TIM TURPIN, ROBYN IREDALE and PAOLA CRINNION
THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR AUSTRALIA AND ITS EDUCATION ‘CLIENTS’
ABSTRACT. Institutions of higher education are today under increasing pressure to internationalize their courses and programmes. The overall impact of this process is far from clear. This essay compares and contrasts patterns of Australian higher education offered to students from developing countries, with services delivered to Australian-born students. We suggest that the process of globalization is contributing to uneven economic and educational development, and may weaken the over-stretched educational systems of poorer countries.
I NTRODUCTION There has been much recent interest in the concept of ‘borderless education’.1 This concept takes two different forms. On the one hand, it refers to a mode of education that transcends the boundaries of the traditional university.2 In this case, it represents an extension of distance education, incorporating new forms of electronic communication, multi-campus communication and cross-sectoral alliances that cross national boundaries.3 From this perspective, the pressure on higher education to move into ‘borderless education’ is generally viewed as a product of, or as a response to, the process of globalization.4 Borderless education also refers to changes at the ‘borders’ that enable or repel access to education. From this perspective, new modes of delivery break down traditional boundaries. Thus, the recent World Bank Task Force on Higher Education assumes that new forms of delivery, such as distance learning, have ‘great potential in 1 Robin Middlehurst, ‘University Challenges: Borderless Higher Education, Today and Tomorrow’, Minerva, 39 (1), (2001), 3–26; and John Fielden, ‘Markets for ‘Borderless Education’, Minerva, 39 (1), (2001), 49–62. 2 Middlehurst, op. cit. note 1, 4. 3 Peter Scott, ‘Higher Education Sans Frontiers’, Minerva, 39 (1), (2001), 137–141. 4 Sheila Slaughter and Larry L. Leslie, Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
Minerva 40: 327–340, 2002. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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the developing world, offering a powerful channel for bringing education to groups that have previously been excluded’.5 This essay is concerned with both the transformation of ‘borders’ between and within states, and between institutions.6 Internationalization is not identical to globalization.7 Internationalization is, rather, both a product and a contributing factor to globalization. This has important consequences for both developed countries, and for their clients in the developing world. From our point of view, the impact of globalization is a process of social transformation in which the weakening of national boundaries is only part. The question is not how globalization has become so pervasive, nor what neo-liberal ideology or capitalist forces have driven it. Rather, our questions relate to the institutional transformations occurring within universities, as well as to the political processes in which they are embedded. Giddens refers to these national and institutional impacts of globalization when he says: Globalization not only pulls upward, but also pushes downwards, creating new pressures for local autonomy . . . [it] also squeezes sideways. It creates new economic and cultural zones within and across nations. . . . Everywhere we look, we see institutions that appear the same as they used to be from the outside, and carry the same names, but inside they have become quite different.8
This essay considers, first, to what extent the internationalization of higher education is today leading to a transformation of higher education within ‘selling’ countries. We use Australia as an exemplar and example. Although our data are based on the Australian experience, we suggest that they reflect broader trends. Second, we discuss how the increasingly ‘international’ flows of knowledge through ‘globalized’ systems can influence 5 Task Force on Higher Education and Society, Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000), 31. 6 Merle Jacob and Tomas Hellstrom have noted how academics and university administrators have increasingly become engaged in ‘boundary management’ with ‘mutual ignorance’ about the transformations with which each group is dealing. ‘From Networking Researchers to the Networked University’, in Merle Jacob and Tomas Hellstrom (eds.), The Future of Knowledge Production in the Academy (Buckingham: SRHE and Open University Press, 2000), 81–94. 7 While internationalism is hardly a new feature of university life, globalization embodies the capacity for deep-seated structural transformations. In this article, we distinguish between internationalization and globalization. However, we also distinguish between globalism or internationalism (as ideology) and globalization or internationalization (as process). See, for example, Phillip Jones, ‘Globalisation and Internationalism: Democratic Prospects for World Education’, Comparative Education, 34 (2), (1998), 143–155. 8 Anthony Giddens, Runaway World: How Globalisation is Reshaping Our Lives (London: Profile Books, 1999), 13–18.
