THE QUEST FOR THE WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITY

Deems, Mok and Lucas The Quest for the World Class University state in a 2008 article that “…governments in Europe and Asia have started to conduct comprehensive reviews of and implement plans to restructure their higher education systems, with attempt to transform their higher education systems in the image of “world class” university”.

This observation raises several important questions that need answering or else the pursuit of “world Class” education will result in a fruitless chase. First let me state that I have no particular experience in raising the standards of any university at which I have taught. I suppose I assumed that simply if everyone associated with the university did their job very well it would be noticed and recognized by people who concern themselves with rating universities. There basically are certain accomplishments that will count toward making a university something special-world class. As an example, if the number of applicants vying for coveted admission spots in a given university could be interpreted as recognition of the desirability of that university. A thousand applications for 100 spaces in the freshman class or for graduate programs as opposed to only 250 applicants for 100 spaces indicates which school is deemed preferable for whatever reason by the interested public with other things such as cost, location and availability of courses being held equal, public perception of one school is greater than the other.