Melbourne Graduate School of Education - Theses

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    Malaysian higher education and the United States as a model: policy borrowing or policy learning?
    Abdullah, Arnida ( 2013)
    Higher education plays an important role in many developing countries. Graduates are being equipped with professional knowledge and skills to fulfil the demands of the labour market in a knowledge economy. Developing countries tend to adopt models of higher education organization from developed nations, especially those that are world leaders. Progress in science and technology and national wealth itself point to the success of these systems and suggest that they represent a suitable and feasible path to take. Malaysia is amongst those developing nations that have looked to advanced economies to provide a model of mass higher education which would raise educational levels and national income. But has a process of policy-borrowing achieved both the growth and the equity that governments have promised? Has the expansion and diversification of higher education in Malaysia created more equitable access for all students in order to ensure that increased higher education is undertaken by a wide range of population who have the ability and motivation to succeed? This study aims to contribute to policy learning in higher education in the developing world (as distinct from uncritical policy borrowing). It focuses on Malaysia’s efforts to learn from the US experience. The findings of this study may assist the Malaysian policy makers in designing new improved policies to widen access in higher education and to further strengthen Malaysian higher education sector. In the first section of this thesis, a review is made of US efforts to expand higher education, while improving equity. Two barriers to participation in higher education – school dropout rates and low achievement among young people who do graduate – are examined in greater detail. This then leads to a key discussion on the types of higher educational institutions in the US, their enrolment patterns and the challenges faced by each institution. At the end of this section, the findings that developing countries can learn from the United States’ experience are highlighted. In the second section, the study focuses on Malaysia. It starts with historical overview pre independence, focusing on economic, social and educational developments. The growth and structural transformation of the Malaysian economy are also examined and compared with educational attainment. Trends in primary and secondary public education expansion and challenges facing this public system are then discussed, leading to a detailed discussion on the development of the Malaysian public and private tertiary education sector. The findings presented in this study show that the challenge for Malaysia is not to become like the USA, but to learn from the US experience and to develop its own strategic plans for higher education that fit with the social and economic needs of the country. The study suggests policy directions to making higher education in Malaysia more effective and equitable, which includes strengthening and improving Malaysia’s public schools, enhancing the quality of higher education and assisting students from disadvantaged families. Such initiatives may assist Malaysia to become the best provider of higher education in the South East Asian region and a high-income developed country by the year 2020.
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    The aspiring spires: momentum and the status university
    Leihy, Peodair Seamus ( 2013)
    Higher education is in many respects governed by market relations and state direction; in some ways, however, it is not. In prestige, it falls back on an elusive force. The university is entrepreneurial, and it is public spirited, and it is also itself. According to perceptions of how much of a university a university is, it is able to relay credibility. Rankings and taxonomical mapping may come at this nebulous prestige from more solid data, including the tracing of market performance and state backing. Crucially, though, it is prestige that any ranking hoping to gauge the calibrations of trust and belief is after, whether prestige already detected or that anticipated according to momentum. Aware of this, inasmuch as an organization can think, the status university continues to grow as a magnet for competitive but remarkably peaceable human endeavour, and as a major junction for the forces of civil religion. The thesis seeks to update the appraisal of the highly evolved sense of status in universities and in progressively expanded higher education systems, and to deepen appreciation of the energy and history with which they swell.
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    Building university research capacity in Vietnam: prospects, problems and possibilities
    Nguyen, Thi Lan Huong ( 2013)
    There has been an absence of research on university research capacity building, particularly in developing country contexts. To narrow this research gap, this thesis aims to: (i) identify the essentials of building university research capacity; (ii) evaluate critically the extent to which these essentials have been embraced by four selected leading Vietnamese universities; (iii) recommend policies, processes, and strategies to enhance these universities’ research capacity and performance. Taking a qualitative, case-study approach, this study uses semi-structured interviews as the primary method for data collection. The study interviews 64 participants, of whom 55 are from within four selected leading Vietnamese universities and nine are external stakeholders. The study identified five key empirical findings in accordance with five domains of university research capacity building. First, in terms of research resources, the four universities lacked adequate research related human resources, infrastructure, and funding. Second, in organizing and structuring research, ideally, a university should manage both visible and intangible organizational tasks. In practice, the four universities focused mostly on completing an organizational chart for research. They seemed to neglect most of the other underlining structural issues. Third, regarding research related HR policies, in theory, universities should employ various strong HR policies in recruiting, developing, assessing, and rewarding academics. In practice, to a certain extent, the four universities recognized their academics’ research activities. However, their policies did not adequately encourage academics to maximize their research potential. Fourth, in terms of research management plans, it is argued that universities should develop an institutional interlocking and integrated research strategy. In practice, the four case-study universities hardly managed research strategically. They developed research plans only for the purpose of obtaining external block-grant funding, not for guiding future action. Finally, regarding research culture, universities should develop shared underlying organizational assumptions supporting research. The four universities failed to fully achieve this goal. Overall, their institutional research development was in its infancy. To enhance the universities’ research capacity and performance, this study suggests that changes should take place at a number of levels. At the system level, the government should (1) provide more funding for university operational expenditure and research; (2) use research performance-based tools in allocating research funding; and (3) confer a higher level of autonomy on the universities, especially in the areas of finance and human resources (HR) management. At the institutional level, the four universities should (1) enrich research resources; (2) create a more professionalized system of organizing research; (3) design a well-supported career development path for research-oriented academics; (4) clearly define institutional research objectives; and (5) translate these espoused objectives into concrete organizational actions. This study provides rich empirical data on research capacity building at four leading Vietnamese universities and suggests a model for enhancing these universities’ research capacity and performance. This knowledge is useful not only for these four case-study Vietnamese universities but also for any other university in a similar development context requiring tools and resources for building research capacity.
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    The challenges of academic leadership in Korean higher education
    KIM, DONG KWANG ( 2013)
    In recent years, South Korean higher education has been transformed from a system driven by traditional humanist values to a system that is now highly commercialized. This has given rise to numerous challenges of academic leadership faced by the deans of faculties at both public and private universities in Korea. This thesis addresses three key research questions: ‘What challenges do Korean deans face?; ‘How do Korean deans interpret these challenges?’; and ‘How do Korean deans respond to these challenges?’ The thesis addresses these questions through accounts the deans themselves provide of their lived experiences of policy and practice, particularly with respect to the demands of academic leadership. The thesis takes a hermeneutical, phenomenological approach to research, involving attempts to listen empathetically to the deans’ narratives of their feelings and understandings. An analysis of these narratives reveals that, particularly in wake of recent New Public Management-inspired reforms in Korea, the key challenges that the deans face may be clustered around issues of governance; autonomy and authority; and how to interpret and enact the requirements of effectiveness. It also suggests that for these deans one of the major tasks of academic leadership is to reconcile the potentially competing values that these challenges represent. I argue that their attempts at this reconciliation involve a complex assemblage of new managerialism and commercialization, as well as retaining a commitment to traditional academic values.