carbon copy of the organization in the home country and enough local graduates had been trained. The developing countries therefore found themselves with ‘complete’ institutions (which is what they originally wanted), and with teachers/researchers trained mostly in the countries of the North to deal with problems which concerned the latter countries but which were not necessarily relevant or important for their country of origin. Faced with the expansion in education and the financial crisis of 1997-98, the higher-education institutions of the developing countries have found themselves accepting large numbers of students in traditional subjects who hoped that their diplomas would always be a passport to a job in the civil service. The system created job-seekers and not job-creators at a time when the countries had enormous, and changing, needs.
3. While tertiary training was becoming increasingly restricted to the country of origin, certain developed countries attracted and still attract the best brains of the developing countries or students from prosperous backgrounds. In 1995, the USA received 453,787 foreign students, who represented 30.2 per cent of their student population, France received 170,574, i.e. 11.4 per cent, Germany 146,126, i.e. 9.7 per cent and the United Kingdom 128,550 or 8.6 per cent. All these countries experienced a substantial growth in their student numbers between 1985 and 1995. In the Asia-Pacific zone, a similar pattern has emerged with regard to Japan and Australia, with an annual growth of 19.2 and 12.9 per cent respectively between 1985 and 1995. China is now experiencing the same trend: the number of its foreign students rose from 3,000 in 1986 to 23,000 in 1993, an annual growth rate of 27 per cent. Many students from developing countries are therefore to be found in the research laboratories of the developed countries, and many of them stay there. It is therefore not surprising that the vast majority of data bases are developed in those countries, that the vast majority of patents relate to those same countries and that 80 per cent of technological transfers are still from those countries. All this is caused by the brain drain; the countries of origin receive little return on this investment. The vicious circle of under-development accordingly becomes ever more marked.

204 The UNESCO Policy Paper ‘Change and Development in Higher Education’ sets international co-operation a major objective: ‘The most pressing need for international co-operation in higher education is to reverse the process of decline of institutions in the developing countries, particularly in the least developed. The adverse conditions in which higher education has to function call, first of all, for appropriate measures and efforts by the respective states and institutions. They must learn to be more effective and efficient in strengthening their links with society so as to play a full part in the development efforts of their region or community. It is not unusual to perceive the university-level establishment as part of the institutional machinery of the state instead of seeing it as an essential part of a local community and of society in general. It is essential to persuade the decision-makers and all of society that the latter is the case’ (page 34). To put this idea into practice the following general outlines of a new co-operation policy can be proposed.

205 For the construction of sustainable human development and a culture of peace, we must therefore advocate a logic of co-operation based on the interdependence of all societal components and on solidarity in the struggle against imbalances and the vicious circle of underdevelopment.

206 This new logic implies a quest for harmonization between the world of work and the other components of society and, accordingly, harmonization between the world of work and higher education in a spirit of partnership. There is one fixed basic principle: higher-education institutions must not set their long-term guidelines exclusively in the light of the labour market or of forward studies of labour requirements but of social needs. The world of work helps to create wealth that can be reinvested to meet the other needs of society but, in a society which is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, it has an increasing need for staff with high technical qualifications but a humanist view of the pursuit of their activities and an ability to anticipate future needs and requirements, especially those connected with constructing a more just society. For its part, higher education cannot loftily ignore the fact that the world of work and the whole of society are evolving ever more rapidly. If it is not to fail in its fundamental task, it must therefore make a point of establishing partnerships with the world of work in order to supply the needs of its training programmes in accordance with the rapid advance in knowledge, develop in those programmes the skills needed by society in general and the world of work in particular, create an entrepreneurial spirit and pave the way for professional and cultural mobility.

