Business schools have lost sight of their original purpose – to serve society

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Robert Quartly-Janeiro says business schools have lost the plot – they are being challenged by the crisis of globalisation and they need to get back to developing business leaders who can serve society rather than growing rich from it. Rosemary Salomone writes that a recent court judgment in Italy against the teaching of graduate programmes in English provides a framework for questioning the use of English as a vehicle for ‘internationalising’ universities, with wider implications across Europe. And as Vladimir Putin runs for re-election as Russian president, Ararat Osipian asks why so few students are involved in political protests in Russia.
   Also in Commentary, Eric Fredua-Kwarteng and Samuel Ofosu contend that the ‘developmental university’ is a better model for the African continent than the ‘Africanised university’, whose proponents are over-consumed with the politics of decolonisation as if that is the only developmental challenge facing the continent. Allan E Goodman says that how we respond to the present global education imperatives will shape our future, so we should guard against dynamics that close our doors and our minds and embrace an international approach.
   In our World Blog, Patrick Blessinger and Mandla Makhanya examine the concept of higher education as a common good, whereby universities fulfil their missions by serving the contemporary needs of their constituents and addressing a range of social needs.
   In Features, Tunde Fatunde reports that irregular payment of public university lecturers’ salaries in Nigeria is causing personal hardship, with fatal consequences when staff are unable to afford adequate food and proper medical care.
   In a Special Report covering the annual conference of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the CHEA International Quality Group in Washington DC, Mary Beth Marklein reports that Republicans in the US are proposing a comprehensive rewrite of the higher education law, to which Democrats are vehemently opposed. Marklein also reports from the conference that the higher education accreditation sector is facing pressure to reform to stem waning public confidence in the value of US degrees. More...