The East-West Axis? Liberal Arts Education in East Asian Universities

Abstract

It is ironic that in the second decade of the 21st century, just as East Asia is becoming keen to import the concepts of liberal arts education modelled largely on the US experience, these very concepts are coming in for some criticism in the USA. The Western models of the university and the accompanying Eurocentric knowledge development have long been only in one direction as far as East Asia is concerned, that is, from the West to the East. Indigenous knowledge, the knowledge that is unique to given cultures or societies, that provides the information base for these societies, and that contrasts with the international knowledge system generated by universities and research institutions, has been largely absent in East Asia’s higher education curriculum.