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

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dissemination, production and preservation of knowledge through research and information
sharing and pedagogy.
A huge pool of research based knowledge exists on the Asian higher education. These scientific
studies present varied depths of studies and cover a wide variety of subjects, issues and areas.
But it is not the case when comes the study and assessment of IGOs‟ share in the development of
higher education we find a small number of scattered and isolated attempts to study the role of
IGOs in higher education in Asia. A major part of the work that exists in this domain is produced
by the IGOs themselves that are usually in the form reports, reviews, commissioned studies and
website documents. The independent research studies focus only national perspectives usually
without any cross country comparisons.
In today‟s rapidly changing world, knowledge is characterized by complexity and accelerated
change. In this context higher education has important opportunities and at the same time faces
challenges, many of ,which are new, unexpected and unprecedented (Marmolejo & Puukka,
2006). Understanding the broader and new roles of higher education in a globalized world is
fundamental to deal with the challenges that are faced by today‟s world. In recent years in Asia
the size of higher education has increased by many times. This expansion of higher education
plays a positive role in faster technological advancement and it helps in improving country‟s
ability to maximize its economic growth and productivity so more investment in higher
education may be justified and good for society (Bloom, Canning, & Chan, 2006). But at the
same time this huge increase in the enrolment has put pressure on the resources and organizers to
maintain the provision as well as the quality. As a result higher education, in countries with low
economic development, small industrial base and under developed resources, is in a deep trouble.
Thus such countries are unable to find a balance between demand and provision consequently
this gap is constantly increasing. In order to face these challenges, IGOs particularly UNESCO,
OECD and the World Bank are actively engaged in finding and providing solutions in Asia and
rest of the world.
For the last few decades a shift in the IGOs stance is evident from their enhanced participation
and the active role in the development of higher education in Asia. In this context it is very
important to study the role of international organizations in the development of higher education
in Asia. One can analyze IO‟s behavior and role by focusing on the specific tasks and functions