Transformation of the higher education system: Current and emerging global trends

Abstract

In the context of unfolding global processes of the post-industrialization, informatization and the growth of knowledge components of economic development, the higher education system as an element of the economic and cultural compound of the countries and states acts as a moderating medium between all socio-economic subsystems of modern society. With the impact of global processes, the national higher education system assesses and neutralizes global risks, where it is possible, and creates sustainable trends of their effective adaptation. Regardless of the devotion level of the regional educational system and regardless of the priorities of the state educational system, it is impossible to exclude diffusion of the trends, tendencies and the global technologies. That is why, for the higher education systems of countries, the transformation of higher education systems in these conditions involves the adoption of a special model of such transformation – converged, which allows to identify the most dynamic, effective and relevant processes of change and to detect on this basis the main objectives of transformation and mechanisms for its implementation. With the expansion of information and technological processes in the society and in the aspect of the increasing restrictions of social mobility, the higher education takes on new meanings and new significance. In a globalized environment, the transformation of the autonomous higher education systems implicates the adoption of the specific model of transformation – the converged one. From these perspectives, the appreciation of the impact of global trends and tendencies to the transformation of stable patterns and links between the higher education economy seems to be a promising subject of research.