milliards dollars. England is the second in importance with more that two hundred thousand foreigners, and Germany, France and Australia, each one with more ...
Students’ migration: an international trade aspect of higher education services Roberto Rodríguez Gómez Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Abstract
Resumen
This article explores one of the dimensions in the internationalization process of higher education, which concerns to the temporal students’ migration who have the objective of obtaining a degree and professional training. Some characteristics of the international panorama are analyzed, some reflections are made about the relevant indicator for the Mexico case, and it is included a comparison between the consumption of higher education services abroad and the foreign investment in this matter.
Migración de estudiantes: un aspecto del comercio internacional de servicios de educación superior
Key words: migration, higher education migration, transnational higher education, academic mobility, Mexico.
El presente artículo explora una de las dimensiones del proceso de internacionalización de la educación superior, aquélla que concierne a la migración temporal de estudiantes con propósitos de formación profesional y obtención de grados. Se analizan algunos rasgos del panorama internacional, se hace referencia al estado actual del debate sobre el tema, se reflexiona sobre los indicadores relevantes para el caso de México, y se incluye una comparación entre el consumo en el extranjero de servicios de educación superior y la inversión extranjera directa en el sector. Palabras clave: migración, migración de estudiantes universitarios, educación superior transnacional, movilidad académica, México.
International panorama of the university migration
T
he internationalization dynamic of the higher education, exclusively seen from the student’s migration and immigration point of view, is still the principal means of exportation of higher education services.1 Even when it shares territory with other dynamics and mechanisms such as the transnational purveyors’ operation and the virtual university, the migration 1 Based on the supply jeans, the International Chamber of Commerce describes four modalities of the international commerce in the subject; Type I, trans-border supply (the service travels, the purveyor and the consumer stay in the respective origin country); Type II, abroad consumption (the consumer travels, the purveyor and the service stay in the origin country); Type III, commercial presence abroad (the purveyor and the service travel, the consumer stays in the origin country); Type IV, temporal migration of physical persons (it refers to the immigration of personnel in charge of providing the service at the receiver country). For an analysis of this typology on higher education, see Knight 2002).
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phenomenon has not lost it prominent position within the ways offer of higher education is related with the current globalization process. On the contrary, it has not stopped increasing its volume and, nowadays, the students’ number and proportion abroad is the higher in the contemporary history (Böhm et al., 2002; 2003; OECD, 2004a). It is calculated that the conjunction of the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) receives approximately a million and a half students a year. The United States is the leader with more than a half million foreign university students. The American academic market concentrates almost a third of the world exportation’s value, estimated in three milliards dollars. England is the second in importance with more that two hundred thousand foreigners, and Germany, France and Australia, each one with more than a hundred thousand students. Except from France, the rest of the mentioned countries are net exporters since they maintain a positive balance between the number of foreign students and nationals who go abroad (OECD, 2004a). It is worth warning that the volume of foreign students represents, for the exporting countries, different proportions in their enrolment. For example, the half million foreigners in the United States is barely above the 3.5 percent of the university student body of the country, whereas in England and Australia, exceed the 10 percent of the total in both cases. The country that receives more foreign students, proportionally, is Switzerland (16.6 percent) although as volume, its participation is equivalent to that of Norway or Spain. Australia exemplifies the most aggressive standpoint; in just two decades it turned into one of the main exporters of the world, with the highest growth rate to date. Seeing these data, it is not surprising that the governmental representations of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are insisting, in the context of the General Agreement on Trade Services (GATS) that is developed in the ambit of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), in stimulating the commercial aperture in all the supply modalities. Others, as the case of Norway, promote the aperture under a strict academic control. Norway’s posture, expressed in the round GATS’ «bilateral initial petitions» of Geneva (October, 2002), because the international higher education offers bind to the accreditation and recognition lineaments at the Lisbon Convention, adopted by the European Council in 1997, which has been ratified by about thirty European states (Knight, 2004).
