tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/globalisation-of-higher-education-8962/articlesGlobalisation of higher education – The Conversation2016-08-09T08:22:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/576042016-08-09T08:22:15Z2016-08-09T08:22:15ZThe Middle East needs help with its long game: education and jobs for the young<p>The future for many young people across the Middle East and North Africa looks bleak. The World Bank <a href="http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/MENAEXT/0,,contentMDK:23355271%7EpagePK:146736%7EpiPK:146830%7EtheSitePK:256299,00.html">records that 54%</a> of the working age population in the Middle East and North Africa is unemployed with little prospect of any positive immediate change. An average of 28.7% of 15 to 24-year-olds in the Middle East and 30.6% of those in North Africa <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_412015.pdf">are unemployed</a> according to the International Labour Organisation.</p>
<p>Much of the world’s response to this chronic problem has been to intervene financially: in the form of aid or debt restructuring. But through supporting economic recovery by giving generations of young people new skills and new opportunities to improve themselves, the world can help Middle Eastern societies in a more sustainable and thoughtful way.</p>
<h2>Reliance on public sector jobs</h2>
<p>One of the biggest challenges the <a href="http://web.worldbank.org/archive/website01418/WEB/0__C-301.HTM">World Bank identifies</a> in this broad region is that unemployment rates are the highest among the educated, with university graduates making up 30% of the region’s unemployed. They are slowly losing optimism and hope for a better life and future. </p>
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<p>This is largely attributed to a reliance on the public sector to provide jobs that come with steady albeit low salaries but high degrees of job security. In many North African countries or those Middle Eastern ones with high populations, other than wait in line for a public sector job, there are few other alternatives. At one end of the spectrum there’s the misery of violence and refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, and the other – even if you’ve excelled – a flat and static job market for the best and brightest. No wonder so many highly-skilled people are fleeing to Europe in search of stability and new opportunities.</p>
<p>Across the region, long-established businesses dominate the labour market, many of them run by large families or by the state. It is a tough market for new entrants and start-ups to enter, with little room for competition nor motivation for disruptive policy changes to support newcomers. Some countries, however, such as Morocco, are starting to push back against these traditional norms and <a href="http://www.theafricareport.com/North-Africa/morocco-matches-skills-and-growth-sectors.html">focus on a skills-based</a> industrial policy. </p>
<h2>Skills deficit</h2>
<p>An answer? Equip young people with ambition and skills so that they can challenge economies and businesses that are stuck in a rut of low productivity and resistance to change. <a href="http://www.youthbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/GenerationEntrepreneur.pdf">Three-quarters of youth</a> in the Middle East and North Africa region believe that starting a business is a good career choice that helps create a sense of optimism for a changing future. But these young people need access to the skills and infrastructure that will allow them to make a positive impact on their societies, old and new. </p>
<p>The issue of youth “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/employability">employability</a>”, now central to debates in countries such as the UK and Australia, is barely on the agenda of university and school curricula in the Middle East and North Africa. It is here where partnerships with Western universities could have a meaningful economic, societal and moral impact.</p>
<p>At a time of heightened terror and mass migration, the world needs to help the region and its populations build a basis for a constructive future. We need to be working inside countries to provide expertise and to challenge the status-quo in regards to a lack of education and skills agenda.</p>
<p>As the scale of migration from the Middle East and North Africa into Europe has already shown, it is our problem, here and now, and only likely to get worse for Europe without thoughtful and active interventions on the issues that should matter to us all. Education can be used as a stabilising influence, offering a brighter future.</p>
<p>A lot of exceptional work is already going by organisation such as the <a href="https://www.fordfoundation.org/regions/middle-east-and-north-africa/">Ford Foundation</a> and <a href="http://www.spark-online.org/spark-to-provide-10000-young-syrian-refugees-with-regional-education-opportunities/">SPARK</a>, which currently works through 30 universities in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon offering training for young displaced Syrians. </p>
<h2>Broadening minds</h2>
<p>Some universities in the region are openly progressive and ambitious, such as the American University of Beirut, Ahlia University (Bahrain), King Abdullah Aziz (Saudi Arabia) and the Qatar University, developing quickly, gaining accreditation, <a href="http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/arab-region-university-rankings/2015#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=">world-ranking positions</a> and creating strong specialisms, particularly in technical and vocational areas. </p>
<p>But academic achievement isn’t all that’s necessary for the region’s young people: education in the region needs to adopt a more multi-disciplinary dimension. The landscape of those drawn into extremism is complex, attracting both the poor and uneducated at one end and the highly educated at the other, often with science, technology or medical backgrounds, as recent attacks on the US and UK have shown.</p>
<p>The response needs to be a greater focus on teaching young people skills that make them employable, but also giving them an interdisciplinary perspective on their studies to create a culture accepting of different views. The combination of science subjects with social sciences, law and the arts can stimulate questions about respect, acceptance, purpose, value and meaning. Sit an engineer down together with an entrepreneur and their skills and knowledge take on a different aspect – an opportunity to that might ultimately lead to a business and employment for others.</p>
<p>The long-term benefits of a shift in focus towards giving young people employability skills will be far greater than any forms of military intervention, financial pressure or political coercion. Yes, education will take longer, even generations, but many believe it will yield better and more sustainable results. Let’s play the long game and support education for all, for the broader benefit to all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zahir Irani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Skills that make young people employable should be a priority.Zahir Irani, Professor of Sustainable Operations Management and Founding Dean of College, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/568572016-04-06T11:29:57Z2016-04-06T11:29:57ZHow universities can teach their students to respect different cultures<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117271/original/image-20160404-28667-1xnfaeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities expose students to difference, providing them with a unique opportunity to learn from others.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities are diverse spaces. Their students are of different races and religions, belong to different socioeconomic groups and are even geographically different: some come from cities, others from rural areas and still more from completely different countries. With such exposure to difference, students have the unique opportunity to learn from others.</p>
<p>South Africa’s universities, however, are struggling when it comes to this sort of learning. Most, like their peers on the continent and globally, commit themselves publicly to core values such as diversity and global citizenship. Yet they are missing out on developing students’ intercultural competence, which is key to bringing those core values to life.</p>
<p><a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002197/219768e.pdf">Intercultural competence</a> is a combination of skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to engage successfully across difference. It’s what is required to get along at an interpersonal level with those who may not seem like us. Universities have an important role to play in developing this competence. Doing so can help equip graduates for living and working in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Focusing on intercultural competence can also encourage the kind of often hard discussions that will benefit South Africa in the long run. Apartheid physically kept people apart and this legacy <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/07/28/the-future-of-south-africa/in-south-african-geography-echoes-of-apartheid">persists</a>, meaning that really getting to know different people is unlikely to happen organically for most South Africans. Educational institutions, at all levels, become key sites of intentional interactions and potential interventions that facilitate deeper connections with each other.</p>
<h2>Formal lessons</h2>
<p>Teaching intercultural competence can happen both formally – in the classroom and through the curriculum – and informally, through students’ activities and their daily lives in university residences and around campus.</p>
<p>Right now, it’s often language and business students who are primarily engaging with ideas of intercultural competence in class. For example, students <a href="http://www.ru.ac.za/confuciusinstitute/courseoutlines/">learning Mandarin</a> are also taught about Chinese culture and customs. Those who hope to work elsewhere in Africa will learn about other countries’ business customs so they do not accidentally offend a potential client. In these examples, the focus is on how to engage internationally. Not much is done to encourage respectful, nuanced interactions with fellow South Africans.</p>
<p>In the formal curriculum, universities should be examining what is taught, how it is taught and who is being taught in regard to intercultural learning, both domestically and internationally. For example, in medicine, intercultural competence might include providing similar scenarios with patients from a variety of cultural backgrounds and belief systems from within South Africa. This might affect whether a patient is addressed formally or informally, or whether certain foods can be prescribed as part of a diet. It will involve teaching students that some people may refuse blood transfusions or organ donations on religious grounds. Such heightened cultural awareness will aid students in approaching patients in ways that are open and respectful.</p>
<p>Teachers must also understand that all students arrive from <a href="http://www.education.uw.edu/cirge/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Darla-INTERCULTURAL-COMPETENCE-MODELS-deardorff-09.pdf">different places and at different stages</a> in their cultural development. Lecturers need to appropriately engage all students in the classroom to ensure that, at the end of their degrees, students can communicate intelligently and appropriately across cultures in order to begin moving beyond their own stereotypes and prejudiced views.</p>
<p>While these formal interventions are important, there is also a lot that can be done beyond the classroom to develop students’ intercultural competence.</p>
<h2>Informal learning</h2>
<p>Universities can boost intercultural competence elsewhere on campus, as much learning occurs outside the classroom.</p>
<p>Here’s a simple example: instead of providing only traditional spoons, knives and forks in dining halls, universities could offer students the opportunity to experience other meal utensils that may be unfamiliar to them, such as chopsticks or even their hands – students can learn that each is an <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/travel/international-food-etiquette-rules/">equally valued but different</a> way of consuming a meal.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, conversations could be facilitated around common interests, favourite memories or inspirational people. Through exploring commonalities, students begin to realise that they may have more in common with diverse others than not.</p>
<h2>Tough personal questions</h2>
<p>Being interculturally competent requires a commitment to an ongoing engagement with learning about ourselves and others. It requires doing some of the “hard work” on ourselves to become open human beings who can really live a life of interconnectedness – embracing learning about others and valuing others as fellow humans, regardless of differences that may seem to divide us. We need to ask ourselves questions such as, “How can I begin moving beyond my own biases? How can I engage those with whom I feel uncomfortable? How I can show my respect for those with whom I deeply disagree?”</p>
<p>A first step in this work might be to remember that we are all in this together and that our actions affect each other. Universities, individual students and staff members need to ask how they can practice these ideas in their daily lives and interactions with each other.</p>
<p>Another step is to remember that people are each so much more than one identity – and to instead begin seeing each other as richly complex humans. What are the multiple identities we each hold? How are we similar to each other and what do we have in common? </p>
<p>Third, we all need to have the courage to move beyond our comfort zones in beginning to get to know others who may not look, talk or think like us.</p>
<h2>Constructive, transformative engagement</h2>
<p>Focusing on intercultural competence may seem like a strange priority to those who have been watching South Africa’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall">student groundswell</a> since late 2015. Why should universities focus on intercultural competence when there is other work to be done? Because, we’d argue, developing such competencies will allow people from different backgrounds to begin to engage constructively with each other at deeper and more transformative levels. </p>
<p>Such mutual engagement is good for university graduates, universities and the country as a whole as they work through the many issues South Africans must address.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Universities have an important role to play in developing students’ ability to engage successfully across different cultures and experiences.Orla Quinlan, Director Internationalisation. Lead on Internationalisation of Curriculum for International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA), Rhodes UniversityDarla K. Deardorff, Research Scholar in Education and Executive Director, Association of International Education Administrators, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/495362015-10-29T14:44:51Z2015-10-29T14:44:51ZNavigating globalised higher education: there’s more than one route to excellence<p><em>The Conversation’s international teams are collaborating on a series of articles about the Globalisation of Higher Education, examining how universities are changing in an increasingly globalised world. Read more <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/globalisation-of-higher-education-series">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>In his 1975 novel <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/aug/10/changing-places-by-david-lodge-the-campus-novel-in-full-flight"><em>Changing Places</em></a>, British novelist David Lodge satirised the lifestyle of two literature professors who crisscross the planet, trading a rainy English campus for a sunny California university, and vice versa. Along the way, many other things are exchanged as well, including affairs of the heart. </p>
<p>While scholars working today don’t enjoy the same benefits – luxury hotels and business-class flights, in particular – they might recognise that they still live in Lodge’s small world. Since the mid-1970s, transportation and communication advances have made the planet steadily smaller and the number of international students has soared in turn. In Lodge’s novels, universities seemed changeless, while four decades later they are fully engaged in internationalisation. </p>
<p>In the post-Cold War era, academic relationships are becoming richer and more complex. Students in the Global South, eager to participate in the knowledge economy – and receive some of its benefits – are driving much of the increased demand for education at all levels. That future profits and solutions to pressing global problems are to be found in advanced research makes international collaboration indispensable. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/highereducation/ehea2010/stakeholderseua_EN.asp?">recent report</a> from the European University Association shows, internationalisation is a strategic priority for many universities and they’re working to put themselves on the world map. When striking out for new lands, however, familiar rules no longer apply and new guidelines must be established to increase the chance of profits, or at least minimise potential losses.</p>
<h2>Red herrings</h2>
<p>Whatever the size of the university, narratives about making students “global citizens” are becoming more commonplace. What this precisely means is unclear, making it indispensable for us to better understand these narratives, the associated strategies, and so some misleading assumptions on which they are grounded.</p>
