Merit and Relevance in Internationalization of Higher Education: Symbiosis International University as a Case Study

Abstract

Internationalization of higher education is an area of prolific research interest to higher education institutions (HEIs) as well as regulatory and advisory bodies. While the subject is gaining ground in India, there is not a whole lot in terms of conceptual research with conscious focus on internationalization of higher education and its realization at the organizational level. This paper addresses the scarcity by surveying the scope and extent of internationalization at the Symbiosis International University (SIU), Pune, India. In the case study, the subject — SIU serves as prototype of Indian university and the investigation could well be extrapolated to draw parallels with other HEIs, explicate phenomena related to internationalization of HEIs and lend itself to model building. In calibrating the meaningfulness of internationalization at the University, literature review of internationalization of HEIs — particularly, the benchmarks and “best practices” — was carried out. In the conduct of research, some of the more prominently utilized techniques were: data collection and analysis, literature review of precedential published work, interviews and observation. In this framework, performance indicators were delineated as variables and practices at other universities phenomena which could potentially be utilized to measure how well SIU fared. The underlying cautionary idea is that internationalization in this spectrum is a dynamic phenomenon and must be continually evaluated so as not to fall prey to the perils of tokenism and futility. The objective is not so much to test hypotheses from precedential work as to gain phenomenological acuity into the real-life application of internationalization at the organizational level — not excluding the shortfalls and the challenges.