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5 |
Implications of the State and Prospects of Higher Education
and Research for AKU's Future Mission and Character |
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We have other changes to examine and other considerations
to weigh that may alter our conclusions, but we summarise here
the tentative conclusions that the present and prospective states
of higher education and research in the developing and Muslim
worlds suggest. |
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- Aga Khan University will not be needed as
a sheer quantitative contribution to a generally overcrowded
scene in higher education in the next quarter century. It must
justify its worth through distinctiveness and quality. |
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- While there is unlikely to be substantial early
improvement in the general quality of higher education in the
developing and Muslim worlds, there is growing concern for better
quality and more tolerance for differentiation in the quality
and character of institutions. The implication is that what
the Aga Khan University does educationally may have increased
chances of gaining attention and influence in both public and
private quarters. |
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- As a private university of good quality, AKU
has opportunities to serve as a model in the upsurge of private
higher education that is occurring and will continue. |
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- A search in the Muslim world for different and
better forms of higher education, combining secular education
with Islam is underway and will continue. It is evidently important
for the Muslim world and a challenge to AKU as a Muslim university.
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- The weakness of the developing and Muslim worlds
in research and scholarship relative to the leading industrial
countries remains very pronounced and unlikely to disappear
in the coming decades. An Aga Khan University distinguished
in research and scholarship would be a very distinctive and
valuable institution in these worlds, both for the substantive
contributions it would make and as a heartening example of creativity
there. |
