Purpose – to discuss the current trends in global higher education arena, conduct literature review on internationalization of higher education as a response to a globalization.
Methodology – literature review, secondary data on internationalization survey.
Originality/value – this paper attempts to systematize popular and attractive dimensions of academic collaborations among universities, the appropriate responses of higher education institutions in developing countries by comparing countries from two regions.
Findings – though universities try to address challenges of globalisation differently, we can say that they mainly focus on study abroad component. Harmonisation of curricula and overall unification of educational systems makes universities closer and particularly facilitates intercultural exchanges that address vital challenges like global citizenship and international competence.
Introduction
Higher education is characterised as one of the spheres mostly influenced by globalisation – a phenomenon fundamentally changed a general political, economic, ideological and cultural picture of the World during last five decades. In other words, globalisation and internationalisation in higher education are considered to be mutually connected and interdependent categories. Authors mainly discuss the current trends of higher education internationalisation. Focusing mainly on study abroad component, it is argued that harmonisation of curricula and overall unification of educational systems makes universities closer and particularly facilitates intercultural exchanges that address vital challenges like global citizenship and international competence. The significance of international development strategy for a modern university is explained. That strategy should produce so called “road map” to bring a particular university in higher education arena by considering its mission, core values, current capacity and future prospects as well as a clear implementation mechanism.
This paper describes more modern, popular and attractive dimensions of academic collaborations among universities. Focusing mainly on study abroad component, it argues that harmonisation of curricula and overall unification of educational systems makes universities closer and particularly facilitates intercultural exchanges that address vital challenges like global citizenship and international competence.
Internationalization in higher education as a main global trend.
The concept of internationalization has become one of the integral components in almost all fields of human activities including higher education. Of course, the majority of world universities have always had international focus as a part of their general mission or long-term development strategy. The scope and level of this focus depends on particular institution’s main mission, capacity and ambitions in terms of providing academic services abroad, getting more international students and having more sustained positions in international higher education market.
Being one of the most influential and many-branched phenomena, globalization played an important role in strengthening universities’ external activities, and as a consequence, it significantly accelerated internationalization in higher education. At the same time, covering all continents and regions, internationalization in higher education itself is considered to be one of the world-scale categories who has being contributed to globalisation processes since 1970s. All scholars, both globalisers and anti-globalisers, do agree that globalisation and internationalisation in higher education have got mutually influenced and made each other to be more complete and meaningful category.
Literature offers a wide variety of concepts on internationalisation in higher education those intend to clarify its definition by using different criteria, university activities and other HEIs-related strategies. Knight (2004) believes that internationalisation at the national, sector and institutional levels is defined as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education. This process consists largely of two main spheres of action, commonly characterised as "internationalisation at home" and "internationalisation abroad". Internationalisation at home typically consists of strategies and approaches designed to inject an international dimension into the home campus experience-for example, by including global and comparative perspectives in the curriculum or recruiting international students, scholars, and faculty and leveraging their presence on campus. Internationalisation abroad, on the other hand, calls for an institution to project itself and its stakeholders out in the world.
Van Damme (2001) underlines the importance of quality, and argues that focus on international education raises the quality of higher education in the global labour market, but equally raises issues about how to measure that quality. Focusing on international education, Altbach and Knight (2006) found that internationalisation in higher education ranges from traditional study abroad programs, which allow students to learn about other cultures, to providing access to higher education in countries where local institutions cannot meet the demand. Other activities stress upgrading the international perspectives and skills of students, enhancing foreign language programs, and providing cross-cultural understanding. Fielden (2008) considers overseas student recruitment and staff mobility focus as a main point of internationalisation in higher education that is defined with flows of staff and students in both directions, strategic alliances, joint programs with external institutions. Teichler (2004) mentions partnership development in higher education as a main idea of internationalisation. He believes that internationalisation in higher education is a focus on the development of partnerships to reduce risk, increase competitiveness, enhance image and broaden the knowledge base for research, enterprise and education.
Stressing entrepreneurial and managerial aspects, Goddard (2006) identifies internationalisation in higher education as crucial for universities to retain competitiveness through university business models which underpin an entrepreneurial culture.
Summarising different approaches and concepts, UNESCO’s Report (Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley, 2009) defines internationalisation in higher education as the variety of policies and programs that universities and governments implement to respond to globalisation. These typically include sending students to study abroad, setting up a branch campus overseas, or engaging in some type of inter-institutional partnership.
