Contexts, characteristics and capabilities

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Executive Brief

• The Mapping Higher Education in Asian briefing sparks a more contemporary way of thinking about higher education in Asia and how it is shaping a new order and transforming global relations.
• The briefing highlights key sector characteristics, situating them within broader national, regional, and international contexts.
• After grounding the analysis, we traverse the statistical contours of selected higher education systems and their surroundings.
• This benchmark analysis frames suggestions about what lies ahead.
• The briefing has deployed a broad brush to compile baseline insights into higher education in Asia. It is focused on a sample of 16 territories.
• The resource is for individuals with a deep and enduring interest in the region and sector, as well as those with limited exposure and knowledge.

Over the past forty years, Asia has surpassed North America and Europe in the number of students enrolled in university and built the world’s largest higher education ecosystem. The innovation has been so thriving and profound that it is hard to even picture what sort of university today’s doctoral graduates might lead. Exceptional imagination and foresight will be necessary to curate future steps, as well as basic information about what is happening.

Herein lies a problem, for far too little is known about higher education in Asia, particularly in comparison to other parts of the world. The region has invested in designing and making rather than monitoring and evaluating universities. Besides national statistics, university rankings, and commercial data on potential tuition flows, most public data has been collated by agencies based in Europe and North America. Collaboration among countries and universities has been patchy, precarious, and often politically motivated. In many respects, Asia has hitherto played a subordinate or ‘back-office’ role, sending people for research and education to other parts of the world.

It is hard to imagine Asia being the silent premise in global higher education for too many more years to come. As the table below shows, higher education in Asia compares to that in other major world regions. Rather than taking the region for granted, it is therefore essential to gain a deeper understanding of what is happening.

Number of higher education institutions (HEIs) and key characteristics of the 16 Asian territories, compared with the whole of Europe and North America

Hamish Coates, Angel Calderon, Muhammad Hali Aprimadya, Soth Meas, Kenneth Moore

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