Global Higher Education Landscape Research Articles

Navigating New Horizons: The Future of International Student Mobility in the Post-Pandemic World

The global higher education landscape has undergone significant change in the wake of COVID-19. There’s been a notable surge in students opting for more affordable programs, alongside a considerable rise in those pursuing overseas education for immigration purposes. Countries like Canada and Australia have responded by easing visa constraints to lure international students. Meanwhile, India and China, as two key players in sending students abroad, are experiencing divergent trajectories. While China is fostering its domestic education sector and implementing policies to draw in international students, its population is expected to decline. Conversely, the rapidly growing youth population in India offers a favorable opportunity for overseas students. For nations reliant on the overseas education sector, striking a balance between the economic benefits and local employment impacts is crucial, while also addressing market share challenges posed by China and India. Exploring alternative markets is imperative. Nigeria, Kenya, and other nations show high growth potential, while the rising middle class in Latin America offers another potential source market. Kazakhstan emerges as a notable contender, with its pre-pandemic economic expansion and government initiatives promoting international student mobility and ambitious targets. The declining cost of studying abroad reflects not only the economic challenges facing the global education sector but also a democratization of access to international education, no longer confined to affluent families. A noticeable rise of international students from Asian countries—such as China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea—indicates a slow shift in the market share away from popular study locations. This shift underscores a broader trend of diversification in the global higher education landscape.

Globalization and Higher Education: Implications for Curriculum Development and Institutional Management


 
 
 Globalization has significantly transformed the landscape of higher education, presenting both opportunities and challenges for curriculum development and institutional management. This paper examines the implications of globalization on higher education, focusing on how it shapes curriculum development and institutional management practices. Through a qualitative approach involving literature review and library research, the study explores the various dimensions of globalization affecting higher education institutions worldwide. The analysis delves into the impact of globalization on curriculum content, pedagogical approaches, and learning outcomes, as well as the broader institutional structures and governance mechanisms. Furthermore, the paper discusses the role of internationalization, technology integration, and global mobility in reshaping higher education curricula and management strategies. Key themes explored include the need for interdisciplinary and culturally responsive curricula, the promotion of global citizenship, and the adoption of innovative teaching and learning methodologies to meet the demands of a globalized world. Additionally, the study highlights the importance of strategic planning, quality assurance mechanisms, and leadership development in enhancing institutional resilience and competitiveness in the global higher education landscape. The findings underscore the necessity for higher education institutions to adapt and innovate in response to the challenges and opportunities brought about by globalization, fostering greater inclusivity, diversity, and excellence in curriculum design and institutional management practices.
 
 

Navigating the Shift: Faculty Preparedness for Online Teaching in the Evolving Global Higher Education Landscape

In the global landscape of higher education, online teaching and learning has transcended being a mere trend to become an essential requirement in most universities and colleges. The shift from traditional classroom instruction to the online modality requires faculty members to prepare for this transition. This study utilized a qualitative research method with a phenomenological design to investigate faculty preparedness for online teaching and learning within the context of the pandemic. Fourteen participants in the six campuses within Ifugao State University in Ifugao, Philippines took part in the study. Findings reveal that faculty members at Ifugao State University face diverse experiences and challenges during their transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online instruction. Faculty members’ backgrounds and prior exposure to online teaching significantly shaped their preparedness and confidence in navigating this shift. The study underscores the crucial role of factors such as experience and technological skills in influencing faculty members’ preparedness for online teaching, as well as their self-acknowledged limitations in addressing the unique complexities of the online modality. These findings emphasize the importance of tailored support, resources, and training opportunities to enhance faculty preparedness for effective online pedagogy.

Systemic reviews: Financing of higher education internationalisation

The global higher education landscape has witnessed an increasing trend towards internationalisation in recent years; hence the demand for funding such endeavours has grown significantly. However, funding internationalisation efforts can be a challenging task for institutions. This review discusses various funding models for higher education internationalisation and the challenges posed by insufficient funding. This will be followed by a discussion on the following models: government funding, private philanthropy, corporate sponsorship, and partnerships with foreign universities, the role of tuition fees in funding internationalisation, and the challenges posed. Ultimately, this paper will propose a framework for funding that is based on an analysis of successful internationalisation strategies from around the world and intends to guide various funding bodies on how to best allocate resources for this purpose. By implementing this framework, countries shall overcome financial constraints that limit the extent to which internationalisation can be pursued, while also ensuring that the benefits of such efforts are shared equitably across their populations. This paper also explores the challenges facing the higher education internationalisation and the hurdles present in the funding process. A successful example in China has been studied thoroughly. This paper argues that while there is no one-size-fits-all approach to funding internationalisation efforts, a diversified funding approach that leverages various funding models can help institutions overcome funding challenges and achieve their internationalisation goals.

