Transnational education: Current developments and policy implications

Ever since the transnational education trend took off since the 1980s, transnational education has come to bearing political, economic and cultural implications. Different approaches have been formulated to achieve specific policy objectives by both importing and exporting countries. Such approaches demonstrate a four dimensional composition, which includes generating economic revenue, boosting capacity building, developing human resources and promoting international understanding. Transnational education is, to a great extent, economically oriented and has now become dominated by market principles. In addition, it is characterized by its borderless nature and the innovation of delivery models. Alongside the opportunities, transnational education tends to erode national educational sovereignty and threatens cultural security of importing countries, undermines the public nature of education, and challenges the existing institutional arrangements for quality assurance, accreditation and qualification recognition in higher education. With recent global education trends in mind, China urgently needs to adopt adequate measures to ensure a sustainable and healthy development of transnational education.