Cross-border Education Research Articles

The Importance of Cross-Border Education in Contexts of Collaboration Between Countries According to the SDGS

Introduction: Cross-border education refers to collaboration between countries to promote learning opportunities across geographic boundaries, aiming to develop global citizens. This educational model emphasizes student and teacher mobility, cultural diversity, and international cooperation, which are essential for the development of 21st century skills. Objective: The aim of the study was to explore the importance of cross-border education in contexts of collaboration between countries, highlighting the benefits, challenges, and contributions to sustainable development. Method: This is a qualitative analysis based on the analysis of international partnerships, exchange programs, bilingual curricula, and the use of technological innovations in education. Results: Cross-border education promotes international cooperation, intercultural understanding, and strengthens diplomatic relations. Although it faces logistical and administrative challenges, such as recognition of qualifications and academic mobility, it offers numerous opportunities for cultural and academic enrichment. Conclusions: Cross-border education is vital for building an inclusive and sustainable global society (SDG). Overcoming the challenges requires effective policies and international cooperation. Investing in emerging technology trends is crucial to expanding access to and quality of cross-border education.

International Students Tackling Linguistic Challenges in Cross-Border English-medium Instruction: The Perspective of Migration Infrastructures

Drawing on Xiang and Lindquist’s notion of migration infrastructure, this study investigates how international students utilize contextual resources to enhance learning in English-medium instruction (EMI) degree programs in the Japanese context. We recruited 13 Chinese students enrolled in EMI postgraduate degree programs at four Japanese universities and collected data from semi-structured interviews and the participants’ reading/lecture notes. Qualitative content analysis revealed that despite the constraints of regulatory infrastructure (monolingual orientation at the institutional level), Chinese students utilized various resources offered by technological, social, and commercial infrastructures to facilitate their academic communication and foster their academic learning. The findings revealed that despite facing linguistic difficulties in their EMI program, the students used technological, social, and commercial infrastructural resources to access knowledge, developed multilingual habitus both in and outside their classrooms, and ultimately enhanced the quality of their cross-border education. This study provides migration infrastructure as a useful framework to examine international students’ challenges and adjustments in their cross-border education. In doing so, this study extends our understanding of international students’ experiences by going beyond a linguistic-centered perspective to encompass their language use as embodied socio-material processes. This paper concludes with implications for the implementation of English-medium higher education.

Education hubs in a globalized world: The emergence of China

Education hubs represent the third generation of crossborder education activities, which emerge onto the landscape of our more globalized world. As a new phenomenon in higher education, education hubs are appearing in different locations around the globe. In the literature on education hubs, most research studies have focused on Southeast Asia and Middle East. To address this gap in the literature, we seek to explore the emergence of China as an international education hub, especially with respect to its impact on development. Against the backdrop of China’s national strategy to develop its international competitiveness in education, we conduct case studies of three education hubs in China: (i) the International Collaborative Education Exemplary Zone by the International Campus of Zhejiang University (iZJU) in the Yangtze River Delta; (ii) the International Higher Education Demonstration Zone in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area; and (iii) the International Education Innovation Pilot Zone in the Hainan Free Trade Port. Overall, our paper draws implication on how education hubs developed through university-industry-government collaboration can help the region to shift to a knowledge and service-based economy, and gain a competitive edge within the country and beyond.

Pedagogical Principles of Teaching Art Disciplines for Future Graphic Designers during Martial Law in Ukraine (on the Example of NACAM)

