UK aims to encourage student exchanges

We attempted to explore this not just from the UK, or even the US, Australian or European viewpoint, but rather to take a truly 360-degree perspective. We wanted to look at who the current leaders were in research and development, student intake, teaching quality and much else, and to assess how the UK with its higher education partners can benefit from increased collaboration and partnership.

The benefits of internationalisation are many. The Committee noted that, to date, the UK has been very successful in attracting many international students to its higher education institutions. However, the Committee recommended that, in order to maintain this high intake of the most qualified students, the UK must ensure that the quality of educational provision in UK HE institutions remains exceptional. As Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this month during his trip to Southeast Asia, the UK is determined to encourage the development of scholarships, work experience programmes and genuine partnerships with all its Southeast Asia partners.

It is true that educational exports make a significant contribution to the UK's economy, but the UK must avoid the recruitment of international students purely for financial reasons. This would undermine the genuine partnerships and collaborations that the UK has fostered with international providers of higher education and with the students themselves.

Mutually beneficial cooperation in international higher education, such as with the UK India Research Initiative and the UK-Sino Annual Ministerial education summit, have already achieved a great deal, including a more coherent framework for joint action. The more time we invest in these partnerships and in building further links, the greater the rewards to be reaped academically, culturally and economically by all the partners involved.

Despite a healthy flow of international students coming to the UK, decisive steps should be taken to encourage more UK students to travel and study abroad. I am convinced that we can achieve this in part by improving our foreign-language capacity. Universities as well as schools must be involved in this process, providing intensive short and longer courses in language training.

Many UK students would also welcome the opportunity to study abroad for 3 or 6 months rather than a whole year and we must be more flexible about this. Joint campuses such as the one being developed by Napier University at the Chinese University of Zhengzhou will also facilitate a growth in the number of UK students studying abroad.

One major opportunity inherent in increased internationalism is the mutual benefits to be gained in the fields of research and development. Internationally, key decision-makers believe that this is the time and the opportunity to pursue serious and rapid growth in collaborative research. This could lead to a massive increase in research funding for participating universities and the sharing of expertise and experience.

Currently the UK has an impressive number of world-class research institutions. The Strategic Alliances and Partnerships Strand of the Prime Minister's Initiative in International Education seeks to build upon and further improve this international recognition. The UK also intends to increase the number of vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes delivered collaboratively between the UK and other countries.

International partnerships in HE have never been more important than they are today. Today's globalised political, economic and social systems require us to foster greater links if we are to meet today's global challenges. Increased cultural understanding and the diversification of curricula to encompass wider knowledge of the world will help us meet our mutual challenges of climate change, economic instability and security.

In order to focus our efforts to increase collaboration with other countries I believe the UK should focus now on building prestigious foundations, offering scholarships and fellowships, funded by both the UK Government and by the private sector. This kind of scheme would help the UK to seriously engage with the opportunities present in Thailand, China and India and elsewhere and maximise our global potential for greater, more collaborative, international higher education.

Written by Barry Sheerman, Member of Parliament