Higher Education: A Tradable Commodity or Public Service?

Bartell argues (2003) oniversity’s primary functions are teaching, research and subsequently have function of service to its near community or “surrounding community. The spheres of influence for HEIs have expanded to cross-border territories. The growth of new information technologies, the liberalization of trade of educational services and the emergence of various forms of borderless education brought about new challenges to governments, institutions, policy-makers, educators and students also. Nation-states are seen no longer the sole providers of higher education¹. International higher education resulted from the impact of such external developments, i.e. neo-liberal policies, the shrinking of distances, the rise of demand for higher education, the global trade of higher education services, the decreasing of public budget allocated to higher education, the accountability concerns of societies, the rising competition of both public and private universities in order to attract more and the best students. Hence, the number and types of private universities increased and they started to structure themselves more outward oriented. In this context, they have forced national higher education systems to involve more in international higher education services which subjected to commoditization more than national higher education services.

The expansion of markets and international trade on the knowledge-intensive and service-based sectors of the economy made higher educational institutions so as to become more oriented to

1 http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=21773&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, 13.05.2005.

the demands of trade and markets in terms of their educational content, approach, and outlook (OECD, 1996). Knowledge society highlights the importance of higher education, because of the strategic importance of knowledge. Since the knowledge admitted as the leading production factor, higher education switched from its “public good” charecter to the “tradable service”

within international markets which also fostered the expansion of “enterpreneur” or “corporate”

universities. Higher education has lost its public service character in the last decades and labeled as a trade issue or circulated in the global markets as a commodity because of its cross-border character. Therefore, in many times UNESCO argues to protect higher education against the ethical challenges of the commoditization of the service.

Iredale argues on the trade of higher education (2001: 9) developed countries recognize

‘knowledge’ as a highly valued asset which can be used to sell or trade in educational services as a means of earning valuable export revenue. Similarly, it is argued that the emerging post-industrial economy is one where the distinctions between goods and services will be increasingly blurred, because knowledge is the key factor for the individual or the national success in an information-based economy (OECD, 1996: 28).

Douglas M. Windham (University of Albany, State University of New Yok) argues

“internationalization is both educational and economic issue” (OECD, 1996). Deetman (OECD, 1996), the President of the Executive Board of the NUFFIC mentiones the internationalization in particular has two axes of quantity versus quality, and trade versus aid.

It is stated that “unless the quality dimension is fully integrated in internationalization policies, the further growth of mobility and transnational delivery will risk being at the expense of its quality” (Van Damme, 2001: 436-437). Similarly, Yang argues (2002: 88) the erosion of the core university values of like disinterested inquiry and critical thinking distorts the complex cultural, social and process dimensions of education.

Kabasakal has also claimed that commoditization and internationalization in higher education goes hand in hand. According to Kabasakal there are three reasons of this process which started by 1980s. The first one is stemming from the virtue of social justice, i.e. students benefit more than states in higher education. Hence, states started to question the financing of HEIs. For this reason, states diminished their financial contribution to the budgets of universities, and allow them to diversify their source of income. The second reason emerged in Europe. Since the

ageing of Europe, their universities imported students from the developing countries’ rich students who have financial power to study abroad. The third is stemming from globalization which accredited the occupation in the world wide. HEIs assured the students on the recognition of qualifications. Therefore, the higher education which has vocational contribution to occupation is commoditized easily. In fact, AYU has emerged out of these tendencies.

It is true that the mechanism plan to supply higher education without public finance is being re-formulated for the sake of public fair. The cost of national higher education system is not desired to be built on financial contributions of poor segments of societies. In this context, it is argued that the financial burden of higher education on state budget should be decreased owing to rising demand and availability of self-financed rich students. The higher education is about to merchandise and seen as semi-public service. The number of graduates from HEIs increased more and graduates desire to pursue their education in master and doctorate degrees. As the students move ahead on educational stages, the benefit of the accumulation is higher for the students rather than for society. In response to those developments, governments have an intention to subsidize poor students solely.

On the other hand, the private sector interests with higher education due to function of raising labor force for the market, the sector need to involve in higher education as stakeholder for the quality of the supplied service. On the other hand, the multi-national structure of employment in the MNCs justifies the mobilization of higher education students between countries. It is argued that “international labor markets require the higher education system to deliver graduates with the academic, linguistic and intercultural qualifications that are internationally competitive”

(Qiang, 2003: 254).

The rise of internationalization of labor market for the white-collar workers has reinforced to approaching internationalization of higher education as a subject matter of commodity.

Basically, there are two counter arguments on the role of tertiary education institutions in terms of its relations with economic actors. The first idea sees that the relations may cause them to loss universal objectives resulted in the erosion of its broader universal and humanitarian goals. The opposite idea claims that universities should proceed on economic goals in order to obtain financial sources for innovation studies to which both governments and private sector need (Akşit, 2002).

Ultimately, it seems that the dominance of state on higher education would not be diminished extensively. The strategic role of higher education forces states to manage, regulate and involve.

However, the recent researches showed that (OECDb, 2004: 13) the higher education still is a functional tool for national policies. In this context, it is stated that governments involve in higher education systems to deliver a number of national policy goals for the socio-economic development. These goals include:

• up-skilling the population and life-long learning,

• social inclusion, widening participation, citizenship skills,

• economic development,

• regional policy,

• cultural development and regeneration,

• knowledge-based developments,

• research and development, especially in science, technology and medicine.