The purpose of the paper consists in outlining the pedagogical principles of teaching art disciplines for students of higher education majoring in graphic design during martial law (on the example of the National Academy of Culture and Arts Management (NACAM). The research methodology consists in the application of a complex of general scientific methods, among which the main ones are: objectivity, functionality, comparative analysis, explanatory, generalisation, and systematisation. Special methods include a complex of pedagogical methods: organisation of the educational process, problem-based teaching, lecture, research, and creative methods. Scientific novelty of the research. Submitted for the first time pedagogical principles are presented, on the basis of which the author teaches future graphic designers a number of artistic disciplines at NACAM. The research of domestic scholars became the basis for the analysis and generalisation of the selected issues. At the same time, the conceptual apparatus, the legal and regulatory framework were revealed, and the main principles of the lecturer's work in the conditions of martial law in Ukraine. Conclusions. Among the wide range of pedagogical principles of teaching artistic disciplines for future graphic designers during the martial law in Ukraine, we emphasise: safety of the educational process; the responsibility of the student for the thematic choice, their observance of academic and legal principles in creative activity; consistency with civil/public requests; artistic originality in design and projecting and scientific validity in conducting and describing educational research; partnership conditions teacher-acquirer; cultural progress; cross-border education and multiculturalism; professional implementation. Keywords: design, training of graphic designers, pedagogical principles, artistic disciplines, higher education during martial law.

Educational inequity in prolonged online learning among young learners: A two-year longitudinal study of Chinese cross-border education

Educational inequity in prolonged online learning among young learners: A two-year longitudinal study of Chinese cross-border education

Cross-Border Education: Students from Slovenia in Austrian Minority Schools

Abstract The article deals with increasing cross-border education, namely students from Slovenia attending upper-secondary level minority schools in Austrian Carinthia. We conducted interviews with school management and focus groups with students, who also completed a short questionnaire. Based on qualitative and quantitative data, we drew conclusions about the motives of students from Slovenia for enrolment in Slovene minority schools in Austria and about the consequences of their decision – their well-being, their knowledge and use of languages, their plans for the future – as well as in relation to their sense of Europeanness and their varying identities. Cross-border schooling turns out to be a success story. The outcome seems to be particularly favourable for the Slovene minority in Austrian Carinthia as it maintains the scope and quality of minority education, while also having the positive consequence of giving the members of the Slovene minority much greater exposure to the Slovene language, especially spoken language, with which they otherwise have less direct contact.

Reimagining the notion of Hong Kong as an education hub: National imperative for higher education policy

This article examines the evolving concept of Hong Kong as an education hub, with a focus on the influence of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) strategy on higher education development. It begins by reviewing the impacts of the policy of developing Hong Kong into an education hub on the city’s educational landscape and global competitiveness. Subsequently, the article investigates the GBA’s role as a subnational higher education region, highlighting the heightened strategic cooperation between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland in the higher education arena. The cases of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou are examined as examples of cross-border education in the GBA, shedding light on their role in fostering research collaboration and knowledge exchange. The article reimagines the notion of an education hub, underscoring Hong Kong’s transition from a gateway to a radiator, and discusses the implications of this shift for the city’s global and national positioning. Through this analysis, the article examines the dynamics and future prospects of education hub in Hong Kong, particularly within the context of emphasising integration with the Chinese Mainland.

Understanding Contextual Factors Influencing Chinese Students to Study at a Hong Kong Institution's Intra-Country Branch Campus

International branch campuses (IBCs) are commonly used by nations and universities to achieve internationalization. Although existing research has examined students’ attitudes and behaviors toward IBCs, few studies have investigated these issues in an intra-country context. Hong Kong institutions’ IBCs in the Greater Bay Area of Mainland China are examples of cross-border education that is offered under China's ‘one country, two systems’ policy. Using the concept of global-national-local imbrication as the theoretical lens, this qualitative study explores contextual factors influencing students’ motivations to enroll at a Hong Kong instituion's intra-country IBC. The findings suggest that students are drawn by global (e.g., high level of internationalization), national (e.g., shared culture), and local (e.g., high function-price ratio) factors to enroll at IBCs. These findings have generated new insights into students’ motivations within a unique environmental context, and the global-national-local imbrication paradigm provides a new attempt to explain the destination and institutional choices of students in transnational education.

Limitations of the leading definition of ‘internationalisation’ of higher education: is the idea wrong or is the fault in reality?