207 Such harmonization also implies that higher education must adapt its training structures and arrangements to the new needs or create new forms of teaching on the basis of criteria such as flexibility, employability, adaptation to a wide variety of contexts and publics, the principle of life-long training and the internationalization of training. The task is therefore to change from a paradigm centred on teaching and the transmission of knowledge to one centred on learning and the development of transferable skills in differing space and time contexts. A wide range of approaches and schemes will therefore be necessary: modularization together with a precise definition of the initial skills demanded and the skills required on graduation, capitalization, allowance for life experience, networking of training courses, diversification of subjects with greater use of short professional courses, establishment of ‘bridges’ between training courses, use of common differentiated standards, accreditation and recognition of qualifications, distance learning, types of supervision based on decentralization or the use of IT, diversification of institutions and courses, work experience.

208 These changes entail several levels of co-operation:

1. co-operation with the world of work (production, service and creative enterprises, including the SMEs and the community service arrangements which are generating an increasing number of jobs) by jointly defining relevant training policies, collaborating and exchanging resources for certain training modules, supplying expertise, taking part in studies of the labour market and changes in needs, evaluating alternative scenarios, seeking out and developing new technologies or transferring knowledge and studying the social and ecological impact of certain choices;
2. internal co-operation between higher-education institutions at both the national and regional levels according to the following principles: quality, effectiveness and efficiency requirements are such that not every institution can organize all training programmes or maintain research laboratories whose resources are quantitatively and qualitatively sufficient in all sectors; the organization of distance-learning schemes increasingly means that a regional outlook must be cultivated for cost reasons and in order to strengthen integration policies;
3. co-operation at international level based both on solidarity and respect for differences in order to provide a relevant and equitable answer to the challenges of globalization and internationalization; this implies a policy of quality which, when applied, will take into account the specific features of the contexts (‘think globally and act locally’); provision of data bases in all countries, including the least developed; post-graduate and post-doctorate courses under international programmes and in collaboration with centres of excellence, with the dual aim of acquiring qualifications which are both of an extremely high level and applicable to the situation in the country of origin; co-operation policies which allow the developing countries to get something back from the benefits derived by the most developed countries from the brain drain; international-co-operation actions designed to eradicate crucial problems such as hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental destruction, violence and marginalization.

209. This harmonization between the world of work and higher education is a two-way process: not only must changes in the world of work in a changing society compel higher education to make its training more relevant and to support development through its research, but higher education in its turn must urge the world of work to reform itself so as to promote sustainable human development and a culture of peace. Higher education must discharge its duties of observation, consciousness-raising and anticipation in this context, too, by standing back and looking at society in the round. Here too, higher education must not simply provide training but must also produce citizens who are aware of their own individual surroundings and of the society of which they are members. This is the context in which regional and international cultural co-operation must be visualized in order not only to preserve and disseminate the different heritages but also to create a culture of peace, conceived as a world which has been liberated from all conflict and enjoys evenly-distributed socio-economic prosperity, enriched by cultural diversity and a common concern to create a democratic society.

210. As already presaged by the changes occurring as this century ends, the 21st century will be a knowledge society: the workforce is increasingly becoming a cognitive force; capital is increasingly becoming a capital of advanced knowledge and of skills in solving problems and finding new solutions; we have entered the information and communication era; the international dimension is present everywhere. Implementing this new co-operation policy therefore depends in the main on creating networks between higher education and its partners. Organizing or strengthening networks and establishing local, national, regional and international links between them should be one of higher education’s priority tasks. Programmes like the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs should be strengthened by bringing together and co-ordinating all the forces working towards this end and infusing them with a spirit of partnership and solidarity so that they can meet the various challenges and create sustainable human development and a culture of peace.

211. To construct these links of solidarity a new co-operation policy must be created. Some basic guidelines for implementing this new policy can be identified.

212. UNESCO has proclaimed on many occasions that it is essential for intergovernmental, governmental and non-governmental bodies concerned with development and its funding, and also the academic community, in general, to consider the higher-education institutions of the developing countries as playing an essential role in the overall development of the education system and the promotion of endogenous capacities. This calls for co-ordinated forward management of co-operation. This can be defined in terms of a number of lines of study and action:

213. The World Conference on Higher Education is therefore called upon to make a strong plea in favour of further promoting the internationalization of higher education and of identifying ways and means whereby this process can be made more effective, efficient and equitable for all. ‘A second challenge concerns the growing complexity of international co-operation. Originally limited to the mobility of individuals, which has now found an effective instrument in the regional conventions on the recognition of higher-education studies and qualifications, it now assumes a broad range of forms, particularly through various types of networking and linking arrangements among institutions, academics and students.’ (Paris, Chitoran, ‘International Co-operation in Higher Education’, 1998, page 7). Co-operation must be seen as part and parcel of the institutional mission of higher-educational institutions and systems; it must increasingly employ networking and responsibility-sharing and have solidarity as the basic principle for an improved sharing of knowledge.