Exploring key themes and trends in international student mobility research —A systematic literature review

PurposeThe global landscape of higher education has witnessed a steady increase in the mobility of international students, as more individuals seek diverse academic experiences and cross-cultural learning opportunities. This paper conducts a systematic literature review to investigate trends, research directions and key themes in the literature. By utilising the push–pull factor model the aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing international students' choices to pursue higher education and future career opportunities abroad.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review approach was applied. The selection was made using PRISMA framework-based inclusion and exclusion criteria. The review includes 43 publications from 2010 to 2022.FindingsThe review results revealed five themes of scholarly conversations labelled as (1) betterment of life, (2) policy of the host country, (3) role of institutions, (4) return to home country and (5) social, economic, environmental, individual and cultural factors. The findings emphasise on the significance of factors such as the quality of education, visa requirements, academic reputation, tuition fees, availability of scholarships, job opportunities, social, economic, environmental, individual and cultural factors. The paper also identifies language barriers, visa policies and social integration difficulties as major barriers to international students' stay in the host country after graduation.Originality/valueThis research enhances the current body of literature by conducting a comprehensive analysis of the empirical evidence available in literature that investigates the mobility of international students. The outcomes of this study will make a valuable contribution towards developing a more profound comprehension of the primary factors that influence international students' decision to pursue their education abroad.

LEVERAGING STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT FOR ENHANCED HIGHER EDUCATION COMPETITIVENESS IN ARMENIA

Armenia is facing the challenge of ensuring the competitiveness of its higher education institutions (HEIs) in the rapidly evolving global landscape of higher education. With the rising demands for competitive human capital and the development of knowledge-based economies, the HEIs of the Republic of Armenia (RA) need to be agile and strategic in their decision-making processes and in employing respective mechanisms to meet the demands of the market and global landscape of higher education. In this context, stakeholder engagement should emerge as a powerful tool for driving competitiveness through ethical and efficient decision making in higher education strategic management in Armenia, for it ensures the increase of stakeholders' interest, fiduciary responsibilities, and commitment towards HEIs.

Bibliometric Exploration into the Global Research Impact of China’s Thousand Talents Brand

The Thousand Talents Plan was an ambitious government initiative to repatriate and/or recruit experts from the global Chinese diaspora, along with some non-Chinese experts, with generous research funding and relocation packages. The plan has received much criticism from abroad, accusing endeavors of taking advantage of the open international education sector and facilitating espionage. While the Thousand Talents Plan received much of the attention, there are reportedly over 200 talent recruitment plans implemented by the Chinese government. We refer to these Talents Plans broadly as the Thousand Talents Brand (TTB), due to the diverse subjects, various programs, and a disparate number of the plans. Given the scrutiny and haphazardness of these initiatives, it has been difficult to gauge the impact on the global landscape of higher education, as official data on the broader project has not been readily available. Using bibliometric analysis of Web of Science, we find that research with funding from the TTB did decrease following the recent outcry, but was only roughly 1% of all Chinese research output at its peak in 2018. We find that the research was mostly concentrated in the hard sciences, with relatively little in the social sciences. Our results show the research funded through the initiatives was most commonly partnered with researchers in the Western powers, such as the US, Germany, and England, including connections to institutions with national security concerns like the US Department of Energy. While the findings do illustrate a complex web of global research governance through international partnerships, they cannot alleviate concerns that the TTB programs are potentially malign to sensitive sectors.