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cultural and economic trajectories among ‘client’ countries. Our underlying aim is to analyse the implications of the international marketing of higher education in those countries to which Australia is exporting its educational services.
G LOBALIZATION AND THE ‘B ORDERS ’ OF H IGHER E DUCATION Universities operate in environments where knowledge and intellectual property are critical factors in economic development. Increasing global competition has meant that innovation, marketing, standard setting, quality control and networking have become as important to universities as to firms. Universities have responded to these challenges by adopting business principles and strategies, and by aggressively pursuing international markets. Marginson calls this the ‘marketization’ of higher education.9 Slaughter and Leslie prefer the term ‘academic capitalism’, because it captures the inherent clash in cultures and value systems.10 They note that since the 1980s, globalization has accelerated movements towards the market. These are deep-seated changes, they argue, ‘. . . where professional work began to be patterned differently, in kind rather than in degree’.11 John Ziman has proposed that the structural nature of these changes is such that it now makes sense to refer to ‘post-academic science’,12 while Gibbons et al. argue that the changes are so profound that they represent a new mode of knowledge production.13 Alternatively, Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff have theorised that negotiated alliances between universities, governments and industry have led to what they describe as a ‘triple helix’ of knowledge production.14 Underlying all these perspectives is the recognition that the relationships between academic disciplines, universities and their markets are undergoing a radical transformation. This ‘systematic transformation’ is not a sudden wave of invasion, but rather part of a continuous process of change in which ‘commercial 9 Simon Marginson, ‘Markets in Higher Education: Australia’, in J. Smyth (ed.), Academic Work: The Changing Labour Process in Higher Education (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995), 17–39. 10 Slaughter and Leslie, op. cit. note 4. 11 Ibid., 5. 12 John Ziman, Prometheus Bound (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 13 Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin Trow, The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London: Sage Publications, 1994). 14 Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff (eds.), Universities in the Global Knowledge Economy: A Triple Helix of Academic-Industry-Government Relations (London: Cassell, 1997).
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markets have been penetrating deeply and in new ways into knowledge production’.15 There is growing evidence of what Ziman calls a ‘new localism’, where the culture of the marketplace has engendered complex webs of collaborative partnerships between universities and industrial enterprises.16 It is within this context that the ‘borders’ of higher education are undergoing change. Our argument is, however, that far from becoming ‘borderless’, as many authors state, the existing ‘borders’ between sectors and disciplines are being reconstructed. Their realignment carries important implications for students in developing countries. Globalization may lead to new and progressive transnational alliances in an increasingly deregulated market. Alternatively, higher education, celebrated as an agent of empowerment, may become an ‘agent of disorder, of inefficiency, injustice and paralysis’.17 Which is it to be? That is the question.
T RADE IN H IGHER E DUCATION : T HE AUSTRALIAN E XPERIENCE Australia provides an example of an advanced industrial country that has experienced dramatic changes in higher education since the late 1980s. Australia has also sought to market its education services internationally. Given relative decreases in public funding and deregulation – allegedly to encourage competition in international markets – Australian institutions have recruited fee-paying students from overseas in increasing numbers. Many have also established offshore campuses. It is clear why this is so. At the World Education Market Conference in Vancouver in 2001, it was estimated that, by 2002, world trade in education would exceed US$90 billion. In this context, there is much jockeying and lobbying to form strategic international alliances. According to the Australian International Development Program (IDP), a newly-formed US firm called ‘eduventures.com’ recently concluded that:
15 See Stephen Hill and Tim Turpin, ‘Cultures in Collision: The Emergence of a New Localism in Academic Research’, in Marilyn Strathern (ed.), Shifting Contexts: Transformations in Anthropological Knowledge, ASA Conference Series, The Uses of Knowledge: Global and Local Relations (London: Routledge, 1995), 148. 16 Tim Turpin and Sam Garrett-Jones, ‘Changing Patterns of Research and Organisational Transformations’, in Nico Stehr and Peter Weingardt (eds.), Practising Interdisciplinarity (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2000), 79–109. 17 Alaine Touraine, Can We Live Together? Equality and Difference (London: Polity Press, 2000), 11.
