Universities Minister, David Willetts, recently said that the HE sector is only at the beginning of globalisation.
Willetts, speaking at the launch of the book “Blue Skies”, assured that change will happen as the sector focuses more on globalisation. He suggested that previously small players may be growing massively, but the balance hasn’t yet set in. The UK and other players have yet to play their cards in a big way.
Does this mean that Willetts is banking on an easy — or, at least, steady — overtaking shot at an opportune time?
Globalisation is partially about extending opportunity and breaking boundaries. There is a growing expectation that higher education creates graduates that are ‘global citizens’. Individuals set their own routes into a wealth of subjects, with as many limitations and restrictions set aside as possible.
Whatever your take on the rather broad topic of ‘globalisation’, all this action requires money. And, in any situation like this, it doesn’t take long before the money issue takes over, even when its involvement was never intended to feature so highly.
Paul Greatrix provides a good example of this in a recent post, identifying two contrasting views of globalisation. Greatrix offers the following thought on economic reasons for globalisation:
“…while there may be some institutions seeking to establish branch campuses purely for financial gain it is questionable whether such a mission is sustainable or indeed whether there is really money to be made from such activity in the way suggested here. International partnership activity can be a genuine force for good and should be seen as a serious long term mutually beneficial arrangement rather than a vehicle for making a quick buck.”
And it looks like we are in this for the long term. Higher education is more ‘global’ than it is ‘local’ or ‘national’ now. Demands are there, whether they are reasonable or not. Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor of HE at IoE, says the following:
“‘The learning economy’ and ‘global economy’ are tide-like. They cannot be held back and nor is there any sign of their receding. Universities are caught in global networks: the world rankings portray a spurious sense of independence.” [Source]
Yet, as Barnett continues, this isn’t automatically considered negative:
“Far from being unencumbered, this is a university that even seems to enjoy its interconnectedness. It proudly proclaims its embeddedness in society, whether at regional or national levels; or even across the world.”
Nick Foskett argues that this interconnectedness forces universities into a more entrepreneurial perspective. More still, he explains that globalisation requires universities to respond in very different ways to each other. Something that hasn’t been fully recognised yet.
This is evidenced partially by Helen Sauntson and Liz Morrish, who show that Russell Group universities are far more likely to feature global statements through their mission statements than other universities:
“Globalisation is a feature of the neo-liberal discourse so the frequent use of world in Russell Group statements contributes to this theme. World does also appear in the other two lists but lower down (11th in 1994 and 24th in Million+) suggesting that prioritising globalisation and internationalisation in mission statements is not so important for these universities as it is for the Russell Group ones. This is reinforced through international being the most frequent adjective for the Russell Group statements but not for the other two sub-corpora.” [Source]
The sector clearly hasn’t fully played its hand yet. As I mention above, globalisation encompasses much and is full of confusion. There are books and books attempting to define the word. If there’s only one thing that doesn’t simply do what it says on the tin, globalisation might well be it.
Given the subjectivity and the argument over definitions, I can’t see how the HE sector’s attempts at overtaking globally can happen when it suits. Willetts is probably right that change will happen. But not when it happens to be a convenient time to strike.
I’m not entirely clued up on globalisation, but I wonder if anyone can be. Even experts in the subject seem to have difficulty in making solid claims. You only need to start reading OUP’s “Globalization: A Very Short Introduction” to see that the term introduces more questions than answers. Some people deny its existence altogether, while others argue that “globalization may be a geographically limited and uneven process”.
Is it this ‘uneven process’ that could enable the UK and others to make globalisation their own success? Maybe, maybe not.
But here’s a thought. If you’re feeling unsure about where the HE sector is heading in the UK, where on earth do you start when it comes to globalisation…?
Globalisation, in all sectors, relies on the continued availability of relatively cheap oil. Which we have maybe three or four years of, tops.
This, sir, is a very good point indeed. I hadn’t put enough focus on this type of issue in the past until February this year, when I attended a universities and transition conference at Winchester. Lots of food for thought there.
I’m pretty sure you have a good grasp on this angle and feel you’d do it far better justice than I could. A possible future post…?
Hi Martin,
In a post in February I talked about internationalisation in terms of UK HE’s response to a global economic crisis. I framed it in terms of the shock doctrine. It is a form on neoliberal accumulation by dispossession, and forms part of the way in which hegemonic discourses of economic growth dominate our HE policy/strategy. Our worth and therefore activity is driven by productivity, more-for-less, efficiency, growth. There is no ethical or political space here.
However, as David Kernohan notes above, the key is global disruption and the place of politics in all this. How can we engage with “climate change, peak oil, energy costs, the loss of biodiversity [which] each threaten business-as-usual within capitalist social relations”? When cheap energy runs out how do we increase GDP other than through a global depression in wages, which then leads to issues of under-consumption/a falling rate of profit? And that is before we engage with climate change targets etc..
The full blog post is at: http://bit.ly/hl6IhO
The slides are at: http://slidesha.re/l0C7zS
My end-point is the need for academia to critique the development of a resilient education. There is a desperate need for a counter-hegemonic position to be fought for, and international staff and students have an important place in that debate. However, in the face of the rule of money, that debate is ignored or is deemed off message.
I note in the post:
“students and academics might, irrespective of culture, work as co-producers of a mass intellect in commons. Collaborative social relations might enable us to re-envisage the University as a revolutionary space, where knowledge is constructed not for consumption and privatization and commodification for the economy, but instead for global knowing and reimagining, and solutions to global disruptions that are not financialised. Within this approach, civil, experiential action is critical, as is critique.”
It is interesting that some VCs have been grappling wth this, in the face of a technocractic/economic opposition: http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/a-question/
The rule of money makes this difficult, as does our wilful ignoring of warning signs about the global environment [witness recent reports about ocean acidification: http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1906_IPSO-LONG.pdf and our resetting of what targets we deem appropriate in order to keep the machine of the road: http://bit.ly/mQFdpW%5D.
However, we have to keep trying.
In solidarity,
Richard.