Internationalisation and student voices: a disruption of business-as-usual?

Richard Hall (rhall1@dmu.ac.uk, @hallymk1)

What is the relationship between UK higher education, internationalisation agendas and student voices in a world that faces significant disruption?

Is business-as-usual a viable option?

a slice of HE• 166 HEIs and 116 universities.• 2007/8: participation for 18-30 years-old = 43%.• 2008/9: 251,300 international students, EU = 117,660.• Universities employ over 372,400 staff, or 1.2% of UK

workforce.• Responsible for 353,900 jobs in other parts of the

economy.• UK HE generates over £59bn of output for the UK

economy, including export earnings of £5.3bn.UUK (2010). Submission to the 2010 Spending Review. http://bit.ly/9dwIqv

Large, complex, motive, geared economically [it’s about resources]; is it about people?

What counts as business-as-usual [BAU]?

HEFCE (2012). Key Objectives. http://bit.ly/g2FZnP

http://bit.ly/jom3Ht

HEA, Strategic Plan 2012-16: http://bit.ly/GDkuVd

The Treasury position, on shared services:

2.186 VAT: providers of education – The Government will review the VAT exemption for providers of education, in particular at university degree level, to ensure that commercial universities are treated fairly. (Finance Bill 2013)

HM Treasury (2012) http://bit.ly/GCRYCy

http://bit.ly/GI2nP4

The Treasury position, on technology and research

a new £100 million fund to support investment in major new university research facilities, including through additional provisions. The fund will allocate its first bids in 2012–13 and will attract additional co-investment from the private sector

HM Treasury (2012) http://bit.ly/GCRYCy

• The UK sells more brainpower per capita than anywhere else in the world. In 2008, this amounted to £118 billion in knowledge services – worth 6.3% of GDP (The Work Foundation, 2010).

• The UK has 1% of the world’s population but undertakes 5% of the world’s scientific research and produces 14% of the world’s most highly cited papers (UUK, 2010).

• HEIs are worth £59 billion to the UK economy annually and are a major export earner. Through their international activities they are one of the UK’s fastest growing sources of export earnings, and last year bought in £5.3bn (UUK, 2009).

Issues of hegemony tied to economy

• There were 248,000 international students (excluding EU) enrolled at UK HEIs in 2008/09. There were also 121,000 EU students the same year (HESA, 2010).

• Students from India make up 14% of all international students (excluding EU) in UK HE. They are the fastest-growing group: the 34,000 in 2008/09 represented a 31.5% increase over the previous year (HESA, 2010).

Growth, mobility and circuits

“distinguish between credit or within-programme mobility (such as Erasmus) and degree or whole-programme mobility where the student moves abroad for an entire degree course. We also distinguish mobility experiences at different levels (undergraduate, postgraduate) and of different types (study abroad, work placement etc).”

“Globally, student migration grows faster than overall migration: the US and the UK are the top destinations for degree mobility; China and India are the top origin countries.”

HEFCE (2010). International student mobility literature review: Final report. http://bit.ly/c6be49

Framing some issues for UK HE

• 2007: 2.8 million students were enrolled in HEIs outside their countries of citizenship (up 4.6% on 2006). 11 countries hosted 71% of the world’s mobile students (USA = 21.3%) (UNESCO, 2009).

• 2007: 42% of UK PGR students were from abroad (15% of global share). This is more than its share of international students generally (UK HE International Unit, 2008).

• 2008/09: 388,000 students studying for a UK qualification outside of the UK. Of this number, 83% were non-EU students (HESA, 2010).

• 2009: 162 global HE branch campuses, up 43% on 2006 (USA = 50%; Australia = 11%; UK = 10%). The number of countries hosting international branch campuses grew, from 36 to 51 (OBHE, 2009).

Global issues of mobility and circuits

Table 1: Top ten countries of origin of foreign students, 1975–2005

1975   1985   1995   2005

Country No.   Country No.   Country No.   Country No.

Iran 33,021 China 42,481 China 115,871 China 343,126

US 29,414 Iran 41,083 South Korea 69,736 India 123,559

Greece 23,363 Malaysia 40,493 Japan 62,324 South Korea 95,885

Hong Kong 21,059 Greece 34,086 Germany 45,432 Japan 60,424

China 17,201 Morocco 33,094 Greece 43,941 Germany 56,410

UK 16,866 Jordan 24,285 Malaysia 41,159 France 53,350

Nigeria 16,348 Hong Kong 23,657 India 39,626 Turkey 52,048

Malaysia 16,162 South Korea 22,468 Turkey 37,629 Morocco 51,503

India 14,805 Germany 22,424 Italy 36,515 Greece 49,631

Canada 12,664   US 19,707   Hong Kong 35,141   US 41,181

Source: OECD and UNESCO data compiled in de Wit (2008: 33–34).

