The Decline of the Guru; The Academic Profession in Developing and Middle-Income Countries

by Edited by Philip G. Altbach

• ISBN13: 9780312295912
• ISBN10: 031229591X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2003-05-02
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The academic profession faces new challenges everywhere. The pressures of mass higher education, accountability, fiscal constraints, distance education and the new technologies, and changing attitudes concerning academic work have combined to place unprecedented strains on the professoriate. This book brings together some of the best analysts of the academic profession in a wide ranging comparative analysis of the changing academic workplace. The stress here is on middle income and developing countries, but the issues discussed are relevant everywhere. This book, precisely because of its comparative and international perspective, is useful worldwide. Among the topics considered in the case study chapters are: the changing demographics of the academic profession, including the role of gender in the professoriate, new developments in academic appointments, including the terms of academic work, evaluation of professors, and the tenure system, external pressures on the academic profession, including demands for accountability and threats to academic freedom, the changing nature of academic work, including patterns of teaching and evaluation of students and increases in teaching responsibilities, the role of research in a changing academic environment, the impact of the new technologies and distance education, and future prospects for the professoriate.

Author Biography

Philip G. Altbach is J. Donald Monan, SJ Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Centers and Peripheries in the Academic Profession: The Special Challenges of Developing Countries	1	(22)
Philip G. Altbach
Big City Love: The Academic Workplace in Mexico	23	(28)
Manuel Gil-Anton
Universities and Professors in Argentina: Changes and Challenges	51	(24)
Carlos Marquis
The Changing Academic Workplace in Brazil	75	(32)
Elizabeth Balbachevsky
Maria da Conceicao Quinteiro
The Academic Profession in China	107	(28)
Xiangming Chen
The Academic Profession in Malaysia and Singapore: Between Bureaucratic and Corporate Cultures	135	(32)
Molly N. N. Lee
The Changing Academic Workplace in Korea	167	(32)
Sungho H. Lee
The Fall of the Guru: The Decline of the Academic Profession in India	199	(32)
N. Jayaram
The Academic Workplace in Public Arab Gulf Universities	231	(40)
Andre Elias Mazawi
The Academic Workplace in a Changing Environment: The Nigerian Scene	271	(26)
Monica Iyegumwena Barrow
Fidelma Ekwutozia Ukeje
Challenges and Pressures Facing the Academic Profession in South Africa	297	(28)
Charlton Koen
About the Authors	325	(4)
Index	329