<p>The first of these red herrings is the idea that higher-education institutions are part of a homogeneous universe, whose members are equivalent to each other – that they provide the same kind of service (education), perform similar activities (teaching, publishing research), and all call themselves universities. World rankings reinforce this idea, and while <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/university-rankings">much can be said</a> about them, the most important point is that they fail to recognise diversity. Universities can have a wide range of structures, objectives and funding schemes, in addition to an innumerable number of other differences. They are not like hotels that can be rated with stars to help travellers looking for accommodations. </p>
<p>The second misleading assumption stems from this faulty notion of a flat academic world. Universities and other higher-education institutions have entered the realm of “best practices”, an ideology that began to spread several decades ago in business and then local government. There might be, for example, new ways of financing research, promoting the dissemination of results, improving campus life, or creating alumni networks. While this is laudable in theory, in international academic gatherings one is often struck by the fact that everyone seems to do the same thing at the same time. </p>
<p>Some critics have pointed out that such “best practices” are often justified by efficiency alone, with little regard for their social and political meanings or implications. Although universities can certainly learn a lot from each other, each one should devise its strategy and choose its course in accordance with its identity, means and expectations of its students and staff. To endlessly replicate “successful models” is not advisable.</p>
<h2>Rule of marteloio</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99575/original/image-20151025-27619-10bp92o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tondo e quadro, 1436.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_marteloio#/media/File:Tondo_e_quadro_%28Bianco,_1436%29.jpg">Andrea Bianco</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the mid-1400s, when sailors had no instruments to determine their position with accuracy, they used a navigational technique known as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNFnOdbcNcU">rule of marteloio</a> to determine routes from harbour to harbour. Today, similar routes are being drawn between universities, creating global networks. Some are venerable, such as the <a href="http://vatican.com/articles/info/the_pontifical_universities-a31">Pontifical universities</a> of the Roman Catholic Church, while others are newer, including the <a href="http://www.wun.ac.uk/">Worldwide Universities Network</a>, with its strong emphasis on research. Others are commercial, like<a href="http://www.laureate.net/"> Laureate International Universities</a>, a group that claims almost 90 member institutions.</p>
<p>As with all networks, they can be instruments of inclusion as well as exclusion. Global universities are recognisable because they belong to or lead global networks, while smaller institutions from less visible countries strive to become members of these clubs. Although some major networks include partners from developing countries, there is still a huge gap in terms of participation between North and South. </p>
<h2>Treasure islands</h2>
<p>The internationalisation of universities raises an old problem: the ability to connect to global dynamics without losing diversity. Some aspects of global science, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/nobel-prize">Nobel prizes</a>, tend to promote a “winner-takes-all” system. Higher education institutions should take a critical distance from this tendency and embrace their diversity – there is more than one Treasure Island for science. Internationalisation is not about going to places similar to our own country or institution. Instead, students and scholars can find stimulating environments and academic conditions that can challenge what they take for granted. </p>
<p>We generally assume that higher education and innovation go hand in hand, but we do not know how innovation comes about. Research is often devoted to dissemination, financing, or public policy, but there is less evidence on why an innovation occurs. The only reasonable assumption is that it happens in adverse conditions, when we have to overcome a problem. That’s why it’s important to put students and scholars in challenging, diverse situations and help them learn different ways of thinking. From my point of view, facilitating access and promoting diversity should be the compass of all internationalisation strategies. So, anchors aweigh, and let’s sail.</p>
<p><em>This article was originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/de-la-navigation-academique-dans-les-eaux-internationales-4-49537">French</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sébastien Velut has received financing from ANR and works for Université Sorbonne Paris Cité. </span></em></p>Globalisation has become a strategic priority for many universities, but learning to navigate in international waters doesn’t come easy.Sébastien Velut, Professeur de géographie, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3 Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/462892015-10-19T05:12:55Z2015-10-19T05:12:55ZUniversities that set up branch campuses in other countries are not colonisers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96838/original/image-20150930-5809-8jwiua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of Nottingham has spread its wings to Malaysia. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/60625416@N06/5527362395/sizes/l">catmonkey2011/www.flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation’s international teams are collaborating on a series of articles about the Globalisation of Higher Education, examining how universities are changing in an increasingly globalised world. Read the rest of the articles in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/globalisation-of-higher-education-series">series here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/branching-out-why-universities-open-international-campuses-despite-little-reward-46129">growth of international branch campuses</a> set up by universities in other countries is the most concrete evidence of how higher education has become a global business. </p>
<p>As of August 2015, there were 229 international branch campuses around the world with another 22 in development, <a href="http://www.globalhighered.org/branchcampuses.php">according to</a> the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) at SUNY Albany, which monitors their spread. The US and the UK are the largest “exporters” of international branch campuses, with 50 and 27 respectively. But Russia, with 13 campuses in countries such as Belarus, Albania and Azerbaijan, has now overtaken Australia’s 11. </p>
<p>Some developing countries, notably India, have also entered the market – SP Jain has campuses in Dubai, Singapore and Sydney – while Malaysia’s Limkokwing University has opened in London.</p>
<p>It is tempting to see these branch campuses as the educational equivalent of the globalisation of business, with powerful universities establishing networks of subsidiary campuses. Given the growing demand for higher education, which has seen global enrolments <a href="http://data.uis.unesco.org">quadruple from 50m to 198m</a> since 1980, the implication is that the number of these campuses will continue to climb.</p>
<h2>How the business works</h2>
<p>Before jumping to this conclusion, it is helpful to understand how international branch campuses are set up and the alignment of interests that are driving their growth. These campuses generally have two defining characteristics: they trade under the “brand name” of the home university (University of Wollongong in Dubai or UNLV Singapore); and they teach and award the qualifications of the home university.</p>
<p>But there are some secondary characteristics which are less well-known. They are incorporated as private education companies, in which the home university has an equity stake. Branch campuses also normally have local partners, often commercial property companies (in China, for example, a local majority partner is mandated by legislation), and they are registered as private education providers under the jurisdiction of the host ministry of education.</p>
<p>Branch campuses overseas have been often derided as colonial outposts of the home university, representing the “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Mcdonaldization_of_Higher_Education.html?id=BS8bwfsmXEkC">McDonaldization of higher education</a>”. But the reality is that most campuses are legally established as private universities in the host countries, controlled by local majority shareholders. Most of the <a href="http://jsi.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/08/25/1028315315602928.abstract">staff are employed by the local entity</a>, not the home university, and are hired locally.</p>
<p>The campus functions under the watchful eye of the host ministry of education, which can variously require the teaching of specific courses (such as <a href="http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_2803/200905/48454.html">cultural courses in China</a>) and set tuition fees and enrolment quotas, such <a href="http://www.agc.gov.my/Akta/Vol.%2012/Act%20555%20-%20Private%20Higher%20Educational%20Institutions%20Act%201996.pdf">as in Malaysia</a>.</p>
<h2>No cash cow</h2>
<p>For the home university, the cost of setting up an international branch campus is generally much lower than commonly supposed. This is partly because the university has local joint venture partners to share setup costs, but mainly because the campus is incorporated as a legal entity. With the backing of its local shareholders, the campus can raise capital on its own account to buy land, build the campus and fund its operating costs until it breaks even.</p>
<p>On the downside, these financial arrangements mean that there is no “pot of gold” for the home university. It may take a number of years for enrolments to build to the level where the campus is breaking even and, thereafter, the bulk of any profits will go to servicing the campus’s debt. Any residual profit will be split between the shareholders, with capital controls and other restrictions often limiting the ability of the home university to repatriate their minority share.</p>
<p>All this begs the obvious question: why have so many universities opened campuses overseas? Making easy money is not the motivation. In general, the growth has been driven by universities seeking to build their global brands, and so attracting international students and staff. But the more important player in the mix is the host government.</p>
<h2>Friends in high places</h2>
<p>Higher education remains a highly regulated, politicised sector and international branch campuses exist because they serve the interests of the host governments. In some countries, <a href="http://uaecd.org/higher-education">notably the United Arab Emirates</a>, branch campuses provide education to the children of a majority expatriate population barred from tuition-free Emirati universities. In China, branch campuses transfer educational technology and teaching skills to the Chinese higher education system, which the government hopes will help to improve quality overall.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96839/original/image-20150930-5790-zuvna3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, opens the Heriot-Watt campus in Dubai in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishgovernment/6308639970/sizes/l">Scottish Government</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Seen in this light, branch campuses are not a manifestation of a relentless globalisation of higher education, but a transitory alignment of motivations: universities seeking to build their brands by extending their global reach and host governments seeking to accelerate the development of their higher education systems.</p>
<p>It is difficult to predict how long this trend will continue, but the experience of the British Commonwealth suggests a downturn will come as the higher education systems of host countries mature. Remember, the Universities of the West Indies, Colombo and Zimbabwe all began life as remote branches of the University of London, teaching an academic syllabus devised and examined in Russell Square. They subsequently developed their own identities and academic cultures, cutting the ties with London as they grew up to become proud, autonomous institutions of higher learning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Healey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Both universities and their host countries have a stake in the success of overseas campuses.Nigel Healey, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International) and Head of College of Business, Law and Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/484192015-10-13T05:21:10Z2015-10-13T05:21:10ZTen sure ways countries can turn away international students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97933/original/image-20151009-9150-35o0er.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How not to make them feel welcome. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">International students via Lucky Business/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation’s international teams are collaborating on a series of articles about the Globalisation of Higher Education, examining how universities are changing in an increasingly globalised world. This is the second article in the series. Read more <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/globalisation-of-higher-education">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The pursuit of global mobility in a world divided up into nations invokes a fundamental dilemma. Free passage without harassment is a right we routinely expect to exercise whenever we travel abroad. Yet the right of people within a country to determine who enters their nation is enshrined in law. This unresolvable tension between sovereignty and mobility catches international students in its grip. </p>
<p>More than <a href="http://www.oecd.org/edu/Education-at-a-Glance-2014.pdf">4.5m students cross borders</a> every year for educational purposes, mostly entering English-speaking countries, Western Europe, China, Japan and Russia. The great majority of these students return home when their education ends, though <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-many-foreign-students-stay-in-the-uk-45506">some become skilled migrants</a> to the country of education, or other countries. Nations compete for international students – every country wants high-quality research students and some make a profit from international undergraduate and masters-level students. In the UK, for example, <a href="http://blog.universitiesuk.ac.uk/2014/04/04/study-highlights-value-of-international-students-to-the-uk/">Universities UK reported</a> that international students spent £4.4 billion on fees and accommodation in 2011-12. </p>
<p>However, education policy is all too often in tension with migration policy. The United States (after September 11, 2001), Australia (in 2010-2011) and the United Kingdom (now) have all slowed down their student intake because of security concerns, or local opposition to migration. In each case numbers fell sharply and stayed down. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98060/original/image-20151012-17809-1r58gmo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Change in number of foreign students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.appgmigration.org.uk/sites/default/files/APPG_PSW_Inquiry_Report-FINAL.pdf">UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What not to do</h2>
<p>The past two decades of experience in international student policy suggests a checklist of ten things that a nation can do to ensure that it becomes as uncompetitive as possible in international education, and drives down foreign student numbers:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Make your visas more expensive than the competition. Currently, <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2014/InternationalStudentsInHigherEducation.pdf">UK visas</a> are at the top end of costs among the principal education exporting countries. It <a href="https://www.gov.uk/tier-4-general-visa">costs £322</a> to apply for a Tier 4 (General) student visa from outside the UK. </p></li>
<li><p>Slow down the time for visa processing, so education agents push families to choose competitor countries. This happened in Australia in 2011 in relation to Chinese students – families went to the US. The visa rules were relaxed and <a href="http://monitor.icef.com/2014/03/australia-reverses-three-year-enrolment-decline-commencements-up-sharply-in-2013/">the numbers picked up</a> again. </p></li>
<li><p>Ensure that universities and colleges not only charge high tuition fees, but require families to bank a full year of living cost support for several months before enrolment begins, as the UK does at present.</p></li>
<li><p>Use a discriminatory policy against students from major countries such as India or China, or better still, whole regions such as the Middle East. Subject those students, and not others, to extra checks at entry and extra reporting requirements. Ask their universities to spy on them and regularly report to immigration authorities – as <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/student-privacy-and-patriot-act/">with the Patriot Act</a> under George W Bush in the US, and as the UK does in relation to <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-lecturers-must-remain-educators-not-border-guards-23948">non-EU students at present</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Allow the local media to mount sustained attacks on international students as a group for destroying the national way of life, or triggering an urban crime wave, or consuming fast foods with strange smells in city precincts, or being dangerous drivers. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0511741197">This happened in New Zealand</a> 12 years ago and the Chinese government advised families not to send their student children to New Zealand. Numbers dropped like a stone.</p></li>
