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ISBN 4--9TRANSNATIONALHIGHER EDUCATIONINASIA ANDTHE PACIFIC REGIONMarch 2006RIHE InternationalPublicationSeries No.10Transnational Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific RegionRIHE International Publication Series, No.10, March 2006Table of ContentsRIHE International Publication Series, No.10RIHE InternationalPublication Series No.10TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC REGIONHiroshima UniversityMarch 2006List of Contributors
iIntroduction Futao Huang
vAustralia’s transnational higher education in the Asia-Pacific region:
Its strategies and quality assurance Kazuhiro Sugimoto
1Transnational higher education in mainland China:
A focus on foreign degree-conferring programs
Futao Huang
21Transnational higher education in Hong Kong: An analysis
35Transnational higher education in Japan Yoko Tsuruta
59Transnational higher education of Korea: The task and prospects
Man-Hee Lee
91Transnational higher education in Malaysia:
Balancing benefits and concerns through regulations Sirat Morshidi
109The quest for a regional hub of higher education:
Transnational higher education and changing governance in Singapore Ka Ho Mok
127Transnational higher education in Taiwan Mei-Mei Song and Hsiou-Hsia Tai
151Research Institute for Higher EducationHiroshima UniversityEdited by Futao Huangひょうし.indd , 9:361
RIHE Publication: For a complete and up-to-date guide to
books, visit our website: http://en.rihe.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/ (English web site address).Copyright: All rights reserved.
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written permission from Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, to whom all requests to reproduce copyright material should be directed, in writing.Transnational Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific RegionEdited by Futao HuangPublished by:Research Institute for Higher EducationHiroshima University1-2-2, Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, 739-8512, JapanTEL: +81-82-424-6240, FAX: +81-82-422-7104Printed by: Nishiki Print Co., Ltd.7-5-33, Shyoko Center, Nishi-ku, Hiroshima, 733-0833, JapanMarch 2006ISBN 4--9ひょうし.indd , 9:362
Transnational Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific RegionRIHE International Publication Series, No. 10, March 2006 Contents List of Contributors
i Introduction
Futao Huang
????????????????vAustralia’s transnational higher education in the Asia-Pacific region:
Its strategies and quality assurance Kazuhiro Sugimoto
1Transnational higher education in mainland China:
A focus on foreign degree-conferring programs
Futao Huang
21Transnational higher education in Hong Kong: An analysis
????????????????????????????????35Transnational higher education in Japan Yoko Tsuruta
59Transnational higher education of Korea: The task and prospects
Man-Hee Lee
? ????????????????? 91 Transnational higher education in Malaysia:
Balancing benefits and concerns through regulations Sirat Morshidi
????????????????109The quest for a regional hub of higher education:
Transnational higher education and changing governance in Singapore Ka Ho Mok
???????????? ????127Transnational higher education in Taiwan Mei-Mei Song and Hsiou-Hsia Tai
iList of Contributors
Futao Huang is an Associate professor in the Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Japan.
He earned his PhD in China.
His major research interests include: (1) a comparative study of university curricul (2) policy changes, organizations, structures and governance patterns relating to higher education in China and J and (3) internationalization of higher education in East Asia.
He has published widely in Chinese, Japanese and English.
His recent publications include “Qualitative Enhancement and Quantitative Growth: Changes and Trends of China’s Higher Education” (Higher Education Policy 2005); “Transnational Higher Education: A Perspective from China” (Higher Education Research & Development 2003); “Internationalization of Higher Education in an Age of Globalization – Historic and Comparative Perspectives” (Peking University Education Review 2003, in Chinese); and “A Comparative Study in University Curricula between China and Japan” (IDE. Gendai No Koutoukyouiku 2002, in Japanese). Man-Hee Lee is Professor in the Department of Intercultural Studies, Poole Gakuin University, Japan.
He was previously a director of the Higher Education Studies Office in the Korean Education Development Institute.
He was awarded his MA in the field of International Relations, and his PhD in the field of Political Economy and International Political Ecomony, from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea.
His research has specialized in the areas of reform of higher education, military human resources development systems, globalization of education services (GATS), and by the role of government in education administration systems with a regional focus on Korea and Japan.
He has also contributed papers in regard to reforms of higher education, military human resources development, and globalization of education services in Korea. Ka Ho Mok is Professor in East Asian Studies and Founding Director of the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol.
Before he joined the University of Bristol, he was Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, City University of Hong Kong.
He was President of the Comparative Education Society, Hong Kong, and Chairman of the Hong Kong Educational Research Association.
Professor Mok has published extensively in comparative education policy and governance.
His most recent books include Education Reform and Education Policy in East Asia (London: Routledge 2006); Globalization and Marketization: A Comparative Analysis of Hong Kong and Singapore (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 2004) [co-authored with Jason Tan]; and Globalization and Educational Restructuring in the Asia Pacific Region (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2003) [co-edited with Anthony Welch].
iiSirat Morshidi is Professor of Geography at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and since 2002 he has been Director of the National Higher Education Research Institute (IPPTN) based at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang.
As Director of IPPTN, Professor Morshidi is active in contract research and consultancy work for the World Bank, UNESCO-Bangkok and several public agencies in Malaysia, in particular the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.
His research and consultancy works are very much focused on graduate unemployment problems and employability issues, the role of higher educational institutions in regional development, and transnational higher education.
He is the series editor for IPPTN’s Higher Education Research Monographs and under this series he has edited the following monographs: Ethnic Integration in Public Higher Educational Institutions;University Curriculum: an Evaluation on Preparing Graduates for Employment.
Morshidi is also the author/co-author for the following publications: Admission to Public Institutions of Higher Education . Description of Patterns and Trends;Academic Performance (Value added concept) and Employability of Graduates of Higher Educational Institutions; Unemployment Problems among Graduates; and USM Sri Ampangan Campus: Hopes and Perceptions of the Local Community. As a geographer, he has published widely in international journals such as Urban Studies, CITIES, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Asian Geographer, Built Environment, and Asian Profile. Mei-Mei Song is a higher education analyst and an Assistant Professor in the College of Global Research and Development at Tamkang University in Taiwan. She received her bachelor’s degree from National Chengchi University in Taiwan and her MA and EdD degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University in the U.S.