Is there a balance between promoting inward and outward mobility? How do foreign experiences enrich the curriculum and global “knowing”? (Deliberately opposed to “the knowledge economy”.)

Is high relative inward mobility a vindication of the quality of the UK’s higher education system in the global market for HE? Or is this merely post-colonialism in another guise? For whom is this HE?

How does internationalisation impact the relative (im)mobility of ‘non-traditional’ students?

BAU: questions of global capital and power

To what extent does the economy own HE? How does this impact the students’ experiences? See: http://bit.ly/gTJCYp

Overseas students’ fees contribute nearly £2bn of UK universities’ income. Is this a form of capitalist primitive accumulation? Or is it tied to the transnational movement of global capital?

Research on trends from East Asian students (cf. Waters 2006; 2009) suggests that they and their families carefully strategise to achieve ‘positional advantage’ in a crowded and increasingly ‘credentialised’ graduate labour market. Is UK HE contributing to elitist, hegemonic positions abroad?

BAU: some questions of political economy

How are students and institutions positioned inside this model of business-as-usual?

Q. ‘What did, or do, you hope to gain as a result of study abroad?’

Descriptives:•76%: greater confidence (68% males, 81% females)•72%: better employment prospects (70% males, 73% females)•66%: become more self-reliant (61% males, 70% females)•61%: ‘better language skills’ (57% males, 64% females).

So:1.greater shares of mobile females responding positively to the various (perceived) benefits;2.rise up the ranking list of ‘employment’ as a benefit; and3.the failure to mention (beyond language acquisition) any direct academic pay-off.

National Union of Students’ (2010). Student Experience Survey: http://bit.ly/3Eu0DR

What does this mean for UK HEIs and their staff in a competitive, global HE market?

http://bit.ly/eHXhjt

http://bit.ly/hTEa1H

http://bit.ly/ePTE38

1. Internationalisation in HE is a multi-faceted phenomenon2. Practice is experiental learning3. Cross-fertilisation between the disciplines promotes innovative

practice4. Global collaboration fosters effective, inclusive practice and rigorous

research 5. As a key concept in the student learning experience

internationalisation requires collaboration between academic, professional, support and managerial staff 

Centre for Academic Practice and Research in Internationalisation of Higher Education, at Leeds Metropolitan University (2010): http://bit.ly/dFv17Z

Tension: institutional diversity

Leeds Metropolitan (2008). Internationalisation Strategy 2008 – 2012; World-wide horizons at Leeds Met: http://bit.ly/haMeb7

Copy and paste culture, where plagiarism is rife. [The same claim that is made of A-Levels.]

Yet there is a focus on contextual/personalised understanding in high performing Asian nations’ pedagogic practices (Oates, 2010: http://bit.ly/ajbCp2). c.f. Shanghai test scores: http://wapo.st/eYTUcq And there are some who would claim that, in any case, there are common “reform elements that are replicable for school systems everywhere... to achieve significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes.” (McKinsey and Co., 2010: http://bit.ly/b9JJtb)

Tensions: the curriculum

Some curriculum stuff: comparative issues

http://bit.ly/fevnWp

Some curriculum stuff: sharing stories

http://bit.ly/fAPeFM

Some curriculum stuff: transfer

http://bit.ly/hF8efY

So maybe this is about something else? More humane, maybe? It’s not just the (knowledge) economy (and efficiency), stupid.

Maybe we need to discuss student-as-producer, rather than consumer, irrespective of cultural differences.

Maybe there is something here on power and the production of the curriculum/world at scale.

Maybe commonalities are more important in a world that faces significant disruption.

The HEA’s approach to student engagement considers students as active partners in their learning experience. It promotes the value of student engagement and shares effective practice across the HE sector. Projects carried out this year have helped to ensure that the student voice has been heard on topics ranging from sustainability to excellence in teaching. The HEA has worked with HEIs to ensure that all students, whatever their background, can benefit from inclusive teaching practices.

