THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONALISATION – MUCH MORE THAN A DEAD CAT BOUNCE

Altbach and de Wit’s suggestion, in University World News (23 February 2018), that ‘the era of higher education internationalisation…might either be finished or, at least, be on life support’ is troubling if true.  However, the examples chosen to support their case seem insufficient in number or weight for the prognosis given. There is, however, a need for ‘rethinking the entire international project of universities worldwide’ that recognises and embraces a new era of internationalisation.

Student Mobility – Slower Growth, Greater Choice

Higher education internationalisation over the past 25 years has been complex. Suggesting, as Altbach and de Wit do, that it ‘appears to have come to a rather abrupt end’ ignores that the undercurrents have always ebbed and flowed. Student mobility may be slowing but diversity of destination, quality of options and increasing student choice is as strong a signal of vibrant internationalisation as simple growth in numbers travelling.

Exemplifying the differentiated rates of growth is simple. US enrolments stagnated for a decade following the attacks on the twin towers in 2001 but enrolments grew rapidly between 2009/10 and 2014/15.

Table 1 – US International Student Enrolment Trends 1945-2015

Source: Institute of International Education (IIE), “International Student Enrollment Trends, 1948/49-2014/15,” Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange (Washington, DC: IIE, 2015), available online.

By contrast global mobility saw remarkable growth worldwide from 2000 to 2010 but flattened out thereafter. Table 2 using OECD data illustrates this point. The US appeared to be catching up but must have been doing so at the expense of some other providers.

Table 2 – OECD – Growth in Students Studying Outside Country of Residency

Source: OECD Education at a Glance 2017: OECD Indicators Figure C4.a

What these graphs don’t capture is the retrenchment in Australia from 2010 to 2013 followed by rapid growth thereafter, the acceleration of enrolments in Canada from 2013, or the growth in other providers from non-traditional destination countries. At a more granular level there have been institutional winners and losers including some who have shown healthy growth even as their country has plateaued.

Perhaps Altbach and de Wit’s gloom is partly based on unrealistic expectations. Altbach, writing with Bassett, in Foreign Policy magazine (The Brain Trade, Foreign Policy, Washington DC pp 30-31, Sept-Oct 2004) suggested there would be 8 million globally mobile students by 2025. It was a prediction that found its way into OECD publications but appeared to have little or no data-based foundation. I explore this in more detail in an earlier blog.

A Thousand Cuts Rather Than A Fatal Blow

The current struggles of the UK and US are cumulative rather than, as suggested, wholly or even mainly due to short term factors such as Trump and Brexit. Government policies have an impact but are seldom the only factor and some well organised institutions have significantly outperformed their national sector. Overall , a resurgent Australia, a dynamic Canada and an increasingly assured Europe have taken increasing student numbers as overall growth has slowed. Even in the current year the January 2018 statistics show an 11% rise in applications to the UK through UCAS – despite Brexit coming closer by the day.

It is also possible that many in the US and UK were too slow to recognise or react to foreseeable market changes. The surge of Saudi students slowing to a trickle was predictable, Indian students found more welcoming and lower cost options, and declining oil prices damaged Science without Borders and other Government schemes. Greed in escalating the cost of study, lack of differentiation and insufficient investment in brand building compounded these problems.

Course Delivery In English – Carry On Regardless Or Ripe For Revolution?

Altbach and de Wit seem concerned about the future of English-language delivery. They suggest a growing backlash against delivering courses in English citing comments from the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Italy. While nobody doubts the sincerity of academics (I am less sure about politicians) who value tuition in local languages for cultural and social reasons the future of teaching in English is likely to continue to be propelled by market forces.

Study Portals reported in 2017 that in 19 European Higher Education Area countries there were 2,900 Bachelors Degrees taught in English. Globally, they reported in February 2016 that there were almost 8,000 courses being taught in English by leading universities in non-English speaking countries. For better or worse this growth was a response to the demands of the international market and the signs are that there is more to come.

Xiamen University opened the first overseas Chinese university campus, in Malaysia in 2017, and it is committed to teaching predominantly in English. There is extraordinary availability of English-language MOOCS (75% of the total in 2015 according to Class Central) and other online courses from international universities. Longer-term a $200 million fund established this week for opening and acquiring Chinese and English bilingual preschools in China is one signal of where the smart money is going.

Will TNE stand for Totally Negligible Expansion?

Altbach and de Wit also conclude – ‘Overall, it is possible that the halcyon days of growth in branch campuses, educational hubs, franchise operations and other forms of transnational education are over.’ They mention Groningen’s decision not to proceed with a branch campus in China but history of universities considering branch campuses is long on false starts and there is no doubt that remote operations are not for the faint-hearted. It is equally notable that as Groningen got cold feet the University of Liverpool announced a second campus with Xi’an Jiaotong University. It is expected to open in 2020 and grow to over 6,000 students by 2025.

