Higher Education in Comparative Perspective: Opportunities and Challenges
Global access to postsecondary education has expanded significantly over the past two decades, growing from 100 million tertiary education students in 2000 to 250 million in 2020 (World Bank, 2021). International higher education has also become an increasingly connected, and competitive, sector. In other words, public and private universities have become spaces for transnational engagement, as well as hubs through which people, knowledge, technologies, and money flow. Despite the global growth in post-secondary enrolment, there remains significant disparities in who can access higher education within and across national borders. This BHER Speaker series event will feature a panel of academic administrators and higher education experts involved in a range of internationalization efforts. They will discuss the opportunities and challenges to expanding higher educational access across borders, and consider the possibilities for, and constraints to, transnational higher education partnership.
Samson Madera Nashon Professor Nashon is the Head of the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC. Throughout his more than 19-year tenure at UBC, he has established multiple and extensive working relationships with scholars and universities world-wide. In addition to his extensive teaching and educational research backgrounds, with most of them being located in Kenya, Nashon has also been involved in education based humanitarian or professional development projects including serving as UBC Co-coordinator of “Dadaab Refugee Camp Teacher Education Program”. Through the love for his home country, he has played a key role in the collaborative of Kenyatta, York, UBC and Moi Universities through the umbrella of Borderless Higher Education for Refugees (BHER) to develop and implement two-year university based Diploma programs in Teacher Education by recruiting student teachers from refugee and host communities.Donald Kisilu Kombo Donlad Kombo is an Associate Professor of Education and the Dean, School of Education, Kenyatta University. He has shaped his career by holding various administrative positions at Kenyatta University. He has also served as an Academic Board Member of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) as well as a Resource Person at the Commission for University Education (CUE) for many years. He has authored and co-authored various publications aimed at enhancing teacher education, training, and development. Kombo is both a national and international scholar and consultant in the area of education. His areas of interest include Education, Resettlement of refugees, Research and Community Service.Fouzia Warsame Fouzia Warsame is the Deputy Chief of Party – Policy, Curriculum and Government Liaison for the Bar ama Baro Program at Creative Associates International. An accomplished Educationalist with 10+ years in the field of education possessing expansive academic as well as practical experiences in educational programs and policies that incorporate instruction, research, curriculum development, managerial, administrative, and advocacy roles. Both her academic and professional work focus on the nexus between education, community, and global connections, and how such connections can play a critical role towards systemic change, social justice and sustainable nation building in post-conflict Somalia. Fouzia was previously the Dean of Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the Somali National University (SNU).
Kerry Bystrom Kerry Bystrom is Associate Dean of the College and Associate Professor of English and Human Rights at Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University. She researches literature, arts and human rights/humanitarianism in Africa and Latin America and is the author and editor of publications including Democracy at Home in South Africa and The Cultural Cold War and the Global South. She also works practically in the higher education in emergencies field, serving as Academic Lead for the Open Society Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives and co-chair of OSUN’s Open Learning Initiatives programs.
Join the Zoom session at: https://yorku.zoom.us/j/97185218104?pwd=UWFPVTR5WHdic2oxM
