The Competition in Higher Education among the Developed Countries

It is emphasized that increasing number of families have wanted their children to reach more advanced education and training levels than they were able to reach themselves, in part because they have seen the value of education or competence in cultural and social terms, but alsoeducation is perceived as the way to social mobility or to secure higher ranked positions in employment (OECD, 1998: 19).

The rising demands for higher education, in the world-wide, challenges all governments to provide sufficient opportunities for growing demand especially coming from middle and low class members of societies. The lack of public universities resulted in the expansion of private universities at home which justified the oversea enrollments even for undergraduate education.

Hence, the students having of sufficient financial power prefer to study abroad. On the other hand, the growth of information technologies, liberalization of trade in educational services and some developments in higher education services like “branch campuses”, “virtual universities”

or “twinning programmes” have imposed more challenges and opened great opportunities for governments, universities, academics and students. Knight argues (2002) the demand for higher education has increased much owing to the growth of knowledge economy, movement to lifelong learning and changing demographics. But, paradoxically the capacity of public sector is not sufficient to satisfy the demand due to the budget limitations, the changing role of government, privatization and the increased emphasis on market economy.

The fore mentioned reasons are quite explanatory for the motives behind the movement of students to study abroad. These are; inability to obtain entry into local universities due to entry

exams or lack of space; easier entry mechanisms abroad; the opportunities provided by the host countries to the brightest students; weak specialization of home countries in some scientific areas; diverse job opportunities; and wealth of host economies (Altbach, 2004). However, the international student mobility patterns can be influenced by various “push-pull factors”, e.g.

language barriers, the academic reputation of the institutions, the flexibility of programmes with respect to counting the time spent abroad for degree requirements, restrictive university admission policies at home, tuition costs, geographic and historical links between countries, future job opportunities, cultural aspirations, government policies to facilitate credit transfer between home and host institutions, and degree requirements (OECD, 2004b).

The Turkish students prefer higher education abroad perhaps due to the lack of quotas of the home universities and advanced competitive exams. This is a valid fact also for AYU, but ultimately those students decided to move Kazakhstan by their own conscious preference which more or less matched with the mission of AYU, i.e. Turkish students by preferring study in AYU, both obtain the opportunity for higher education and assigned with the task of representing Turkey. Turkic and Kazakh students prefer AYU perhaps owing to its service quality and standards which is not available in the most of their home universities.

The consumption activities of foreign students are also seen as essential for the competition among the higher education institutions of the developed countries in order to attract more self-financed students. No country ignores the economic function of international student mobility. In the last decades several OECD countries are planning to promote international student mobility in higher education because it is argued “one way for students to expand their knowledge of other societies and languages and hence to leverage their labor market prospects is to study in tertiary educational institutions in countries other than their own” (OECD, 2004a: 294).

While some countries have made international student mobility as a strongest source of socio-economic development, like as Australia, Japan and New Zealand. In the former and latter countries respectively 13.1 % and 8.1 % of total service exports resulted from international higher education activities. However, it is emphasized that (OECD, 2004a: 298) the promotion of regional economic integrations by organizations and treaties such as the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN and APEC may provide incentives for students to develop their understanding of partner countries’ cultures and languages, and to build bilateral or multilateral networks. Forest argues (1995) that the total amount of expenditures made by foreign students justifies the

economic dimension of the internationalization and negotiated the issue under such supranational economic organizations. The European Union, NAFTA and ASEAN are some examples of supranational bodies which created common regional area of higher education.

It can be said that since Turkey and Central Asian republics have not composed an exceptional economic integration among themselves, the further cooperation for cross-border or international higher education activities is not visible in near future. However, among the FSU republics also an education area is composed with the name of “NIS Education, Culture and Exchange Organization”. The participant countries by the number of institutions (either cultural or educational center or formal institution) are; Armenia 1, Azerbaijan 5, Belarus 10, Georgia 5, Kazakhstan 25, Kyrgyzstan 11, Moldova 2, Russian Federation 68, Tajikistan 9, Turkmenistan 1, Ukraine 40 and Uzbekistan 5¹. Such main integrations of this process in the European continent are ERASMUS project and Campus Europae which aim to strengthen European dimension in higher education and compose a “unity in diversity”. The other main regional integrations in higher education can be stated as Central European Exchange Program for University Studies (CEEPUS), Regional Student Mobility Program among the Nordic Countries (NORDPLUS) and University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP).

The European experience also shows that educational integration and cooperation as a "soft"

dimension would enhance the expected commercial and political arrangements in future, like the establishment of Bologna Declaration² which is the mechanism accelerating Europeanization of higher education in the continent. The declaration has created EHEA which is expected to secure convergence among European higher education systems at national contexts.

The basic rationales behind the Bologna process are; to increase employability of the citizens, ensure international competitiveness of the European higher education system and compose an attractive higher education area in order to compete with the American and Australian

1 http://www.civilsoc.org//usnisorg/usnisedu.htm, 29.04.2005.

2 Bologna Declaration is the Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education signed in Bologna of Italy in June 1999 by the Education Ministers of twenty-nine European nations. The Declaration aims to make the Europe having the most dynamic knowledge-based economy of the world. The notion stated by “European Higher Education Area” is “the creation of an environment of European education in which transparency of the quality assurance systems across structures is combined with plurality and maximum openness of national systems to access and mobility. Common academic space will be held until 2010 by adjusted and tied policies. It has been a dominant motive for the recognition and integration of the international dimension in the national higher education policy of the member states. International competitiveness of the member states has increased. The reform process started with Bologna in 1999, Prague in 2001, Berlin in 2003 and Bergen in 2005.

universities which were embraced with globalization more than one decade ago (Thoben, 2002).

It is argued the main aim is to facilitate the mobility and bring competition for European higher education (Nokkala, 2002). However, Bologna process has increased the opportunity for the majority of the students who could not study abroad (Rudder, 2000). Therefore, European universities have been accredited since the introduction of European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) which enhanced the quality of supplied education in order to secure alignment with other European universities and to be involved in the projects initiated by Bologna process.

The EHEA encompasses the following principles so as to achieve his objectives. These are:

• public responsibility for higher education,

• institutional autonomy,

• participation of students in higher education governance,

• cooperation and trust between the participating countries and organizations.

“Campus Europae” is a cooperation network formulated to strengthen the development of EHEA initiated by Bologna process (Thobe, 2002). The core of Campus Europae project is noted to

“experience the unique quality of Europe whose major achievements include the declaration of human rights and scientific universalism. Additionally, the project hopes to foster the notion of

“unity in diversity” and make students aware of a European identity”¹.