Dr. Song’s academic interests focus on research and policy topics in higher education. Her current research also extends to the development of private universities, institutional assessment, and university governance.Kazuhiro Sugimoto is an Associate Professor, Education Center, Kagoshima University, Japan.
He was previously a COE Research Fellow at the Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University ().
He gained his PhD in comparative education from Nagoya University in 2001. His research interests are reforms, quality assurance, governance and management, and internationalisation in Australian higher education.
He published his PhD thesis, entitled Australian Higher Education Reforms in the Postwar Era (Toshindo, in Japanese), in 2003. Hsiou-Hsia Tai is Professor at the Institute of Education, and Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.
Her research interest is in comparative higher education policies.
She has published widely on themes such as expansion and marketization of higher education, globalization and internationalization of higher education and is the author and editor of several books.
Her recent publications have focused on the quest for academic excellence and relevant policies.
iiiYoko Tsuruta is a DPhil candidate, University of Oxford, and a COE Researcher, Tokyo Institute of Technology.
She studied intercultural communication and interpretation at International Christian University (BA), educational psychology and cultural adaptation at Yokohama National University (MEd) and then comparative and international education at the University of Oxford (MSc).
Her major research interests are higher education (in particular, in Japan, the Europ ean Union and the United Kingdom), psychological and social research methodology (quantitative and qualitative) and comparative culture and education.
Her recent publications include ‘Globalisation and the Recent Reforms in Japanese Higher Education’ in Can the Japanese Change Their Education System? Oxford Studies in Comparative Education (Symposium Books 2003) and ‘Gurobaruka Chiikika Kokusaika nomotodeno Shogai Gakushu no Igi to Kadai – Oshu Rengo no Kyoiku Kunren Seisaku wo Chushin toshit e’ [The Meaning and Implications of ‘Lifelong and Lifewide Learning’ in the Context of Globalisation, Regionalisation and Internationalisation with Special Reference to the Education and Training Policies of the European Union] in Social Education and Lifelong Learning under Globalisation, Studies in Adult and Community Education, No. 49 (Toyokan Shuppansha 2005). Rui Yang is Senior Lecturer at the Monash Centre for Research in International Education, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
He was an associate professor at a Chinese university before he commenced his doctoral studies at the University of Hong Kong in 1996.
After receiving a PhD from the University of Sydney in March 2001, he was Lecturer at the University of Western Australia during 2001-02.
He joined Monash University in 2003 and became Senior Lecturer in 2004.
His research interests include comparative and cross-cultural analysis of ed globalization, internationalization and educational reforms; social, policy studies in education, educational development in Asia Pacific countries, higher education reforms, and the changing nature of academic work.
He is the author of one English and two Chinese books, and has published dozens of academic articles internationally in both English and Chinese.
vIntroduction This volume is mainly concerned with transnational higher education in some selected countries in Asia and the Pacific region.
Compared with other parts of the world, especially since the 1990s, there has been a rapid development of transnational higher education in this area.
Issues concerning importing and exporting higher education activities or services have become one of the major debates in higher education reforms in many countries and regions at both policy and institutional levels.
In a major sense, Asia and the Pacific region is the most important and active area in which transnational higher education has occurred.
Moreover, policies and strategies concerning transnational higher education in many countries and areas in Asia and the Pacific region have recently gained increased attention and visibility.
Though there exists a vast diversity in the selected countries and regions, this volume has been designed to address four of the shared major research questions.
First, what is the context, rationale, or driving force for development of transnational higher education in each of the individual case studies?
Second, what policies or regulations, if any, concerning transnational higher education exist in the selected countries?
And if there are any, what are they?
Third, what are the current circumstances, issues, characteristics and general trends of transnational higher education in these case studies?
Finally, what outcomes or effects have been brought about by develop ments in transnational higher education?
In our attempt to be comprehensive and from a comparative perspective to provide a general picture of transnational higher education in this area, we have included major countries and regions in Asia and the Pacific region that illustrate a variety of transnational higher education.
The volume consists of the following sections: Australia’s transnational higher education in the Asia-Pacific region: its strategies and quality assura transnational higher education in mainland China: a focus on foreign degree-confe transnational higher education in Hong Kong: an an transnational higher education in J transnational higher education in Korea: the task and prosp transnational higher education in Malaysia: balancing benefits and concerns through
the quest for a regional hub of higher education: transnational higher education and changing governance in Singap and transnational higher education in Taiwan.
These eight case studies were selected so as to provide a variety of examples of development of transnational higher education in this region: China represents developing A Japan represents developed A while Australia offers an example in the Pacific region of multiple cross-border programs.
In short, by making comparative studies,
we may discover similarities and distinctive aspects of transnational higher education among the different countries or regions and obtain ins ights into how transnational higher education has been undertaken in order to meet the needs of different countries or regions as well as how it has affected individual higher education systems in recent years.
There are many views on transnational higher education.
For example, according to UNESCO,
vi the term ‘transnational education’ is generally defined as that ‘in which the learners are located in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is based’ (UNESCO-CEPES 2000).
Accordingly, if ‘transnational higher education’ is regarded as a part of postsecondary and tertiary education and training, it may take any of forms listed below (GATE 1999).
?Branch Campuses: campuses set up by an institution in another country to provide its educational or training programs to foreign students.
?Franchises: an institution (A) approves provision by an institution (B) in another country of one or more of A’s programs to students in B’s country.
?Articulation: the systematic recognition by an institution (A) of specified study at an institution (B) in another country as partial credit towards completion of a program at institution A.
?Twinning: agreements between institutions in different countries to offer joint programs.
?Corporate Programs: programs offered by large corporations for academic credit from institutions, which often involve credit transfer across national borders.