<li><p>Restrict work rights during study and, better still, impose a blanket ban on international students working during vacations, so students cannot earn the money they need to cover their fees and living costs. Both the UK and Australia limit working time. The UK is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/foreign-students-will-be-banned-from-working-in-the-uk-and-forced-to-leave-as-soon-as-they-finish-10385232.html">planning to introduce this</a> for international students from outside the EU. </p></li>
<li><p>Send lightning raids into workplaces in case international students are working more than their maximum weekly hours – and deport them on the spot if they do. Australia <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0511741197">used to do</a> this. </p></li>
<li><p>Make it <a href="http://www.barclays.co.uk/Helpsupport/Identificationforstudentbankaccounts/P1242557966021">hard</a> for international students to open a bank account without a place of residence and impossible to rent an apartment without a bank account – which happens in the UK. Do the same with mobile phone contracts. </p></li>
<li><p>Make it expensive to be covered by medical insurance (as <a href="http://www.privatehealth.gov.au/healthinsurance/overseas/oshc.htm">it is in Australia</a>), visit a doctor or access hospitals and other emergency services. </p></li>
<li><p>Restrict the rights of students to stay and work once they have graduated. This is crucial, as students who want to migrate need work rights to build the bridge to migration, and others need work to pay back their loans. The UK used to encourage students to work for two years after graduation, but in 2012 the policy changed so that a graduate had just four months to get a job worth £24,000 or more a year in their field of training. The number of visas given to former students in the <a href="http://www.appgmigration.org.uk/sites/default/files/APPG_PSW_Inquiry_Report-FINAL.pdf">UK declined</a> from a peak of 43,319 in 2011, to 557 in 2013. </p></li>
</ol>
<h2>The worst possible timing</h2>
<p>The UK is now planning to force graduates to leave the UK before applying for graduate jobs, which <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/foreign-students-will-be-banned-from-working-in-the-uk-and-forced-to-leave-as-soon-as-they-finish-10385232.html">will make it even harder</a> for them to stay. Highly skilled graduates will go elsewhere.</p>
<p>International students are the collateral damage of migration politics. Cutting temporary migration by students is the easiest way to reduce the number of people coming in to a country, even though most students never become permanent migrants. </p>
<p>In the UK it will probably get worse before it gets better. The home secretary, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/06/theresa-may-speech-new-low-politics-migration">Theresa May, says that high migration</a> is a threat to national cohesion and higher education institutions must be prepared for a drop in international student numbers. But if the UK government follows May down the migration-bashing route and bears down harder on international student entry and graduate work rights, that is not a recipe for a wobble in the market, but the ongoing loss of a chunk of market share. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0511741197">Evidence</a> from the US in the wake of the 2001 Patriot Act, and Australia after its slowing of visas and noncompetitive work rights in 2010-2011 suggest that when student numbers fall, the downturn lasts for years, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-attracts-chinese-students-to-aussie-universities-46748">lingers even</a> after policies reverse again. </p>
<p>But the major problem for the UK is the timing. Different countries have to face popular resistance to migration, but those moments do not always coincide. While the UK government is talking about massive cuts to migration, it so happens that the US, Canada, Australia, China, Japan and Germany are stepping up efforts to attract international students. Growth is surging in the US and Australia. Both countries have learned from past mistakes and are being careful to avoid the ten “dont’s” on this list.</p>
<p><em>UPDATE: Point seven in this article incorrectly said students were raided for working more than their minimum working hours. It was updated to read their maximum working hours.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Marginson receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to support the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education.</span></em></p>A checklist of how countries can be as uncompetitive as possible in attracting overseas students.Simon Marginson, Professor of International Higher Education, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/461292015-10-11T19:28:29Z2015-10-11T19:28:29ZBranching out: why universities open international campuses despite little reward<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91860/original/image-20150814-11476-aeowtq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International campuses have rarely been roaring successes, so why do universities continue to branch out?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/downloading_tips.mhtml?code=&id=87781027&size=huge&image_format=jpg&method=download&super_url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTQzOTU1MzQ3MywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfODc3ODEwMjciLCJrIjoicGhvdG8vODc3ODEwMjcvaHVnZS5qcGciLCJtIjoiMSIsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwiRUg0bDNXY3lZY2g2RUpSUUd6NG9uOStsVmxBIl0%2Fshutterstock_87781027.jpg&racksite_id=ny&chosen_subscription=redownload_standard&license=standard&src=g7EOhtJ8wTd565Y-vNp65Q-1-2&el_order_id=">from www.shutterstock.com.au</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation’s international teams are collaborating on a series of articles about the Globalisation of Higher Education, examining how universities are changing in an increasingly globalised world. This is the first article in the series.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>International branch campuses are one of the biggest reputational and financial risks universities take. They are typically established distant from the home campus’ supervision, in an environment as well as a country that is foreign, and they rarely repatriate great financial or academic riches to their home campus. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.globalhighered.org/index.php">At least 31 international branch campuses have failed.</a> Some have failed spectacularly, financially, academically or both, often to the considerable embarrassment of their sponsoring university.</p>
<p>Yet there are around 233 international branch campuses. Universities have established an average of 13 international branch campuses annually over the last few years and <a href="http://www.globalhighered.org/index.php">there are plans for at least 23 more</a>.</p>
<p>This is not counting the operations of private for-profit institutions. There are, for example, 80 <a href="http://www.laureate.net/AboutLaureate">Laureate international universities</a> in 28 countries and 54 campuses of the <a href="http://www.sae.edu/about-us">SAE Institute</a> in 26 countries.</p>
<p>Why are universities establishing more international branch campuses and what are their prospects for success?</p>
<h2>$ € £ R</h2>
<p>An obvious motive for establishing an international branch campus is to increase revenue. In a 2012 report on <a href="http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=894">data and developments of international branch campuses</a>, about 60 campuses – 30% of the 200 surveyed – received some financial support from their host country. </p>
<p>Such support may be in the form of a substantial grant of cash or land, or tax breaks. </p>
<p>Even so, some universities that received grants of tens of millions of dollars <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225772127_The_brand_name_research_university_goes_global">have closed their international branch campuses</a> after a few years because they could not attract enough students to cover their running costs, among other reasons.</p>
<p>Of the 233 operating international branch campuses listed on the website of the <a href="http://www.globalhighered.org/branchcampuses.php">Cross-Border Education Research Team</a> of the State University of New York at Albany, the team was able to collect enrolment figures for 94 campuses. </p>
<p>The median enrolment of these campuses was only 500 students, despite the fact that their median age is 10 years. Campuses with such modest enrolments are unlikely to generate much revenue, let alone a surplus to repatriate to their home campus.</p>
<p>A report on the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transnational-education-value-to-the-uk">value of transnational education</a> estimated that in 2012-13 the total gross revenue for UK international branch campuses was approximately £140 million (US$219 million). This was roughly only 3% of universities’ revenue from all international education.</p>
<p>The report said only relatively small sums are remitted to UK universities from their international branch campuses. This may be because these campuses generate little surplus, are established with partners that absorb much of any surplus, or because of host governments’ restrictions on repatriating profits.</p>
<h2>Internationalisation</h2>
<p>Many universities establish branch campuses as an extension of their internationalisation strategy. They perhaps started by enrolling international students on their home campus, perhaps initially to increase revenue as much as for any other reason.</p>
<p>But as these enrolments grow and the university becomes more familiar with international education and its multiple benefits, some universities extend their international engagement to offer programs jointly with international partners, and then offer programs abroad in their own right, although often still in partnership with an international institution.</p>
<h2>Prestige</h2>
<p>Non-profit universities are status-seeking organisations and another motive for establishing international branch campuses is to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263688917_Prestige-oriented_market_entry_strategy_the_case_of_Australian_universities">enhance their prestige</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91867/original/image-20150814-11479-olxxkw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">International campuses enhance prestige.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=894">survey of universities with international branch campuses</a>, one of the “main drivers” was “prestige: visibility as an international institution with global ambitions”. Perhaps some senior university staff also seek to <a href="https://theconversation.edu.au/article-40681">emulate multinational corporations</a>.</p>
<h2>Prospects</h2>
<p>Reports about international branch campuses alternate between boom and bust, often in the same year. One reason may be that such campuses take a long time to plan and establish and often longer to build their success.</p>
<p>Much scholarly writing and analysis is <a href="http://www.bc.edu/research/cihe/cbhe.html">sceptical</a>, if not <a href="http://academiccouncil.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/Agora-China-Report1.pdf">critical</a>, of these branch campuses. <a href="https://htmldbprod.bc.edu/pls/htmldb/f?p=2290:4:0::NO:RP,4:P0_CONTENT_ID:110101">One study observes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Branch campuses are sprouting around the world, like mushrooms after a heavy rain. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, the author argues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many of the growing mushrooms may only hold a limited life span and a few might be poisonous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another paper examines the reasons <a href="http://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/deinternationalization-of-universities-an-exploratory-study(5fe2062a-0b2d-4e45-acad-093cbbd87fef).html">international branch campuses fail</a>. It notes low student enrolments are often due to wrong assumptions about the host market’s student demand, its amount and level of secondary education, proficiency in English and capacity or willingness to pay high fees. </p>
<p>Some branch campuses failed because they did not adapt their curriculum to local conditions, or because home campus staff weren’t sufficiently adaptable. Others enter markets as they reach saturation and some planners’ cash-flow projections weren’t robust.</p>
<p>The authors also note a tension over the branch campus identity. In the host country, prospective students, their parents, governments and other interest groups expect a branch campus that carries the name of the home university to have <a href="https://theconversation.edu.au/article-23200">many of that university’s characteristics</a>. </p>
<p>Yet this contrasts with the need for the branch campus to adapt to local conditions and the often much lower revenue available to branch campuses from tuition fees, government funding, research grants, industry support, consultancies and other sources.</p>
<p>This is related to the core issue of the <a href="http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=934">extent to which the branch campus should be integrated</a> with the home campus or have devolved core functions such as staffing, finance, quality assurance, electronic communications and the library.</p>
<p>Universities with strong international campuses are the <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/facts/studentpopulation20132014.aspx">University of Nottingham</a> whose Ningbo campus has 5,500 students and whose Malaysia campus has 4,500 students, the University of Liverpool whose <a href="http://www.liv.ac.uk/about/">joint campus</a> with Xi’an Jiaotong University has 7,400 students, RMIT University whose <a href="http://mams.rmit.edu.au/ylqnr3jjhso3.pdf">Vietnam campus</a> has 6,838 students and Monash University whose <a href="http://www.monash.edu/about/who/glance">Malaysia campus</a> has 6,757 students.</p>
<p>Each of these universities has a high proportion of international students enrolled at their home campus and has had a long, deep, broad and well-informed internationalisation strategy.</p>
<h2>Missed opportunity?</h2>
<p>Most international branch campuses are established in low-wage countries by universities in high-wage countries. There therefore seem to be opportunities to extend internationalisation and at least cover, if not save, costs by transferring labour-intensive central services to branch campuses. </p>
<p>But I have found no report of this being tried by a university, despite <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshoring">offshoring</a> being common in many sophisticated services such as <a href="http://legalcareers.about.com/od/jobmarket/a/Offshoring.htm">law</a>.</p>
<p>Many branch campuses are in a different time zone from the home campus, so establishing help desks in both the home and offshore campus would enable a university to offer students and staff support over extended hours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Moodie is an adjunct professor at RMIT University which has two campuses in Vietnam, a centre in Spain and which closed a campus in Malaysia.</span></em></p>Why are universities establishing more international branch campuses and what are their prospects for success?Gavin Moodie, Adjunct professor, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/464822015-09-04T04:44:35Z2015-09-04T04:44:35ZInternational partnerships can be powerful tools for Africa’s universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93449/original/image-20150831-25748-w6nsva.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discusses collaboration between the US and Senegal. International partnerships, particularly between universities, can yield great rewards.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When an African university signs a memorandum of understanding, whether with a counterpart on the continent or one elsewhere in the world, there is great excitement. The university itself usually issues a statement celebrating this collaboration and glowing pieces often appear in local media.</p>
<p>Then the headlines taper off, enthusiasm wanes – and, far too frequently, these memorandums are left to gather dust in university management offices. They become reference material rather than the basis of productive relationships between institutions.</p>
<p>This is not just an African problem. The international universities that come on board as partners also battle to make the jump from signing these memos to actual activities.</p>
<p>But if these memorandums of understanding are properly planned, developed and put into action, they can contribute a great deal to any African university’s push for internationalisation.</p>
<h2>An eye on the global prize</h2>
<p>A university’s internationalisation strategy is fast <a href="http://www.britishcouncil.org/blog/why-universities-want-to-internationalise-what-stops-them">becoming a tool</a> to measure the institution’s innovation, global relevance and its potential contribution to national goals.</p>
