TRIUMPH OF THE BRICS? Higher Education Expansion in the Global Economy

This day long conference is based on a major study of higher education expansion and quality in the world's four largest developing economies - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - known as the BRIC countries. These four economies are already important players globally, but by mid-century, they are likely to be economic powerhouses. Whether they reach that level of development will depend partly on how successfully they create quality higher education that puts their labor forces at the cutting edge of the information society. It is difficult to imagine large economies reaching advanced stages of development in the 21st century without high levels of innovative, well-trained, socially oriented professionals.

The study places particular emphasis on how the BRICs are expanding engineering higher education and the quality and equity of that expansion. Evaluating the potential success of the BRIC countries in developing highly skilled professionals is not the only reason to study their higher education systems. We want to learn how these governments go about organizing higher education because this can tell us a lot about their implicit economic, social, and political goals, and their capacity to reach them. Although the BRICs are acutely aware of their new role in the global economy, their governments must negotiate complex political demands at home, including ensuring domestic economic growth, social mobility, and political participation. Because more and better higher education is positively associated with all these elements, BRIC governments' focus on their university systems has become an important part of their domestic economic and social policy.

The conference involves all the authors of the study from China, India, Russia, and the United States, as well as expert discussants from Brazil and the United States. The various panels of the day-long discussion will focus on various aspects of change in the higher education systems in the BRICs.

Schedule: click here to see the event schedule.

Registration: click here to register for the sessions.

Speakers: Martin Carnoy, Isak Froumin, Jandhyala Tilak, Wang Rong, Rafiq Dossani, Katherine Kuhns, Prashant Loyalka, Francisco Ramirez, Gustavo Fischman, Robert Verhine, Nicholas Hope, Eric Bettinger, Simon Schwartzman, Sheri Sheppard, Anthony Antonio, and Philip Altbach (click here to see the speakers' bio).