2: Conceptual Framework for Internationalisation

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If a new Australian university was established in 1996 in a greenfields situation with a specific commitment to internationalisation, what would be the conceptual framework for implementation of this commitment?

This chapter sets out a number of concepts and themes about good practice in internationalisation of higher education in Australia and builds them into a conceptual framework.

The Process Approach

As mentioned in the Introduction, the Project Brief suggests a process approach to internationalisation. In this approach, internationalisation is viewed as a process which integrates an international dimension or perspective into the major functions of the institution (Knight and de Wit 1995, p. 17).

Knight and de Wit use the term strategies to characterise

those initiatives which are taken by an institution of higher learning to integrate an international dimension into research, teaching and service functions as well as management policies and systems.

(Knight and de Wit 1995, p. 17)

Based on the process approach, Knight has proposed the following definition of internationalisation:

Internationalisation of higher education is the process of integrating an international/intercultural dimension into the teaching, research and service of the institution.

In the process approach, Knight and de Wit suggest that the many different activities identified as key components of internationalisation are divided into two major categories - organisation strategies and program strategies (Knight and de Wit 1995, p. 17).

Organisation strategies include those initiatives which help to ensure that an international dimension is institutionalised through appropriate policies and administrative systems. Program strategies refer to those academic activities and services which integrate an international dimension into the main functions of a higher education institution.

For the context of internationalisation in Australia, the Project Team developed a set of organisation and program strategies, and these are put forward in the first of four concepts that make up a conceptual framework for internationalisation.

Organisation and Program Strategies

The first concept is that:

The organisation strategy for the process of internationalisation of a university includes the internationalisation context, culture and policy of the university, its mission statements and corporate plans, its management and business plans, its organisation structure for internationalisation, its staff policies and its university wide links.

As set down by the Higher Education Council (NBEET 1992, p. 12) the three principal areas of interconnected university activity are teaching and learning, research, and community service. Program strategies need to cover these three core activities.

The program strategies in this concept are:

Two examples show the importance of community links involved in international student support programs:

  1. a regional university uses fee income from international students to construct a place of worship for Islamic students, and opens the facility for use by the wider regional community; and
  2. a metropolitan university, seeking to combat racism on and off campus, involves its local community in a forum on racism.

Integration and Dynamism

The second concept is that:

The concept sees internationalisation strategy as an integrated, dynamic whole. The concept suggests links between a university's internationalisation program strategies and the university's core activities of teaching and learning, research, community service.

Three examples:

  1. a university where the international student program enrols Vietnamese candidates for postgraduate research degrees in economics needs excellence in research on the economy of Vietnam. Does the international student program demand internationalisation of research, or does internationalisation of research attract international students, or does an organisation strategy to internationalise the university result in an international student program and internationalisation of research?
  2. a university with a program to internationalise its teaching through language exchange programs needs tutors in those foreign languages and uses its international student body as a resource. Native speakers of Thai, Indonesian, Japanese and Mandarin are paired with Australian students who want to learn their language and offer help with English in exchange; and
  3. a university delivering an international technical assistance program in a developing country uses opportunities to internationalise its research and its research training.

This second concept suggests that good practice in internationalisation sees the organisation strategy and the program strategies of the university as integrated and dynamic.

Flow of Funds

The third concept is that:

As background, Australia in 1989 was approaching its international student program with caution. Policy was still evolving (see Chapter 1). In those early days of internationalisation of Australia's universities, Professor Ross Garnaut, economist, ambassador and adviser to government, prepared a major report on the implications for Australia of economic growth and structural change in East Asia.

In Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy Garnaut wrote

The education of foreign students in Australia provides the economic benefits of an export industry. But it does much more than that. It increases the range of courses that it is economically feasible to provide in Australia, and so improves the services available for Australians. It builds close interpersonal and institutional links that are important in economic, political and cultural relations with students' home countries. And it is an important means of familiarising young Australians with their East Asian environment. These benefits beyond the immediately economic value of the industry, are greater for tertiary and especially postgraduate training.

(Garnaut 1989, p. 255)

Garnaut perceived the dynamism and integration of the different program strategies for internationalisation. More significantly, he also suggested a flow of funds, from the international student program of a university to other program strategies.

Australia's Department of Employment, Education Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA), provides Indicative Minimum Course Fees for international students.

The Industry Commission in 1991, looking at Export of Education Services, described the process

The guidelines require institutions to charge fees to overseas students at levels which reflect at least the full average cost of providing a place in the course, even if extra places can be provided at little additional cost to the institution.

The calculation of full average cost includes components for teaching and research services, administration, overheads such as rent and utilities, capital facilities for the course in question and common use facilities such as libraries.

(Industry Commission 1991, p. 154)

The fees charged for an international student place, on the basis of full average cost, may exceed the marginal cost of providing the additional place. A university's international student program may generate surpluses available to the university. Broadly, these surpluses are applied by the university for the benefit of international students or for the benefit of all students including international students.

The third concept suggests a flow of funds from the international student program to other internationalisation organisation and program strategies.

Four examples:

  1. from fee income from its international student program, a university seeds its program to internationalise teaching by funding a management service for international exchange programs, or funding scholarships or bursaries for such exchanges, open to both domestic students and international students;
  2. a university uses fee income to establish campuses offshore;
  3. a university uses fee income to establish a central resource in the university to support academic staff in bidding for development assistance projects or customised training, as part of its international technical assistance program strategy; and
  4. in all Australian universities, fee income from international student programs is used to provide services and facilities to international students, services which often benefit the wider communities in which the universities are located.

Institutional Base for Internationalisation

The fourth concept is that:

A university's organisation strategy for internationalisation, including the internationalisation context, culture and policy of the university, might be determined centrally, or might be devolved to faculties or schools.

The university's program strategies might be determined and implemented centrally, or might be devolved.

The fourth concept suggests that there are at least some organisation and program strategies for internationalisation where good practice involves the existence of a central institutional base in the university to complement the faculties in internationalisation strategies.

Three examples:

  1. for consistent and successful bidding for and performance of international technical assistance projects, a base in the centre of the university provides project management, estimating and tendering support to complement the skills located in the faculties;
  2. to provide an international teaching program through student exchange agreements with universities in overseas countries, a base in the centre of the university sets up and administers exchange programs, complementing the work of the faculties in accommodating and encouraging student exchanges; and
  3. development and articulation of policy on internationalisation strategy occurs in the centre of the university, complementing the activities of the faculties in specific program strategies such as internationalisation of teaching and offshore and distance education and internationalisation in research.

Conceptual Framework

Thus four concepts make up the conceptual framework for internationalisation set out in this chapter, suggesting that-

Good practice in internationalisation of a university involves:

Themes

In Chapter 3 Stocktake and Chapter 4 Case Studies, two themes are addressed:

The findings from the Stocktake and Case Studies are discussed in terms of the conceptual framework in Chapter 5 Organisational Structures and in Chapter 7 Summary of Findings.