A new report from the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) entitled ‘International comparisons in postgraduate education: quality, access and employment outcomes’ examines the state of postgraduate education in eight of the world’s most popular higher education study destinations.
Compiled over a 12-month period and looking at both taught and research postgraduate programs across Australia, England, Germany, India, Norway, Scotland, Spain and the US, this HEFCE report aims to address not only how to maintain quality in higher education around the world, but also asks the question of how postgraduate education can continue to see growth, expanded access and competitive international employability rates, without sacrificing on program quality or student experience.
Challenges for postgraduate education worldwide
Of the challenges that face postgraduate education at a global level, rapid enrolment growth is perhaps the most pressing, as international higher education continues to shift from a historically elite domain towards a more modern mass market system. Many nations have struggled to meet the costs of this growth in student numbers from public budgets alone. “With the exception of India and Norway,” the report claims, “there has been a steady reduction in the proportion of state funding for higher education and a greater dependence on other sources of funding, for example, shifting the cost of tuition to students.”
Expanding access to higher education is another common goal for all countries, with the aims of supporting increased social mobility and diversity, as well as feeding into economic growth institutionally and societally. This goal, amidst unprecedented enrolment growth and stretched funding, brings the added challenge of assuring consistent quality in higher education while at the same time improving international reputation.
“All the countries show a concern about the standard of entry qualifications and quality of student achievement, and are attempting to ensure that the expansion of postgraduate numbers does not undermine the quality of entrants to postgraduate degrees,” the report states.
While these challenges are being encountered in all the countries surveyed, the report highlights some interesting variations in how these issues are being addressed. Giving the example of mainland Europe, the HEFCE report talks of how initiatives such as the Bologna Process have had a great impact on the landscape of European higher education, helping to create the common framework known as the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This aims to support quality assurance and calls for a Europe-wide credit system, making it easier to set an international standard of quality for all programs. The hope is that this in turn will feed into a strong international reputation for the whole area, which consequently helps to promote employability along with a solid academic framework.
The three mainland European countries included in the report, Germany, Norway and Spain, are also recognized by HEFCE as having a clear focus on ensuring quality in higher education, supported by the creation of ‘excellence’ initiatives which provide additional funding to participant institutions.
Call for sharing of best practices in postgraduate education
Pondering on what can be done to improve access, international reputation and quality in higher education, the HEFCE report promotes the idea of internationalizing postgraduate teaching and training models. According to the report, this could be done by evaluating current models and comparing the experience gained in all types of postgraduate training in order to “consider the impact of differences between subjects and university approaches”.
Quoting Norwegian academics Vabø and Aamodt, HEFCE asserts that issuing rewards alongside international frameworks would also work to provide “stronger incentives for institutions to make changes”.
To help students, meanwhile, the report calls for greater flexibility. Regarding the question of growing tuition costs, HEFCE suggests that providing more opportunities for part-time study in postgraduate education may help. Not only could this help to decrease student debt (for those who choose to work alongside their studies), the report says it would also mean more opportunities for mature students and those seeking professional development.
Source: HEFCE International Comparisons Report, page 55