The World-Class University as Part of a New Higher Education Paradigm: From Institutional Qualities to Systemic Excellence

Editors: Jan Sadlak and Liu Nian Cai

Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca: UNESCO-CEPES, 2009. 354p.

ISBN:92-9069-194-8; 978-92-9069-194-8; 978-973-610-911-9

"Not every nation needs a WCU, at least not while more fundamental higher education needs are not met (which is the case of of some developing countries). For many countries, a WCU is beyond the ability of the nation to support; this is particularly true for some small and/or developing countries. even a country of large economic scale needs both a limited number of WCUs and a larger diversified quality higher education system to be healthy... [Yet] despite these caveats, more and more universities form various countries are joining the race to create WCUs bu establishing long-term strategic plans and exercising relevant policy reforms. Adequate attention must thus be paid to balance international competition and national development, prioritization and diversification, autonomy and accountability at the system level and also to balance long-term strategies and short term needs, education and research, strength and comprehensiveness of disciplines at the institutional level.

The present volume contains fifteen essays addressing the contentions and cautions, most of which originated from papers presented at the "2nd International Conference on World-Class Universities (WCU-2)", held in November 2007 in Shanghai, China, and organized by the Graduate School of Education of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Table of Contents and Introduction to the topic (PDF format - 366,79KB)

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