President of AlmaU participated in the conference on higher education in Madrid

March 5-6 President of Almaty Management University participated in «Reinventing Higher Education» International conference in Madrid.

The conference, organized by IE University (Instituto de Empresa, Entrepreneurship Institute, No. 1 on entrepreneurship in Spain and one of the best in Europe) with support of British Council, aims to unify the management of universities, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists, students and the media to discuss the current state and future evolution of higher education (HE), and discuss the direction in which research, training and university management should take place now.

Experts from Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and the USA discussed  global impact of higher education and its problems in times of antiglobalization. President of AlmaU was one of the speakers.

Asylbek Kozhakhmetov:

"I spoke about the fact that in the light of globalization, unfortunately, the sphere of higher education becomes more unified and standardized, our universities have not changed for the past 500 years. The form Humboldt created a research university 200 years ago, still remain. But countries are different and time is different. Levels of development: cultural, economic and educational are different. And our accreditation is created only for developed countries. Although in developing countries, actively progressing universities, in terms of their creative qualities, in their significance for the local market, are probably more important than universities for developed markets. Moreover, innovations emerge in these universities, because they have to invent something constantly, react flexibly to demands of rapidly developing markets. But it is incorrectly estimated, not as creativity and a new market, but as underdevelopment. I spoke about "McDonaldization" of universities - they are not just alike, but because accreditations are all the same, they try to fit one standard. And if you say "I'm different," they say: "Sorry, then you will not be accredited”. I think for universities from developed countries, traditionally strong in research, there should be one standard, for entrepreneurial universities - other standards, totally different type of accreditation. These changes are required by XXI century, which will be the century of social responsibility, especially for spheres of economy and education".

On the photo:

Conference participants. Left: ex-president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s associate, president of South Africa University, on the right - president of University of Entrepreneurship IE (Madrid), in the center - president of Almaty University Management (AlmaU)