The challenge of building world class universities in the Asian region

Importance of a Talented Undergraduate Body

As in the past, so into the future, universities accorded the tops spots will enroll the best of the brightest into their undergraduate programs. Life will have its second chances, and people will make several, perhaps more than several, journeys in their lifetime through the universities of their choice. But the universities most sought out for that first degree, particularly in a world where choice is national and even international, will have a very big edge indeed for pushing their reputation capital. There is a special uplift effect from having thousands of really talented undergraduates on the one campus sparking off each other and keeping the rest of us, including the postgraduate students, on our toes.

A World-Class University has an International Presence

Universities have long reached beyond their national borders to recruit staff, acquire knowledge and even to enroll students. But now, for universities, the world is shrinking even further through an array of developments increasingly familiar: the globalisation of economies, the revolution in international travel, both real and virtual and, most importantly, the opening of minds to a sense of an international engagement through networks that interlace study, work, consumption and leisure activity.

I am particularly attracted to Martha Nusbaum’s argument that universities must strive to develop world citizens: "We increasingly find that we need comparative knowledge of many cultures to answer the questions we ask".

It is here that I feel the greatest opportunities for Asian universities exist. ASEAN has shown that there is much strength in regional co-operation. Australia is keen to play its part in these developments. There is a major challenge to be faced in preparing young people to take their place in tomorrow’s world where the progress of information technologies has reduced us to a global village whose leaders need the ability to tap into the world’s knowledge and to communicate across cultural barriers with sensitivity.

I want to see the students of the world-class universities in Asia spending time moving around the region, much as in the Erasmus and Socrates program in Europe. Students should spend a semester at least – ideally a whole year – studying for credit at a sister university overseas. Similarly, staff should co-operate in research projects to the point that authorship involving universities in several countries is standard practice.

Proper Resourcing is an Excellence Issue

The major public policy issue around the world is who funds higher education. In Australia, this could be answered one way when, as in the 1960’s, only 10 in every 100 high school graduates went on to university; now the answer will be different, as we pass into the new millennium, with over 40% of the high school cohort enrolling and a similar actual number entering university in later life. On top of this is a massive increase in postgraduate enrolment for coursework masters degrees.

The move to near universal higher education and its funding has changed the terrain significantly. Just how the balancing of private and public sourcing for university resourcing is handled, largely by governments, will have a profound bearing on where the world-class universities are based.

One thing is certain the title of world-class won’t come at a discount price, and without world-class funding the goal of reaching, and preserving, that high standard will be rhetoric alone.

The Leveraging Effect of Alliances and Networks

The last decade has seen a literal explosion in the signing of exchange agreements between universities in different countries, primarily to facilitate study abroad programs. Now with a new internationalism at hand and with a new competitiveness afoot, a new strategy on alliances is needed for universities pursuing the world-class goal. One such example is Universitas 21.

Founded in Melbourne last year, Universitas 21 has the University of New South Wales and the National University of Singapore among its 18 members from 6 countries. Universitas 21 is facilitating not only the normal array of student and staff exchanges, but is moving quite rapidly to:

• Mutual recognition of each member’s programs for degree progression requirements;
• Fully-integrated academic programs in pilot areas, possibly leading to joint-badged degrees;
• Extensive staff exchanges for areas such as student administration, facilities management and financial services;
• Open access to each member’s courseware, and internet program delivery as well as intellectual property alliances; and
• Informed benchmarking across an array of performance areas.

World-Class Universities Embrace Many Disciplines

A world-class university will accommodate a large number of disciplines and areas of study, to ensure cross-fertilisation of ideas and that frissance which comes from the gathering together of bright, higher-energy people from a variety of backgrounds and traditions. Some universities with a specific disciplinary focus such as in engineering or pharmacy or accountancy or even technology in a wider sense will draw international acclaim. But to cover a good part of the spectrum of scholarly enquiry in my view adds that extra dimension to the university.