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. . . during the next year or two, a handful of astute and strategically positioned investors will allocate at least US$2 billion to more than 60 equity investments and acquisitions in the education industry.18
Australian universities are seeking to expand into this lucrative market.19 As market share increases, so does income. For example, the University of Southern Queensland reports that 50 per cent of its non-government income now comes from international education. Australia, with a population of about nineteen million, has thirty-eight universities in its so-called Unified National System (UNS). This system is almost entirely public. Since 1987, substantial restructuring, together with government policies to promote international marketing, have fostered a competitive and business-oriented approach. University business has become big business, and location, low costs and relative security have enabled Australia to attract many overseas students. As shown in Table I, the total number of Australian students in higher education increased from 438,297 in 1989 to 695,485 in 2000. But in the same period, the proportion of overseas students rose from 4.8 per cent to 13.7 per cent, and the full-cost fee component increased to the point where almost all overseas students could be considered ‘international customers’. The first column includes both onshore and offshore students. Deregulation in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region has enabled foreign universities to set up campuses in competition with local institutions. This has led to Australian-owned universities establishing systems of offshore delivery. Table II shows the rapid growth in off-shore students from 1996 to 1999, followed by a slight drop in 2000. Within the Australian system, growth has not been uniform, but has been concentrated in the fields of business, health, science and law. Table III shows that between 1984 and 2000, annual student enrolments in business nearly trebled. Some fields recorded falls, with education showing the largest decrease. The growth in overseas student enrolments has contributed to both overall growth and the changing disciplinary balance. The vast majority of overseas students (over 95 per cent) in Australia come from developing or newly-industrialised countries. Table IV shows that Australia is a major destination for Indonesian, Singaporean and Malaysian students. This pattern carries important implications for these 18 International Development Program (IDP) Australia, quoted in Jim Lyon, ‘There’s Profit in Ideas’, The Australian Higher Education Supplement, 30 May 2001, 43. 19 See, for example, Western Australia Technology and Industry Advisory Council (TIAC), Export of Western Australian Education and Training: Constraints and Opportunities (Perth: TIAC, 2000), accessible at www.wa.gov.au/tiac.
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TABLE I International Students, with Number and Proportion of Fee-paying Students, 1989–2000 Year All overseas O/S fee-paying O/S as % of All students O/S as % of a students fee paying students all students students 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
21,112 24,998 29,630 34,076 37,152 40,494 46,187 53,188 62,996 72,183 83,111 95,607
7,902 14,664 21,202 27,230 27,939 33,667 38,872 51,250 60,487 68,342 78,072 n.a.
37.4 58.7 71.6 79.9 75.2 83.1 84.2 96.4 96.0 94.7 93.9 n.a.
438,297 481,947 530,704 553,773 575,616 579,085 598,220 627,837 687,805 702,787 710,623 695,485
4.8 5.2 5.6 6.2 6.5 7.0 7.7 8.5 9.2 10.3 11.7 13.7
Source: Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA), Higher Education Statistics (Canberra: DETYA, 2000); and Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Students 2000: Selected Higher Education Statistics Database (Canberra: DETYA, 2001) Table I. a Figures in this column include onshore and offshore students.
TABLE II International Students, Onshore and Offshore, 1996, 1999 and 2000 Location of studentsa
All O/S onshore students All O/S offshore students Proportion offshore (%)
1996
Year 1999
2000
44,313 9,996 22.6
57,661 26,643 46.2
71,716 23,891 33.3
Source: Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Overseas Students Statistics, 2001, (Canberra: DETYA, 2001); and Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Students 2000, Selected Higher Education Statistics Database (Canberra: DETYA, 2001), Table 77. a The total of onshore and offshore students is not exactly the same as ‘all overseas students’ in Table I, owing to the fact that the data are derived from different sources.