Looking further afield universities from 12 different countries operate campuses in higher education “free zones” in Dubai. In 2016 those branch campuses and local institutions numbered 62 with a combined enrolment of 60,300 students, including 33,600 foreign nationals. For the future there are more than 550 English-medium K-12 international schools across the UAE with roughly 550,000 students aged between 3 and 18 in English-medium international schools.

Universities are, quite rightly, learning lessons from failed attempts at TNE but this is likely to mean that future developments are more sustainable. In terms of an internationalisation mindset it will be important to think creatively about the delivery channels, including online, that are available and how they might be creatively aligned in new ways.

A NEW WORLD ORDER

Altbach and de Wit comments regarding non-western higher education are disappointing. At best they lack generosity and, at worst, underestimate the role that these countries will play in a new era of internationalisation. They say China is considered ‘academically closed’ and ‘not the first choice for students’. India ‘lacks relevant infrastructure…struggles to shape its academic structure’. South Africa, Brazil and Russia get similar short shrift.

All higher education systems have challenges and difficulties but there is enormous ambition and significant leaps in quality and investment in many countries. And their ambitions are clear.


Source: ICEF Monitor and The PIE

In terms of desirability it is worth noting that in 2013 China was not in the top ten of receiving countries for students from Africa. In 2017, according to US News, it had overtaken the US and UK and was second only to France. The Times of India reported in 2018 that China had outstripped the UK in student enrolments from India. While Western students may not have a history of travelling overseas in large numbers to study but it seems reasonable to believe that as the world economy realigns there may be significant motivation for them to consider the options.

Internationalisation – Alive And Well But Different

The brute facts for the entire sector are that global demographics are changing and there is a realignment of economic and intellectual power between traditional receiving and sending countries. Technology has brought considerably more power into the hands of students and parents (as well as their advisors) in assessing their options. Where information is freely available and supply exceeds demand a strong value proposition, demonstrable quality, and relevance to customer needs are vital.

In the new world of internationalisation some thematic developments seem likely:
i) Distribution of international students and motivation of providers will change. As countries exceed their volume targets ahead of schedule they may slow growth to take a quality premium. Other providers, including non-traditional destinations, will seize the opportunities this creates.
ii) Power will increasingly lie with students and their advisers. Institutions that believe they merely have to ‘build it and they will come’ will be disappointed. Those who are responsive, flexible and delivering what the market wants will prosper.
iii) The propensity of students to break with tradition and travel west to east in larger numbers will increase. This may, over time, help to embed ‘internationalisation’ as a global phenomenon.
iv) Regional hubs will thrive and provide relatively low cost/risk entry channels for new competitors while branch campuses may eventually grow sufficiently powerful to become ‘partner’ institutions rather than subsidiaries.
v) Online delivery will present new and exciting opportunities for collaboration between institutions as well as bringing lower cost options to students.
vi) The notion of a student travelling abroad for four years to complete an undergraduate degree may become seen as antiquated. For many years institutions have been prepared to deliver in discrete components where a year or two in-country leads to a period overseas. The potential for staging posts involving all or some of distance learning, a regional hub, and a ‘sandwich’ or final year on the other side of the world seem possible.

Internationalisation in such a dynamic and competitive future requires an enlightened approach to accreditation and collaboration as well as a commitment to delivering what the student needs. There will be substantial rewards for those who show creativity and courage in finding and implementing solutions. Those who cling to the old ways or move too slowly will find their horizons substantially shortened.

COUNTRIES SEPARATED BY A COMMON PINT?

Moving to San Diego seemed to be one of the easier calls in life. Trading in the English winter for Californian sun was no hardship. And I had successfully managed a move from Essex to Yorkshire, arguably the greatest cultural distance in England, when I was 23. But we are creatures of our environment and subtle changes are worthy of reflection.

San Diego is one of the great craft beer cities in the world and I have been converted from my standard lager to the local product. A lifelong love affair with Stella has become a series of one-night flings with Sticky Henderson, Perky Blonde and Deftones Phantom Bride. These are courtesy of the brewers Resident, Belching Beaver and Thorn Street – just three from the 100+ in San Diego County . But to my great shame I was so distracted by the weather and wearing flip-flops (of which more in a moment) that it took me three months to realise that a pint is not a pint. It’s not even close. People from the country of my birth know that this is one area where size is everything and will be glad to read that history and actuality are both on our side.

Since 1824 the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth have broadly standardised on the Imperial (feel your heart swell with pride at a word which gets less play by the day) pint equivalent to 568ml. In America the standard pint is 473ml – the uncharitable might even call it the ‘Puny’ pint. That’s because the Imperial (had to use that word again) pint is about 20% larger.

The downside is that what I had begun to consider an increasingly heroic drinking capacity was rather less impressive than I thought. However, craft beer often weighs in at a pretty hefty 6%+abv compared to Stella’s 5.2%. Like the shots to goals ratio of an erratic centre forward I have not quite worked out the right balance between volume and potency but look forward to continuing my education.

