![]() Internationalisation as a tradeable commodity has become a crucial source of income for higher education in these countries, compensating for a reduction of public support by national and state governments. The crisis resulting from COVID-19 made manifest the extent to which higher education in the world had become international, but even more how much the presence of international students impacts the economy of leading countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and others. These appeals for a return to the ethics and values of cooperation have to be seen as a wake-up call of the ‘Internationalisation at Home’ movement in Europe at the end of the 1990s in reaction to the focus on Erasmus exchanges (what about the 95% of non-mobile students, people asked), and the call for ‘Internationalisation of the Curriculum’ in the United Kingdom and Australia in reaction to the exclusive focus on international student recruitment and off-shore delivery.Īt the beginning of 2020, although critiques of the notion of internationalisation as a competitive and exclusive tradeable commodity became widely acknowledged and notions like ‘internationalisation at home’, ‘internationalisation of the curriculum’, ‘internationalisation for society’, ‘humanistic internationalisation’ and ‘global learning for all’ have found ample support in reports, documents, statements and even policies, the reality of internationalisation as a tradeable commodity was still strongly prevalent. In 2015 this all culminated in an updated definition, highlighting internationalisation as an intentional process focused on quality, inclusion and service to society. Also, critiques of internationalisation as a Western paradigm became more prominent, with calls for the emerging internationalisation in the Global South to take its own direction. Jane Knight wrote in 2014 about the myths of internationalisation and I wrote about its misconceptions. Ten years ago the International Association of Universities had started to rethink the concept of internationalisation and in the United States this resulted in a call for ‘comprehensive internationalisation’ by organisations such as the American Council on Education and NAFSA. Our 2011 critical reflection on the reality and direction of internationalisation as a tradeable commodity was not unique. The optimism at the end of the 1980s that internationalisation would move from an ad hoc, marginalised and fragmented activity to a central point on the higher education agenda had resulted in a broad acceptance of internationalisation as one of the core drivers of innovation and change in higher education.īut the direction it took was one of copying the already prevalent competitive approach in the United Kingdom and Australia: recruitment of international students, development of cross-border education for revenue and competition for talent (skilled immigration) and reputation (rankings). ![]() Essentially, we said: “We need to reaffirm the core role of universities: to help understand this world and to improve our dealings with it.” We expressed concern about the devaluation of internationalisation as it was meant to be and called for critical reflection about the way it was conceived. ![]() We stated that, although higher education internationalisation “is claimed to be the last stand for humanistic ideas against a world of pure economic benefits”, the reality is that “this ignores the fact that activities more related to the concept of globalisation (higher education as a tradeable commodity) are increasingly executed under the flag of internationalisation”. Tweet In 2011 Uwe Brandenburg and I wrote an essay with the provocative title “The End of Internationalisation”. ![]()
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