Borderless Higher Education: Challenges Ahead

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Borderless Higher Education Challenges
Ahead Dr. Hans de Wit Dean Windesheim Honours
College, VU University Amsterdam/Windesheim
University of Applied Science, Zwolle, the
Netherlands Editor of the Journal of Studies in
International Education (Sage/ASIE) Kuala
Lumpur, December 3-5, 2007
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Internationalisation of Higher
Education Traditional Meanings Diversity of
Related Terms to Internationalisation of Higher
Education 1. Curriculum related International
studies, global studies, multicultural education,
intercultural education, peace education,
etc. 2. Mobility related Study abroad,
education abroad, academic mobility, etc. Most
frequently used synonym International Education
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Emerging factors/rationales

• Standards, Status and profile
• Ranking
• Strategic alliances
• Regionalisation (Bologna Process)
• National Security (9/11)
• Other Political and Ideological influences
• Higher education increasingly more an actor than
  re-actor to globalisation, trade in educational
  services
• Revenue Generation
• Skilled Migration

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New cross border delivery of education related

• Borderless education
• Education across borders or cross-border
  education
• Global education
• Offshore education
• International trade of educational services
• Also refered to as Transnational Education

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Borderless Higher Education

• Athough it is not a new phenomenon, it is its
  rapidly increasinging scale since the 1990s that
  makes it a relevant phenomenon
• The privatisation and deregulation of higher
  education has stimulated traditional public and
  private higher educaiton get involved
• New private for profit providers have entered
  the market
• GATS (1995), including trade in educational
  services, became a highly debated response to
  this increasing phenomenon
• International trade in education services
  accounts for app. 3 of global services exports,
  primarily through student mobility
• Trade is already more important than aid in
  higher education

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Globalisation and its link to Higher Education (1)

• Increasing Unmet Demand for Higher Education
• Demographic Trends
• Degree and Diploma Programmes
• Lifelong Learning

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Globalisation and its link to Higher Education (2)

• Growth in Numbers and Types of new Providers
• Corporate Universities
• For-profit private institutions
• Media Companies
• Education Brokers

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Globalisation and its link to Higher Education (3)

• Innovative Delivery Methods
• Distance and e-learning
• Franchises
• Satellite Campuses
• Twinning / Joint Degree programmes

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We see

• A shift in paradigms of internationalisation
  from cooperation to competition (Van der Wende,
  2001)
• But this does not imply that
• All institutions of higher education play the
  same active competitive role, and that
• It always happens at the cost of the more
  common approach to international cooperation
  and exchange

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Types of Cross-Border Education Activities

• 1.People
• Students/Trainees Student Mobility
• Professors/Trainers Academic/Trainer Mobility
• 2. Programmes
• Educational Programmes Academic Partnerships
• 3. Institutions/Providers
• Foreign Campuses
• Foreign Investments
• (Knight, 2003, OECD)

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Modes of supply Source OECD
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Four Approaches to cross-border post-secondary
education, OECD, 2004, 232

• Import Strategies Export Strategies
• Strong
• Economic
• Rationales
• Weaker
• Economic
• Rationales

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Crossborder supply

• Crossborder supply means the provision of a
  service where the service crosses the border but
  does not require the physical movement of the
  consumer.
• Examples in higher education are distance
  education, E-learning and virtual universities.

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Size and impact

• Potential due to new technologies
• Limitations due to lack of access to these
  technologies and limitations in learning
  methodologies
• Potentials still primarily national (Open
  Universities) and in Continuing Education
  (University of Phoenix)
• Still limited in scope, no reliable global data
  available

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Presence of Natural Persons

• Presence of natural persons means persons
  travelling to another country on a temporary
  basis to provide service
• Such as professors, teachers and researchers
  working abroad in higher education.
• (Knight, 2006c, 63).
• Although happening quite frequently, exact
  numbers are not known and impact neither. Will
  continue to be an important factor, with
  different implications in North and South.
• USA is an overwhelming brain gainer in
  relation to the rest of the world, whereas most
  nations face a net loss of research personel to
  the USA. And The USA at the doctoral and
  postdoctoral stage has by far the most postitions
  worldwide. (Marginson/Van der Wende, 2007, OECD)

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Commercial Presence

• Commercial presence means that the service
  provider establishes or has presence of
  commercial facilities in another country in order
  to render service.
• Examples are local branch or satellite campuses
  twining partnerships, articulation programmes,
  and franchise arrangements.