An offshoot of this discovery is the mild satisfaction of realising that US gallons are smaller than British gallons. So the price of petrol (or gas as I call it when I am trying to fit in) is not quite so extraordinarily low as we have all thought for years. But I am also told that California gas is expensive compared to Pennsylvania so visitors should choose their destination and filling stations wisely.

My second discovery has been that wearing flip-flops is not the work of the devil. Like most English boys from my era my feet have been encased safely in socks and shoe leather from my first pair of Start-Rite’s to my latest black lace-ups. The notion of bare feet in public anywhere but on holiday in some far-away place where the neighbours would never see has been largely unthinkable.

But there is something about constant sunshine and getting very hot feet that lured me into reversing years of tradition, training and toe-trapping. Shopping the Zappos app has become a little like finding Tinder for shoes as I swipe right for OluKai and Chaco and left for Loake’s. Inevitably, the increased exposure of my feet has led me even further down the path towards behaviour my father would have considered slightly troubling. I had a pedicure.

In my defence I was driven by a sense of anthropological enquiry after being told that the ratio of men to women made mani-pedi salons a dating hot spot. I had, after all, been responsible for the PR team that invented ‘love in the aisles’ to suggest that ASDA’s frozen food aisle was Cupid’s home. For those interested I can report that nail salons are as unlikely to light the fires of love as frozen cod fillets. But if baby soft, good-looking feet are a sign of evolutionary success it’s an hour well spent.

This probably gives the impression that my early months have been spent strolling around the neighbourhood visiting bars and obsessing about my toes. I write that as if it would be a bad thing, but it really isn’t given the quality and quantity of local beers and brew-houses. My current recommendations to visitors are The Bluefoot Bar in North Park (for a dive/sports bar), the Queenstown in Little Italy (Sunday brunch/people watching), and 10 Barrel Brewing in East Village (great balcony).

Sadly, the Bluefoot is a place of pilgrimage for Arsenal fans. Matters appeared to come to a head last week when there was a seven-hour stand-off as SWAT teams thought they had a homicide suspect holed up across the road from the bar. I know that the Carabao Cup result was distressing for the Gooner faithful but that seemed a bit extreme…

My third discovery came when crossing the road the other day. Firstly, I managed to look to my left first to check for traffic which is quite something after so many years of Tufty Fluffytail and the Green Cross Code adverts reminding me to look right. It always struck me as one of the stranger journeys for David Prowse to go from child-safety icon, the Green Cross Man, to progeny-maiming dark lord, Darth Vader. But it’s nice to have some perspective by learning that Prowse’s west-country lilt led to the rest of the cast nicknaming him Darth Farmer.

More important though was that I headed for the pavement (sidewalk!) that was IN THE SHADE. Sensibilities built up over years of vitamin D sapping winter weather and overcast summer days dictate that when there is sunshine an English person walks in it. There are days when crowds of people zig-zag their way down city streets to maximise exposure and worship the glowing, unfathomable orb in the sky – it’s like line dancing but from a cult that also invented Morris dancing.

We do it because we know that the sun might disappear any moment – behind a cloud or a building. More worryingly we know that its reappearance is not certain. Certainly not for days or even months. So we act like lizards, soaking up the warmth and the rays to see us through the lengthy periods of dark, cold and precipitation we know are heading our way.

Sunshine or shade. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the distance between the innocent, carefree time of the Green Cross man and the stygian depths of Darth Vader as he embraced the dark side. But that’s for another blog and a different time…in a galaxy far, far away.

China – Pigs in Pythons, Geese Laying Golden Eggs and the Sea Turtles

As we enter the Year of the Dog many international recruiters and university bosses will be anxious to know whether Chinese students will continue to follow the call to the traditional receiving countries.  The period after Chinese New Year usually signals the quickening of pace in the recruitment cycle but may bring a summer of sluggish, difficult dog days for conversion. Some may even wonder how things might change by the time of the next Dog Year in 2030.

It is no secret that China has been the rocket fuel driving international student enrolments for the past fifteen years. The statistics show that US and UK enrolments continue to become increasingly dependent. And while the Canadian beaver may be popular and industrious, and the Australian kangaroo is bounding ahead, they look increasingly vulnerable to any changes in the market dynamics.

Table 1 – % of Chinese Students in Key Receiving Countries

NB: Gathering data that is matched in terms of definitions and timescales is problematic. The general point regarding concentration of students is clear but the sources are shown for clarity.

The demographics of China do not seem particularly helpful. The pig has passed through the python in terms of the bulge in University-age students. There are 32million fewer Chinese aged 20-24 than there were five years ago. And in another five years there will be 18million fewer than today. Numbers stabilise and then begin to grow slowly but by 2029 remain below 2017 levels.

Table 2 – China DemographicsIt would be fair to argue that 76million people is still a very big audience to aim at if you are a skilled recruiter prepared to travel around second, third and fourth tier cities (handy definition at http://multimedia.scmp.com/2016/cities/ ) as the move to urban areas continues.

