Convergence and Divergence in the Global Higher Education System: The Conflict between Qualifications and Skills

Abstract

Globally, higher education is expanding at an unprecedented pace. But two competing forces seem to be at work. The first is globalization: higher education systems are globalizing, especially through international research networks and global rankings which fuel competition on a global scale. Internationally comparable qualification frameworks, credit transfer, internationalization policies and quality assurance and accreditation arrangements work towards globally exchangeable qualifications. But the second force, driving institutions to deliver skills which are relevant for the national and regional economies, works against convergence. The skills equivalents of national qualifications remain very different across countries. The skills agendas, driven by countries’ position in global value chains, drive unequal outcomes. The consequence is that the global higher education system will remain characterized by huge inequalities, which are perceived as quality differences. Higher education policies need to find a balance between integration in the global higher education order and serving the domestic skills needs.

1 The Growth of Higher Education Attainment

Higher education participation, graduation and attainment are increasing at a very high pace. Not ever before in human history so many people have been attending and graduating from higher education institutions. Across OECD countries, the tertiary average attainment rate in the 25–34 year-old population in 2017 is 44%, exactly ten percentage points higher than ten years earlier and 18 percentage points higher than in 2000, but it is reaching levels as high as 61% in Canada or 70% in Korea (OECD, 2018). With the same rate of growth as in previous years this figure will increase to 47% by 2020 (see Figure 1). In 2015 the share of 25–34 year-olds with a tertiary education surpassed the share with only an upper secondary qualification as highest level of education. Outside the OECD attainment rates are still much lower, but the rates of growth are much higher. Countries such as China and India are witnessing a very significant growth. Other emerging economies will follow soon and also in many developing countries the potential for future expansion is huge. Calculations by the OECD predict that by 2030 there will be over 300 million 25–34 year-olds with a tertiary education in the world, more than double the number of 2015 (OECD, 2015).

Figure 1

Relative evolution of education attainment levels among 25–34 year-old population, OECD, 2000–2020

Source: OECD (2017c) and OECD (2018)

Various factors explain the spectacular growth of tertiary attainment. Economic developments such as skill-biased technological change and the growth of the professional and service sectors have increased the need for skills. The quest for social progress and social mobility have stimulated the demand for higher education, as higher education has become the main route for upward intergenerational mobility. A higher education has moved within the material and cultural reach of the middle classes and in some cases even beyond. These factors and others have played out in different ways and levels of intensity in different countries. However, developments in individual countries cannot be seen as separate from those in other countries. The international expansion of higher education also was an international phenomenon, driven by increasingly international qualification frameworks, integrating labour markets and international professional accreditation arrangements, globalizing higher education systems and international student mobility. Therefore, it is good to explore in greater detail the processes of globalization and international convergence in higher education.

2 Globalization and International Convergence

2.1 International Collaboration in Research

Higher education institutions originated from national and even local environments, but at the same time are increasingly integrated in a global academic system, at least in their research function and through internationalization policies. The impact of globalization on higher education institutions is probably felt most in the area of research. Scientific research is rapidly integrating into a global system, facilitated by information and communication technologies not hampered by national borders. The nature of scientific research is undergoing three main changes: from individuals to groups, from single to multiple institutions, and from national to international. The production of scientific knowledge is shifting progressively to the international level; researchers increasingly cooperate in networks across national borders, and the proportion of publications involving international collaboration has doubled since 1996, reaching 27 per cent in 2015 (OECD, 2017b) (see Figure 2). The correlation between scientific quality and international research collaboration suggests that integration in international research networks fosters the quality of the research output.

Figure 2

The citation impact of scientific production and the extent of international collaboration, 2012–16 (OECD, 2017b)

Source: OECD (2017b) 2.2 International Student Mobility

International student mobility is another very visible expression of globalization in higher education. Over the past decades the numbers of international students have continued to grow. According to data collected by OECD and UNESCO Institute for Statistics the total number of internationally mobile students, studying in another country that that of their citizenship, has exploded from 2 million in 1999 to 5 million in 2012, of which 3.5 million studying in OECD countries (OECD, 2018). The rationale for this growth is clear. To some extent international student mobility can be seen as a consequence of global academic inequality. Students are moving to other parts of the globe in order to find the best possible education their money can buy. International student mobility is one of the ways through which the geographical gap between supply and demand is being overcome. Investing resources in one’s son or daughter in order to secure them a high-quality credential has become a preferred strategy of affluent middle class families in emerging countries, especially after their purchasing power started to increase. Some countries were quick to tap into this opportunity and developed strategies to market their higher education offer. International student mobility was one of the most visible ways through which globalization manifested itself in higher education.