<p>A good internationalisation strategy can help to develop an African university’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/jun/07/universities-global-ambitions-internationalising">brand</a>, both at home and abroad. It can also create new revenue generation schemes, which is extremely valuable at a time when institutions are facing a <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150320084838589">funding crunch</a>.</p>
<p>Universities can use these memorandums of understanding and partnerships to increase their academic and research footprints on global issues. There is room for institutions to adopt global best practices when it comes to content, programmes and processes.</p>
<p>There are huge benefits for students, too. They are exposed to different ways of thinking through visiting academics, and opportunities to study elsewhere through exchange programmes. Postgraduates can collaborate on research with international peers. All of this ultimately prepares them to contribute to their own economies and to work anywhere in the world.</p>
<h2>The frontrunners</h2>
<p>Some African institutions have made great strides to take their partnerships from paper to reality. The University of Benin in Nigeria <a href="http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/news-and-events/news/2014/december/nigerian-collaboration/">signed</a> a binding memorandum of agreement with Lancaster University in the United Kingdom in late 2014. The institutions had started with a memorandum of understanding in 2013.</p>
<p>The universities have since developed a split-site PhD programme, whose first batch of students will start work at the end of 2015. They have also developed a forum that is designed to help bridge the gaps between academia and industry in Nigeria. Participants learn from the experiences of their colleagues at the Lancaster Environment Centre of Lancaster University. </p>
<p>Two successful meetings have already <a href="http://africaonline.cc/index.php/2015/08/27/university-researchers-should-focus-on-job-creation-uniben-vc/">been held</a> under this banner.</p>
<p>Another successful collaboration which grew from a memorandum of understanding is that between Strathmore University in Kenya and Rwanda’s <a href="http://uok.ac.rw/archives/1161">University of Kigali</a>. This focuses on regional content development. The University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria has established a postgraduate Institute of Petroleum Studies. This <a href="http://www.ipsng.org/ips/index.php/about-ips/about-ips">evolved</a> from a collaboration between the university and the IFP School, a research institution in France.</p>
<h2>Stumbling blocks</h2>
<p>Conversations I have had with university administrators around the continent reveal that many lack the knowledge to bring memorandums of understanding to life.</p>
<p>Often, universities will sign agreements even though their new partners have totally different academic programmes, priorities and processes. This disconnect is worsened by the complex structures of all universities and the frequently fraught relationship between the administrative and academic section of institutions. </p>
<p>My discussions suggest that most African universities assign a lecturer or administrator – who is great at their core job – to manage memorandums of understanding once they’ve been signed. This added responsibility requires time, resources and knowledge. Too often, it falls to someone who wasn’t even involved in signing the memorandum.</p>
<p>International partnerships can be expensive, and it is tough for resource-poor universities in Africa to find the funding they need to get things started. Travel, conferences and exchanges all cost money.</p>
<p>Finally, it is worth remembering that memorandums of understanding are not usually <a href="http://www.startupsmart.com.au/mentor/craig-yeung/a-potential-partner-wants-to-back-out-how-legally-binding-is-a-memorandum-of-understanding/201206256705.html">legally binding</a> – so it can be hard to enforce all the clauses and make sure that both parties do everything that is required of them.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the pioneers</h2>
<p>Here are some of things that institutions should consider when a memorandum of understanding is on the table:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need to appoint a strategic champion with the relevant skills and give them the necessary resources and time to bring this relationship to life. The most relevant attributes are resourcefulness, stakeholder management, strategic partnership insights and international outlook. </p></li>
<li><p>Plan big but start small. Chose a low cost, high impact but simple activity – a seminar, workshop or meeting – to launch the relationship. This will give both institutions a chance to learn about each other’s systems, processes and stakeholders before investing more money in bigger initiatives.</p></li>
<li><p>Plan for a binding memorandum of <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-02-04/news/36743089_1_mou-document-parties">agreement</a> while setting up the memorandum of understanding. Communicate about and agree on the phased transition from one to the other. Set up timelines, deliverables and milestones.</p></li>
<li><p>Agree on clear roles and responsibilities. Be clear about what mutual benefits you would like to see. Start these conversations at the very beginning of the process so that the memorandum of understanding contains everything you envision. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>It is also important at this point to establish exactly who will be involved, how communication should happen and what decisions need to be taken in the short term. Many of these memorandums suffer because too many or too few people get involved when the ball is already rolling.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Akanimo was and is still involved in the Lancaster University/University of Benin partnership project.
</span></em></p>If memorandums of understanding with international institutions are properly developed and put into action, they can contribute a great deal to African universities’ push for internationalisation.Akanimo Odon, Honorary/Visiting Fellow, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/456812015-08-10T14:19:02Z2015-08-10T14:19:02ZWhere will the next generation of Nobel Prize winners come from?<p>The US continues to dominate when it comes to Nobel Prizes, according to a new list of the academics and institutions that have won most of the prestigious accolades so far in the 21st century. American institutions and academics topped <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/stanford-top-university-for-producing-nobel-laureates">the list</a>, put together by the magazine Times Higher Education (THE).</p>
<p>When they were founded in 1901, Nobel Prizes were the first award for academic excellence made on an internationally comparative basis. But Nobel Prizes are <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-british-universities-worry-about-a-lack-of-nobel-prizes-in-the-21st-century-45730">no longer accurate indicators</a> of the health of a specific national research system as a whole, particularly when international collaborations and the mobility of academic researchers are at their highest ever level and still growing. </p>
<p>We should expect to see more laureates from emerging economies as the 21st century progresses, but only if governments are willing to support the internationalisation of their research systems. </p>
<h2>A global landscape</h2>
<p>Winning a Nobel Prize is a hugely prestigious event for an individual academic, and by proxy, for the institutions and countries which have nurtured their research. But many prize-winners have experienced a career of international research and collaboration. Take as one example Shuji Nakamura, a Japanese physicist based at the University of California who<a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/"> shared the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics</a> with two physicists based in Japan for their work developing energy-saving light sources. </p>
<p>In any case, the internationalisation of universities and the growth of collaborative research that we have seen in the 21st century have not benefitted the world in an equitable way. With the dominance of US universities and American academics, the THE’s list of Nobel prizes indicates this very clearly, although I doubt that was its intention. </p>
<p>Its list focused on the Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine and the Bank of Sweden prize for economic sciences, excluding the literature and peace prizes which are allocated according to quite different criteria. </p>
<p>After the Americans, the rest of the list comprises universities, research institutions and academics found in the highly developed world. These include Germany (notably the Max Planck Society), Israel (notably the Technion Israel Institute of Technology) and, although not in the top ten for universities or research institutions that have won Nobel Prizes, countries such as Japan, Australia, France, and the UK.</p>
<p>It is these developed world countries that have the economic resources and political strengths to create and sustain higher education and research institutions of the very best quality which are able to recruit and to retain highly qualified academics. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91291/original/image-20150810-11068-8q40xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Future prize-winner?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Milkovasa/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This raises familiar questions about the internationalisation of research, such as whether the recruitment and concentration of talented academics and researchers in a relatively few institutions and countries damages the others <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-african-universities-can-do-to-attract-academics-back-from-the-diaspora-42793">through a “brain drain”</a> which sucks away the educated talent needed for development; or whether there is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/astronomy-for-africa-the-ska-will-lead-to-brain-gain-7289">common “brain gain”</a> achieved through regular exchange, partnership and collaboration in teaching and in research. These are complex questions that can only be assessed over time and which cannot be managed, or at least not easily, through policy interventions.</p>
<h2>Ready to collaborate</h2>
<p>The so-called BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa may be able to build competitive higher education and research systems to compete over the next few decades for Nobel prizes if they can maintain political stability and sustain economic development. They will need to build partnerships and collaborations in both teaching and research with highly developed countries and their advanced higher education and research systems, including with private and commercial investors. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-chinese-dream-for-higher-education-and-the-dilemma-it-presents-35065">China</a> and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejed.2012.47.issue-1/issuetoc">Russia</a> in particular have declared the creation of world-class universities as national policy objectives. They have the economic and intellectual history, and the educational potential and political will to achieve this. Winning Nobel prizes would be the crowning successes of these longer term policies. </p>
<p>However, there are serious questions about the willingness of political rulers in both countries to allow the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-war-on-thought-is-being-waged-in-western-universities-22430">academic freedom</a> which is vital to the healthy and internationally collaborative intellectual life likely to lead to a Nobel prize.</p>
<p>In those countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America where the economic, political and social infrastructure is not as well developed, the prospects of building and sustaining high-quality higher education systems, let alone winning Nobel Prizes, will be almost entirely dependent on international cooperation, exchange, and support. </p>
<p>The award of a Nobel Prize is an honour to the individual laureate, to the mother institution, and to the individual country. However, its greatest merit should be the public recognition of the contribution of outstanding intellectual and scientific endeavour to general human development, wherever that takes place in the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45681/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>(William) John Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research systems with an international approach will be best-placed to win the most accolades.(William) John Morgan, Professor and UNESCO Chair of the Political Economy of Education and Senior Fellow, China Policy Institute, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/416442015-05-26T04:11:57Z2015-05-26T04:11:57ZHarnessing the potential of Africa’s global academic diaspora<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81363/original/image-20150512-22539-1hivvcc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Africa has produced some incredible academics who are based elsewhere but want to contribute to their home continent.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a rich crop of African-born academics in North America. In both Canada and the US, those born in Africa enjoy <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2014101521150498">higher levels of education</a> than locals or those from elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>In 2008, 297 African-born academics were <a href="http://www.iie.org/%7E/media/Files/Programs/Carnegie-African-Diaspora-Fellows-Program/Carnegie-Engagements-between-African-Diaspora-Academics-and-Africa-Paul-Zeleza.ashx">employed</a> as full-time faculty in Canada’s 124 universities and colleges. In the US, the same research shows, there are between 20 000 and 25 000 African-born academics employed as faculty in colleges and universities. </p>
<p>The numbers alone suggest that African academics play an important role in North America’s academy. Many <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150313093523872">want</a> to share their skills and knowledge with universities on their home continent.</p>
<h2>The evolution of African diasporas</h2>
<p>African diasporas have played a major role in the continent’s affairs since the <a href="http://www.padeap.net/the-history-of-pan-africanism">development of Pan-Africanism</a>. At first Pan-Africanism focused largely on decolonisation and fighting for civil rights in the diaspora.</p>
<p>The Pan-Africanist project shifted from the turn of the 21st century. It is no longer solely about the politics of independence and inclusion. Instead it seeks to incorporate <a href="http://www.theafricareport.com/North-Africa/pan-africanism-is-more-important-than-ever-dlamini-zuma.html">social, economic and intellectual empowerment</a>.</p>
<p>African diasporas located in the north are <a href="http://www.sarua.org/files/Internationalization%20of%20Higher%20Education%20Final%20Paper%20-%20Prof%20Paul%20Tiyambe%20Zeleza.pdf">potential assets</a> for developing and democratising their home countries. They can be a powerful force for globalisation. The migration of skilled labour used to be decried as a brain drain. Then it became a brain gain. Now it’s known as <a href="http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2012/09/brain-circulati.html">brain circulation</a>. There has been extensive research into the role of diasporas in <a href="http://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove/growing-role-diaspora-development-discussed-ministerial-conference-geneva">economic development</a>.</p>
<h2>The existing exchange system</h2>
<p>There are a number of programmes at North American universities that offer diaspora academics the chance to engage with Africa. To understand whether these programmes are working or not, we interviewed 105 African-born academics who now live and work in North America. Many said that they wanted to work with African institutions but struggled with issues like weak institutional infrastructure in both regions, incompatible academic systems and practical problems of citizenship which can make travel difficult.</p>
<p>They also have to operate on their own institution’s terms and in its context. This is challenging because Africa remains at the bottom of the pile when it comes to most North American universities’ internationalisation strategies and priorities. </p>
<p>North American universities are under <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21567373-american-universities-represent-declining-value-money-their-students-not-what-it">increasing financial pressure</a>. Their internationalisation efforts will increasingly be driven by economic considerations. African countries also tend not to produce as many foreign fee-paying students as Asian countries like China, Japan and India. </p>
<p>Some diaspora academics consider their relationships with African universities a national service. They enjoy a sense of well-being when working with institutions on their home continent. Others find it very rewarding to teach African students whom, they say, are far more interested in learning than many of their North American counterparts.</p>
<h2>Could a different model ease the path?</h2>
<p>We found that existing exchange programmes tend to place North American universities in the driver’s seat. In this system, a faculty member submits a proposal for a project to be conducted at the receiving institution in Africa. The recipient institution may have some input but often, it is not considered an equal partner in the process.</p>
