To survive and thrive, living organisms, industries, and institutions—including higher education—must evolve or adapt to the changing environments. Today, higher education has entered an unprecedented period of globalization with what has come to be known as ‘knowledge economy’ forcing people to move into other worlds and cultures.  Increased global migration and student mobility has consequently resulted in a greater diversity in education. Nations are ploughing enormous sums of their capital into the development and expansion of tertiary learning and research at every level. Over the past decades, universities have progressively found themselves at the forefront of new global thinking.  Today, possessing knowledge and having the ability to put it to the use is seen as absolutely critical to both personal and societal development. The improvement of a skilled and globally attuned workforce is a key ingredient to the competitiveness and prosperity which is both international and global. Higher education is now seen as the main provider of such labor in addition to the need for constantly developing new ideas, technologies, methods, products and services which are essential for future economic growth.

Academic migration is not a new issue. In fact, it is as ancient as the institutions themselves. Since the middle ages, academic fluidity between both professors and students has been a major feature of learning. However, what is different today is that what was initially on a European scale has now expanded into a mass global movement, which crosses a whole range of boarders and institutions. The expansion of multinational companies has opened new avenues for the growth of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as well which holds the responsibility for human development and social transformation.

Keeping in view the changing needs and developments in the global arena, this issue attempts to abreast the readers with new and evolving approaches in higher education. This issue first presents the paper, “Estimating the Economic Return and Cost to Different Degree Programs: A Case Study of Public Sector in Pakistan”, by Malik Fahim Bahsir, Mazhar Iqbal, Khalid Zaman and Iqtidar Ali Shah, which attempts to estimate the economic returns to different fields of study in Pakistan. It assesses the return to education in two main degree programs, master’s degree program and professional bachelor’s degree program. The result reveals that rate of return calculated for master’s degree is 26.52% which is comparatively more than the professional bachelor’s degree as it is calculated as 23.83%. The results presented in this study reinforce the importance to government, academic, and policy makers.

Similar attempts have been made by different B-schools in India and abroad. One such attempt is to introduce collaboration between institutes of higher learning and industries that recruit its products.

K Sasidharan and Salil S also recommend in their paper, “Academia-Industry Interface in Management Education: A Model for Engagement”, the collaboration between the academic institutions and industry. They discussed few models offered by TCS, Infosys, Biocon model and ICICI-Udaan that explored different methods of collaboration between industry and academic institutions. Finally, the authors present a model based on the understanding and evaluation of different practices and models, and provide a framework for institution-industry engagements in management education.

While attempting to provide such kind of collaboration between industry and institutes of higher learning, it becomes essential to support the students to get strong orientation to the working environment in the form of internship programs. The basic idea of internship program is to fill the gap between theory and practice by sending students to the real workplace. But all the stakeholders should be extremely cautious to look into the legal aspects that govern the universities and industries. Neeta Jain in the paper, “Legal Issues and Concerns of Internship in India”, highlights some of these legal issues to be considered while sending the students for internship. She feels that an internship program is the best way of experiential learning, but to make it a useful and good experience, all the players of it should be very careful.

This issue also features a case study on National University of Singapore and attempts to address the challenges in the field of management education. The high fee structure and rigid formalities in getting visa for US B-schools, is forcing Asian graduates to turn to other universities in Europe, Australia and Singapore. In the current scenario, the National University of Singapore is re-orienting itself to meet the increasing demand by: (1) sprucing up the infrastructure; (2) revisiting the curriculum; (3) inducting world-class faculties; and (4) entering into collaborative agreements with leading international B-schools. To keep pace with these new trends, the B-schools at the National University of Singapore (NUS), which is already known for its world-class executive MBA program, is trying to upgrade its programs to global standards.

--N C Padmini
Consulting Editor