Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe

1. Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe H.G. Wells, The Outline of History

2. Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise The Task Force on Higher Education and Society

3. The Task Force

4. Longstanding problems • funding • faculty quality • student conditions and preparedness • curriculum • teaching methods • research capacity • vision

5. Pressure points • an appetite for learning • resulting expansion: rapid, chaotic, and unplanned • quantity versus quality • knowledge capital replacing physical capital as source of wealth • globalization: drain, train, retain

6. Central questions • What is the role of higher education in supporting and enhancing the process of economic and social development? • What are the major obstacles that higher education faces in developing countries? • How can these obstacles best be overcome?

7. Five areas of inquiry • the public interest • systems of higher education • governance • science and technology • general education curricula

8. The report • Task Force website: www.tfhe.net • Email webmaster@tfhe.net

9. Public interest • high private and social returns • higher education and the dismal tribe • building blocks for societies and economies • education,education, education • more than markets • mass education, not elite education

10. Higher education systems • rational planning, not uncontrolled growth • explicit stratification • different rules, different objectives • playing to strengths

11. Government as supervisor • deter abuses of private education • encourage autonomy • ensure coherence and coordination • ensure cooperation and openness • encourage competition • encourage connections to broader economy and society

12. Governance • the key problem • set of principles • academic freedom • autonomy • meritocratic selection • tools for… • managing faculty • raising standards of administration • ensuring oversight

13. General education • develops the whole individual • interactive teaching methods over a broad range of subjects • promotes citizenship, ethics, and ambition • encourages broad-mindedness, critical thinking and communication skills • provides adaptable leaders, and is a good grounding for specialists • contributes to national development

14. Science now • investment in a public good • “the new production of knowledge” • growing scientific uncertainty

15. Science and the developing world • large and growing scientific gap between developed and developing countries • brain drain • scientific advance and global public goods

16. Central questions • What is the role of higher education in supporting and enhancing the process of economic and social development? • What are the major obstacles that higher education faces in developing countries? • How can these obstacles best be overcome?

17. Implementation • catalyst for action • seeds of change in Pakistan • “it is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities”

18. The report • Task Force website: www.tfhe.net • Email webmaster@tfhe.net

19. Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire W. B. Yeats