JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2001 | Volume:7 | Issue:2(20)|Papers Count:8

Considering enormous changes and transformations as one of the most important social organizations that playa critical role in national development of the nations, it emphasizes that, in the light of the current transformations, the tiniversities are faced with various challeneges in social and economic fronts. To front these challenges, the universities have to be able to compete with their ever-increasing rivals in private and multi-nation levels, while maintaning their autonomy. By analysing the relationship between the state and the university, it emphasizes that university can not be independent from their government, because they are, financially, dependent upon their respective governments. It concludes that finding the correct balance of relationship between the universities and states is the major challenge facing the universities in yhe near future

The focus of this paper will be on the impact of population trends on future enrollments in higher education. With this objective in mind, past and possible future trends in total and college age population and past trends in higher education enrollments will be described. On the basis of this information, projections will be developed and analyzed for the possible future growth in enrollments in tertiary education. To simplify the analysis and the presentation, only the experience of Asian countries with 20 million or more population in 1995 will be considered. Before presenting the findings of thes analysis, a brief discussion will be given of the methodology of population and enrollment projections.

Financial indecies of Iraninan higer education are calculated and compared with those of Asia and Pacific region. Trends for Pre-Capita expenditure shows that while there is not enough resources to meet the ever-increasing demand for Higher Education; lesser proportions of GNP in Iran is alocated to Higher Education; and it needs to be improved. The experience of other countries, in similar situations, are reviewed and examples of special taxes, and establishment of special trust funds as remedies for the problem are given. The applicability of these remedies is discussed in the light of trends in proportion of alternative sources of income and trust funds to the total expenditures in Iranian universities. Student tuitions and student finanical aids are also examined and compared with the Iranian case and conclusion are drawn at the end.

This article is a critical review of the privatization arguments. It emphasizes the importance of equality, justice and higher values in diverting the investment in education. It points out that privatization is not the best and final solution for education reforms, and government must maintain control on it. However, in order to meet the current and future changes of the educational systems, goverments must initiate serious reforms to improve the efficiency of management system, strategic planning, strategic co.operation, and diversification of the resources.

This article, critically, reviws the basis of privatization of Higher Education argument. By addressing the issues of distributive justices along with the quality and ethical values, directing investment in education to increase producation, rather than mere reliance on market demands. It argues that privatization is not the proper solution to the problems facing Higher Education. These issues can be addressed through implemenation of serious reforms in the Higher Education systems, to increase management efficiency, strategic planning, and participation. Government can play a significant role in achieving these goals through mainting their control over these institution.

Attention on higer education has been increasing, particularly, in the past fifteen years. The challenges of higher education worldwide and in the South, in particular, have been indentified. Policies have been suggested to pre-empt or meet those challenges. However, these policies do not seem to have given ethical issues the attention they deserve to receive. This paper intends to tackle these issues. In this article, the necessity to bring ethics into perspective will be justified. Then it will be emphasized that any future policies failing to take ethical matters into account will be inconsequential. Suggestions will be offered as to how future higher education policies may be formuated by incorporating ethical considerations.