But also international student mobility is a very skewed phenomenon with high imbalances between origin and destination countries. The United States is the top OECD destination country for mobile tertiary students. Of the 3.5 million international students in the OECD area, 971,000 students enrol in programmes in the United States. English-speaking countries are the most attractive overall, with four countries receiving over half the mobile students. After the United States, the United Kingdom accounts for 432,000 international students, Australia 336,000 and Canada 189,000. International students in these countries mainly originate from Asia, accounting for 87% of international students in Australia, 77% in the United States, 61% in Canada and 52% in the United Kingdom (OECD, 2018).

2.3 International Qualification Frameworks

Obviously, there are many more forms of globalization in higher education. Staff mobility, international recruitment of faculty, branch campuses and various forms of international collaboration have further deepened the global higher education space. In some parts of the world—most visible in the so-called ‘European Higher Education Area’ (EHEA) defined by the Bologna Process—convergence is explicitly becoming a policy objective based on mutual recognition of qualifications and credits and shared quality assurance mechanisms. Within the EU mobility of labour and the increasingly integrated labour market have driven higher education systems towards ever expanding mutual recognition of qualifications. For some regulated professions the EU is defining curriculum frameworks and standards to which universities comply. In order to facilitate and promote mobility also credit transfer systems have been developed, supported by increasingly integrated quality assurance and accreditation systems. The reality is still very different, but the European process of convergence has put the dream of equivalent qualifications at the heart of its political project.

The European Higher Education Area is probably the most developed example of a regionally converging qualification system, but the Bologna Process is getting a lot of attention in other regions of the world as well, most notably in South America and Central Asia. Yet, processes of international convergence in degree and qualification systems can take many different forms and shapes. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA or MERCOSUR also include provisions for the mutual recognition of qualifications, thereby driving processes of convergence. Professions are increasingly organized at an international level and have developed international processes of professional accreditation and recognition. International agreements, such as the Washington Accord for the engineering profession, have a very strong regulatory impact and ensure that the training of engineers worldwide is following more or less the same standards and guidelines. International agreements such as UNESCO’s Lisbon Convention, international frameworks of recognition of qualifications and international arrangements for transnational professional accreditation, they all work towards more international convergence in what tertiary qualifications represent and the access to professions they legally license to (Van Damme, 2002).

Probably the strongest push towards global convergence comes from the very basic structure of the qualifications framework in higher education through the Bachelor/Master/Doctorate system, which has now achieved almost universal relevance. Higher education qualifications, especially at Master’s and PhD levels, implicitly hold the promise that the levels of knowledge and skills they represent can be considered more or less equal across institutions and countries. In that sense higher education’s qualifications mirror the globalization of higher education. The most universal qualification framework in global higher education holds an implicit promise, which is that qualifications with the same label can be supposed to represent equivalent levels of knowledge and competences, at least within certain acceptable margins of variance. Many arrangements related to the recognition of qualifications, credit transfer and mutual recognition of quality assurance and accreditation decisions, even if only very rarely based on automatic equivalence, are based on this implicit promise. When ostensibly that’s not the case, the general implication seems to be that there is a ‘quality’ problem. The notion of ‘quality’ is then reduced to a definition that qualifications need to respond to objective, universal standards. This notes that there are universal standards of higher education qualifications is probably one of the most powerful ways through which globalization exerts its impact on global higher education.

2.4 The Engines of Convergence

To summarize, there are a number of mutually reinforcing drivers or ‘engines’ of globalization in the global higher education system. International collaboration in research and the making of international research networks obviously is a very important one. The global demand in education is another one, in turn driving internationalization, such as international student and staff mobility, but also internationalization of curricula. Emerging economies are catching up with demand, participation and attainment rates of developed nations. Common qualification frameworks based on the BA/MA/PhD model, are rapidly becoming universal. Various systems facilitate the mutual readability, exchangeability and recognition of credits and qualifications. These developments are most visible in regional arrangements such as the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), driven by the Bologna Process. In such regional systems common quality assurance and accreditation arrangements consolidate the convergence of national and institutional arrangements. Finally, global rankings also have a converging impact, by stimulating mimetic behavior among institutional and political leaders.

