New Directions in Internationalizing Higher Education: Australia's Development as an Exporter of Higher Education Servic
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New Directions in Internationalizing Higher Education: Australia’s Development as an Exporter of Higher Education Services Grant Harman Centre for Higher Education Policy and Management, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]
The export of higher education services has become a major and controversial aspect of the internationalization of higher education, especially with the current GATS negotiations. Over the past decade, Australia has become the third largest exporter of higher education, mainly to a limited number of South and East Asian countries. Australian public higher education institutions in 2002 had over 185,000 international students and this constituted over 21% of the total student enrolment load. Recruitment of international students has brought substantial financial benefits to Australia and its universities. In addition, it has prompted Australia to make more deliberate efforts towards with the internationalization of curricula and encourage expanded exchange of staff and students. At least in the short term, the prospects of future expansion in international student numbers are promising. Higher Education Policy (2004) 17, 101–120. doi:10.1057/palgrave.hep.8300044 Keywords: internationalization of higher education; export of education services; GATS; international students; Australia
Introduction This paper reviews Australia’s efforts and achievements over the past decade as an exporter of higher education services. It comments first on the export of education services within the context of internationalization of higher education and globalization. It then traces the recent rapid development of Australia as an exporter of higher education, identifies key factors that have contributed to this development, summarizes data on sources of student recruitment and enrolments, assesses the impact of export of education services on Australian universities and the economy, and discusses policy issues with regard to the future of export education. Over the past decade, Australian universities have made some important developments towards the goal of internationalization of higher education. With government encouragement, many universities have put efforts into internationalizing curricula and introducing the study of additional Asian
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languages in order to facilitate better understanding of other cultures and to support further expansion of Australia’s trade, especially in the Asia Pacific region. University research is now more closely linked internationally with research groups and networks in other countries. However, by far the most dramatic and, in many respects, important developments in the internationalization of higher education have been in the expansion of enrolments of feepaying international students (Harman, 2002). Today, Australia is the third largest exporter of higher education services internationally, coming in rank order after the United States and the United King
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