Conflicting debates about marketization of higher education: Pakistani universities as a case in point

Abstract

Universities are shaping and reshaping their discursive practices to reconstruct their socio-academic orientations in education by using management, corporate and governance discourse styles of the corporate sector. In this context, this study explores the opinion of genre specialists about the inculcation of market forces into academia. The researcher contacted six genre experts from six Pakistani public (two-pre-70s, two post-70s) and private sector (two) universities to find variations and similarities in opinions regarding the marketing practices in universities of diverse backgrounds. Through Bhatia’s Applied Genre Analysis, the interviews of the genre experts revealed that the pre-70s public sector universities consider “word of mouth” more important than the marketing strategies; however, post-70s public sector and private sector universities are of the view that promotional content affects the decision of students. The findings show that the specialists have developed quite a mature attitude towards marketing. However, there was a unanimous consensus that pressure of marketization is too strong to resist and the universities have surrendered before this pressure; however, higher education should follow the higher ethical values as compared to general marketing trends. It is hoped that the recommendations by the experts can be applied to write the promotional content of universities.

Keywords

• marketization
• controversies
• universities
• experts’ opinion