Growth of higher education unravels new prospects

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: The churn caused by globalisation has leapfrogged the developing countries ahead in one of the most unexpected areas—higher education. Most recent numbers show that the share of developing countries in total enrolment in higher education has gone up from 54.4% in 1970 to 72.4% in 2006. This is surprising as developing countries continue to lag both in wealth creation and trade, even though they account for 85% of world’s population. Thus, while the GDP of developing economies is a low 43.7% of the global GDP, their share in global exports of goods & services is at a still lower 34%.

Gains made in higher education by the developing countries have never been a threat to the power of the developed world as their control over the resources has ensured that the spread of higher education in the developing countries posed no serious challenges. This was especially so in the seventies and eighties when the growing control over industry and finance enhanced the confidence of the developed world and restrained the growth prospects of the developing world. The brain drain of good talent from the developing to the developed countries ensured that the impact of the gains of developing world in higher education was limited.

But the globalisation and the growth of the knowledge economy has now seemed have make a major change in the developed world’s perception of the growing knowledge empowerment in the developing world. Efforts to meet the threat have resulted in a quick rethink of the education strategies in the developed countries, and also of efforts to make more meaningful assessments of the potential threats.

A major effort made in this direction is a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research titled What Does Global Expansion of Higher Education Mean for the US? However, the growing evidence is that tackling the threat posed by the developing countries is no easy task as these countries have already made giant strides in the spread of higher education.