Globalization and higher educational restructuring in the four East Asian Little Dragons

Since the cold war ended in the late 1980s, people have begun to talk about the economic, social, political and cultural impact of globalization. Some golbalists argue that the external constraints upon states have significantly reduced the state\u27s capacity to respond to changing and far more complicated socio-political-economic environments, thus pointing out the limitations of a state-centered approach in analyzing socio-economic developments. For radical globalists, the increasing interdependence and interconnectedness of nation-states have brought about a decline in the state as an autonomous decision-making body, while local policies are increasingly shaped by global trends. This paper examines how processesof globalization have led to the restructuring of higher education in the four East Asian Little Dragons, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and south Korea. More specifically, thia paper discusses whether and how education policies and developments in the selected societies have been shaped by global trends toward decentralization and marketization in education. This paper also explores whether the role of nation-states has receded in the formulation of education policy in the context of globalization. 自1980年代末至今，談論到有關全球化對經濟、社會、政治及文化各方面造成的影響人愈來愈多。有論者指出，全球化的浪潮制約了民族國家處理社合會、經濟及政治上種題的能力，並相信由全球化所帶來國與國之間的互相依賴的局面，將會導致個別國在制訂政策時必會受到外在甚至全球趨勢影響。本文旨在探討在全球化浪潮的衝擊下，東亞四小龍在制訂教育發展及教育政策時，如何受到全球「下放權力」及「市場化」趨勢影響，並申論東亞四小龍的政府是否在全球化影響下逐漸減少其對教育政策制訂的主導能力