There is also the lure that the Chinese middle-class is growing rapidly. Surely the wealthy middle-class is the goose that will lay sufficient golden eggs to more than make up for the fall in population?  Well, maybe, but the concept of a ‘middle class’ seems quite slippery.

In 2016 McKinsey were reporting that, 54% of China’s urban households will be classified as “upper middle” class by 2022. Upper middle class sounds pretty well-off but is measured by McKinsey as household income of $16,000 to $34,000 a year. Just for comparison, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2017 that real median household income in the US was $59,039 in 2016. If you have to pay tuition fees and accommodation in dollars relativity becomes reality.

To give this some further context Table 3 (below) shows the IMF and World Bank comparators on GDP per capita. The Geary-Khamis measure is an ‘international dollar’ that allows a comparison between countries allowing for local cost of living etc. The disparity between the US, UK and China on this measure seems stark.

Table 3 – Comparable GDP Per Capita (Geary-Khamis dollars)

IMF (2017) World Bank (2016)
USA                  59,495           57,467
UK                    43,620           42,609
China               16,624           15,535

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Average wage growth in China looks pretty impressive. Trading Economics/MOHRSS statistics show strong growth.  But a wage of CNY67569 is worth $10,643 in February 2018.

Table 4 – Growth in China Wages

The real question may be whether the burgeoning middle class will secure enough of the growing wealth of the country or whether the distribution of wealth will increasingly be skewed to a super-rich cohort. The New York Times in 2014 reflected on Professor Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Critically, the author notes ‘…income from wealth usually grows faster than wages. As returns from capital are reinvested, inherited wealth will grow faster than the economy, concentrating more and more into the hands of few.’

Table 5 (below) suggests that a key question regarding the distribution of wealth to the Chinese middle class may rest on the extent to which China is more like France than the US and Britain.

Table 5 – Share of Total Income Change in Five Countries

Source: Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty

It may be, of course, that the growth in wealth is such that it will overcome the decline in demographics and the distribution of income hurdles. But a third challenge is how supply matches against demand in global higher education.  In this respect developments in China (as well as other countries in Asia) are likely to bring serious and sustainable competition to traditional providers.

A full analysis is beyond the scope of this blog but recent reports give some sense of the direction of travel as far as capacity, quality and value are concerned:

i) Universities in China have built capacity at a furious rate and as Establishing A Presence in China notes notes ‘at current rates….there will be a university seat for every child in China by 2030’. (OBHE quoted in THE)
ii) Xiamen University opened its first overseas campus, the first Chinese university to do so, in the Malaysian state of Selangor in September 2015. The primary tuition language is English. The campus intends to split its students body equally between Chinese, Malaysian and other nationalities.
iii) The Asian Universities Alliance, launched in April 2017 will boost Asia’s influence on the global higher education stage as well as supporting regional student mobility. Founding members span 14 countries and include Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
iv) Government investment in Chinese academic research is significant and quality has moved ahead quickly. An example, noted by the White House and reported in the Washington Post (October 2016), gives context in terms of research into artificial intelligence.

Table 6 – Journal Articles Mentioning Deep Learning

vi) The Double First Class Project is reportedly allocating 40 billion RMB ($6.04 billion USD) to a comprehensive project to bring 42 Chinese universities and courses at another 95 Chinese institutions to a “world-class level”.

The move towards a powerful higher education sector capable of serving its own people as well as many other international students seems well established. But, as my economics teacher at school used to tell the class – all decisions are economic. She was in a relationship at the time with the person who became my politics lecturer at College who would tell us – all decisions are political. Education is often just a side show.

In that regard it’s worth considering the initiative commonly known as ‘One Belt One Road’. As one of the largest infrastructure and investment project in history it reportedly covers more than 68 countries, equivalent to 65% of the world’s population and 40% of the global GDP. The extension of soft power through hard cash may become critical in determining the long-term movement of students around the globe.

A self-sufficient China at the heart of a global network will become an even bigger attraction for business and, inevitably, for students drawn to a global economic superpower that is investing so heavily and making travel easier and cheaper. Many Western universities have already ensured that they are partnered with well-funded Chinese institutions and despite the odd wavering over academic freedom we have reached a point of no return. It seems likely that there will be a genuine tipping point where the long-established flow from east to west will reverse.  The haigui, or sea turtles, may not need to travel (and certainly not in the volume of the last fifteen years), to secure the education they need for their lives and careers.

In that respect I find myself considering the words of Dr Monika Korte, the scientific director of the Niemegk Geomagnetic Observatory at GFZ Potsdam in Germany. She said, “It’s not a sudden flip, but a slow process, during which the field strength becomes weak, very probably the field becomes more complex and might show more than two poles for a while, and then builds up in strength and [aligns] in the opposite direction,”.

Dr Korte was talking to livescience.com in 2012 about the anticipated flipping of the Earth’s magnetic poles (What If Earth’s Magnetic Poles Flip? February 10, 2012). The article makes the point that the change is not instantaneous, that the period of change is difficult to manage and characterised by a significant weakening of the current magnetic field.  But eventually the needle points in a different direction. I suspect that is a pretty good metaphor for the Year of the Dog 2030.

