Higher education in the world countries: the analysis of international statistics and the results of the global ratings in education.
Karpenko Olga, Bershadskaya Margarita, Voznesenskaya Yulia
(Modern University for the Humanities, Moscow)
The purpose of the study is to define the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian educational system in the context of international indicators. It gives the possibility to compare the positive and negative aspects of development of national educational systems and to identify the global trends of educational development in the world. Besides the data issued annually by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, in the analysis there were considered the results of the global ratings characterizing the basic aspects of world education.
In order to highlight a group of countries-leaders in tertiary education, the following boundary conditions are offered: 1)index of education, describing the educational potential of the population - not less than 0.95; 2) the ratio of 25-to-64-year-olds with tertiary education (level 5A/6) - at least 15%; 3) number of university students – no less than 0,5 million; 4) share of university students in population - no less than 2%. Only 12 countries out of 191 world countries meet these requirements: USA, Russia, Japan, Korea, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada, Australia, Netherlands and Poland.
Taking into account the dynamics of the educational system and the indicators of global ratings it makes sense to add four more countries to a group of leaders: India and China, coming out at the forefront in terms of the number of university students, students growth dynamics and distance education development; Finland, leading in three ratings: the quality of secondary education PISA-2006, the accessibility and affordability of higher education (2nd place); Sweden - the leader in affordability of higher education.
The indicators characterizing the level of Tertiary Attainment of Population in the countries-leaders are shown in Fig. 1-3.
Fig.1. Ratio of 25-to-64-year-olds with tertiary education (level 5A/6) – 2007
Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators – 2009 Edition, table A1.3a
Fig.2. Distribution of world students’ population by countries – 2007
Global Education Digest 2009. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.Monreal, 2009, table 8
Fig.3. Share of university students in population – 2006
Calculation by data:
1) Global Education Digest 2009. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Montreal, 2009, table 8
2) Russia and the world countries. 2009. P. 361
Export of education reflects the current reputation of the national system of higher education on a global level. Eight countries from the selected group are about 70% of all mobile (foreign) students - Fig.4 (calculated according to the UNESCO data 2006). Another five countries in this group can be attributed to the relatively large host countries: China (1.3%), the Netherlands (1%), Korea (0.8%), Sweden (0,8%), Spain (0,7%).Only three countries (Poland, Finland and India) do not make a statistically significant contribution to the global number of mobile students.
Fig.4. Distribution of foreign students in host countries
Global Education Digest 2009. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.Montreal,2009, table 9
Global rankings of educational opportunities, proposed by Canadian researchers[1], are based on the separation of the concepts of accessibility of tertiary education and its affordability (ability for payment). Fig.5-7 show the results of the authors’ project and an approximate estimate of Russia in these rankings.
Fig.5. Place in a ranking on the sum of the weighed values of the indicators characterizing
the affordability (ability for payment) of tertiary education
Fig.6. Place in a ranking on the sum of the weighed values of the indicators characterizing
the accessibility of tertiary education
Fig.7. The results of the global rankings on accessibility and affordability of tertiary education
World university rankings not only assess the quality of higher education of any country, but also affect it globally. In two academic rankings - Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)[2] and World University Rankings of Times Higher Education Supplement[3], covering 500 and 200 universities, respectively, the leading position among the top world universities belongs to the United States. The second place, as in the previous years, took the United Kingdom, followed by Japan and Germany; good positions are in Canada, the Netherlands, Australia and France. From a dedicated group of leaders Russia, India and Poland showed more poor results (Fig.6).
a)
b)
c)
Fig.8 The results of world academic rankings (2008):
а) ARWU, top 500; b) ARWU, top 200; c) “Times”, top 200
Essentially different in respect of the methodology is a world university ranking based on the analysis of universities’ websites (Webometrics Ranking of World Universities) [4],[5] It has a broad coverage of universities (5000 – 6000) that allows to evaluate the education system not only by separate universities-leaders, but as a whole, by all the body of educational institutions entering the system. Only 11 countries out of 191 have more than 100 universities among the top 5000 (fig.9).By this indicator characterizing the scale of the system, Russia as is evident, comes out on the advanced position. It is important that universities from all regions of the country are among the best Russian universities (Fig.10).
Fig.9. Ten leading countries by the number of universities among the top 5000 world universities / Fig.10. Distribution of the top 170 Russian Universitiesin the federal districts.
Results of international research of school education quality PISA[6] (Programme for International Student Assessment) considered in a context of higher education[7], have shown the backlog of some countries that have so far been recognized leaders in education (USA, Russia, Spain, France, Germany)-fig.11. Consideration of the particularities of the differentiations in the quality of school education within the country reveals its "narrow" places and clearly demonstrates the need for greater openness and accessibility of education to the general population regardless of place of residence – fig.12, 13.
Fig.11. Average scores of the countries in the priority area of research PISA-2006
a) b)
Fig.12 The results of American students of different origins: а) average scores,
b)deviation from the average score in OECD countries (zero point - the level of OECD countries)
a)b
Fig.13. The results of Russian students depending on their place of residence (PISA-2006):
а) average scores; b) deviation from the average score in OECD countries
The level of development of distance education based on Information Communication Technologies (ICT) is closely connected with the problems of improving of all the indicators. Comparison of the level of development of distance education in the world countries, based on a quantitative estimation of activity scale of mega-universities[8] (major universities with distance learning), shows the absolute leadership of developing countries and the special role of China and India (fig.14 - 17). In the future this trend will grow.