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Students’ migration: an international trade aspect of higher... R. Rodríguez TABLE 1 PROPORTION OF FOREING STUDENTS IN SOME COUNTRIES (OECD AND NO OECD)
Switzerland Australia Austria England Belgium Germany France Sweden Denmark New Zealand Ireland Norway Iceland United Status
1998
2001
15.9 12.6 11.5 10.8 8.2 7.3 4.5 6.0 3.7 4.8 3.2 2.4 3.2
17.0 13.9 12.0 10.9 10.6 9.6 7.3 7.3 6.5 6.2 4.9 4.7 4.1 3.5
Hungary Holland Czech Republic Canada Finland Spain Italy Japan Slovakia Turkey Poland Korea Mexico Portugal Median OECD
1998
2001
2.6 1.9 2.8 1.7 1.7 1.2 1.4 1.3 0.5 0.1 4.8
3.4 3.3 3.0 2.8 2.2 2.2 1.6 1.6 1.2 1.0 0.4 0.1 0.1 5.3
Source: OECD, Education at the glance, 2003.
In this matter, it has been agreed the formation of a «educational alliance» that includes, at the beginning, New Zealand, Norway, Japan; Thailand, China, India, Turkey, Poland, Egypt, Senegal, South Africa, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, with the objective of boosting the academic accreditation proposal as a regulator organism of the international higher education market. That is also the UNESCO’s opinion. On the contrary, the governmental position of Australia, Japan, and the United States is pressuring for a looser market freedom, including conditions of national treatment for the services purveyors; which clearly is a selling position (Rodríguez, 2003). In counterpart, the principal importers of higher education services are Asian, despite the fact that in Europe the international students’ flow is mainly within the region. From the university students who migrate to the United States, two thirds com from Asia, and in Australia represent more than the 75 percent of the foreign students. In England and Germany, the proportion of Asian
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students is also relevant, given that represent the third of the foreign students. France mainly receives African young people: more than half of its foreign students. In Latin America the situation is very different. Apart from those who want to graduate abroad, the migration flow of students is minimal in comparison to the international flow. In the biggest countries (Brazil, Mexico and Argentina), no more than the one percent of the university student’s body is foreign and the same percentage are those who emigrate to obtain a degree. In Chile for example, 0.4 percent of the university students are foreigners and the 1.1 percent of the Chilean university students study abroad. In Uruguay, the respective proportions are 0.9 and 1.5 percent. Certainly these quotients raise when considering separately the postgraduate level, however, they express very clearly the still incipient character of the exporting and importing of higher education services dynamics in the region. In contrast, the countries of the Latin American region have witnessed an intense offer privatization process, even more in the decade of 1990. Except from Brazil, where the private offer was higher since the beginnings of the university system in the country, the aperture to the private investment raised from the structural adjustment processes derived from the lost decade. In some cases, such as Chile and Colombia, the private offer exceeded the public one. In the rest, the private registration has reached proportions of between a fourth or a third part of the total. Various reasons explain the existence the Latin American «consumers» behaviour: in the first place, the existences of a public universities system with the sufficient academic level for the needs the local professional markets. The pressure of globalization and the international competitiveness came to Latin America too late if contrasted to the regions of the globe. In the second place; the inexistence of favourable political lineaments for the students’ migration lineaments that exist in Asian countries since the decade of 1960. Thirdly, that the families with possibilities of supporting their young students who whished to course higher studies abroad were limited to the most elitist sector of society. Apart from these patterns are the migration phenomena unleashed in the Latin American military context of the decade of 1970. Even though Latin American countries are not big consumers of higher education abroad, and it is probable that the situation does not reverse in the near future, represent an important change in the potential market fore the reception of foreign investments in their different modalities and expressions. The
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proliferation in all the region of higher studies institutions with commercial purposes indicates, on one hand, the perseverance of a high academic level demand unattended by the public sector or private, and on the other hand, the incapability of Latin American governments to offer enough choices, in quality and quantity, to the demanding population. In such situation, the governments from the region, almost without exception, opted for a liberal solution that allows the settlement of such institutions, instead of applying strict regulations, as the ones for the public segment (Rama, 2003).
