vForeword: The Centrality of Research on
Higher Education
Postsecondary education, in the era of massification, has become big business in
every sense of that term. Universities and other postsecondary institutions serve
ever-expanding segments of the population. In Asia, enrolment rates in South Korea
and Japan are among the highest in the world—at more than 80 percent of the age
group. Asia’s emerging economies, including China and India, are rapidly expand-
ing—and indeed those two countries will account for more than half of global enrol-
ment growth in the coming several decades. Further, postsecondary education has
become central to most societies—providing the skills needed in the global knowl-
edge economy and offering social and economic mobility to segments of the popu-
lation which had never had access before.
Public, state-supported postsecondary education is a significant part of the bud-
gets of most countries. The private higher education sector, now the fastest-growing
part of postsecondary education worldwide, is particularly strong in Asia, where it
has traditionally educated the large majority of students in Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan, and the Philippines and is expanding rapidly in Indonesia and elsewhere.
It is surprising that there is only limited knowledge about postsecondary educa-
tion in Asia—and for that matter in much of the world. There are thousands of busi-
ness schools that educate managers and entrepreneurs and conduct research on
commercial enterprises of all kinds. There are schools for civil servants sponsored
by governments. Universities do research on most aspects of society. But there is
very little research or training focusing on postsecondary education. Researching
Higher Education in Asia is the first effort to assess the state of research on higher
education in the region, and for the most part, this volume presents a story of igno-
rance of a key social institution. Few if any Asian countries have a robust research
infrastructure on higher education. There is limited training available for postsec-
ondary leaders—presidents, vice chancellors, rectors, and other key administrative
officers necessary for any university. There are few journals published. While higher
education is a matter of considerable public interest and is reported in newspapers
and the mass media, there are few professionals able to interpret key developments.
In many countries, statistics are poor or entirely missing.