ABSTRACT The paper critically reviews the widely adopted definition of ‘internationalisation’ of higher education shaped by Knight and colleagues since 1993 through successive revisions and intended for universal application. Here, internationalisation is defined as ‘the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension’ into post-secondary education. The definition has long led cross-border scholarship, discourse and practice, being promoted in support of a wide range of governmental, commercial and institutional agendas. However, the disjunction between idea and reality has increasingly troubled advocates of the definition; and underlying this tension are more fundamental difficulties. It attempts to unify contradictory cross-border practices under the leadership of the global West/North. The geography of the definition rests on an ideological binary of ‘globalisation’ (bad) and ‘internationalisation’ (good) that locks practitioners into nation-bound approaches. The definition is non-relational in form yet relational in consequence, focused on characteristics of the self – the person, the institution, the nation – without regard for the consequences of internationalisation for the other. Hence when applied by Western/Northern agents the definition facilitates continued Euro-American domination. The paper suggests a different approach to terminology, geography, relationality and power in cross-border education.

Intra-Africa student mobility: benefits for Africa and factors militating against it

Intra-Africa student mobility holds immense opportunities for students, institutions, nations and the African continent in general through the resourcefulness promoted by cross-border education and research capacity building. If well harnessed, the benefits of intra-Africa student mobility will enhance the visibility of Africa and its higher education institutions and serve as a vehicle through which the continent can profit from internationalisation. This paper argues that intra-Africa student mobility offers several benefits for both Africa and Africans, and is a viable means for turning the tide of the brain drain in the continent. The paper addresses an important question: In what way is intra-Africa mobility beneficial to Africa? The paper was developed qualitatively through a review of relevant literature.

Book Review: Reimagining Border in Cross-border Education

Book Review: Reimagining Border in Cross-border Education

Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Center Integrated by Telemedicine: Experience, Challenges and First Results of a Cross Border Network.

This article reports on the development, implementation and management of a German-Polish telemedicine network in the field of pediatric oncology and hematology in the Euroregion Pomerania. The achievements and challenges of joint medical case reviews involving patients and their care givers, as well as cross-border education activities for physicians, students and nursing staff, are presented. In addition to a progress report, the results of an evaluation of the participants and teachers, likewise the measurement of knowledge growth, are given.

The Catalytic Role of Covid-19 Pandemic in the Paradigm Shift in the Cross-Border University Education: The Case of Uganda

Globalisation, technological advancements, global university ranking pressure and cross-border education service trade have gradually been causing a paradigm shift in the cross-border university education sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating consequences for university education characterised by massive infections, closure of learning institutions, and deaths of students, academics and scholars. While it gravely affected the cross-border mobility of students, academics and scholars, it ironically proved to be a catalyst for the paradigm shift from physical to virtual cross-border university education. This study assessed this catalytic role. A descriptive study design which incorporated both quantitative and qualitative research approaches was adopted. A study population of 39 public and 12 private universities in Uganda was targeted. A desk review was conducted focusing on electronic databases, websites, online libraries and some grey literature. Descriptive analysis was conducted for quantitative data and content analysis for qualitative data. It was established that crossborder university education in Uganda was still low-key, with only a few of the universities practising it. The inbound cross-border mobility outweighs the outbound; and the pandemic is catalysing the current paradigm shift towards a highly virtual paradigm characterised by virtuality, flexibility, technological savviness and learner-centred learning. Virtuality was found to be expressed in terms of virtual cross-border mobility, virtual/online student enrolment and virtual learning; while flexibility was in terms of teaching and learning, and of curriculum coverage. Cross-border mobility having dwindled, universities need to embrace the new paradigm and expeditiously review their cross-border policies accordingly.

