ABSTRACT
Globally, higher education systems have undergone substantial transformation since the time of our first look at adult learners in higher education (OECD 1987). Notably, the pace of change in most systems has accelerated over the last decade with increasing diversification in the composition of the student body, types of higher education institutions, forms of provision and funding mechanisms. The reform of higher education has been a dominant theme in national and international policy discourse with a focus amongst other considerations on changing higher education governance, financing, structures and modi operandi in order to make institutions more ‘relevant’ to the needs of labour markets, more ‘efficient’, more transparent and accountable, and more international and competitive. As the participation rates in OECD countries increased significantly, equity issues and widening access for under-represented sections of the population tended to be relegated to second order consideration.
