The challenge of building world class universities in the Asian region

The New Internationalism

Universities have long looked beyond national borders for the best qualified staff and the latest knowledge. But now the reach, the diversity and the intensity of international engagement is taking us to a new level which universities aspiring to world-class recognition must heed. The new internationalism will entail:

• The greatly increased international movement of students in both international enrolment study abroad programs.
• The training of educators to work effectively in a multi-cultural framework.
• Employment contracts for new academic staff requiring offshore as well as onshore deployment as the need arises.
• The marketing of education services on an international scale, and university budgets becoming more and more locked into this.
• Joint degrees and double badging of testamurs between like-minded institutions.
• The adaptation of the teaching/learning framework to an international context.
• Graduates regularly taking their university qualifications beyond national borders, as professional labour markets become truly internationalised.

But there are several cautions to be raised.

My first caution relates to that of the internationalisation of degree programs. While the UNSW programs will be international in the sense that they are at the cutting edge of world knowledge, they are also located in the Australian context.

International students come to Australian universities to experience the Australian dimension. So, even though universities are becoming more globally connected, internationalisation must not mean we give up our distinctive cultural frameworks and surrender to the homogeneity of the international degree. International standardisation may be acceptable for the McDonald’s hamburger, but the university is a different story.

A second word of caution on the new internationalism is that the great opportunity for universities to see their graduates moving back and forward across national borders should not be hobbled by national registration requirements. This would be a latter day version of tariff protection, which is not a happy thought to ponder.

Indeed we need to go beyond simply accepting that national borders should be open to professional qualification recognition and actively promote the idea of international mobility of university graduates.

There are choices to be made, and strategies to be set, and while it once took centuries to build reputation as a university of renown, the timeline on this has collapsed, imploded if you will. Because the discovery and transmission of knowledge is so accelerated, and because there is a whole new game plan for collaboration and co-operation, as well as competition, universities of world-class can emerge in a matter of decades.