Internationalization: Past, Present and Future

Michael A PetersUniversity of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign

Introduction1. Internationalization is a set of processes in

search of a theory and/or concept of internationalism yet to be articulated.

2. Internationalization most often figures as a discourse of strategy with an emphasis on ‘how to’ questions rather than a reflective discourse examining political ends or purposes.

3. Internationalization as a set of processes has changed over time, most recently reflecting changes in the political economy of higher education and the global economy.

4. There are different forms of internationalization that differ according to colonial past, geopolitics, and global position so we should talk of ‘internationalizations’ (in the plural).

The Past: A genealogy of internationalization

Internationalization before globalization

1. Internationalization in the ancient world with first academies in Pakistan, India, Egypt, China and Perisa (Takshashila, Nalanda, Al-Azhar, Yuelu, Gandishapur) in the 7th and 9th centuries BC that attracted students from all over Asia and Middle East.

2. The Academy established by Plato in 387 BC (also Kos, Rhodes and Alexandria) and traveling ‘itinerant’ scholars – Sophists (Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias) wandered about Greece teaching rhetoric.

3. First wave internationalization in Europe during the period of the establishment of the medieval university (Magnaura, 849; Salerno,9th century; Bologna, 1088; Paris, 1100) and cathedral schools established by papal bull.

4. Translation as a form of internationalization and spread of texts – into Arabic during the ‘Golden Age’ (750-950) of Muslim scholarship and into Latin with great revival of Greeks texts fueled by proliferation of texts from the East in 15th century Italy exerting an influence on 16th century Britain.

The Ancient Geography of Ideas

A full history of internationalization in the ancient world needs to take into account a complex set of movements that emphasize the interrelationships between trade, conquest and traveling scholarship, including, for example:

1. the Hellenization of Syria and the foundation of Gandishapur as a center of learning (how Greek science passed to the Arabic world);

2. Christianity as a Hellenizing force and Christian Syriac writers, scholars, and scientists;

3. The Nestorians and the Monophysites;4. The Indian influence, Alexandrian science, the sea route to

north-west India and Buddhism as a possible medium spreading west;

5. Khalifates of Damascus and Baghdad (762) and early Arabic translators (Abu Mahammad Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Al-Hajjaj Ibn Yusuf Ibn Matar Al-Hasib, Yuhanna Ibn Batriq, 'Abd al-Masih Ibn 'Aballah Wa'ima al-Himse, Abu Yahya al-Batriq, Jibra'il II, Abu Zakariah Yahya Ibn Masawaih) who translated Buddhist and Greek texts, including Euclid’s Elements, Aristotle’s Poetica , Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Galen’s texts etc.

Europeanization and the Rise of Global Science

1. The life of science in its recognizable modern form dates from the Royal Society, which was preceded by the Philosophical College the members of which (Robert Moray, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, John Wallis, John Evelyn, Christopher Wren and William Petty) held regular meetings from 1645.

2. They were inspired by induction and experimental science, the ethos of which had been explored by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) a generation earlier in utopian works like, The Advancement of Learning (1605) Novum Organum (1620), The New Atlantis (1626). Bacon’s ideas were highly influential, championed by Newton, popularised by the Royal Society--and figuring centrally in Thomas Sprat’s The History of the Royal Society (1667)—and celebrated by the philosophes of the French Enlightenment.

3. While Bacon, the Renaissance man, travelled little outside England, members of the Royal Society established in 1660 had strong contacts in Europe and travelled to meet other scientists.

4. Learning Greek, Latin, French and Italian enabled English scientists to read the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Mersenne Galileo, Gilbert, Descartes, Pascal, Cavalieri, Roberval, Torricelli, and many others.

Development of Learned Societies

1. The development of learned societies in Europe--from the establishment of Compagnie du Gai Sçavoir in 1323—were contemporaneous with the establishment of the early medieval universities at Bologna, Paris, Padua, St Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge, and Glasgow in the eleventh, twelve and thirteenth centuries. Both learned societies and universities slowly developed the norms of cooperation and textual conventions in scholarly activities that were inherited by the modern research university in the early nineteenth century, beginning with the establishment of the University of Berlin in 1810.