University internationalization dilemmas: debate status In the debate about the possibilities of the international students’ migration regularization are two mayor standpoints. One of them is about the European integration process; in this one, the fight for the establishment of clear rules, accepted by the countries that participate in international agreements of cooperation and exchange, through which an mutual accreditation of studies and degrees is searched and it is being working on the construction of a curricular structure with similar characteristics (Back et al., 1996; Larsen et al., 2001; Machado de Santos, 2000; OECD, 2004b). The second is a liberal standpoint that on the contrary, proposes the increment of the internationalization dynamics by means of the de-regularization. This approach is sustained and supported in the context of GATS as another way of exportation and exportation of services that is feasible to associate to the international free commerce principles. There are also mixed standpoints, as the one of Mexico and other countries, who participate simultaneously in the kind of agreements associated to the regulation and coordination principle, for example, in the initiative of building a university space shared by European countries along with countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, and likewise, the norms’ de-regularization proposals that can impede the exist of nationals or the access of foreign students, subjects that are part of the GATS agenda (Rodríguez, 2004). One of the crucial elements to make the alternative advance towards the liberal standpoint is, as it has already been stated, the one that concerns about the search of the university curricula harmonization. In the perspective of the universities from the European Union, this possibility is the key to advance toward objectives such as the recognition of international accreditation and
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certification mechanisms, and later to associate the studies abroad with the opportunity to open regional working markets for the professions (Sauve, 2002; Teichler, 2004; Polak, 2003). Before the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty (1993) that constituted the qualitative leap to move from the approach of European Community to European Union, the university integration efforts of the zone were based on cooperation programmes, more or less intensive, that put aside the harmonization element, respecting the diplomatic principle of subsidization that each country implies, according to its general normative structure, and in a frame of total sovereignty, determine the regulations to follow about educative organization and professions’ regularization. At the end of the last century, the discussion took an important turn when the ministers of Education of Europe agreed on a set of favourable elements of the curricular harmonization for constructing a common university space. The aroused dynamic from the new perspective is known as the Bologna Process and one of its central elements resides in the definition of transferable credits system to facilitate the construction of harmonized structures; the European System of Credit Transference (Pol, 2003). Along with the harmonization subject, and linked to it, is the dilemma of professional accreditation that refers to the acceptance of titles and degrees granted abroad for the professional exercise in the origin country or in any other. The solution to this dilemma is concentrated in the initiatives of mutual recognition, and for this, a large segment of countries has already subscribed the principles of the called Lisbon Protocol, supported by the European rectors and by the UNESCO itself as the basic norm in order to advance in the accreditation of the institutions and programmes internationalization.
The case of Mexico in the university level international migration Mexico receives and sends student abroad in order to do higher studies. To sum up, between two thousand and two thousand and five hundred students foreign students are received per year, and approximately fifteen thousand Mexican student. The balance is obviously negative and means that per each foreigner received, seven Mexicans leave.
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Mexican university students abroad, volume and cost The number of Mexican people studying abroad is not an indicator taken ordinarily from the country’s statistics. However, the information reported to the OECD for the publication of Education at a Glance 2004, seems reliable. According to the information of the document, there would be around 18 228 Mexicans doing higher studies in one of the countries belonging to the organization. If to the total number of Mexicans studying higher levels in the OECD countries we add, on one side, those Mexican students who are coursing higher studies in Canada —that does not report the correspondent data to the OECD— and the Mexican students who are doing their degrees in other countries that do not pertain to the multilateral organization, we have an estimate of 20 thousand nationals studying their degrees and postgraduate studies abroad. From those, how many are scholarship holders, and how many pay for their studies? It is not easy to estimate the data either, due to the quantity of agencies that offer scholarship programmes. However, it is known that the main concentration goes to the Conacyt scholarships and that, to date, the organism sponsors about two thousand five hundred scholarships abroad. Other programmes such as the Comexusm that administers the FulbrightGarcía Robles scholarships for studies in the United States, the Fund for the Development of Human Resources (FIDERH, Banco de México), the programmes managed by the Ministry of Public Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Mexican Institute for the Youth, and the National Association of Universities and Higher Education Institutions, and even inter-institutional exchange agreements, should sum, at most another close the quantity of the scholarships granted by the Conacyt to study abroad. In round numbers, and always as a tentative approximation, the volume of scholarship holders would sum up around five thousand students, which represents about the fourth part of the Mexican students abroad.
