Posted on by t.bailey · 2 Comments

W3 – Cross border education

In this week’s reading, Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide: National Policies and Programs, one of the policies that caught my attention was cross-border education which seemed to be one of the more important policies discussed in the reading. Cross-border education may take a number of forms, including branch campuses and other kinds of physical outposts or the phenomenon may present in virtual (or hybrid) forms, such as via various distance learning modes and MOOCS” (Kinser and Lane 2012; retrieved from IHEW P.39). NYU has a well-established cross-border education system that includes a physical branch campus in Florence, Italy. This partnership avails Florence’s extraordinary cultural resources and its strategic position within Italy and Europe for students to enjoy. As the reading mentioned, there are different motivations for cross-border partnerships that can range from cultivating “soft power”, simplifying cooperation for development, strengthening exchange programs, and providing sources of revenue. Through this partnership a revenue stream has been established, and a intellectual exchange has also been created -lectures and seminars on various campuses, and cyber classes that connect students at various sites by web video for shared lectures. Free entrance into cultural events and exhibits – everyone wins.
As the reading concludes, higher education worldwide has a vested interest in identifying the challenges and opportunities that globalization presents. Some countries have taken more time and invested more money, energy and resources to strategize how they approach their version of internationalization than others. I learned from our first group of readings that in the United States, a private, not-for-profit organization, the IIE, is responsible for our country’s goal of doubling the number of students obtaining international experiences during their degree. This is a phenomenal goal and I hope that this organization will be successful in doing so. I think that individual institutions should aspire to similar outputs for their students and fold study abroad (for more students) into their strategic plans. Although our government does not create policy to enforce and monitor international education, it would be wise as the reading suggests, that institutional leaders everywhere pay attention to experiments being undertaken by colleagues across the globe (P. 63).
Every institution, large or small are constantly looking to create more sustainable and innovative approaches to improve higher education. In seeking to improve internationalization countries will try to be as cutting edge as possible. Approaches to strategy must be customized based on individual countries specific institutional and domestic purposes. I disagree with the reading a bit because it offers a subtle ideological, “kumbaya” rationale in that it urges more national conversations about internationalization and warns nations not work within a vacuum (P. 63). I agree that this would be ideal, however, the counterproductive ways in which each country may or may not follow good practices based on awareness does not matter because we are all in competition with one another. Why share best practices, if you are only concerned that your country is successful? If the U.S. even bothers to expand its insular practices, I think it would only be because they fully recognize that they cannot compete with nations like China.

http://www.nyu.edu/global/global-academic-centers/florence.html

Posted on by A. Olly · 6 Comments

W3: Internationalization at Home- The US and CUNY

Of the policies covered in Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide: National Policies and Programs, the type I found to have the potentially broadest reach and best chance of implementation is Internationalization at Home (IaH).  Adopting an IaH approach to higher education could affect the student body as a whole, rather than the smaller population who study abroad.  The chapter focuses on two aspects of an IaH approach, internationalization of the curriculum and broad institutional engagement of internationalization.  Because the US was listed among the policy examples, I decided to look further into what is being done at home.

Here in the United States, IaH policy is put into practice by the Department of Education through grant programs to fund the development of foreign language  education. Among these is the Language Resource Centers Program. Started in 1990 as part of the International Education Programs Service, the LRC program provides 4 year grants to higher ed institutions to establish and operate resource centers to improve the country’s ability to teach and learn foreign languages. The LRC program  activities include a focus on less commonly taught languages, teacher training at the K-16 level, professional development and intensive summer institutes. The LRC emphasizes the importance of expanding the languages taught in the US, noting that some of the least taught languages are among some of those most widely spoken throughout the world. They reference business and political ‘hot spots’ in which Arabic, Chinese and Korean are spoken.  In 2014, nearly $2.8 million was awarded to 16 higher education institutions, including the CUNY Graduate Center.