2. The Academy of Science, modelled on the Royal Society, was founded Paris in 1666 and similar societies were established in Dublin (1683), St. Petersburg (1725), Stockholm (1739), and Edinburgh (1783). Learned societies, in particular, were responsible for publication of scientific findings and issued the first academic journals that institutionalised the norms of scholarships

3. A model of scientific communication gradually became established as printing and publishing industries developed and helped to shape the scientific analytical method through rationalising research methods, sharing theories and methods among scientists from different countries, and gradually establishing an international ‘scientific community’. By 1700 there were already 30 journals and by 1800 hundreds of scientific journals existed.

Colonial Science1. The learned societies were concerned with spread and

diffusion of scientific knowledge. 2. These developments in the institutionalisation of science

simultaneously were part and parcel of the first wave of colonial expansion and conquest by the European powers.

3. Both Linneaus and Banks, for example, brought back specimens for the benefit of their national economies, placing science at the very centre of trade and politics and forging an interdependent relationship between scientific inquiry and the state that still endures.

4. The origins of global science, it might be argued, had its origins in ‘imperial science,’ where science contributed to colonial development and administration, not only to facilitate the exploitation of native natural resources but also to administer local populations (see Peters, 2006).

5. Establishment of universities in colonies to ‘train’ elites and the migration of colonial scholars to universities of European powers.

Science, the University and The Industrial-Military

Complex1. ‘The development of science in the modern era has taken place in

a variety of institutional settings. However, since the widespread recognition of German scientific leadership in the last third of the nineteenth century, and continuing through the ascendancy of American science in the mid-twentieth, the university has served as the predominant home of science’ (Geiger, 1985: 53).

2. Despite its ‘cultural inheritance with idealistic, spiritual, and high-minded aspiration derived from an important philosophical and theological traditions’ (Rothblatt & Wittrock, 1993: 1), especially in the tradition of German idealism, the modern research university in the period of the world wars became inextricably with the promotion of science in the service of the state.

3. The emergence of the modern research university with its division of intellectual labor, subdivision into specialized disciplines, and new social organization of science, became a national institution.

4. Convergence of university structures, organization, curriculum, disciplines etc. and notion of sabbatical.

University Science, WWII and The Cold War

1. The importance of the German university science system and the U.S. university system, first, in terms of German escapee Jews to e.g., Princeton’s Center for Advanced Study (Einstein, Gödel etc) and the New School (‘The University in Exile’); and, second, the active recruitment (‘Operation Paperclip’) of German scientists (almost 500) at the end of the war, including some who were Nazis (Wernher von Braun, father of the U.S. space program) and war criminals.

2. Cold War redefined American science and DOD became the biggest single patron, driven by politics of national security and competitive advantage surpassed its wartime budget peak reaching $5.5 billion in 1960.

3. ‘Brain drain’ was a term first used to refer to human capital flight and the outflow of scientists and technologists from Britain to the U.S. in the 1950s but subsequently became official policy disguised by the term ‘internationalization,’ with a rising cap in the U.S. of 195,000 (under H1B program) during the early 2000s.

4. Brain drain not only from Europe to the U.S. but also from South to North, developing to developed countries, intensified with globalization.

Internationalization, IAU & UNESCO

1. One of the most commonly used definitions of internationalisation of higher education was initially elaborated and subsequently adapted by Jane Knight and Hans de Wit and in its most recent iteration (Knight 2005) reads as follows: “the process of integrating an international, intercultural and/or global dimension into the goals, functions (teaching/learning, research, services) and delivery of higher education”.

2. This is the most broad and all-encompassing concept that integrates many different activities such as all forms of academic mobility, research collaboration, international development projects in higher education, curricular aspects in terms of the scope of programs and courses (area studies) offered or changes in curriculum of specific disciplines. 

3. According to OECD, it is “the complex of processes whose combined effect, whether planned or not, is to enhance the international dimension of the experience of higher education in universities and similar educational institutions”.

4. Various schemes after WWII were based on intergovernmental efforts directed at social and economic development such as The Colombo Plan which was a Commonwealth initiative to promote such development in Asia and the Pacific, often involving educational exchanges and fellowships.

