Introduction
Universities have long been “global” institutions, encouraging the flow of ideas and knowledge across borders. For more than 2000 years, people have travelled to centres of learning in places as diverse as Athens, Alexandria, Chang’an (modern Xi’an), Nalanda, Constantinople, Bologna, and Oxford. Nevertheless, the pace and scale of university internationalization have accelerated significantly in the post-Cold War era, just as global economic integration has also intensified. According to UNESCO, the number of students studying abroad around the world has grown from 1.3 million in 1990 to 4.3 million in 2011 (UNESCO, 2013, p. iii).
This surge in the international movement of students, with rapid changes in technology and communication , means that the university sector is increasingly globalized—our classrooms, students, staff, learning materials, courses, and leadership. At the same time, the sector is expected to help countries grapple with the global problems we face. The scale of contemporary challenges humanity faces in science, environment, and health demands a marshalling of intellectual resources beyond the scale of any one nation. In fact, as Wildavsky argues (2010, p. 8), “academic free trade may be more important than any other kind.”
This volume addresses the challenge of internationalizing university education, drawing heavily on the experience of Australia , one of the global leaders in the area. Historically, Australia ’s tertiary education sector has disproportionately directed its energies to attracting overseas students to our institutions, rather than on encouraging Australian students to learn abroad. In February 2017, over 460,000 overseas students were enrolled in Australian universities , including those in English language, veterinary medicine, and non-award courses (Department of Education and Training, 2017b). In contrast, in 2015, the last year for which the Department of Education and Training (2017a) provides statistics, the number of outbound Australian students engaged in international educational experiences was around 38,000.
This disparity—more than ten inbound students for every outbound Australian—arises because internationalization strategies have been strongly determined by economic considerations, by the fact that Australia has treated international education in recent decades like an export industry . Universities ’ international education offices have aggressively recruited students overseas in large part to compensate for decreases in government support for the tertiary education sector; the higher fees paid by international students plug gaps in university budgets.
In addition, internationalization and success in overseas recruiting affect university rankings on increasingly important international tables like the Times Higher Education and QS indices, including specialized lists for the most “international” universities . The race to improve standings is part of a self-reinforcing cycle, as universities seek higher rankings to attract international students. Together with the financial considerations, the tailoring of international policy specifically to influence a university’s ranking on these scales can undermine genuine academic exchange and research collaboration across borders. As Jane Knight (2013, p. 84) cautions, some internationalization efforts are less about “capacity building through international cooperation,” and instead, “status building initiatives to gain world class recognition and higher rankings.” With so many conflicting, high-priority agendas, one fear is that educational priorities will be consigned to secondary status.
This volume specifically speaks to this environment of contradictory demands: Our contributors seek to emphasize the pedagogical and research opportunities present in international education , not simply the economic potential. As teachers and administrators, especially in universities like those in Australia that are so heavily internationalized, we face globalization as both an objective and an obstacle. Global processes transform our daily professional lives as they shape our aspirations for the future of our institutions. In the seminar room, we encounter an increasingly heterogeneous body of students; in virtual classrooms, we may find ourselves teaching simultaneously to students in multiple time zones. We have new resources at our disposal and are encouraged to design new types of global learning experiences. The authors in this collected work share about a variety of innovative, experimental efforts to take students overseas, better serve international students in Australia , and to more deeply internationalize the curriculum , even for those students who never leave our shores.
This introduction reviews the international education environment in Australia , including the economic forces that shape both institutional and individual efforts, and then discusses emerging trends in the area, especially the “democratization” of international study, diversification in programme types, and shifts in the regional focus of both student travel and government support, which many of the chapters address.
The Context of International Education
According to the former Australian Minister for Tourism and International Education Richard Colbeck, tertiary education is “one of the five super growth sectors contributing to Australia ’s transition from a resources-based to a modern service economy” (cited in Australian Government, 2016, p. v). In particular, international students enrolling in Australian universities offer an “unprecedented opportunity” to “capitalise on increasing global demand for education services” (p. v). In fact, the Australian Government’s National Strategy for International Education 2025 focuses almost exclusively on inbound international students coming to Australia , highlighting the economic benefits of tertiary education as an export industry and, to a lesser degree, the “opportunities to build enhanced bilateral and multilateral relationships, which increase cultural awareness and social engagement” (p. 7).
Australia , as the National Strategy emphasizes, is ranked third in the world in attracting international students, successfully bringing about 6% of the entire global flow, behind only the United States and United Kingdom (Australian Government, 2016, p. 3). International education is Australia ’s third most important export industry , providing 130,000 jobs (Australian Government, 2016) and generating A$19.7 billion in 2014–15, according to Deloitte Access Economics (2016, p. 1). Other estimates suggest that this figure is on the conservative side. Deloitte Access Economics (2015) estimates, in the report Growth and Opportunity in Australian International Education , that Australia’s onshore enrolments of international students will grow by around 45% by 2025. The point is that, the National Strategy document—like similar policy statements—focuses heavily on ways to “remain a provider of choice for international students” (Australian Government, 2016, p. 12).
In contrast, the flow of Australian students overseas appears small but growing, but is very high relative to the total number of domestic students enrolled in tertiary education in the country. In 2005, only 7000 Australian students were studying abroad; by 2012, that number had risen to over 24,000 (Nerlich, 2015, p. 53; Olsen, 2008). Over the same time period, the percentage of Australian undergraduates who had some overseas study experience climbed from 4.8% to over 13%, slightly less than the figure in the United States (Nerlich, 2015, p. 53). The most recent figures (from 2015) indicate that the number of Australian students overseas has climbed to over 38,000 students, with up to 19.3% of the graduating cohort having international experience (Department of Education and Training, 2017a). Ironically, both the United States and Australia had higher rates of outbound mobility than students in Europe, in spite of the availability of Erasmus funding in the EU to encourage student mobility amongst member countries (Daly & Barker, 2010, p. 335). Globally, the high rate of international experience of Australian students stands out even more starkly. In 2011, less than 1.7% of all tertiary students internationally participated in any form of overseas study experience (UNESCO, 2013, p. iii).
Although economic considerations weigh heavily on overseas recruiting, pedagogical and employment-related outcomes are more often put forward as the rationale for efforts to grow outbound student flows. Pitman and Broomhall (2009, p. 445) reported that, of the Australian universities that provide graduate attributes statements, 71% included “awareness and respect for others,” especially interna...