Rationales for Internationalisation

According to Knight (2008, p.24), “rationales are the driving force why nations and universities want to address and invest in internationalisation; and reflected in policies and

programmes that are developed and implemented”. Various rationales can be discussed in different countries, education systems, sectors, and institutions. Knight (2005; 2008; 2012) originally categorised existing rationales into four groups: (i) social/cultural rationales associated with national cultural identity, intercultural understanding, and citizenship development; (ii) academic rationales associated with the extension of academic horizons, institution building, profile and status, enhancement of quality, international academic standards, and international dimensions to research and teaching; (iii) political rationales associated with foreign policy, national security, technical assistance, peace and mutual understanding, national identity, and regional identity; and (iv) economic rationales associated with economic growth and competitiveness, labour market, and financial incentives.

As the blurring and integration of rationales occur across the categories, the importance of these rationales at national and institutional levels has emerged. National-level rationales of emerging importance include human resource development, strategic alliances, income generation/commercial trade, national building/institution building, social/cultural development, and mutual understanding. Institutional-level rationales include international branding and profile, quality enhancement/international standards, alternative income generation, student and staff development, and strategic alliances (Knight 2004; 2005; 2008;

2012). All rationales can have both positive and negative impacts on higher education. For example, profile and reputation building and commercial-oriented rationales are often stressed as having a negative rather than a positive impact, which is discussed below.

2.1.2.1 Profile and reputation building as political rationales

Political rationales have grown in importance in recent years but cannot be ignored. One of the growing rationales is world-class aspirations at both national and university levels.

Competition among universities is provoked by their ambition to gain higher positions in world ranking tables and possess a world-class status. Many universities follow a profile-building rationale. However, world-class aspirations seem stronger at the national level than at the institutional level, and expectations raised by national policies demand that universities take action to ensure better reputations. For this purpose, national governments are likely to strategically emphasise research and “direct limited resources toward strengthening the research capacity at a small number of institutions” (Rumbley et al. 2012, p.14).

National policies such as assigning limited resources to a limited number of institutions are also evident in Japan. In 2014, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) granted a large fund to implement the Top Global University Project to 13 selected universities who MEXT considered to possess the potential to be ranked in the

top 100 in the world university rankings within the next 10 years. This Japanese project is further discussed in Chapter 3.4.

Thus, world-class aspirations often encourage universities to develop branding strategies that require effective marketing campaigns rather than the genuine pursuit of academic excellence.

What is concerning here is that “establishing an international profile or global standing is seen (by universities) to be more important than reaching international standards of excellence or improving quality” (Knight 2012, p.41).

2.1.2.2 Marketing and commercial-oriented rationales

Marketing and commercial-oriented rationales include the commercial trading of education, income generation, brain gain, human resource development, and other aspirations to produce economic benefits to countries and/or universities. For more universities and countries today, these rationales have increased in importance, sometimes in regard with the building of a world-class profile, and sometimes in connection with income generation because of a decline in national funding for higher education or as a part of national revenue. Although such economic rationales are only followed in a limited number of Western countries, “the impact of these countries is significant as they are the most active and aggressive in terms of international education” (Ibid., p.34).

Higher education is often discussed “in a free trade context as a commodity to be freely traded internationally” (Rumbley et al. 2012, p.22), as seen in the growing number of discussions on higher education in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is a fact that certain universities and countries have seen internationalisation as a means to create an important source of revenue. Rumbley et al. (2012) admit that the emerging influence of commercialism is not negligible:

The diverse rationales for internationalisation may draw heavily from such issues as educational quality, intellectual relevance, and institutional strengthening, but they are not likely to be divorced from commercial potential, which is increasingly salient (p.22).

Another key issue affected by marketing and commercial-oriented rationales is the disparity between developed and developing nations. Developed nations that are coping with an ageing society, lower birth rates, or knowledge and professional labour races, typically have governments with stronger economic rationales. Those nations now play major roles in international brain gain competition in higher education.

The greying societies of Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, are competing for top talent around the world, all of which need to fill the gaps in their knowledge economies. At the same time, they have to compete with the emerging economies in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, where such talents may be needed even more (de Wit and Merkx 2012, p.56).

From a policy perspective, higher education is becoming a more important actor and is now working in closer collaboration with immigration, industry, and the science and technology sectors to build an integrated strategy for attracting and retaining knowledge workers (Knight 2012, p.39).

2.1.2.3 Human resource development as social/cultural and academic rationales

Although marketing and commercial-oriented rationales have come to the fore, “traditional social/cultural and academic-oriented rationales are, nevertheless, still valid with a greater emphasis on the context of international education contributing to ‘the development of individuals, institutions, nations and the world’” (Ibid., p.32).

The phenomenon of emphasising contributions to human resource development is proved in the results of the 3rd and 4th Global Survey¹ conducted by the International Association of University (IAU 2010; 2014). The first-ranked rationale for internationalisation in the 3rd Survey was Improving student preparedness for a globalised/internationalised world with 30% of all votes, followed by Internationalise curriculum and improve academic quality (17%). The 3rd Survey also asked respondents to rank the most significant benefits of internationalisation and Increased international awareness of students was selected as the most significant benefit (24%). These results showed a close correlation between the first-ranked rational and benefits. The 4th Survey did not ask question about rationales but rather benefits, and revealed Increased international awareness of deeper engagement with global issues by students as the most popular vote (32%). The second-ranked benefit was Improving the quality of teaching and learning (18%). These results consistently show that higher education institutions attach considerable importance to human resource development by means of the increasing international awareness of students and improving the quality of teaching and learning.

In the context of higher education, human resource development equates to student and staff

1 The 3rd survey covered all regions of the world, and 745 higher education institutions answered the questionnaire. The 4th survey covered 1,336 institutions located in 131 countries in all regions of the world, with twice as many responders as in the 3rd survey.

development; that is, fostering international and intercultural understanding and the skills of students and staff (Knight 2004, p.4) are deemed important. Moreover, the development of staff, both academic and non-academic, is vital to improve the quality of research, teaching/learning, and services, all of which traditionally guide the evolution of universities and their contribution to the social, cultural, scientific, and economic development of a nation and its people (Knight 2012, p.40). In this light, enhancing the understanding of students and staff, both academic and non-academic, on global issues and their skills to work and live in culturally diverse environments will improve the overall academic quality of universities.