Integration of Digitally-Assisted Assessment in the EFL Classroom

The global landscape of higher education has dramatically changed since 2020 due to the pandemic caused by the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has forced Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in emergency digitalization at all levels, in teaching and assessment. Through online teaching, the discussions about knowledge protection, cheating, plagiarism resulting from the emergency transition of Distance Learning cannot avoid. It is witnessed the effort taken by the academic and administrative staff of HEIs to timely tackle forcedly changed policies, chanced practices, and the reality in the New Normal. Based on the above-mentioned circumstances; educators from different countries including Kazakhstan, Turkey and Georgia, decided to get united and illustrate through the current study the integration of Digitally Assisted Assessment (DAA) with teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in these countries. Subsequently, the study has considered the necessity to acquire the opinions from various EFL educators and practitioner teachers locally and globally to develop a qualitative survey seeking responses on the ways how the assessment system has changed in the digital classroom. Also, the type of employed digital tools for successful assessment and how these tools have helped teachers to succeed in digitally assisted assessment. At the same time, the paper aims at identifying the advantages and disadvantages of using DAA in EFL classrooms. Finally based on the survey results will attempt to demonstrate best practices of successful literation of DAA and to provide practical recommendations for future improvement.

Whiteness as world-class education?: Internationalization as depicted by Western international branch campuses in China.

A case study is used to understand how Western international branch campuses (IBCs) in China represent themselves through web-based branding materials. Drawing on colonial discourse analysis and the theoretical framework of Whiteness as futurity, this study examined the case of Wenzhou-Kean University, a Sino-US cooperative institution to understand how Western IBCs in China interpret and promote internationalization in higher education. By examining how Whiteness through the discourse of world-class education has been mobilized and reproduced, this study argued that the operation of IBCs perpetuated Western supremacy in the global higher education landscape at the expense of local people and knowledges.

Rethinking Assessment: The Future of Examinations in Higher Education

The global higher education landscape is significantly impacted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the majority of the universities now follow an online or hybrid mode of delivery. This presents substantial challenges for universities, particularly to conduct examinations, as traditionally most exams were conducted physically on campus. During the first wave of the pandemic, many universities had no option and were forced to move online in a very short period of time, causing universities also to conduct exams online without transforming pedagogy and the structure/s of closed-book exams. Inevitably, in non-proctored and unregulated examinations, this allowed room for students to collaborate and share material during online exams without being noticed by an invigilator as in the case of physical exams. Online exams, also leave room for students to find information online which made preventing plagiarism a significant challenge. This paper investigates the practices used in both closed-book and open-book exams and identifies the challenges associated with the transition to online exams. It also identifies potential ways forward for future online exams, while minimizing opportunities for students to collaborate, plagiarise and use online material. The findings of this study reveal that online examinations affect teachers and students differently: while teachers have mixed feelings about online exams, students are anxious about their grades and the technical hassle they experience in online exams. While viva has emerged as a popular form of alternative assessment, students still feel the need of returning to physical exams. None of the teachers who participated in this study discussed a psychosocial approach to education and exams in this pandemic. We conclude this study on the note that there is a need for the collaboration of social scientists, psychologists, psychosocial specialists, educationists, and humanities scholars/humanists for better educational policy and pedagogical practices during the pandemic.

Immobility infrastructures: taking online courses and staying put amongst Chinese international students during the COVID-19

ABSTRACT This paper draws attention to the current and possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the (im)mobility trajectories of international students (IS) and the global higher education landscape. From the perspective of migration infrastructure, this paper specifically focuses on the immobility experiences amongst Chinese international students (CIS) who planned to enrol overseas in 2020 but instead chose to take online courses in China due to the COVID-19. It asks how online courses are both facilitated and constrained by a set of institutional and technological infrastructural forces. Particularly it also explores how some CIS exercise agency to mobilise their infrastructural surroundings and overcome certain infrastructural deficiencies they encounter, with the aim of improving studying/living quality while inhabiting immobilities in a transnational context. As such, this paper challenges the oppositional nature of mobility and immobility, arguing that immobility is not the ‘flip side’ to mobility or an outcome by default, and that being immobile can be affirming and empowering. Essentially, the paper brings this infrastructurally sensitive theoretical approach into international student mobility (ISM) studies, shifting the focus from examining how infrastructures move people to how they enable people to stay, and to how they are lived and reconstructed at an everyday level.

Taking research from periphery to core in a Caribbean Language Centre

Abstract This paper draws on two research activities to discuss the role of research at the Centre for Language Learning (CLL) at The University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago. Established in 1997, the CLL introduced languages for all into this Caribbean higher education (HE) context. The CLL also introduced an expanded language curriculum beyond the historical focus on Romance languages and literatures. As the language centre evolved with more languages being taught and more language services offered, research, nonetheless, remained a marginal activity. Yet without a research agenda, the CLL risked being seen as a “service unit” - an outlier in a university seeking to confirm its place in the highly competitive global HE landscape. As the CLL sought to embrace more fully the research mandate of The UWI and of language centres internationally, CercleS publications and documents, for example, “Quality Assessment Criteria for Language Centres” were of great utility. The latter document’s focus on research as a quality indicator was consistent with The UWI’s focus on quality assurance and research. Taking research from periphery to core is thus intrinsic to moving the CLL into closer alignment with both institutional and international norms.