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TABLE 2 COUNTRY OF DESTINY OF THE MEXICAN STUDENTS ABROAD Destiny country
Number
Percentage
United States United Kingdom Spain France Germany Australia Japan Sweden Switzerland Chile Belgium Austria Italy Netherlands Norway Finland New Zealand Denmark Chzech Republic Poland Philippines Ireland Korea Hungary Iceland India Malaysia Slovakia Turkey Argentina Indonesia Russia (Fed) Thailand Tunisia Uruguay Total
9 254 1 405 1 288 961 502 131 106 99 85 80 76 68 43 23 23 16 14 13 7 6 6 5 5 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 222
65.07 9.88 9.06 6.76 3.53 0.92 0.75 0.70 0.60 0.56 0.53 0.48 0.30 0.16 0.16 0.11 0.10 0.09 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.04 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00
Source: OECD, Education at the glance, 2003.
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Another interesting aspect is the cost per student when being abroad. According to the Informe General del Estado de la Ciencia y la Tecnología en México (CONACYT, 2004) —General Report of the State of the Science and Technology in Mexico— in 2003 were authorized 557.5 million pesos for programme of scholarships abroad. The same year 2 386 scholarships were approved: 892 new and the rest of renewal. The budget divided among the scholarships is 242 thousand pesos per student annually, or 22 thousand dollars, according to the exchange rate of the date. This figure agrees with the FIDERH tabulator, which grants scholarship-loans for studies abroad for 158 500 pesos per year (14 thousand five hundred dollars), supposing that the beneficiary could have access to complementary funding. If we close the estimation to 20 thousand dollars per year per person, we have that the cost of the «consumption abroad» of higher education services raises to more than four thousand million pesos per annum (20 thousand dollars per 20 thousand students), amount paid by the families, government and some private entities from the country. In contrast with the Mexican people who are studying higher levels out side the country, there would be six thousand foreigners doing the same in Mexico, figure equivalent to the 0.5 percent of the national enrolment in higher education. The comparison is disadvantageous, not only in the income/outcome balance, but also when considering what happens in other places. Another point to be highlighted is the increasing number of Mexican people who go to the United States to study. Between 1980 and 2000, the proportion of Mexicans who go the United States in order to study grew about 60 percent, from seven thousand to eleven thousand students. However, the proportion of Mexicans in the total of foreign students in the higher education system of the United States has been, and still is, insignificant. Nowadays, it is less than the two percent. This last feature includes a strange paradox: for the young Mexicans who would like to study abroad, the north neighbour is the main attraction pole, whereas for the United States the number of Mexican students who earn a place at its universities is not significant in quantitative or proportional terms.
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TABLE 3 FOREING STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES Total of foreign Students % 1980-81 1985-86 1990-91 1995-96 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 Percentual increment 1980-2000
311 888 343 780 407 530 453 787 481 260 490 933 514 723 547 867
Latin America Students %
100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
75.7
49 810 45 480 47 580 47 253 51 368 55 436 62 098 63 634
27.8
16.0 13.2 11.7 10.4 10.7 11.3 12.1 11.6
Mexico Students
%
6 730 5 460 6 740 8 687 9 559 9 641 10 607 10 670
2.2 1.6 1.7 1.9 2.0 2.0 2.1 1.9
58.5
Source: NCES, Digest Education Statistics, 2002.
Foreign students in Mexico The most reliable statistic to measure the number of foreign students who attend Mexican institutions to study higher levels comes from the migration registers from the National Institute of Migration of the Ministry of Government. According to the register of issued visas in the category of «non-migrant students» (2003), it is possible to estimate the annual entrance of foreign students to the country in a range between two thousand and two thousand five hundred people. The figure does not include the type of academic programme to which this migration flow corresponds to; however, if the supposition that most of the students enter to postgraduate studies is valid, and that these imply a staying of between three and four years, then the total would fluctuate between six thousand to a maximum of ten thousand students. Where do the foreign students whose destiny is the Mexican institutions come from? Considering the statistic by precedence regions, it is clear that the majority come from Latin American and the Caribbean countries. Approximately a 40 percent of the total of immigrants comes from the Latin American region.
