Reassessing East Asian Higher Education: A Focus on Culture

Reassessing East Asian Higher Education: A Focus on Culture

Presenter:
Rui Yang, University of Hong Kong

Date:
Monday 5th October, 1-2pm

Venue:
Barbara Falk room, Lvl 1, Elisabeth Murdoch Buidling (south/west corner). Enter via the external RHS staircase on the west side of the building.

Abstract:
Over recent decades, East Asia has made some impressive progress in higher education. The achievement becomes even more remarkable when compared with other non-Western regions. A Western-style modern higher education system has been well established throughout the region. Tertiary enrolment is moving high. With a third of the global total investment in R&D, research has also been growing rapidly. While the achievement has been widely acknowledged, assessment of its future development is open to question. To some, East Asian universities are leaping ahead to even challenge Western supremacy. To others, they will soon reach a ‘glass ceiling’. Few have been able to theorize East Asia’s development in higher education. Questions remain about the true potential of East Asia’s universities and whether they can truly break the Western hegemony. Based on the author’s intimate knowledge of East Asian societies and his longstanding professional observation, this paper attempts to reassess the future development of East Asian higher education systems by tracing their cultural roots. The assessment plays into the wider debate over whether rising powers in East Asia will overtake Western dominance in academia.

About the speaker:
Rui YANG is professor and associate dean (cross-border and international engagement) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. With over two and a half decades of academic career in China, Australia and Hong Kong, he has an impressive track record on research at the interface of Chinese and Western traditions in education. He has established his reputation among scholars in English and Chinese national languages in the fields of comparative and international education and Chinese higher education. His international reputation is evidenced by his extensive list of publications, research projects, invited keynote lectures in international and regional conferences, leadership in professional associations and membership in editorial boards of scholarly journals. Bridging the theoretical thrust of comparative education and the applied nature of international education, his research interests include education policy sociology, comparative and cross-cultural studies in education, international higher education, educational development in Chinese societies, and international politics in educational research.

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