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The Evolution of Cross – Border Higher Education: The Case of Mauritius
Dr Kesseven Padachi and Aleesha Mohamudally–Boolaky
University of Technology
Mauritius
ABSTRACT
The traditional form of cross-border flows in tertiary education for Mauritius has been for
students to migrate to other countries such as UK, India, Australia, France and more
recently South Africa and South East Asian Countries. This has been the tendency till the late
1990s and it has gathered momentum with globalization. However, there has been a
structural change in the forms of cross-border higher education across Europe, Asia,
America and Australia. Increasingly students are taking advantage of this new option – that
is seeking higher education offered by a foreign university without leaving their home
country. The landscape of Mauritian Tertiary education has also witnessed similar trends
over the last decade, but more pronounced with government new policy in attracting foreign
institutions and the setting up of a new Ministry for Tertiary Education in April 2010. Thus
the primary objective of this paper is to examine the extent to which this new form of higher
education has evolved and what are its implications for the education sector. Another
objective is to look at the different policy rationales emerging from government decision to
facilitate this transition. The study will use a multi-tier approach to get a better insight into
this new form of cross-border education. Interviews will be conducted with the chief
executive officer of a sample of the foreign institutions.
Keywords: Cross Border Education; Globalisation, Mauritian Tertiary education
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1 INTRODUCTION Cross border education is defined as the movement of people, knowledge, programs,
providers and curriculum across national or regional jurisdictional borders.(OECD and World
Bank, 2007). Cross-border education can be regarded as part of the process of
internationalization of higher education in the era of globalization. For many years, cross
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border education has been assimilated more particularly to the movement of students outside
their homeland to pursue further studies in Tertiary Education Institutions (TEIs) in other
countries. However, with the increase in demand for higher education around the world, new
providers, new delivery methods and new types of programs have emerged, the most
prominent one being the cross-border mobility of institutions. In fact branch campuses in
other countries are set up, bringing a foreign provider education into the student’s home
nation. Increasingly, institutions of higher education are building partnerships with
universities in other countries, delivering education using online and other technologies, and
setting up branch campuses abroad that are changing the structure and relationships that
traditionally existed in higher education.
Education in Mauritius, has contributed largely in the country’s success, since its accession to
independence. Furthermore, over the past decade, and in view of meeting new challenges, the
Mauritian economic landscape has been gearing towards a configuration where knowledge
industry emerges as a growth pole for our economy. The traditional form of cross border flow
in tertiary education has been for students to migrate to other countries such as UK, India,
Australia, France and more recently South Africa and South East Asian Countries. This has
been the tendency till the late 1990s and it has gathered momentum with globalization.
However, increasingly students are taking advantage of this new option – that is seeking
higher education offered by a foreign university without leaving their home country. The
expansion in numbers and types of entities that provide education courses and programs
across borders have been observed in many developed countries and increasingly in
Mauritius for the past few years now. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no
specific studies looking into this new form of education, especially in an era where the
government is placing lot of emphasis on tertiary education. Along this line, the government
has set the target of “one graduate per family”
The primary objective of this paper is to examine the extent to which this new form of cross
border higher education in its different forms and methods has evolved and what are its
implications for the education sector in Mauritius. Another objective is to look at the different
policy rationales emerging from government decision to facilitate this transition.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 briefly reviews the evolution of cross
border education worldwide. In section 3 the Mauritian Tertiary Education landscape will be
explored. The Regulatory framework put in place by the Government and the Tertiary
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Education Commission (TEC) will be analyzed. Concluding remarks appear in the last
section.
2 EVOLUTION OF CROSS BORDER EDUCATION WORLDWIDE The biggest providers of cross border programs beyond their frontiers are primarily highly
developed countries such as Australia, US, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, UK, France and
Germany. The cross border education programs have been traditionally provided by
international tertiary education institutions. There are two main modes of the new form of
cross-border institution. One is the implementation of campus owned and built by the foreign
provider and the more common model is franchising with a local partner as provider.
