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.
A quick look at the broad contours of the change help highlight the countries that have helped the extension of higher education. Trends from the seventies show that though the enrolment in higher education in the developed countries had almost doubled to 26.6 million in the two decades till 1990, the gains have decelerated recently with enrolment increasing by just 46.6% to reach 39 million in 2006. In contrast, the enrolment in higher education in the developing countries had gone up by more than one a half times over the two decades to touch 41 million in 1990, and then shot up to 102 million over the next 16 years. But what makes the trends more interesting is that the gains and losses are highly skewed with the major changes largely restricted to a few nations such as the US, China and India.
Numbers show that the share of higher education enrolment in the US to the global total has gone down steadily from the peak level of 28.9% in 1970 to 12.4%, which is less than half the previous share over the 36-year period. This is in striking contrast to the experience of other developed countries who have almost retained their share with the numbers sliding only marginally from 16.7% to 15.2% during the period.
The scenario is remarkably similar in the case of the developing countries excluding China and India. As in the case of the developed countries excluding the US, the share of these developing countries in higher education enrolment has remained almost stable, with the numbers barely going up from 45.6% to 46.8% between 1970 and 2006.
In contrast, the share of China and India in the global enrolment went up almost three-fold from 8.8% in 1970 to 25.7% in 2006. But among these two countries the real achiever is China whose share in total enrolment went up from just about 0.3% to touch 16.5%, making it the nation with the highest number of persons enrolled in higher education. The 23.4 million Chinese enrolled in higher education in 2006 was around a third more than the 17.5 million enrolled in the US.
Though India?s gains are more limited with its share of persons enrolled in higher education going up from 8.5% in 1970 to 9.1%, in 2006 the size of the enrolled was an impressive 12.9 million, which was only a third less than in the US. A surprising element is the Chinese gains over India. The number of persons enrolled in higher education in India had been sizably more than that of the Chinese till 2000 (five million Indians were enrolled in higher education as compared to 3.8 million Chinese). But the Chinese have moved at a scorching pace over the last 16 years and added up 19.6 million to the higher education enrolment while the Indian gains were less than half at just 7.9 million.
These estimates which are adjusted after ensuring common definitions to ensure comparability confirm that the gains made by India and China need to be acknowledged. But the more important question is not about the growth of higher education but about the quality of education in the developing countries. So far there has been no statistical evidence which established the superiority of one over another.
The NBER study on the impact of the growing enrolment rates in higher education says that its impact will be positive on the US economy. The global spread of higher education will benefit the US as it will contribute to the global knowledge pool, which can be accessed by the US, and also because improved productivity across the globe will ensure goods & services at lower prices to the US consumers.
But the growth of higher education will also impact the US negatively as it will increase competition in high-tech sectors where it currently enjoys a comparative advantage. The study points out that one way that the US can gain from the global growth in higher education is to attract international students and ensure they stay back.