Introduction: Setting the Scene
Internationalisation is not a new concept for universities. In his inaugural speech at the celebration ceremony of the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna, Giovani Agnelli, at the time the president of FIAT, stated that “from the very first universities were international in spirit. Even in the most intolerant and difficult times they held that knowledge should be free and universal” (Agnelli 1988, p. 11).
From the Middle Ages until the seventeenth century Latin was the common teaching language of universities. The structure of universities was similar, having in general four faculties, Theology, Law, Medicine and Arts, and these were very similar in their study programmes and academic degrees.
The Faculty of Arts (in the meaning of liberal arts) had a propaedeutic character, in that the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) were taught. In the trivium students learned the arts of expression (artes sermonicales)—speaking, reading and reasoning in Latin. In the quadrivium students learned the classic knowledge areas and then could eventually follow into theology, medicine or law.
As a result of this remarkable uniformity students could very easily change from one university to another. In Medieval times students were frequent travellers despite the risks and lack of comfort in travelling. There were few higher education institutions and many kings encouraged their vassals to travel in search of good higher education, which was then a good passport for a well-paid career at the service of the State or the Church.
However, many new universities were progressively established in different European countries, as the Prince (Neave 1995) recognised the need to avoid absolute dependency on foreign institutions in order to train well-educated staff. This resulted in a dramatic change from the previous mobility policy. In several cases the Prince, to protect its newly established institution, promulgated laws forbidding cross-border movement or banning from employment any vassals educated abroad.
For example, King Frederic II, after establishing the Studium of Naples in 1215, decided to forbid its vassals from leaving the Kingdom of Sicily, either to study or to teach abroad. He even threatened to punish the parents of those students abroad who did not return before the Saint Michael’s festivities (29 September). Similar measures were taken in favour of the University of Pavia in 1361, 1392 and 1412, and in favour of the University of Padova in 1407 and 1468. In the fifteenth century the Counts of Provence forced their vassals to attend the Studium at Aix to avoid its decline. Similar policies were implemented in Portugal. In 1440 King Afonso V granted a petition from the University of Coimbra asking that all subjects holding a foreign diploma pay a fine of 20 crowns to the University, and granting that those with a Coimbra diploma would have preference when competing for public employment.
The ideals of universities developed around the disinterested search for truth and the creation of new knowledge—the amor sciendi—if possible completely free from pecuniae et laudis cupiditas, meaning without greed for money and ambition. The mobility of academics was frequent, as the Pope allowed the Studia Generalia to confer the licentia ubique docendi, which allowed an academic to teach in any institution under papal jurisdiction. The academics had no need to seek the recognition of their foreign academic diplomas, which was far more favourable to mobility than the present situation, despite of all the good intentions in building a european union as a space for the free movement of goods, people, services and capital.
This freedom of movement created problems, as it was not very difficult to transfer an institution to a new place, which actually occurred in several cases. As facilities were in general precarious, sometimes consisting of only several rooms rented by the masters for teaching purposes, moving to a different place did not present excessive difficulties. To counter this possibility, in 1215, the Commune of Bologna forbade academics from associating in sectam vel conspirationem with the objective of leaving the university, and asked rectors, as representatives of the institution, to make a solemn vow that they would never promote the transfer of the university to another town.
In the Middle Ages and especially in the fifteenth century, as each country was able to establish its own higher education institution, the general rule progressively became the choice, voluntary or imposed, of a regional university or of the nearest university. We may argue that over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the establishment of new universities resulted in increasing regionalisation of student recruitment, and by the end of the fifteenth century the peregrinatio academica had almost come to an end, only to be revived under the influence of Italian humanism (Nardi 1996).
Those examples show that universities have internationalisation in their genes since their very early foundation, although the intensity and the nature of their activities changed over time. Over the last decades, internationalisation has not only assumed a more prominent role in the agenda of universities but has also entered the rhetoric of politicians and of international and supranational organisations. According to a survey of the International Association of Universities (2003), 73% of higher education institutions declared that they considered internationalisation a high priority issue. New concepts such as globalisation and Europeanization are assuming growing prominence in political discourses as competition for students in a global market is becoming a new reality.
In many countries, universities are being forced to look for alternative sources of funding to compensate for cuts in public expenditure. This includes student fees and the offer of education programmes to foreign students at prices substantially higher than those paid by national students. Competition for students is assuming new forms, including Cross-Border Higher Education (CBHE), while for-profit providers of education are playing an increasing role in this competition. And the recent emergence of the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) is a new development that deserves attention.
