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The global marketplace and new technology are contributing to the rapid globalization of higher education. Today's business environment draws its professional work force from all corners of the globe. Human resource development divisions of multinational corporations face the increasing challenge of evaluating courses and degrees from other countries when identifying personnel. Further, higher education is no longer provided solely within national borders. Available through both the higher education and corporate sectors, transnational education can be found in multiple forms, including both electronically and through traditional on-site instruction and training programs. Issues of quality, purpose and responsibility abound in this new borderless educational arena and the time is ripe for a new international alliance of business, higher education and government dedicated to principled advocacy for transnational educational programs. This new alliance is GATE - the Global Alliance for Transnational Education (GATE Brochure, 1996).
It is the purpose of this paper is to provide a brief global context for the new organization and discuss its organization and services as envisioned by its founders.
The Global Context
Institutions globally are seeking new frontiers for growth and recognition. A part of their motivation is spurred by a need for additional resources as developed countries become less capable of subsidizing higher education. But the loftier among motivations lies in the rapid globalization of the marketplace and the needs envisioned by the higher education community to prepare a new generation for this inevitability.
Economic growth is at the heart of this change. For 1992, the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated the “world market” for international students as slightly in excess of 1.2 million (UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1992). However, this world market is measured by the number of students enrolled in educational institutions outside their country of origin as counted by receiving countries. This figure, therefore, does not take into account the unknown but perhaps even larger number of students who are receiving their education in their own country but from international sources. Whereas the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada import the largest number of international students (63 percent in 1990 - UNESCO), the United States, Britain and Australia are touted to be the primary exporters of higher education. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative reports that since 1992, education has ranked fifth in U.S. cross border sale of services. In 1994, the United States earned about $7 billion (US) for educational services (Ascher, New Trade Agreements: Implications for Education and the Professions, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, 1996) while Australia earned about $1 billion (US) in the year prior (Department of Employment, Education and Training, Australia, 1993).
These figures not only do not count the number of students who are receiving a “foreign” education in their own countries, they also do not include corporate education. As business globalizes, the multi-nationals are finding it necessary to conduct their own educational programs for their personnel. There are a number of reasons why the corporations feel that this is necessary, such as low quality higher education in certain countries where their enterprises are located, or the lack of educational facilities or expertise in highly technical areas. In some cases, the provision for an educational program is contracted out to higher education institutions in countries other than where the enterprise is located (e.g. the National Technological University, a distance education consortium of U.S. institutions for graduate level degree programs in engineering). But in a growing number of cases, the human resource divisions of corporations are providing their own (e.g. Ericsson Telecom, United Technologies, Motorola and others).
The increasing export market in higher education and new corporate educational programs, accelerated by the new technologies which make distance education a primary medium are but indicative of a larger activity: regional and global economic growth and the subsequent increased academic and professional mobility. Indeed, the multiple accreditation phenomenon already taking place in Europe and North America may barely become normal activity before it is replaced by regional and eventually global accreditation, motivated by the trade agreements. These forms of quality assurance may provide a system of standards and evaluation applied commonly among institutions and their educational programs on a regional or global basis. Although the question, “what is a quality institution of higher education,” is at the heart of regional activity in the developing world, it is the globalization of the professions and the need to provide common professional preparation which is the fastest moving pretense for regional and global standards setting and accreditation.
There are recent global initiatives which also recognize the rapid internationalization of higher education and the need to assess its effectiveness. In the professions, a recent example of international accreditation is the 1989 agreement among the engineering accreditation bodies of Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States. Known as the “Washington Accord”, the accrediting bodies agreed to recognize the substantial equivalence or comparability of their respective processes for accrediting engineering programs. The accrediting bodies can make recommendations to licensing authorities in their home countries that engineering programs in the other member countries be treated as equivalent (Ascher, Ibid., 1996). The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization has begun to affect business as usual by encouraging the development of common educational standards, mutual recognition and the liberalization of the processes by which professionals are allowed to practice. Traditional nationalistic modes of quality assurance, including institutional and programmatic, will inevitably work in conjunction and/or give way to global forms of public protection and educational quality, beginning with professional education. Countries which have not established their educational systems based on rigorous standards of literally “world class” quality further risk the replacement of their professional labor force by those who have anticipates global mobility and have fine-tuned their quality assurance systems accordingly.