8 million globally mobile students – a myth, based on a rounding error, sustained by wishful thinking?

When a number becomes repeated often enough as a fact it is often difficult to see past it. If it appears to be backed by credible sources like the OECD any sense of concern about authenticity diminishes. That is probably why the prediction of 8 million students studying outside their home country by 2025 entered the HE sector’s psyche. But the emergence of that number and its credibility as a prediction based on solid data is difficult to trace.

It’s important partly because of the scale of investment in the sector based on its potential for growth. Since 2010, over a billion dollars has been invested in private providers of pathway courses – examples include Providence, Leeds Equity, and Bridgepoint deals involving Study Group, INTO University Partnerships and Cambridge Education Group. Shorelight and Oxford International also become new entrants to the pathway landscape in 2013 and 2014 respectively.  The title image to this blog is a cropped slide from a presentation at a major, publicly-quoted, pathway provider’s April 2017 Investor Strategy Day.

Universities in traditional receiving countries have also built development plans around growing numbers of international students studying on campus. In the UK alone they are looking to increase international student fee income by nearly 30% in the three years to 2018/19 – a figure even HEFCE politely suggested shows ‘over optimism’. And the Daily Telegraph reported £5.3bn being sunk into purpose-built student accommodation in 2017, compared to £4.5bn the year before and a record £6bn in 2015.

The sector and those who write about it have often used the 8 million as a touchstone. In 2015 the University of Oxford’s International Strategy Office stated, ‘The global population of students who move to another country to study continues to rise…is likely to reach 8 million students per year by 2025.’ In May 2017 a NAFSA flier from one private provider stated confidently, ‘8M students to study outside their home countries by 2025’. The ‘2016 Top Markets Report on Education A Market Assessment Tool for U.S. Exporters’ from the U.S. Department of Commerce also stated that by 2025 ‘…eight million students will be globally mobile.’ 

Most authors quote the same source for the forecast – the 2012 OECD publication, AHELO Feasibility Study. But the OECD do not appear to have done their own data-crunching. The Study reads, ‘growth is projected to continue in the future to reach approximately 5.8m around 2020 (Bohm et al, 2004) and 8m by 2025 (Altbach and Bassett).’ (OECD, AHELO Feasibility Study Report Volume 2, p.24, 2012). The 5.8m reference is from the British Council’s 2020 Vision document (2004) which was underpinned by IDP’s Global Forecasting Model. 

The OECD reference to Altbach and Bassett is credited to an article called ‘The Brain Trade’, in a 2004 edition of the publication, Foreign Policy. In this relatively brief article the authors write, ‘a recent Australian study estimates that the total number of international students will increase to 8 million by 2025’. (The Brain Trade, Foreign Policy, Washington DC pp 30-31, Sept-Oct 2004). That would seem to rule out Altbach and Bassett as the original source although the article does not provide a citation to follow.

In Trends in Global Higher Education: Tracking an Academic Revolution (Altbach et al) for the 2009 UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education the claim is of an even greater acceleration in growth. Page 7 of the full document reads, ‘More than 2.5 million students are studying outside of their home countries. Estimates predict 8 million international students by 2020.’  Confusingly, the Executive Summary settles (on page vi) for saying, ‘Estimates predict the rise to 7 million international students by 2020.’

Neither the source of the 8 million or the 7 million are articulated but the source of the ‘Australian study’ seems clear.  Altbach, on page 25 of the main report, says ‘By 2025, research undertaken for IDP Pty Ltd in Australia suggests that roughly 7.2 million students may be pursuing some higher education internationally, an increase of 188 percent over the 2006 UNESCO estimate (Böhm, et al., 2002). The research in question is GLOBAL STUDENT MOBILITY 2025: Forecasts of the Global Demand for International Higher Education (Bohm, Davis, Meares and Pearce, 2002). But the question of how this relates to a prediction of 8 million globally mobile students remains unclear.

The answer may lie in a 2003 update of the IDP research. The executive summary (page 3) says that one key finding is that ‘global demand for international higher education is forecast to increase from over 2 million in 2003 to 7.6 million in 2025’.  It seems possible that the 7.6m was simply rounded up to 8m but the consequences are significant. In terms of financial outcomes 400,000 students equates, at a conservative estimate, to yearly fee income of more than $5bn dollars.

What is also striking is that, as noted in the British Council’s Vison 2020 report (2004) the IDP Global Forecasting Model, underpinning the 2003 research, was based upon the UNESCO 2001 World Education Report which relied largely on figures from 1996. Could it be that statements being made in 2017 about 8 million globally mobile students by 2025 are relying on a rounding error from a report using data that is 20 years old?

Table 1. Summary Graphic – How The 8 Million May Have Evolved

None of this is intended to undermine the work of the researchers involved. Forecasting is fiendishly difficult and those working in HE recognise the time delays and complexities which can make source material difficult to manage and interpret. We also recognise that circumstances can change rapidly and make even the most accomplished market analyst look foolish.