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Size and Impact I

• Difficult to document the extent of institution
  and programme mobility
• Definitions and sources are not always the same
• Much information is still based on anecdotal
  evidence
• There is still a lot of trial and error, see for
  instance recent Australian withdrawals, and not
  always is clear what is closed and what is
  (still) in operational existence
• Not all countries maintain an official list
  (China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore and
  Thailand do)
• (Naidoo, 2007)

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Size and Impact II

• Asia-Pacific region, Middle East, Eastern Europe
  and South America in that order are facing
  strongest commerical presence
• Australian, British and US institutions the main
  ones operating them.
• Wholly-owned branch campuses and joint venture
  operations represent a very small share.

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Size and Impact III

• Examples of such wholly-owned and joint venture
  operations indicate potential
• Laureate Education Inc. 209.000 students in 19
  offshore operations
• Others Apollo International (5 campuses), DeVry
  Inc. (Canada and Carribean), and Career Education
  corporation (France, UK, Canada and UAE)

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Size and Impact IV

• Programme mobility is much larger and established
  than institutional mobility estimated
  3.500-4.500 programmes.
• Australia is the most active exporter 1569
  programmes and 37 institutions involved (42.4
  programmes per institution), followed by the U.K.
  (1002, 79, 12.7), the USA (333), New Zealand
  (137, 29) and Canada (81,16).
• The largest importing places are Singapore (966),
  Hong Kong (827) and Malaysia (490), with China
  (410) and India (249) as emerging markets.
  (Naidoo, 2007)

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Size and Impact V

• For Australia, enrollment in programme mobility
  accounts in 2006 for 30 of all international
  students, compared to 18 in 1996. forecast for
  2025 is 47.
• Primarily postgraduate (56), in business
  administration and economics (51), and a mean
  enrolment of 40 students of which 54 full-time
  students (Davis et all, 2000).

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Size and Impact VI

• For Canada, a recent AUCC survey indicated that
  Canadian institutions are engaged in 194
  programmes and that in these 10,798 students
  involved. Of these, 58 were franchises, 37
  twinning programmes, 34 distance education.
• As top motives for involvement in knowledge
  export were mentioned Enhanced Reputation as an
  international institution opportunities for
  international student recruitment alternate
  source of income generation and new
  national/international partnerships.
• As main barriers were mentioned lack of
  financial support to offset the upfront costs
  lack of faculty and professional staff and lack
  of internal institutional support. (AUCC, 2007)

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Size and Impact VII

• Emerging exporters are France, Germany, Italy,
  Portugal and Spain in Europe and Russia in former
  Soviet territories Malaysia, Singapore, China
  and India in Asia.
• Emerging importers are Mauritius, Qatar, UEA
  andVietnam.
• China, India, Malaysia and South Africa are
  examples of countries that have recently
  introduced restrictions on institution and
  programme mobility.

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Consumption Abroad

• Consumption abroad is the provision of the
  service involving the movement of the consumer to
  the country of the supplier
• In higher education it means students going to
  another country to study.
• It is at present the most common of the four
  modes of supply.
• The other three are still marginal and in a phase
  of trial and error, although as indicated
  programme mobility is increasing rapidly.

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Summary picture of Consumption Abroad
International Student Circulation

• If we look over the whole period of 1965-2005,
  what is most striking are the numbers. India
  alone sends in 2005 more students abroad than the
  total number was for 1950 (107.500), and the ten
  countries with the largest number of students
  abroad in 2005 equals the number of all
  international students of 1985 (939.000).
• Secondly we see an increase in students from
  emerging countries, but relatively spoken mainly
  from China, India and South Korea. The Western
  European and North American countries stabilize
  their numbers and see a reduction in percentages,
  and the other developing countries increase but
  in variations and not with the big numbers as do
  the other three.

