Simon Margison, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at the University of Oxford, Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne, and Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University, tells us of how he started his international education journey with a teaching position in International Education at Monash University straight after obtaining his PhD. Simon shares his interest in the geopolitics of international, and his concerns about current geopolitical developments affecting international education, in particular the confrontation between the United States and China, and nativist pushback against migration in many countries.
He stresses the importance for the international education sector to keep cooperation going to minimise the damage of current geopolitical dynamics and reflects on the role that TNE could play in this context, and how today’s global challenges, such as climate change, might help to keep venues for international cooperation open. Simon also shares his views about different national and regional approaches to international education … and a memorable international study on the massification of higher education he was part of which highlighted how massification is not driven by the economy but by families' growing aspirations of wanting better lives for their kids