Diversity and Diversification of Higher Education: Trends, Challenges and Policies

Ulrich Teichler

Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, 2015, issue 1, 14-38

Abstract: Ulrich Teichler - Professor, International Centre for Higher Education Research, University of Kassel (Germany). Address: Universitt Kassel, Mnchebergstrae, 19, 34109, Kassel. E-mail: teichler@incher.uni-kassel.de Most current discussions of diversity within higher education systems focus on comparing and contrasting universities located at different positions in the vertical rankings hierarchy. This paper innovates by identifying trends and patterns in horizontal diversification-i. e., diversity of types of study programs, educational concepts, and specializations-and ultimately reaches the conclusion that the current frenzy over rankings is causing quality to be unevenly distributed throughout higher education systems and undermining the concept of the wisdom of the many. It begins by distinguishing between the various types of diversity. It then describes various educational reforms and attempts to engineer horizontal diversity across Europe. A discussion follows about the origins of ranking systems and how they took root and gained currency in Europe, where informal differences between universities had previously been seen as trivial and secondary to formal differences, and the possible damaging implications such rankings might have for the quality of education throughout the entire world. Higher education policymakers, the paper concludes, must deliberately focus on bolstering the quality of all educational institutions, not just those with the highest rankings.DOI: 10.17323/1814-9545-2015-1-14-38

Keywords: higher education policy; vertical diversity between universities; institutional diversity; world-class universities; rankings; elite higher education; mass higher education; universal higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://vo.hse.ru/data/2015/06/16/1084122829/2015-1%20Teichler%20En.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nos:voprob:2015:i:1:p:14-38

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow from National Research University Higher School of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marta Morozova ().