HEA (2011). Annual Report: http://bit.ly/HYUDVw

The Student Voice

Equality Challenge Unit (2010). Internationalisation and equality and diversity in HE: merging identities

http://bit.ly/e2xkbL

cash and culture

…the university recruits too many international students because they pay high fees… so many courses now have considerable foreign numbers that do not talk to the local students…

us and them?

International students have to make an effort to integrate themselves as well… international students… slow down the learning process…

…sometimes we don’t understand why they smile…

stereotypes

International students… always form their own groups and segregate themselves from the Australian society and never integrating… International perspectives are also that ‘we pay we pass’ and therefore never put in effort in uni…

equality

Due to current politics and the result of historical situation universities in the UK have to face high number of international students. In order to create a well working system this diversity must be based on equality.

NUS (2010). Internationalising students unions in HE. http://bit.ly/i6MZRR

alienation

I ask why do I need to pay more for my tuition fees since I am from abroad when all the services, resources, time, etc, rendered to me are the same as my British and EC contemporaries… Am I also not “contributing” to the university in any way?

safety

You [gravitate] towards people from your own culture because you think ‘…oh foreigners, I don’t know what it is going to be like talking to them, I am safe talking to someone of my own race’.

Chinese international students refer to Australian students of Chinese background as ‘bananas’ because in appearance they have yellow skin, but inside they have the ideas of white people, they behave like the local people not like people from Asia.

the Other

some programmes of study tend to be mono-cultural, comprising large numbers of Chinese or Indian students who have little or no opportunity to engage with home students in the campus learning environment.

the challenge... is breaking down barriers to facilitate the free exchange of ideas, different world views, etc, to counter the stereotyped images so frequently portrayed by the global media

A tendency to articulate internationalisation in its traditional guise = partnerships/exchanges, which enable students to experience difference but also to attract more students to the university.

Recruitment of international staff = a key element of internationalisation, where students note diversity of staff coming together to discuss how to teach international students.

Students acknowledge the legitimacy of the HEI as a business that needs to maintain good reputation and international standing through a student-centred approach/a quality product to international customers.

An ‘international feel’ that sets the HEI apart from other institutions.

But the internationalisation of HE does not take place in a bubble.

Disruption

1. Control and management of flows of ‘economic migrants’/asylum-seekers

2. HE and post-colonialism

3. HE in the natural world

Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab-Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world.

Edward Said, in The Nation (2010): http://bit.ly/gAuPqz

A key message is the need to manage diversity rather than simply recruit ever expanding numbers of international students which may result in widespread student failures on hostile campuses where various social groups are viewed negatively.

Equality Challenge Unit, 2010: http://bit.ly/emsYwg

HE framed by austerity politics:eliding an attack on the public sector, and protection of a hegemonic position, with a fear of the other: http://bit.ly/dQRovN

Mobile students represent a ‘privileged’ selection. See: http://bit.ly/hL5y6Z For students coming from poor countries, the wish to convert a student visa into long-term or permanent residence – so-called ‘student switchers’ (Robertson 2010) – is a rational life-strategy.

Some receiving countries keen to recruit good students from any country, to fill gaps in their national labour market (Hazen and Alberts 2006; Gribble 2008) The increasing internationalisation of skilled and professional labour markets frames the danger that the UK will produce proportionally fewer multilingual, multicultural graduates than other competitor countries (http://bit.ly/vRyJH).

http://bbc.in/fu68Ui

There is a strong correlation between energy use and GDP. Global energy demand is on the rise yet oil supply is forecast to decline in the next few years. There is no precedent for oil discoveries to make up for the shortfall, nor is there a precedent for efficiencies to relieve demand on this scale. Energy supply looks likely to constrain growth.

Global emissions currently exceed the IPCC 'marker' scenario range. The Climate Change Act 2008 has made the -80%/2050 target law, yet this requires a national mobilisation akin to war-time. Probably impossible but could radically change the direction of HE in terms of skills required and spending available.

Disruption

I = P x A x TThe impact of human activities (I) is determined by the overall

population (P), the level of affluence (A) and the level of technology (T).

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Even as the efficiency of technology improves, affluence and population scale up the impacts. [See: http://bit.ly/cldoaZ]

What does this mean for mobility?

What does this mean for global competition?

What does this mean for relatively high cost, energy insecure economies?

