Overview

During the 1980s, countries in Asia that borrowed from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were instructed to cut back on government spending, including that for higher education. Likewise, during the late 1990s, Asian colleges and universities became casualties of the financial crisis. The effects still linger in some countries. However, the global recession of 2008 runs counter to this trend. The response of developed nations has been less about cutting back and more about the rebuilding and strengthening of colleges and universities. At the same time, there is a growing consensus among scholars of Asian higher education that the financial architecture and governance of higher education needs reforming (Lee 2004; Mok 2006, 2008; Tilak 2004). Therefore, asking developing countries in Asia to cut back on their knowledge infrastructure is difficult to justify as developed countries do the opposite. Although there is no way to escape the difficulties of the global recession, the answer for the developing nations of Asia is not to undo the gains in higher education of the last 20 or 30 years.

Past economic shocks in the Asia and Pacific region have generally limited the capacity of their colleges and universities to serve vulnerable populations. These populations vary somewhat among countries, but, at one time or another, have encompassed the urban poor, newly unemployed households of the lower middle class, recently unemployed urban workers, and rural migrants in manufacturing and related sectors, as well as rural populations of women and ethnic minorities, including those with basic education. Although government responses are formulated, sometimes on the advice of donor agencies, recessions share the essential result of intensifying poverty among the poor and augmenting vulnerable populations through a massive increase in unemployment.

However, the global recession differs in fundamental ways; not so much in its source or intensity, but in the rapidly changing context of regional development in Asia. The environment of the global recession is that of an Asia far more economically integrated than during past economic shocks, with more unified aspirations about becoming globally competitive and socially responsible as it moves toward the center of the world economic system (Asian Development Bank [ADB] 2008a; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] 2003). It follows that past assumptions about higher education and its function in national development need be reconsidered to enable effective responses from government and the private sector.

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