The Present: An analysisInternationalization after Globalization• A major impact of globalization on higher education is the advent of the view of

education as a service, a commodity, that is not only produced and consumed domestically but also traded internationally.   The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a set of multilateral, legally enforceable rules governing international trade in services. Negotiated under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO), it came into force in 1995.

GATS covers 12 different sectors of services, including transportation, recreation, construction, education among others.  As a sector education is further subdivided into primary, secondary, higher, adult education and other services as well.  The agreement distinguishes four modes of supply and applies these to the trade of ALL services.  These are:

(1) Cross-border supply (2) Consumption abroad (3) Commercial presence (4) Presence of natural persons

• To understand how these modes apply to education, it is easier to see that the four modes cover respectively (1) program mobility (distance education, online education, courses franchising…), (2) student mobility, (3) institution mobility (branch campus) and (4) academic mobility (professors and researchers working temporarily abroad).

Source: IAU at http://www.unesco.org/iau/internationalization/i_definitions.html

Student Mobility

• According to UNESCO, roughly 2 million higher education students are being educated outside their home countries.

• Projections from the British Council and IDP Education Australia suggest that this number may double by 2015 and double again by 2025.

• By 2025, almost 8 million students will be educated internationally.

• Greatest percentage and most growth until recently in Anglo-American neoliberal capitalist economies of US, UK, Australia, Canada & NZ

Distribution of foreign students by host

country/territory, 2002/2003• Out of every ten tertiary students studying abroad, five

are Asians, three are Europeans and one is African.• Half of all foreign students study in Europe and one-

quarter in the United States.• Three countries host almost half of the world’s foreign

students (United States, United Kingdom and Germany). Add the next three highest hosting countries (France, Australia and Japan), and these six countries serve two-thirds of the world’s foreign students.

• While 25% of all foreign students are in the United States, they represent only 4% of the country’s tertiary students. In the United Kingdom and in Germany, foreign students make up one in ten total tertiary enrolments, in Australia almost one in six.

• South America is the least common destination for foreign students (hosting only 0.6% of the global foreign student population), followed by Africa (1.4%).

Foreign students by continent of origin,

2002/2003• Eight out of ten foreign European students study in another

European country• North American students make up only a small part of those

who study abroad (6% of the total number of foreign students).

• Three out of five foreign students in Europe are studying either in the United Kingdom, Germany or France.

• The United States hosts the largest number of foreign students, welcoming 586 thousand students in 2002/03. Sixty-three percent of these students come from Asia.

• 46% of all foreign students are women and only eight countries host more foreign female students than male.

• The percentage of foreign students per country varies considerably throughout the world. Some of the highest percentages are found in Macao (China), where foreign students make up 67% of tertiary enrolments, in Cyprus (29%), Qatar (21%), Australia (19%), Switzerland (18%) and Austria (14%).

UNESCO Institute for Statistics - UIS/FS/05/02 (updated: November 2005)

Recent Decline in HE International Enrolments for Major English Speaking

Countries • USA- 5% decline from 586,323 in 2002-3 to

572,509 in 2003-04 (-5% undergrad + 2.4% postgrad – a trend since 2000)- According to CGS, 41% of the current graduate students in the physical sciences and 50% of the graduate students in engineering are from other countries

• UK decline – to 300,055 in 2003-4• Australia – 344,815 enrolments by full-fee

overseas students in 2005 - increase of 7.0% from 2004

• Canada –104,662 foreign student enrolments elementary/secondary (38,086), college/trade (14,341), and university (52,235) enrolments in 2001-2

• NZ decline - 44,652 in 2002-3 to 32,022 in 2003-4

Other Countries• France - over 147,000 international students in

2001-2• Germany - over 246,000 international students in

2003-4 (China, Poland, France, Bulgaria and Spain - increase of 8.4%)

• Ireland - 18,605 international students in 2003-4• Increasing importance for Nordic countries• China -110,844 international students in 2004• Malaysia - 23,000 international students in 2005• Singapore - 50,000 international students in 2003• Increasing importance for India and Middle East

Trends: Increasing World Competition

Since 2003/04, there appears to have been a decline in demand for international education affecting the major Anglophone countries, particularly in the undergraduate sector. The reasons behind the decline are unclear and are likely to vary from country to country but probably include:

• increased global security concerns inhibiting travel by students and providers;

• increased competition, particularly from new players such as Singapore and China; and

• more places becoming available as investment in domestic infrastructure in source countries grows.