<p>This body of research led to the creation of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship (ADF) Programme in early 2014. It is a model that seeks to correct the power balance. Accredited institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda approach the foundation seeking diaspora scholars for research collaboration, curriculum co-development or graduate student teaching and mentoring. </p>
<p>The relevant academics are then paired with institutions. One hundred and ten African-born scholars have been funded for exchanges since the programme started and the model has been <a href="http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?article2175">replicated</a> by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. </p>
<p>There is a huge demand for collaboration from host institutions and diaspora academics alike and the model is evolving. In March this year recommendations by African academics living in North America were discussed at the <a href="http://summit.trustafrica.org/declaration-and-action-plan/">African Higher Education Summit</a> in Dakar, Senegal.</p>
<p>These discussions led to the creation of the 10/10 programme. In the next ten years it aims to send <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150313093523872">1 000 African diaspora scholars</a> a year from all academic disciplines to universities and colleges on the continent. They will collaborate on research, curriculum development, graduate student teaching and mentoring and also be involved in leadership development. </p>
<p>The positive response to this project by governments and university networks suggests the model could be a catalyst for engagement on a significantly larger scale. That can only be good news for both North American and African academies.</p>
<p>Authors’ note: This article was made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The statements made and views expressed are solely the authors’ responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberly Foulds works for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program at Quinnipiac University. Quinnipiac receives funding from IIE for this program as part of the CCNY grant.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Zeleza is the chairperson of the advisory council for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program</span></em></p>There is a powerful African- born diaspora in North America and its members have much to offer their home continent. How should this relationship be crafted?Kimberly Foulds, Co-ordinator for the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, Quinnipiac UniversityPaul Zeleza, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Quinnipiac UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/409782015-05-19T04:30:39Z2015-05-19T04:30:39ZWhat American students can learn from immersing themselves in Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81234/original/image-20150511-19524-dhr1vx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">American students don't realise how valuable spending time in Africa can be.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than one million people travelled from around the world to study at American universities in the 2013 - 2014 academic year. By contrast, <a href="http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2014/11/19/american-students-lag-behind-in-study-abroad-programs/">just under 300 000 Americans</a> enrolled to study abroad. </p>
<p>In this era of globalisation it’s no surprise that so many young people are keen to study abroad. But as the Institute of International Education’s research reveals, the majority of US students are sticking close to home - not geographically, but culturally.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81222/original/image-20150511-19531-ak0603.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While American students are exploring universities elsewhere in the world, there isn’t a lot of diversity in the destinations they choose.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/files/2014/11/Infographic-IIE-Open-Doors-2014-US-Study-Abroad.jpg">Open Doors/Institute of International Education</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Africa remains on the margins when it comes to American universities’ curricula and initiatives like study-abroad programmes. American university students also display profoundly ill-informed views about Africa. </p>
<p>When historian <a href="http://books.google.co.za/books/about/Mistaking_Africa.html?id=J7cKmDxt0tUC&redir_esc=y">Curtis Keim</a> asked his college students to choose words that described the continent, “within a few minutes” they came up with “native, hut, tribe, cannibals, jungle, voodoo … poverty, ignorance … spear …” </p>
<p>There are 54 countries in Africa. Collectively, their universities attracted only 5% of those Americans who studied abroad in the 2013 - 2014 academic year. My research suggests that universities are missing out on a valuable opportunity to positively influence individual students and the American academy’s view of Africa.</p>
<h2>Cameroon: a case study</h2>
<p>The University of Dayton in Ohio designed its Cameroon Immersion Programme 20 years ago. It differs from traditional study abroad programmes in which students are assigned to a university, taught by the professors who accompany them from home and live in hotels.</p>
<p>In Cameroon, students live with host families and are placed at different agencies for service and educational purposes. They teach at elementary schools, work at orphanages and NGOs and do internships at clinics and hospitals. The programme emphasises maximum interaction between American students and Cameroonians.</p>
<p>Both the University of Dayton and Cameroon are useful microcosms. The former is representative of other institutions in America’s mid-West that have study-abroad or immersion programmes. Cameroon, with its population of 20 million people, exemplifies many of Africa’s political, economic, social and religious complexities. It has been nicknamed <a href="http://www.cameroonembassyusa.org/cameroon.aspx">“Africa in miniature”</a> and this diversity makes it a suitable lens through which to examine students’ immersion experiences on the rest of the continent.</p>
<p>Students give several reasons for signing up to the programme: they are idealistic about what Africa could offer them, want to serve communities, enjoy an adventure away from home or simply need to meet the requirements for an academic programme. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81351/original/image-20150512-22535-6xnd8o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students are encouraged to get involved in every facet of ordinary life in Cameroon rather than being isolated in hotels and university classrooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dr Julius Amin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The students go to lectures at local universities and get lessons from community leaders. They cook, attend funerals, hang out in bars, date locals and participate in church services. They visit industrial sites and rural communities. </p>
<p>Some students who have been <a href="http://www.lybrary.com/african-immersion-american-college-students-in-cameroon-p-665935.html#googlePreview">interviewed</a> after completing the programme say that this total immersion has helped them to start unravelling their notions of white superiority. They also reveal that their own lives in America seem very materialistic after they’ve spent some time away from home.</p>
<p>Cameroonian host families were also interviewed. They were overwhelmingly positive about the programme, describing the American participants as “industrious”, “ingenious”, “friendly”, “kind” - and “wealthy”.</p>
<p>Some aspects of the programme surprised the students for more negative reasons. They found that America’s racial practices followed them to Africa and had to confront issues of white privilege and race. For the first time many of the students were the minority in society - but the treatment they received was fundamentally different from how similar groups and immigrants are treated in the US.</p>
<p>One student, Erin Anderson, said she was “treated like a queen … which was a far cry from (the) treatment of minorities who are looked down upon and not respected” in the US. African-American students were stunned by how much Cameroonians admired their Caucasian classmates. “The African people seem to cater to the white man,” wrote an African-American participant, adding that locals “kiss[ed] their ass.”</p>
<h2>Success - but in a vacuum</h2>
<p>There are many <a href="http://globaledresearch.com/study-abroad-impact.asp">recorded advantages</a> to studying abroad. In the case of the Cameroon Immersion Programme, students returned to the US far more attentive to social issues. They became outspoken critics of racism, poverty and marginalisation. One graduate returned to Cameroon to start an NGO that <a href="http://www.cameroonfdp.com/">uses soccer</a> to teach young people life skills.</p>
<p>Others went back to Cameroon to work as teachers or join the Peace Corps Volunteers. In interviews and responses to questionnaires, participants said they had learned new things about themselves during the programme, gained new perspectives and come to understand the commonality of the human experience.</p>
<p>But immersion and study-abroad programmes cannot continue to be successful in a vacuum. Although these programmes have been established at some American universities for more than four decades, the perception of Africa and its people on many college campuses remains <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1167056?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">ill-informed</a>. </p>
<p>US universities must revise and make their curricula about Africa more inclusive. This will kindle students’ interest in - and understanding of - the continent and open the door to holistic study-abroad experiences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julius A. Amin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Studying in Africa can be enormously valuable for American college students, but only if they’re prepared to venture beyond hotels and lecture halls to really learn about the continent.Julius A. Amin, Professor, African and African History-American, University of DaytonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396762015-05-14T05:07:29Z2015-05-14T05:07:29ZFive ways universities have already changed in the 21st century<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81379/original/image-20150512-22571-uwzkm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lots has changed, but not this. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Students graduating by michaeljung/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Global higher education underwent a period of remarkable change in the first 15 years of the 21st century. Five key trends affecting universities around the world illustrate how, despite increased access to information, our understanding of higher education remains limited. </p>
<p><strong>1. More people are going to university</strong></p>
<p>Since 2000, participation in higher education has increased significantly. UNESCO figures for enrolment in tertiary education show that globally, <a href="http://data.uis.unesco.org/index.aspx">participation rose</a> from 19% in 2000 to 32% in 2012. While the proportions enrolled vary between countries and regions, the increases are pretty much universal. For example, tertiary enrolment in Sub-Saharan Africa has doubled from 4% to 8% over this period.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81375/original/image-20150512-22563-lwb4ej.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The percentage of those who left secondary five years ago who go on to tertiary education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the increases in participation have been seen everywhere, there have been differences between countries in terms of who is going to university. The <a href="http://www.oecd.org/education/eag.htm">OECD Education at a Glance 2014</a> provides figures for the relative likelihood of participation in higher education for those whose parents engaged in tertiary education and those whose parents did not.</p>
<p>In Italy and Poland you are 9.5 times more likely to attend tertiary education if your parents did, whereas in South Korea and Finland, the proportion is a little over one. The UK and US have among the highest ratios: young people with parents who attended tertiary education are over six times more likely to enrol. These figures show large differences in how equal the expansion of higher education has been across the world and do not appear to relate to differences in tuition fees. </p>
<p>Beyond easy generalisations about the ways in which social hierarchies operate in different national cultures, we are not much closer to understanding the origins of this disturbing variation. </p>
<p><strong>2. People are travelling further afield</strong></p>
<p>While the figures on the proportion of tertiary students enrolled show clear increases, they are slightly misleading because they divide the total number of students by the total number of school-leavers in a country. This means that the proportions can be over or underestimated by the inclusion of international students (both incoming and outgoing) and the proportion of mature students. For example, <a href="http://www.iie.org/%7E/media/Files/Services/ProjectAtlas/Website%202014/Project-Atlas-Trends-and-Global-Data-2014.ashx?la=en">the US and Western Europe</a> are net importers of students, while Sub-Saharan Africa and south and west Asia are net exporters. </p>
<p>According to the OECD, the number of students studying abroad <a href="http://www.iie.org/%7E/media/Files/Services/ProjectAtlas/Website%202014/Project-Atlas-Trends-and-Global-Data-2014.ashx?la=en">more than doubled</a> from 2.1m in 2000 to 4.5m in 2012. While most of the host nations for these international students have remained the same over this period, the one exception is China. It did not figure as a host nation in 2000, yet by 2012, 8% of international students studied there, putting it third behind the US and UK.</p>
<p>The relative impact of these students is different depending on the size of the higher education system in question. In the US, over 800,000 international students make up only 4% of their student population, while the UK has <a href="http://www.iie.org/%7E/media/Files/Services/ProjectAtlas/Website%202014/Project-Atlas-Trends-and-Global-Data-2014.ashx?la=en">around half the number</a> of international students but they make up 20% of the student population. </p>
<p>In the UK, this has led to stories <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2594935/There-Chinese-students-postgraduate-courses-English-universities-British-students.html">about international students dominating particular courses</a>, but we are still in the process of understanding the impact of differing proportions of international students on teaching and learning cultures in universities.</p>
<p><strong>3. The rise of the student experience</strong></p>
<p>As the number and mobility of students have increased, so has the range of experiences that students are offered: from the limited and passive experience of a poorly-designed <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/mooc-students-passive-study-suggests/2012939.article">Massive Open Online Course</a> (MOOC) to students engaging as partners in <a href="https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/engagement-through-partnership-students-partners-learning-and-teaching-higher-education">the design</a> of their curricula and teaching and learning experiences. </p>
<p>This focus on students’ experience has been an important corrective to traditional teacher-focused approaches to teaching in higher education. However, the danger is that highlighting the “student experience” has obscured the essential role that students’ engagement with knowledge plays in the transformative potential of higher education. It is <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-race-to-turn-higher-education-into-a-market-were-ignoring-lessons-from-history-35792">knowledge</a> that changes students’ understanding of themselves and the world. </p>
<p><strong>4. Quality of teaching under scrutiny</strong></p>
<p>As the focus on student experience has increased, so has the intensity of scrutiny on the quality of teaching. In Europe, this has been partly informed by <a href="http://www.ehea.info/">the Bologna process</a>, designed to harmonise higher education systems across Europe. Positions in national and international higher education league tables have become a dominant way of representing this quality. Their attraction is understandable: they travel across a number of contexts and audiences, have resonance for prospective students and their families, employers, policy makers, academics and universities, and international bodies. </p>
<p>However, their shortcomings are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-world-university-rankings-actually-mean-32355">equally obvious</a>: they tend to involve unrelated and incomparable measures that are brought together into a single score by algorithms and weightings that lack any statistical credibility. Crucially, the stability at the top of the league tables reinforces privilege: higher status institutions <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-is-oxford-biased-against-state-students-18979">tend to take</a> in a greater proportion of privileged students. </p>
<p>League tables strongly and wrongly suggest that students who have been to these institutions have received a higher quality education. But this distorts our understanding of teaching, making it about history and prestige rather than about the ways in which students are given access to powerful knowledge.</p>