The Global Alliance for Transnational Education: Formation, Organization and Services
GATE was envisioned by the corporate sector and founded in 1995 by Jones International, Ltd., a multinational telecommunications corporation. Jones has since been joined by a number of multinational corporations including Coca-Cola, Ericsson Telecom and others. The first invitational forum of GATE was held in October, 1995, co-hosted by the Center for Quality Assurance in International Education and Jones International, Ltd. GATE's founding affiliates are individuals drawn from:
National Quality Assurance Bodies: Committee of University Principals, Republic of South Africa; Commission d'evaluation de l'enseignement collegial, Canada; Chilean Accreditation Council; Secretaria de Educacion Publica, Mexico; National Council for Education Awards, Ireland; Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, People's Republic of China; and the New Zealand Academic Audit Unit.
National Higher Education Associations: Hungarian Rectors' Conference; American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers; The Laurasian Institution (Asia and U.S.); the Australian Education Office; and the American Council on Education.
Institutions with Major Off-Shore Offerings: Open University (United Kingdom) and Monash University (Australia).
International Organizations: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education; and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The founding affiliates identified three primary needs at the heart of establishing a new organization:
I. The need for a reliable and current data base of transnational educational programs globally
A major service of GATE is a global data base. For a list of “accredited” institutions of higher education and their programs, human resource divisions of corporations, qualifications authorities, admissions offices of educational institutions and prospective students (among other users) currently rely on multiple and expensive publications of various national and international bodies which are typically outdated by the time they are printed. These publications further generally list institutions which operate within national borders but do not usually list: a) the transnational educational programs of these institutions in other countries; b) the degree programs produced by the private/corporate sector; or c) the growing number of distance education programs which are “beamed” across borders to foreign national student bodies. The data base, being developed with the assistance of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, will be in accessible printed as well as electronic form.
II. The need to develop cooperatively principles of good practice
Key to GATE's purposes are Principles of Good Practice in the provision of
transnational programs. The Principles assist institutions and organizations
in the development and evaluation of quality education which crosses national
borders. They are adopted by national systems for application to transnational
programs provided by their institutions of higher education, and/or they are
applied directly by GATE in a centrally administered, international peer review
process for quality assurance and improvement, requested on a voluntary basis.
The latter use has made it necessary for GATE to develop a system of quality
review, including the identification of qualified external reviewers and the
establishment of an evaluative process which promotes and maintains educational
improvement. At its first conference, participating countries envisioned using
GATE as a process of external review for foreign programs wishing to enter
their country.
III. The need for an international forum to coordinate quality assurance and other activities related to principled advocacy of transnational programs
GATE's founding affiliates envisioned a global organization of institutions of higher education, national higher education and quality assurance associations, intergovernmental organizations and national ministries of education, and major corporations dedicated to principled advocacy of transnational educational programs. Further, although higher education is key to GATE's purposes, the organization concerns itself with the full range of education including postsecondary, higher and post-graduate and professional continuing education and training. The participants of GATE will come from both industrialized and developing countries.
GATE is a global organization which operates like many organizations with newsletters, access to data bases, invitations to global forums on specific topics of interest and an annual meeting. GATE's second annual meeting is scheduled for October 8-11, 1997 at the Ritz Carlton Pentagon City in Metropolitan Washington, D.C., USA. This meeting will be co-sponsored by the Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education and the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. GATE's time is right and those who have envisioned this new organization look forward to corporate, higher education and governmental communities joining in this much needed and timely partnership.
Copyright EUNIS 1997 Y.E.