As we see in the most recent OECD graphic (below) the numbers enrolled overseas grew by only 400,000 from 2010 to 2015. This compared to growth of 1.2m additional students from 2005 to 2010. It seems likely that quality in country provision, and additional tuition options in English-language, as well as the growth of on-line delivery, is allowing students to study in ways that meet their career and personal aspirations at lower cost.

Table 2 : Education at a Glance 2017: OECD Indicators Figure C4.a. Long-term trends in the global number of students enrolled abroad (foreign students definition)

The extraordinary growth in the first decade of the 21st Century may become seen as the peak moment for increased international mobility. In 2012 the British Council predicted that mobility would plateau by 2020. More recently the British Council has predicted that that the annual growth for global outbound students is projected to average at 1.7 percent to 2027, dropping from 5.7 in the period 2000-2015. It is difficult at this point to see that those presentations which held Emo of Friesland arriving at Oxford in the 12th Century as the first in a wave of international students numbering 8m by 2025 will be correct.

Perhaps all this reflects the danger of International student enrolment being viewed as a cryptocurrency where the uninformed may make investments in the misunderstood for fear of missing a wave of future riches. As Warren Buffet memorably said, ‘when the tide goes out..you discover who’s been swimming naked’.

-Ends-

Rage on the Stage or Pride from the Side

The English Premier League has attracted some of the highest profile football coaches in the world. A combination of money, glamour and opportunity have created the perfect platform for them to work with some of the best players in the world. But these coaches increasingly display even bigger egos than their players and engage in outbursts of anger and unrestrained emotion on the pitch after games have finished. Are there any lessons for management?

It is the tendency to march onto the pitch at the end of the match that has been the most striking development. Maybe they feel they have to express their leadership prowess as a coda to the game and the efforts of their team. Or it could be the ultimate in scent marking, allowing the team to do its best before marching onto the pitch to display their alpha male credentials in front of the world. They know that the cameras are following them and that they will have opportunities in the press room to express their opinions verbally but they cannot resist the opportunity to physically impose themselves on the field.

This weekend we saw Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool being pulled away from abusing the referee after some controversial decisions at the end of the match with Tottenham Hotspur. He had pulled his own players away from the referee so clearly didn’t think they were up to the job. And he suffered the ignomy of being ushered away by a peer (Pochettino, the Spurs manager) who could see how embarrassing Jurgen’s behaviour had become. Jurgen has previous behaviour in using his 6’4” frame to intimidate officials to take into account.
Recently we have also seen the reputedly cerebral Pep Guardiola of Manchester City, a team setting the pace in the Premier League, on the pitch berating and physically manhandling a player of the opposition team. The player, rather than giving Pep the shove he probably deserved, maturely explained that he had been carrying out the plan of his own manager with focus and discipline. It was an admirable demonstration of restraint by the 23 year old Redmond faced with a ranting 47-year old who should know better.

And Antonio Conte of Chelsea has become renowned for cavorting on the pitch after games and celebrating with maniacal energy. Perhaps he is trying to capture some of the glory he misses from his days as a five times championship winning player with Juventus in Italy. Or maybe he is making up for the disappointment of being left out of the Italy team for the 1994 World Cup final.

There is no doubt that these coaches are driven, intense and charismatic characters who are among the best in the world at their trade. I would not argue that they should reduce their passion for the game or their commitment to excellence and winning. But their behaviour after matches tends to make them more of a focus than the teams they coach and does not lead anywhere good by way of example. And that is the antithesis of management.

Perhaps their actions are more a demonstration of their insecurity and need to maintain position. Research has suggested that the motivation to seek or maintain one’s rank promotes aggressive behaviors. Approximately 48% of men and 45% of women identify status/reputation concerns as the primary reason for their last act of aggression, and the experimental induction of status motives increases aggressive tendencies in both men and women (Griskevicius et al., 2009). (quoted in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Two Ways to the Top: Evidence that Dominance and Prestige are Distinct yet Viable Avenues to Social Rank and Influence, Cheng JT.

So, is seems possible that the actions of Guardiola, Klopp, Conte et al are not, as they often claim, about their ‘passion’ for the game but a naked outpouring of anger intended to maintain their position as alpha male leading their troupe. It seems likely that the era of the celebrity head coach, and the increasing fear of loss of status if matches are not won, has created a feedback loop where managers feel the need to beat their breasts and roar at the end of each game. And possibly this is because those with the biggest egos and gift for self-publicity get the biggest jobs where being under the spotlight means purchasing top players and fitting them in rather than building teams, creating value and nurturing talent from the rawest recruits.

Those who have had the honour and pleasure of developing outstanding individuals and merging their talents to create a dynamic, focused and winning group understand that feeling of pride and protectiveness. But the best managers I have known have had the knack of standing back at the moment of victory to allow their team to bask in the glory of success. They have also been adept at taking setbacks, understanding the development needs and rapidly refocusing the team on the next challenge.