?Online Learning and Distance Education Programs: those distance education programs that are delivered through satellites, computers, correspondence, or other technological means across national boundaries.
?Study Abroad: a student from institution (A) travels to take courses at institution B in a different country and to live there for a fixed period of time.
Moreover, Jane Knight argues that ‘transnational’ and ‘borderless’ as well as ‘cross-border’ education are terms that are being used to describe real or virtual movement of students, teachers, knowledge and educational programs from one country to another.
While there may be some conceptual differences between these terms, they are often used interchangeably (Knight 2002). In this volume, the term ‘transnational higher education’ is mainly concerned with any cross-border or inter-regional higher edu cation activities or services in a broad sense: just as the definition of transnational higher education varies widely, it can take different forms according to individual countries and regions.
Since in many non English-speaking countries there is no equivalent term for transnational higher education, many of these countries adopt other usages to denote the similar meaning.
For example, in China transnational education is often identified as Zhongwai Hezuo Banxue in Chinese, meaning ‘co-operation between China and foreign countries in operation or management of higher education institutions to offer various educational programs’.
In fact, even in an English-sp eaking country like Australia, the term “transnational higher education” is defined in a
much broader sense.
As pointed out by Sugimoto in his study, it denotes ‘any education or training at higher education level provided beyond national or regional borders through mobility of people, program or institution’.
Accordingly, this definition includes the so-called international education
vii (often referred as ‘onshore education’ in Australia) provided to international students coming to Austr and it also covers distance learning or e-learning delivered to students living outside Australia.
Furthermore, a variety of terms similar to ‘transnational’, such as ‘offs hore’, ‘cross-border’ and ‘borderless’, are sometimes used interchangeably. Although transnational higher education inevitably involves cross-border movement of programs, infor mation, materials, and/or staff, different forms can be found in the individual case studies.
For example, transnational activities in Taiwanese higher education are present in three areas: study abroad, twinning programs, and online learning.
In Singapore, there are ‘external’ distance education programs and foreign university branch campuses; whereas in Japan student exchange or movement is the most developed.
In contrast, in Hong Kong and China, there has been an export flow of students abroad to programs in other countries.
Moreover, based on the characteristics of transnational higher education, at least three distinguishing types of transnational higher education can be identified: an Import-Oriented T an Import & Export T and an Export-Oriented Type.
To illustrate, in Asia and the Pacific region, Australia is the major example of a country that provides transnational higher education in ot her Asian countries and regions.
China and Japan provide typical examples of importing foreign higher education services though they have made great efforts in exporting their own higher education services to other countries in the most recent years.
As for Singapore and Hong Kong, on the one hand, they are importing foreign higher education activities from Australia, United Kingdom and the United and States, and on the other hand, they are also exporting their higher education activities to other Asian countries such as mainland China.
The case studies in this volume also reveal that various factors have impacted significantly on the policies and strategies for transnational higher education in Asia and the Pacific region.
For example, in Australia they are concerned with mutual understanding, skilled migration, revenue generation, and capacity building.
The main rationale for HK consumers in choosing transnational programs is to gain an international education, which is particularly valued for its reputation for quality.
In mainland China and Singapore as well as in Malaysia, one of the important driving forces for introducing foreign higher education activities is to increase higher education enrolments and quicken the pace of massification of their higher education.
However, it shou ld be emphasized that enhancement of competitiveness and academic quality in the context of a globalizing economy are two common factors affecting all these countries and regions in providing or importing transnational higher education activities.
The major issues concerning transnational higher education in this area, issues concerning how the quality of transnational higher education can be assured and how a national identity and character can be maintained are shared by many countries, especially by those belonging to the Import-Oriented Type.
Due to the different national policies and strategies, three distinguishing approaches towards transnational higher education can be perceived in the eight case studies: a government-regulated approach, a market-oriented approach, and a transitional approach characterized by transfer from a
viii state-controlled approach to a free-market approach.
China, Malaysia and Korea provide striking examples of the government-regulated approach.
Policies concerning transnational higher education in Australia and Hong Kong represent a typically fr ee-market approach.
Currently, Japan and Taiwan are attempting to introduce a free-market approach and to implement deregulation in this regard.
As stated in the case study of Japan, while the Japanese government has changed its strict policy based on a territorial principle to one recognizing off-shore education provision of Japanese and of foreign institutions, this does not necessarily imply a diminution of the role or governance of the nation state. A special mention should be made of the approach employed in this volume.
We have been concerned not only with the differences existing in the selected case studies or in how specific government policies and national identities have impacted on transnational higher education but also with the many similarities shared by each country and region and how broad global factors impacted on transnational higher education in individual countries and regions.
The editor hopes that a much clearer and more general picture of transnational higher education in Asia and the Pacific region can be provided by discussing those aspects of transnational higher education noted earlier and that the eight case studies will help readers have a fuller understanding of what is happening in Asia and the Pacific region and what challenging issues are facing the selected countries and regions.
Last but not at least, the editor would like to extend his sincere thanks to Professor Keith J. Morgan for his painstaking efforts in checking and revising almost all the manuscripts.
At the same time, the editor also wants to express his deep gratitude to Ms. Masayo Daikoku for her assistance in editing the book.
Without their generous help and hard work, it would have been difficult to publish this volume. Futao Huang Research Institute for Higher Education Hiroshima University, Japan References GATE (1999). Trade in Transnational Education Services. Washington: Global Alliance for Transnational Education. Knight, J. (2002). ‘Trade in higher education services: The implications of GATS’, The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education. Online information available at http://www.obhe.ac.uk/ accessed on July 23 2005.
UNESCO/Council of Europe (2000). Code of Good Practice in the Provision of Transnational Education. Bucharest.: UNESCO-CEPES.
RIHE International Publication Series 10: 1-19, 2006Australia’s transnational higher education in the Asia-Pacific region: Its strategies and quality assurance KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO Education Center, Kagoshima University, Korimoto 1-21-30, Kagoshima, 890-0065, Japan (E-mail: sugimoto@ms.kagoshima-u.ac.jp) Abstract.