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TABLE III Distribution of Students by Field of Study, 1984–2000 (%) Year
Business
Law
Nurs.a
Health
Science
1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
18.1 18.3 18.4 18.7 19.5 20.9 21.8 21.2 21.1 20.9 21.1 21.6 22.9 23.4 24.3 25.2 26.0
3.2 3.0 2.6 2.9 2.7 2.7 2.9 3.1 3.3 3.4 3.7 3.9 4.0 4.4 4.6 4.7 5.2
0.8 1.5 1.2 3.4 4.2 4.9 5.4 5.9 6.2 # # # # # # # #
6.5 6.4 5.9 6.2 6.1 6.1 5.9 5.8 5.9 12.3 12.2 12.1 11.7 10.9 11.0 10.9 11.5
12.9 12.9 14.4 13.2 13.5 13.9 14.0 14.3 14.6 14.5 14.9 14.7 14.7 15.1 15.1 15.6 16.6
Educ. Engin. 20.8 20.5 20.3 18.6 17.5 16.6 15.5 15.0 14.1 13.3 12.5 11.8 11.2 10.7 10.4 10.2 10.6
8.0 7.7 7.6 7.8 7.5 7.6 7.5 7.6 7.9 7.9 8.1 8.1 7.8 7.3 7.1 7.1 7.3
Hum./ Other Soc.Sci 25.3 25.3 24.9 24.7 24.5 23.2 22.7 22.9 22.6 22.2 23.0 23.3 23.3 24.0 23.5 23.7 24.5
4.4 4.4 4.6 4.5 4.4 4.2 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.5 4.2 4.1 4.0 4.1
Total No. 354,041 366,730 382,956 388,200 414,630 438,297 481,947 530,704 553,773 575,616 579,085 598,220 627,837 687,805 702,787 710,623 695,485
Source: Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, National Report on Australia’s Higher Education (Canberra: DETYA, 1999), Table 3.7; and Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Students 2000, Selected Higher Education Statistics Database (Canberra: DETYA, 2001), Table 19. a From 1994, nursing enrolments were included in the health and medical science field of study.
countries, especially those with struggling economies and potentially unstable systems. AUSTRALIAN H IGHER E DUCATION P OLICY: F ROM ‘A ID ’ TO ‘T RADE ’ Australia’s role as an education service provider has become very significant in the Asia-Pacific region. Table IV compares Australia with other major educational exporters for selected ‘source’ countries. Some 14.8 per cent of all students from these source countries come to Australia. Australian universities attract over 25 per cent of the students from Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. The proportion of students from Latin America and Africa is also increasing. Australian policy concerning this global market has changed greatly. In the 1950s and 1960s, governments granted scholarships to foreign students, especially through the Colombo Plan, which began in 1951. During the same period, a few private students were admitted on a fee
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TABLE IV Comparison of Australia’s International Higher Education Services with Selected Countries, 1999 Education provider China Taiwan
India
United States 51,001 31,043 33,818 Australia 2,751 2,129 2,886 United Kingdom 4,017 3,570 2,965 Canada 2,310 725 745 New Zealand 467 376 74 Total 60,546 37,843 40,488 Proportion of above students enrolled in Australia (%)
4.5
5.6
7.1
Student source Malaysia Indonesia Singapore Thailand
Total
11,557 9,157 12,632 852 1,575 35,773
12,142 7,422 1,016 397 379 21,356
4,030 7,690 6,016 361 215 18,312
12,489 2,230 2,423 198 390 17,730
156,080 34,265 32,639 5,588 3,476 232,048
25.6
34.8
42.0
12.6
14.8
Source: Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Overseas Students Statistics (Canberra: DETYA, 2000).
structure that represented about 10–15 per cent of full cost.20 Places were tightly regulated by immigration control but, because the domestic student population was small, the proportion of overseas students (both scholarship and fee-paying) rose to around 10 per cent of total enrolments by the mid1960s. In the late 1970s, restrictions on the number of foreign students were lifted and a tuition fee was introduced. The fee was around onethird of actual cost. The balance between fees and costs was considered a component of ‘overseas aid’.21 Australian higher education services thus represented a combination of overseas aid and overseas trade. Throughout the 1980s, successive governments recognised the difficulty of sustaining ‘free’ tuition for local and overseas students, as well as subsidising international students. In 1985, a new Overseas Student Policy was introduced, which allowed unlimited overseas students providing they met institutional requirements and paid full costs. Legislation in 1987 ended subsidised higher education for overseas students, and from 1990 no new subsidised students were admitted. The transition from ‘aid’ to ‘trade’ generated considerable debate. Some argued against a market-based approach to students from developing countries. Others welcomed an ‘education export industry’. The latter 20 See Mathew Phillips and Charles Stahl, ‘The Internationalization of Australian Higher
Education’ (Wollongong: CAPSTRANS Working Paper, January 2001), accessible at www.uow.edu.au/research/centres/capstrans. 21 Ibid., 6.
