Globalisation Of Education & Training
Sydney, Australia
Australia’s education/skills training sector is certainly facing headwinds. The sector which earns around A$16 billion in education exports has 39 public universities (+ private higher education institutions), 5000+ Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations, 10,000+ schools. The higher education reform bill in some form and shape has still to find approval in the senate. The VET sector is moving from a strict compliance mode to a more risk and reward balanced approach. The Gonski funding review will make life a bit more challenging for schools, at least in the short term. The Corporate training sector is increasing moving to a digitised model.
At a global level, digitisation and globalisation are converging. MOOCs are a classic example – are they elements of globalisation or digitisation or both. The traditional major education supply nodes used to be USA, UK, Australia and Canada and the emerging/developing economies were the demand nodes. But this distinction is blurring. Singapore and Malaysia are both demand and supply nodes for education – Malaysia now earns more than 5 billion Ringgit (around A$1.75 billion) in education exports.
As we head into a lifelong learning scenario where we will increasingly be dipping in and out of the learning continuum, the question which foremost to our minds is – do these globalisation trends really matter to us. What do we really mean by globalisation of education/training – is it globalisation of content, getting international students onshore, opening branch schools/campuses offshore, having global pathways.
On Tuesday, 25th March 2015, Global Mindset presented its 13th thought leading conference on Globalisation of Education/Skills Training.