The recent emergence of a global higher education market is associated with new forms of higher education, transnational education, on a global scale.
This article deals with the recent developments of Australian transnational higher education in the Asia-Pacific region.
It scrutinizes developments mainly from two perspectives.
First, it reviews historical development of internationalization in Australian higher education and the current Australian policies and strategies
adopted for the promotion of transnational education activities in the region.
Second, it seeks to clarify how Australian higher education maintains and enhances the quality of those activities at both institutional and national level.
The Australian case provides a good example to examine the significance of national initiatives in assuring the quality of transnational education. Introduction Globalization of the higher education market Internationalization of higher education has been promoted dramatically since the 1980s, driven by the large increase in the number of students studying outside their home countries.
The number of international students across the world increased from 0.94 million in 1988 to 1.61 million in 1998 (a growth rate of approximately 70% in the decade), and reached 1.9 million in 2002 (OECD 2004a).
Such accelerated student mobilit y in recent years has resulted in emergence of a global higher education market.
It is currently predicted that the number of international students will amount to 7.2 million by 2025 (Bohm et al. 2002).
But at the same time, the emergence of a large global market is inevitably leading to more severe competition among OECD countries and their higher education institutions for international students. According to OECD (2004b), the main providers of transnational education are English-speaking 1
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US.
These countries are at the same time very active promoters of free trade in educational services under the GATS arrangements.
The bulk of transnational education, delivered mainly by these countries through program and institution mobility, takes place in the Asia-Pacific region.
In particular, Australia’s education exports, as described in this paper, have become rapidly prominent in the region through recruiting overseas students onshore and providing education services offshore.
Australia is currently the third-largest exporter of higher education services, after the US and the UK.
Its education exports have been growing at an average rate of 11% per year since 1994, to become its fourth largest source of export earnings (A$5.9 billion) in 2004, behind coal, tourism and iron ore.
In consequence, the scale of its education services has expanded from 10 % of total services exports in 1994 to 17% in 2004 (DFAT 2005, pp. 48-50).
On the other hand, as suppliers of students for international education, Asian countries are the largest source in the world.1
Asian students represent a large share of international students in many OECD countries, while a higher proportion of European and American students tend to study in their own regions.
For example, in 2004 the top ten providers of overseas students in the Australian higher education sector were all Asian countries except the US, with 82.1% of international students (228,555 in total) from Asia (Nelson 2005a, p. 23). In addition, what should b e stressed here is that the global higher education market has been formed and invigorated by both program mobility and institution mobility as well as by student mobility.
Many more higher education institutions than ever before have become involved with delivery of educational programs and the establishment of branch campuses beyond national borders in recent years, although compared with program mobility, institution mobility remains relatively rare.
Australia, again, is playing a significant role in program and institution mobility in the Asia-Pacific region. The global higher education market, in this way, has been prompted and formed by an increase in three different forms of mobility: people mobility, program mobility and institution mobility.
It is true that people mobility by students or academic staff has been broadened and accelerated by the emergence of a global market, but current developments in transnational education are largely characterized by program and institution mobility. Definition of transnational higher education Then, what is transnational higher education?
For example, in an Australian Government’s document, Australian transnational education is defined as follows: “Australian transnational education and training, also known as offshore or cross-border education and training, refers to the delivery and/or assess ment of programs/courses by an 2
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION accredited Australian provider in a country other than Australia, wher e delivery includes a face-to-face component.
The education and/or training activity may lead to an Australian qualification or may be a non-award course, but in either case an accredited/approved/recognized Australian provider is associated with the education/training activity” (Nelson 2005b, p. 6). By this definition, education and training provided in a traditional distance mode, that is, education and training offered without a physical presence of instructors offshor e, are not regarded as transnational education and training.
However, even in this paper dealing with Australian cases, such a definition may not be entirely appropriate, as current transnational ventures by Australian universities have been expanding in a variety of ways (as seen in the case of Universitas 21, see below). Therefore, given the wide range of Australian transnational initiatives currently being practiced, transnational higher education should be defined in a much broader sense.
In this paper it denotes ‘any education or training at higher education level provided beyond nationa l borders through mobility of people, program or institution’.
Accordingly, this definition includes the so-called international education (often referred as “onshore education” in Australia) provided to inter national students coming to A and it also covers distance learning or e-learning delivered to students living outside Australia. Furthermore, a variety of terms similar to “transnational”, such as “offshore”, “cross-border” and “borderless”, are sometimes used interchangeably.
This is particularly true in the Australian context.
In this paper, “transnational” and “offshore” are not differentiated, in line with usage in Australia.
In general, transnational education can adopt many different delivery modes, such as distance education (including online), twinning programs, franchising arrangements, and branch offshore campuses.
Among them, the preferred delivery model continues to be twinning programs, which means that part of the course is taught in the host country and part in the provider country.
But a relatively new alternative model is that of the offshore campuses.
This change signals ‘a deepening commitment to international provision among certain pioneering providers’ (The Observatory of borderless higher education 2002, p. 5).
Offshore campuses and twinning programs are concerned primarily with local recruitment of students, rather than international experience for domestic students.
Branch campuses tend to be developed mainly in developing countries that need to address huge unmet demand for undergraduate provision.
This arises largely because undergraduate provision often requires face-to-face instruction on campus as well as independent online study, in contrast to postgraduate education which can be relatively easily provided via online learning. 3
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO Internationalization of Australian higher education: An historical overview Australia and its universities began a steady progress towards internationalization after the World War II.2
Australia’s internationalization policy, as in other developed countries such as the US and the UK, had focused on development assistance or foreign aid for developing countries until the mid 1980s.
The best known Australian initiative after the war, the Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific, was launched in July 1951.
Under the Plan, Australian universities started to enroll and train overseas students mainly from South and Southeast Asia, spons ored by the Australian Government.