Higher Education Branding in Africa: A Social Media Perspective

The global higher education landscape has continued to experience changes and transformation, and there have been various contextual evidences that globalization has been a major contributor to this change. As a result of globalization, higher education institutions become more marketable and the need for brand building has increased. Over the years, there have been various attempts by higher education institutions to boost and improve their public image, and this has necessitated corporate visual identity and some changes to their names. This research is an inquiry into higher education branding in Africa using the social media perspective. Evidences were culled from the websites of universities in East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, South Africa, and Central Africa. Two institutions were selected from the regions and how they have branded themselves and established themselves on social media was considered. With various institutions offering service to members of the public, there are various avenues for dishing out information and engaging their prospective clients. The notable platforms these institutions use include Facebook, twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. This study recommends that the mandate by which each institution was established should be incorporated into their brand identities and propagated via social media. There should be an audit of all social media pages to understand engagement levels across all platforms, and to proffer other ways of branding to the institution.

Adoption of Digital Literacy Strategy on Academic Progress of Private University Education in Kenya: A Survey of Umma University, Garissa Campus

The global higher education landscape has dramatically changed over the last couple of months as a result of the spread of coronavirus. The motion of learners and teachers has been reduced drastically due to the outspread the pandemic. In Kenya, the close up of universities by the government to prevent the spread of this disease has been a big blow to education sector. Resultantly, the government encouraged university managements to embrace digital literacy strategy through virtual academic platforms. The success of this strategy has not been uniform to all universities in Kenya. Academic programs in most universities have stagnated following the close up. This study was purposely conducted to assess the adoption of COVID-19 digital literacy strategy on academic progress of private university education in Kenya. The objective of this study was to find out the effects of e-learning mode of delivery on academic progress of private university education in Kenya. This research utilized a descriptive research design to collect data in order to test the research questions and hypothesis about the relationship between the study variables. The target population of the study comprised all 207 students in Umma University in Garissa Campus. A sample size of 137 respondents was then chosen using systematic sampling. Primary data was collected by use of structured self-administered questionnaires phrased on a 5 likert scale. Data collected was analyzed according to the objectives of the study. SPSS version 24 was used to conduct both descriptive and inferential statistics analysis. Analysis of Variance and Linear Regression analysis were conducted to establish the correlation between the study’s variables. The hypothesis of this study was tested at a confidence level of 0.05. The study established a positive significant relationship between e-learning and academic progress of university education. The findings of this study will guide management of universities to formulate strategies that would strengthen virtual learning in all centers of higher learning. The study recommends adoption of digital literacy programs by all universities in order to ensure continuity of learning with or without a pandemic in the country.

“The Trump Effect”: How Does it Impact International Student Enrollment in U.S. Colleges?

Since Donald Trump took the office of President of the United States in 2017, international student enrollments have declined at U.S. colleges due to the “Trump Effect.” Anti-immigration rhetoric, personal safety threats, legal stress, and shifting requirements for both students and colleges means potential losses of billions of dollars in revenue and fewer degrees awarded by U.S. colleges. The loss of revenue aside, less diverse student bodies, fewer visiting scholars, and less international travel caused ripple effects throughout the global higher education landscape. This literature review explores the Trump effect, alternative explanations to the Trump effect, and suggests future research directions.

Sticky and slippery destinations for academic mobility: the case of Singapore

This article seeks to contribute to the existing scholarship on academic mobility in two ways. First, it brings together insights on academic mobility (aspirations, desperations) and higher education internationalisation to show how we may analytically organise these insights to shed light on the shifting global higher education landscape from an experiential perspective. Second, it provides fresh data on the ‘lived experiences’ of mobile faculty members based in an attractive academic destination outside of the traditional knowledge cores—Singapore. As a city state without any natural resources, Singapore has successfully transformed its economy into one that is knowledge-intensive based on combined efforts from grooming locals to recruiting foreign talents to shore up skilled manpower needs. These efforts are reflected in the university sector where Singapore’s comprehensive universities have consistently ranked high across many global university rankings. Using survey and interview data, I show how the mobility and immobility experiences of faculty based in Singapore have contributed to its making as a ‘sticky’ and ‘slippery’ academic destination. My contributions point to the need to integrate individual-level factors underpinning academic mobility decisions with systemic developments to better understand the changing global higher education landscape today.

