Abstract:
It has been more than a decade since Jamil Salmi, former tertiary education coordinator at the World Bank,
published his influential report Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education.1 In this
report, he discusses the unprecedented challenges facing tertiary education globally, driven by the ‘convergence
of the impacts of globalization; the increasing importance of knowledge as a principle driver of growth; and the
information and communication revolution’1. Since then, these factors have been further intensified by the rise
of various global university ranking systems that are increasingly driving the choices of academics, students,
industries and governments of where to invest their talents and funds.
