Efforts to evaluate and improve student engagement have been pervasive in higher education over recent years. Critics argue, however, that troubling affinities are evident between student engagement efforts and a neoliberal agenda which emphasises accountability through performativity. Neoliberalism manifests in policies that focus on the economic…

In this essay, we discuss the Australian Government's refusal to provide international students with adequate support during the COVID-19 pandemic, in spite of the hardships these students are facing in relation to mental health, financial hardship, exploitation and the risk of homelessness. We call on the Australian Government to provide better…

Doctoral education aims to benefit those who undertake it, but does it exert a wider influence? Professional doctorates are commonly designed to have an impact beyond the individual concerned, but is this influence realised? This article focuses on a collaborative enquiry by a group of academics and doctoral alumni from non-discipline-specific…

Internationalization of higher education (IHE) has become one of the most prominent strategies in national policies and universities' agendas during the past three decades. IHE provides numerous benefits to nations, institutions, and higher education stakeholders and plays a vital role in improving the quality of education and research. However,…

Many countries offer government scholarships for international higher education and expect the recipients to contribute to national development. While there are many benefits from these scholarship programmes, they have been criticized as expensive. We examine the perceived contribution of Kazakhstan's two government scholarship alumni to the…

The educational benefits of internationalisation in higher education are of paramount importance for all students. Despite an increasing presence of best practice guides and internationalisation strategies, there appears to be a significant implementation gap in terms of lecturers' engagement with internationalisation in their teaching practice.…

Higher education institutions are seeking greater community engagement through academic, social and civic activity. In response, researcher attention has turned to impacts on students' education, and benefits to both university and community partners. This phenomenographic study examines how a diverse group of teachers, researchers and…

This research evaluated the impact on students' academic achievements of a pre-college outreach programme implemented by a Chilean higher education institution. This programme benefits students in their last year of secondary education so they can better adapt to post-secondary education. Specifically, we assessed whether freshmen enrolled in 2017…

Widening higher education participation can deliver benefits to individuals, societies and economies but rural populations experience factors which inhibit their aspiration for and participation in higher education. When designing outreach programs, universities need to consider this landscape of factors, many of which are socio-cultural. This…

Ensuring that students of all backgrounds are smoothly transitioned through the stages of access, participation and completion in higher education has been the focus of much public policy and research in recent decades. Subsequently, public policy discourse treats those who do not complete their higher education degrees as unsuccessful, despite a…

In this article I seek to reconsider the social and economic purposes of higher education. It begins with the premise that there appears to be a general trend towards governments positioning higher education primarily in terms of the economic role that it can fulfil. Such a trend, however, has attracted considerable criticism. In this article I…

How can higher education educate graduates who know more than "just knowledge"? Such an education includes developing in students an awareness of the limits of their knowledge, an ability to discern what kinds of knowledge are appropriate in a given situation and a sensitivity to different forms of knowing. When is scientific rigour…

This systematic review examines academic literature published between 2012 and 2022 on micro-credential research and practices in higher education. A deductive analysis of empirical evidence from the 29 included articles offers insights into awareness, benefits, challenges, effectiveness, and factors influencing effectiveness of micro-credentials…

Graduate students play a major role in teaching in higher education, particularly in undergraduate programs. The purpose of the present study was two-fold: first, to identify graduate students' motives for working as graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), describe some aspects of their work, and ascertain their perceived benefits; second, to predict…

Work-integrated learning (WIL) can significantly benefit student employability, institutional graduate outcomes, and quality talent pipelines. However, there are many caveats to this, such as course-wide flexible and scaffolded design, sustained external partner engagement, adequate resourcing, and ongoing evaluation that informs quality,…