Marketisation and the Changing Governance in Higher Education: A Comparative Study

Recent comparative education policy studies discover that even though there seems to have been similar trends in higher education reforms in East Asian societies, the recently initiated higher education reforms have really had diverse agendas. Thus, the considerable convergence of policy rhetoric and general policy objectives may not satis-factorily explain the complicated process of changes and the dynamic interactions between global-regional-local forces that shape education policy-making in individual countries. The present paper reflects upon the impact of the global marketization forces on higher education policy, with particular reference to how the higher education sector in Hong Kong and Taiwan has transformed under the global tide of marektization. The core of this paper is to examine the ways and strategies that the governments of Hong Kong and Taiwan have adopted to reform their higher education systems in response to the changing local socio-economic-political context and regional-global environments, with a particular focus on provision, financing and regulation.