ABSTRACT
The relevance of higher education to the issue of marketisation is two-fold. First, universities are among the institutions affected, with market forces increasingly shaping organisational structures, strategic and operational decisions, and the discourses that go with them. But there is a second reason why universities deserve particular attention in this context. Because of their crucial role in knowledge creation, dissemination and the education of intellectual and social élites, universities are invariably more implicated than other institutions in amplifying social trends and passing them on to future generations. Discourses that are endorsed by the educational establishment are more likely to become and remain mainstream. At the same time, it is universities more than other institutions that (should) nurture the critical mind. If faculty, students and graduates do not challenge the spread of marketisation, who will?