International education is an area of interest for an increasing number of countries. These countries are recognizing the benefits international education brings, they are selecting their target markets, establishing national level bodies whose mission is to attract international students, and are increasingly emphasizing the provision of courses taught in English. This increased interest is happening in a time of structural changes in the market such as increased in-country provision, the establishment of off-shore campuses and the development of on-line delivery. Source: Australia’s Competitors in International Education: July 2005 Update at

http://aei.dest.gov.au/AEI/PublicationsAndResearch/Publications/CompAnalysisJuly05_pdf

Trends: National & Regional Policies

• The U.K., Canada, and Australia all have national policies to attract international students and scholars.- US is implementing targeted marketing strategies such as university fairs and in-country recruitment; admissions processes are being expedited and overseas missions are being encouraged to promote the value of US education

- UK launched PMI in 1999 that targets to increase the number of non-EU international students studying in the UK by 75,000 by the year 2005 (50,000 in Higher Education and 25,000 in Further Education). - New Zealand Government announced a $40 million international education package in May 2004. Some of the key features include the provision of four education counselors in China, Malaysia, the US and Europe; the provision of more scholarship places; and the development of satellite campuses, e-learning and off-shore courses.

• Over three dozen European countries have signed the Bologna Accord, a plan designed to reform higher education to achieve the following results:

– create a system of comparable and understandable degrees throughout the European Union

– establish a clear and standard division between undergraduate and graduate studies

– promote student mobility among different fields of study, institutions, and nations

– develop a quality-assurance process and governing body to ensure standard qualifications and quality throughout participating countries

– define a European focus for higher education.

UK Case Study• UK launched PMI in 1999 that targets to increase the number of non-EU

international students studying in the UK by 75,000 by the year 2005 (50,000 in Higher Education and 25,000 in Further Education).

• The targets were exceeded ahead of schedule, with an extra 93,000 in HE and 23,300 in FE.

• Funding for the global promotion of UK education over the next two years (2006-7 and 2007-8) will be over £27 million of which

– £3 million is earmarked for UK/Africa partnership initiatives– £2 million for UK/Russia partnerships – £4 million for UK/China for scholarships and other partnerships– £7.5 million for the UK/India Education and Research Initiative.

• The second stage of PMI will be more ambitious than the first with a target of an extra 100,000 Further and Higher Education students. It will also have a wider international agenda, focusing on building sustainable partnerships between UK universities and colleges and similar institutions in other countries. It will aim to:

– position the UK as a leader in international education – increase number of international students in UK – Ensure that international students have a high quality experience – Build strategic partnerships and alliances – Maintain the UK's position in major education markets, while achieving growth in student

numbers from a wider range of countries International students contribute approximately £5 billion a year to the UK economy.

Trends: Value of Trade in Education

• An international market of more than USD 30 billion in 1998, approx 3% of global services (OECD 2004).

• In the USA gross exports to be $11493 million in 2001; net exports in the same year amounted to $9115 million (see http://www.bea.gov/bea/ARTICLES/2003/02February/0203ITAinserts.pdf).

• 2001-02 export education in UK 10264.3 M; HE (tuition and spending) 3121.4M (Johnes, 2004)

• Education is Australia’s fourth largest export. In 2003–04, education services were worth A$5.9 billion to the Australian economy, a 13 per cent increase on 2002–03.

Internationalization as Globalization

The IAU 2005 Internationalization Survey (Preliminary Findings – Jane Knight, 2006) based on 526 HEI’s in 95 countries‘Internationalization means different things to different HEIs, university associations, governments and non-governmental agencies. For some it means, international activities such as study abroad, international development projects, institutional agreements, or branch campuses. For others, it means integrating an international dimension into teaching/learning, research and service functions of higher education. And still others see it as an international profile or brand in order to be competitive both domestically and globally.’

