What does internationalisation of the curriculum refer to, why does it matter (also in the South African context), and how can it successfully be approached and implemented – not only in the short but also in the long run? These are the questions that this article ventures out to address in a compact form, inviting the reader to delve deeper into specific topics by accessing the references, case studies and resources provided within.
Why internationalising the curriculum is imperative
Today’s students and emerging researchers all around the world are confronted with the impacts of globalisation and digitisation like no generation before them. It is the responsibility of universities to provide all students, national as well as international, mobile as well as immobile, and especially those coming from marginalised or disadvantaged backgrounds, with the best possible preparation for the opportunities and risks as well as uncertainties, ambiguities and contradictions of a more and more globalised, digitised and diversified world – a complex and interrelated world where the local and the global become evermore connected.
In order to equip all of those students to participate in an active, confident and self-aware manner in a world that is networked beyond cultural, national, socio-economic as well as disciplinary borders, curricula are needed that are intrinsically and transformatively internationalised. Like no other instrument of internationalisation before, the internationalisation of the curriculum offers the unique opportunity to link teaching & learning at universities with the students’ own worlds and aspirations, making it ever more relevant, enriching and effective.
Different notions of curriculum internationalisation
Curriculum internationalisation is a rather elusive concept that has been conceptualised in a variety of ways and with varying notions.
https://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/cci/definitions.html)
http://ioc.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/definitions_internationalisation.pdf).
A definition that has gained wide recognition is the one provided by Betty Leask, who refers to curriculum internationalisation as the purposeful ‘incorporation of international, intercultural and/or global dimensions into the content of the curriculum as well as the learning outcomes, assessment tasks, teaching methods and support services of a program of study’ ((Leask 2015). https://www.qqi.ie/Downloads/Betty%20Leask.pdf).
The OECD envisages as the purpose or outcome of the ongoing process of curriculum internationalisation ‘curricula with an international orientation in content, aimed at preparing students for performing (professionally/socially) in an international and multicultural context and designed for domestic students as well as foreign students’. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF02354013.pdf
The defininition of IoC of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA), in turn, provides us with a more focused version of the possible purposes that IoC could serve, such as education for sustainable development, defined as ‘the process of equipping students with the knowledge and understanding, skills and attributes needed to work and live in a way that safeguards environmental, social and economic wellbeing, both in the present and for future generations’.
http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/23353/1/Education-sustainable-development-Guidance-June-14.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262954166
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/eddev/supporting-teaching/esd/
Thus, an internationalised curriculum provides comprehensive knowledge of the subject from a range of alternative perspectives, critically engages with the notions of disciplinary, social and cultural differences in our educational environments, creates spaces and opportunitites for students from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, and is distinguished by a general appreciation of diversity. It is therefore not only reflective of international or global but also of local, national or regional challenges, practices and perspectives. Only those curricula that productively embrace all kinds of diversity afforded by globalisation and digitalisation will equip students adequately to succeed professionally and to practise responsible citizenship: locally, regionally and globally.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20180928141001549
Because of this, curriculum internationalisation may be understood as an ongoing teaching and learning process requiring that we think differently about the universality of knowledge and that we engage with non-dominant knowledge paradigms. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288898168_What_really_do_we_mean_by_internationalization https://www.aieaworld.org/assets/docs/Additional_Resource_PDFs/internationalizationofthecurriculum-leask.pdf) https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9mizEfxhzFT87PIYwCpP/full
Because of this, internationalisation, decolonisation and africanisation of the curriculum should not be viewed as inimical or mutually exclusive but can be conceptualised as ‘dynamic symbiosis’, that is, as ‘mutually enhancing processes (…), which will be running concurrently, infusing and buttressing each other, thereby simultaneously creating local, continental as well as global awareness‘.
http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/821
How to internationalise the curriculum
A range of concepts http://ioc.global/framework/, instruments and typologies for internationalising the curriculum has been proposed for integrating the development of global perspectives and cross-cultural competencies into the formal, informal and hidden curriculum with the latter possibly being particularly relevant in a South African context. http://www.flinders.edu.au/Teaching_and_Learning_Files/Documents/A%20typology%20for%20internationalising%20the%20curriculum.pdf) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303688531_The_role_of_the_hidden_curriculum_institutional_messages_of_inclusivity_Reflective_Analysis, http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20180926115231110.
Hence, there is a variety of instruments to choose from when internationalising the learning objectives, the contents and structures, the teaching and learning as well as assessment dimensions of the curriculum, for example:
- making use of teaching materials from a variety of knowledge systems
- approaching subjects from a range of local, national, regional as well as international perspectives
- virtual team-work projects which bring together students and staff from different cultures and/or countries (such as Collaborative Online International Learning COIL)
- foreign language courses or linguistics which explicitly address cross-cultural communication issues and provides training in intercultural skills
- (virtual or real) international mobility formats and instutionalised mobility windows
- a critical, inclusive and student-centred pedagogy approach
- an interculturally diverse staff and student body (International Classroom)
- institutionalized international visiting chairs
- internationally cooperative study programmes with/without double/multiple/joint degree option
However, if one subscribes to the purpose and definition of curriculum internationalisation as outlined before, internationalising the curriculum is not simply a matter of adding or infusing international contents or inclusive teaching methods at selected points in the study programme. Rather, a transformative approach to curriculum internationalisation will be required, whereby individual programmes define their subject- and/or discipline-specific understanding and approaches to internationality and the development of intercultural competencies and integrate them in and across the curriculum in a way that is meaningful to all students and staff alike.
This particularly implies formulating and assessing measurable and achievable internationalised learning outcomes within the specific context of a discipline and coherently realigning them with the programme´s or departments’ overall intended internationalisation as well as with the different components of the core curriculum and over the whole course of the study programme.
In order to do so, the Correspondance Matrix Learning Outcomes has been proposed as a helpful analytical and planning device.
In the context of curriculum internationalisation, academic staff are of particular significance. Not only are they largely involved in the ongoing process of capturing intended internationalisation in learning outcomes, crafting relevant contents or designing internationalised learning environments but it is the academic staff that delivers international and intercultural teaching and assessment. The core work involved in IoC is therefore exercised by academic staff in disciplinary or interdisciplinary teams.
The real challenge in curriculum internationalisation, that is, in achieving meaningful international and intercultural learning, lies in effectively and sustainably facilitating and enabling academic staff/faculty engagement – but always in concert with enabling and engaging students, alumni as well as administrative staff alike.
http://ioc.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IoC-brochure.pdf http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20151202144353164