What is happening to enhance IaH within the higher ed system we are attending? The grant was used by the Graduate Center to establish a National Language Resource Center as part of their Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context (ILTEC). Started in 2012, ILTEC is a research and resource center for language education at CUNY.  On the research side, they support projects from language scholars and instructors.  On the resource side, they work with CUNY faculty and language programs in professional development and circulate language education materials. The ILTEC site includes a ‘CUNY Language Map’ showing the languages each colleges is registered to teach, and which are being offered this semester. Here at Baruch the Spring ’16 courses include Arabic, Mandarin and Portuguese.

ILTEC provides a smaller scale, local example of how the broader goals of internationalizing higher education can be implemented. Indeed, New York City and the CUNY system are an ideal candidate to lead US internationalization efforts, with the diversity of nationalities and languages present at each campus.  The ACE readings note that while the world is increasingly connected and global in nature, higher education institutions and systems are still operating on a national level. The field of higher ed is often by nature slow to change, however the types of efforts taking place worldwide show that the isssue is considered vital.  It is exciting to see how the issues are being put into practice within our system and I encourage you to look at what is happening where you work!

 

Allison Olly

 

Resources:

Dept of Education: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/iegpslrc/index.html

ILTEC: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Page-Elements/Academics-Research-Centers-Initiatives/Centers-and-Institutes/Institute-for-Language-Education-in-Transcultural-Context

 

Posted on by e.truong · 4 Comments

W3- Assessment of International Higher Ed.

This week’s portion of the ACE Report touched on a topic that has been the “hot button” topic in higher education in recent years and how it is certainly relevant to the success of international higher education programs around the world. This topic is assessment: how do countries or institutions show that international higher education programs and policies are actually achieving the outcomes and objectives they claim to achieve. Organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recent made it clear that assessing learning and outcomes should be a global effort. As higher education expands beyond national boarders, it is important to identify what we want students to get from studying or living abroad and what quality of education they are receiving. As the director for education and skills of OECD states “Unless we measure learning outcomes, judgements about the quality of teaching and learning at higher education institutions will continue to be made on the basis of flawed international rankings, derived not from outcomes, not even outputs—but from idiosyncratic inputs and reputation surveys”.

The assessment of international higher education learning objectives should require more than just simply counting the number of students in international programs or leaving the country. Assessment should involve assessing the promises of having an international education, such as cultural understanding and job marketability. As we discussed in class, education abroad constantly promises that these experiences help the student develop their soft-skills, which would make them more desirable in a competitive and globalized job market. Like the report states, measuring the effectiveness of the long-term goals of international higher education is more difficult because these goals involve intangible variables that are difficult to measure and they require more studies that expand over time and countries. However, it can be done and it is necessary that institutions and countries to do these assessments.

I believe that conducting these assessments and having the information to back up what international higher education promises will allow it to expand and to grow as an essential part of education, especially in the US. Without assessment and its findings all those promises about how great international higher education is for students are just empty claims to potential students and their parents. As skepticism about US higher education and it value increases along with its price, parents and students need to be won over with solid data from assessment in order to be sold on international higher education. Students and their parents need to be able to see the end results and outcomes for programs and how it benefits the student before investing in it.

Posted on by s.ahuja1 · 3 Comments

W3-Ace Report (Part II)

This week’s reading in the ACE Report focused on a myriad of issues concerning Internationalizing Higher Education Worldwide and highlighted additional key elements to build upon our previous readings.  For example, in the context of cross-border education, the concept of mobility as a cornerstone of international higher education policies was discussed as well as the crucial role of “other influencers” and the central role of national governments.  Cross-border education has been defined as “the movement of people, programmes, providers, curricula, projects, research and services, across national or regional jurisdictional borders” (ACE Report, p. 38).  This week’s reading highlighted the “importance of jurisdictional boundaries when it comes to policy frameworks and regulations” (ACE Report, p. 38).

While in previous readings, I had focused on the role of regional governments, particularly in Asia, this week emphasized the key role national governments play in regulating cross-border educational activity.  I was particularly intrigued by the regulatory policy example of India.  As the reading details, while India is one of the largest exporters of students seeking higher educational opportunities outside of India, the country has a definitive international higher education policy regulating cross-border activity within its own boundaries. This fact was somewhat surprising to me and I wonder if it fosters notions of reciprocal benefits and common values in the internationalization arena or stymies those goals.