According to Knight (2005), the main methods of delivery of cross border mobility programs
are as follows: Franchising is one arrangement whereby a higher education institution from a
certain country authorizes another institution from the same or another country to provide its
educational programs. Another possibility is a twinning program where a provider in source
country collaborates with a provider in another country to develop an articulation system
enabling to take course in one of the countries or both. Another arrangement exists where
providers in different countries collaborate to offer a program for which a student receives a
qualification from each provider or a joint award. Virtual learning is another arrangement
where a provider delivers courses or a program to students in different countries through
distance and online modes complemented by face to face tutoring to provide support
domestically.
Over the past decades, a new phenomenon has been witnessed in these lead exporters of
education: publishing companies or multinational Corporations, have emerged as education
program providers. For example University of Phoenix , which is one largest private
university in the USA is owned by the Apollo Group company and has implemented
programs in Latin American countries. The problem arising from the above is that there is a
risk that some corporations may view the provision of cross border education primarily as a
means of generating profits (Knight, 2006).
On the other hand, for the past decade the destination countries of cross border education
activities was mostly concentrated in the Asian pacific zone more specifically in India,
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and China except for Spanish providers which have settled
more specifically in the Latin American region. The most important factor explaining this
phenomenon is that many Asian countries do not have the capacity to meet the exponentially
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increasing local demand for tertiary level education. In fact, Daniel et al.( 2005) indicated
that there has been substantial growth of prospective students worldwide and more
specifically in Asian regions. For instance India witnessed a 100 percent increase in the
enrollment rate between 1997 and 2007, while for the period 1990/1991 to 2004/2005,
Malaysia and China witnessed 725 percent and 950 percent growth in student enrollments
respectively. This rapid growth has led to a serious problem of strained capacity in these
countries. India, for instance can only provide access to tertiary education to only 7 percent of
the prospective students and has therefore considered the expanding Open and Distance
Education which is considered to be a viable means of reaching out to large numbers.
(Uvalic-Trumbic, Daniel, and West, 2008)
Together with the increasing scope for establishment of foreign TEIs in the Asian Pacific
zone, the regulatory framework in these receiving countries has evolved to enable the proper
monitoring of the quality of cross-border education. As reported by Knight (2007), Hong
Kong was among the first to introduce a law in order to increase access to higher education
for its population by allowing more cross-border programmes but at the same time there were
clauses ensuring consumer protection. In Malaysia , all foreign providers are subject to a
national quality assurance framework regarding the standard of the programs and
accreditation processes. In China, the law requires that all foreign institutions or companies
collaborate with a local provider so that only joint ventures are authorized.
Another geographical region where transnational commercial providers have been able to
establish themselves considerably is the Middle East and more recently the Eastern African
countries. In the United Arab Emirates as well as Cyprus, the prestigious Harvard University
is developing the possibility of setting up branches campuses. Furthermore, in view of further
developing its knowledge village, Dubai has attracted the London School of Economics
amongst other international institutions to offer courses through franchise agreements and
branch campuses. Strohmer (2006) analyzed the factors that increased the demand for cross
border higher education within the Gulf countries, First, higher education of women is more
and more encouraged, for cultural reasons; therefore they prefer to obtain their degrees from
international universities without leaving their homelands. Another phenomenon that could
explain the above is that ,since 9/11 the number of Gulf students applying to US universities
has decreased dramatically. As an alternative, they demand international universities in their
home countries. Furthermore, expatriates who represent 50-80 percent of the Gulf population
are usually not admitted in public institutions leaving only the private TEIs as the option.
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However as pointed out in Middle East institute report (2010), the implementing of
International universities with western style education in the Middle East has certain
implications in terms of reaching comprises by all the stakeholders due to the extremely
diverse cultural values.
In the African continent, more specifically in Eastern African countries like Kenya, Tanzania
and Uganda amongst others, cross border education has been gearing towards a different
direction In fact, public universities are mounting privately sponsored courses commonly
referred to as parallel degree programs. In fact with this type of agreements, parents have
found an alternative option that comes as a good compromise between the high cost and
affordability of private universities and their preference for more appealing international
institutions. According to Kufoniyi, (2009) the proper monitoring of public private
partnerships for cross border education is essential in the competitive global market.
