Higher Education: Recent Trends, Emerging Issues and Future Outlook

The American baseball star Yogi Berra once commented: "The future is not what it used to be!". This quip has maximum relevance for today's higher education institutions. They are expected to operate, manage, compete, be creative and innovative, and provide intellectual leadership in a world characterised by increasingly rapid, pervasive and fundamental change - socially, economically and politically. The question of how to maximize the performance of the higher education sector in the context of such an environment has generated much debate at the level of governments (nationally and internationally), business and commerce, communities, academics, and individual institutions. In part, the debate has been fuelled by the incredible expansion of information and communications technology which has created a truly global higher education environment. Higher education institutions must now grapple with a plethora of operational and educational issues and challenges in order to maximize their relevance and societal contribution.