ІНТЕРНАЦІОНАЛІЗАЦІЯ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКИХ ПРИВАТНИХ ЗАКЛАДІВ СЕРЕДНЬОЇ ОСВІТИ: ДОСВІД ДЛЯ УКРАЇНИ

Since the end of the twentieth century, the intensification of globalization processes has led to the transformation of the global education market, which takes the form of cross-border education. These processes contribute to the intensification of educational competition, which encourages countries to increase their international competitiveness, including by combining national cultural identity and international standards of educational services. Primary and secondary education institutions, one of the main components that form the system of values and beliefs in society, are the first to involve their students in the international environment. Strengthening the involvement of Ukrainian educational institutions in these processes is especially relevant in the context of preserving and developing the demographic potential of our country as one of the critical factors in the strategy of rebuilding the Ukrainian economy in the context of full-scale armed aggression by rf. Given the global experience of comparing the efficiency of educational institutions of different ownership forms, the concentration on private educational institutions is relevant. The analysis of the peculiarities of the transformation of the private segment of educational services in recent years and the study of foreign internationalization practices in general secondary education confirms the growing competition in the market of educational services, which forces institutions to improve the quality of educational services through the implementation of an effective model of internationalization of educational institutions. It is proposed to use foreign experience to address the issue of reducing teacher turnover and increasing the capacity of internationalization of Ukrainian secondary education institutions: transition from a school of knowledge to a school of competencies; personalization of education; facilitating access to national and international scientific infrastructures at the state level; deepening cooperation with the scientific diaspora; development of a mechanism for international mobility of teachers of Ukrainian secondary education institutions by the Ministry of Education and Science.

ORGANIZATIONAL AND LEGAL MECHANISM OF ACADEMIC MOBILITY IN UKRAINE

The relevance of the problem under consideration is caused by the need to improve the necessary competencies of students and modern teachers, researchers, the formation, development and improvement of an intercultural environment in an educational organization, which must meet both the social and personal needs of each student, aimed at the formation of a personal educational and professional development strategy. In the field of higher education, internationalization occurs as part of the implementation of international cooperation between universities, as well as attracting foreign students to main educational programs. Scientific and cultural exchange between universities in different countries is today a priority task aimed at creating high competitiveness of the Ukrainian education system. Creating conditions for the effective integration of education, science and production, creating an innovative infrastructure in the university and the region, introducing new educational technologies, developing new forms of cross-border education, harmonizing educational systems and their integration into the global scientific and educational space - this is not a complete list of requirements that are placed demands on modern processes of higher education development.

State-university relations and its implication on internationalization of higher education

There has always been a power struggle regarding control over the administration of the university. In the Enlightenment era, the contenders were the State and the Church. However, as the role of the Church in modern educational institutes declined, the state clamoured for greater control ( Delanty, 2001b ; Rüegg, 1992 ). In the 1990s, academic autonomy was under the purview of the university. This in turn gave impetus to greater mobility of students across borders and to the larger process of Internationalization of Higher Education (IHE). However, in the post-democratic era, the autonomy of universities was severely restricted and research and curriculum were tainted with a protectionist attitude ( Altbach and De Wit, 2018 ; Jenkins et al., 2018 ). Emerging conflicts between the state and the university highlight the urgent need to understand and assess state-university relations in the new political climate. Under these circumstances, the process of IHE has borne the brunt and in the last decade, we have seen a decrease in international outbound student mobility, an increase in the cancellation of offshore campuses and other cross-border education activities. While the process of IHE is still maintained, the original aim of this process, to tackle global issues with a local perspective while providing an inter-cultural university education is at risk. This paper examines the changing dynamics of state-university relations and their implications on the process of IHE.

МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЕ ВЫСШЕЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ: ПРОБЛЕМЫ КАЧЕСТВА И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ

