In the latest Think Education podcast episode, Chris and Judith are joined by third time guest and frequent contributor, Dr Vicky Lewis, to discuss recent developments in international education and the unresolved tension between international values on the one hand and financial issues on the other.
Vicky discussed the shifts she has seen in how universities are thinking about international education strategy and how recent events have impacted and are impacting activity and responses. Vicky talked about work she did during the pandemic that looked at university strategies through the lens of global engagement and the disconnect between making a global contribution and the success KPI metrics in place – recruitment; student numbers and income generation.
Vicky reflected on the success measures that institutions have in place and the extent to which these may have changed since the pandemic. There has in fact been very little in the way of change – although notable additional KPIs in terms of sustainability.
We talked about how TNE is embedded/aligned with institutional international strategies and the fact that it can perhaps now be seen as a tactical action to address challenges in current international strategies.
We explored the idea of placing students at the heart of internationalisation strategy and what this means in practice. We then went on to think about what this means within the TNE sphere and the extent to which students are indeed at the heart of it all. There is certainly a diverse set of student experiences, and it is not helpful to homogenise this when we try to capture the lived realities of TNE students. Vicky asked the question as to what extent students should be involved in strategy development and cited examples from IAU.
We rounded off our conversation talking about equitable partnerships and sustainability within international higher education. As always, an insightful and though provoking conversation with Vicky that added to our understanding of recent activity and raised some interesting questions about what will happen next in international higher education.
How do we put students at the heard of our international strategies?
Do students have a role to play in strategy development?
How do we ensure equitable partnerships in TNE?
