Internationalisation of higher education: new players in a changing scene

Abstract

Internationalisation in higher education (IHE) is often seen as a response to globalisation (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Altbach et al., 2009; de Wit & Altbach, 2021; de Wit & Knight, 1996). Globalisation refers to “the reality shaped by an increasingly integrated world economy, new information and communications technology, the emergence of an international knowledge network, the role of the English language, and other forces beyond the control of academic institutions” (Altbach et al., 2009, p. 7). This is seen as a key force and a context that is fundamentally reshaping the role and institutional structure of higher education (Beck, 2012; Maringe & Foskett, 2010). Globalisation has driven studentmobility on a large scale through a greater awareness of information, opportunities, and increased propensity to travel. Neither education nor knowledge is restricted by the boundaries of nation-states and/or regional cultures. Academics and students can select from a vast array of educational modes and research universities on a global scale. Cross-border education, including real and virtualmovement of students, academics, and educational programmes from one country to another, has become prevalent. According to the statistics provided by Gürüz (2011), the total enrolment of international students in the whole world was only 0.11 million in 1950. The number increased from 1.35 million to 2.75 million from 1995 to 2010. Within less than a decade, the size of international education mobility further doubled to 5.3 million in 2017 (the statistics about international students were retrieved from the UNESCO website: http://uis.unesco.org/en/uis-student-flow). The increased number of students reflects the rapidly enlarged size of involved institutions and higher education systems. The large-scale international student mobility is accompanied by the rise of the knowledge-based economy and the changing governance structure of higher education (de Wit & Altbach, 2021; Mok & James, 2005). In a knowledge-based society, talents and innovation are crucial for economic development and competitiveness. Driven by the requirements of economic and national development, the later part of the 20th century witnessed a trend of massive growth of higher education in many nationstates. At the same time, there has been a trend towards decentralisation and financial retrenchment in higher education. For instance, some industrialised countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, adopted neoliberal policies to restructure their public spheres (Calleja, 1995), which continue to the present. In the sphere of higher education, the adopted policies concentrated on financial cuts (Beerkens, 2003) and the rise of students as consumers in a market of universities competing for students, with the market regulated by governments in the role of providing public services to privatised higher education rather than public goods (Biesta et al., 2021). In mainland China, with the enlarged scale of higher education, the state government decentralised its regulatory model from a “state control model” to a “state supervision