Anthony R. Welch

Short Biography & Significant Contribution

Anthony Welch specialises in both national and international educational policy and practice, and cross-cultural analysis and research. He has extensive experience in many countries, including the Asia Pacific region, and has published widely, contributing numerous works on practical reform and policy issues (for example, multiculturalism, indigenous minorities, international students, higher education, changes to the academic profession) in various countries, comparative research methods in education, and cross-cultural interaction, and the legitimization of educational knowledge. He holds an M.A., and Ph. D. from the University of London, has lectured widely and/or researched at universities in the USA, UK, Japan, Korea, China and Germany, and is the author and editor of numerous books, some translated into several (European and Asian) languages. He has an extensive network of international contacts, and is in contact with organisations such as the OECD, UNESCO, World Bank, CEDEFOP (Europe), BIBB (Germany), IREDU (France) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) and the Fulbright Foundation.

Professor Welch has consulted to federal government departments (DEET and DOHCS) in Australia, Japan, Viet Nam, Korea and Viet Nam, Europe, and in the USA. He has also consulted to international organisations such as UNDP, the Commonwealth of Learning etc. Among other projects, he was part of an international team engaged on a major fourteen-nation study of the academic profession (published in 1996 as The Academic Profession. Portraits from Fourteen Countries), and has also worked in the USA, Viet Nam, China, Japan and Germany. A former Visiting Professor at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Waseda University (Tokyo), Institut National de Recherche Pedagogie (Paris), Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Princeton), the Research Institute for Higher Education (Hiroshima) and the University of Georgia, and Boston College, USA. Prof. Welch was selected as a Fulbright New Century Scholar for 2007-8. He is currently completing major studies of internationalisation and globalisation of higher education - in particular, books on SE Asian higher education, Chinese higher education, and China's relations with SE Asia. His most recent books include The Professoriate: Profile of a Profession (Springer 2005), and Education, Change and Society (Oxford 2007).

His current research focuses on the implications for access and equity of current reforms in higher education in Southeast Asia, one of the most dynamic and diverse world regions. As indicated in the fuller proposal, each of the five nations to be studied faces a swiftly changing set of circumstances, both domestic and international, that on the one hand reinforce the importance of higher education reforms, while at the same time, making it difficult for each nation to achieve its goals (often quite ambitious). A key contemporary dilemma forms a major focus of his ongoing research: the changing balance and blurring borders of public and private higher education. This complex balancing act is a major issue for each of the five systems of higher education, with important implications for access and equity. Inequalities have been a factor in access and equity in higher education in each of the five nations of SE Asia. In several of the five systems, higher quality private HEIs have traditionally been particularly inaccessible to the poor, offering only a handful of scholarships. Furthermore, Welch's research objectives are to analyze in detail how key contemporary reforms of both public and private higher education, and associated national and institutional policies, impact access and equity.

Links
Professional Website

Educational Background

M.A., University of London

Ph.D., University of London

Professional Background

Professor, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney

Selected Publications

Connell, R., Welch, A., (et al) (2006). Education, Change and Society. Oxford University Press.

Welch, A., (2006) Konkurrennzkultur: Internationalisierung, Studentenströme, und Globalisierung des Australischen Hochschulsystem. Fuchs, E., und Drewek, P,. (Hg.), Internationalisierung von Bildung und Erziehung: Institutionen, Diskurse und Transfers (Ergon Verlag: Würzburg).

Welch, A. (Ed.) (2005). The Professoriate: Profile of a Profession. (Amsterdam, Springer/Kluwer)

Welch, A. (2007). "The Minnow and the Whale. Singapore China Relations in Higher Education in the GATS Era", International Higher Education, Winter 2007.

Welch, A. (2004). "L'Internationalisation des Universites Australienne, et de la Crise Mondiale" Revue Francaise de Pedagogie, 146, (special issue on Internationalisation of H/Ed).

Created: 3/16/2008

Updated: 3/16/2008

Contributed By: Anthony Welch, University of Sydney