2.5 The Limits of Globalization in Higher Education

Higher education institutions and systems are firmly embedded in national, regional and local contexts, but define themselves within global space characterized by specific ordering principles and power relations (Marginson & Van der Wende, 2009). Globalization has not produced its own global governance arrangements, although various processes which can take over functions of global governance are organizing a certain global space (Van Damme & Van der Wende, 2018). Thus, globalization is a very contradictory phenomenon, with sometimes antagonistic forces and developments, with winners and losers as well.

For example, the growth of international student mobility is not a straightforward, continuously growing phenomenon. Important changes are taking place in the size and nature of global student mobility, with slower growth rates and important shifts between destination countries. We need to look at developments both on the demand and the supply side. Regarding the former, the obvious explanation is the improvement of domestic education in the most important countries of origin. China, and to a lesser extent India, have invested huge resources in developing their higher education system, including a select number of universities that are predestined to achieve world-class status in the next few years. Chinese universities are now aggressively entering the global rankings and continue to improve their ranks every single year. The Chinese research output is the most rapidly increasing of the whole world. Changing prospects at home have an impact on the investments strategies of affluent middle-class families in these nations. China also seems to monitor and manage their outgoing student flow more carefully.

Still, changes on the demand side alone cannot explain the slowing down of growth rates. Indeed, the potential reservoir of interested students in many countries around the world remains immense. We also have to look at the supply side in the export of education, to developments in the main countries of destination. It is evident that in the main countries active in the field of exporting education services, things have fundamentally changed as well. From a very hospitable and welcoming approach to international students, popular and political attitudes have reversed into a much more hostile stance. This has happened in the main destination countries such as Australia, the UK and the US, but also in upcoming players such as Switzerland, Sweden or the Netherlands. The backlash against migration in several destination countries such as the US, the UK and Australia, aggravated by the 2015 refugee crisis and the flows of asylum seekers, has also turned the climate for foreign students upside down. Populist and often false accusations that foreign students are only interested in permanent migration, and that they take the future jobs of domestic students, are now in the media every day.

The recently published 2018 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange data published by the Institute of International Education (IIE), points to a decrease of 6.6% in the academic year 2017/18 in the numbers of new international students enrolling in US higher education institutions in comparison with the preceding year, continuing a slowing or downward trend first observed in the 2015/16 academic year. The majority of surveyed institutions in the IIE survey expressed concern that the country’s social and political climate could deter prospective international students. The recently released 2018 Science and Engineering Indicators report from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) governing board, the National Science Board, mentioned a 19% drop in students coming from India to the US (NSF, 2018). The decrease in international students, especially at the doctoral and post-doctoral level, confronts many research laboratories of US universities with huge staffing shortages.

In the UK, the share of international students in universities’ intake has stalled around 19% since 2013. Data published end 2017 by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) point to a slight decline in the numbers of students from EU-countries applying to UK universities (UCAS, 2017). For the university sector it is clear that the Brexit referendum and its aftermath are deterring interested European students to come to the UK. Early 2018, a political decision is being discussed of removing international students from the government’s target of reducing net immigration. Even with a favourable decision for international students general feelings of uncertainty and a hostile climate against migration to the UK are probably becoming a deterrent for international students. Vice-chancellors are trying to fight the hostile climate, among others with research reports that demonstrate the beneficial impact of international students on the local and regional economies. In a study international students were said to be worth 10 times to the UK economy than what they cost the tax payer (Kennedy, 2018).

Similar developments can be seen in other countries of destination. Only a few years ago, countries were engaged in a competition to attract fee-paying international students to their campuses. Nowadays, most destination countries are not trying to snaffle other countries’ lost shares of international students, but seem to align on a general hostile stance against international students. This is at least the impression one gets from looking to the situation in countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Australia or the Netherlands.

Despite the enormous power of globalization to steer systems’ and institutions’ behaviors its actual effect in terms of convergence is at least dubious. The world has not become flat in higher education. From a global point of view higher education is distributed very unequally, both with regard to access and qualification levels as with regard to (perceived) quality. The supply of high-quality university education is concentrated in certain parts of the world, while the demand is emerging in other parts. The networks of research collaboration and co-citation show a strong global integration of research, but also demonstrate the continuity of important global imbalances, with the United States firmly placed at the centre and emerging research countries like China finding it difficult to conquer the space. The indicators of collaboration in research exhibit a much skewed pattern, with a larger number of works in any country citing publications with US-based corresponding authors than vice versa. And it shows that China has a much smaller size in terms of citations received from abroad than would be implied by its overall publication volume, although this figure has increased rapidly.