<p><strong>5. The impact agenda</strong></p>
<p>Since the turn of the millennium, there has been an increasing expectation for research to bring a benefit to the society that funds it. This is now a standard element of research funding in the European Union and South Africa. </p>
<p>While it is very reasonable to expect research to lead to wider social benefits, the particular approach that has been <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-impact-on-the-ref-35636">taken to measure this impact</a> has been distorting. The focus on how individual projects impact on societies shows a basic misunderstanding of the way in which research has an impact.</p>
<p>Individual research projects contribute to collective bodies of knowledge in a discipline or professional field. It is these bodies of knowledge that lead to impact, not individual studies. Despite this, we now have myriad <a href="http://impact.ref.ac.uk/CaseStudies/">impact case studies</a> purporting to show the changes single studies have wrought, giving us much more information about impact but potentially obscuring our understanding of the relations between knowledge and society. </p>
<h2>A mixed blessing</h2>
<p>The greater amount of information we have about higher education around the world is a mixed blessing. The measurement and monitoring processes that generate and communicate this information – such as university league tables – <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-world-university-rankings-actually-mean-32355">distort</a> what is considered valuable about higher education. </p>
<p>The danger is that the individual, durable and stable elements of higher education that can be easily measured are given a greater value than those that are collective, complex, changing and country-specific. In the face of this, we need to reassert a focus on the communal creation and sharing of knowledge that global universities contribute to the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Ashwin has received funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the UK Higher Education Academy, the Higher Education Funding Council England, the Scottish Funding Council, and the European Union. He is a member of the Governing Council of the Society for Research into Higher Education.</span></em></p>As more people around the world head to university, the quality of teaching and research is coming under tighter scrutiny.Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385082015-03-20T06:32:36Z2015-03-20T06:32:36ZJapanese universities struggle to find their place in the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75099/original/image-20150317-22297-12flxw7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of Tokyo. Japanese higher education has had a troubled relationship with other languages. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/invaderxan/15076974031/sizes/l">InvaderXan/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Japanese universities may have been born out of European models, but they have set down their own firm foundations since the opening of the University of Tokyo in 1877. </p>
<p>The higher education system in Japan is a hybrid one, with public and private universities, both regulated by the state. There were 86 national universities and 603 private universities in Japan in 2014. Add to these 92 municipal universities and there were a total of 781 universities. But this national system <a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2012/11/28/commentary/japans-university-education-crisis/#.VQhP7eE2Wmc">is in crisis today</a>: the government and the minister of education has focused <a href="http://monitor.icef.com/2014/10/japan-boosts-internationalisation-funding-bid-climb-global-rankings/">on improving Japan’s place</a> within the global system of higher education, and last year announced extra funding available for “superglobal” universities.</p>
<p>A political push to get ten Japanese universities into the list of the top 100 best universities in the world by 2024 is unlikely to improve the situation, with universities still suffering from financial difficulties. Tuition fees are rising year by year and scholarships act as a system of loans to cover this. For example, for the first year of politics and society at Waseda, a private university, students must pay 1,300,000 yen, or £7,275. For a national university, the price would be closer to 680,000 yen.</p>
<h2>Troubled relationship</h2>
<p>It’s worth looking back at where Japanese universities came from to understand the predicament they face today. The French sociologist <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2012/01/05/sur-l-etat-cours-au-college-de-france-1989-1992-de-pierre-bourdieu_1625802_3260.html">Pierre Bourdieu wrote</a> about the nobility of the Japanese state, dating back to the eighth century and stretching to the 20th century. According to him, the Meiji restoration of the 1860s was a conservative one, started by the Samorai with few resources in an effort to transform the symbol of the nobility – its bureaucratic civil service.</p>
<p>To understand the continuing role of nobility in Japanese higher education today, it’s important to understand the relationship between Japanese and foreign languages. Before the Meiji period, the Japanese were inspired purely by a Chinese model of written language: in the far east, the equivalent of Latin for Europeans was Chinese. In Japan, people read Chinese and pronounced it in a Japanese way, remodelling the words with a Japanese syntax.</p>
<p>In 1877, the University of Tokyo was created, allowing foreign professors to teach in their own language. As a prerequisite to their course, students had to learn a foreign language for three years. After their studies in the university, they were sent abroad by the state to deepen their knowledge and then became teachers on their return, this time teaching in Japanese. This was the way through which the Meiji government wanted to modernise the country and assure its independence.</p>
<p>With enough educated people to carry out higher education, Japan didn’t need to resort to foreign teachers. A second phase began, started by the creation of the Imperial University in 1886 in which teaching was all in Japanese and foreign language as a means of education was excluded.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75097/original/image-20150317-22300-1wplrck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1083&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Japanese writer Natsume Soseki.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reality of this priority soon became clear to Japanese academics. <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/406069/Natsume-Soseki">Soseki Natsume</a>, an English literature professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo, was one of the first victims of this Japanese cultural system. When he was sent to England in 1901 by the state for his studies, he suffered a nervous breakdown, because he couldn’t adapt to life in London. When he returned, he quit his post of teacher and chose to become a novelist. But it’s thanks to him that modern Japanese literature became possible. After the end of the Meiji era in 1912, passing through the Taisho era, and then into the Showa in 1926, the culture of translations from European languages into Japanese blossomed. We could call this the creation of the Japanese “Bildung”, in reference to the <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206606.001.0001/acprof-9780198206606-chapter-4">ideal of education </a> as a form of self-cultivation set down by German educationalist Wilhelm von Humboldt in his conception of the modern university. </p>
<h2>Swing towards an ‘English divide’</h2>
<p>This cultural space for Japanese people was ideologically very closed. The majority of universities and intellectuals of the time couldn’t criticise the authority of the imperial regime. After World War II, the pre-war university system was totally revised, but the Japanese space for language stayed the same. American democracy hadn’t succeeded in transforming the country. The expansion of the higher education system in Japan, built on a vague idea of a university open to everybody, has actually just multiplied the number of private universities in the country.</p>
<p>But since the 1990s, a third stage has started. It’s now English which has become a hegemony. If you can’t speak English, you have become a second class citizen. We speak in Japan today of an “<a href="http://repository.dl.itc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2261/52662/1/lis01007.pdf">English divide</a>” to explain this predicament, in the same way we talk of a digital divide.</p>
<p>The universities where the Japanese students are taught in English are considered more excellent. Admittedly there is a chance that Japanese higher education is finally opening up to the wider world, but it also presents a great menace to Japanese culture.</p>
<p>It’s worth remembering that the idea of the university was founded on the basis of a Christian religion. The modern university was conceived by Humboldt to exist as a universal, secular institution, normally detached from all sort of religious symbolism. A lot has changed since then, but I’d argue that the origins for education to remain free and to offer scholarships for all students, must stay alive. If Japanese universities are now suffering the policy of “globalisation”, it’s because the country’s higher education system largely side-stepped this historic basis of its universities.</p>
<hr>
<p>This article is part of a series on <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/universities-at-the-crossroads">Universities at the crossroads</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shigeru Okayama receives Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Japan). </span></em></p>A push for Japanese higher education to be globally competitive is creating an identity crisis.Shigeru Okayama, Professor of French Literature, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/352282014-12-10T14:58:05Z2014-12-10T14:58:05ZWhy Africa should be the next focus for UK global higher education drive<p>Historical prestige is not the only reason why British universities do well at attracting international students – but it helps. Victorian antecedents hint at continuity and esteem. Strong teaching, good infrastructure and the English language also help to make UK universities a global educational and economic success story.</p>
<p>British universities benefit from another 19th century legacy. Don’t mention the “c” word, but colonialism (and the Commonwealth) means Britain shares a global heritage with many countries. This brings opportunities and, I would argue, obligations to engage positively – and not just by attracting fee-paying students. </p>
<p>When Band Aid 30 released a version of the 1980s song Do They Know It’s Christmas? last month, despite a change of words (extolling us to “heal the world” as well as “feed” it) there was a telling <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/23/lily-allen-criticise-band-aid-smug-ebola">backlash</a>. The sentiment of the song might be almost identical, but Africa itself has changed immeasurably. The attitudes of people elsewhere need to catch up. It is time to move away from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/songs-of-love-songs-of-hate-and-songs-of-ebola-34507">short-term Band Aid view</a> of African victimhood and towards partnerships with long-lasting benefits on all sides. The next 100 years will be the African century. I see universities playing a key role.</p>
<h2>Looking beyond Asia</h2>
<p>Until now, UK universities have focused on the emerging economies of Asia, with great success. This has brought Asian students to the UK in large numbers. It has also prompted British universities to <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-still-makes-sense-to-build-an-overseas-campus-23200">set up new campuses overseas</a> and initiate agreements with in-country institutions – the model known as transnational education. </p>
<p>My own university, Reading, is investing in a new <a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/malaysia/">Malaysia campus</a>, which opens next year, and has <a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/chemistry/chinabrochure.pdf">agreements</a> with several Chinese institutions. But these are not our only overseas ventures. Last month I visited South Africa, where Reading’s <a href="http://www.henleysa.ac.za/">Henley Business School Africa</a> is established in Johannesburg.</p>
<p>Transnational education is on the rise. In November, the Higher Education Funding Council for England <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201429/#d.en.98683">reported</a> on the increasing importance of overseas campuses and partnerships in sustaining the growth of UK universities. The Department for Business and Industry has also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/377693/bis-14-1202-the-value-of-transnational-education-to-the-uk.pdf">calculated</a> that the sector is worth nearly half a billion pounds annually.</p>
<p>Currently, South Africa is still somewhat off the radar of many UK universities. But some international providers, such as Australia’s <a href="https://www.monash.ac.za/">Monash University</a>, are already well embedded and seeing the extraordinary results. I am proud that my institution’s business school is among them.</p>
<p>There is much promise but more to do if South Africa is to become an emerging economic powerhouse, raising living standards for millions of its people in the process. Universities in the country already play a key role, not only in training and education, but in research and driving the economy through innovation. </p>
<h2>South Africa’s to-do list</h2>
<p>Looking at South Africa, then, some of the biggest challenges facing humanity in the years ahead are right on the country’s doorstep, right now. The emerging threats of sluggish growth, disease, climate change, and insecurity of food supply are all global problems. South Africa has an opportunity to confront these issues head-on. </p>
<p>Given the strong historical ties to Britain, South African students might consider coming to UK universities to supplement their in-country education, before returning to lead change. </p>
<p>Such transnational education can bring additional benefits for UK-based students too. As graduate employers increasingly look to attract a workforce with “<a href="http://think-global.org.uk/resources/item/6404">global skills”</a>, providing opportunities for study and travel in both directions becomes more important. Transnational campuses in English-speaking countries could bring new opportunities for more adventurous anglophone undergraduates, in subjects beyond those that traditionally involve a year abroad.</p>
<p>Of course, this should not be another excuse for the UK education system to maintain its woeful record on languages. In the long run we have to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/sir-david-bell-two-years-on-former-education-secretarys-adviser-reflects-on-michael-goves-remarkably-unintelligent-term-for-opponents-9222294.html">unshackle</a> future generations from the British burden of mono-lingualism.</p>
<h2>Two-way traffic</h2>
<p>The UK government has already rightly shifted its global focus away from aid and towards establishing international trading relationships. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-government-is-undermining-one-of-its-most-valuable-exports-education-29681">Exporting education</a> – one of Britain’s best products – is at the top of the agenda.</p>
<p>The UK should, of course, remain an importer of students, as it is now. But in a globalised economy, and for a country striving to be more outward-looking, the traffic needs to be two-way. The internationalisation of our higher education system must be about more than the bottom line. It should be about developing closer international ties, gaining global influence, and helping the UK to project soft power.</p>
<p>Universities in the UK tend to be bastions of liberal idealism, where one may still occasionally catch a whiff of post-colonial guilt. We must get over this. Respect and an understanding of context are important, but must be matched with a genuine desire for partnerships that lead to mutual advantage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Historical prestige is not the only reason why British universities do well at attracting international students – but it helps. Victorian antecedents hint at continuity and esteem. Strong teaching, good…David Bell, Vice-Chancellor, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/350672014-12-09T06:15:15Z2014-12-09T06:15:15ZUniversities rely on agents to recruit international students – they shouldn’t try and hide it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66623/original/image-20141208-5143-rs1ts1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The sales pitch. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/etravelkiev/6804194898/sizes/l">Esperanto Travel & Study</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As higher education has gradually become more commercialised, universities are getting used to employing professional marketers to help develop and manage their reputations and brands. But while the sector is now generally happy with the concept of student recruiters acting as “educational counsellors” supporting students to make a decision about where to apply to university, few of us have been honest enough to talk about these people as part of sales teams. </p>
<p>Yet the reality is that our student recruiters are selling educational places to appropriately qualified students. And in the same way that for-profit entities use external agents to help them access markets and make sales, universities have long done the same internationally. </p>
