There have already been various attempts at global partnership to foster synergies across the globe for global learning, research and innovations to help advance living standards in a sustainable way
Higher education with investment in global research and student collaboration, critical for countries' economic and social growth, has been badly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. It is hard to say when life will return to normal once this phase is over. It has triggered a debate on two lines: Will the impact of COV- ID-19 only be temporary? Or will it change higher education and internationalisation forever? These differed opinions, on the one hand, express a sense of anxiety, fear, uncertainty and loss, while on the other, there is hope, excitement and possibilities.
These two different perspectives and illusions on the same phenomenon possibly depend on how we define internationalisation and mobility. The purpose of internationalisation of higher education can be academic, socio-cultural, diplomatic and fiscal. But until now, the internationalisation of higher education has been regarded mostly as global mobility rather than as a means of connectivity through online research, teaching and learning.
Prevailed policies, existing curricula and practices in higher education have failed to integrate students' diverse international and intercultural experiences at home. For the conceivable future, if internationalisation is to remain a crucial feature of university life, we must re-imagine internationalisation during this pandemic.
Considerable research is already available to help us re-design internationalisation in a non-mobile world.
Recently, a survey was conducted under a EU co-funded project "A step forward in the Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions in Nepal and India (InterNepInd)" to identify the best practices for the internationalisation of higher education in India and Nepal. The results showed that only around 40 per cent of the surveyed higher education institutions (HEIs) had initiated activities on theinternationalisation of higher education.
The study findings also revealed that though most HEI sconsidered internationalization an essential strategy and had implemented it for the last two to three years, many HEIs did not have a formal policy.
Most of the HEIs have given student mobility, with 58.1 per cent, as the most-valued activity for internationalisation.
Simultaneously, strategic partnerships (14.0%) and capacity-building programmes (11.6%) were the second and third respective priorities of HEIs across India and Nepal. These three priorities help present new challenges and interpretations for students and academic staff of institutions, helping them become more rounded. International mobility is not only about academia and studies, the other experiences and skills that accompany outward mobility often have the most significant impact on student development.
Many technical/structural impediments such as credit transfer problems, lack of support by university/higher authority, and inadequate financial resources need to be addressed.
Apart from these, many HEIs were considering braindrain, difficulty in assessing organized quality of courses/programmes offered by foreign institutes and accessibility of international opportunities as a critical potential risk of internationalisation.
The term global learning provides universities with a way of developing a curriculum that engages all students in interdependent global systems for prosperity and the earth's sustainability.
There have already been various attempts at global partnership to foster synergies across the globe for global learning, research and innovations to help advance living standards in a sustainable way.
Institutions need to capitalise on their current investment in digital learning technologies, which has afforded many to work off-campus. This way of working provides an incredible opportunity to strengthen internationalisation through electronic linking of the global educational sector. Programmes such as Global learning, Collaborative Online International Learning and Virtual Internships offer exciting potential to engage all students in intercultural learning on a global scale during the pandemic.
However, the transition to online learning is provoking panic-gogy in many quarters, as faculty and students need to adjust to online learning. In most cases, stakeholders in the country like Nepal have felt infrastructure barrier, from broadband internet access to device availability.
This crisis provoked by COVID-19 has radically changed the way we conduct the teaching learning activities. Stakeholders in the academic field have felt the necessity of online resource sharing irrespective of the whereabouts they belong to in the world. But there is no answer to questions like: Where will these changes lead to? What might this new experience of global online learning be for internationalisation in the longer term? When can we travel once again? Will it lead in the long term to more inclusive approaches to global learning? Or will we simply slip back into the old ways of thinking in higher education, with primary focus on mobility for a minority of students? Both mobility and global online learning are not exclusive approaches, and both are needed and equally powerful if done well.
Just as travelling can be considered as elitism, 'athome' pedagogies may risk the perception that those global problems can be solved in the comforts of one's home. We can conclude that online and distant education is developing as a tool of globalisation, focused on reaching the entire university community and other stakeholders whereas international mobility of students, academic and staff members who support direct participants is a tool for internationalisation of higher education. Nevertheless, as with any crisis, the postpandemic will offer a unique opportunity to future function and direction of higher education and its internationalisation.
The term global learning provides universities with a way of developing a curriculum that engages all students in interdependent global systems for prosperity and the earth's sustainability.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 02, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