214. Co-operation therefore depends on a wider spectrum of expertise and on management which, being future-oriented and co-ordinated, is more professional. New forms of co-operation are emerging; they demand great creativity in order to plan them, technical skill in order to master them, realism in order to implement them effectively and efficiently, and discussion and impartiality in order to evaluate them and anticipate their future. Higher education has therefore an important role to play in co-operation, but it must be aware of the stakes first of all for itself, secondly for the other educational levels and finally for the overall development of society.

215. Meeting in Sweden from 28 to 30 March 1998 in the Youth Forum of the Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development, the young people present were clearly aware of the importance of culture and cultures for development co-operation, as well as of the benefits and dangers of globalization: ‘Culture transcends all kinds of boundaries through globalization, young people have been able to find unexpected ways of identifying with other cultures and people all over the world. Globalization has resulted in ‘glocalization’. By that we mean that people have found opportunities to interact with others on many levels. People can think globally and act locally. It increases cultural exchange, opens up educational opportunities and enhances the ability to make informed choices. But globalization also carries with it a threat of homogenization and uniformization. It presents the real danger of an overtly consumerist society which is environmentally unsustainable. Globalization threatens the social organization and the way of life of many peoples. It creates alienation and exclusion. Globalization should not intrude upon others’ ways of life or deprive people of their often long-cherished spirituality, and it should not be based upon exploitative economic relationships. It should not produce inequalities on the basis of gender, race or religion, or between developed and developing countries’ (Sigtuna, Sweden, Declaration pages 2 and 3).

216. This position of principle on the part of young people is fundamental to the examination of the draft declarations and priority framework of action which are submitted to the World Conference on Higher Education.

217. It is essential that in these documents the co-operation section should submit strong proposals designed to enhance inter-university co-operation based on solidarity, in such a way as to help to reduce the gap between rich and poor countries in vital fields of knowledge creation and application.

218. The draft declarations and priority action framework therefore constitute the logical follow-up to the considerations put forward in this document. The Conference will achieve its objectives only if all higher education’s social partners commit themselves to joint actions to improve the quality and relevance of higher-education institutions and systems.

219. Governments and parliaments must introduce reforms and new policies for higher education. Measures are needed to expand access to higher education by making it as broadly based as possible. States must continue to bear the chief responsibility for financing by increasing the funds earmarked for education, whilst promoting the diversification of financing sources.

220. To accomplish these tasks, the institutions must establish partnerships with the world of work, the political authorities and other representatives of civil society. They must attach greater importance to their relations with the other educational levels and seek a paradigm centred on learning and the acquisition of transferable skills. To this end, they must establish diversified and flexible training structures and systems which will encourage lifelong education through the use of new technology. For this purpose, effective management and an appropriate financing system must be found. Relevant high-quality research must be conducted and the institutions must strengthen their policies on services to society. The role of students, as also the role of responsible partners, in policy determination and implementation must be looked at.

221. As part of the process leading up to the preparation for the World Conference on Higher Education, two meetings of experts were held after the regional conferences.

During the workshops of the meeting of experts held in Toronto in April 1998, participants stressed the need to:

222. To put these ideas into practice, UNESCO is developing an inter- and transdisciplinary programme in agreement with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations which specialize or are competent in the higher-education field.

In conclusion, in adopting the declaration and priority framework of action, the participants and all parties concerned in higher education will undertake to act together to achieve their ultimate goal of collaborating on the construction of a more just and equitable world, whilst providing relevant and high-quality education.