Global imbalances are also mirrored in the flows of researchers and students, notably the mobility of master’s and PhD students, and post-docs. International student mobility is still clearly a brain gain for OECD countries. In particular, the bulk of doctoral education is provided by relatively few institutions globally, notably in the US and Europe. The US and UK cater together for 41 per cent of incoming master’s and doctoral students. OECD data also shows that international students represent 20 per cent or more of PhD enrolments in half of the OECD countries, and even over 40 per cent in three of the world’s top countries in scientific performance: the UK, the Netherlands and Switzerland (OECD, 2017b). Perceived academic excellence, for which global university rankings are an imperfect measure, very much aligns with the destination side of international student mobility; while it is completely at odds with where the demand for higher education is located. The imbalance created on a global scale between supply and demand is probably one of the most disturbing elements of global inequality in the higher education system.

3 The Power of Divergence in Global Higher Education

Persistent global imbalances in higher education are the outcome of the historical evolution of national and regional systems and influenced by very powerful unequalizing forces in the global economy and the world’s political system, including colonization and de-colonization. But, the persistent imbalances cannot only be the product of these external forces. As we have seen, in several aspects the converging impact of globalization is clearly visible in the global higher education system. It is plausible to assume that convergence would have been much more pronounced and extended to all dimensions of the system, would there not have been also strong internal forces of divergence. These forces are often identified as coming from national differences, linked to history, language and culture. Obviously, national identities and peculiarities play an important role and should be recognized. But, in itself, this argument offers little explanatory power.

The thesis put forward in this paper is that opposed to forces of convergence, driven by globalization, the global higher education system is also shaped by forces of divergence which are driven by skills differentiation between countries and regions. So, we could say that qualifications come in opposition to skills.

3.1 Differences in Skills Equivalent of Higher Education Qualifications

But the evidence is almost completely missing on whether the learning outcomes and skills of graduates actually warrant the view that higher education qualifications represent converging levels of equivalence. In terms of learning outcomes and skills development differentiation seems to be more important than convergence. Data from OECD’s Adult Skills Survey (PIAAC) on the skill levels of tertiary educated point to still very pronounced between-country differences, even in areas with proclaimed convergence policies such as the European Higher Education Area. Literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills are very unequally distributed, even among tertiary-educated professionals with credentials of supposing general value. Among all countries that participated in the OECD’s Adults Skills Survey the skills benefit of higher education compared to graduates with only secondary education is clear, but the proportion of higher education graduates with high numeracy skills ranges between 12 per cent in Italy and 37 per cent in Japan (see Figure 3). The proportion of tertiary educated adults with high-level numeracy skills in Spain or Italy is similar to the share of middle-educated in Finland, Japan or the Netherlands attaining this skills level. Such assessments clearly invalidate the belief that in a global system a higher education qualification is equivalent to a more or less similar level of skills. Skills differences among tertiary education graduates with similar level of qualifications are simply too large to assume that there is something happening like a global convergence of the skills equivalent of qualifications.

Figure 3

Proportion of 25–64 year-olds scoring at PIAAC numeracy level 4 and 5, by educational attainment of the population

Source: OECD calculations on PIAAC database

More data and evidence is needed to get a full picture of the dynamics of convergence and differentiation in learning outcomes and skills of higher education graduates across the globe. The second cycle of the PIAAC survey, assessing the foundation skills of the adult population in a wide range of countries, scheduled for the early 2020s, will cast more light on this question. And developments towards the assessment of higher education’s learning outcomes under way in many countries will also generate more data and evidence, hopefully leading to better comparative metrics.

3.2 Understanding Skills Differentiation

If this interpretation of the evidence is true, how then should we understand the skills differences among tertiary graduates? First of all, it is important to note that the PIAAC data on skills levels of tertiary graduates are very different from the (perceived) quality differences based on for example international rankings. The top five countries in the percentage of tertiary graduates reaching the highest levels on the numeracy scale of the PIAAC survey, i.e. Japan, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Australia, all have excellent higher education systems, but their universities feature only in the subtop of international rankings, not the absolute top. And the countries with the highest numbers of universities in the top league of the rankings, i.e. the United States and the United Kingdom, represent average numeracy skills levels which are middle-ranked. Of course, it is difficult to compare national averages with performance of individual institutions, and especially the United States have extremely large differences in the performance of individual institutions, levelling out the national average to an internationally middling level. But the conclusion seems justified that the results of international rankings, to a high degree based on reputation metrics, are producing a different picture than the one based on scarce comparative data of the skills equivalent of qualifications.

