Quality and Internationalisation in Higher Education and International Student Mobility: trends, iss

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Quality and Internationalisation in Higher
Education and International Student Mobility
trends, issues and models Dr. Hans de Wit Dean
Windesheim Honours College, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam/Windesheim Hogeschool, Zwolle, the
Netherlands Editor of the Journal of Studies in
International Education (Sage/ASIE) OSLO, 2007
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Internationalisation of Higher
Education Meanings Diversity of Related Terms
to Internationalisation of Higher
Education These terms are either used as pars
pro toto synonym Most frequently used
synonym International education
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• Other terms used
• 1. Curriculum related
• International studies, global studies,
  multicultural education, intercultural education,
  peace education, etc.2. Mobility related
• Study abroad, education abroad, academic
  mobility, etc.

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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

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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)

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But It 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.
• It is hard to decide if there is a paradigm
  shift from cooperation to competition, or if we
  are entering a new phase of cooperation to
  compete. Frølich and Veiga (2006)
• Internationalisation strategies are filtered and
  contextualized by the specific internal context
  of the university and their national
  embeddedness.

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Emerging rationales

• Standards
• Strategic alliances
• Regionalisation (Bologna Process)
• National Security (9/11)
• Ideological influences (Islam)
• Status and profile
• ranking

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Implications for Internationalisation

• Internationalisation can be seen as to consist of
  two components
• Internationalisation at Home activities that
  help students develop international understanding
  and intercultural skills
• Internationalisation Abroad all forms of
  education crossing borders, mobility of students,
  teachers, scholars, programmes, courses,
  curriculum, projects
• (Knight, 2006)

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Summary picture of 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
  developing countries, but relatively spoken
  mainly from China, India and South Korea. The
  developed 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.

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Future Challenges

• Skilled immigration
• The increasingly more competitive higher
  education environment, and
• The survival of a small language education in an
  international environment

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Opportunities

• Education more and more important in a knowledge
  society
• Development of the European Higher Education Area
• Increase demand for education and research to
  solve increasingly complex global problems
• New and deeper forms of international
  co-operation
• New dimensions and perspectives gained through
  entering the global educational market place

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Relation between Quality and Internationalisation
(I)

• The more important Internationalisation of Higher
  Education becomes, the more important it is to
  address the Quality Assessment and Assurance of
  The International Dimension of Higher Education
• The more important it becomes to include the
  International Dimension as a Key Component in the
  general Academic and Institutional Quality Review
  Systems Operational at the Institutional or
  System level

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Relation between Quality and Internationalisation
(II)

• New relevant issues
• The quality of cross-border education is becoming
  more important
• The internationalisation of quality assessment
  itself becomes an issue

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Forms of Quality Assurance

• Accreditation Assessment
• Audit Benchmarking
• Best Practice Certification
• Evaluation Indicators
• Recognition Ranking
• Standards etc.

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Internationalisation Quality Review (IQR)

• The IQRP Pilot Project
• Phase One (1995 1997)
• Phase Two (1997 1998)
• A Pilot Project by IMHE/OECD in Cooperation with
  ACA
• 2. The IQR Service
• By EUA, ACA and IMHE/OECD
• By IMHE/OECD
• 3. Related Review Projects
• EUA Institutional Audits
• Visiting Advisors Program, Salzburg Seminar

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International Quality Review

• Is a Process whereby Individual Institutions
• Assess and Enhance the Quality of their
  Internationalisation Efforts
• According to their Own Stated Aims and
  Objectives
• Through a Self Assessment Exercise and External
  Peer Review

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For Internationalisation the most common used
these days in addition to IQR are

• ESMU Benchmark project
• ACE project Internationalizing the Campus
• UNESCO/OECD Guidelines on Quality Provision in
  Crossborder Education
• Developing Evaluation Criteria to Assess the
  Internationalization of Universities (Osaka
  Research Project)
• Measurement of internationalisationIndicators
  and key figures (CHE Germany)
• INKT (Internationalisation Mapped), a new online
  service for assessment of internationalisation
  strategies ande activities of NUFFIC, bases among
  others on contacts with their sisterorganisations
  in Germany and Norway

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Benchmarking

• The approach in benchmarking is to evaluate
  internationalisation in each university in its
  own internal and external context.
• And to provide a comparative analysis of the
  universities involved, as to identify
  similarities and differences between them, the
  background for those similarities and
  differences, and to identify good practices.

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Concluding Recommendation

• In an area in which accreditation, audits and
  rankings, both nationally and internationally are
  becoming increasingly more important as to
  measure the (international) position of
  programmes and institutions, it is important to
  look also at insturments that are directed to the
  improvement of the processes.
• Development of Indicators, Quality reviews and
  benchmarking are in that respect of outmost
  importance.