ROPS 2000

A Social Contract Between the Public Higher Education Sector and the People of South Africa, by Ahmed C. Bawa

Ahmed C. Bawa
2000

The higher education sector in South Africa is experiencing an existential crisis. For all of its diverse elements and activities and values as a system, its historic mission and the role that it plays in society were defined for it in the previous era - this not withstanding the progressive roles played by some of the . However, it is an existential crisis which stems only partially from its history in our Apartheid past. Its intellectual and organisational shape stems also from its place on the edge of the global academic metropole from which it attempts to draw its academic...

Politics, Markets, and University Costs: Financing Universities in the Current Era, by Roger L. Geiger

Roger L. Geiger
2000

The purpose of this study is to determine the factors shaping the financing of the principal universities of the United States, and to explore the consequences for institutions and for students. Revenues are the lifeblood of these or any other universities. The level of resources that universities command from society determines the level and scope of their activities, and who provides these resources greatly affects their behavior. Moreover, where resources are concerned, both inequality and inconsistency have been the rule. During the 1980s, universities generally were able to lift their...

From Mass Higher Education to Universal Access: The American Advantage

Martin Trow
2000

This paper reflects on some of the main issues facing research universities as they strive to simultaneously complete the creation of systems of mass higher education and also move towards Internet-based universal access. It examines these issues from an American perspective, but in comparative context. Universities on both sides of the Atlantic face problems, but they take different (though similar) forms and evoke different responses. They are part of a larger crisis in higher education in Western societies. That these problems flow from the partial success in creating and adapting...

Some Consequences of the New Information and Communication Technologies for Higher Education

Martin Trow
2000

It is a clouded crystal ball into which we peer to see the future of our universities and colleges, cloudy because of the uncertainties of the development of the new technologies of information and communication. The only thing we can be sure about is that these developments will have large and cumulative effects on our universities and colleges. This essay attempts to identify some defining characteristics of these technologies and their effects. It explores some of the sources of a continuing growth of demand for higher education in many if not all advanced societies that will accelerate...