It is tempting to see the differences in skill outcomes of tertiary graduates simply as a result of differences in the quality of teaching and learning at higher education institutions. But that would be a far too easy interpretation. For most of the adult population the university experience has been several decades old. And the quality of teaching and learning of institutions can also vary a lot over time. In taking skills from universities to the workplace perfect matches between what graduates bring and what the workplace demands are rather rare, and skill mismatches are frequent, leading to a suboptimal use of the skills learned at university. Tertiary-educated adults’ skills are subject to very complex processes of skills development and upgrading, but also of skills depreciation, de-skilling and skills obsolescence. The skills input of freshly graduated adults in the economy and society is high in the first couple of years of the professional career, but decreases over time, when skills development processes in the professional context take over. Thus, the learning outcomes at the end of a university education are only one element in what constitutes the skills portfolio of a tertiary-educated workforce.

Skills use in the professional environment and in the wider social world thus seems to be determining the skills outlook of a tertiary-qualified population more than the learning outcomes of a university education. In theory, we could have a situation where universities provide a truly high-quality teaching and learning experience, leading to high learning outcomes at graduation, but where the economic and social conditions of a country are such that the skills input is insufficiently used. Skills depreciation and processes of de-skilling among tertiary-educated professionals then are inevitable. Analyses of the PIAAC data suggests that in several countries the incidence of over-skilling reaches over 15% of the working population.

Skill levels among the tertiary-educated seem to be more influenced by the general skills policies of countries, in turn determined by countries’ positioning in global value chains, than by the supply of academic skills through university education. The demand for skills on labour markets, the use of skills in the workplace and the opportunities for skills maintenance and updating through adult education and training have a more profound impact on the skills profile of a country than the skills development in universities.

3.3 Globalization and Skills Differentiation

Globalization is generally perceived as promoting convergence, but the reality is that it also induces differentiation. Since the 1990s, the world has entered a new phase of globalization. Information and communication technology, trade liberalization and lower transport costs have enabled firms and countries to fragment the production process into global value chains (GVCs): many products are now designed in one country and assembled in another country from parts often manufactured in several countries. In contrast to earlier phases of globalization, skills become a critically important factor in determining the position of countries in GVCs. To seize the benefits of GVCs, countries have to implement well-designed policies that foster the skills their populations need to thrive in this new era (OECD, 2017a).

Skills can help countries to make the most of GVCs through various channels. Skills are needed to realize the productivity gains offered by participation in GVCs and ensure these gains transfer to a broad range of firms, including small ones, and thereby benefit the whole economy. Over the last 15 years, the OECD countries with the highest increases in participation in GVCs experienced average or above-average productivity gains. According to OECD estimates, countries with the largest increase in participation in GVCs over the period 1995–2011 have benefited from additional annual industry labour productivity growth ranging from 0.8 percentage points in industries that offer the smallest potential for fragmentation of production to 2.2 percentage points in those with the highest potential.

Skills can protect workers against the potential negative impacts of GVCs in terms of job losses and lower job quality. The gap in job strain between low-educated and high-educated workers is larger in countries that participate more in GVCs (Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia). Investing in skills along with increasing participation in GVCs is particularly important in developing economies that tend to be at the lower end of value chains, where working conditions are more often poor.

Skills are crucial for countries to specialise in the most technologically advanced manufacturing industries and in complex business services that are expected to lead to innovation, higher productivity and job creation. A more educated labour force has enabled many OECD countries to specialise in technologically advanced industries, in both the manufacturing and services sectors. However, the comparative advantage that many OECD countries used to derive from the higher education level of their population is shrinking as tertiary education develops in many developing and emerging economies. New OECD estimates show that countries can maintain or gain or comparative advantages in technologically advanced industries through the characteristics of their skills, how well these skills match industry requirements, and their overall capacity to make the most of these skills pools.