<p>The difference between universities and many openly commercial organisations is that we typically hide this aspect of our work – in some cases pretending it doesn’t even take place. You only have to look at university websites and see how easy, or not, it is to find who their international student recruitment agents are. Yet the reality is that without the networks of international student recruitment agents we employ around the world, the huge <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uk-government-is-undermining-one-of-its-most-valuable-exports-education-29681">international student recruitment success</a> the UK has experienced over the past 15 years just would not have happened.</p>
<p>Agents provide a whole range of services to universities from market research, promoting degree programmes, verifying students’ qualifications, right through to collecting tuition fees and accommodation payments. Prospective students receive advice from agents on where to apply, how to complete applications and write personal statements and ultimately on which university to choose.</p>
<h2>Big money in recruitment</h2>
<p>As a sector we spend at least £60m a year in commission payments to agents, according to a <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/grand-fee-paid-for-each-foreign-student/420468.article">2012 investigation by Times Higher Education</a>. These agents help recruit <a href="http://www.obhe.ac.uk/documents/view_details?id=953">almost 40%</a> of our international students, according to the Observatory on Borderless Education and the Higher Education Statistics Agency found these students <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1900&Itemid=239">earnt universities more than £3.5 billion</a> in tuition fees alone in 2012-13. </p>
<p>This isn’t something we should be ashamed of. Universities make use of these recruitment agents because they’re effective in helping to meet a variety of objectives including income, student volume and even diversity and quality of student intake. </p>
<p>But some universities don’t like to talk about these agents – perhaps because they are worried that working with them taints the sector, or that paying them is in some way unethical. My view, and that of my fellow researchers Iona Huang and Christine Humfrey, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075079.2014.968543#.VGzjscnvbIp">UK universities’ use of agents</a> is that we risk damaging our reputation not by working with agents – but by hiding the fact that we do. Transparency will dispel rumours of unscrupulous behaviour by both agents and universities and help to improve standards. </p>
<h2>No secret agents</h2>
<p>If universities undertake proper, continuous due diligence and only appoint agents who meet minimum standards, then they should publish details of all the companies they work with as a matter of course. There should no secret university agents. While most universities claim to have due diligence processes in place for the appointment of agents, our research found that much of this was superficial in nature and lacked ongoing monitoring. </p>
<p>There is often strong pressure on international recruiters to meet tough intake, or sales, targets. Life is getting harder for recruiters as the market becomes more competitive and at the same time universities need ever more international students to balance the books. As the financial environment in which we work becomes more difficult, international student income becomes more important. </p>
<p>But at the same time agents should meet ethical standards that fit with the long-term interests of the universities they are acting for. Compromising our ethical standards to meet short-term targets will – if we mis-sell courses as a result – harm universities that are reliant on reputation carried by word of mouth. An unhappy student today can tell millions around the world by just the click of a mouse.</p>
<h2>Preventing mis-selling</h2>
<p>Transparency should also put a stop to the unethical practice of paying international schools, teachers and counsellors, for student referrals. I asked colleagues at universities which appoint school teachers as recruitment agents how they would feel if their own child was receiving advice on university applications by a teacher being paid by some universities. Most colleagues wouldn’t like it. If it’s not something we would want for our own children let’s not force it upon our prospective international students.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://siem.britishcouncil.org/sites/siem/files/field/file/news/Managing%20Education%20Agents%20report%20for%20British%20Council.PDF">a report</a> on this issue published by the British Council in October, we also recommended that universities should be clear to prospective students that they are paying agents. This would allow students to demand the appropriate service from them, in the full knowledge that the advice they are receiving may be influenced by payment. </p>
<p>Despite <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9360510/The-strategic-partners-who-offer-Chinese-students-a-route-to-UK.html">some investigations</a> in the activities of agents and accusations that some were prepared to relax entry requirements, we have so far mostly avoided the kinds of scandals that have been common place in the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9521881/Banks-reward-structures-encouraging-mis-selling-FSA-warns.html">financial services sector</a>. </p>
<p>But I believe that universities risk similar accusations of mis-selling if they don’t put their house in order soon and adopt a more transparent, honest and ethical approach to student recruitment activities and the use of international sales agents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincenzo Raimo receives funding from British Council which supported the research project into university-agent relationships. </span></em></p>As higher education has gradually become more commercialised, universities are getting used to employing professional marketers to help develop and manage their reputations and brands. But while the sector…Vincenzo Raimo, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement), University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/299302014-08-05T05:09:35Z2014-08-05T05:09:35ZYou might be surprised to find out who is living in London’s luxury apartments<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/55701/original/c4qb738x-1407162654.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A far cry from your average student digs. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-46383577/stock-photo-typical-apartments-building-at-west-london-kensington-and-chelsea.html?src=pp-recommended-56991313-XzY2OeDkY0NqsPDovUxXLw-4">Kensington house by r.nagy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington: all London boroughs associated with affluence and grandeur, not student accommodation. But today these areas play host to a burgeoning student population. With the internationalisation of education and the “<a href="http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/141285/176499-0">flight to quality</a>” of overseas students to highly rated institutions, London’s student housing market is apparently changing. </p>
<p>In late July, <a href="http://www.londoncentralportfolio.com/">London Central Portfolio Limited</a> (LCP), which rents 42% of London’s prime rental properties, released figures reflecting a distinct shift in the dynamics of the private rental market in central London. International student rentals have <a href="http://www.londoncentralportfolio.com/market-update/student-accomodation-london/">doubled since 2006</a> and private student tenancies now account for <a href="http://www.londoncentralportfolio.com/market-update/student-accomodation-london/">29% of LCP’s prime residential</a> market in London. </p>
<p>Research from <a href="http://www.studentworldonline.com/article/you-won-t-believe-who-pays-the-highest-rents-in-london/184/">Wetherell</a> in 2014 indicates that in Mayfair, one third of accommodation costing £750 to £999 per week is rented by students, and of their student tenants, 5% pay upwards of £2,000 per week. That’s a far cry from your average student halls. The Curve, branded as “luxurious private student accommodation”, in Aldgate, London charges from <a href="http://www.crm-students.com/crm-accommodation/london/the-curve/#jfmulticontent_c2343-2">£199 to £365 per week</a> for en-suite rooms, significantly less than the West End postcodes. </p>
<h2>Attracted to UK</h2>
<p>The UK’s higher education sector is continuing to evolve into an increasingly international one, not only significant for our university systems, but for our national economy. Real estate advisors <a href="http://www.themansiongroup.co.uk/mansion-student-accommodation-fund/downloads/forms-2013/04December/CBRE-Student-Housing-Market-View-Q3-2013%281%29.pdf">CBRE estimate</a> that education represents the fifth largest service sector export in the UK, with international students contributing over £10bn (through fees and expenses) to the sector in 2011-12. CBRE anticipates that the number of overseas students will continue to grow by 15-20% in the coming years. </p>
<p>Figures from the <a href="https://www.hesa.ac.uk/stats">higher education statistics agency</a> (HESA) indicate that the numbers of international students from both EU and non-EU countries fluctuates year-on-year. But the most influential trend for the English market is the ongoing increase in Asian students. Between 2011-12 and 2012-13 there was a 6% increase in Chinese students, a 15% increase of students from Hong Kong and a 13% increase in Singaporean students. </p>
<p>Students from these three countries accounted for more than 87,000 students at English universities in 2012-13, according to HESA. The significance of this figure is clear, considering the total number of students attending English universities from all of the EU countries is just below 98,000. </p>
<p>Obviously, not all these students will stay in London, but of the tenancies agreed by LCP, <a href="http://thepienews.com/news/international-students-outbid-professionals-prime-central-london/">one third</a> are to students from South East Asia.</p>
<h2>A positive for the housing market?</h2>
<p>Landlords will be the ones to reap the benefits of these changing dynamics of the rental market. Students are surprisingly <a href="https://www.glide.uk.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Glide_ReportInfographic_Student.pdf">strong tenants</a>. With international students (who are less likely to have a UK-based guarantor), a significant amount of the rent may be paid in advance to complete the rental agreement. </p>
<p>Student housing has become a resilient sector for investment, providing <a href="http://www.themansiongroup.co.uk/mansion-student-accommodation-fund/downloads/forms-2013/04December/CBRE-Student-Housing-Market-View-Q3-2013%281%29.pdf">returns</a> which continue to perform well in London. There is no reason why rentals aimed at students in upmarket postcodes cannot provide a similar income. </p>
<p>With more students entering the market, competition for property will increase and could potentially push rents upwards. Currently, the average rental value for a two-bed property in Kensington and Chelsea is approximately <a href="http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/rentals/average-cost-renting-every-london-borough#32">£908 per week</a> and <a href="http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/rentals/average-cost-renting-every-london-borough#34">£1,043 per week</a> in Westminster. Overseas students want to live in close proximity to their universities, in safe, secure areas where they can experience all the culture that cosmopolitan London has to offer. If their families are in a position to afford luxury, then why not live in Kensington?</p>
<h2>Where will the bankers go?</h2>
<p>But the other key element to the LCP data is that with the shift towards international students renting in prime residential areas, there has also been an adjustment in these real estate agents’ “typical” client base – financial professionals. </p>
<p>The Telegraph suggests that the international students <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10980896/Rich-overseas-students-outbid-Londons-bankers-in-a-race-to-rent-Londons-luxury-pads.html">are “outbidding” London’s bankers</a> in prime residential areas. Yes, the financial sector contracted as a result of the recession, but financial professionals still account for the largest proportion of LCP’s tenants – <a href="http://thepienews.com/news/international-students-outbid-professionals-prime-central-london/">at 38%</a>. </p>
<p>There has been a market correction of sorts, with some bankers moving out and students moving in, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate an “outbidding” of financial professionals. </p>
<p>It is also difficult to ascertain the magnitude of the figures themselves, as they are only presented in percentages. In terms of the whole student housing market in London, it is likely that those living in prime residential areas represent only a small minority of students. </p>
<p>Supply of housing in the capital is limited and if bankers were to relocate elsewhere, it may push up rents in this location, making it more unaffordable for those already living there. This could instigate a ripple effect of residential change in the market. </p>
<p>If rents do increase in central London, it is likely they will increase across the city eventually. This may create problems for students accessing accommodation in non-prime residential areas and create an undesirable two-tier student housing market, with a widening “chasm of affordability” between affluent and less affluent students. </p>
<p>But it is also possible that another reason for the increase in international lettings is that international students (or their families) are moving away from buying property in London. This was suggested in the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8cb65ac-f692-11e1-9dff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz38xVUsutI">Financial Times</a> in 2012, in response to changes relating to increasing stamp duty and taxes. </p>
<p>Although it is challenging to assess the implications of this particular research across the London housing market, it is clear that international students will continue to be of significant value to our universities and economy. It is an economic boon that students want to come to London and study. We should be glad to have them. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicola Livingstone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mayfair, Belgravia and Kensington: all London boroughs associated with affluence and grandeur, not student accommodation. But today these areas play host to a burgeoning student population. With the internationalisation…Nicola Livingstone, Lecturer in Real Estate, Bartlett School of Planning, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/259442014-04-30T05:14:16Z2014-04-30T05:14:16ZLessons taught in English are reshaping the global classroom<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47293/original/fqqq2qxv-1398779711.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If not, you may be left out.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-118062784/stock-photo-do-you-speak-english-test.html?src=hSB89k4lWB_RrVt9Q3l-Dw-1-2">woaiss/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities and schools across the globe are offering an increasing number of courses taught in English. Parents and politicians alike are pushing for this change as English is considered a worldwide language of opportunity in education and business. </p>
<p>The decision to use English as medium of instruction has very important implications for the education of young people in non-anglophone countries and yet little research evidence is available. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/research/applied-linguistics/emi/">EMI Oxford</a>, a new research centre at Oxford University’s department of education, is currently carrying out global research into this issue to explore where and why English is being introduced as a teaching language and what happens in the classroom when it is.</p>
<p>Our first report has been written with support from the British Council, setting out the size and shape of English language teaching in 55 countries. Initial findings, being presented at the <a href="http://www.britishcouncil.org/going-global">Going Global conference</a> on international education, show that 83% of countries surveyed believed that they did not have enough qualified teachers to teach through English.</p>
<p>What “qualified” means is not yet clear as teaching qualifications do not seem to exist. It may be that not all teachers can teach in English. For example, older, more experienced teachers may find it difficult. If teachers cannot speak good English, the home language may still be used most of the time.</p>
<h2>Going anglophonic</h2>
<p>There is no still clear definition yet of what teaching in English actually means and how it includes other forms of bilingual education. It is also not yet clear exactly what the consequences of introducing English as a teaching language are on teaching, learning, assessment and teachers’ professional development.</p>
<p>There are many reasons why countries introduce English as a teaching language. They want their students to become bilingual, improve their knowledge of a target culture, and see English as opening up opportunities for students to work and study abroad. Countries may want to spread their own culture throughout the world or have political reasons for adopting English as a medium for instruction, such as nation-building and aligning a country with English-speaking neighbours. </p>
