1. The idea of Higher Education
Farid Panjwani
UCL Institute of Education
University College London

2. What is Ala in Ala Taleem?
Doctor in Philosophy
Liberal Education – the idea of Adab
Criticisms and response
A practical consideration

3. Research and healthy scepticism
Not just a western idea
A universal phenomenon

4. UK Higher Education: From 1979 to 2011
777,800 students, including 58,900 (7.6%) from outside the EC;
Participation rate was 12.4%;
48 universities, 30 polytechnics and 61colleges;
Most of the money for teaching and research came from government grants;
Nominal fee and almost no student debt;
Research was a secondary;
Grant/student 100%.
2.5 million students, 14.5% from outside EC (overall increase of 320%);
Participation rate was 47%;
115 universities out of 165 HE institutions;
Increasing amount is generated from external sources;
Student fees of up to £9000; most students are likely to be in substantial debts;
Research is now central;
Grant/student around 75%.

5. Marketization of Higher Education
“It seems clear that UK higher education in 2012 is in nearly every respect much more efficient, service oriented and entrepreneurial than it was in 1979, and this must in at least in part be due to the market-driven policies of successive governments.”
(Brown, 2013, ‘Everything for Sale: The Marketization of UK Higher Education’, p.129)

6. Findings from research on faculty perception of educational quality
Five out of six said that there was a general adverse effect on standards;
71% agreed that institutions admitted students who are not capable of benefitting from HE;
48% reported that they felt obliged to pass a student whose performance did not really merit pass;
70% agreed that the need to maintain acceptable retention had led to lower failure rates on courses ‘
[Baty, 2004 & Gill, 2008; Times Higher Education ]

7. “The fact is that rankings, prestige and investments are strongly weighted towards our research endeavours. This carries over in some measure to the training of postgraduate students, but makes it ever harder for research-intensive universities to give serious attention to the education of undergraduates. “
[ Former Vice Chancellor, Cambridge, quoted in Richard, 2006, p.1]

8. “We are concerned that Higher Education Institutions (HEI) may fail to successfully guide students to ambitious intellectual or even civic dreams and may instead be content to pander to fantasies of a leisure-based ‘good life’ whilst actually preparing students for more mundane career outcomes”.
(Hayward et al, 2011, “A degree will make all your dreams come true: higher education as the management of consumer desires”)

9. “Inequality among national higher education systems as well as within countries has increased in the past several decades. The wealth of nations and universities plays a key role in determining the quality and centrality of a university or academic system. This places developing countries at a significant disadvantage, and puts special strains on most academic systems facing the dilemma of expanded enrollment and the need to support top quality research universities.”
Altbach et al (2009), Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution. UNESCO

10. Casualization of teaching staff
Mental illness in higher education

11. Towards a new social imagination
Holistic education: technical and humanities
Healthy scepticism towards knowledge claims
Scholarship with commitment
Challenging the marketization of higher education

12. “Civilization hangs suspended, from generation to generation, by the gossamer strand of memory...If the guardians of human knowledge stumble only one time, in their fall collapses the whole edifice of knowledge and understanding.”
Rabi Jacob Neusner (d.2016)