Higher education in Australia

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (2005). "Education without borders: International trade in education." Australian Government.

In this governmental report (2005), the current success and future recommendations for Australia's exportation of its higher education is detailed. Increasing growth in the demand for higher education has made those countries with established and high-performing higher education systems have become more profitable; developing countries and economies whose workforces are moving away from labor-intensive activities and towards the development of human capital have the resources but not the infrastructure to attain a higher education, making international demand much higher and with even greater projected growth rates (DFAT 2005). Economic growth in Asia has accounted for the majority of the increased demand in the past quarter century, and for Australia in particular several South East Asian countries have shown a significant increase in their demand for higher education and their utilization of Australian institutions (DFAT 2005).

The report goes on to detail many of the specific countries with whom Australia has significant trade and higher education relationships, but does not explore the issue of the impact on native Australian students that the increased internationalization of education has or might have. This makes the reliability of the report and its recommendations somewhat questionable, as it is clearly biased towards the increased profits brought by internationalization.

Kinght, J. (1999). "Internationalisation of higher education." Organization for economic co-operation and development (OECD).

In this chapter of Quality and Internationalisation in Higher Education, Knight (1999) explores what it means to add an international dimension to higher education, and the importance and benefits of doing so. She begins by defining internationalization as the response to the catalyst of globalization; the former is the effect caused by the latter (Knight 1999). Thus, as globalization increases and the flow of technology and information becomes less restricted on a global level, higher levels of internationalization -- of seeking out information across borders -- will occur (Knight 1999). Knight (1999) goes on to identify a number of different general approaches to producing an international dimension in higher education, including an activities-based perspective, competency-focused instruction, a general ethos of international understanding and support, and a process-oriented approach that is self-reflective and evolving.

The difficulty of defining the term "internationalization" is the final subject tackled in this chapter (Knight 1999). An adequate job of explaining its meaning in the context of higher education practice and policy is made implicit throughout the chapter, so it is unclear why Knight struggles so here. In general, however, the concepts are clear if a little broad and empirically difficult to verify.

Turpin, T.; Iredale, R. & Crinnion, P. (2002). "The internationalization of higher education: Implications for Australia and its higher education 'clients.'" Minerva 40: pp. 327-40.