Transnational Education

UNESCO and the Council of Europe for their "Code of Practice in the Provision of Transnational Education" states that Transnational Education includes:

‘All types of higher education study programme, or sets of courses of study, oreducational services (including those of distance education) in which the learners arelocated in a country different from the one where the awarding institution is based.Such programmes may belong to the educational system of a State different from theState in which it operates, or may operate independently of any national system.’

Classification

Transnational Education can take the following forms based on actual delivery mechanisms and arrangements:

- Franchising: defined as the process whereby a higher education institution (“franchiser”)from a certain country authorises another institution or organisation (“franchisee”), fromthe same or from another country, to provide its (i.e. the franchiser’s) educational services(e.g. the whole or a part of one or more of its approved study programme/qualifications).

- Programme articulations (twinning etc): referring to those inter-institutional arrangementswhereby two or more institutions agree to define jointly a study programme in terms ofstudy credits and credit-transfers, so that students pursuing their studies in one institutionhave their credits recognized by the other, and accepted for transfer in order to continuetheir studies.

- Branch campus: established by a higher education institution from one country in another country in order to offer there its own educational programmes/ qualifications.

- Off-shore institution: an autonomous institution which belongs, in terms of its organisation and contents, to one particular national educational system, but without necessarily having a campus in the country (or system) to which it belongs, and is established as an institution in another country.

- Corporate universities: which organise their own higher education institutions or study programmes offering qualifications, without them belonging to any national system of higher education.

- International institutions: offering “international” qualifications that are not part of a specific educational systems.

- Distance-learning: a wide range of learning activities characterised by the separation of the learner from the teacher. These learning activities, or the framework within which they are organised, may or may not belong to the higher education system of a given country.

- Virtual universities: whose only contact with the student is by remote means (electronic or hard copy).

References

*CEURC [2001] . Transnational Education Project and Recommendations. Available at http://www.crue.org/espaeuro/transnational_education_project.pdf. Accessed on 8 September 2008.
*Database of Research on International Education. Available at http://cunningham.acer.edu.au/dbtw-wpd/textbase/ndrie/ndrie.html