Non-University Higher Education
Sub Title: The German Fachhochschulen and This Sector in The Cameroon Higher Education System
wellymesu[at]yahoo[dot]com
INTRODUCTION
Higher Education has been on a constant dynamics towards better quality and efficiency of graduates. The concluding decades of the 20th century saw a major expansion and the emergence of certain distinct features in the higher education system. From a small elite sector where very few school-leavers participated to a mass sector. Gellert (1993, P. 17) insist that there are a number of ‘essential areas of change’ in the higher education system. A number of features are closely linked to the expansions that did occurred in the 1960s onward. Among the trend that Gellert identified was institutional differentiation, which includes the establishment of new forms of higher education institutions and programmes, functional modification, new modes of teaching and learning, increased concerns with access and educational opportunity, the prevalence of government intervention and accountability.
The thrust to increase and, to a lesser or greater degree, to widen participation in higher education in most countries is associated with a number of themes within the larger banner of lifelong learning. They include the ‘economic imperatives created by a global competition, technological change and the challenge of the knowledge economy, individual responsibility and self-improvement, employability, flexibility of institutions and individuals, social inclusion and citizenship’ (Osborne, 2003). Hence, the difficulty to have an internationally clear distinction between a university sector and another sector of higher education, often pejoratively called ‘non-university higher education’, ‘short cycle’ or ‘alternative’ (Teichler, 1998, 2001).
In many countries, institutional differentiation is evident in the creation of new types of institutions that runs parallel and complement existing traditional universities. In some cases, such as the Britain, in an initial phase of development, a polytechnic sector was created as a parallel vocational and technical alternative to universities. The use of these institutions both as providers of qualifications with national recognition and as feeders to the second or third year of universities has effectively established a new, but fuzzy, binary line, and a higher education structure that increasingly is assuming the characteristic of a stratified system. Hence, the UK system is beginning to resemble the North American system with its two-years Community College programme that are designed to articulate to universities (Bonham, 2002).
In the 1960s and 1970s there were reasons why governments preferred to articulate dual systems and/or create binary structures to cope with the strains of rapid growth. First, the traditional ethos of the universities was respected. With the move towards much higher levels of participation there were fears that universities would be contaminated by less scientific values. Again, it was believed that undifferentiated systems inevitable produces ‘academic drift’ which undermined attempt to produce more vocational forms of higher education (OECD, 1973). But the increasing numbers of jobless graduates made the alarm bells to call for more strengthening of the “less noble” sectors of higher education. The current age of mass higher education is the heir of many different traditions and the so-called ‘Learning Society’, new traditions are being added at all time and the so-called ‘short-cycle higher education have long ago ceased to be a residual sector (Ibid.).
Universities are multidisciplinary institutions in charge of both research and teaching, entitled to award advanced academic degrees (notably the doctorate) and, where applicable, entitled to award subsequent degrees qualifying for senior academic positions (the ‘doctor scientiae’ or the ‘Habilitation’), are considered the key institutions of higher education (Teichler 2001). Certain institutions have a disciplinary specialization such as agriculture, teacher training, administration, medicine, physical education, etc, but the current trend is towards a more comprehensive disciplinary context. Closely linked to this trend is diversification of level of study. The programmes usually classified as undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate and which lead to one of the three main types of degree – bachelor, master and doctor (or their national and professional equivalents), are the main forms of certification in higher education.
However, many functions associated with higher studies and training is now taking place in environments other than traditional universities. These programmes often responds to a specific learning needs of the highly diversified clientele – for example by providing distance learning courses – and answer the demands of further professionalisation and the constantly changing labour market. Their classification raises problems of both an academic and professional nature, including the need to grant academic recognition of skills acquired out side academic institutions (UNESCO 1995). Read more »
E-mail subscription
