Abstracts the Buyers and Sellers of Knowledge: Changing Identities of Academic Learning Centres in the Age of Globalisation

THE BUYERS AND SELLERS OF KNOWLEDGE: CHANGING IDENTITIES OF ACADEMIC LEARNING CENTRES IN THE AGE OF GLOBALISATION Roslyn Appleby and Alex Barthel University of Technology, Sydney Over the last decade an increase in demand for access to tertiary qualifications from Australian universities has led to a questioning of language proficiency levels necessary to successfully undertake tertiary studies. This increase in demand is both externally driven, through the forces of globalisation and the marketing of degrees and internally motivated through the lure of revenue available from the enrolment of full fee-paying students. The broadening of the student profile as a result of these changes has led to a scrutiny of language proficiency levels on entry and in relation to assessment procedures. The tension between the need to offer courses to as wide a range of students as possible, to provide necessary support for those students and to ensure the maintenance of appropriate standards of scholarship places academic language and learning centers at the heart of an important debate over the direction of higher education in Australia in the 21st century. This paper will present preliminary data and examine some of the issues related to the role of academic language centers in meeting the needs of students and faculties in a climate of pressure on the minimum language requirements for tertiary study at undergraduate and postgraduate level. The paper concludes with a recommendation that coordinated research needs to be undertaken across the tertiary education sector to monitor the progress of overseas full fee paying students entering via various pathways and determine the best practices for academic learning centers to meet their needs. ACADEMICALLY SPEAKING: NEW IDENTITIES OR OLD REALITIES?