3 TYPOLOGY OF PROVIDERS OF TERTIATY EDUCATION ON
MAURITIUS In Mauritius, participation at the tertiary level has, improved with enrolment hovering around
the 41,000 in 2009 with the gross tertiary enrolment rate (GTER) reaching 43.4%, compared
with 16,735 in 2000 corresponding to a GTER of 15.1%. In parallel, a significant expansion
in the different types of entities that provide Tertiary Education have been observed for the
past few years as depicted by Figure 1. Furthermore, Figure 2 shows the enrolment
distribution by the sources. In 2009, 73.6% of students chose to pursue tertiary education in
public funded or private institutions and 26.4% went overseas. There has been a slight
increase in enrolment within our borders, which was 70.9% in 2008, compared to 29.1% of
students choosing to study overseas for the same period.
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Figure 1: Evolution of Enrolment in Tertiary education 2000-2009
Figure 2: Distribution of Total Tertiary Enrolment by Source, 2009
Source: TEC participation in the Tertiary Education 2009 Report (June 2009)
Currently, there are more that 60 post-secondary institutions in Mauritius: This includes 11
public institutions, 2 being national universities. And the others are private institutions
affiliated with national or foreign TEIs, the most recent one being L’Institut d’Enseignement
Supérieur of CG Management and Networks affiliated with Université de Versailles Saint
Quentin en Yvelines
The form of cross border education explored in this paper, has evolved in 2 major directions
in Mauritius: Tertiary Education services providers are affiliated with our national
Universities, the University of Mauritius (UOM) and more recently and in lesser proportion
with University of Technology Mauritius (UTM). On the other hand, a significant increase in
the number of private providers operating under the different modes discussed in the
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literature review has been observed. This is in line with the Government’s initiative to cater
for the rapidly growing education demands in the region and in Mauritius by offering
attractive investment opportunities in the education sector.
3.1 PARTNERSHIPS WITH NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
The University of Mauritius has been collaborating in many instances with local institutions
like the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE) and the Mahatma Gandhi Institute (MGI). But
in recent years there have been agreements in view of setting academic collaborations with
international institutions. For instance, the University of Mauritius acts as awarding body for
the courses offered by private providers affiliated with international TEIs which are emerging
in the domain of education as depicted in Table 1 below.
Other types of collaborations in the area of Teaching have been developed through the setting
up of Memoranda of Understanding. Some of the examples include an academic cooperation
agreement between University of Mauritius and School of Communication & Information,
Nanyang Technological University Singapore since March 2006, a Twinning Project with the
Seychelles on e-learning.
Table 1: private institutions for which the University of Mauritius is the Awarding Body
Source: Authors compilations
Furthermore, for the current year, the University of Mauritius has announced the setting up of
a medical school in collaboration with the University of Geneva. Procedures have already
been initiated to create a Faculty of Medicine at the University. Currently the University of
Mauritius offers a degree in medical studies but students still have attend the University of
Bordeaux to complete their studies. The new medical school aims at allowing students to
complete their six years in Mauritius at a lesser cost. Other initiatives in terms of offering
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international programmes locally, undertaken in 2010 include an LLM degree with the
University of Central Lancaster and Masters Degree in Public Health with Imperial College
of London.
On the other hand, D. Y. Patil Group has affiliated with the University of Technology
Mauritius (UTM) based on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in June 2009. The
college is working in collaboration with Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital for the clinical training
for the 28 local and foreign postgraduate students currently enrolled.
3.2 PRIVATE PROVIDERS AFFILIATED WITH INTERNATIONAL TEIS
The private higher education sector has grown exponentially in the last decade with easier
and more established framework for private companies to open and run higher education
institutes. In Mauritius the majority of private providers are affiliated with recognized
overseas international institutions mainly in UK and India. Table 2 below depicts the
characteristics of major private providers with a student population of more than 50 currently
operating locally. More recently, several projects facilitated by the Board of Investment
(BOI) in the knowledge sector have materialized including Middlesex University, Amity
University.