Repercussions for BAU New meanings and measures of success Limits on materials, energy, wastes and land use? More meaningful prices More durable, reparable goods Fewer status goods More informative advertising Better screening of technology More efficient capital stock More local, less global Reduced inequality Less work, more leisure Education for life, not just work

http://managingwithoutgrowth.comhttp://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html

Some possible outcomes in the next 10-20 years?

From 2014, emergency investments required in new energy sources as oil declines and existing power stations decommissioned.Significant increase in cost of energy = Increase in cost of living. Problem with global food supplies. Increased (student) poverty?

Shift from mitigation to adaptation efforts.Decrease/suspension of democracy.Increase in resource wars drains public funds.De-growth in developed countries. 2008-09 = 'peak' of public spending on education.Contraction in HE sector (real estate/staff/students). “Uneconomic.”Growth in informal and/or non-institutional education.Increased spending on STEM at cost of all else. Unfailing faith in tech.

In this way, and following Bourdieu’s notion of ‘forms of capital’ (Bourdieu 1986), students who move to study in an international arena, especially if they attend high-prestige universities, accumulate multiple and mutually-reinforcing forms of capital – mobility capital (cf. Murphy-Lejeune 2002), human capital (a world-class university education), social capital (access to networks, ‘connections’), cultural capital (languages, intercultural awareness) and, eventually, economic capital (high-salary employment).

HEFCE (2010). International student mobility literature review: Final report: http://bit.ly/c6be49

Capital

Is HE resilient in the face of disruption?

Do our approaches to internationalisation and the place of students in HE limit re-invention?

the ‘contact hypothesis’ suggests that rather than intercultural encounters automatically increasing intercultural competence, they can reinforce stereotypes and prejudices if critical incidents are not evaluated on cognitive, affective and behavioural levels. Students need to be able to learn about ‘differences’ and get to know each other with sufficient intimacy as to be able to discern common goals and personal qualities. This in turn suggests reflection on individual and collective social experiences with people from other cultures

Equality Challenge Unit, 2010: http://bit.ly/emsYwg

It’s not like we can’t do this (however loaded):

UNIPCCHuman Genome ProjectParticipatory Action Research ProjectsStudent solidarity

See, Chatham House (2011). Asia and Europe: Engaging for a Post-Crisis World: http://bit.ly/fyrgkR

So what might this mean for student voices in HE?

Can the voices of international students help HE become more resilient?

Resilience: adaptation not BAU

“the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks”

Rob Hopkins (2009). Transition Culture: http://bit.ly/3ugobl

Systemic diversity, modularity, feedback

resilience at scale

“we have a choice between reliance on government and its resources, and its approach to command and control, or developing an empowering day-to-day community resilience. Such resilience develops engagement, education, empowerment and encouragement”

DEMOS (2010): http://bit.ly/15yRl9

Student-as-producerThe Student as Producer project re-engineers the relationship between research and teaching. This involves a reappraisal of the relationship between academics and students, with students becoming part of the academic project of universities rather than consumers of knowledge.

“The educator is no longer a delivery vehicle and the institutionbecomes a landscape for the production and construction of a mass intellect in commons.”

Neary and Winn (2009). The student as producer: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1675/

Student-as-producer

collaborative relations – teaching and research networks;

refashioning in fundamental ways the nature of the university;

redesign the organizing principle, (i.e. private property and wage labour), through which academic knowledge is currently being produced;

open, collaborative initiatives.

Neary and Winn (2009). The student as producer: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/1675/

Towards a curriculum for resilience?

• Complexity and increasing uncertainty in the world demands resilience

• Integrated and social, rather than a subject-driven• Engaging with uncertainty through projects that involve

diverse voices in civil action• Discourses of power – co-governance; co-production?• Authentic partnerships, mentoring and enquiry, in

method, context, interpretation and action• How does our international experience inform

resilience and our work at scale?

In the face of disruption what should be done?

• The purpose of HEIs

• The roles of students/staff

• The place of openness

• The design/delivery of the curriculum

• How does our international experience inform resilience and our work at scale?

Resilient HE: what is to be done?

Are there other ways of producing knowing? What authority does HE/do universities have? How relevant are fixed institutions/programmes in a disrupted world?

How do internationalised student voices help to adapt to disruption? In a knowing world, rather than a knowledge economy, what does curriculum innovation mean?

Does a pedagogy of production need to start with the principle that we need to consume less of everything? What does this mean for ownership of the institution at scale [local, regional, global]?

How can internationalised student voices help in the struggle to re-invent the world?

See: http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/a-question/

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