International Education- Opportunities and Challenges

Prof. Ian Findlay, President and Vice-Chancellor University of Puthisastra, Cambodia

International education (IE) can be defined broadly as the provision of education from institutions in one country for students in another country.

IE provides three main benefits for students:

1. Global Citizenship: Students, both domestic and international, are exposed to a wide diversity of cultures, traditions, and understandings of how other citizens/countries think and work. They understand each other, have more tolerance of other cultures and belief systems, and become global citizens.

2. Graduate Employability: Increased openness, experiences, and networking provide improved employment opportunities across the globe.

3. Foreign Qualifications - Often much more highly valued than qualifications in their country

IE also provides wider benefits:

1. Substantial revenue for universities and the wider community. For example, in Australia IE is worth $37.4 Billion/year and $43 Billion in the UK.

2. Multi-national research teams. Increasingly research involves multi-national collaboration to address the major challenges facing mankind – especially those that cross borders such as health care, climate change, etc.

3. Capacity Building. For example, the 1951 Colombo Plan resulted in Global North economies (notably Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, and the UK) funding scholarships allowing future leaders from South and Southeast Asia to study abroad. Thirty years later the Colombo Plan had educated over 20,000 foreign scholars from Australia alone.

There are 4 main models of IE:

Traditional On Shore (TOS) (vast majority of students)

Where students study in a foreign country. Advantages – cultural enrichment, international networks, possible PR. Disadvantages – substantially higher cost ($40-50k per year) ($150-200k total) for tuition fees and living costs) – a huge deterrent for the poorer Global South.

Enabler 

Students undertake Foundation/Bridging/Pathway courses in one country (usually Global South) which provides access to degrees in another country (usually Global North). The advantages are much lower cost as students can live at home, and students adapt to foreign teaching methods, content, and expectations. Disadvantages are foreign universities need to accredit local content; semesters or course content may not align so students have to wait 6-12 months before foreign university commencement.

Partnership

Where universities have joint curricula. For example, in a 2+2 model, the local university delivers two years of local content and then the foreign university delivers two years of foreign content either online or in the foreign country. Advantages - lower cost, especially if online, as students stay at home. Disadvantages - requires significant effort and time to map and accredit local curricula to maximize advanced standing credit; potential quality assurance and reputational issues; semesters may not align so students have to wait 6-12 months before foreign university commencement.

Country Satellite or International Branch Campuses (Ibcs)

When a university has a physical campus in a foreign country. Advantages are increased profile and control of content delivery. Disadvantages - very expensive often a minimum breakeven period of 5-10 years as need to build campus, hire staff; unfamiliar regulatory requirements; difficulty in hiring local staff with sufficient skills or hiring very expensive foreign staff; may be difficult to gain sufficient market share vs local market; semester non-alignment; market may be very price sensitive unwilling to pay required premium rates. Some such as the University of Nottingham Malaysia and China; RMIT Vietnam, Monash University Malaysia, and Heriot-Watt University Dubai are successful but only after decades. However, many others have dramatically failed such as Boston University Dubai, New York Bahrain, University of Nevada Singapore, and UNSW Asia. Others, once National higher education has improved, have been taken over by national Governments or squeezed out.

" Foreign students are no longer queuing up for a Western degree and the often barely mentioned but inevitable carrot of PR "

C-BERT, the US research center that tracks foreign campuses, reports that for every new campus that opens, one fails – often very expensively. Opening an IBC in a foreign country is highly risky, both reputationally and financially. The challenges are further increased by challenges of different languages, different markets, different academic quality standards & regulations, different religious and cultural contexts, and business and labor laws - as too many universities have learned to their substantial cost.

Despite the successes of IE, what are the challenges?

1. Many Western universities are now overly reliant on TOS revenue. In Australia alone, TOS revenue accounts for ~30 percent of total university revenue – so much so that almost no Australian universities could survive without such revenue. Many courses now have more international students than domestic students.

2. Brain Drain from Global South to Global North - Bright, successful students are more likely to be attracted to stay in Western Universities due to higher economic rewards.

Recent events including Covid have hastened the demise of TOS.  

Foreign students are no longer queuing up for a Western degree and the often barely mentioned but inevitable carrot of PR. Compounding this decline have been short-term actions such as governments reducing visa availability, sending students home during COVID-19, and greedy universities with very high international fees = $25-30k per year all contributing to killing the golden goose.

TOS also faces challenges from the other direction - the rapid rise of universities, particularly Asian, in university rankings such as THE and QS with the subsequent fall of Western universities – thus eroding a major selling point of TOS. Why should Chinese students spend $40-50k/year (or $150k for a three-year degree) to come to Australia where they have a local university with a higher ranking on their doorstep? Additionally, some countries such as China, traditionally a very lucrative source of IE students, are actively encouraging students to stay at home. 

If TOS IE has a limited life and IBCs are very risky, we must look to alternative models such as Enabler or Partnerships and other opportunities if the richness of IE is to continue to prosper. 

One such opportunity is Cambodia:

● Cambodia will be the ASEANS fastest-growing economy by 2025
● One of the fastest-growing economies in the entire World
● 60 percent of the population are <25 so young, vibrant energy. Aspirational, want more
● Aggressively moving beyond low-skill, low-value economy to ‘knowledge economy’ – but needs massive uplift in education & skills
● The huge boom in aspiring middle class who strongly value and pay for quality education (37 percent YoY increase in mortgages as a sign of middle-class aspiration)
● > 200,000 tertiary students per year
● Only 1 US and 1 UK university in Cambodia

The University of Puthisastra (UP), as Cambodia's top university, is exceptionally & uniquely well-placed to capitalize:

● Top 28^th private university in ASEAN (top in Cambodia)
● Best academic results in Cambodia – 100 percent for all degrees, 95 percent for associate degrees in national exams
● Rapid growth - >132 percent growth over five years
● Only Cambodian university internationally recognized in THE ranking
● Most research-intensive university in Cambodia - 200 research publications/year
● Leading educational platform (online learning) – Moodle based.

UP is already exploring Enabler or Partnership models with UK, European, and Australian universities but would welcome further engagement.