Fig.14. Share of mega-university students in total number of students in the world / Fig.15 The role of developing countries in mega-universitiesFig.16. Number of mega-universities in the world countries / Fig.17 Number of mega-university students in the world countries (thousands)
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It is in total considered more than 10 quantitative indicators (table 1) which, although not equivalent in importance in the evaluation of the system of higher education, but in general allow us to make conclusions concerning the prospects for the development of higher education on a global scale.
Table 1. Comparison of the leading countries in education
Country / Place among 16 countries-leaderson indicators of system of higher education
I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / X / XI
Australia / 1-5 / 3-5 / 4 / 2
United Kingdom / 2 / 2 / - / 3 / 3
Germany / 3 / 4 / 5
Netherlands / 1-5 / 2 / 3 / 1
India / - / - / 3 / - / - / 1
Spain / 1-5 / 5
Canada / 1-5 / 3-5 / 2 / 5-6 / 5 / 4
China / - / - / 1-2 / - / - / 2
Korea / 3-5 / 3
Poland / 2 / - / -
Russia / 4 / 3 / 1 / 4 / - / -
USA / 1 / 1-2 / 4 / 4 / 1 / 1 / - / 4 / 4 / -
Finland / 1-5 / 1 / 5 / 2 / 2 / 1
France / 3 / 5-6
Sweden / 5 / 1
Japan / 5 / 3 / 3 / - / 5
Indicators:
I – index of education,
II – the ratio of adults with tertiary education
III – number of university students,
IV – share of university students in population,
V – the ratio of 25-to-64-year-olds with tertiary education (level 5A/5B/6),
VI – number of foreign students in host countries,
VII – number of national universities among the top world universities (according to cumulative results of three international rating –ARWU, Times and Webometrics),
VIII – affordability of tertiary education,
IX – accessibility of tertiary education,
X – the level of development of distance education,
XI – Results of international research of school education quality (according to cumulative results of PISA-2006)
The leading place in the number of leading positions belongs to the United States - places in the top five among the 16 leading countries in eight of the eleven indicators, including 4 first places. Rather weak places – insufficient functional literacy of school students and high cost of higher education.
The leading countries in six indicators are Canada and Finland. They are followed by the countries leading in four indicators – Australia, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Russia and Japan. Among these countries there marked weaknesses in Japan, United Kingdom (the high cost of higher education) and Russia (insufficient functional literacy of school students, rather low accessibility of higher education).
Quantitative indicators of national higher education systems allow not only assess the place of Russia in the world educational space, but also to identify ways of eliminating the weakest sides of Russian education.
The analysis of the problems of Russian school education, the weakest link at this stage, clearly showed the importance of the development in our country of distance education technologies that combine high quality of training with profitability of education and accessibility, regardless of place of residence.
In the same conclusions results the analysis of students’ elitism (a problem of accessibility of higher education).
In conclusion, it should be emphasized the increasing role of mass distance education as one of the most important trends in higher education on a global scale. The traditional system, despite its many obvious advantages and benefits (especially for the development of elite education), unable to cope with the challenges of growing demand and ensure the «equality in education» for the general population.
Distance education, which became apparent reality in the modern world, will grow most rapidly, because only through economic and technological advantages of this model the huge demand for higher education expected in developing countries can be satisfied in the near future. The optimum way of such development is the creation and growth of mega-universities - large distributed universities with distance education technology, on the basis of ICT, with a guarantee of quality teaching and effective support for students.
Russian university (Modern University for the Humanities), created according to these principles, was officially included into the category of mega-universities and now occupies the 5-th place in the world in terms of the number of training centers in the system of higher education in networking.
1
[1] Alex Usher, Amy Cervenan, Global Higher Education Rankings: Affordability and Accessibility in Comparative Perspective. Toronto:The Educational Policy Institute, 2005. – 77 p.
[2]Academic Ranking of World Universities -2007.Methodologies and Problems/ N.C. LIU and CHENG Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm.
[3] Times Higher Education Supplement http://www.thes.co.uk/
[4] Webometrics Ranking of World Universities. http://www.webometrics.info/index.html
[5] O.M. Karpenko, M.D.Bershadskaya, Y.A Voznesenskaya. A Role of a Web-site in University Integrated Characteristics: Results of the World Ranking.|| Sociology of Education. .M., 2008, №2, p.4-16.
http://www.muh.ru/.Docs/niipo/17_2008.htm
[6] PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World.
[7] O.M. Karpenko, M.D.Bershadskaya, Y.A Voznesenskaya. International research PISA and the problems of the development of higher education // The Russian Public Opinion Herald. M.,2007. №5, p/38-47.
[8] O.Karpenko, M.Bershadskaya “Higher education in the world countries: the analysis of educational statistics and the global ratings in education”. Chapter 5. Distance Education in the world countries: the scale factor. //M., 2009. -250 p.