PERGAMON Higher Education Policy 11 (1998) 103-l 10 -HIGHER- EDUCATION -POLICY- Editorial ‘In the Winter of Discontent, Business-as usual’ Harry de Boer *, Leo Goedegebuure, Lynn Meek Uniuersiteit Twente, CHEPS, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, Netherlands 1. Introduction There is little doubt that the 1990s are a period of substantive change in higher education. Many of the higher education systems in developed countries at the end of the century have reached mass-status. Vast numbers of systems in developing countries are expanding at an unprecedented rate. And though perhaps the assump- tion of an inevitable relationship between the expansion of higher education and national development has been severely questioned over the last couple of decades, in terms of demand, the sector never has been in better shape globally. Clearly, the massification of higher education has had its effects on the way uni- versities and other post-secondary institutions are governed and organised. Mass higher education has forced institutions to adhere to some principles of mass production. One-to-one interaction between scholar and student has been replaced by the mass lecture and crowded tutorials. Leisurely reflection and scholarly con- templation has been replaced by rote learning. And market-like analogies have become common parlance within institutions, within governments, and within international co-ordinating and supporting bodies, such as OECD and the World Bank. Many analyses and explanations have been put forward over the years of why this has happened. Generally, the basic explanation is put down to economic rationalism. Government, and thus society, is not prepared to bear the cost of the massive expan- sion of the systems, but equally is not prepared to lower its expectations of what the sector should contribute to national development. The effects of all this are simple. Higher education has to cater for more and increasingly diverse constituencies, has to deliver more with at best stable, but far * Corresponding author. 0952%8733/98 $19.00 0 1998 International Association of Universities. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved PII: SO952-8733(98)00001~4