By Bobir Muratov and Stephen Wilkins (originally published on UWN)
Internationalisation, including transnational education (TNE), is sometimes referred to as ‘Westernisation’ and criticised as a continuation of (neo)colonial approaches. Although the export of transnational education is currently dominated by Western countries, there are now an increasing number of Asia-to-Asia partnerships.
The C-BERT data shows that today, there are more than 42 international branch campuses (IBCs) of Asian universities in other Asian countries. While India was the biggest exporter of Asian IBCs, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the largest importer. However, the data does not capture recent developments in the field. Uzbekistan, as one of the leading TNE hubs, also actively received programmes and institutions from other Asian countries.
Liberalisation and massification
Higher education has witnessed a tremendous change in Uzbekistan in the last six years. As the newly appointed government envisioned higher education as a vital tool in the economic development of the country, the sector has gone through liberalisation and massification. The number of students has increased six times over and surpassed 1.3 million, and the number of institutions has increased three times, reaching 201 during this period.
TNE has been at the forefront of this expansion, and the country has become the third largest host of international branch campuses (IBCs) globally.
Apart from expanding access, providing quality education and preparing skilled human resources to vital sectors of the economy, it is hoped that TNE will assist the country to become a regional education hub in the near future.
Asian TNE
The country hosts 41 TNE institutions from 14 different countries.
Although the majority of TNE institutions offer degrees from Russia and the West, there are 12 institutions that can be considered as Asian TNE. Four of these institutions come from India, three from South Korea, two from Singapore, and Japan, Turkey and Kazakhstan have one each.
While both institutions from Singapore offer programmes of universities from the United Kingdom, the rest provide degrees from their countries of origin. Furthermore, among these 12 institutions only the institution from Japan can be considered a non-international branch campus TNE institution, as it is a locally branded university that offers blended learning from several Japanese universities.
Moreover, all other universities teach fully in traditional mode. Information technologies and business and management are the most represented programmes. Furthermore, some institutions provide studies in architecture, education, engineering and energy. Only six institutions offer graduate degrees, and none of them has doctoral education yet.
The language of instruction in these institutions is mainly English, but there are also programmes taught in Uzbek, Russian, Korean and Japanese. Interestingly, some of these universities also offer locally certified degrees.
From an ownership perspective, five of these institutions are government-private partnerships, four are government owned and three are privately owned institutions. Among government organisations involved, the Ministry of Digital Technologies is the most active and was involved in the foundation of four universities. This aligns with the country’s vision of becoming an information technology hub by 2030.
Moreover, the Ministry of Preschool and School Education and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Banking Association and Chamber of Commerce and Industry have also initiated the establishment of TNE institutions. On the other hand, four TNE institutions are located in regions outside the capital and they have received infrastructural support from the local municipalities.
Among these institutions there are both experienced and new players in the TNE business. For example, Amity University already had several branches all over the world prior to the establishment of a campus in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, the Management Development Institute of Singapore started branches in Malaysia and Tajikistan as a result of its successful experience in Uzbekistan.
Inha University in Tashkent, being the first South Korean university abroad, paved the way for other universities that opened branches and programmes both in Uzbekistan and other countries.
Outlook and implications
Asian TNE has risen sharply in the last decade. Along with the UAE, Uzbekistan has become one of the leading Asian TNE destinations. Asian TNE has become an important alternative for Russian and Western TNE.
Although in terms of tuition fees and language of instruction, Asian institutions are similar to others, they carry the academic standards and cultural values of their home countries. As a result, the earliest institutions such as the Management Development Institute of Singapore in Tashkent and Inha University in Tashkent have been going for over a decade, and their graduates have been contributing to various sectors of the economy, including public service.
However, since the dynamics of the TNE industry are changing rapidly, there may be some risks when it comes to quality assurance and government regulations, especially for newcomers. For example, the licence of a newly established Malaysian IBC was terminated for undisclosed reasons recently.
Nevertheless, foreign education providers are still positively viewed by the public. Moreover, despite increasing competition, unmet demand and a rapidly growing population contribute to a positive outlook for Asian TNE.
Bobir Muratov is head of the Research and Development Department at Inha University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and a doctoral researcher at the National Higher Education Research Institute, Universiti Sains Malaysia. E-mail: b.muratov@inha.uz. Professor Stephen Wilkins is a teaching fellow at the International Centre for Higher Education Management (ICHEM), University of Bath, United Kingdom. E-mail: sjkw20@bath.ac.uk.
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