ABSTRACT
The higher education sector is undergoing massive transformation worldwide. Competing demands from government, the private sector, civil society organizations and local communities have forced many higher education institutions to rethink their mission and place in society. A report produced for UNESCO’s World Higher Education conference in 2009, Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution, outlined many of the key drivers affecting the higher education sector overall: massifi cation of tertiary systems everywhere, the “public good” versus “private good” debate, the impacts of information and communications technology, and the rise of the knowledge economy and globalization. Add to these factors the global economic crisis beginning in 2008 and resulting increases in global poverty, economic distress of local communities and increasing demand to access higher education for retraining or further education, and the pressures facing the higher education sector become apparent.
