U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems: a project sponsored by Universitas 21

world is free and open education. Free is an attractive ideal, but free and sustainable is an elusive combination. These efforts are ultimately still dependent on the kindness of philanthropists, volunteers, and legislators. The other face the merchants’ vision is the expansion of education as a privatized commodity provided by for-profit companies. Some open-educational innovators, like Wiley with Flat World Knowledge, are turning to the private sector to sustain innovations. Meanwhile, in investor circles from New York to Silicon Valley, the idea of education as a rich field ripe for disruption is gaining more currency than it’s ever had. (121) 6. The regrettable case of the Afghan German Management College is instructive is this regard. According to the 2011 UNDP Report Case Study: AGMC Business Education via Distance Learning detailing its functioning, ‘The AGMC was inaugurated in June 2006 by a small group of military officers of the Armed Federal Forces of Germany who served the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan’ who saw the need for distance-learning (via Internet), competency based small business training especially for women in rural Afghan villages. Despite the impeccable bona fides of its founders, its innovative nature and non-profit status, it was never able to obtain required accreditation by the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education (due to their requirement that the College have a large resident-learning component at a much higher cost of provision). It has thus been in the process of shutting down operations since the beginning of 2012. (Tim Lehmann, Personal Communication, 1 June, 2012).