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Within this segment the students from the Andean region (Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, whose proportion in the Latin American exceed the 45 percent, and within the total figure it represents the 19 percent. After these, in order of magnitude follow the students from the South Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay), and at last, the students from the Central American and the Caribbean countries. While interpreting this dynamic it must be taken into account that, despite the geographical proximity, the volume of university students in the Central American and Caribbean regions is considerably inferior to the one of the Andean region and of the countries from the Latin American South Cone. On the other hand, that the academic infrastructures of countries such as Argentina, Brazil or Chile are qualitatively comparable to that of Mexico, hence their migration flows are orientated towards the United States and Europe, and a proportion occurs in the intra-regional ambit. The second importance block in quantitative terms is the North American region, from were 27.3 percent of the academic migration come from. From ten North American immigrants, eight come from the United States and two from Canada. Besides, it is worth mentioning that the United States is the individual country that contributes with the largest number of students to the academic migration in Mexico. From the total number of temporal migrants, the United States contribute with the 22 percent. The number of Europeans who travel to Mexico to study higher levels of education presents practically the same proportion that the correspondent to the North American area. They come principally from France, country that concentrates a third of the total, followed by Spain, Germany and England. Migration from Asian, African and Oceania countries is marginal in the sum (7.7 percent of the total), however, some countries, such as Japan, North Korea and Australia share with Mexico a relevant academic exchange relation.
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TABLE 4 FOREIGNERS WHO HAVE ENTERED TO MEXICO FROM JANUARY 2002 TO AUGUST 2003 AS “NON STUDENT IMMIGRANT” North America Country Students United States Canada
527 108
Sum Percentage
635 27.3
Europe Country France Spain Germany United Kingdom Finland Netherlands Sweden Italy Belgium Switzerland Denmark Norway Poland Czech R. Turkey Russia Hungary Latvia Portugal Uzbekistan Bulgary Georgia Ireland Luxemburg Rumania Ukraine Yugoslavia
Students 263 95 91 44 21 15 15 13 11 7 5 5 4 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 616 26.5 Continues
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Students’ migration: an international trade aspect of higher... R. Rodríguez TABLE 4 FOREIGNERS WHO HAVE ENTERED TO MEXICO FROM JANUARY 2002 TO AUGUST 2003 AS “NON STUDENT IMMIGRANT” Latin America and the Caribbean Country Students
Asia, Africa and Oceania Country Students
Colombia Venezuela Peru Bolivia Argentina Guatemala Brazil Chile El Salvador Panama Nicaragua Honduras Ecuador Dominican R. Cuba Costa Rica Belice Uruguay tahiti Paraguay Dominica Puerto Rico Trinidad y Tobago Bahamas Jamaica Bermudas Sum Percentage
North Korea Japan Australia Taiwan South Korea China Israel Pakistan Níger Congo Nigeria India Indonesia Jordania Lebanon New Zealand Thailand Angola Botswana Ghana Guinea Ecuatorial Guinea Kenya Morocco Uganda Tanzania
117 94 83 82 70 62 56 47 43 32 30 29 28 28 26 22 12 10 9 5 2 2 2 1 1 1 894 38.5
68 56 11 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 179 7.7
Source: Reforma, Suplemento Universitarios, October 2003. Information based on the registers of the National Institute of Migration, Ministry of Government.
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Comparison between consumption abroad and the direct foreign investment in the academic sector According to the registers of the direct foreign investment from the Ministry of Economy, the direct foreign investment (DFI) in the national academic sector during the period 1994-2000, reaches a total close to 40 million dollars. From that total, almost 90 percent of the sector DFI is located in year 2000 and corresponds to one single operation, the acquisition of most part of the Valley of Mexico University (UVM) by the Sylvan Learning Systems partnership, currently Laureate Education Inc. (Rodríguez, 2004). TABLE 5 FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN EDUCATIONAL SERVICES PROVIDED BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR (IN DOLLARS) Year
Total
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 20031 Accumulated 1994-2003
168 267.7 92 113.8 826 532.9 649 663.6 389 509.8 2 700 020.9 34 337 805.7 789 185.1 -1 370 345.3 212 529.1 38 795 283.3
Source: Ministry of Economy. General Office of Foreign Investment. 1 Until June, 30, 2003.
