Competitiveness, diversification and the international higher education cash flow : EU’s higher education discourse amidst the challenges of globalisation

Abstract

This paper focuses on the EU discourse on Higher Education and analyses thisdiscourse within the context of globalisation. Importance is attached to the issuesof lifelong learning, competitiveness, diversification, entrepreneurship, access,knowledge society, modernisation, quality assurance, innovation and creativity,governance and business–HE partnerships. The paper also provides a criticalanalysis of this discourse focusing on certain issues involved in policy borrowingand transfer, the corporatisation of HE, international competition with the USAand Asia and the implications of all these aspects of the dominant EU HE policydiscourse for HE and the public sphere. The paper seeks to tease out the tensionthat exists in the discourse between neo-liberal tenets and the idea of a SocialEurope. References throughout the paper will be made to the situation concerningHE in a variety of contexts in Europe.