The internationalisation of higher education has been described by
specialists from the South as a neo-colonial, imperialist or – more
mildly – Western concept. It is an undisputed fact that the policy and
practice of internationalisation has been primarily driven and
controlled from the Anglo Saxon world and continental Europe, with the
South being at the receiving end.
This is obvious in the dominance of Western higher education systems,
research, academic publishing, patents, mobility flows, transnational
operations and partnerships. The dominant position of Western
universities in rankings also clearly shows that they still control
global higher education policy and practice.
Western domination challenged
At the same time, we see an increasing challenge to this dominance of the North.
The emergence of education hubs in the South, the shift to South-South
mobility of students and scholars, the rise of Southern universities in
the international rankings, and the quantitative and qualitative
revolution taking place in higher education in the South, are
challenging the traditional dominance of Western higher education and
through that its internationalisation.
Recent publications and conference presentations illustrate this
development. In a recent paper in the Trends and Insights series of NAFSA (Association of International Educators), Yenbo Wu, associate
vice-president for international education at San Francisco State
University and a member of the NAFSA board of directors, speaks of
‘Regional Globalism and International Higher Education in Asia’.
At the annual conference of International Education Association of South
Africa held in Cape Town from 29-31 August, changes in higher education
and the role of Africa were discussed.
Key issues were addressed, such as: is Africa with its 55 countries a
region with clear common characteristics in its higher education
systems? Is North Africa not, for instance, more closely linked to the
Middle East? What about Francophone East Africa, which has been rather
absent from the discourse on African higher education?
What about the specific role of South Africa – does it have more of a
Western system or an African one, or does its higher education lie
somewhere in between? What about the growing role of private and
religious higher education in Africa? And what about the increased
presence of China in the region and the sector?
There were more questions than answers, but the debate is still open and
will have serious implications for African higher education and its
internationalisation.
In his presentation to the IEASA conference, James Jowi of the African
Network for Internationalisation of Education (ANIE) acknowledged the
risks that the dominant presence of external forces in African higher
education creates, such as brain drain, commercialisation and
manipulation. But he also sees lots of opportunities for developing
African policies and strategies.
Others were more pessimistic. According to them, African higher
education and its internationalisation are still primarily driven by
external forces, even though those forces are shifting towards Asia, in
particular China, and the Middle East.
Damtew Teferra, a specialist in African higher education from Ethiopia
who is now working in South Africa, stressed the increase in private
higher education, including fraudulent diploma and accreditation mills,
as well as a wide range of religious-based higher education
institutions.
Dependence on external forces, he says, is hindering the
internationalisation of Africa’s higher education. This, and the fact
that the continent's 55 countries lack a common system and culture and
face different challenges and complexities, make it impossible to talk
of a single African higher education system and a single approach to
internationalisation.
Yet, at the same time, all agree that there is more to lose if Africa does not internationalise.
As James Jowi says in a paper, “Counting the Gains and Losses: Africa
and the global talent race”, published by the European Association for
International Education for its 2012 conference in Dublin:
“For the coming years Africa’s biggest resource will be its relatively
large but young population. This should be cause for optimism, yet the
current stampede for talent could contribute to even more global
polarisation, and compound the negative impacts of brain drain for
African universities.”
Nevertheless, he also sees opportunities, although not any time soon,
for growing academic mobility within Africa and a “healthy balance for
Africa in the global race for talent”.
Africa is the world’s most internationalised system
During the conference, reference was made several times to a statement I
made at the 2012 Going Global conference of the British Council in
London.
I said that Africa, a region that in terms of numbers of academics with a
foreign degree, numbers of graduates with a study-abroad experience and
the amount of knowledge and concepts from abroad it has imported, has
probably the most internationalised higher education system in the
world.
But the impact of that is not necessarily positive, and maybe first
Africa has to go through a process of de-internationalisation, to
liberate itself from these external influences, before it can develop
its own position in the global knowledge society.
At the IEASA Conference I elaborated on that statement and said – with reference to my April blog in University World News
on the international education conferences circus – that it might
indeed be perceived as arrogant that sister organisations of IEASA, such
as NAFSA, were not present at the IEASA conference.
But this is sustained by the fact that Africans, like Asians and Latin
Americans, continue to attend the NAFSA and European Association for
International Education conferences in larger numbers than their own
conferences.
And they keep copying the concepts, strategies and policies developed by
their Western counterparts without developing their own innovative
ideas about how to internationalise their higher education systems.
Innovation and change is needed, and needs to come most particularly from Africa and other emerging economies in the South.
Source: University World News
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