The Right Honourable the Lord Lingfield

This year ABE celebrates the five decades since its foundation of a highly successful education service which is engaged in many parts of the world. It has proved that, in these times of change, one thing remains reassuringly constant, and that is the allure of British education. This country’s qualifications, its vocational education institutions and its universities remain very attractive on the global stage due to their relentless focus on standards and on ground-breaking research.

The UK’s high-quality education sector is one of the most important factors contributing to the country’s prestige and ‘soft power’. There is a conventional assumption that international students, as a result of their positive educational and cultural experiences here, will identify more closely with the UK, forming a cultural diaspora, and as they reach positions of influence in their home countries, will be inclined to favour British interests. Today, however, that image is being rightly transformed through an emerging shift in values. ABE’s education offer, whether in this country or abroad is distinctly inclusive, striving to accommodate diversity of thought and experience through its high-quality development of a curriculum that takes responsible care to blend British-led research with international inquiry and practice.

British institutions are leading the western world in reshaping the tertiary and higher education landscape, through the internationalisation of education. The task of creating a learning experience which represents universal knowledge and also respects local intellectual traditions and skills needs will be a necessary one for transnational education over the decade ahead and is of vital importance for building trust and achieving long-term global goals.

In the commercial world, translatable skills are essential for creating a space where professionals can be relied upon to conduct business in predictable, similar ways. Settling on a model of international standards to achieve this does not have to mean cultural convergence, rather management skills can be advanced as a technical facility available and understandable to all, to make international trade all the more frictionless amidst a mosaic of cultural differences.

ABE has made its practice to seek out equitable global partnerships and has focused on building human and institutional capacities which reflect not only the experience of learning and working in London or New York, but also in Accra, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, or New Delhi. I am encouraged also that alongside the development of technical business skills, ABE has promoted an international code of business ethics. Whilst most multinational firms have basic policies on employee integrity, there is relatively little educational space as yet dedicated to ethical guidelines in a global context concerning bribery, exploitive child labour, human rights violations and other issues that graduates may encounter in the global marketplace.

ABE deserves every congratulation on sustaining a global-local approach, on developing a modern and relevant curriculum, and on achieving half a century of success in the export of high quality education.