Innovations in Knowledge and Learning for Competitive Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific

The challenge of aligning higher education services (programs) with evolving labor market changes, and responding to knowledge-based economy of respective developing countries, has been difficult for many traditional universities. The majority of universities in the region tend to focus on transferring existing knowledge to produce workers who can apply routinized knowledge in bureaucratic organizations and highly structured private sector work environments. This may be appropriate for some lower income countries and lower middle income countries, but such a workforce can only replicate and sustain current economic activities, not innovate and transform to become competitive knowledge-based economies. To avoid economic stagnation of middle income countries and transform to a knowledge economy, the higher education system needs to go beyond current practices.