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Return to Bulletin Home - October 2008 |
Educators Link Up for Growth Since October 2007, ICEF Workshops around the world have featured an option for one-to-one appointments between educators in addition to the educator-agent meetings that have been the historical focus of the ICEF workshop model. This initiative was a direct response to the growing interest among educators in forging strong institutional partnerships around the world. In the last year alone, it has resulted in hundreds of scheduled meetings between educators worldwide. "The education market is so fluid, and changes so quickly, that partnerships with institutions overseas are a very effective way of establishing a presence in world markets," says Dr. Somnath Basu from California Lutheran University (United States). "We see these linkages as a kind of international academic forum for selecting the best students for advanced studies, not to mention a highly efficient recruitment strategy."
Delegates in session at the 2008 ICEF Higher Education Workshop. The types of partnerships forged between institutions range from arrangements to deliver joint programmes to agreements for student and/or faculty exchange to programmes of joint research or other scholarly collaborations. Joint programme offerings have been a particular focus for higher education institutions in recent years. These are the "2+2" or "3+1" programmes that are increasingly available in major education markets, which often result in a local, accredited partner delivering a programme—in part or whole—of an overseas partner. Students may complete the entire programme in their home country or travel to the international partner to complete their studies. Similarly, the degree awarded varies: it may be that students graduate with a degree from the international partner or with degrees awarded by both partner-institutions. The UK's University of Greenwich has a long-standing and very active linkage of this type with the Modern Sciences and Arts University in Cairo, Egypt. Through the partnership, MSA delivers Greenwich programmes in Cairo—particularly in the areas of Science and Engineering—and this in turn provides a platform for the recruitment of students to Greenwich as well as faculty exchange and joint research programmes. "We can't always rely on students coming directly, and so these linkages give us new ways to connect with students and to engage them in university programmes," says Greenwich's International Director Hersha Pandya. "We feel it's important to look at the bigger picture of student recruitment. The establishment of a satellite campus overseas is arguably the most ambitious expression of this growing interest in institutional linkages. Universities around the world continue to explore opportunities for branch campuses overseas, and these major projects never fail to generate intense interest and discussion within the higher education sector. Within the last year alone, Queen Margaret University (Scotland), the University of Chicago (United States), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States) have announced branch campuses or research centres in Singapore. More recently, the Government of Denmark announced the establishment of a Danish University Centre in Beijing, China. The new centre will focus on joint research programs and post-graduate studies. The Danish Centre is a partnership of the Danish government, eight Danish universities, and the Chinese Academy of Science—a research institute with ties to 116 Chinese universities. The Arab and Gulf states have also seen a veritable building boom of foreign branch campuses in recent years, with major ventures by INSEAD, Harvard University, and Stanford University launched in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia respectively. These linkages also have an important role to play in promoting scholarly exchange and student mobility worldwide and in helping individual universities to build relationships in key markets. Targeted networking events, such as the educator-to-educator appointments at the ICEF Workshops, are a natural forum for establishing these relationships. "We're especially interested in expanding some of our study abroad linkages in the Americas—in the US and Canada," says Greenwich's Pandya. "We find it more economical and efficient to meet [prospective partners] initially at a workshop. Last year in Berlin, for example, I met one promising US university and two Turkish universities, one of which introduced me to a second American university. I've since had a chance to visit all four universities in the US and Turkey, and one of the US universities is visiting our campus here in London next week." |
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