Globalization And Higher Education In Albania Hardcover

New

Jevdet Rexhepi

As national planners codify and enact the university, state, and market alliance-amid global higher education trends towards internationalization, competition, and massification-debates on the efficacy of this merger have increased in recent years, clarifying a real or perceived significance. Bologna has been the conceptual vehicle within which many european nations have sought to reorient often disparate higher education sectors in order to forge the european higher education area, a move replete with social, political, economic, and cultural significance. Yet, the extent to which bologna has fomented qualitative policy change in developing post-communist nations like albania remains ambiguous. Globalization and higher education in albania explores how international educational trends mitigate higher education policy and practice in albania, a nation which continues its complex and evolving transition from communism to a more open society. Based on archival research, original fieldwork, and supplementary interviews with subjects who in many cases work and live amidst albania's ongoing physical and psychosocial post-communist transformation, jevdet rexhepi clarifies how the interplay between global and local forces manifests in key sector policy documents and related frameworks and institutions, and he thoughtfully considers how higher education positions albania on individual and collective levels to respond to the challenges and opportunities of globalization and the knowledge society.

9780739171004

English

Lexington Books

23 Aug 2013

196

Jevdet rexhepi is currently regional scholar for eurasia at the cultural knowledge consortium, a joint inter-agency, multinational effort that provides access to sociocultural expertise for governmental, military and academic partners. Sought after for his knowledge on education, development and sociocultural issues across the balkans, caucasus, and mena regions, he frequently offers consultancy to a variety of international stakeholders. With numerous writing projects underway, rexhepi continues to serve on the board of several journals, while remaining active in academia via student mentoring and service on dissertation committees in the u.S. And overseas.

Rexhepi makes a remarkable contribution to understanding higher education reform in general, and this book provides an insightful exploration of how international higher education trends are mitigated by both entrenched education traditions and post-communist forces. -- Val rust, ucla drawing from a rich body of sources, including a wealth of survey material drawn from rexhepi's field work in albania, globalization and higher education in albania will serve as a crucial point-of-entry for scholars eager to study the impact of foreign concepts of educational development on transitional societies in the balkans and beyond. More still, rexhepi's fine study should be read with particular focus by policy-makers who could learn from the well-explained failures (and minor successes) the author uncovers in this highly recommended book. -- Isa blumi, georgia state university rexhepi succinctly surveys the landscape of higher education reform in what he terms "the albanian tragicomedy". With a nod to history, his well-written study deftly portrays the mismatch between european-oriented higher education policy and the realities of a nation grappling with its transition out of communism. Teacher pay, globalization, curriculum, the role of ngos, and other topics all come under rexhepi's scrutinizing gaze, making this study excellent reading for scholars interested in the region, and in the idealization of higher education as a force for economic development under the neoliberal world order. -- Christine brigid malsbary, university of hawaii at manoa