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Panel Detail:
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
9:25 AM - 10:40 AM
Changing Post-Secondary Education to Meet the Needs of a Global Economy
Speakers:
Greg Cappelli,
Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst, Credit Suisse
Edward Guiliano,
President, New York Institute of Technology
Ted Sanders,
Executive Chairman, Cardean Learning Group; former Acting U.S. Secretary of Education
Moderator:
Ted Mitchell, President and CEO, NewSchools Venture Fund
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Panelists said American college graduates have traditionally lacked a global perspective. As Ted Sanders, above, put it: "We ought to all get a steady diet of culture and international information."
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What role do America’s institutions of higher education play in global education? Will these institutions continue their primacy as the premier system of higher education in the world?
American secondary education has a fine tradition as the "engine of innovation in the U.S. economy," according to moderator Tom Mitchell of New Schools Venture Fund. Yet the current pace of globalization means that these institutions face challenges that are distinct from those addressed in the twentieth-century American education model.
American college graduates have traditionally lacked a global perspective. Eighty-seven percent of college-educated Americans cannot find Iraq on a map; 65 percent cannot find France. Overall, just one in five Americans has a passport. Panelists concurred that this is a problem in today’s world. As Ted Sanders of the Cardean Learning Group noted, "We ought to all get a steady diet of culture and international information." Primarily, however, panelists focused their discussion on meeting the international (non-U.S.) demand for American-style education.
Panelists used China as a case study of the changing face of global secondary education. High foreign direct investment, growing GDP, a demographic bulge in the 18- to 22-year-old population, and the single-child policy that results in the “little emperor” phenomenon -- where six adults invest in one child -- all mean that the demand for English-speaking, American-style education is increasing. Indeed, private education funding in China had a compound annual growth rate of 25 percent from 1994 to 2003.
The innovative responders to this challenge thus far have not been the traditional elite American universities or even public American universities, according to Edward Guiliano of the New York Institute of Technology. Instead, they are mostly private secondary education institutions. Guiliano characterized these institutions’ response as the "globalization of education," in which universities are thinking globally but serving people locally through on-site international offices and online learning. This enables local communities in the Middle East, for example, to meet the global challenges they face in a sustainable manner.
Yet panelists concurred that these institutions’ response to globalization, as well as that of their American and international counterparts, is still a work in progress. As Mitchell observed, "The globalization of competition in education and the response of American and international universities over time will be very telling."
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