In general, internationalisation in higher education may (a) contribute to mutual understanding among people, nations, and cultures; (b) help meet challenges of competitiveness and economic growth; (c) foster greater student development and learning; and (d) facilitate exchange of national cultural values (de Wit, 2002).
The responses of higher education institutions to the global challenges.
At the institutional level, internationalisation in higher education can be perceived in the way that large numbers of universities have adopted expanded missions, in many cases embracing service to a community that extends beyond local and national boundaries and aiming to produce ‘global citizens’ with ‘global competencies.’ The establishment of international program and support offices, and the designation of staff time for these kinds of activities, has also become extremely commonplace in tertiary institutions across the globe (Altbach, Reisberg, and Rumbley, 2009).
The level of interest and engagement in internationalisation allows introducing so called informal classification of HEIs. Fosket (2010) identified five categories of universities in his model: domestic universities (focused in national context only); imperialist universities (strong international recruitment, but poor facilities for overseas students); internationally aware universities (trying to have an international profile, but still have not engaged with overseas recruitment and foreign partnerships); internationally engaged universities (operating in international arenas through institutional partnerships, and recruiting international students and staff); internationally focused universities (the level of progress and achievement in internationalisation is strong in man dimensions).
Universities develop their internationalisation strategies in order to have a framework for adaptation to new global trends and regional challenges as well as to benefit from opportunities coming from globalised and more liberalised international higher education market. Fosket (2008b) has summarised the aims of a sample of university internationalisation strategies, and shows that the common themes are:
Recognition that ‘being international’ has both geographical and quality dimensions, in that it involves both working with organisations and people from other countries and ensuring that the quality of research and education in the institution is of a standard that would be seen as ‘international’ in peer evaluation.
For universities with a strong research profile, a clear aim that the university should be engaged in leading research/academic debate at international levels in some or all of its disciplines.
A view that the university, through its leading academics, should be contributing to political, economic, social, and technological developments internationally.
An explicit aim that the institution should provide an education (curriculum) for all of its students (whether from the home country or overseas) that is international in quality and equips graduates to be both global citizens and employable in a globalised economy.
An aim to develop organisation, systems and culture within the university that promote an international community, attractive to and meeting the needs of students and staff from both the home country and from overseas.
In general, internationalisation strategy introduces so called “road map” that designed to reach institution’s main international targets, and it might include a wide range of specific implementing activities, but frequently is expressed through (Maringe and Foskett, 2010): redevelopment of the curriculum to ensure international coverage and focus, and relevance for international students; internationalising teaching and learning, by recognising different cultural perspectives on learning styles and employing a diverse international staff; providing students services that meet the practical and cultural needs o international students; benchmarking educationalprovisionnotjustagainstnationalcomparatorinstitutions, butagainstcomparatorsinothercountries; increasing student and staff mobility between universities in different countries, encouraging students to spend time in overseas universities as part of their programmes and encouraging faculty to spend research time working with partner institutions abroad; the formal inclusion of an ‘overseas’ element to projects, programmes research, for example by including international field study opportunities; the establishment of joint teaching programmes with overseas institution, for example, articulation agreements, joint degree programmes or splitside PhD programmes; setting up overseas branch campuses, often in partnership with other private or public sector organisations; building research partnerships with overseas universities.
The mentioned list of components of internationalisation strategy is also supported by results of research carried out in 37 UK universities (Maringe, 2008). Most people agree that students should be internationally aware and knowledgeable, because globalisation has transformed the word into a global village (Green and Olson, 2003). In this context, now a global competence issue is becoming more and more popular for leading HEIs, and it is considered as one of the main responses to internationalisation in higher education. Curran (2003) defined global competence as an “appreciation of other cultures and the ability to interact with people from foreign lands. It is the ability to become familiar with an environment, not causing a rift while experiencing something news, and reflection upon the experience at its completion”. Deardoff (2004) thinks that global competence implies the ability to communicate and interact effectively and appropriately in in intercultural situations based on individual’s cross-cultural knowledge, skills, and attitude, which can be acquired through study abroad programs and international education. In terms of responses from universities, most people everybody agrees that internationalisation in higher education requires the internationalisation of the curriculum (Mestenhauser and Ellingboe, 1998). Supporting this idea, no doubt that, internationalisation in higher education requires to commitment of senior leadership to define institutional vision and strategic plan, as well as faculty and engagement for the implementation of global learning goals in curriculum, teaching, research and service functions of institutions of higher education (Olson, Green, and Hill, 2006).