This initiative was largely driven by objectives such as technical aid for developing countries and regional stability.3
The Colombo Plan, based on Australia’s international aid program, provided a significant momentum for the intake of overseas students into Australian universities.
At that time, most overseas students coming to Australia were fully supported or partly subsidized by the Australian Government. However, there occurred a dramatic policy change in the mid 1980s.
The Australian Government introduced a visa fee, later called the Overseas Student Charge, for private overseas students in 1979.
It charged overseas students with a part of their university costs, and increased to account for up to 55% of the total costs by 1988.
More importantly, the Jackson Report (Report of the Committee toReview the Australian Overseas Aid Program), released in 1984, marked a turning point in terms of overseas student policy in Australia.4
It was characterized by the view that education should be regarded as an exportable commodity.
It recommended that the “education industry” be further deregulated.
In 1985 the Government, following the Jackson Committee’s recommendations, developed a new Overseas Student Policy and decided to open its higher education market to full-fee paying overseas students with a view to generating export revenue and contributing to the nation’s economic growth.
This indicated a decisive policy shift from ‘educational aid’ to ‘educational trade’ or ‘revenue generation’ in the Australian Government’s policy for international students.
In practice, many private ELICOS institutions (English-language intensive courses for overseas students) were established, and started to recruit fee-paying students to their language courses.
By 1989 about half of all overseas students were enrolled in ELICOS courses.
On the other hand, there emerged some problems such as low entry requirements to or institutional collapses of these institutions.
At the same time, some regulatory legislation, including a voluntary Code of Ethical Practice set by the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, were introduced (Back et al. 1996, pp. 6-8; Kendall 2004). It was after 1990 when the new government policy, which stopped subsidizing overseas students, forced many universities into being more entrepreneurial than ever before.
In particular, universities were encouraged to sell their educational services overseas.
In the late 1990s such a trend was accelerated by funding cuts under the Liberal-National government.
As a result, income from overseas students constituted an essential component for many Australian universities.
Australian universities started to turn their eyes to the growing demand for higher education, particularly in Asian 4
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION countries with fast-growing economies.
They embarked on campaigns to export their educational services directly to Asian students in their home countries via distance learning or though establishing offshore campuses.
Thus transnational or cross-border education emerged as an effective new way of delivering services, as the education export market expanded and matured. Expanding transnational operations Current situation in Australia Australia is now seen as an attractive destination for overseas study, although it has not been always the first preference for students.5Some of reasons for Australia to attract students are its cleaner and safer environment, a high-quality educational system, a multicultural social setting, and for Asian students, its geographical proximity to Asia.
Generally, student movement from Asia to English-speaking countries such as Australia was accelerated by the economic growth in East and Southeast Asia and the rising value of foreign degrees.
Australian universities have been successful in attracting students from target countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia for the last decade.
While students from such traditional markets more recently have tended to be on the decrease, Australian universities are likely to be temporarily successful in attracting students from China and India, which are becoming the largest education markets in the world.
In 2004 international student enrolments in the higher education sector were 228,555 (onshore: 164,535; offshore: 64,020), making up 24.2% of all student enrolments (944,977).
The proportion of international students attending Australian universities has tripled from 8 % in 1996 (Nelson 2005a, pp. 17-18, 23-24). As the above figures indicate, the majority of international students (72%) are undertaking courses provided onshore in Australia.
But at the same time, offshore enrolments have been rapidly growing since the 1990s.
By 1995, 7 universities (of 38 universities) had offshore campuses in seven countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, with an enrolment of about 1,400 students, and 27 universities had established twinning programs, predominantly in Malaysia and Singapore, with enrolments of approximately 13,000 students.
Furthermore in 1995, 22 universities provided distance education to 5,000 students 1995 (Back et al. 1996, p. 25).
In 2003 Australian Universities offered 1,569 offshore programs, more than 70 % of them being offered in Singapore, Malaysia and China (including Hong Kong) (AVCC 2003).
The proportion of offshore students in the total rose from 8% in 1994 to 28% in 2003, and will possibly reach 44% by 2025 (O’Keefe 2004; Bohm et al. 2002). 5
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO Transnational operations at institutional level Growing numbers of Australian universities ha ve regarded offering offshore programs or developing offshore campuses as essential for their international strategies since the late 1990s.
Some noteworthy examples at institutional level are illustrated below. Monash UniversityThere is almost no doubt that Monash University has constantly been one of the most enthusiastic players in Australia in terms of internationalization.
Monash defines itself as an International University.
As early as the 1960s Monash established in Melbourne a Southeast Asian Study Centre, and started to provide an extensive program in Asian languages.
Furthermore, it willingly accepted more international students under the Colombo Plan than older universities (Marginson 2000, pp. 135-136).
In the wave of globalization, after 1990, Monash University developed international strategies for the further recruitment of Asian students, and at the same time had a full-scale commitment to offshore activities.
Currently, it has study centers in London and Prato for academic cooperation and exchange, and starting in the 1990s it established offshore campuses in Malaysia and South Africa. Monash Malaysia was set up in cooperation with the SungeiWay Group, a local property company, outside Kuala Lumpur in 1998.
It offers degree courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level in arts & sciences, business, engineering, and information technology.
In 2005 it commenced an undergraduate course for the Bachelor of Medicine or Bachelor of Surgery degrees, with an initial enrolment of 55 students.
All of the courses offered by Monash are recognized by the Malaysian Government.
Monash South Africa, recognized by the South African Government as a private non-profit higher education institution, opened in February 2001.
It offers bachelors’ courses in arts, business & commerce, commerce in business systems, and computing, as well as a one-year Academic Development Program.
As it was fully owned by Monash, unlike the Malaysia Campus, the University eventually faced greater financial risk due to fewer student numbers and growing costs.
It made a loss of $8.6 million in 2003, and a total loss over three years of more than $21 million (McBurnie 2002, p. 4).
Following this situation, Monash felt the necessity to review its international developments.
