Internationalising Universities: Rationales and Implications

An article written by Prof. Morshidi Sirat and Dr. Sarjit Kaur from IPPTN

Introduction
The call to internationalise today’s universities has gained ascendance in recent years. For many institutions, ‘internationalisation’ has become a catchword of the times in higher education and it’s wider use these days has led to an unprecedented increase to its emergence as a research area in its own right (Yang, 2002). The question of the importance of globalisation has never been more relevant, and the move to internationalise higher education has advanced with a sense of urgency (Spanier, 2007). In most higher education contexts worldwide, it is clear that to prepare students to compete, contribute and peacefully co-exist with diverse populations, universities must provide a more fully international education.

Rationales
Just as the development of a common definition of internationalisation has not proved easy, the assessment of the rationale for internationalisation is problematic (Yang, 2002). Indeed, realistically it is envisaged that any discussion on internationalisation cannot avoid discussion of the nature of a university and its role in the transmission and creation of forms of culture and knowledge. The rationale for internationalisation lies in an understanding of the universal nature of the advancement of knowledge (while knowledge is often contextual, the advancement of human knowledge that is based on the common bonds of humanity is arguably a global enterprise). By nature of their commitment to advancing human knowledge, universities necessarily engage in international cooperation. In this regard, “internationalisation that goes far beyond simply having some international connections is even more inherent in many academic disciplines” (Yang, 2002: 86). Often introducing or emphasising international and intercultural aspects leads to more interdisciplinary cooperation in research endeavours. It is the responsibility of the university to “cultivate the ability to understand, appreciate and articulate the reality of interdependence among nations to prepare faculty, staff and students to function in an international and intercultural context” (Yang, 2002: 86). When universities are viewed as having the prime role of helping us understand what is happening in our lives and around the world, there needs to be a burst of creativity and renewed energy to re-imagine universities as an intellectual community and as a locus of intellectual life that is responsive to the changed political, social and economic conditions of the current age.

Key factors
Spanier (2007), in commenting on the need to internationalise today’s universities, sets out the following key aspects:

The role of international organisations
Increasingly, organisations like the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) provide intercontinental opportunities and bring together leaders in education to focus attention on international education. The stumbling block has been the reluctance of governments to fund research across national boundaries, although this is now changing (e.g. The National Science Foundation in the US has become more open to such research collaboration, as has the European Union).

Shaping a new curriculum
The integration of global perspectives into the curriculum is essential for providing a meaningful
international understanding for students. Penn State’s commitment for internationalising the
curriculum has been incorporated into the University’s strategic plan as a “key tenet of each of its fundamental goals of teaching, research and service” (Spanier, 2007: 7). Increasingly, it is being viewed that a truly global university will ensure that coursework is infused with a worldview at many levels: for example humanities, social sciences, arts and business course content reflect variations across countries, cultures and time periods. Fluency in a foreign language can also be an important element of international education. English has become a second most spoken world language and it’s important for universities to realize that competence in English language is not only a key to better communication but it is central to better understanding.

The student experience
International students bring cultural diversity to university campuses and they also have a major economic impact (e.g. in 2005/06, the net contribution to the US economy by foreign students and their families was more than $1.3 billion). Also, international undergraduate students who live in residence halls tend to interact with a much larger population in clubs, organisations and classrooms. The model of a semester or year abroad is still effective (Spanier, 2007). When students work on international teams, they create important and lasting links with other countries. Technology has enabled researchers around the globe to pursue more complex projects.

Implications and conclusion
Universities traditionally have had a two-fold approach to internationalisation: foreign student recruitment and study-abroad programs. These efforts have yielded some success: according to UNESCO, in 2004 there were 2.5 million international students worldwide, which was a 56% increase from 1999 and over half these students are found in East Asia, North America and Western Europe (Spanier, 2007). It is expected that within the next 10 years, university rankings worldwide will undoubtedly shift to include more universities from other countries such as Singapore, China, Malaysia, South Korea and India as these countries are working to “transform their knowledge economy and to develop national strategies to position their higher
education institutions in a competitive world” (Spanier, 2007: 6). In comparative and international education, it is widely acknowledged that pressures from the West are increasing and it is precisely within this scenario that internationalisation poses some particular issues for
universities in developing or less economically developed non-Western countries. Not withstanding the co-existence of regionalisation and internationalisation, modern universities in Asia can use these trends to further advance the case of internationalisation without losing their national identities and sense of tradition. By way of analysing the special role of Asian universities, stronger links can be established among the members of ASEAN, the University Mobility of the Asia-Pacific (UMAP) and European networks via the European Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) and the Trans European Mobility Programme for University Study (TEMPUS), among others, as these programmes “foster regional cooperation, discussion of common problems, regional scholarship programmes and some institutional links” (Yang, 2002: 89).

Prepared by:
Professor Morshidi Sirat (Director, IPPTN)
Dr. Sarjit Kaur (Associate Research Fellow, IPPTN)

Sources:
Spanier, G. (2007). Internationalising Today’s Universities. Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 12 September 2007. Accessed online on 29 October 2007 from www.obhe.ac.uk
Yang, R. (2002). University Internationalisation: Its Meanings, Rationales and Implications. Intercultural Education, Vol. 13 (1): 81-95.