In this regard, the point made by Dr. Michael Adewumi, a Vice Provost for Global Programs at the Pennsylvania State University, is quite clear and meaningful: ‘We recognise that we live in a very small global village. The challenges are we faced today, as humanity, have no longer at local, they are global in perspective. The global engagement network is a network of strategic partners that could provide our students critique experience that they need to be more global in the perspectives and to become more competitive globally...’ (Adewumi, 2015).
An institutional partnership can serve many purposes, such as study abroad and exchange of students and staff, international scholarship, international degree programs, joint project or research ventures, curriculum development, technical assistance, institutional development, and other similar aims (Francois, 2015). Crossborder education has more shares in mentioned institutional partnership, and it considers the movement of people, programs, providers, knowledge, ideas, projects, values, curriculum, policy, and services across national boundaries. We talk about the movement of students, professors, scholars or experts. Students are mobile in a number of ways. They can take a whole degree in another country, participate in a study abroad exchange program, undertake internship, register for a semester/year abroad program, and so on (Knight, 2010).
Other attempt to identify responses to internationalisation in higher education was made by the International Association of Universities (IAU) and European Association for International Education (EAIE) by conducting separate surveys. Both the IAU and EAIE surveys asked respondents to identify the priority internationalisation activities undertaken at their institution. The results are quite similar. Between the two surveys, in the order of priority they are:
- outgoing mobility (first in both surveys)
- incoming student priority (second in EAIE)
- international research collaboration/innovation (second in IAU)
- strategic partnerships (third in EAIE)
- strengthening international/intercultural curriculum (third in IAU)
Internationalisation of higher educational institutions in developing countries.
Collaboration between universities depends on mission, character and priorities of those institutions. It means, HEIs should identify their main expectations from international partnerships first, and then to find right partners who will share common interests and willingness to collaborate. It would be better to start simpler, easer and shorter types of bilateral cooperation that can make partners closer and able to implement more complex, complicated and longer partnerships those may include new third partners.
Strong partnerships among HEIs representing different countries may be established if they based on the following three main principles or practical recommendations to universities involved in joint programs (Massey, 2014):
- flexibility,
- sustainability,
- strong local support.
Various initiatives are being implemented to further accelerate the process of internationalisation. The governments promote innovations, life-long education, fair and competitive learning environments, distant learning, international cooperation, quality assurance, and effective management in order to develop modern universities that offer world-class education, as well as to become one of the most attractive regional higher educational markets.
As a typical member of the Central Asia and the Caucasus, both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have started to integrate into the world community after getting its independence in 1991, and higher education was considered to be one of the main directions in this process. In general, “transferring black gold to human capital” has been chosen to be the crucial and central factor for nations-wide development strategy that considers more attention to and contribution from higher education sector. In both countries, higher education has been declared to be one of the main priorities in terms of ensuring country’s sustainable, overall and long-lasting economic development. Azerbaijan (2005) and Kazakhstan (2010) joined the Bologna Process which strengthened fundamental reforms in the national higher education system and its harmonisation with European standards. Currently, all universities in both countries function under the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) framework and offer three-cycled higher education services.
In 1993, despite the economic difficulties prevailing as a result of the USSR collapse, the Bolashak scholarship program was initiated with the aim to develop a workforce that would be able to compete on the international arena.
Throughout the whole period of its realisationBolashak Scholarship has been granted to 11126 Kazakhstan citizens for study in 200 best universities of 33 countries.
As a result of a stable and purposeful policy of Program’s implementation process improvement, at the VIII International Going Global Conference in Miami in 2014, Bolashak Scholarship has been named the best one among 11 academic mobility programs.
According to the Centre for International Programmes (CIP), who took over administration of the Bolashak awards, it is estimated that about 30% of students abroad are on scholarships, and about 70% are self-funded. The similar program is launched in Azerbaijan in 2007. "The State Program on Study of Azerbaijani Youth Abroad for 2007-2015" approved by Presidential order in 2007, was a special contribution to internationalisation of higher education as it provides full payment for students to study overseas. More than 3500 Azerbaijani young people has benefited from this Program so far and about 1000 of them already completed their education in the leading universities in Europe, North America and Asia. 40 percent of graduates are functioning in a public sector s civil servants.
Recently, government announced that a new component (allocation of financial recourses for incoming international professors) will be added into the Program by the end of 2016, and this adjustment will have a direct contribution to local higher educational institutions in terms of strengthening the internationalisation dimension of their development strategies.
