Challenges facing higher education curriculum reform, design, and management in the 21st century : an epistemological perspective

Abstract

Higher education curriculum reform is a worldwide phenomenon induced by both the internal and external environments of higher education functioning. While a variety of factors are attributed to these changing environments, this paper focuses mainly on the epistemological domain characterising these changes. As the fundamental "business" of higher education, "knowledge" is perceived in this discussion as the essential terrain in which the competing global-local (glocal) interests and concerns unfold. Based on a case study model of two higher educational institutions with traditionally disparate academic cultures, the paper concludes with a trilogy of models posited as facilitating space for epistemological diversity.