<p>Some institutions are not so sure why they are adopting English to teach in. One European institution told us: “Other universities hurry to copy us, but they don’t really know what is the objective of this hurry.”</p>
<p>The use of English is indisputably growing, especially in the private sector where it can give a school or university the edge over its competitors and is seen to offer students an international education with all the benefits that can bring.</p>
<h2>The consequences</h2>
<p>If this is the case, does learning in English create more inequality? What happens to those children who miss out on an education in English, who are not part of this social elite? Are we creating a two-tier education system of English-speaking “haves” and “have-nots”?</p>
<p>Education is a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a26">fundamental human right</a>. So we could ask if education in your home language is also a human right. Some countries, such as Hungary, are hesitating to adopt English as a medium of instruction, asking themselves whether all students are capable of learning through English and if all teachers are capable of teaching in English.</p>
<p>Will the students’ understanding of the subject matter suffer if their level of English or their teacher’s level is low? Even though <a href="http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/crdemi-oxford/emi-launch/">early studies</a> in bilingual education showed that students performed well, some countries are reversing their policy on teaching in English as they fear that students will not perform as well in English as in their home language. Of course there are many reasons why this might happen. </p>
<p>Some countries, such as Israel, hesitate to go towards English as a medium of instruction as they wish to protect their home language, culture and education system. </p>
<p>Questions abound as to the use and future of the home language if English is the language of education. If students are taught solely in English it would be hoped that they acquire an academic language and a language of their subject, for example medicine, in English. This will help them to communicate in international conferences and read papers on their subject in English. But will it help them talk to patients in their country? And will the home language itself lose out from not being used in education? Is it a question of “use it or lose it?”</p>
<p>At EMI Oxford we are working on a global online survey of teachers to take place between May and October 2014 to help answer some of these questions and more.</p>
<h2>The future of English</h2>
<p>On the other hand, what will happen to English itself? If teachers in non-anglophone countries use English in a classroom of international students, the English used may well be very different from country to country and even classroom to classroom. Another interesting question is that if everyone is using classroom English as well as their home language, most of the world will be at least bilingual so will native speakers of English be at a disadvantage, will they be the only monolinguals? </p>
<p>Exams and assessment also pose a great challenge. If a subject is taught, or supposed to be taught, in English, which language should it be examined in? What is being examined, the subject content or the English? Who should write and mark these exams?</p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Pauline-Rea-Dickins-presentation.pdf">examples of countries</a> such as Tanzania where many students fail exams as they are taught in a home language and then expected to take the exams in English. </p>
<p>Teachers in our research so far believe that English can improve communication, help the exchange of ideas and create relations between countries. They see English in the classroom as a way of facilitating world peace. Home students benefit from a language which opens doors and enables them to move globally in academia and business. Teachers are also internationally mobile and this creates opportunities for them to teach abroad.</p>
<p>In the classroom itself though, there is little guidance as to whether “English as a medium for instruction” means teaching in English only or a bilingual education. There seems to be a lack of clear guidelines on how to teach through English and a lack of support and teaching resources. Institutions find it difficult to find enough teachers and to resource exams.</p>
<p>What’s clear is that more research is needed in order to find out the long-lasting impact of English as a medium of instruction around the world. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25944/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Dearden receives funding from the British Council. </span></em></p>Universities and schools across the globe are offering an increasing number of courses taught in English. Parents and politicians alike are pushing for this change as English is considered a worldwide…Julie Dearden, Senior Research and Development Fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241752014-04-28T05:06:44Z2014-04-28T05:06:44ZIraq needs academics to rebuild reputation of its university sector<p>As Iraqis prepare to go to the polls to vote in parliamentary elections ten years on from the invasion, the country is a lifetime away from where things used to be. Iraq’s education system, once one of the best in the Middle East with a series of flourishing universities in the 1960s and 1970s, has suffered dramatically over the past few decades.</p>
<p>Infrastructure problems, funding shortfalls, academic brain drain and violence have all played their part in the depletion of qualified academics and a general loss of faith in the once-great system. </p>
<p>As Bristol academic <a href="http://ericherring.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/herring-neoliberalization-iraq-11.pdf">Eric Herring argues</a>: “Iraqis tend to see themselves proudly as coming from a society that was the cradle of civilization in its ancient contributions to the development of writing, legal systems, libraries, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and technology.” </p>
<p>Rather than looking to the past, Iraq is looking to the future and treating the coming decade as an opportunity to rebuild its university foundations to educate a new post-conflict generation.</p>
<h2>If you build it, they will come</h2>
<p>There are a series of reforms going on in the Iraqi higher education system. In 2013, minister of higher education and scientific research, Ali al-Adib, proposed a plan to <a href="http://www.universitiesnews.com.previewdns.com/2013/06/10/iraq-to-build-13-new-universities/">build 13 new universities and 28 colleges</a> throughout Iraq, supported by UNESCO, the World Bank and UNICEF. </p>
<p>The cost associated with the pilot projects of this ambitious plan is estimated as close to US$200m. In addition, a <a href="http://engineering.nyu.edu/files/GOI%20MoHE%20Scholarship%202012%20May.pdf">five-year scholarship plan</a> launched in 2012, will support up to 10,000 students pursuing graduate degrees internationally. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, <a href="http://www.mhe-krg.org/ku/node/343">a new PhD Pathway</a>, supported by the <a href="http://www.britishcouncil.org/delphe-iraq.htm">British Council’s DelPHE project</a>, overhauled the process and delivery of the PhD and promoted international engagement, collaboration and student exchange. </p>
<p>There is considerable interest within Iraq to push for international partnerships, joint degrees and student exchanges. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2014/february/university-of-leicester-signs-historic-partnership-agreement-with-soran-university-to-improve-sustainable-resources-expertise-in-kurdistan-iraq">recent establishment of the International Centre for Natural Resources Research</a> by the University of Leicester and Soran University in Kurdistan is an example of this move towards transnational education. But there is scope for further international partnerships, especially in light of a government commitment to focus on natural resource management and sustainable human development.</p>
<h2>Reputation management</h2>
<p>Despite the expense, the building of new universities is not a problem – the challenge is in how, and with what, you fill them. Qualified teaching staff, engaged and active researchers, motivated and dedicated students must all be supported by transparent and consistent processes, administrative support and must be driven by strategic leadership. </p>
<p>One key objective facing Iraq with this level of expansion is to reinvigorate its academic reputation. The years of conflict and the aftermath of reconstruction have caused a <a href="http://www.iie.org/Blog/2013/February/Rebuilding-Higher-Education-in-Iraq">dramatic impact</a> in terms of resources, access, reputation and output. </p>
<p>The university system is very hierarchical and largely relies upon senior experience and decision making. This can naturally cause bottle-necks and frustration among the younger and less experienced academics. </p>
<p>There is significant training on offer, both internally and internationally, but often the selection criteria for involvement is constrained by existing power structures and distinctions. The system must incorporate the experience and stability of senior colleagues and the enthusiasm and international links of those more junior.</p>
<h2>Managing expectations</h2>
<p>The challenge for Iraq’s universities as they expand is to build locally but look internationally. However, exchanging a broken system for one that suits the needs of others cannot be the goal here. </p>
<p>One issue, central to any international collaboration, involves the common perception that partnership and collaboration automatically equals quality. </p>
<p>The tendency to follow a “shopping-cart” approach to delivering a course or training, limits the real value of international engagement. What may look like a quick fix does not necessarily provide long-term solutions to real problems.</p>
<p>Adopting a new system or approach without an understanding or knowledge of how it works limits success. International partners going into Iraq must be mindful of such perception and ensure that both sides benefit from the engagement.</p>
<p>The considerable cost and time involved in creating and maintaining a successful international partnership in Iraq must be tempered by a long-term view of how we measure success.</p>
<p>Iraq may currently lack sufficient resources and capacity, but what it does not lack is will. The drive to reform, rebuild and join the globalised academic community is evident throughout the country. The process will naturally take time, but the previous decade of turmoil has the potential to be replaced by a new era of development, opportunity and educational reform. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24175/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Hill received British Council DELPHE-Iraq funding in 2010 for a two year project developing capacity for doctoral supervision training</span></em></p>As Iraqis prepare to go to the polls to vote in parliamentary elections ten years on from the invasion, the country is a lifetime away from where things used to be. Iraq’s education system, once one of…Christopher Hill, Director, Research Training and Academic Development, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/232002014-02-24T05:53:26Z2014-02-24T05:53:26ZIt still makes sense to build an overseas campus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41958/original/mtb9sbg6-1392811162.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The food is better in Kuala Lumpur. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Students have always travelled in search of the best study opportunities and researchers have always collaborated across borders. But until fairly recently, higher education institutions have been stubbornly national – whether limited by the demands of domestic regulation or by protectionist approaches in potential destinations. </p>
<p>With the exception of a small number of private sector initiatives and small-scale overseas study centres, universities have for the most part remained fundamentally bound by their geography. But the past 20 years or so have seen almost seismic shifts in context, policy and regulation, and in attitudes and behaviour. </p>
<p>Now a new report by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-reform-of-indias-higher-education-sector-will-open-the-door-for-british-universities-23160">British Council on opportunities for UK universities in India</a> has warned them off investing in the bricks and mortar of an overseas campus. Instead, it points to calls from Indian higher education officials for more research partnerships. </p>
<p>All this comes in the context of a big growth in the number of degree programmes being delivered through international partnerships, as shown by new statistics on the <a href="http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3129&Itemid=278">number of people studying for UK degrees abroad</a>. And despite the words of caution above, institutional mobility has much to offer universities – it is a realistic strategic option.</p>
<h2>Pushed and pulled overseas</h2>
<p>The University of Nottingham opened its Malaysia campus back in 2000. A number of push and pull factors made the idea of an international campus particularly attractive – and they still apply. </p>
<p>Estimates suggest <a href="http://ihe.britishcouncil.org/news/shape-things-come-higher-education-global-trends-and-emerging-opportunities-2020">fewer than 5% of students globally</a> travel overseas for their education, a figure which is unlikely to increase dramatically. So, establishing a physical presence internationally would provide the opportunity to work with staff and students who would not, or could not, come to the UK.</p>
<p>A range of factors, including considerations of scale, funding and demographics, placed limits on domestic expansion. And, as other countries became more active in terms of international student recruitment, it became increasingly clear that UK institutions would need to be innovative if they wished to continue to attract high-quality students and staff.</p>
<h2>Keeping up standards at arms-length</h2>
<p>A number of countries were looking to position themselves as educational hubs, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Singapore. Malaysia had formulated <a href="http://www.mohe.gov.my/transformasi/fasa2/psptn2-eng.pdf">an ambition to be a major higher education destination by 2020</a> and saw international university campuses as key to delivery. Malaysian students had been coming to study at Nottingham since the late 1940s and there were many supportive alumni in prominent positions in public and corporate life. </p>
<p>Making the decision to build a campus in Kuala Lumpur was only half the battle. Implementation remains a major challenge. Nottingham’s approach has been to stress the idea of “one university, multiple campuses”. What this meant in practice was that the Malaysian campus (and subsequently the campus in China, opened in 2004) had to be full parts of the university. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41959/original/qdqkjbfk-1392811436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not just a teaching outpost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Nottingham</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overseas campus cannot just be teaching outposts. They have to be functionally equivalent campuses. The operational challenge for the university has related to delivery – and specifically how to deliver the University of Nottingham educational experience at arms-length.</p>
<p>To address this challenge, both of Nottingham’s international campuses rely on the leadership of senior academics seconded from the UK campus, working alongside locally recruited staff.</p>
<h2>What to keep the same</h2>
<p>A major issue in building a new campus overseas relates to the balance between standardisation and adaptation. How much should be identical across campuses and how much should be adapted to local context? </p>
<p>This matters for two reasons. Pragmatically, an international campus can only really work if students can be confident that they are receiving an education and a qualification that is comparable in quality and standards to that delivered in the institution’s home country. Morally, education is of such importance to people and to societies that those institutions who provide it must accept a responsibility to ensure that what they offer is right in terms quality and standards. </p>
<p>But, it would also be wrong to ignore the need to adapt to local legal and cultural contexts. The social side of life on-campus and the ways programmes are marketed require adaption to fit with the host country. </p>
<p>Easy to say, not so easy to do. Regular staff visits, frequent meetings and a committee structure that operates across borders all help. Management processes also need to balance strategic central direction with the right degree of local operational autonomy. </p>
<p>The outcome has been a campus with close to 5,000 students, a significant research portfolio and an active student community. It has been financially sustainable for a number of years, and is generating surpluses which are reinvested in the growth and development of the university’s activities at its Malaysian campus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23200/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Ennew works at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.</span></em></p>Students have always travelled in search of the best study opportunities and researchers have always collaborated across borders. But until fairly recently, higher education institutions have been stubbornly…Christine Ennew, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Malaysia Campus, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.