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Ying-kit Chan
ICAS Book Prize 2023 - Secretary Chinese Language Edition
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Richard Sambaiga
University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Chang Yau Hoon
Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei
Lalita Hanwong
Kasetsart University, Thailand
Rohit Negi
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India
Leang Un
Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Badri Munir Sukoco
Universitas Airlangga
Originally an economic-political theory, neoliberalism encompasses the key tenets of monetarism, market competition, and individual choice. It eventually pervaded institutions of higher learning, which have since adopted entrepreneurial models of knowledge production. In essence, they have become business corporations, generating revenues from the public and private sectors, carving out a niche for themselves in the global competition for fame, talent, and resources, as well as unrolling audit technologies to appraise the performance of their own staff, students, and faculty, all of whom may be pressurized. In what scholars have called the "world-class university movement," and amid the resultant marginalization of humanistic education which purportedly yields little value to a knowledge-based economy, what should be the role of states, institutions, and individuals? Do performative quantitative-based prescriptions create an ontological void and portend the end of the civic mission of universities to work for their peoples and societies? Is the catch-up model pursued by Asian universities sustainable? This roundtable session, comprised of experienced scholars who have assumed leadership positions at higher education institutions, aims to address such questions and critique the neoliberal logics that have presented more challenges than opportunities as Asian universities compete rather than collaborate for relevance and international rankings.