In the Global Development Framework, which was based on its strategic plan (Leading the Way: Monash 2020), Monash set out rationales and guiding principles for its global strategies for the next two decades.
At present, Monash Directions 2025, approved by the University Council in February 2005, replaces the existing plan and presents its goal of becoming one of the leading universities in the world through a research-intensive international focus (Monash University 2005). 6
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION RMIT UniversitySince the late 1980s RMIT has gradually become a significant player in Australia in aspects such as international student programs, offshore programs and internationalization of the curriculum.
RMIT is well-known as a university with overseas students, which in 2004 comprised 25% of the total (15,444 students). As offshore projects, RMIT developed twinning programs in Malaysia and Singapor e in the late 1980s, and opened its offshore campus (Adorna Institute of Technology) in cooperation with a local property development compa ny in rural Penang, Malaysia in January 1996.
Although the Malaysian campus was finally closed at the end of 1999 by the Asian economic crisis, it was a ‘ground-breaking initiative for Australian higher education offshore’ (Back et al. 1996, pp. 53-55; McBurnie 2002, p. 4).
RMIT now offers many offshore programs in partnership with local institutions in Singapore, Malaysia and China. RMIT has successfully operated campuses in Vietnam since 2001: it obtained a 50 year license for the establishment of a foreign branch campus from the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment in 2000.
RMIT International University Vietnam started its initial operation as the first fully foreign-owned private university in Ho Chi Minh City in 2001 and opened another campus in Hanoi in 2004.
It opened a new campus in 2005 in Saigon South, where bachelors’ degrees in commerce, applied science, design, and business, and an MBA are currently offered. Universitas 21On the other hand, not all Australian universities are committed to a strategy of establishing offshore campuses.
For example, the University of Melbourne has chosen to rely on an international consortium, Universitas 21. Universitas 21, which was established in 1997, is an international consortium of 18 research universities from ten countries (including the Universities of Melbourne, New South Wales and Queensland from Australia).
It aims to develop entrepreneurial activities through collaboration among member universities.
U21 Global, an online university (headquarters: Singapore) established by Universitas 21 in partnership with Thomson Learning, embarked on offering an MBA program in 2003, and later a Master of Science in Information Systems Management program.
This is an interesting initiative in the sense that U21 Global’s degrees or subjects are reviewed by U21pedagogica, an independent quality assurance body, established by Universitas 21. Driving forces for Australian transnational education Generally, four approaches have been used in the recent promotion of transnational or cross-border higher education: i) mutual unde ii) skilled iii) reven iv) capacity 7
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO building.
The mutual understanding approach encourages mobility of students or academic staff through scholarship and academic exchange for political, cultural, academic and developmental objectives.
The skilled migration approach aims to attract talented international students, sometimes postgraduate students in certain fields, for the host country’s knowledge economy.
The revenue-generating approach is characterized by offering higher education services for international students on a full-fee basis.
Finally, the capacity building approach is a relatively new one adopted by emerging countries to build their higher education capacities.
The four approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Except for mutual understanding, the approaches are to some extent based on economic rationales such as stimulating economic growth and enhancing international competition in a knowledge-based economy.
While the four approaches may be used concurrently in a country, in a broad sense there has been a shift in approaches from mutual understanding to revenue generation in recent years (OECD 2004b, pp. 220-233). As mentioned above, the initial commitment of Australian universities to internationalisation stemmed from pr ovision of foreign aid to nearby developing countries.
In this sense, it originally intended to promote mutual understanding with those countries, that contributes to peace and stability in the r egion.
Given the current Australian and regional context, however, more attention will hav e to be given to at least two of the rationales, revenue generation and capacity building, as important drivers of transnational education in the Asia-Pacific region.
Revenue generationThe pursuit and generation of profit is a key aspect of transnational education offered b y Australian universities.
Marginson stresses that Australian universities are inclined to be more profit-oriented in comparison wit h their US’ counterparts in which international education is regarded as a source of intellectual labor, a branch of foreign aid or an exercise in cultural exchange (Marginson 2002, p. 36).
As Feast and Bretag (2005) show, transnational education is a multi-million dollar ‘business’, motivated as much by profits as by teaching and learning objectives.
Thus, the driving force behind transnational education or internationalization in Australian higher education sector takes on an economic character.
Transnational activities occurring in the Asia-Pacific region especially are driven by direct interactions between international providers and students and their families, which largely take the form of full price market exchange (OECD 2004b, p. 139). To begin with, profit pursuit by Australian universities results from the reduction of public funding undertaken by the Australian Government since the late 1990s.
For example, A. Vanstone, Minister of Education at the time, presented a Higher Education Budget Statement in 1996, and implementing a 5% reduction of higher education funding for each of the following three years.
In this context, Australian universities have been forced to be much less reliant on government funding and seek their own independent revenue.
Most of them regarded promoting entrepreneurialism as ‘a means of survival’, which, in many cases, amounted to collecting more fees from overseas students.
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION According to De Zilwa, relatively new universities (Unitechs, Gumtrees and New Universities) gained a higher proportion of their independent revenue from overseas students than the older universities (Sandstones and Redbricks) in 2001.6
Those Australian universities with lower financial resources have tended to resort to the quick solution of generating income from independent sources such as overseas student fees.
For example, in Central Queensland University, Curtin University of Technology and RMIT, the proportion independent revenue from overseas student fees was 64%, 52% and 55% respectively (De Zilwa 2005). 7Furthermore, some universities like Monash and RMIT, as mentioned above, have been aggressively offering educational services, both as programs and campuses, locally to Asian students.
On the other hand for example, IDP Education Australia (a company which was set up by the Australian universities for international marketing and promotion), is actively encouraging universities to set up offshore campuses in India within the next three years.
It anticipates that from India, 800,000 students will study abroad in 20 years and at least 10% of them could select Australia as a destination.
It strongly urges the Government and bureaucracy as well as individual universities to cooperate to develop a ‘brand Australia’ so as not to lag behind the US or the UK in the Indian market (Perry 2005).
