Part A

Competitive advantages

Its traditional aspect appeals to the Kazakhs, who value their country and its values (find refs). Coming out of Soviet domination, Kazakhstan is in the transitional period in which it is redefining itself as a united people, promoting the Kazakh culture and values at every possible opportunity. With that, the values in the university, its Kazakh roots, language, and the history of delivery of education that KSU offers draws the large number of Kazakh students to the university.

On the other hand KSU boasts of cooperation with Germany, America, Britain, and Turkey among other countries (Top universities.com).This comes from the fact that KSU has incorporated models into its traditional model, that are of high enough quality and attractive to international students. It is reasonable to hazard that this other model is based on modern models of learning and teaching. In breaking with Kazakh patriotism, KSU introduced two languages as teaching and learning mediums. English and Russian have today just as much status as Kazakh in KSU (KSU Brochure). In a country poised to participate in international arena, the use of English is a very attractive factor for students who think of building their lives outside Kazakhstan, and for the international students. The presence of a Distance Education means that the University gets the competitive advantage of meeting students in their own spaces of study. It is an indication to move towards a competency-based approach, which maximizes access to education for all.

Approvals and accreditation

The approvals that need to be sought are that KSU has to constantly satisfy the requirements of the “State Education Development Program, the credit system they introduced, and the Quality Management System and the International Accreditation” (KSU brochure, 2015, p. 12). KSU is also in the Bologne Process (TopUniversities, 2015), and is in the process of implementing the agreements and standards set out by this process.

Future expectation

Karaganda State University is committed to maintaining regional leadership in terms of skills, technology advancement and practices. As a result, the university is committed in providing quality education to the student in order for them to be competitive in the economic market. As a future plan the management has planned to open new branches in different location and international in order to be closer to the students. In addition, Karaganda State University plans to differentiate itself by being exemplary university in the region as it plan to charge similar fee for both local and international students. In attempt to meet the demand of skilled labor force in Karaganda region and the world market, the university is committed in providing diverse courses (KSU brochure, 2016, p. 16).  The university plans to maintain a hybrid model by having the modern building and technologies in order to attract and motivate the students during their studies while at the university.

 

Part B

The institution that I reviewed was West Virginia University, and more specifically, the new School of Public Health within the Health Sciences Center. The model that is demonstrated is related to the European model of Humboldtian, where the primary focus is tied to research and promoting the research aspect of the faculty (Sam and van der Sijde, 2014). This is not, however, what is promoted or written in the strategic plan of the School (WVU School of Public Health, 2016). So there is a clear disconnect between the demonstrated behaviors of the faculty and what is promoted as the model that is being followed. The strategic plan on record more resembles a blended Americanized version of the European models (Sam and van der Sijde, 2014) where the mission and vision are tied to and reflect back to the mission and vision of the larger institution. As the School recently (2014) went through its discipline specific accreditation process with CEPH, the Council on Education for Public Health having a strategic plan in place was just one of the required pieces that needed to be put into place in order to receive accreditation (Council on Education for Public Health, 2016). This entire process went through a lot of approvals and legwork before even getting to this point; from conversations and discussions with the state legislators who had to give the ok to proceed with the idea of a School of Public Health and the initial, supporting state allocations for the endeavor to the University leadership and units who had to also be supportive of a new school being created within the University system.

The model demonstrated that of a focus on individual research and interests of faculty, does not make this school competitive for students. On the contrary, now that the entity is a school, it is actually creating the opposite effect. The written policy and strategic plan indicates that students will be considered that the focus of the school is to promote rural health and to meet the mission of West Virginia University (WVU School of Public Health, 2016). Unfortunately, at this point, there has not been a strong message to the community about how the school can use its strengths to improve the health and wellbeing of the state nor a stated plan of how the school will collaborate with other schools and units within the University to meet the needs of the state (Behling, 2014). Again, referring to what is demonstrated versus what is written down, until the discrepancy itself is addressed, the School cannot move forward with any plan of meeting a mission or goals because there has not been clear communication and leadership demonstrated (Behling, 2014) on what that real mission and what the real goals are and what the school should be doing as a school. Too many factions and silos exist within the school and the top leadership has not addressed these issues to be able to make progress on any other issues (Behling, 2014). Once these fundamental structural issues are addressed, the school can move forward with adapting a clear model resembling the University structure and working to address a strategic plan and forward thinking that will help the school work towards meeting the goals of its accreditation as well as the goals and mission of the institution.

As a health based institution, the West Virginia University School of public health must establish a value based system which ensures that the interest of the patients is given the appropriate priority. The system should educate the students on how to be accountable at all the time as health is a sector which demands integrity at all the time. The lessons offered within the school should be based on the structure which has clear communication strategies as treatment of the students demand collaboration, team work and discipline (Mintz, 2015). The management of the West Virginia University to establish a framework that is comprehensive in order to ensure that all the necessary strategic plans and mission of the institution and each student is put into consideration. Being a public health institution research is of great importance to the students as they would be in a better position to gain more skills and competence which they would implement while in the field.