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won the day. As a consequence, universities recruited overseas students to increase their state-capped revenues. Marketing was supported by national agencies including the Australian Education Centres, the International Development Program (IDP), and the Australian International Education Foundation (AIEF). In addition, groups of universities combined to form ‘business-focused’ alliances. L OCAL I MPLICATIONS FOR AUSTRALIANS What have been the implications of globalization and increased overseas student enrolments on the Australian universities, and on the ‘client’ countries from which these students come? First, there is much debate about the impact of full-fee-paying foreign students upon educational quality, standards and processes. In a recent case, a senior academic was dismissed for, among other things, asserting that overseas students were being assessed more generously than their Australian counterparts.22 Although the academic was later reinstated, the legal case, which followed his dismissal, brought into focus the local implications of competitive international marketing. At stake are costs and benefits, not only for purchasing countries, but also for education-exporting countries. To what extent are international markets steering higher education away from the ‘knowledge’ demands of both domestic and overseas populations? Or, put another way, is the market-driven system responding appropriately to demands in a situation of potentially unequal returns? International and local markets create different demands. For example, the expectations and needs of Aboriginal communities in Australia place different demands on the system. These needs and the market forces they generate are not constant. An analysis of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) enrolments in Australian universities demonstrates that higher education appears to be responding to a range of domestic socio-political forces.23 There are considerable socio-economic problems confronting Australia’s indigenous communities and limited access to higher education is only one factor. Data on Aboriginal enrolments suggest a slow but gradual improvement of overall Aboriginal participation in higher education. Aboriginal participation is also becoming broader in terms of the higher education knowledge base. This trend can be observed across fields of study. Table V shows enrolments by field of study for all students, non22 Grahame McCulloch, ‘Arbitrary Dismissal at Wollongong – An Issue for all NTEU
Members’, The Advocate, 8 (1), 3, April 2001. 23 Australian data usually include Aborigines classified as Torres Strait Islanders.
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TABLE V All Students, Non-Aboriginal Students, Overseas Students and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students in Australian Universities by Field of Study, 2000 Broad field of study
All students
no. Agriculture, Animal Husbandry Architecture, Building Arts, Humanities and Social Science Business, Admin., Economics Education Engineering, Surveying Health Law, Legal Studies Science Veterinary Science Non-award Totala
695,485
%
Non-Aboriginal Australian students no. %
Overseas students
ATSI students(a)
no.
%
no.
%
11,136 15,463
1.6 2.2
10,587 12,809
1.8 2.2
427 2,598
0.4 2.7
122 56
1.7 0.8
170,237
24.5
157,142
26.5
10,301
10.8
2,794
38.0
180,503 73,680 50,780 79,731 36,331 115,396 1,864 8,807
26.0 133,588 10.6 69,147 7.3 42,683 11.5 71,161 5.2 34,860 16.6 99,330 0.3 1,652 1.3 6,090
22.5 11.7 7.2 12.0 5.9 16.8 0.3 1.0
46,252 2,509 7,995 7,598 1,001 15,620 195 2,705
48.4 663 2.6 2,024 8.4 102 7.9 972 1.0 470 16.3 4 46 0.2 17 2.8 12
9.0 27.5 1.4 13.2 6.4 6.1 0.2 0.2
100.0
95,607
100.0
592,528
100.0
7,350
100.0
Source: Department of Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, Students 2000: Selected Higher Education Statistics Database (Canberra: DETYA, 2001), Tables 19 and 66. a The data take into account the coding of combined courses to two fields of study. As a consequence, counting both fields of study for combined courses means that the total may be less than the sum of all broad fields of study
Aboriginal Australian students, overseas students and ATSI students in 2000. The data reveal that 24.5 per cent of all students were enrolled in arts/social science degrees, 26.0 per cent in business/economics degrees, 10.6 per cent in education, and 16.6 per cent in science degrees. Among ATSI students, 38.0 per cent were enrolled in arts/social science, 27.5 per cent in education, and 9.0 per cent in business degrees. The high concentration of ATSI students in education is a continuation of past patterns and reflected the need to produce Aboriginal teachers. However, the pattern has shifted in recent years. The above average growth in law and health reflects demand for a stronger human services sector, but a low level of participation in architecture and engineering continues. Many factors contribute to these differences, including local demands for services and employment opportunities. The health service debate, for example, has led to programmes to raise the proportions of Aborigines and
