ABSTRACT
This book focuses on the governance of universities. The chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of governance in higher education, with a particular focus on the governance of public universities and address the theoretical limitations associated with the existing literature. Governance is essential to the functioning of higher education at all levels, from the basic academic unit of the department, to the level of the organization and at the level of the higher education system. The history of governance in the United Kingdom (UK) involved the emergence of four distinct models that were the outcomes of quite different traditions: the Oxbridge model, the Scottish model, the civic university model, and higher education corporation (HEC) model. This chapter provide readers with a basic contextual understanding of governance in higher education. The chapter examines the conceptual foundation and traditions of governance in higher education in order to historicize today's governance. It concludes by looking at internal self-governance, market-oriented governance and external governance.