The rest of the operations of the period are of much lower investments, is issues such as language teaching (2.6 million dollars), special education services (2.3 million dollars), and higher education (1.7 million dollars). It must be considered that the reported period started with the launch of the Foreign Investment Law in 1993 and the NAFTA. Currently, the UVM has an enrolment of approximately 55 thousand students (including high school, university and postgraduate studies) who,
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between registration, tuition, and other expenses pay in average 45 thousand pesos per annum per person. In enrolment as well as in volume of net sales, the UVM represents a third part of the Laureate total operations. It is necessary to clarify that, on one hand, the UVM sales (school fees) are used to pay salaries and operation expenses, as well as the construction of new facilities. The profits for the partnership come principally from the valorisation of assets of its investments, which becomes in the increase of their shares costs in the Nasdaq market. On the other hand, that the international intervention in the universities is reflected, before that in the programme’s curricular orientation, in the implementation of a owner’s management model and a series of aggregated value services: English, computing, binational graduation options, access to the academic international network, among others. A simple and approximate comparison between the two main trans-border provision ways of educational services we can highlight the following point for the Mexico case: 1.
2. 3.
Considering the capital flow in each case, it is evident that the «foreign consumption» mode implies larger foreign exchange transference that the sales volume derived from the direct foreign investment in the sector. The income and outcome resulting from the consumption abroad indicates a proportion that of a least three to one in favour of the outcome issue. If the number of students studying abroad with the number of those enrolled at the only institution with a major foreign investment, it is clear that the volume and proportion of this overcomes the migration volume, in a three to one proportion.
Final considerations In the present work an important debate about the modalities of international provisions of higher educational services is discussed. This debate presents various discussion angles, but it seems to be a consensus position, within the academic setting, against the indiscriminate aperture for the access of direct foreign investment in the academic sector. There is also a consensus on the need of articulating networks and other cooperation mechanisms that favour a university internationalisation dynamic controlled from the academic ambit and not ruled by the market.
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Notwithstanding, the relevant research on these dynamics demonstrates the need of deepening reference and empirical information frameworks that allow a more weighted judgment on the range, advantages and limitations of the different ways of trans-border provision. Among the remaining questions to be answered are: 1.
2.
3.
4.
Who are, which strategies follow and which are the economic and academic effects of the international purveyors of higher education? The identification is indispensable to establish with better precision and accuracy the objective dynamic of the transnational commercialisation of educational services (Knight, 1999; Larsen et al., 2001; Knight, 2004; Barrow et al., 2004). Which is the magnitude and the real sense of the international flows in the higher education field, to which countries and institutions is it projected, which are the ways of coordination and consumption abroad? Until now, the visibility mechanisms and students’ trans-border flow is an exception, and its implication tends to be underestimated as a form of international commerce. A weighted vision of this aspect, more in the comparative plane, will allow the establishment of better coordination instruments, with national and international range, for the flow’s regulation (Bennell and Pearce, Asmar, 2005). Which is the magnitude and who are the actors who participate in the provision of higher education services in the modalities of distance education, on-line education and virtual education? This is a little explored aspect in its objective dimensions, as well as in its implications for the regulation of professional activities, the offer of higher education services and the own professional market’s dynamic. A better acknowledgment of the purveyors and consumers would provide elements to establish national and international regulations (Farell, 2001). Which implications imply the academic internationalisation concerning phenomena such as the migration of talents, the internationalisation of the professional market and the change in the postgraduate degrees and programme’s curricular content? Even though it is assumed that academic globalisation has also consequences in the educational plane, it is necessary to substantiate by means of deep case studies which are the process’ educational reach and in which way these interact the internationalisation tendencies with the public national policies on the subject (Didou, 2004).
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