Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

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social engagement among the stake holders as well as among the principal actors in higher
education sector.
6.2.2 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
The transformation of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) resulted
into the establishment of OECD in 1961. OECD is a multi-function IGO mainly represented by
high income European countries. It is neither supra-national forcing and coercing body nor a
political agency but it is an intellectual hub and a pool of think tanks. OECD‟s purpose is to
provide a forum for its member governments and partners to study and formulate the best
policies for promoting economic and social development. To achieve these objectives OECD
supports and facilitates sharing of experiences and ideas, supports policy reforms, monitors and
forecast economic trends, collects, analyzes and disseminates data and statistics, conducts peer
reviews studies of member state performance, provides technical assistance through expertise,
promotes innovative ideas and the philosophy of think global, act local.
OECD is not purely an educational organization but it works on education to bring economic
development through its Directorate for Education. The directorate is achieving its goals in
education through four major programs: PISA, IMHE, CELE and CERI. Furthermore it is also
working on many projects with the collaboration and cooperation of 116 IGOs in 35 member and
more than 100 non-member states. Policy reforms and capacity development in higher education
sector are becoming major focus of OECD. The directorate for education has been contributing
to the development of higher education through six major initiatives: thematic review of tertiary
education; the Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education; thematic
Review on Adult learning; AHELO-Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes;
quality teaching in higher education; the OECD Global Forums: Education.
Asia has insignificant representation in the OECD when seen on full-member table; only 0.7% of
the Asian population is represented by the four full-members from Asia. Likewise OECD
projects on education cover only very small part of the Asian population. During the last
decades, on Asian partner economies, OECD‟s Directorate for Education has produced only 123
reviews and surveys, 25 reports and 50 publications. But 80% of the documents produced were
on four Asian member economies while only 20% were on the remaining seventeen OECD