(Continuing the discussion begun in Modularity in university higher education, June 16, 2006)
Education, as a module or modules, is a lot more complicated than research. Choosing the appropriate definition for a module is not a sure thing since globalization may cause us to rethink our organization of education, and therefore of the appropriate definition of modules.
One example of the way in which educational modules are being redefined by the forces of globalization is given by the Bologna Process. The Bologna Process describes a truly immense and courageous educational reform movement encompassing most of Europe. In the past, most European countries had a first higher education degree that took of the order of six years to obtain, and was at a level roughly equal to that of an American Master’s degree. That, therefore, probably would have been a reasonable module for European education. However, characteristics of these degrees varied significantly from country to country, thereby making student movement between countries difficult, and the long time to degree kept students out of the workplace for a long period. Lack of uniformity in degree definitions, and the long time to degree significantly decreased the desirability of these programs to non-European students. Increasing global competition made those undesirable consequences. In order to get around these difficulties, the Bologna Process set out to have in place by 2010 a European Higher Education Area. Within this area, the old six year programs will be divided into a 3-4 year Bachelor’s program, and a 1-2 year Master’s program, thus moving into closer alignment with the typical Anglo-American approach. The resulting bachelors will in many cases be less “professional”and broader and more general than was the original longer degree, with professionalization coming through the Master’s. The stated goals of this process are twofold: 1) to create an intellectual community that will help to define the identity of the new Europe; and 2) to attract the best students from around the world to the new European education. Thus, at least in this instance, forces of globalization have pushed one important region into a set of educational modules similar to those that would be most reasonable to define for the United States, but it need not always be this way.
With this major caveat, one can take the major modules for American higher education to be undergraduate, professional degree, Ph.D., and continuing education. As before, our question must be how one can use globalization to increase the value proposition associated with each of these modules. In looking at this, we will also call on Samuel Palmisano’s categorization of the relatively recent history of industrialization into international, multinational, and global (see Globalization and Internationalization, June 7, 2006).
It is reasonable to look first at the undergraduate module as it applies to American students, although there will be considerable overlap with other modules. One should begin by recognizing that the typical 4 year program (which often takes longer in practice) is not inscribed in stone, as is indicated by developments coming out of the Bologna process. Continuing evolution of expectations of expertise of graduates, and global competition could change time-to-degree requirements significantly up or down. One should also recognize that many students are non-traditional, and do not attend school full time continuously (or perhaps not at all) for the period required to gain a bachelor’s degree.
For all of these students, learning about the effects of globalization, and how to benefit from them, must become a core part of the curriculum. The age-old semester or year abroad may well become a standard, especially for traditional students. That time abroad can increasingly be outsourced to a foreign educational partner so that the traveling student truly can be immersed directly in the culture and education of the receiving country. With increasing use of English as the language of instruction in universities around the world, students can be placed in regular classes of the foreign partner. However, David Gradoll, in a report for the British Council, points out that with the increasing necessity for proficiency in English worldwide, graduates that stand out will be those who are fluent in English - plus other languages. Thus the time abroad also will be invaluable for educating our students in another language. Such partnerships may lead to the disappearance of foreign study-abroad outposts maintained by individual American universities or American consortia.
Partnerships can also be used to create classes in which students in multiple institutions follow similar curricula, and work together in international teams over the internet or with short visits studying cases, solving problems, etc. Partnerships that lead to regular faculty exchanges can also be very valuable is exposing student to different views and approaches. Twinning arrangements are partnerships in which students at multiple institutions follow a defined mix of local and overseas study in pursuing a degree. In addition, having a strong international component to the home campus student body will become increasingly important, and much greater attention will be paid to creating peer interactions that provide increased cultural educational benefit to both domestic and international students.
Bringing these benefits of globalizing education to part-time students will be difficult. Study abroad is likely to not be feasible, for example. Consequently, we risk seeing part-time education becoming less effective in providing an education appropriate to the evolving world unless close attention is paid to the problem. Partnerships such as described above that bring the global to the local likely will be key .
All of these activities focus on ways to improve the education of students that are based at the American home institution. As such, they are variations that fit Palmisano’s international, hub and spoke organizational taxonomy.