Rationales driving internationalization at national levels (Table 2.0)Competitiveness 28%Strategic alliances 20%Human resources capacity 15%International cooperation 14%Cultural awareness 9%Education exports 7%Regional priorities 7%

“‘competitiveness’ as the most important rationale driving internationalization at the national level while ‘international development cooperation’ ranks fourth in level of priority is indicative of a major shift over the last five years”

Benefits & Risks of Internationalization by HEIs (IAU

Survey cont’)Ranking of most important Benefits of Internationalization by HEIsInternationalize staff/students 22%Academic quality 21%Strengthen research 15%Innovation in curriculum 14%International solidarity 12%Diversy of programs 6%National and international citizenship 4%Revenue generation 4%Brain Gain 2%

Ranking of most important Risks of Internationalization by HEIsCommercialization 23%More foreign degree mills 17%Loss of cultural identity 15%Overuse of English 12%Growing elitism 9%Brain drain 9%Jeopardize quality 8%Homogenize curriculum 7%

Futures of Internationalization

1. Market futures - The driving force under globalization has been a neoliberal export education trade by Anglophone countries who together comprise most of the world market to exploit South-North transfers;- The neoliberal market share will continue to expand in absolute terms but decline proportionally in the long term;- Emergence of university consortia, strategic alliances, university agreements and university-business partnerships;- Greater world competition with rise of China, India, Singapore and Middle Eastern countries as regional hosts;- Greater privatization of international education by transnationals and globally integrated enterprises, especially in areas of business education, science and technology;- Greater market diversification of four modes of (1) program mobility (distance education, online education, courses franchising…), (2) student mobility, (3) institution mobility (branch campus) and (4) academic mobility (professors and researchers working temporarily abroad).

Increasing Globalization of Higher Education

Four key elements of globalization: • the growing importance of the knowledge society/economy; • the development of new trade agreements which cover trade in

education services;• the innovations related to ICTs; and• the emphasis on the role of the market and the market economy

have been the catalysts for new developments in higher education including:

i) the emergence of new education providers such as multi-national companies, corporate universities, and media companies;

ii) new forms of delivering education including distance, virtual and new face-to-face, such as private companies;

iii) greater diversification of qualifications and certificates; iv) increasing mobility of students, programmes, providers and projects

across national borders; v) more emphasis on lifelong learning which in turn increases the demand

for postsecondary education; and vi) the increasing amount of private investment in the provision of higher

education.

Source: UNESCO (2004) ‘Higher Education in a Globalized Society’ A NESCO Education Position Paper, Paris.

New Providers & ProvisionThe extent, range, and form of ‘new providers and provision’ varies widely. Context is

all-important when seeking to understand the nature of developments in each country (Jamaica, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Bulgaria) and the reasons for them. Certain variables seem to be significant. These include:

• Historical educational traditions and cultural values (e.g., the status of overseas study, the existence or otherwise of an elitist public education system)

• Adequate development of primary and secondary schooling (in terms of access and participation, and appropriate quality to assure a foundation for entry to tertiary education)

• The influence of government policy• Economic development sufficient to create demand for fee-paying programmes

combined with under-supply of sufficient or relevant public education• The adequacy of student financial support arrangements• The form, focus and level of ‘applied rigour’ of the regulatory framework• The influence of the World Bank’s policies and funding.

The vast majority of transnational provision appears to be at the postgraduate level and private in nature, while the majority of local private provision is at sub-degree or degree level organised through franchise arrangements with local or international universities. Both types of provision take the form of vocationally focused courses (e.g., Business, Finance, ICT) that can provide a rapid return on investment (ROI) through increased employability and access to local and global employment markets.

Source: Middlehurst, R. & Woodfield, S. (2004)

Development Futures2. Development FuturesHigher education is a leading sector in the knowledge economy which is

characterized as a structural transformation based on acceleration of knowledge creation and accumulation and a substantial decrease in the costs of codification, transmission, and acquisition of knowledge (Foray, 2004).

The new paradigm of ‘Knowledge for development’ of the World Bank recognizes the hugely increased significance of HE for development.

