Cross-border education is described by Jane Knight (2006) as the movement of people, knowledge, programs, providers and curriculum across national or regional jurisdictional borders. Cross-border education can refer to dual and joint degree programs; branch campuses; and virtual, on-line education. It is a division of "internationalization of higher education" and can be linked to development cooperation projects, academic exchange programs and commercial initiatives.
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Cross-border tertiary (higher) education
Cross-border higher education is emerging to become a fascinating but very complex phenomenon. The mobility of students, professors, knowledge and even values has been part of higher education for centuries, but it has recently grown at an extraordinary pace. The last two decades have seen a significant growth in the mobility of higher education programs and providers through physical and virtual modes of delivery. This presents many new opportunities such as improved access to higher education, strategic alliances between countries and regions, as well as the expansion of human resource and institutional capacity. May students in cross-border education are "glocal students" who seek global education at local cost.
Provider and receiver country
The provider country is the source country of the program, qualification or other intellectual property (eg. component of a course of study) that is delivered in another country. The receiver country is the host country to which the programme, qualification or other intellectual property sourced overseas is delivered.
Forms
Cross-border education or Transnational education comes in a variety of forms ranging from twinning programs, branch campuses, joint and dual degrees and online education.
Four approaches to cross-border higher education
- The mutual understanding approach encompasses political, cultural, academic and development aid goals, e.g. Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain.
- The skilled migration approach shares the goals of the mutual understanding approach but gives stronger emphasis to the recruitment of selected international students, e.g. Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom (for EU students), the United States (for post-graduate students).
- The revenue-generating approach shares the rationales of the mutual understanding and skilled migration approaches, but offers higher education services on a full-fee basis, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom (for non-EU students), the United States (for undergraduates).
- The capacity building approach encourages the use of foreign post-secondary education as a way of building an emerging country’s capacity, e.g. China, Hong Kong, Singapore.
Demand
Supply
Criticism
One of the biggest challenges of cross-border education had been the balance of striking quality and access. Given the diversity of regulatory environment it is often difficult to assure quality and protect student interests.
The increasing movement of education between countries means education is becoming increasingly “globalised”. Consequently, educational products are often regarded as a trade commodity. In this way, they are increasingly tied to the market and consumer demand, as well as to the need to make a financial return for providers. When consumer demand and the need to make a financial return becomes a factor influencing the offer of educational provision, it can create a tension with other priorities such as academic standards, autonomy and integrity. This tension can, in turn, give rise to problems with quality and consumer protection issues such as:
Diploma mills
An extreme example of the problems that can arise are the so-called "diploma mills" that offer qualifications for little or no study, but at a price. Often the qualifications "bought" at a diploma mill are of little or no value to the students. In addition, institutional failures and other factors may result in poor quality programs, and these can have wide impacts on the reputation and value of a country's education system and qualifications.