Impact of Student Exchange Programs through International University Collaboration toward Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

• In Event: Fostering global student engagement and success

Proposal

The objective of this presentation is to report the result of a research project on the impact of student exchange programs through international university collaboration taking two cases of such programs launched in Asia and between Asia and Latin America as examples.

With the emergence of a knowledge-based society, the production and utilization of knowledge has become a major driver of economic growth, and the role of higher education in creating and applying knowledge and fostering highly skilled human resources has never been more important. In the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Goal 4 calls for the achievement of equal access to quality higher education, and the development of highly skilled human resources and research and development activities at higher education institutions are expected to contribute to the achievement of other SDG goals as well.

In light of this importance, countries have been making efforts to expand higher education. In addition, the internationalization of higher education is progressing rapidly in various regions and countries of the world. While international competition among universities is intensifying, as countries and universities are competing to attract the best and brightest minds as international students, cooperation and collaboration among universities across national borders are also becoming more active in order to create educational and research environments that cannot be realized by universities in their own countries alone.

In this context, regional cooperation and exchange as well as inter-regional cooperation and exchange in higher education is progressing around the world. In Asia, for example, the Regional Center for Higher Education Development (RIHED) of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) is playing a central role in promoting cooperation and exchange among universities. SEAMEO-RIHED launched the ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Program, which in 2012 with an aim to promote student exchange and inter-university collaboration within the Southeast Asian region. In addition to Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, which were initial members of AIMS, Brunei and Japan joined the program in 2013. As of December 2022, As of December 2022, more than 6,000 students from nine member countries have participated in student exchanges in the region.
Sophia University in Japan has participated in AIMS and implemented the "Scholastic-Academic Integrated Human Development Program for Harmonizing Diversity (SAIMS)," sending 106 Japanese students to seven universities in four ASEAN countries and receiving 69 international students from seven universities in four ASEAN countries between 2014 and 2017. In addition, Sophia University has operated the "Problem-Solving Educational Exchange Program for Harmony and Human Dignity in Human Mobility and Coexistence (LAP)" since 2015 to support the promotion of exchange with the Latin American region, sending 216 Japanese students to 12 universities in 6 countries and receiving 116 international students from 14 universities in 6 countries between 2015 and 2019.

Both of these two programs are distinctive programs with an aspect of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). SAIMS aims to provide a platform for cooperative education to learn together with ASEAN countries, and to present and practice multilateral problem-solving and interdisciplinary education. LAP aims to establish a problem-solving international higher education collaborative exchange model that pursues harmony and human dignity under the theme of "Human Mobility and Harmonious Coexistence. They both aim to develop global leaders for sustainable futures.

This research focuses on these two international educational exchange programs for education for sustainable development (ESD), and aims to analyze how the cooperation and exchange between universities in the higher education sector outside the European region is progressing and how it has an impact on international students' learning and each university's educational and research activities.

Looking around at previous studies, there have been many studies on the impact of studying abroad, but most of them study on study abroad programs from developed countries to developed countries. In contrast, both SAMIS and LAP are exchange programs between universities and countries that are diverse in terms of culture, economy, and academic standards, including developing countries. Both programs are also unique in comparison with other study abroad programs in that they are not simply individuals studying abroad in multiple countries, but rather they have established overall program objectives and have systematically built a platform for international higher education collaborative exchanges and student exchanges to achieve them. We aim to find similarities and differences with the impact of individual study abroad programs to date. We also analyze the impact of these organized exchange programs between universities in multiple countries on the internationalization of the participating universities.

The research collect data on the impact of both programs through literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews with ex-participants in the programs and member universities, and analyze them quantitatively and qualitatively. The questionnaire for students asks about the impact of studying abroad on their 21st-century skills, their regional engagements, and careers, and the questionnaire for universities ask about the impact of their participation in the two programs on the internationalization of their own universities and on the building and subsequent development of relationships among the participating countries. Around 60, 50, and 400 responses were obtained from top management, the International Relations Offices (IROs) of member universities, and alumni, respectively. The main findings and conclusions are as follows. First, the programs have had a high impact in terms of raising the visibility and profile of the member universities in internationalization and community building, for example, by increasing the number of inbound/outbound students. Second, the IROs gained various impacts in terms of enhancing their procedures to support further harmonization of higher education, including strengthening monitoring, benchmarking and evaluation system on international activities. Finally, ex-participants were impacted in terms of improved 21st century skills, such as curiosity, intercultural skills, flexibility/adaptability, interpersonal skills, as well as awareness as a citizen of a respective region.

End (949 words)

Authors

• Naoki Umemiya, Sophia University

• Miki Sugimura, Sophia University