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Torres Strait Islanders in health care.24 Similarly, land rights issues and high levels of violence and incarceration among Aboriginal youth have led to political demands for Aboriginal youth and legal service practitioners.25 There appears to be a close relationship between the need of indigenous people for knowledge, and the pattern of university enrolments. As market forces deepen, what will be the implications of increasing dependence on overseas markets and the growth of, say, business and commerce, for the educational demands of Australia’s Aboriginal population? Such questions at present remain unanswered. I MPLICATIONS FOR ‘C LIENT ’ C OUNTRIES The same question is equally relevant to the needs of developing countries. To what extent are developing countries benefiting from an increasingly globalised education. Are they gaining access to knowledge that will contribute to social and economic development? Table V shows that 48.4 per cent of all overseas students in Australia are enrolled in business degrees, while only 10.8 per cent are enrolled in arts/social sciences. While there is obviously a demand for commercial knowledge and business skills in developing countries, to what extent is this serving or undermining capacity-building more generally? Our interpretation is that the pattern of enrolment of overseas students in Australia is indicative of the demand arising from a comparatively small elite having the capacity to pay more for higher education than it would otherwise pay at home. To some extent, one can argue that the numbers of overseas students enrolled in business courses in Australia (or elsewhere) reflect a failure of home institutions to respond to market demands. While this may be so, our concern is that the implications for higher education in these developing countries will be profound. The data suggest a dual problem for these ‘client’ countries. First, there is a flight of capital from local universities to overseas-based institutions. Second, the local capital and international knowledge flows are concentrated within a narrow range of areas. As a result, university systems in ‘client’ countries may lose the capital that would otherwise support them. Moreover, the knowledge acquired overseas is being channelled more into the business sector than into knowledge-building. Among ‘purchasing’ 24 See, for example, Bob Boughton, Popular Education, Capacity-Building and Action
Research: Increasing Aboriginal Community Control of Education and Health Research (Casuarina: Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health, 2001). 25 The political demands and government responses through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), Aboriginal education agencies, such as the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD), and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, are well documented in numerous reports from these agencies.
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countries, will their local higher education institutions increasingly focus on the forms of knowledge that are currently under-represented in the Australian export commodity? To the extent that ‘client countries’ systems are subjugated, rather than supported, by overseas universities, they may remain dependent upon foreign knowledge-building capabilities generally. What is the future for indigenous communities in these ‘client’ countries? Throughout the 1980s, international agencies such as the World Bank were influential in arguing for the internationalization of higher education. At a meeting of African vice-chancellors in 1986, the World Bank suggested that higher education was a ‘luxury’, and that African universities might be better off ‘closing their doors’ and training graduates overseas.26 In particular, the World Bank singled out the Arts and Humanities to be cut back.27 However, in the late 1980s, the World Bank and developing countries diverged, and at the Jontien conference in 1990, Latin American, African and Asian delegates successfully argued that higher education should be not considered simply as a means to economic development, but rather as a mechanism for strengthening the knowledge base at all levels and across all fields. Article 8 in the Declaration on Education for All drafted at this conference and published subsequently, included the following statement: Societies should also ensure a strong intellectual and scientific environment for basic education. This implies improving higher education and developing scientific research. Close contact with contemporary technological and scientific knowledge should be possible at every level of education.28
Recently, the World Bank has taken a more holistic view of higher education. Peril and Promise, published in 2000, emphasized that higher education in developing countries is increasingly subject to fee-based education.29 However, there is little evidence of any international structures emerging to counteract the undermining of local systems through the uncontrolled vagaries of international academic markets. The Australian data appear to show a trend consistent with the World Bank’s approach in the 1980s. As a representative of IDP Australia has put it, IDP is aggressively chasing a larger part of the market knowing that we have, through our association with the universities and our existing networks and so on, access to a huge amount of really top class knowledge.30 26 Kingsley Banya and Juliet Elu, ‘The Crisis of Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Continuing Search for Relevance’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 19 (2), (1997), 151–166. 27 Ibid., 162. 28 Quoted in Banya and Elu, op. cit. note 26, 162. 29 Task Force on Higher Education and Society, op. cit. note 5. 30 Lyon, op. cit. note 18, 43.
