Rethinking higher education in the service of humanity

Rethinking higher education in the service of humanity Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association As I reflect on the first 25 research-based articles I have authored and co-authored over the past several years with University World News, I would like to evaluate and summarise the key findings that have emerged from the empirical evidence used to ground these articles. The findings discussed in these articles is further explicated in the peer-reviewed book series, Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, a research collaboration between Emerald Group Publishing, the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL) and hundreds of educational researchers and scholars from around the world. Other research on higher education is disseminated through the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education. HETL (in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council or ECOSOC) initiated this book series to further the mission of ECOSOC and to support goal four of the UN Sustainable [...]

Academic freedom is essential to democracy

Academic freedom is essential to democracy Patrick Blessinger and Hans de Wit St. John's University (NYC), International HETL Association, and Boston College Since the inception of the first universities nearly a thousand years ago, the freedom to pursue intellectual inquiry has served as a core value for professors, students and educational institutions. Freedom of inquiry became more important during the Renaissance and Reformation periods as well as the Scientific Revolution because of their focus on freedom of thought and critical inquiry. Following these periods of dramatic change, freedom of inquiry took on greater importance as universities transitioned from scholasticism, which emphasised dialectic reasoning as the main pedagogical approach, to humanism, which emphasised critical thinking and empirical observation.  Since higher education is, by definition, an environment where new knowledge is produced and consumed, it follows that the freedom to engage in intellectual inquiry is essential to the purpose of higher education, to the mission of higher education institutions and to [...]

Enabling lifelong learning through open education

Enabling lifelong learning through open education Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association Broadly speaking, open education (OE) is the widening of access to high quality educational resources in order to promote lifelong learning and greater participation in higher learning and training. One of the driving principles of OE is that lifelong learning is a human right. Thus, at its heart, OE is an educational philosophy about how knowledge should be created, shared, and accessed, and it is this philosophy that drives OE principles, policies, processes, and practices. These ideas are further explained in the research-based book I published with OBP, Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education. UNESCO supports OER as a means for “…building of peace, sustainable social and economic development, and intercultural dialogue.” In addition to UNESCO, organizations such as the Hewlett Foundation, the International HETL Association, and Open Education Consortium, among others, have promoted the OE movement [...]

Strengthening democracy through open education

Strengthening democracy through open education Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association   Open education is the policy and practice of broadening access to allow greater participation in lifelong learning and tertiary education. It is based on the principle that everyone has a right to benefit from educational resources. The term 'open' is a term that implies the reduction or elimination of barriers (cost, distance, access) that allows for greater participation in high-quality educational processes, and ideally, the re-use and re-purposing of educational resources. Thus, the two main criteria of open education are that they are open and free. TJ Bliss and I, together with several educational scholars from around the world, examine these and other issues in the book, Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education. Democratising knowledge In the modern era, the Printing Revolution marked the first major step towards democratising knowledge and enabling mass learning. [...]

Higher education as a multi-purpose enterprise

Higher education as a multi-purpose enterprise Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association Globalisation is a socio-politico-economic phenomenon that, some would argue, has eclipsed post-modernism and post-structuralism as a framework for explaining the development of the modern world over the past several decades. Whereas post-structuralism stresses the instability and complexity of human relations within a historical interpretive framework, the closely related framework of post-modernism stresses the uncertainty and subjectivity associated with interpreting social reality. Globalisation, with its emphasis on increased integration, interaction and connectivity, also provides a plausible framework for explaining the development of global higher education. Globalisation’s impact on the world A nation is a socio-cultural construct and a state is a geo-political construct. Thus, a nation-state is formed when these two constructs overlap. As such, a nation-state can be viewed as a country consisting of a largely homogenous culture under a single government, that is, a state [...]

Towards an inclusive global knowledge society

Towards an inclusive global knowledge society Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association The second half of the 20th century was characterised as a period of enormous expansion of higher education worldwide, especially through opening access by removing long-standing ethnic, gender and class barriers. As a result, the first half of the 21st century of higher education will most likely be characterised by its remarkable heterogeneity in terms of student diversity and institutional diversification. Higher education today reflects a system that has not only emerged into a more democratised system but also into a global power system. Core issues in democratisation The principles of democratisation impact on every part of higher education at both the macro and micro levels – not just access issues but also governance, management, policies, structures, processes and other core functions of higher education. The process of democratisation has led to a diversification of institutional [...]

Why global higher education must be democratised

Why global higher education must be democratised Patrick Blessinger St. John's University (NYC) and International HETL Association In the broadest sense of the word, democratization is the application of democratic principles and the process of transitioning to a system based on such principles. Thus, the principles of democracy can be applied to any structure or system, not strictly governmental or political systems. The core universal principles of democracy include freedom, responsibility, and the equality and protection of universal human rights. Individual freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin known as personal agency – the extent to which agency is allowed to develop is the degree to which self-determination is afforded to people. A human right is a birthright that every human being is entitled to by virtue of being human – the extent to which rights are protected determines the degree to which justice is afforded to people. [...]

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