Author: Alex Usher

Higher Education in France

If you study global higher education, one of the hardest habits to shake is that of assuming isomorphism. That building over there is a university? With departments and faculties? I went to a university with departments and faculties. I therefore know exactly what s going on in there. Except that is not really true, Universities in different countries often behave in quite different ways. There are, sometimes, serious outliers. And no country’s system is more of an outlier than that of France. France have, universities,

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The New Model University

You may have heard once or twice about Arizona State University and how innovative it is. You probably don’t know the half of it. Today I am going to rectify that because it may be the institution from which Canadian universities need to learn the most over the next few years. A lot of the initial attention to what ASU was doing differently focused on the way that faculties got rearranged in the early 2000s. The university still runs traditional

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Student Visas, Old Systems and New

If you want to know how messed up the visa processing system is about to get in the next couple of months…well, buckle up. Y’all may remember that when Minister Marc Miller announced caps on student visas, he indicated that each province would be responsible for allocating visas among its own institutions. All provinces will be required to provide students with a letter or certificate attached to their applications, indicating the institution that the student is to attend. This already

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The Dawn of a New Era

The events of the last couple of weeks have kept everyone in the higher education sector in a whirlwind. But step back a minute. It’s worth thinking about the big picture. Some of you may remember this graph which I drew about a year ago, looking at the history of higher education funding in Canada. It shows total university and college income by source back to 1955-56. Looking at the trends across these six decades, I think it tells a

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Malaysian Higher Education

If I asked most people to name an up-and-coming higher education system – one not from a wealthy country but perhaps from the middle-income zone – people would probably naturally speak about China. And they’d probably be right: China’s higher education system has achieved remarkable things in the half-century since it was re-constructed after the Cultural Revolution. But could you name a second? Let me give you my answer: it’s Malaysia. It’s not well-known outside the region, but in fact

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