Currently, characterized by unprecedented anti-Russian sanctions restrictions, issues of functioning of all spheres of human activity are acute. The sphere of higher education was no exception. The agenda of economic and educational forums increasingly includes issues of ensuring the quality of higher education in the context of globalization processes, discussing the prospects for the implementation of international educational programs, analyzing the current state of international student mobility and ways to expand it to cover new areas of education, compliance of higher education with global humanistic values. In the context of globalization processes, quality issues in the field of higher education are of particular importance due to a group of factors, including: the massization of higher education, the development of cross-border education and the expansion of its opportunities due to the new forms and technologies of education, the popularization and expansion of the availability of international educational programs, the strengthening of competition of educational organizations for foreign applicants as sources of funding, etc. The effect of these factors in the international educational space, on the one hand, requires compliance with uniform standards, which include European standards and recommendations for quality assurance of higher education in the European Space (ESG–QA), on the other – may lead to a decrease in educational standards, including under the influence of external factors of the so-called insurmountable strength. We are talking about the impact of COVID-19 and the escalating geopolitical situation on the stability of international partnerships and the preservation of the principles formalized in a series of global documents on quality assurance of higher education, and the enduring universal values.

Inclusive, social space-oriented participation of people with disabilities in the Bavaria–Tyrol border region during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: Although some individuals in Germany’s and Austria’s Bavaria–Tyrol border region live in one country but work, study, shop and/or access healthcare in the other, realising that lifestyle can be difficult for people with disabilities (PWD). Limited cross-border services currently available to PWD not only suffer from poor awareness and adoption but also fail to meet PWD’s manifold individual needs. Thus facing restricted individual social space, especially in rural areas, the region’s PWD experience various constraints to self-determined lives, which the COVID-19 pandemic’s isolation and heightened border control have only aggravated. Against that background, we sought to identify factors that have enabled or constrained PWD’s individual agency in the Bavaria–Tyrol border region both before and during the pandemic.
 Methods: Beginning in April 2020, we conducted 34 semi-structured interviews with PWD, their relatives and employers and various institutional, political and administrative personnel regarding the use of cross-border education, housing, leisure and occupational services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bavaria, Germany, and Tyrol, Austria. In qualitative content analysis, we summarised the most pressing results into eight abstracts that we later compiled into a qualitative online survey completed by 51 of 229 interviewees and other participants (22.27%).
 Results: Pandemic-associated developments and policies have been external shocks to an already fragile (cross-border) support system for PWD. Added to pre-pandemic obstacles including a lack of information, consensus and options regarding cross-border activities, new deficits in mobility, housing and funding for support along with prejudices and the effects of digitalisation have further intensified challenges for PWD.

Bridging home and school in cross-border education: The role of intermediary spaces in the in/exclusion of Mainland Chinese students and their families in Hong Kong

Over the last two decades the Hong Kong government has made considerable investments to develop the city into a regional education hub, with ‘diversification’ as a key aim. The vision is, however, delinked from the tens of thousands of young children residing in Shenzhen who commute to Hong Kong for school daily. These children embody differences that are considered undesired and their social exclusion has been widely reported. Taking a spatial perspective, this paper deepens our understanding of the in/exclusion processes impacting these children. Drawing on our policy analysis, interviews, observations in physical spaces and digital media, this paper analyses the role that intermediary spaces play in (re)producing differences and social relationships. Specifically, we examine the power geometries of the children’s school journey and school-related digital space, which are arenas where social differences are played out and in/exclusion is practiced and negotiated. We analyse the network of state and non-state actors at work in these intermediary spaces, showing the complex ways in which separation and integration, exclusion and inclusion intersect and constitute each other mutually. Our paper also gives some first insights into the impact of COVID-19 on the school children within this education mobility field.

Cross-Border Higher Education and Quality Assurance. Results from a Systematic Literature Review

Internationalisation has gained prominence in debates on higher education and can be analysed from different perspectives, including cross-border higher education. Cross-border higher education entails relevant challenges, namely regarding its quality. This paper intends to discuss, based on a literature review, the link between cross-border higher education and quality assurance, namely the role quality assurance may have in contributing to a quality cross-border educational offer. 79 documents (indexed in Scopus or Web of Science) published between 1998 and 2019 were content analysed. The results show that both internal and external quality assurance are relevant topics when discussing cross-border higher education and a means to stimulate the overall quality of this educational offer. Moreover, to be effective, quality assurance must rely on cooperation and mutual trust between importing and exporting countries, including their quality assurance agencies.