Surrey catches on

According to the BBC website, Surrey is aiming to emulate the University of Nottingham’s internationalisation achievements in China and Malaysia. The Guardian also carries the story.

The University of Surrey wants to offer degrees in which students might move each year between partner universities in three countries. This could include universities in the US, China and elsewhere in Asia. The partnership will create undergraduate and postgraduate courses in management, computing and entrepreneurship – with the aim of allowing Chinese students to study in Guildford and for UK students to spend part of the course at Dongbei. Courses in China will be taught in English and will replicate those taught at the University of Surrey.

It’s a good pitch and well articulated. The fact that others are following suit helps to reinforce the value of what the University of Nottingham is doing.

Different views on internationalisation

Following a recent debate on UK universities in China where different views and experiences were shared on whether or not this was all a terribly good idea, a handy summary is provided by a newly spotted HE blog which looks rather interesting.

The piece can be found here.

The health club v country club argument is a powerful one. However, I think the University of Nottingham experience shows that many of the challenges can be overcome.