Figure 4

Changes in participation in global value chains and in skills OECD countries, 2000–2015

Source: OECD (2017a)

Countries can gain comparative advantages from their populations’ skills, and thereby from the quality of their higher education systems. They can improve their competitiveness in GVCs by teaching all students strong cognitive and soft skills at the same time, and by developing multidisciplinarity. Countries can also gain comparative advantages in industries if countries’ skills characteristics are closely aligned with industries’ skills requirements. To improve this alignment, education and training systems need to co-operate with the private sector, for example through policies to foster interaction between the private sector, universities and research institutions. Such co-operation would also make young graduates feel better prepared and more confident of their capacity to manage their careers in an uncertain environment if they are more exposed to the world of work during their study.

3.4 Qualification Mismatch

When countries aim to integrate as much as possible into the global dynamics of convergence in higher education, there is a risk that the outcomes come into conflict with the specific skill requirements that are the consequence of countries’ position in GVCs. The consequence of the conflict between qualifications and skills can be seen in a number of indicators, of which qualification mismatch is probably the most important one.

Figure 5 shows that for a number of countries over 15% or in some cases over 20% of workers report that they have a higher qualification than needed for the job they’re working in. On average across OECD countries 14% of tertiary-qualified 25–64 year-old workers report to be over-qualified (OECD, 2018). Figure 6 also shows that there are important skills gaps between well-matched and over-qualified tertiary-educated workers, either because of a selection process whereby better-skilled workers end un in the jobs they’re qualified in or because of a process of de-skilling when workers are working in jobs where they don’t need to use their advanced skills. These data point to a significant discrepancy between the supply of qualifications and the skills demand in certain countries.

Figure 5

Share of over-qualified workers (self-reporting)

Source: PIAAC database (2012–15) Figure 6

Mean numeracy score among adults with ISCED 5A or 6, by selected qualification match or mismatch among workers (2012 or 2015)

Source: OECD (2018). 3.5 Engines of Divergence

In the same way as we summarized the engines of convergence in the global higher education system, we can point to a number of ‘engines of divergence’. Obviously, universities are not solely driven by forces of global convergence, but try to respond to local and regional needs and diversify themselves from competitors. The local and regional dimensions have gained in power in recent years in driving institutional decisions and policies. Mission differentiation to respond to different needs, diversifying student populations, variations in the substantive orientation of research and programme orientations, etc. increase divergence in systems. Let’s also not forget that the global higher education system is a very unequal system, with huge differences in symbolic power at the institutional and national levels. The perceived academic excellence is situated in other parts of the world than where the demand is increasing the most. These persistent global imbalances also drive divergence (Van Damme & Van der Wende, 2018). As indicated above, recent political and economic developments in a number of countries have weakened the processes of global convergence and are driving national systems apart. Finally, global skills differentiation and the specificities of national skills needs and skills policies have an impact on institutional and national policies that often works in a direction antagonistic to regional or global convergence.

4 Conclusions

The policy conclusions are obvious. In a rapidly changing knowledge economy the production of innovative research knowledge and its translation into applied technologies remain very important. Countries that aspire to significantly upgrade their position and status in the global economic and political order have to continue to invest in top academic research. But this strategy is not sustainable without an equivalent ambitious skills management policy. Producing high quantities of tertiary-educated individuals only makes sense when their education guarantees the development of relevant skills and when labour markets and economic institutions uphold the use and continuous upgrading of skills in the workplace. If not, academic over-qualification and skill mismatches will be a burden on productivity and economic output, leading to high levels of graduate un- and under-employment. A well-balanced, harmonious portfolio of knowledge and skills is needed in countries aspiring to climb the global ladder.

The conflict between qualifications and skills possibly will turn into a systemic risk for the sector and might lead to loss of social trust in qualifications and the end of credentialism as we know it today. We already see signals that global employers no longer put trust in qualifications, because of the huge variations in the skills equivalent of qualifications between countries and institutions. Trying to push towards convergence in the symbolic power of qualifications might further erode trust. In 2015 the UK edition of The Huffington Post published an article stating that the global consultancy firm Ernst & Young no longer would look at university qualifications in its staff recruitment and would turn to assessing the skills of applicants themselves, since there is “no evidence that success at university correlates with achievement later in life” (The Huffington Post, 2015).

What does this mean for national and institutional higher education policies, and quality assurance in particular? It doesn’t make sense to choose either for convergence or divergence as the main point of reference. An absolutist argument that only universal quality standards for qualifications are valid for the entire world no longer seems to offer a lot of perspective. But neither a complete relativistic view that qualifications only hold meaning within a specific local, regional or national context is acceptable. A middle way needs to be developed by institutions and countries, reconciling global standards and ambitions on the level of qualifications with local, regional and national skills demands.