[2009 trends] Higher education trends for 2009

1. Gets the job: people are understanding that attaining a higher education is what gets the job.

2. Lack of research: people don't research what career and/or course they really want to go into, which wastes time and effort by not informing oneself of their career and/or study choice. Prospective student often know only that they want a degree because you need it to get a job. They know little about what they are interested in or what they have the talent for. This is a trend we are hoping to change in 2009.

3. Demand without financial resources: there is a demand for more and different tertiary education but the financial resources are not increasing in the same proportion.

   Tertiary systems around the world have become less diverse and differentiated in recent decades, studies have shown. And despite a desire among many states to increase diversity within higher education, a combination of "strict and uniform government policies" and the ability of powerful academic communities to defend their norms and values, are largely to blame for growing homogenisation. This is bad news for higher education. - Frans van Vught, education professor of the University of Twente in The Netherlands

4. Study loans: many more people are dependent on study loans as they cannot fork out the total payment of their course(s) at the inception of their studies. This is also true internationally in countries such as the US and the UK

5. Dropout rate: this has escalated alarmingly, with the bulk of those leaving being first-year students.

6. Online: the more respectable online course(s) have become prominent, rather than physical attendance a tertiary institution for the period of study. This is especially true of young school leavers who can't find jobs and have decided to up-skill but can't afford full-time study.

7. More mature: there is a trend for the more mature students to continue their studies after a couple of years of working. By then they are also more likely to know what they want to do. Not enough matriculants follow the internationally popular "gap year" route, which also helps.

8. Shorter, more focused and business-orientated: these kind of courses are becoming more popular. There has been a proliferation of business colleges and lots of advertisements for courses from marketing to business administration.

9. Threats to education systems: armed conflict and HIV/AIDS continue to ravage education systems and to compound existing challenges. Poor health and malnutrition prevent children from attending school and from learning while in school. Education needs a growing economy to provide the necessary revenues and to create jobs. Likewise, a growing economy needs education to provide a skilled labour force and scientific and technological leadership. This forms a closed loop that can only be escaped from by positive intervention at some point in the process.
   

Below is a list of international education trends found on the UNESCO website (www.unesco.org:

• Access to education: despite significant progress in the last two decades, world-wide about 77 million primary school age children still do not attend school; 44 million of these children are girls. Some 264 million adolescents of secondary school age are not currently enrolled. Over 800 million adolescents and adults lack the literacy which could equip them with the skills needed to work their way out of poverty.

• Equity in education: access to education is particularly constrained for girls and poor or rural children. There is tremendous variation in access between developed and developing countries and this greatly affects the widening digital and knowledge divide.

• Education quality and learning outcomes: the quality of education in poor countries is hamstrung by high pupil/teacher ratios and teachers lacking adequate qualifications.

• Social cohesion and democratic traditions: Education systems are rarely neutral in terms of social cohesion and the building of democratic traditions. They can contribute positively through specific strategies such as peace education, etc. Unequal access to quality education often reflects a national heritage of social inequality and ethnic or religious divisions.

• Financing of education: seven years after the pledge by world leaders that "no country seriously committed to Education for All will be thwarted in its achievement of universal primary education due to a lack of resources" there has been little change. If the goal of universal primary completion is to be achieved by 2015, low income countries would need at least US$3.7 billion a year of support.

• Global competitiveness: what seems to distinguish the well performing countries from the less successful ones is their human capital and their capacity to obtain, apply and generate knowledge. In the successful countries, skills, technology, education and the economy interact in important ways to create a virtuous cycle of productivity each feeding on the other. Tertiary enrollment is 86.9% in Finland, 16.2% in Indonesia, 7.7% in Nigeria, and 0.9% in Mozambique.