For example, the ACE Report explains that India’s policy toward international higher education is not static, but instead “debated intensely” such that it does not allow independent branch campuses on Indian soil.  India requires that international higher education programs be carried out through partnering with Indian higher education institutions.  And these partnerships are themselves highly regulated such that there are “specific parameters” to govern them.  Most interesting to me was the requirement that Indian law requires foreign educational institutions to be accredited and been offering educational services for at least twenty years.  In addition, there are specific ranking requirements that must be met to for an international higher education institution to operate in India. (See generally, ACE Report, p. 41-42).

These various requirements seem like smart ones and would appear to mitigate against sham operations and ensure quality of educational services in the cross-border context that may be otherwise difficult to monitor.  However, do such specific requirements thwart flexibility in internationalization efforts and a lack of agility to develop robust and innovative partnerships?  An interesting question that has been framed for me in the ACE Reports analysis of India’s regulation in the cross-border context is how does a country’s national government ensure quality and standards in educational services against flexibility and reciprocal benefits in the cross-border context.

The ACE Report suggests that India may be moving toward more lax rules to make way for independent branch campuses and allow for foreign curricula and teachers.  But current criticism remains regarding stringent rules and the politicization of higher education in India (see https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/philip-altbach-indias-passage-might-not-be-simple-but-it-can-climb-to-elite-tier).  And there are no definitive calls for change to policy among the Association of Indian Universities’ International webpage (see http://www.aiu.ac.in/International/International.asp).

With respect to the role of national governments in cross-border issues and internationalization, India appears to be an interesting case study as a nation that heavily regulates in this space but may be at the cusp of certain, more open policy reform to make entering the Indian higher education market easier and more dynamic.  If such changes take place, it will be interesting to see how the internationalization trajectory in India develops and whether it can balance quality against collaboration and flexible regulatory requirements.

Posted on by m.fernandez · 6 Comments

W-3 Melissa Fernandez

There were a few topics that sparked my interest in this weeks reading. The first was harmonization. As we spoke in class and in the blog, countries are currently having problems uniting themselves to in fact wish for a national harmonization is very difficult. The harmonization they spoke about was in regards to international academic calendars and degree/credit transfers. With my position as an admissions counselor I constantly see students with international credits and degrees and many times we do not accept all credits or the degrees they received do not allow them to continue a masters or doctorate here. There are even times where the high school diploma is not sufficient and we will ask them to take a GED. I do believe the education hubs play a role in this. Some mentioned there education hubs were cities like in Ecuador with the Yachay City of Knowledge and others were schoolhouses within institutions like Singapore. With an eventual minimum qualification for what is considered high school equivalent and bachelors equivalent the harmonization could be a possibility for students to not loose years in university when transferring between countries. On the policy side, many students who come to New York with a degree are not able to receive the PELL or TAP grants because it is for those students seeking degree for the first time. This information is available to international students but is not well known and normally these students find out at the bursars office after they have been accepted and registered for classes.

It has always been know that the United States is a “melting pot” for different cultures but when it comes to higher education we are the only one’s with HBCU’s and Hispanic-serving institutions. When speaking about policy the U.S. really emphasizes that the wish to bring internationalization to these institutions but all the other countries mention policies they wish to implement across the board. I wonder how HBCU;s and Hispanic-serving institutions will play a role in the internationalizing of education and if it will thrive in institutions like this where the majority of the students have roots that are international already. Are we really the only country that has certain institutions that are under served? Or are we the only ones who care?

Lastly, policy effectiveness relies heavily on institutional research. With the correct collection of data and analysis policy can be most effective, but funding as mentioned in the article is a problem for some countries. In order to collect the correct data and have the tools to analyze and asses within the years to come if the policy is effective will take large amounts of monetary funds. Being in compliance with state and government regulations too can hinder policy, so even if the institution wishes to move towards internationalization they are unable to. This brings up the point of safety with internationalization, are we brining in danger with opening our doors to institutions around the world?