Caution with Offshore Campuses

Establishing a campus in another country requires a vast amount of work, absorbs a huge quantity of the time of senior academics and managers, takes even longer to get the campus up and running - and should only be tried if it meets with the university's long-term strategic plans. This was the view put by Monash University Vice-chancellor Professor Ed Byrne in his address to the 4th annual Australian Higher Education Congress. The Melbourne-based university has four overseas campuses - in India, Italy, Malaysia and South Africa; the first, Malaysia, was established 13 years ago and the latest in India in 2008.
"The first principle in creating an overseas campus is that it must be aligned with the university's strategic plan: it shouldn't be serendipitous or seized if an opportunity arises. It needs a clear, well thought-out, long-term international engagement plan," Byrne said.
The second principle was that "colonialism does not work". This was the model, more developed in the US than in Britain or Australia, where the campus was an "offshoot of the mother ship", a place for students to get some international experience in another country, notably in Europe.
Such a model was limited and, if a university tried to expand the offshoot into a broader university by flying in expatriate staff, it became a "colonial exercise" that would add little to the higher education environment in which it was established
"Overseas campuses should be partnerships with a local institution, the government or other local entities," Byrne said. "So you develop an offshore campus that will work and enhance the overseas country's university experience, rather than just as an offshoot that makes a return for the mothership at home."
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0162, 13 March 2011