‘World Class Worldwide’

This article, "'World Class Worldwide'," is from Inside Higher Ed by Scott Jaschick. It is an interview with Philip G. Altbach and Jorge Balan, organized a related conference on institutions in Asia and Latin America and then turned the sessions into a book, World Class Worldwide: Transforming Research Universities in Asia and Latin America.

Americans should carefully watch developments among the top universities in Asia. In Japan, the University of Tokyo, the University of Kyoto, and Waseta University are “world class” — along with some others. Seoul National University in Korea, and several universities in Taiwan are also excellent. A half dozen top Chinese universities are moving ahead rapidly, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, and a few others. The University of Hong Kong, the National University of Singapore, are the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok are also very good. Curiously enough, although the Indian Institutes of Technology produce outstanding graduates, they are not research universities — they are small, high specialized, and do not have appropriate infrastructures. There [are] in no Indian universities that rank along the institutions mentioned here. Thus, the United States and Europe should look at what is happening in Asia.