Launch of the Report, An Excluding Consensus? in Oslo at the Kulturhuset.  Sunniva Folgen Høiskar (SAIH) chairs a discussion with John Higgins (second right) as he presents the main findings for discussion with Joseph Busenga (student activist from Zambia); Nina Schanke Funnemark (Director of the National Student Loan Fund) and Gjermund Øystese (Political Advisor to the Minister of Development).  Photo: Sverre Ø. Eikill/SAIH

Professor John Higgins, Department of English, launched and published his study An Excluding Consensus? - grant and loan schemes and the need for equitable access to higher education globally, in Oslo, with related events at universities in As and Trondheim.    The launch involved meetings and debates with the Ministers of Development and Education and various other agencies, and live streaming of public debates. 

The Report points out a fundamental contradiction in global thinking around higher education funding:  The clash between the definition of higher education as a form of human capital investment, to be funded primarily by the individual as a private benefit, and the idea of higher education as a human right, to be funded through an equitable tax system as a public good.