Transnational education (TNE) provides international education opportunities for students unable to travel due to financial or personal reasons. TNE helps meet local demand for quality education and professional expertise, prevents brain-drain, and enhances local education systems through international cooperation. It is also a more sustainable alternative to traditional international student mobility.
It is no surprise that TNE has grown considerably over the past two decades. More students, providers, and countries (both as sending and receiving locations) are involved in TNE. Increasingly we are seeing traditionally receiving countries starting to export TNE, such as China, Malaysia, and India, and a growing number of countries and regions are proactively seeking to attract foreign providers to meet national strategic priorities, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.
However, there are still widespread concerns about the quality of TNE affecting its recognition and the fuller realization of its socially progressive potential. TNE is still often regarded as a lower quality option than traditional home campus provision. The lack of a shared international quality assurance framework and the diversity of approaches to quality assuring and regulating TNE adopted by sending and receiving locations fails to provide the required reassurance and confidence in TNE qualifications.
International guidance documents, such as the UNESCO/OECD Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education, and the UNESCO Council of Europe Revised Code of Good Practice in the Provision of Transnational Education, call for the development of national quality assurance systems for TNE. They also call for concerted efforts by international stakeholders to underpin confidence that TNE provision can be regarded as comparable in quality to similar provision offered at the home campus of the TNE provider, with an ultimate view to supporting the recognition and portability of TNE qualifications.
Calls for platforms where national authorities can collaborate across borders to facilitate the recognition of less traditional modes of learning, such as TNE, are also contained in the UNESCO Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education, which also emphasises the importance of ‘good structures for quality assurance of education…as a foundation upon which trust can be built and from which recognition is possible’
However, many countries still do not have a framework or mechanisms in place to provide reassurance about outbound or inbound TNE. As outlined by an international project I was fortunate to be involved in, the European Commission-funded Quality Assurance of Cross-Border Higher Education, the international quality assurance landscape for TNE is characterised by quality assurance gaps, and overlaps. This results in trust deficits towards TNE qualifications, and regulatory uncertainty or duplication/burden for TNE providers.
Given this scenario, envision an international independent body spearheading the development of international standards for TNE via broad international stakeholder consultation. Subsequently, envision this body assuming responsibility, either independently or at the behest of stakeholders, for implementing these standards by conducting external and independent quality assurance evaluations of TNE activities. Picture this organization consistently striving to collaborate with the quality assurance and regulatory bodies of countries involved in sending and receiving TNE.
Through this imaginary exercise, one might be able to appreciate how this activity could help TNE sending and receiving countries’ authorities addressing regulatory gaps, and unnecessary regulatory overlaps, by offering a platform that can facilitate cross-border communication and direct cooperation between relevant national authorities. Furthermore, it might lead to sending and receiving countries considering this international TNE quality assurance service as a valuable resource helping inform their own oversight and recognition of TNE.
As a voluntary scheme funded by TNE providers themselves, it might be difficult for such an initiative to have a widespread and significant impact. However, if endorsed and supported by the broader international education community it could function as a platform for concrete cooperation in quality assurance and recognition capable of unlocking the progressive potentials of TNE.
Whether this leap of imagination is too far-fetched, given the differing national views of TNE, its quality, and benefits, or if it could potentially drive creative solutions to the growth of TNE worldwide, including as a way to support the implementation of the Global Recognition Convention, is something for the international education, quality assurance, and recognition community to determine.
The key in translating this imaginary scenario into a concrete reality will be the involvement of the right organisations and stakeholders.
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