Following volume 23.2, the second volume in our two-part special issue series (23.3) includes six papers. One focuses on a policy framework facilitating international mobility of students and academics in higher education in the Asia-Pacific region, and the other five papers focus on dynamic policies and practices of internationalization of higher education in countries including China, Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam. In the first article of this issue by Wesley and Wang (2021), they describe the development and prospects of the Tokyo Convention (UNESCO, 2011). The Tokyo Convention is a significant policy framework for the internationalization in Asia-Pacific to facilitate regional collaboration, authoritative information sharing and recognition of qualifications across diverse modes of learning. To monitor and assess the role and implementation of the Tokyo Convention throughout the region, a standardized survey implementation was employed in their analysis, and it became the first systematic review of its kind. Including their professional insights, Teter and Wang identify the need for a multi-stakeholder approach based on collaborative governance to effectively monitor implementation and implications of the Tokyo Convention for diverse higher education stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region.
With the start of opening-up reform in the late 1970s, the rapid internationalization of Chinese higher education has been receiving emerging attention worldwide. The second article contributed by Zhong (2021) elucidates an entrepreneurial approach of internationalization of Chinese higher education with an in-depth case study of Chinese higher education at the system level and Tsinghua University at the institutional level. Zhong interprets the process of internationalization as a dynamic reciprocal interaction between the opening-up policy and the Chinese higher education policy through employing a mixture of research methods, including reviewing policy documents and conducting participatory observation and interviews with stakeholders. The author demonstrates that there are five purposes of China's higher education internationalization, which is considered a process of entrepreneurial internationalization. It sustains China's belief that educational opening-up is beneficial for China's modernization and common development worldwide. The approach provides a cost-effective approach to foster human resources for the Chinese society through studying abroad. It promotes domestic reform and enhances Sino-foreign exchange and collaboration. It becomes a public diplomacy measure to construct a global network of educational engagement. Moreover, this empowers the top national universities to lead in the global competition.
Writing about the context of Cambodia in the third article, Say Sok and Rinna Bunry explain the challenges that Cambodia has faced in recovering their higher education sector after the Khmer Rouge – when educators and educational institutions were famously targeted for elimination. Sok and Bunry (2021) explain that because funding for higher education has largely been piecemeal and has come from external sources (foreign government aid and, more recently, multilateral banks), programs and strategies related to internationalization have been highly fragmented and often determined by funders’ priorities. Their concern is that this has resulted in a lack of an overarching strategic plan for higher education internationalization both at the national level and at the institutional level. Moreover, when plans and goals are put in place, they are usually not followed by resource investment, making them extremely difficult to achieve. Sok and Bunry outline what they think are necessary steps forward, not only to further develop Cambodia’s higher education sector and internationalization efforts but also to support the kind of social progress that is necessary as the country continues its post-Khmer Rouge revitalization movement. They feature case studies of four public higher education institutions in Cambodia to provide insight into the ways these challenges play out at the institutional level.
In the fourth article, Wan and Abdullah (2021) examine the policies and practices of internationalization of higher education in Malaysia. Moreover, the authors explore how the Sustainable Development Goals are translated into policies and practices. By taking a chronological and historical approach, Wan and Abdullah examine and identify patterns, trends and shifts on the internationalization of higher education in Malaysia at the system and institutional levels. Malaysia has transformed from a sending country to receiving country at the system level, from being an aid recipient to an equal partner and from a host to a provider. At the institutional level, internationalization transforms from a fad to a norm and has unilateral collaboration to set up multinational collaborations with international partners. Equally important, the authors discuss the role of internationalization to address the global Sustainable Development Goals and identify policy gaps at the national level and the de facto practices of the Sustainable Development Goals at the institutional level. The authors map out the changes in the internationalization of higher education in Malaysia. More importantly, they display gaps to incorporate the global Sustainable Development Goals and relate this global agenda to the internationalization of higher education.
By following Knight (2015)’s categorization, Vietnam can be regarded as one of the unique countries to host all three models of international universities: classical, satellite and co-founded. In the fifth article, Ryu and Nguyen (2021) focus on Vietnam and provide a basis for a better understanding the internationalization of higher education in Vietnam through reviews of educational reforms and policy and legal frameworks. In addition, they apply a case study analysis and explore the internationalization at home and cross-border activities at both national and institutional levels, especially focusing on Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) that is Vietnam’s flagship university. Their findings revealed that Vietnam made a continuous effort to promote better integration into the global higher education market. Although Vietnam hosts three different models of international universities, there is a still need for improvement such as systematic cooperation and coordination at the governmental level. To encourage its own innovations, knowledge, culture and HE (higher education) models and norms, they claim that Vietnam needs to adopt a more balanced approach between inward and outward.
With rapid economic development, Vietnamese students have increased outbound mobility to study abroad in recent years. In the meantime, a growing number of Vietnamese students successfully completed their doctoral education and returned to home universities in Vietnam to explore their academic careers. In the last paper of this special issue, Nguyen et al. (2021) provide the unique perspective of Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees and the coping strategies they employ to conduct research in home university contexts. The authors focus on the concept of human agency from the sociocultural perspective to interpret the coping strategies of these returnees in response to the challenges they experienced. Through questionnaire and interviews with Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees from multiple disciplines, the authors unveil key factors that constrained their reengagement in research, such as time constraints, working conditions and workloads, and familial roles. They conclude the paper by addressing the necessity of building a research support mechanism for these returnees for sustainable research development in Vietnam's higher education.
While we are preparing this special issue, the COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting international mobility of students and academics in the world for more than one year. With the expansion of vaccination programs in the world, some popular study destinations in North America and Europe have already reopened their gates to welcome international students. Although people are still positive about the international mobility of students and academics in the post-COVID-19 era, the global public health crisis may have lasting effects on the way students consume their higher education. Traditional physical mobility together with virtual mobility of international students and academics provide us with a unique opportunity to reimagine how we should transform internationalization of higher education to meet the rapid changes in the world. Moreover, these challenges and opportunities also remind us to reconsider how we can build resilient and quality higher education systems to enhance global sustainability by 2030 and beyond.