As indicated in Table 2, some of the private providers Affiliated with overseas Tertiary TEIs
use a mixture of distance Education and face to face tutorials in delivering courses. In many
instances, the Mauritius Examinations Syndicate (MES) supervises the examinations
sometimes in collaboration with the foreign awarding bodies. The publicly funded institutions
are also aiming at increasing access to tertiary education at more affordable rates and with
more flexible arrangements. In fact, the Open University will take up the assets of the
Mauritius College of the Air to boost up open learning to new levels by collaborating with
regional and international TEIs.
Table 2: Private education services providers affiliated with international TEIS with student
population of > 50 in 2009.
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Source: Authors compilations
4 THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR CROSS BORDER EDUCATION
IN MAURITIUS In 1997, Mauritius was among the 69 signatories to the General Agreement on Trade in
Services (GATS) whose objective is to liberalize and regulate social services, including
education, by trade rules. One of the principles of the GATS agreement is the market access
which covers four modes of supply for the delivery of services in cross-border trade.1 The
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government conscious of the importance of education to the economic development of the
country has over the years streamlined the procedures to transform Mauritius into a
knowledge hub and a centre for Higher Learning and for attracting foreign direct investments
(FDIs). Along this line, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources has prepared a
National Policy Framework for the Tertiary Education Sector. This framework provides clear
and strict guidelines that potential providers have to comply with, when setting up tertiary
institutions in Mauritius. For instance foreign institutions wishing to implement branch
campuses have to be recognized accredited/deemed university in the home country and offer
programmes of same standards in the branch campus. Also, provisions have to be made to
facilitate exchange of academic staff from parent campus to branch campus. For local or
foreign greenfield investment in higher education, the provider needs to ensure international
recognition of the degrees. The internationalization and globalization of higher education has
increased the importance attached to cross border education as a mode to bridge the gap
between supply and demand in developing countries, and has underlined the need to establish
robust frameworks for the setting up of foreign campus and to ensure quality assurance in
Tertiary Education. The challenges which cross-border education entail have to be addressed
with appropriate local strategies or regulatory framework for foreign education provision.
These frameworks should encompass issues of accreditation, quality assurance, recognition
of foreign qualifications, access to finance for institutions and students among others. As per
the regulatory framework for postsecondary education provided in the Education and
Training Act 2005, TEC has the responsibility to make recommendations to the Minister of
Education on all applications received for the establishment of private institutions, or
branches, centers or campuses of overseas institutions offering postsecondary education in
Mauritius. Furthermore, no postsecondary educational institution can operate without
appropriate approval and that the institution has been registered and its programmes
accredited by the TEC. Thus, the setting up and operation of a private institution, or branch or
centre or campus of an overseas institution offering postsecondary education involves a
multi-step process comprising approval for establishment, registration and accreditation as
summarized in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Regulations for the registration of private institutions or branches, centers or campuses of
oversees institutions offering post secondary education
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Source: Authors’ compilations
5 CONCLUSION The landscape of the Mauritian sector has evolved over the past decade with significant
increase in the enrollment ratio. This has become a reality through the continuous support
which Government has given to increase access to Tertiary Education, with a set objective of
“one graduate per family” and the setting up of a new Ministry for Tertiary Education. In this
process, a diversity of providers, affiliated with local or international TEIs mainly from UK,
India Australia and South Africa under different modes of delivery have emerged. This study
gives a first insight on the different aspects surrounding this new form of cross border
education in the Mauritian Tertiary Sector and opens gateways for further research. In fact
the evolution of this mode of education could be further explored from the perspectives of the
service providers, regulatory bodies and the students through focus groups, surveys and
interviews. This would allow key stakeholders to uncover the challenges, the policy
implications and other relevant issues for cross border education in view of highlighting
potential areas that may require closer monitoring and identifying appropriate measures to
harmonize the standard of this form of education in Mauritius.
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