Before the 20th century, education was once treated as a domestic phenomenon, and institutions for learning were once treated as local institutions. Before the 20th century, education was usually limited within the confines of a country, exclusively meant for the consumption of its local citizens. As a result, scholars or college students did not have to travel miles away from their countries of origin to study and gain the skills they needed to traverse the paths of their chosen careers. Moreover, national borders served as impenetrable walls in the name of sovereignty.
Gaining a college degree and the skills entailed with it were merely for staunch nationalistic service to one’s land of origin. Furthermore, knowledge of the valleys and oceans encircling the world map, foreign languages, and international political regimes was not much of an imperative. Intercultural exchange was not massive and sophisticated, if not intricate. Acceptance and understanding of cultural diversity were not pressured upon anyone, as was the lure to participate in a globally interconnected world.
In other words, before the 20th century, academic work was predominantly simple and constrained to the local, the domestic, and the nearby. It was limited to one’s village, one’s region, and one’s own country. A student has his neighborhood where he is to be born and educated and later serves the local village, his home, his community, and his country.
Related Articles :
- Android Tops iPhone – 7 Ways PC World Was Right
- Importance of Education in India
- Android Vs. IOS App Development in Singapore
- The Future of Android Phones
- Android 2.3 Platform Gaming Enhancements
Nevertheless, the world has been in a constant state of flux. From the 20th century onwards, globalization rose and became a buzzword. Anything that pertained to globalization was attributed to modernization or anything up-to-date, if not better. Part and parcel of this trend is the advent and irresistible force of information technology and the information boom through the wonders of the Internet.
The idea of cosmopolitanism – a sense of all of humanity, regardless of race, creed, gender, and so on, living in a so-called global village – is another primary indicator of globalization. Moreover, international media trade and investment have been rampant and have occurred transnationally. Finally, globalization has involved the uncontrollable movement of scholars, laborers, and migrants moving from one location to another in search of better employment and living conditions.
Globalization seemed all-encompassing, affecting all areas of human life, including education. One indicator of this is the emergence of international education as a concept. Catchphrases like The Global Schoolhouse manifest the internationalization of education: All the world’s a classroom, One big campus that is Europe, Think global, Act local, and Go West. Students from the world over have been ostensibly persuaded to learn about the world and cope with technological advancements, if not to become Citizens of the World.
Moreover, globalization and international education are at play, for instance, when speaking of Singapore being branded as the Knowledge Capital of Asia, demonstrating the city-state as among the world’s academic powerhouses; De La Salle University in Manila, the Philippines entering into agreements and external linkages with several universities in the Asian region like Japan’s Waseda University and Taiwan’s Soochow University for partnership and support; the establishment of branch campuses or satellites in Singapore of American and Australian universities like the University of Chicago and the University of New South Wales, respectively.
Online degree programs are being offered to a housewife who is eager to acquire some education despite her being occupied with her motherly duties; students taking semesters or study-abroad programs; and finally, the demand for learning English – the lingua franca of the modern academic and business world – by non-traditional speakers, like the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Korean students exerting efforts to learn the language to qualify for a place in English-speaking universities and workplaces.
All of these promote international education, convincing prospective consumers that in today’s ongoing frenzy of competition, a potent force to boost one’s self-investment is to leave one’s home, fly to another country, and take internationally relevant courses. Indeed, globalization and international education have encouraged students to get to know their world better and get involved with it more.