In that respect I recall a moment at ASDA in the early 1990s when we had smashed the Xmas trading targets and the head office marketing and trading teams were pretty smug at our own brilliance. The ASDA team of that era was filled over time with CEOs and Chairmen in waiting, Mike Coupe (Sainsbury), Steven Cain (Carlton Communications, Coles, Metcash), Justin King CBE (Sainsbury), Andy Bond (ASDA, Poundland), Andy Hornby (HSBC, Alliance Boots, Coral), Richard Baker (Boots Group, Groupe Aeroplan), Ian McLeod (Celtic FC, Halfords, Coles). The sense of self-satisfaction was ended abruptly when Allan Leighton, at that time the Marketing Director but later serial CEO or Chairman across organisations as diverse as Pandora, Royal Mail and LastMinute.com, walked into a meeting with hand-written, photocopied notes to tell us we were coasting through the new year and needed to regroup and step up our efforts. It was a good lesson.

The best managers I have known have absorbed the pressure when their team is struggling but stepped back at the moment of glory. They may share the celebration and mutual admiration in private but their public position is to hand credit to their ‘players’. Of course, they have been prepared to lead from the front when necessary and have been fiercely protective of their people. But generally speaking their obsession was with selecting and developing good people, ensuring integration, enabling performance, setting standards and consistently looking towards the next challenge.

What they have never done is encourage senseless, unstructured fights with authority (which is different to disagreeing with the status quo and planning how to change things); openly displaying triumphalism and hubris; or, acting with anything less than due regard for the quality of the opposition and the danger they present. Those principles have never prevented them being fiercely determined, robust, resilient and committed to victory.

