Richard C. Levin
Top of the Class
The rapid economic development of
Beginning in the 1960s,
The results of
Having made tremendous progress in expanding access to higher education, the leading countries of
Developing top universities is a tall order. World-class universities achieve their status by assembling scholars who are global leaders in their fields. In the sciences, this requires first-class facilities, adequate funding, and competitive salaries and benefits.
It takes more than research capacity alone for a nation to develop economically, however. It takes well-educated citizens of broad perspective and dynamic entrepreneurs capable of independent and original thinking. The leaders of
The traditional Asian approaches to curriculum and pedagogy may work well for training line engineers and midlevel government officials, but they are less suited to fostering leadership and innovation. Students who aspire to be leaders in business, medicine, law, government, or academia need "the discipline" of mind -- the ability to adapt to constantly changing circumstances, confront new facts, and find creative ways to solve problems. Cultivating such habits requires students to be more than passive recipients of information; they must learn to think for themselves.
There has already been dramatic movement toward American-style curriculum in
Not every university can or needs to be world class.
In one respect, however,
As barriers to the flow of people, goods, and information have come down, and as the process of economic development proceeds, Asian countries have increasing access to the human, physical, and informational resources needed to create top universities. If they concentrate their growing resources on a handful of institutions, tap a worldwide pool of talent, and embrace freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry, they will succeed in building world-class universities. It will not happen overnight; it will take decades. But it may happen faster than ever before.
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(C) 2010 Foreign Affairs