Transnational education: Current developments and policy implications

Abstract

Ever since the transnational education trend took off since the 1980s, transnational education has come to bearing political, economic and cultural implications. Different approaches have been formulated to achieve specific policy objectives by both importing and exporting countries. Such approaches demonstrate a four dimensional composition, which includes generating economic revenue, boosting capacity building, developing human resources and promoting international understanding. Transnational education is, to a great extent, economically oriented and has now become dominated by market principles. In addition, it is characterized by its borderless nature and the innovation of delivery models. Alongside the opportunities, transnational education tends to erode national educational sovereignty and threatens cultural security of importing countries, undermines the public nature of education, and challenges the existing institutional arrangements for quality assurance, accreditation and qualification recognition in higher education. With recent global education trends in mind, China urgently needs to adopt adequate measures to ensure a sustainable and healthy development of transnational education.

摘要

跨国教育越来越具有教育外部的经济学、 政治学、 文化学等方面的意义, 也正因为如此, 输入国和输出国都希望通过跨国教育来实现特定的政策目标, 并主要从获得经济收益、 加强能力建设、 发展人力资源和增进国际理解四个维度来形成各自不同的发展理念。 跨国教育的发展体现了经济价值取向、 市场化倾向、 边界模糊性和模式创新性等特征, 但跨国教育侵蚀教育主权、 威胁文化安全、 消解教育公益性, 并对高等教育质量保障、 认证和资格认可方面的制度安排提出了挑战。 现阶段, 中国应采取积极有效的措施来引导跨国教育健康、 稳步的发展。