Both countries adopted the new “Law on Education”:
Azerbaijan in 2009 to establish the relevant legislative framework needed to complete the transformation processes in the education sphere and to get completely new national education system including higher education; This Law completely changed a general picture of national education system by introducing new structure, principles and mission for both education system and educational institutions.
Kazakhstan in 2007 to implement international standards in the field of education in view of its joining the World Trade Organisation and integration with the Bologna process.
A few years ago, the Kazakh government released its Academic Mobility Strategy in Kazakhstan 20122020. The strategy includes these goals:
To greatly increase its capacity both to host students from abroad and to send more of its own students, staff, and faculty overseas on mobility programmes;
To increase the number of Kazakh students with foreign language ability;
To grow the number of international cooperation agreements between Kazakh and foreign institutions; To increase the number of international students studying in Kazakh universities by 20% annually through 2020.
According to the State Program of Education Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 20112020, which aims at boosting competitiveness of education system, particularly, higher education as well as developing human capital by providing access to quality education, the following key measures are being implemented:
Academic freedom – the percentage of electives in curricula will rise to 70% for bachelor’s degree programs, 80% Master’s degrees, 90-95% PhD curricula.
In an attempt to boost academic mobility as a key principle of the Bologna process, all HEI students will be required to spend at least one academic term abroad, which also may include completing studies under the Bolashak scholarship program.
The share of general education disciplines for Bachelor’s degree programs will be reduced from 25% to 15% with the introduction of 12-year school education.
Establishing the Bologna Process and Academic Mobility Centre under the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan.
Similarly, "Azerbaijan 2020: Vision to Future" approved by Presidential decree in 2012 and "The State Strategy on the Development of Education in the Republic of Azerbaijan" approved by Presidential order in 2013 concretely define the priorities and strategic directions for higher education development in Azerbaijan. Overall, the government promotes innovations, life-long education, fair and competitive learning environments, distant learning, international cooperation, quality assurance, and effective management in order to develop modern universities that offer world-class education, as well as to become one of the most attractive regional higher educational markets. Additionally, "The Activity Plan on implementation of the State Strategy on the Development of Education in the Republic of Azerbaijan", adopted in January 2015, introduced the concrete measures to address all above-mentioned priorities.
According to the WTO the forms of importing education depend on "Four Modes of Supply" in which a service can be traded under GATS.
- Cross-border supply (the movement of education programs including online courses across borders)
- Consumption abroad (student mobility across borders)
- The commercial presence (establishing educational facilities abroad)
- The presence of persons (presence of natural persons, or the movement of scholars for educational delivery to other nations).
In the context of Kazakhstan’s higher education internationalisation, all modesapply, withmode 2 beingthemostimportant. Also, withregardtomode 2, Kazakhstan’s context is characterised both by student, as well as faculty, or academic, mobility.
Azerbaijan is also trying to take into account all these issues during its currently ongoing WTO accession process. Of course, Azerbaijan is also looking forward to benefit from opportunities promised by WTO membership to strengthen the internationalisation of entire education system and make it an integral part of global education.
With Azerbaijan’s and Kazakhstan’s focus on growing capacity at home, attracting larger numbers of international students, and sending more of its own students abroad, examples of this type of collaboration should only increase in the years ahead.
Being in the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have favourable geographical conditions in terms of attracting international students from neighbouring countries. Currently, about more 5000 international students study at Azerbaijani universities and more than 9000 international students enrolled in HEIs in Kazakhstan. Of course, it is to small figure in spite of fact that several universities offer education in more many languages (Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Russian, English, Turkish) and their current curricula is quite updated and attractive.
In the meantime, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan provide an interesting case study as a country transitioning from centralised, Soviet rule to a relatively open, market-based economy where tertiary education plays a strategic role in increasing national development and enhancing the nation’s profile abroad.
However, we do believe that there is a big need in both countries for development of strategies for local universities to increase both inbound and outbound academic mobility, and more importantly, to improve the current curricula in line with international standards.
Conclusion
Being one of the main current trends in international arena, the internationalisation in higher education is defined as the variety of policies and programs that universities and governments implement to respond to globalisation. It is argued that the internationalisation in higher education has fundamentally changed a general pictureof“modernuniversity” aswellasthenatureofbilateralandmultilateralrelationsamong HEIsrepresenting different countries. All universities try to address challenges originated from the internationalisation in higher education by developing their international development strategies where international student recruitment, student and staff exchange, double-degree programs and joint research activities are considered to be priorities.
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