Running head: GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION 1
Analysis of the Impact of Globalization
upon the Current Internationalization of Higher Education John C. Tacapan California State University, Long Beach Spring 2011
Globalization seems to be the wave of the future and it ushers in the emergence of the so- called borderless society. Steger (2009) described globalization as a social condition characterized by tight global economic, political, cultural, and environmental interconnections and flows that make most of the currently existing borders and boundaries irrelevant (p. 8). Among the many aspects of independent nation-states, their educational and economic dimensions, experiences the most significant impact of globalization. According to Spring (2008), most of the worlds governments discuss similar educational agendas that include investing in education to develop human capital or better workers and to promote economic growth (p. 332). In fact, the three regional organizations such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the European Union (EU), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which are the key subjects of globalization, play a significant role in education (Dale & Robertson, 2002). Educational discourses around the world center on the interrelationship between education and upward economic and social mobility. Spring (2008) argued that these discourses refer to human capital, lifelong learning for improving job skills, and economic development. However, as globalization opens the opportunities for many people to acquire globally-relevant and economically-feasible education, it also jeopardizes the cultural, political, and economic dimensions of independent nation-states especially those which are recipients of international aid from multinational financial agencies such as the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As Rizvi and Lingard (2010) mentioned, the neoliberal view of education is widely promoted by most intergovernmental and many non-governmental organizations such as the WB and OECD (p. 22). Besides, the WB and OECD become major players determined to influence national educational policies and their evaluation (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). This influence on national educational policies is implemented through their structural adjustment programs (SAPs) in which these institutions demand from their creditor nations the implementation of SAPs in return for supplying much-needed loans to developing countries. Additionally, these international economic institutions enjoy the privileged position of making and reinforcing the rules of a global economy that is sustained by significant power differentials between developed and developing countries (Steger, 2009). For example, in their quest to produce globally- competitive graduates, higher education institutions (HEIs) in developing countries offer curricular programs that are needed to produce work force to fill the needs of developed countries but may not necessarily reflect the immediate local needs of the nation-state. This situation leads to a mismatch between what the nation- state needs and what the HEIs produce. The oversubscription of college students in some globally popular curricular programs also results in underemployment, or worse, unemployment to those who could not be absorbed by the global market. This oversupply of workforce also results in educational inflation where college graduates and people occupying jobs for which they are overtrained are underpaid or receive reduced wages (Spring, 2008). Brown and Lauder (2006, as cited in Spring, 2008) noted that globally, the number of college graduates is larger than labor market demand. In developing countries, this oversupply of higher education graduates results in brain drain and brain circulation, whereas, in developed countries this results to educational inflation. The real and imagined demand of some forms of knowledge needed to fill the global market also results to the proliferation of HEIs whose programs may not be regulated and controlled by recognized agencies; thus, some of these HEIs function as diploma mills. Another drawback of SAPs is the privatization of state enterprises, which, creditors believe, would lead to efficient management and improved performance. However, SAPs rarely produce the desired result of developing debtor societies, because mandate cuts in public spending translate into fewer social programs, reduced educational opportunities, more environmental pollution, and greater poverty for vast majority of people GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION 2
(Steger, 2009, p. 55). Hence, HEIs are gradually weaned from public funding and expected to become financially independent in the name of autonomy, entrepreneurship, and fiscal management, and they often replicate the attributes of neoliberal and capitalistic policies of their donors that literally commodify education services and push universities to adopt more private industry mechanisms, such as financial controls and accounting, or a profit-center philosophy within the institution (Sporn, 2003). Additionally, in responding to and giving expression to contemporary geopolitical shifts and economic challenges, HEIs around the world are increasingly entangled in interesting local, national, and global relations. Transnational students are using the internationalization of higher education to extend and deepen their capacity for thinking and acting globally, nationally, and locally in order to enhance the viability of their life trajectories (Singh, 2005, p. 9, in Ninnes & Hellsten, 2005). This move to the internationalization of higher-education policy and practice was initially driven by increased student mobility, and the desire of universities to attract students from overseas (Phillips & Schweisfurth, 2008). Oftentimes, students from developing societies desire to get a world-class education in HEIs in North America, Australia, and EU nations in order to become globally- competitive. Although this internationalization of HE opens more opportunities for students around the world, it is also obvious that those who come from families with rich social and cultural capital have more access to educational opportunities than those who lack the capital. As a result, the internationalization of HE widens the economic gap and perpetuates social stratification between those who have and those who have not. The relationship between education and economic development is inherently embedded in the globalization discourse. UNESCO emphasized the idea that Education is not an end itselfbut is a means for human beings to cope with change to act as responsible citizens and for society to develop wealth, democracy, and equity (UNESCOs 2001 International Conference on Education, p. 11). Thus, the global movement toward Education for All (EFA) and UNs Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) exemplify this ideology of educational equity at least in the basic education level (Schweisfurth & Phillips, 2008). However, in institutions of higher learning, education itself is being subjected to, and engages in crass marketization, individualistic consumerism, and technological commodification (Singh, 2005, p. 11). Globalization and the knowledge economy have had great impacts upon the current internationalization of higher education. Under the commercialization and commodification of higher education legitimated by the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) HEIs focus highly on generating extra revenue from exporting education and attracting international students to their institutions (Jiang, 2008). Ninnes and Hellsten (2005) reported that changes to funding regimes for higher education have forced many institutions to engage globally through off-shore programs and increased recruitment of international students; yet education is an increasingly contested domain as the processes of global destructuring and restructuring continue to empower and disempower a range of education stakeholders. These issues continue to leave us with the impression that globalization and the internationalization of higher education create more social injustice and educational inequity.
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