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Where global alliances are driven by business interests, they may deliver economic benefits to some countries, but not to others. However, to the extent they are successful, local institutions may become poorer. Ultimately, it remains for international alliances and transnational mechanisms to determine whether they will deliver ‘promise’ or ‘peril’ for developing countries. This suggests an important agenda for future research. To understand the impact of globalization on higher education, attention should focus not so much on national boundaries, but rather on the emerging nature of alliances. A truly transnational higher education system – that is, one that is inclusive, responsive and transcultural rather than exclusive, conservative and monocultural – would be conducive to more even development.
C ONCLUSION Universities are being transformed through globalization. The market has come to bear heavily upon the universities in Australia, and institutional responses have become framed by global perspectives. The implications of this for developing economies, the indigenous community and the universities themselves is far from clear. Moreover, it may be that the disciplinary balance is being skewed by the market demands of a small but comparatively wealthy and influential international market. An irony of globalization is that it increases demands for diversity.31 The internationalization of Australian higher education follows this trend. The current university enrolment profile of ATSI, Australian nonAboriginal and overseas students illustrates the differing demands for higher education. If this diversity actually reflects need, then universities will require an increasing range of technological options, with pluralistic policies to keep these options open.32 However, universities have scarcely begun to develop such policies, or to evaluate their implications. While international comparisons are the norm, there is a growing need to assess intranational outcomes as well. The former keeps alive ‘North/South’ distinctions of access and equity. The latter opens the way to an alternative approach. Our analysis suggests international higher education should be evaluated at four levels of activity.33 At 31 This argument has been well developed by Alaine Touraine in his analysis of ‘global networks and the return to community’, op. cit. note 17, 1–15. 32 Arie Rip, ‘Fashions, Lock-ins and the Heterogeneity of Knowledge Production’, in Jacob and Hellstrom (eds.), op cit. note 6, 28–39. 33 Our colleagues from the University of Twente have suggested a fifth level for investigation and analysis: ‘regional’ or supra national. Certainly in the Asia-Pacific region there
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the transnational level, questions must be asked about the emerging shape of international alliances. Who are they with and who ‘calls the tune’? At the national level, there are questions concerning the capacity of higher education to respond to socio-economic demands. At the local level, there are questions about the level of participation of minorities in multicultural societies and in the wealthy and developed economies. Finally, at the institutional level, there are questions about the impact of internationalization on universities themselves, and on the disciplines and procedures they ‘manage’. It is only when these questions have been put and answered, that we will begin to understand the impact of globalization and internationalization on the needs of indigenous communities and developing countries.
A BOUT THE AUTHORS Tim Turpin is Deputy Director of the Australian Expert Group in Industry Studies (AEGIS) at the University of Western Sydney. His research is concerned with national science, technology and innovation policies, and with the transformation of institutions involved in the production and diffusion of knowledge. Robyn Iredale is a demographer within the School of Geosciences at the University of Wollongong. She has published widely on migration, mobility and social change. She has been particularly concerned with the relationship between public policy, the professions and the utilization of skills. Paola Crinnion is a researcher at the International Business Research Institute at the University of Wollongong. Her academic background is in statistics and demography. Her current research concerns the relationship between globalization and regional development. Australian Expert Group in Industry Studies City Research Centre University of Western Sydney PO Box Q 1287 QVB Post Office Sydney, NSW 1230, Australia E-mail: t.turpin@uws.edu.au is emerging evidence of higher education regional development through forums such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC).
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