With the transition to the knowledge economy increasingly pressure is being exerted on transition and developing countries to view higher education as one aspect of a holistic system of education which is ‘more flexible, diverse, efficient, and responsive to the knowledge economy’ (p. xi). The World Bank’s (2002: xix) Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education emphasizes that: ‘The state has a responsibility to put in place an enabling framework that encourages tertiary education institutions to be more innovative and more responsive to the needs of a globally competitive knowledge economy and to the changing labor market requirements for advanced human capital.’

And the report warns: ‘Developing and transition countries are at risk of being further

marginalized in a highly competitive world economy because their tertiary education systems are not adequately prepared to capitalize on the creation and use of knowledge’ (p. xix).

Development Futures and the Promotion of Public Knowledge

CulturesTwo readings of the knowledge economy:

- first, as knowledge capitalism characterized by neoliberal commercialization and privatization of ‘export education’ based on brain drain, brain circulation and brain waste;- second, as public knowledge cultures, which assumes continued importance of states and governments in defining HE policy (mixed pp system) and HE as a (global) public good.

Public knowledge cultures are based on the convergence of open source, open access and free science movements and nonmarket peer production models of academic exchange that hold that ‘information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development’ (Benkler, 2006).

• Various stakeholders including teacher unions, HEIs and student groups (Nation Union of Students in Europe) support the notion of education remaining a public good and responsibility, and oppose any further liberalization of trade in education through GATS and WTO (e.g., The Porto Alegre Charter).

The Cosmopolitical University

3. Political FuturesInternationalization as a strategy requires a theory of

internationalism which explicitly links HE and universities to political development through the notion of cosmopolitanism drawing on a theory of inter-institutionalism.

Cosmopolitanism differs from globalization • by valuing, promoting and protecting cultural diversity

(rather than cultural uniformity through the market);• By recognizing indigenous peoples and their right to

education;• by protecting and enhancing education as a global public

good.

Cosmopolitan DemocracyCosmopolitanism differs from internationalism • by questioning, transcending, and offering a critique of

the category of the nation-state (its naturalness and giveness) and - theories of nationalism insofar as they lead to jingoism, ethnic hatred, expansionism, militarism, or aggressive separatism;- theories of modernization associated with the development of the nation-state;

• by transcending territoriality per se• by encouraging a form of global citizenship based on

‘feeling at home in the world’ and the concept of cosmopolitan democracy inherent in Kant’s (1970) ‘Perpetual Peace’ that preserves a rights-based approach to education.

On cosmopolitanism and the university see Derrida (1994, 2001) and Beck (2004).

ReferencesBeck, U. (2004) ‘Cosmopolitan Realism: On the distinction between cosmopolitanism in philosophy

and the social sciences’, Global Networks, 4 (2): 131-156.Benkler, Y. (2006) The Wealth of Networks How Social Production Transforms Markets and

Freedom, New Haven and London, Yale University Press.Derrida, J. (1994) ‘Of the Humanities and the Philosophical Discipline. The Right to Philosophy from

the Cosmopolitical Point of View (the Example of an International Institution)’ Surfaces, Vol IV, http://www.pum.umontreal.ca/revues/surfaces/index.html.

Derrida, J. (2001) On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, London, Routledge.Johnes, G. (2004) ‘The global value of education and training exports to the UK economy,’ British

Council, at http://www.britishcouncil.org/global-value-of-education-and-training-exports-to-the-uk-economy.pdf

Kant, Emmanuel 1970 ‘Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose’ and ‘Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch,’ in H. Reiss and H.B. Nisbet (eds.) Kant: Poliitcal Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Middlehurst, R. & Woodfield, S. (2004) The Role of Transnational, Private, and For-Profit provision in Meeting Global Demand for Tertiary Education: Mapping, Regulation and Impact, Commonwealth of Learning & UNESCO, Center of Policy & Change in Tertiary Education, University of Surrey.

OECD (2004) Internationalization and Trade in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges. Paris: The Organisation.

Peters, M. (2006) ‘The Rise of Global Science and the Emerging Political Economy of International Research Collaborations,’ European Journal of Education, (forthcoming)

UNESCO (2004) ‘Higher Education in a Globalized Society’ A NESCO Education Position Paper, Paris.

The World Bank (2002) Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education at http://www1.worldbank.org/education/PDF/Constructing%20Knowledge%20Societies.pdf