Who’s Afraid of Cross-border Higher Education? A Developing World Perspective

Abstract

Who's Afraid of Cross-border Higher Education? A Developing World Perspective INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF QUALITY ASSURANCE AGENCIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION (INQAAHE), Presented at: Annual Conference 2005 - Wellington, New Zealand, Final Plenary Session: Quality Assurance in Transnational Issues, 1 April 2005 by: Sir John Daniel, Asha Kanwar (Commonwealth of Learning) and Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (UNESCO) // We shall begin by describing what cross-border higher education is and how it fits into the diversifying scene of higher education. Our fundamental question is whether cross-border HE can help developing countries rise to the challenges they face in giving their citizens access to higher education. These challenges can be summarised as the three 'A's: accessibility, availability and affordability. // We shall first outline this challenge in a general way by reference to the Declaration of the 1998 World Conference on Higher Education and its sequel in 2003. This will provide the background for a more detailed look at the reality of cross-border HE in three very different developing countries: India, Jamaica and Sierra Leone. Judging from these cases cross-border HE is, at present, making a negligible contribution to the provision in developing countries of higher education that is accessible, available and affordable.