The Gordian knot

A report from the OECD attempts to distil global trends in higher education. Despite its valiant effort, it doesn't quite make it, says Leo Goedegebuure. Digesting all the information brought together by the OECD's 'Thematic Review of Tertiary Education' was no mean task, and lead author Paulo Santiago and his OECD colleagues ought to be congratulated on their attempt (see box). Many lesser souls would have shied away from this gargantuan task. Which is not to say that they have achieved everything they wanted, but could that have been expected? The thematic review was initiated "to help countries share innovative and successful initiatives and to identify policy options to maximise the contribution of tertiary education to national economic and social objectives". These are commendable objectives, but also ambitious in the sense of the effect-maximising policy focus. The assumption behind this clearly was that if we understand our subject matter enough, we can design and implement policies that will have maximum effect.