It is true that such proactive international promotion by several actors has helped Australian universities to enhance their international presence and to raise their profiles in the region.
Yet, offshore operations driven solely by a profit motive could be at the risk of leading to deterioration in quality. Capacity buildingThe Asia-Pacific region has been centre stage in the development of transnational higher education since the 1990s.
What then are the chief driving forces for transnational education in this region?
The first rationale is the increasing student demand in some developing countries for access to higher education.
In particular, the number of higher education students has been expanding in China and India in accordance with their economic growth.
Nevertheless, in such nations, domestic higher education provision is still inadequate in quantit y and quality to cater for such growing local demand, not least because until recently they have more eagerly been committed to expanding primary and secondary edu cation than higher education.
Moreover, more and more students and their parents are aware of the advantages of for eign education and degrees, especially from English-speaking countries, in the advancement of a knowledge-bas ed society and globalization as well as the rise of Englis h as an international language. Second, and closely related to the first, these countries have been promoting policies, such as sending their students abroad or accepting foreign campuses and educational programs offered by developed countries.
Such national governments’ policies aim to pursue a strategy of building a national capacity which can contribute to economic growth.
At the same time, those strategies are also intended to be a part of enhancement of the quality of their teaching and research activities. 9
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO For example, Malaysia embarked on radical policy changes, corporatization and privatization, in higher education to strategically address a wide range of problems caused by globalization in the 1990s (Lee 1998).
For a long time, private post-secondary colleges could not confer degrees, and foreign universities were not allowed to establish branch campuses in Malaysia under the 1969 Essential Higher Education Institution Regulation.
However, public universities could not fulfill unmet demand for higher education in the early 1990s.
In this situation, a large number of Malaysian students had to go overseas for higher education, and private colleges provided twinned degree programs with foreign partners.
In 1996 the Malaysian government introduced the Private Higher Educational Institutions Act of 1996 to encourage private and foreign providers to operate in Malaysia.8
By 2000, there were three foreign university branch campuses, which had been established only by obtaining an invitation from the M in addition there were seven local private universities and more than 400 private colleges.
Such a change in national policy, to urge the relaxation of regulations, was of essential importance in the development of transnational education within Malaysia.
At the same time, it was also a great impetus for Malaysia to become an exporter of higher education, as a number of international students came to Malaysia to study in transnational programs delivered by the private institutions (Ziguras 2003, pp. 103-105).
Similarly, in China, national higher education policies have been more responsive to challenges deriving from globalization since the 1980s, and especially the latter half of the 1990s.
The Chinese Government regarded transnational education as a means to expand Chinese higher education, enhance its academic quality and promote its internationalisation.
From then on, the central government has been playing a significant role in aspects both of encouragement and of regulation of transnational higher education in China.
In particular, a series of regulations including the “Contemporary Regulation on Operation of Higher Education Institutions in Cooperation with Foreign Partners” of 1995 successfully stimulated the expansion of transnational education through encouraging foreign institutions to come to operate in China.
In fact, the number of transnational programs leading to foreign degrees increased rapidly after the late 1990s, and more recently the UK’s University of Nottingham opened a campus in Ningbo, China (Huang 2003, pp.194-196; 2005, pp. 68-72). In conclusion, the recent growth in Australian transnational education has been encouraged by both push factors in Australia and pull factors in the Asia-P acific region: while Australian universities were forced to look outward for their new revenue resources, some As ian countries had insufficient capacity to meet local demand for higher education. Vulnerability and quality issues
At the same time as transnational education expands, Australian transnational higher education is facing some difficulties.
Australia’s position as an education exporter is not necessarily stable. 10
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION One of the unstable factors is the volatility of the international marketplace.
The growth rate of overseas students in Australia was only 1% in 2005 against a background of global security concerns (e.g. terrorism and SARS epidemics) and the rising Australian dollar.
What is worse, in recent years, there has been a sharp increase in university fees and visa fees for overseas students.
The figures of the DEST show the average course fee for a foreign student has risen from about $16,000 a year in 2004 to $17,000 in 2005, an increase of 6.25% (Illing 2005).
But as argued above, despite these volatile circumstances, as argued above, an increasing number of universities has become reliant on income from international fee-paying students.
More recently, Jenny Macklin, Labor’s education spokeswoman, warned that the Australian university system is too dependent on the revenue from such students (Karvelas 2006). Furthermore, Australia is increasingly facing fierce competition from other English-speaking countries and form elsewhere (AEI 2005).
English universities are allegedly aiming to recruit 35,000 more international students over the three years starting in 2005.
The New Zealand Government announced a $40 million international education package in 2004, driven by a drop in their international student enrolments, and also altered student visa policy to increase employment opportunities for international students.
In Canada, the Canadian Education Trade Alliance (CETA) was founded in 2004 to enhance Canada’s competitive standing in international education.
On the other hand, importers of education services such as Singapore and Malaysia are seeking to develop their own education industries to become educational hubs or exporters of higher education in the region.
Malaysia has taken an active stance toward attracting students from overseas and is rethinking its marketing strategies in response to a decline in international student enrolments.9
In Singapore, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong advocated his vision to turn Singapore into the “Boston of the East” in 1996, and targeted the development of its universities (e.g. National University of Singapore) into world-class institutions.10
In 2003 the Singapore Government also launched a “Global Schoolhouse” initiative to increase its intake of international students from all over the world (Tan 2004, pp. 185-187; AEI 2005).
It follows that many more countries are becoming interested in developing their overseas education.
In this context, Australian higher education without doubt needs to keep its international strategies refined further so as to improve its competitiveness.
Another unstable factor is related to quality.
There has been enormous concern that transnational operations could have been expanded at the expense of their academic qualit y.
For example, the following letter to The Australian’s Higher Education Supplement from a person living in Hong Kong expresses such grave concerns: “The commercialisation of Australian education, including offshore operations, is, sadly, now well advanced and is rapidly destroying Australia’s reputation as a credible place to learn.
In Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, in particular, students who fail to gain entry into local tertiary institutions are welcomed with open arms by many of the commercial partners of the 11
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO Australian universities.
For the commercial retailers, it is more about making money tha n maintaining sound academic standards and fair assessment of student grades.
The market for feigned degrees is big, very big.
For cheating students, these partnerships are a highly cosy situation” (Sinclair 2003). In this regard Pimpa’s study (2005) shows that the reputation of Australian universities, along with their good facilities and teaching quality, has the most significant impact on Thai students’ choice of university.
Pimpa suggests, therefore, that Australian universities should maintain rigorous entry requirements and facilitate easy access to information about universities and their academic programs.
Moreover, as well as the necessity for quality control by universities themselves, government and the Australian quality agency should also play a significant role in the enhancement of quality assurance.
Currie (2005) has given warning of the threat to the academic quality of higher education, and argues that government should place limits on the degree of privatization and commercialization of universities ‘to protect certain essential values that universities possess’.
In the next section, we will focus on recent national and institutional initiatives relating to quality assurance for Australian transnational higher education. Quality assurance framework in Australia Institutional initiatives A key element in the rationale for maintaining transnational education or protecting the education export market is enhanced quality assurance.
Recently, many universities have become increasingly aware of the importance of assuring quality in their onshore and offshore operations.
Driven by concerns that quality might become impaired by increasing numbers of international students on campus, for example, most universities have internally investigated ‘soft marking’ or low academic standards for international stu dents, and implemented their quality assurance policies and mechanisms (Harman 2006).
Moreover, as part of quality assurance initiatives, there has been increasing interest in medium-to-long-term follow-up surveys of international students.
They are expected to demonstrate externally the usefulness of Australian education and the recognition of Australian degrees in other countries (Macnamara 2006). At the same time, closer attention is being paid to quality assurance of transnational education at institutional level.
Basically, a number of procedural and policy issues for delivering courses have implications for quality assurance at institutional level.
In short, a series of issues such as partner selection, student selection and admission standards, maintenance of library technology, marking and return of assignments, constant monitoring of outcomes, associated with offering offshore courses, should be more focused on ensuring quality (Castle and Kelly 2004, pp.54-55).
All of these 12
AUSTRALIA’S TRANSNATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION procedures should be dealt with through rigorous processes, which eventually will help to demonstrate the institution’s efforts geared toward parity with onshore courses.
In this regard, Castle and Kelly point out as follows: “Whatever the processes, the core principle is that the home university must be convinced that the standards achieved by students offshore are equivalent to those at its home campus, and that all students, whether onshore or offshore, must feel that they have received a well-developed course that will be recognized internationally.
If these objectives can be achieved, then offshore cours es can be a win-win situation but the obstacles should never be underestimated” (Castle and Kelly 2004, p. 55). In essence, it is not always obvious that a good provider of onshore education will provide high-quality offshore programs overseas in the same way.
A successful offshore operation probably requires multiple prerequisites relating to financial settings, contractual conditions, strategic developments and decision-making processes.
At the same time, it is essential for each provider to set in place an effective risk management system, given the volatile international situation.
For example, the SARS crisis of 2003 brought numerous challenges to both administrative and academic staff involved in offshore delivery (Feast and Bretag 2005).11
In addition, Heffernan and Poole’s study (2005), based on interviews and case studies, refers to the significance of developing and maintaining effective relationships between partners to reduce institutional risks in offshore operations.
According to them, the key factors that are likely to positively influence the development of successful relationships are effective communication, mutual trust, and commitment.
At present, more efforts need to be made to clarify critical factors for successful and stable op erations of offshore education delivery. National policies and regulations Students as consumersIn recent years there have been mounting complaints, among international students, about being treated as ‘cash cows’ by universities.
They are complaining that services provided by universities are not necessarily adequate, although the fees have risen by as much as 20% per year in some programs.
At the same time, they are increasingly seeking greater support with regard to accommodation costs and exploitation in the workplace or rental market (Maiden 2004).
Enhancing consumer protection of students is currently one of the pressing issues. The provision of education services to international students is mainly regulated by the Education Services for Overseas Students Act (ESOS) 2000.12
The ESOS legislation, including some related Regulations and Acts, aimed to achieve quality assurance, consu mer protection and migration-related 13
KAZUHIRO SUGIMOTO arrangements in the provision of, in particular, onshore delivery of education and training to international students in Australia.
This legislation requires providers of education to international students to be registered on the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS).
Moreover, under the Act’s provisions, Tuition Assurance Schemes (TASs) or the ESOS Assurance Fund serve to protect the benefits of international students with regard to course provision and tuition fees. In addition, the AVCC also promulgated the Code of Ethical Practice in the Provision of Education to Overseas Students by Australian Higher Education institutions in 1990, and revised it as the Code of Practice in the Provision of Education to International Students in 2001.
Currently the Code, along with guidelines relating to fee refunds for international students, serves to maintain academic standards in Australian universities and safeguard the interests of international students including offshore students studying outside Australia. Strengthening transnational quality assuranceOn the other hand, there has been increasing public concern about Australia’s international reputation as a provider of high-quality education and training.
The Government has been recently addressing quality issues by designing the structure of a new qu ality assurance framework both nationally and internationally.
The Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) was establis hed as a non-profit company under the consensus of the State and Commonwealth Ministers of Education in 2000.
The AUQA initiated its institutional audits of individual self-accrediting institutions (universities, some colleges and accreditation bodies in each state), including offshore provision, on a five-yearly cycle in 2001.
With respect to offshore auditing, audit panels from the AUQA visit some offshore campuses or alternatively conduct telephone interviews with overseas partners.
Anne Martin, who undertook the review of 2002 Institutional Audit Reports presented by the AUQA, found that quality assurance for offshore activities needs to be strengthened despite ‘no overriding sense emerging from the Audit Reports of significant poor practice across the sector’ (Martin 2003, p. 26).
For offshore auditing, the Australian Government decided to provide A$590,000 per }