Cross-border education is the movement of people, knowledge programs providers and curriculum across national or regional jurisdictional borders. It also refers to dual and joint degree programs, branch campuses, and virtual, on-line education. It is a division of "internationalization of higher education" and can be linked to development cooperation projects, academic exchange programs and commercial initiatives.
Cross-border tertiary (higher) education
Cross-border higher education has emerged to become a very complex phenomenon and has grown at an extraordinary pace. The last two decades have seen a significant growth in the mobility of higher education programs and providers through physical and virtual modes of delivery. This presents many new opportunities such as improved access to higher education, strategic alliances between countries and regions, as well as the expansion of human resource and institutional capacity. May students in cross-border education are "glocal students" who seek global education at local cost.
Provider and receiver country
The provider country is the source country of the program, qualification or other intellectual property (e.g. component of a course of study) that is delivered in another country. The receiver country is the host country to which the programme, qualification or other intellectual property sourced overseas is delivered.
Forms
Cross-border education or Transnational education comes in a variety of forms ranging from twinning programs, branch campuses, joint and dual degrees and online education. The steps involved in setting up cross-border education include: Setting up of a branch campus or a higher education institution Collaboration with a local partner where the provider country institution/awarding institution controls much of the program design and delivery (e.g. teaching and assessment) Collaboration with a local partner where the program design comes from the home institution, but program delivery is shared Collaboration where the program delivery is largely delegated to a local partner Validation by an overseas awarding institution of a program designed and taught by a local institution The provider country institution employs a pure distance learning mode of delivery through use of printed materials and/or electronic delivery
Approaches to cross-border higher education
There are four approaches employed in cross-border education. They are --
The mutual understanding approach encompasses political, cultural, academic and development aid goals (e.g. Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain); The skilled migration approach shares the goals of the mutual understanding approach but gives stronger emphasis in the recruitment of selected international students (e.g. Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom (for EU students), the United States (for post-graduate students)); The revenue-generating approach shares the rationales of the mutual understanding and skilled migration approaches, but offers higher education services on a full-fee basis, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom (for non-EU students), the United States (for undergraduates). The capacity building approach encourages the use of foreign post-secondary education as a way of building an emerging country’s capacity, e.g. China, Hong Kong, Singapore.
Factors which drive supply and demand for cross-border education
Demand
The attraction of an overseas qualification to students in the receiver country
Insufficient supply of level-appropriate education in the receiver country
Attraction of students studying for an overseas qualification at a lower cost and without having to leave their home country The attraction of a more flexible mode of study offered by cross-border programmes, e.g. Part-time, distance learning, fast track, intensive mode, etc. The attraction of a greater variety of more programs e.g. Top-up qualifications
Supply
Developments in technology to facilitate improved remote delivery and remote support of programmes and qualifications Pressure on institutions to generate additional sources of income A change in academic and organizational culture in some major education provider countries – an increased emphasis on entrepreneurship and seeking commercial opportunities Desire to pilot new programs or new modes of delivery in a foreign market Desire of staff for self-advancement and fulfillment of educational ideals through delivery of education to a foreign country