Report

H IGHER EDUCATION SERVICES 149
such frameworks in place in light of the push towards
trade liberalisation and increased cross border delivery
of education. The development of a regulatory
framework to deal with the diversity of providers and
new cross-border delivery modes becomes more critical
as international trade increases. In some countries, this
will likely mean a broader approach to policy which
involves licensing, regulating, monitoring, both private
(profit and non-profit) and foreign providers in order
to ensure that national policy objectives are met and
public interests protected. It has further been suggested
that more work is necessary to determine how domestic/
national regulatory frameworks are compatible with,
or part of a larger international framework and how
they relate to trade agreement rules.
Knight also raises an interesting point that GATS
is facilitating the mobility of professionals to meet the
high demand for skilled workers (Knight 2002). This
impacts many of the service sectors and has particular
implications for the mobility of teachers and scholars
in the higher education sector. In many countries,
Knight argues, the increasing shortage of teachers is
resulting in active recruitment campaigns across
borders. Knight further adds that since many teachers
and researchers want to move to countries with more
favourable working conditions and salaries, there is a
real concern that the most developed countries will
benefit from this mobility of education workers.
However, it could be argued that the solution perhaps
lies in allowing private players to enter the area of
education and not in closing the system to outside
players. Pangariya rightly suggests that only private
universities that can charge hefty fees and attract private
sponsors from home and abroad will be able to afford
salaries necessary to retain top-class scholars and
teachers and create facilities required to promote
excellence in research (Pangariya 2007). Bangladesh
encourages private universities and the result has been
that they have recruited teachers from expatriate
Bangladeshis living in countries like the US and the
UK (interview at the BRAC University, Dhaka,
Bangladesh). Thus what seems to be of paramount
importance is the presence of an efficient regulatory
authority that will ensure quality in education.
In the South Asian context it is important that
regulatory bodies such as the UGC and the AICTE
begin discussing with their counterparts in other
countries of the region to explore the possibility of
having some uniformity in curricula in particularly
technical education which could lead to equivalence of
qualifications and finally to recognition. Although
when thousands of students from Bangladesh,
Nepal, and Sri Lanka are already studying in India
implying that there is some acceptability of the degrees
obtained in India, this has to be given a formal legal
cover.