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Session Submission Summary

The internationalization of higher education and national reactions to critical trends: A student research panel

Wed, March 11, 8:00 to 9:30am, Washington Hilton, Floor: Concourse Level, Jefferson East

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

At what seems to be at an ever-accelerating pace, higher education systems today and the institutions and players within them face a widening array of challenges and opportunities with which they must come to terms. While some policy and program responses show a broadly discernible general pattern, there are many more distinct regionally and contextually specific reactions that are ripe for analysis as single case studies or in comparative perspective.

As international educational comparativists, much of our work is concerned with the implications of using what we can learn from other contexts and experiences, thus how ideas and models and successes and failures can be ‘transferred’ or ‘borrowed’ from one setting to another. The scope of international higher education spans widely from looking at entire governments down to looking at small entities such as individual departments; it is driven by the ubiquitous process of globalization; and it is concerned with understanding how these large and small entities translate the challenges and changes coming at them into the educational services they provide. For students today on the cusp of entering the field as professionals tomorrow and eager to work in higher education institutions, ministries, foundations and organizations responding to internationalization, understanding the activities in other international contexts and their implications has never been more important.

This panel is devoted to showcasing the research of students in the International Education Program at The George Washington University who are looking at the implications of ‘massification’ of higher education and how institutions are responding. Each paper shares students’ analytical case studiers of selected national higher education systems and how the institutions and decision makers in them are reacting to major internationalization challenges. Broadly, the panel aims to address the following general questions through individual case studies: 1) How are governments in various settings responding to challenges and opportunities to internationalize their higher education institutions? 2) How are governments and institutions responding to access and equity issues, both nationally and at a more local level through individualized programs? And 3) What are some of the characteristics of successful and less successful initiatives related to university internationalization?
All six papers include first a broad overview of the higher education system in each case study country and the issues it faces in terms of internationalization, and then focus on contextually specific themes. The first paper, by Anisha Singh on “Foreign Educational Institutions in India: Regulation and Expansion” examines the need to regulate foreign educational institutions (FEIs) in India and how the country seeks to attract world-class universities. At the center of the paper is the proposed Foreign Educational Institutions Bill that would give all foreign universities in India deemed university status. The paper assesses the options India has in striking a balance between regulating and attracting FEIs and offers preliminary policy recommendations using the six models of regulatory systems identified by Verbik and Jokivirta (2005). The second paper, by Lisa Reid, “Community Colleges in Vietnam,” examines how Vietnam has adopted the US community college system as a means to improve access for Vietnamese students, while also internationalizing the Vietnamese education system through partnerships with community colleges in Western countries. Focusing on both positive and negative elements of this program, the paper concludes that a lack of direction and framework within the system for community colleges also poses a threat to its further development and expansion. The third paper, by Ielyzaveta Shchepetylnykova, “Financing internationalization of higher education in Finland,” looks at the transformations that took place in the Finnish higher education system in order to increase the share of non-state financing in education and research activities of the country’s universities and polytechnics. The findings reveal that diversification of funding has been successful only in a small number of universities, thus they face a continuing challenge of dependence on government support. Using interviews conducted with higher education stakeholders in the country, the study identifies transformations that are now taking place in the academic community and their effect on success of the ideas of education export in Finland. The fourth paper, by Tess Cannon, “A System Divided: The Case of Albanians in Macedonian Higher Education,” looks at the development of higher education opportunities for Macedonia’s linguistically Albanian population since independence in 1991 and evaluates the efforts made to incorporate its members into the greater higher education landscape. The paper also explores future options for linguistic integration through broader internationalization policies, such as efforts made in and outcomes of Englishization, specific relationships with higher education institutions across the globe, and possibilities for further domestic integration with other Macedonian universities. The final paper in this panel, by Maggie Appel-Schumacher, “Internationalization efforts of Japanese higher education: Implementation and progress of the Global 30 initiative,” looks at the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Global 30 Project to internationalize the university student and faculty populations as greater global competitors. The paper focuses on three selected institutions that have participated (Sophia University, Waseda University, and the University of Tokyo) and examines the different methods each has used to reach their internationalization goals and to successfully compete internationally.

The panel will be chaired by the GW professor teaching the “International Higher Education” course, Bernhard Streitwieser, who will allow each presenter ten minutes plus follow up question and discussion time at the end of the panel. We hope for a vigorous exchange of reactions and impressions to these related yet distinct studies of the impact of internationalization in a variety of settings.

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