China in the global field of international student mobility: an analysis of economic, human and symbolic capitals

ABSTRACT The global landscape of higher education is an uneven field where players like nation-states are placed in hierarchical and centre-periphery relations. This paper focuses on the global field of international student mobility (ISM) and investigates China’s place in the field using an analytical framework consisting of three key categories of ‘capital’: economic, human, and symbolic. Drawing on existing scholarship and author’s first-hand ethnographic research, the paper examines the case of China as both a source and a destination of ISM, and analyses the flows and accrual of these three forms of capital as consequences of outbound and inbound student mobilities. Analyses show that in a global ISM field characterised by asymmetries and inequalities, China’s place is arguably semi-peripheral economically and symbolically. It is argued that this country-focused macro perspective complements existing ISM scholarship’s emphasis on social reproduction at individual and private levels.

Battling Academic Corruption in Higher Education: Does External Quality Assurance (EQA) Offer a Ray of Hope?

The post-1980s changes in the global higher education landscape have triggered a burgeoning of incidents of academic corruption in higher education institutions. Since 2000, the discourse on how to combat academic corruption has gained traction in higher education and quality assurance is advanced as one of the strategies for fighting corruption in higher education. In 2016, UNESCO (and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation) issued a “wakeup call” to quality assurance systems to take up a leading role in the battle against academic corruption. However, a dearth of empirical and conceptual studies on how the quality assurance systems, in general, and external quality assurance systems, in particular, can take up a leading role in the crusade against academic corruption exists. This conceptual paper, using the crime-punishment model as an analytical lens, explores how the national quality assurance agencies (and systems) can exercise the leadership role in combating academic corruption. The paper advances the setting of academic integrity standards, institutional and programme accreditation, accreditation of academic journals, sharing information and promoting whistleblowing, monitoring of institutions, applying sanctions, and ranking of higher education institutions on the basis of integrity indicators as options that are available to quality assurance agencies in the exercise of their leadership role in combating academic corruption. These approaches are hypothesised to create both incentives and disincentives for the institutions and staff in connection with engaging in academic corruption. Nevertheless, the paper takes cognisance of the fact that external quality assurance is necessary but not sufficient in combating corruption at the level of the academy.

Stratified University Strategies: The Shaping of Institutional Legitimacy in a Global Perspective

ABSTRACTGlobalizing forces have both transformed the higher education sector and made it increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities that are highly ranked globally (Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). In this study, we compared the strategic plans of 78 high-ranked, low-ranked, and unranked universities in 33 countries in 9 regions of the world. In analyzing the plans of these 78 universities, the study explored patterns of similarity and difference in universities’ strategic positioning according to Suchman’s (1995) 3 types of legitimacy: cognitive, pragmatic, and moral. We found evidence of stratified university strategies in a global higher education landscape that varied by institutional status. In offering a corrective to neoinstitutional theory, we suggest that patterns of globalization are mediated by status-based differences in aspirational behavior (Riesman, 1958) and “old institutional” forces (Stinchcombe, 1997) that contribute to differently situated universities pursuing new paths in seeking to build external legitimacy.

The global space of international students in 2010

ABSTRACTInternational students have become an increasingly important research object – not only on the basis of the overall expansion and importance of international students in higher education and in national economic policies, but also since they constitute a strategic research object for understanding the global landscape of higher education. By using correspondence analysis on a data set on countries of destination and regions of origin, the global space of international students is depicted. The analysis reveals a structure with three main poles, a Pacific pole, a Central European one and a French/Iberian one. The three poles correspond to three different logics of recruitment: a market logic, a proximity logic and a colonial logic. The three poles and logics are also related to linguistic structures. The Pacific/Market pole is dominated by English, while the Central European pole has German and Slavic languages as a common denominator, and the French and Iberian pole has French, Spanish and Portuguese in common with their former colonies. It is argued that the Pacific/Market pole is the dominating pole in the space due to the high concentration of resources of different sorts, including economic, political, educational, scientific and not least, linguistic assets.