International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
Demographic obligation - and opportunity Posted on by Vicky Lewis
I’ve written and spoken before about the evolution of UK university international strategies over time.
In generalised terms, there was a shift from international strategies in the late 1990s (largely synonymous with international student recruitment) to internationalisation strategies in the late 2000s (more comprehensive, but still internally focused on making the institution ‘more international’) to global engagement strategies in the late 2010s (more outward-facing, with an emphasis on building responsible relationships and making a positive global impact).
I read a LinkedIn post recently which got me thinking about whether we (and, by ‘we’, I mean universities in economically advantaged countries where higher education institutions have reasonable levels of autonomy) should be paying far more attention to radical shifts in global demographics when devising our next wave of strategies. And not just our international strategies. Our overarching institutional strategies.
The post that gave me pause for thought was this one by Prof. Bassem Khafagy, followed swiftly by this one. Both are illustrated by an infographic showing the number of current annual births in the world by country. Prof. Khafagy describes it as ‘a roadmap for the survival – or extinction – of the modern university’.
I’m going to quote from both posts at length since they are so thought-provoking.
Based on global births in the year 2025:
‘- Nigeria (7.6M births) is now producing more human potential than the entirety of Europe (6.2M).
- India (23.1M births) is adding a new "student body" every year that is nearly triple that of China (8.7M).
- The West (North America and Europe combined) accounts for barely 10% of the world's new arrivals.’
Future student demand has shifted decisively to the ‘Global South’ and away from ageing regions like Europe.
In many countries, the imbalance between demand and supply is huge, placing pressure on national education systems at all levels of study.
As Khafagy points out, ‘demography creates pressure before it creates opportunity. A country with millions of births does not automatically gain strength. It gains responsibility. Whether that responsibility turns into a demographic dividend or a long-term crisis depends largely on education systems, and especially on access to quality higher education. This is where the global university community must pause and reflect.’
‘For a long time, the global higher education model has been an "extraction" economy: we wait for the brightest minds from the large bubbles [on the infographic] to save up, navigate visas, and fly to the small bubbles. But the math no longer works.’
As Khafagy observes, ‘our job is no longer to "filter" the world to find a few lucky students.’ Especially as countries in East Asia, who are also facing rapidly ageing populations, are increasingly presenting cost-effective opportunities to such students which are more attractive than those offered by the Western anglosphere.
While physical mobility can transform the life chances of a few individuals, we have an opportunity to contribute to the expansion and enhancement of national systems and the institutions of which they are comprised. In the longer term, this has the potential to transform the life chances of many thousands.
The challenge is to move from an institutional model that is built around an increasingly isolated ‘fortress of knowledge’ towards new models of partnership ‘across borders, languages, and economic realities’, connecting institutions in high-capacity regions with those in regions ‘facing explosive demand’.
This would mean universities in the North paying less attention to ‘optimising for prestige within shrinking or ageing systems’, and more on preparing to meet the needs of students who will be embarking on their higher education journey in 15+ years’ time, including those located in countries where demand is growing.
This requires both imagination and long-term thinking (beyond the term of office of current leadership teams).
Khafagy notes that ‘digital is no longer a "feature," it's the environment. We must meet the 7.6 million Nigerians and 23 million Indians where they live, not just where we have buildings.’
The University of London has been widening global access for over 150 years. Other UK institutions are now venturing more seriously into this territory. The University of Manchester’s bold new 2035 strategy envisages a ‘fully digital campus… without borders’. The plan is for half of its students to be studying online in the next 10 years (20% online only and 30% hybrid). This will require the university to ‘increase its digital and global presence, as well as its flexible learning opportunities’, benefiting both local and global students. The University of East London treats its world-wide network of partners as its ‘Global Campus’.
At some institutions, the remote delivery models adopted during the pandemic seemed to fade away immediately afterwards, when there was a rebound to campus-based learning. However, in the face of declining on-campus enrolments, many more are now embracing global online delivery and other forms of transnational education as part of their strategies.
When I’m working with a university on developing its global engagement strategy, I always ask leaders about their ambitions for the institution’s future size and shape (i.e. the composition and profile of the student body in 10 years’ time).
10 years ago, even five, I’d often get blank looks or vague responses. Things have improved recently, as data-driven decision making is becoming embedded. However, some universities that describe themselves as global institutions still lump all categories of international student together in their planning or treat off-campus students as a ‘nice-to-have’ bonus.
Surely, given the global demographic shifts that are well underway, any university that badges itself as ‘global’ should be paying far more attention to what these mean. Not just in the ‘shuffling the deckchairs’ sense of changes in the profile of on-campus students, but in a much more fundamental sense of (as Khafagy puts it) a roadmap for survival.
Strategically, it seems like a no-brainer for a globally engaged university to collaborate with partners in carefully selected countries to expand and enhance educational opportunities in those locations where the vast majority of the world’s future students actually live.
As Khafagy concludes in his original blog post:
‘The future of the university will not be decided only by who publishes more papers or adopts AI faster. It will be decided by who shows up where humanity is growing.’
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