PARTNERSHIP TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE IN PARTNER UNIVERSITIES

Universities globally are collectively offering their service to allow for professional development among the staff, learning among their students and research and administration in the universities. Collaborative governance has proffered informed ways of strengthening partnership in making teaching and learning, administration, research and resource sharing among partner universities better. Collaborative governance in partner universities: Emerging practices in higher education collaborations. The study was descriptive and quantitative. A validated questionnaire was developed by the researchers and was administered to 280 teachers of universities of Punjab province of Pakistan with a five-point Likert type scale. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentage, mean and standard deviation from SPSS-21. The dimensions were vision, mission and strategies; governance structure; rules, regulations, and collaborative practices. Teachers acknowledged more positively collaboration for improvement in quality of learning, assessment and communication, staff appointment as well as funding and accreditation committees, partnership & understanding of universities and responsive to the market/job/societal needs. They were less favorable for improving the quality of teaching, long-term strategy and planning, quality assurance committees, panels of funding investors, CPD workshops and seminars. The study concludes that partnerships have positive implications toward improving the quality of governance in higher education institutions and therefore recommends the collaborative governance model for partner universities.