TRANSNATIONAL EDUCATION: OVERSEXED, OVERSOLD AND OVER THERE? NIGEL MARTIN HEALEY A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Nottingham Trent University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Published Works December 2018 This work is the intellectual property of the author and the publishers of the journals listed below. You may copy up to 5% of this work for private study, or personal, non- commercial research. Any re-use of the information contained within this document should be fully referenced, quoting the author, title, university, degree level and pagination. Queries or requests for any other use, or if a more substantial copy is required, should be directed in the owner(s) of the Intellectual Property Rights. 1 Table of Contents Page List of published works 3 Glossary of acronyms 4 Abstract 5 Introductory Chapter 7 Appendix A 74 Healey, N. (2008). Is higher education in really internationalising? 81 Higher Education, 55(3), 333-355. Healey, N. (2013). Why do English universities really franchise 106 degrees to overseas providers? Higher Education Quarterly, 67(2), 180-200. Healey, N. (2013). Is UK transnational education “one of Britain’s 128 great growth industries of the future”? Higher Education Review, 45(3), 6-35. Healey, N. (2015). Towards a risk-based typology for 159 transnational education. Higher Education, 69(1), 1-18. Letter from co-author: Dr Lucy Michael 178 Healey, N. and Michael, L. (2015). Towards a new framework for 179 analysing transnational education. Higher Education Policy, 28(3), 369-391. Letter from co-author: Dr Claudia Bordogna 204 Healey, N. and Bordogna, C. (2014). From transnational to 205 multinational education: emerging trends in international higher education. Internationalisation of Higher Education, 3, 34-56. Healey, N. (2015). Managing international branch campuses: what 230 do we know? Higher Education Quarterly, 69(4), 386-409. Healey, N. (2016). The challenges of leading an international 256 branch campus: the ‘lived experience’ of in-country senior managers. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20(1), 61-78. Healey, N. (2018). The challenges of managing transnational 276 education partnerships: the views of ‘home-based’ managers versus ‘in-country’ managers. International Journal of Educational Management, 32(2), 241-256. Healey, N. (2018). The optimal global integration – local 296 responsiveness trade-off for an international branch campus, Research in Higher Education, 59, 623-649. Healey, N. (2017). Reflections on the value of insider research as 324 a qualitative research methodology. SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526401489. 2 List of Published Works Word count Theme I: Drivers and limitations of transnational education 1. Healey, N. (2008). Is higher education in really 10,357 internationalising? Higher Education, 55(3), pp.333-355. 2. Healey, N. (2013). Why do English universities really 7,619 franchise degrees to overseas providers? Higher Education Quarterly, 67(2), pp.180-200. 3. Healey, N. (2013). Is UK transnational education “one of 9,020 Britain’s great growth industries of the future”? Higher Education Review, 45(3), pp.6-35. Theme II: Types of transnational education 4. Healey, N. (2015). Towards a risk-based typology for 7,663 transnational education. Higher Education, 69(1), pp.1-18. 5. Healey, N. and Michael, L. (2015). Towards a new framework 7,799 for analysing transnational education. Higher Education Policy, 28(3), pp.369-391. 6. Healey, N. and Bordogna, C. (2014). From transnational to 7,128 multinational education: emerging trends in international higher education. Internationalisation of Higher Education, 3, pp.34-56. Theme III: Management challenges of transnational education 7. Healey, N. (2015). Managing international branch campuses: 9,952 what do we know? Higher Education Quarterly, 69(4), pp.386-409. 8. Healey, N. (2016). The challenges of leading an international 7,521 branch campus: the ‘lived experience’ of in-country senior managers. Journal of Studies in International Education, 20(1), pp.61-78. 9. Healey, N. (2018). The challenges of managing transnational 7,657 education partnerships: the views of “home-based” managers vs “in-country” managers, International Journal of Educational Management, 32(2), pp.241-256. 10. Healey, N. (2018). The optimal global integration – local 10,343 responsiveness trade-off for an international branch campus, Research in Higher Education, 59(5), pp.623-649. Theme IV: Research methodology 11. Healey, N. (2017). Reflections on the value of insider research 4,995 as a qualitative research methodology. SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526401489 Total 90,054 3 Glossary of acronyms BEIS Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy DBIS Department for Business, Innovation and Skills DfE Department for Education HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council for England HEI Higher education institution HESA Higher Education Statistics Agency I-R Global integration (I) – local responsiveness (R) IBC International branch campus JV Joint venture MESDC Main English-speaking destination countries QAA Quality Assurance Agency SIEM Services for International Education Marketing TNE Transnational education UUK Universities UK 4 Abstract The thesis is organised into four themes. Theme I (three papers) is a critical assessment of the transnational education (TNE) sector, challenging the general consensus in the literature that the internationalisation of higher education is inevitable and inexorable and driven primarily by commercial considerations. It analyses the underlying drivers of the demand for, and supply of, TNE and investigates the motivations of universities engaging in TNE and the true significance and scale of the activity. Theme II (three papers) explores different ways of conceptualising TNE, as its organisational form evolves and morphs over time and, for the first time, highlights the important role played by the various stakeholders in a TNE partnership. Theme III (four papers) moves on to investigate the operational challenges of managing a TNE partnership which has to satisfy a range of stakeholders, identifying the stakeholders involved, their varying preferences to the localisation of the TNE provision and the way that these preferences are balanced by managers. Theme IV (one paper) sets out the qualitative research methodology used for most of the empirical papers in this thesis. It argues that an insider researcher approach offers new insights into the motivations for, and limitations and challenges of, TNE. Overall, the thesis concludes that TNE is, in economic terms, far less important than popularly believed and that there is evidence that the sector is neither scalable nor is its growth sustainable. It uses an insider research methodology to shed new light on an area of activity which is under-researched due to its offshore nature and the commercial secrecy that shrouds these operations. This thesis comprises 11 papers (90,054 words including references). Of these, four are in 1st Quartile Scopus-indexed journals and four are in 2nd Quartile journals. 5 Collectively, the 11 papers, published between 2008 and 2018 (10 of them since 2013) have already been cited 366 times (Google Scholar1), as at 31 July 2018. 1 https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T78mjxkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao 6 Introductory Chapter Introduction Transnational education (TNE), sometimes termed cross-border education, involves the delivery of award-bearing educational services by a higher education institution (HEI) in one country to students based in another country. One of the earliest and most tractable definitions of TNE is ‘any teaching or learning activity in which the students are in a different country to that in which the institution providing the education is based’ (Global Alliance for Transnational Education 1997, p.1, italics added). There are a number of recognised delivery channels by which this educational service may be provided. Traditionally, the literature has distinguished between three broad types of TNE: 1. Distance-learning – the university in country A delivers the education to a student in country B without either party physically crossing borders. The University of London provided distance-learning degrees by correspondence for 150 years (Harte 1986), while more recently, online or virtual education has allowed students to study remotely. With adequate security controls (to assure the identity of students submitting coursework or sitting examinations), distance-learning allows the home university to fully control delivery of the educational service, although online courses can be expensive to develop. 2. Licensing – the university in country A licenses a provider in country B to deliver the education to local students. Generally, this involves UK and Australian universities franchising their degrees to private colleges in developing countries, which deliver a pre-set curriculum using local academic staff (note: franchising is also known as ‘twinning’ in Australia). Often the home university retains authority for setting and marking assessment and examinations. While franchising is a financially inexpensive way of penetrating a new market, problems often arise if the home university and the joint venture partner, usually a private for-profit college, have divergent objectives (eg, academic quality versus profit maximising). Validation is a variation of franchising, where instead of the home