Moving beyond Palmisano’s international organizational structure, many institutions have started, are starting, or will be starting foreign campuses that seek to provide a home-campus education at a foreign site. The goal is to extend the reach of the home institution by attracting a new set of students who for one reason or another would be unlikely to attend the home campus. Thus, the institution is going to the prospective students, rather than the traditional converse. The term “transnational” is often used to denote presentation of the educational programs of an institution of one country in another country. In general, foreign campus’s lead to something very much like Palmisano’s multinational approach.
Depending on the particular educational barriers that a country has erected, such foreign campuses often must have a partner that could be a local educational institution, commercial infrastructure providers, or the government itself. Examples of this approach are the University of Nottingham’s campuses in China and Malaysia, campuses of Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, Cornell, and Virginia Commonwealth in Qatar, Monash University’s campuses in Malaysia and South Africa, and the University of New South Wales’ upcoming campus in Singapore. There are, of course, many difficulties associated with starting a foreign campus, including rapidly evolving local laws and regulations, difficulties in predicting student interest, and maintaining home faculty interest sufficiently to manage quality at the level of the home campus. As a consequence, some of these efforts have failed, while others seem to be working effectively.
Most of the transnational branch-campus programs focus on professional fields such as engineering, business, pre-medicine, or areas of international studies. These are topics that are likely to be attractive to students because they increase employability in a rather direct way. However, they generally are quite thin on options for “breadth” such as are common on the better American campus’s, reflecting the difficulty and expense of cloning a campus and its full range of programs.
Typically, local faculty are hired to staff most of the courses at these branch campuses, with perhaps a few senior academic administrators and a few faculty seconded from the home campus for defined periods. There is generally the claim that the transnational degree “is identical to” the home degree, implying a home control of course content and degree requirements. Most describe ongoing research programs on their websites, although the research involvement does not appear at this time to be of a level that these branches would themselves be described as research universities. Depending on the aspirations the particular institutions hold for their branches, this research level might either increase or decrease over time.
It should be emphasized that the “multinational” phase with its branch campuses reflects a very different institutional mission than is supported by the hub-and-spoke “international” phase. The latter is seeking to maximize the educational opportunities of students at the home institution. In doing so, the institution is reflecting its historical regional origins and concomitant responsibility to the education of students of the home region (although this mission has evolved to refer to students who will come to the region). The multinational phase reflects a turn to a mission that seeks to educate students wherever they may be - that is, the emphasis has changed from service to a region, to a role focusing on educating students wherever they may be. There are many different reasons that institutions might embrace this mission shift, ranging from financial to reputational.
Another very important type of transnational approach is franchising, in which one institution licenses a course or a program to another institution, which then teaches the program in the name of the licensing institution. The ultimate degree is in the name of the franchising institution This really represents a major change in approach. Here, the traditional “vertical” paradigm of university teaching, in which an individual is responsible for creating a course,teaching it, and evaluating the learning that has occurred, is definitively broken. A module of the education process has become teaching, and that module has been offshored to a contractor for reasons of efficiency and effectiveness. In most cases, the contractor is a degree granting institution, but often it is not. With this approach, higher education moves into Palsamo’s global phase.
The franchising approach has understandably created considerable controversy, and raised concerns about quality. This is reasonable, as quality was a key concern as modularization of industry began to be globalized. It will take a time for institutions to develop quality metrics and procedures that enable them to monitor the product of their franchisees as well as they monitor quality on the home campus, but there is no reason why this cannot be done eventually. A key component must certainly be that the evaluation module not be carried out by the franchisee. Franchising, if done well, could become a major component of global education because of its relatively low cost to the home institution and the flexibility of the approach.
One can easily imagine an academic equivalent of contract manufacturers. These are corporations around the world that carry out manufacturing on the behalf of brand firms. The contract manufacturers themselves almost never have any brands of their own, and as such are almost invisible to the general public. However, their ability to manufacture at the most sophisticated levels make them critical players in the globalization movement. Around the world, thousands of new private (i.e. not funded by a government, can be for- profit or non-profit) institutions of higher education are being created every year to meet growing educational needs. Creating a publicly recognized name brand will be an insurmountable problem for most of these institutions. Becoming a recognized high quality “contract educator” therefore might make sense for many of them.
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