Capacity Building in Transnational Education: A Relational Capital Framework

Abstract

In many cities around the globe you will encounter billboards announc- ing the presence of international universities and colleges dotted incon- gruously among the city’s education precincts, shopping centers, suburbs and industrial parks. These cameo appearances by far-flung academic brands can be puzzling at first sight. How did the University of Upper Iowa come to be running programs here in Hong Kong? What is a Carnegie Mellon University campus doing here in the center of Adelaide? Why would Limkokwing University of Creative Technology want to be delivering programs here in Phnom Penh? Exact numbers are hard to come by, but it is safe to say that there is some- thing like a million students around the world enrolled on campuses and in programs of foreign universities. In recent years we have seen the emer- gence of an extensive body of literature on transnational education from the point of view of exporting countries and institutions, including the excellent preceding book by the same editors, Exporting Transnational Education: Institutional Practice, Policy and National Goals (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Scholars in Western universities with overseas opera- tions have dominated the field, and most of the institutional research, typically led by quality assurance and export promotion agencies, has mostly emanated from, and reflected the interests of, exporting states. This collection breaks with the mold by seeking to consider the experi- ence of transnational education from the point of view of the host society, and in particular students and teachers. Educational researchers in most host countries have, until recently, appeared little exposed to, and little interested in, transnational provision. Leading researchers working in elite universities and research institutes have tended to see transnational education as low status and low quality alternatives, sometimes referred to as ‘second chance’ or ‘demand absorbing’ programs, catering to mid- dle-class students who were not able to enter leading local universities. Meanwhile those in host countries with a more intimate experience of working with foreign programs are rarely engaged in educational research and publication, but instead tend to be program managers, teaching- focused academics and administrators. The editors are to be congratu- lated for bringing together an excellent group of scholars that are able to draw their extensive experience in transnational education to reflect on varied aspects of the impact of transnational programs and campuses on host societies. It is crucially important to better understand how foreign higher edu- cation engages with host societies, for in the absence of robust research negative preconceptions and old biases tend to continue on unchallenged. These accounts often run as follows. Foreign providers take advantage of the desperation of students who can’t access local institutions and can’t afford to study abroad. They are simply low-quality demand absorbers who prey on the middle classes of middle-income countries, who seek international qualifications that will give them an edge in private sector employment. As a result, despite transnational education’s enormous potential, gov- ernments continue to impose serious regulatory obstacles including restrictions on foreign investment in education, workforce and migration restrictions and profit-repatriation controls, as well as compulsory cur- riculum and teaching material restrictions. At a systemic level, there is much to learn about the contribution TNE makes to boosting the supply of higher education, and the characteristics of provision in each place. This is important, since national education statistics often overlook foreign programs and branch campuses. Some of the chapters in this collection make important contributions to such questions. What impact does TNE have on access to international quali- fications, and what types of young people are enticed to these programs and why? What are the career outcomes of TNE graduates and what contribution do they make the national competitiveness, and the produc- tivity of the enterprises that employ them? At the institutional level, more research is needed on how transna- tional teaching partnerships can foster innovation and build productive working relationships between teachers and researchers. This is impor- tant because, transnational partnerships are seen by many governments and institutional leaders as a way of exposing local universities and col- leges to new ideas from abroad, in the hope that working together closely will lead to the adoption of administrative and teaching practices from overseas universities that have been selected because they are considered to more advanced. This is a nice idea, but the research on what happens in practice is scant, and many of the chapters in collection do make a valuable contribution to deepening our understanding of whether such capacity-building potentials are realized. The travel restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have severely disrupted many of the five million or so students who are under- taking higher education programs abroad. As universities switched to remote learning and encouraged students stuck at home to commence their degrees online, a wide range of longstanding regulatory impedi- ments to cross-border program delivery have become quickly apparent, such as firewalls, cumbersome approvals processes and non-recognition of online degrees. The expansion of transnational education is an obvious solution to the current crisis, and we live in hope that detailed research on host society experiences, such as the studies in this volume, will help a wide range of stakeholders to better understand its potential.