At the global level there were efforts to consider education a tradable service and to liberalise education services through the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) in the framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), although so far with limited effects. However, the European Union has recently taken a very bold step in liberalisation by means of the so-called Services Directive and its extension to education.
These developments raise new challenges to national governments and higher education institutions. Higher education has been traditionally an area of high political sensitivity, which has justified national governments taking frequent measures to protect national higher education institutions from what is seen as unfair external competition, and to protect students from poor quality provision. The UNESCO and the OECD-produced joint guidelines aim to protect students and other stakeholders from low-quality provision and rogue providers. National governments have been exploring the possibility of regulating new forms of cross-border provision by using quality assessment and accreditation mechanisms, as recommended by UNESCO and the OECD. The European Commission apparently wants to close this route, in order to uphold the primacy of liberalisation, by promoting measures that favour, above all other considerations, the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons. The immaterial nature of open online provisions will create additional difficulties if MOOCs become an effective mechanism for borderless education.
In this conference we will examine the problems associated with these recent developments of internationalisation, with particular emphasis on the Services Directive and its consequences in terms of national sovereignty and consumer protection from low-quality provision of education. Substantial attention will be dedicated to the development of MOOCs, another emerging model of provision that promises to introduce “disruptive innovation” into the realm of the secular university.
Definitions and Typology
Until a few decades ago the most common form of internationalisation of higher education consisted of faculty exchanges and the movement of students from one country to study in an institution of a different country, either financed by scholarships or paying for their own studies. In recent decades, new forms of education provision for foreign students have emerged that are known as cross-border, borderless or trans-national higher education. There is no unanimously accepted definition for these terms. The British Council (2012) collected a number of definitions of CBHE from several international organisations (Table 1.1).
Table 1.1
Multilateral definitions of CBHE (British Council 2012, p. 12)
Name of institution | Year | Definition |
|---|---|---|
Global Alliance for TNE | 1997 | Cross-Border Higher Education denotes any teaching or learning activity in which the students are in a different country (the host country) to that in which the institution providing the education is based (the home country). This situation requires that national boundaries be crossed by information about the education, and by staff and/or educational materials |
Council of Europe—Lisbon Recognition Convention | 2002 | Defines CBHE as ‘All types of higher education study programmes, or sets of courses of study, or educational services (including those of distance education) in which the learners are located in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is based |
UNESCO/OCDE Guidelines for quality provision in cross-border education | 2005 | Cross-border higher education includes higher education that takes place in situations where the teacher, student, programme, institution/provider or course materials cross national jurisdictional borders. Cross-border higher education may include higher education by public/private and not-for-profit/for-profit providers. It encompasses a wide range of modalities, in a continuum from face-to-face (taking various forms such as students travelling abroad and campuses abroad) to distance learning (using a range of technologies and including e-learning) |
INQAAHE | 2010 | CBHE includes distance education courses offered by higher education providers located in another country, joint programs offered between a local provider and a foreign institution, franchised courses offered with or without involvement of staff members from the parent institution, and foreign campuses of institutions developed with or without local partnerships |
However, in some cases national authorities adopt different definitions. For the Australian government, delivery must include a face-to-face component, which eliminates e-learning provided in a purely distance mode (IEAA 2008, p. 4). The Chinese Ministry of Education (British Council 2012, p. 13) defines TNE as “Those foreign corporate, individuals, and related international organisations in cooperation with educational institutions or other social organisations with corporate status in China, jointly establish education institutions in China, recruit Chinese citizens as major educational objectives, and undertake education and teaching activities” (British Council 2012, p. 13). Tilak (2011) presents an interesting typology of cross-border education, which corresponds to the classification of education services under the GATS (Table 1.2).
Table 1.2
Typology of modes of delivery (Tilak 2011)
Mode of delivery | Examples | Type of mobility |
|---|---|---|
Cross-border supply | Distance learning, online, franchising | Programme mobility |
Consumption abroad | Students in other countries | Student mobility |
Commercial presence | Branch campus, joint venture, investment | Institution mobility |
Delivery abroad | Faculty moves to other country | Academic mobility |
In this book we will dedicate substantial attention to franchising due to its implications with the European Services Directive. Franchised programmes are designed by the ...