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Summary picture of International Student
Circulation 2

• The top receiving countries remain to a large
  extent the same, only Australia has been able to
  come close to the top 4 U.S.A., United Kingdom,
  Germany and France.
• If we look at the of foreign students as part
  of total enrolment and we do not include the
  students that move around within Europe (46 of
  their mobility), Australia has a far higher
  number of international students (17.7 of the
  total student body) than the U.S.A. (4.6) and
  Europe (3.2).
• The Arab States which had a high position as
  receiving countries in the sixties and seventies
  see their position go down after that and become
  more active in sending than receiving students.
  Only very recently one can observe efforts by
  states as Jordan, Dubai and Qatar to become
  higher education hubs in the region, but the
  effect of their investments still have to become
  clear over the years.

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Summary picture of International Student
Circulation 3

• The efforts of other countries to increase the
  number of incoming students, such as China,
  Japan, Malaysia and Singapore are already paying
  off, as is the new role that South Africa plays
  as receiving country for Sub-Sahara Africa.
• Where North-North circulation is stabilizing, the
  South-North flows are still on the rise and a
  second flow of South-South circulation is taking
  place, with the receiving countries being those
  who Cummings describes as late-development and
  the sending countries being early-development.
• In this also a regionalisation of South-South
  circulation is taking place for instance
  Malaysia concentrating on Southeast and West Asia
  as well as China and Singapore, and South Africa
  on Sub-Saharan Africa.
• For the top receiving countries, skilled
  migration is becoming an increasingly more
  important rationale. Easier visa and work permit
  regulations are becoming available.
• At the same time, higher cost related tuition
  fees for non-national/regional students are
  introduced.

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Three different Approaches of national strategies
for Cross-border education in Asia

• Government-Regulated Approach
• Examples China, Malaysia and Korea
• Market-Oriented Approach
• Examples Australia and Hong Kong
• Transitional Approach from state-controled to
  free-market approach
• Examples Japan and Taiwan (Futao Huang, 2006,8)

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Regulations regarding foreign providers

• Several countries have made new regulations,
  Example of China
• Joint ventures must not be operated for profit as
  main objective
• Tuition Fees may not be rasided without approval
• Half of the Board of Directors of joint ventures
  must be Chinese
• Development plans must be approved by two-thirds
  or more of the board members
• The chief administrative officer responsible for
  hiring and firing staff must be a Chinese
  national
• Joint venture must have a Chinese partner
• Foreign religious institutions cannot be partners
• The programmes must follow Chinas educaitonal
  policy and be in line with Chinese public morals
  and ehtics
• Curriculum outline and list of teaching materials
  to be submitted to the ministry for approval
• Bashir, 2007

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UNESCO/OECD Guidelines on Quality Provision in
Cross-border Higher Education

• Objectives of the guidelines endorsed by OECD and
  UNESCO
• Students/learners protection from the risks of
  misinformation, low-quality provision and
  qualifications of limited validity.
• Qualifications should be readable and transparent
  in order to increase their international validity
  and portability. Reliable and user-friendly
  information sources should facilitate this.
• Recognition procedures should be transparent,
  coherent, fair and reliable and impose as little
  burden as possible to mobile professionals.
• National quality assurance and accreditation
  agencies need to intensify their international
  cooperation in order to increase mutual
  understanding.
• (OECD, 2004, 17) (www.oecd.org/edu/internationalis
  ation/guidelines

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Risks of increasing trade in higher education (in
particular for developing countries)

• Opposition is higher to institution and programme
  mobility than to student mobility, even though
  the last one is more substantial and creates
  potentially more negative impacts (such as brain
  drain)
• Loosing sovereignty over the education sector
• Excessive concentration on job-related training
• Growing inequity in access to higher education
• Vulnerability to aggressive not-regulated (not in
  the home nor in the host country), low quality
  foreign providers
• Unequal access to higher education markets
• (Bashir, 2007)

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Opportunities

• Competition will increasingly be based on quality
  and price. This provides opportunities for
  intradeveloping trade, similar to what has been
  described for student mobility. Examples are
  Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai and Qatar.
• Low- and middle income countries with a need to
  increase higher education, can look at commercial
  presence as an option, also to reduce study
  abroad and brain drain. Regulation and quality
  control as maintaining a minium of quality public
  funding and provision is required.