Why Right Backs Are The Best Football Pundits

TV coverage of football in the UK or US has become a multi-camera, technically efficient business. But it is made significantly more or less pleasurable by the ex-player pundits who give their insights on the game, the players and the managers. I’d suggest that Gary Neville and Lee Dixon – both right backs in their playing days – are the cream of the crop.
So, I began to wonder whether the playing position of a pundit is a guide to their style? Do some positions breed the most interesting analysts? And are there any characteristics inherent in the position that might influence their development as analysts?
In the good old days the BBC’s Match of the Day was dominated by the dour efficiency of Liverpool’s duo of Hansen and Lawrenson. The performance reflected their playing careers and the Liverpool of their era. They were solid, consistent and disliked Manchester United with a passion, but they reflected an era which is long gone and eventually, like Liverpool, were knocked off their perch.
As central defenders they were used to patrolling the width of the penalty box but were likely to get a nose-bleed if they went beyond half-way in open play. Usually negative and seldom complimentary they epitomised a football era of hard men, hooliganism, and horrible hair-cuts. They also scored the occasional, spectacular own goal as Hansen’s early season comment about Manchester United’s youthful 1995/96 Championship winning team – ‘you can’t win anything with kids’ – shows.
The wonderfully opinionated Eamon Dunphy summarised the problem when he said of Match of the Day, “They just talk drivel. Whoever is winning is great, whoever isn’t, isn’t. It’s banal. And also semi-literate at times … they never criticise in an intelligent way. Anything that isn’t banal is said to be an outburst. They’ve created this cartoon world where everyone talks like Lineker and says nothing.”
Which brings me to the contribution of Gary Neville and Lee Dixon. The former with twenty major trophies to his name and ten years as his country’s first choice right back. The latter with four league championships, three FA cups and a UEFA Cup win as well as 22 England appearances. They know what it is like to play for an extended period chasing the biggest prizes at the highest level.
But playing in the right back position gave them more. From their corner of the pitch they had a panoramic view of the entire game. They recognised their obligations to defend diligently but also had to spring forward at pace to make critical decoy runs and give pinpoint crosses. Along with the energy to go from box to box like the best midfielders they were expected to be able to cover laterally behind their, usually more ponderous, central defenders.
Right backs know they are never the ‘best’ player in the team (whatever Roberto Carlos might have thought) but perhaps they become the most complete. They are expected to have a crunching tackle, the energy of a Duracell Bunny (Energizer Bunny to US readers) and the humility to pass the ball quickly to a player considered more creative. They also have to be truly multi-skilled and, at the very least competent, in heading, passing, crossing, intercepting and tracking. Above all they have to be able to think flexibly.
Early in their careers Neville and Dixon would have worked out that the game is full of wingers who were faster and trickier than them. So, they developed judgement on when to engage closely and when to drop off or shepherd the attacker down the line. Their position at the corner of the team formation meant they engaged in individual duals but also had to cajole, organise and communicate with team mates to protect the goal at the moments of greatest threat.
Neville and Dixon have very different styles. The former is more intense and focused while the latter is generally relaxed and conversational. But they recognise individual qualities and weaknesses as well as they understand systems, opportunities and threats.
They are self-effacing but confident; organised but flexible; tough but empathetic; thoughtful but communicative. They have taken the lessons of the game, their personal determination to improve and the unique insights of their playing position to become informed and clear communicators for TV viewers world-wide. They are able to make a caustic comment as readily as they committed a tactical foul but also know how to tread the line between yellow and red card.
Other players seem to carry the limitations or burdens of their position and skill set with them. Strikers like to be the centre of attention, midfielders are either destroyers or too cool for school and even Rio Ferdinand has been unable to shake the view that central defenders should be seen and not heard. Goalkeepers reflect philosopher/keeper Albert Camus’ dictum ‘that a ball never arrives from the direction you expected it’ and treat every opportunity to comment as if it is a trick question.
Some examples from the modern day to flesh out the theory?
Central strikers Alan Shearer and Ian Wright – or ‘chippy’ and ‘chirpy’ as I think of them – encore their playing days on TV. Aggressive, efficient Shearer bulldozes his way past alternative opinions, takes every chance to settle personal scores and does not willingly pass opportunities to colleagues. His most famous quote appears to be “Football’s not just about scoring goals – it’s about winning.” He could do one pretty well but not the other as Gary Lineker once pointed out.
The hyperactive Wright on the other hand seems totally charming. Full of energy, lively runs and little dinks. But as an instinctive goalscorer living on half-chances and hunches there is no sense of strategy and he misses the mark too often at the very top level. Even then he is more interesting than Michael Owen whose analysis is a sad reminder that he lost a vital extra half-yard of pace in his final years.
It is rare to see a world-class midfielder sitting regularly in the pundit’s chair, although some might argue the case for Glenn Hoddle who has become a staple of the England national team’s TV appearances. He brings to the role the same mix of laid-back ineffectiveness, occasional laser-beam accuracy and bizarre fringe beliefs (nobody should forget the faith-healing and karma incidents) that disrupted his career as England player and manager.
Whenever an outstanding midfielder does appear, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes are occasional cameo performers, their mastery of the game seems to tell against them. They could ping a ball 40 yards onto a sixpence, hit stunning volleys into the top right-hand corner from outside the box, and control a game . But in the pundit’s seat they look bemused, stilted and unable to articulate why others do not find it so easy.
Roy Keane and Graham Souness, midfield geniuses of a different type, just seem angry at everyone and everything. Perhaps their experiences as modestly successful managers has made them long for the days when they took direct, preferably immediate, personal retribution on the field and scared the living daylights out of opposition and team-mates alike. One imagines their final contribution to punditry might be a disagreement in the studio that ends with a Cantona kung-fu kick , a Zidane head-butt (readers of a nervous disposition may choose not to follow the next two links)… or a Keane or Souness red-card tackle.
NBC in the US has opted for midfield dependability, and people called Robbie, with the duo of Mustoe and Earle offering solid professionalism from careers including long stints at Middlesborough and Wimbledon respectively. Their insights come from many hours on the pitch but it’s difficult to see the pairing offering too much on players’ psychology as they chase Premier League and Champions League silverware. That said they are both thoughtful and considered and a credit to the world of Robbies which is more than can be said of Robbie Savage, whose comments are often as misguided and deserving of a red card as his hairstyle, passing and tackling.
I recognise that this sample is notably short of women football pundits. This is down to the woeful coverage of women’s soccer in the UK up to and including the current day, as well as the relatively limited opportunities contenders have had to settle into the role. Sue Smith was among the first to come to prominence and for the 2017 Women’s European Championship Channel 4 put together a team of Aluko, Smith and O’Reilly with Lucy Ward in commentary. All of them midfielders or forwards!
Given my view about right backs the current England players Lucy Bronze and Rachel Daly may have great futures on TV ahead of them when they retire. Although Steph Houghton could bring a new dimension to my theory from her position at left-back. Her comments after matches and her broader You Tube presence show a keen football brain and strong communication skills.
It is difficult to see beyond Neville and Dixon as the best of the bunch. The former has even forced Jamie Carragher to raise his game when they share the screen at Sky. There may even be new stars emerging from the next World Cup. But for now – right backs rule.

Thanks for visiting

My name is Alan Preece and this is my first blog site. I am still learning the technology but there comes a moment to take the plunge and accept the consequences.

I am currently applying for residency in the US and will be using the site to write about whatever occurs to me as interesting. Some of it will be about being an Englishman of a certain age living abroad for the first time and particularly about life in San Diego. But I will also be thinking aloud about management issues, developments in global education and some slightly off-beat issues that occur to me from time to time. To get started, my first post is about something that has been a bee in my bonnet for months.

For anyone interested in the background – but feel free to stop reading if not – I trained as a journalist before spending my early career working in media, PR and event management with large commercial companies in retailing and the electricity industry. Since the mid-1990s I have worked in higher education – firstly leading student recruitment, admissions and communications for two leading universities, and then in senior management for two private pathway providers. Perhaps unusually for someone who started in PR I became Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer in the latter organisations.

None of this makes me better qualified to write or more interesting than anyone else. But it has given me many experiences in different circumstances working with different people and that is one way of seeing different perspectives. I hope you enjoy what you read and I’m always interested in what other people have to say so don’t hesitate to comment.