Following a 30-year academic career specialising in international development with a focus on gender and social policy, Jo Beall became a member of the Executive Board of the British Council. Prior to the BC’s Going Global conference in Malaysia, Beall sat down with The PIE to talk about the importance of focusing on global issues when speaking about higher education and why Malaysia is the best place in the world to learn about TNE.
The PIE: What are you most excited about in terms of this year’s Going Global schedule and content?
Jo Beall: The focus on how global issues in higher education support national agendas and local agendas is a theme that we’ve pursued before but I think it’s going to be very interesting in this region, where there are hugely advanced countries and countries that are newly emerging. And I think that offers a really interesting perspective and kind of a microcosm of the global issues in education.
And as always, I am looking forward to the policy discussions and learning from the experiences of global leaders in higher education.
The PIE: Why does the British Council organise Going Global?
JB: We used to hold it biannually from 2004, 2006 2008. In 2011, Going Global went truly global for the first time, when we held it in Hong Kong and since then we’ve tried to alternate locations while bringing the conference regularly back to the UK.
It has gone through a number of iterations. It started off as an international student conference. It was very much focused on student mobility and I think that the original concept was about promoting in the UK as a destination for international students.
“I’m so proud to say that I think…Going Global has become a cultural relations exercise”
As the challenges of internationalisation in higher education and the competition for student grew, it became more of a cultural diplomacy exercise, promoting the UK as a higher education destination, research partner and so on.
I’m so proud to say that I think we have moved now to a third iteration – honed in the Cape Town conference in 2016 – where it has become a cultural relations exercise. In other words, informed by mutuality and shared agendas, we put our best policy practitioners and policy heads together to look at the issues we are all facing, from all countries and regions of the world in education.
The PIE: You must have some great examples of successful policy outcomes that have been achieved.
JB: If I think back to the Miami conference in 2014, our global and local team steering group (which straddled North and Latin America) had devised the theme focusing on quality: how, in the context of higher education massification and growth, you can retain quality.
Out of that we managed to secure Mexico’s confidence in the UK as a partner and vice versa and that led very directly to the establishment of a treaty in mutual recognition of awards which is now being rolled out across Latin America with President Santos of Colombia signing the MoU too.
That’s a very direct policy outcome. And good for students. So often mobility and engagement are hampered by issues with degree and qualification recognition.
The PIE: Have you had a favourite conference?
JB: Hosting the conference in Cape Town will always be special for me personally, partly because I lived in Cape Town for some time and worked at the university as deputy vice-chancellor. But it was a very special conference because there, the theme was again set by the local steering committee around the question: “is internationalising HE good for national policy, good for nation building, good for higher education priorities of African countries?”
The conference addressed that and it was quite controversial, with lots of robust debate. But I think the consensus at the end was that if you want to build nationally, you need to remain international.
“Often mobility and engagement are hampered by issues with degree and qualification recognition”
The PIE: Going beyond Going Global. More generally, how does the British Council help advance global education and access to education more broadly?
JB: I think we benefit from having a long-term presence in countries – we are trusted as a reliable partner for collaboration.
What we do in many countries is that kind of introduction and facilitation of Higher education partnerships but we also do quite a lot of program-based work. I am forever inspired by some of the interventions that the British Council has been involved with.
In Pakistan, we recently won the collaboration award at the Bond International Development Awards for a program called Take a Child to School, where we have worked with community groups and local government leaders and increased school attendance quite remarkably.
The PIE: And can you talk briefly about your English language programming – you do have a big portfolio across your offices.
JB: Yes, in part, what we do in English language helps finance some of the other good things we do. But it’s much more important than that: because we are known for our English language, it gives us our licence to operate in some of the conflict-affected areas of the world, where a lot of other agencies have had to leave, or can’t operate. The fact that we have been in these countries teaching English for decades gives us a level of engagement and trust that allows them to be helpful in other areas including education.
“If you want to build nationally, you need to remain international”
The PIE: What do you think delegates will take away from this year’s event given its location in Malaysia?
JB: First, Malaysia’s status as the leading country for transnational education is interesting. The government deliberately put in place a supportive policy environment and framework. There are many branch campuses of universities, many joint sandwich programs and all the forms of transnational education you can imagine. I think it’s probably the best place in the world to learn about TNE.
The conference is also hosted by the ASEAN region and I think there will be a lot to learn from that. The ASEAN region is approaching education in a joined-up way. You’ve got quite advanced economies like Malaysia and Indonesia but you’ve also got some quite poor economies like Myanmar. I think there will be lots of lessons there – it’s a bit of a microcosm of Global Issues in Higher Education.
ASEAN is leading the way there, making sure that as China grows exponentially, ASEAN nations form a regional bloc that can collaborate & engage with China.
The PIE: Finally, you have travelled widely in your career. Which country has made the biggest impression on you and why?
JB: It’s hard to choose but I think it would be fair to say Colombia. I got a British Council higher education grant when I was a very young academic at the London School of Economics to do research there. It was a very positive experience. The people are just wonderful. I think often that in countries that have been through tough times, people have a resilience, a humour and appreciation of life which is very infectious.
