Further education partnerships make the world go round

Colleges are going global by setting up links in India, China, Russia and South Africa, writes Nick Jackson

Published: 08 March 2007

Think British education abroad and you no doubt think Nottingham University Ningbo or Dulwich College Shanghai. What about West Nottinghamshire College, Jaipur?

It may only be a matter of time. Further education colleges, traditionally strongly associated with small, local communities, are getting into the global education marketplace. Last month, West Nottinghamshire started talks with the Indian government and colleges, with an eye to developing programmes and a college there. And in the last fortnight alone, British further education principals have visited Russia and been visited by Thai counterparts as part of projects to develop partnerships between colleges.

In February, Asha Khemka, principal of West Nottinghamshire College met with India's president and officials from the education ministry to set up links and exchanges with Delhi and Rajasthani colleges. It is part of an international strategy developed by the college in the past year to bring a more international perspective to a local population where less than five per cent come from ethnic minorities. The college also has links with China and is expecting its first Chinese exchange students this summer.

"There is a poverty of aspirations here," says Khemka. "This is about raising them and opening up opportunities by exposing our students to the global environment." Khemka also hopes that Chinese and Indian students' work ethic will rub off on West Nottinghamshire students.

Initially, the co-operation will involve staff exchanges and training across institutions. In the longer term, the college has an eye on setting up its own Centres of Vocational Excellence in Rajasthan with private backing. While academic education in India is excellent, says Khemka, the vocational sector is undeveloped.

India is potentially a huge market for British education, with an Anglophilic middle class 350 million strong and 65 per cent of the population under 25. In 1948, there were 496 colleges; in 2006, there were 17,625. It is also, for now, a difficult markete, says Svava Bjarnason, the director of the Observatory on Higher Education. Education regulation is under discussion by the government and is still a big unknown, she says. A project like West Nottinghamshire's will allow it to develop contacts and experience on the ground. "Partnership in vocational training is a very clever approach," says Bjarnason.

Other UK further education colleges are also getting involved in India, with the help of the British Council's UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). The initiative is in its first year, but co-operation hubs have been formed in the financial services and fashion industry. Tower Hamlets College and City College Norwich have teamed up with the University of East Anglia and insurance companies to work with Delhi's Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. Ravensbourne, Newham and Blackburn colleges are working with Indian colleges on fashion. Each hub receives £53,000 over three years from the government and can tap into a further £75,000 fund made available by UKIERI's sponsors, KPMG.

It is not just India. British further education is abuzz with international strategies, with many colleges eager to fulfil Charles Clarke's target as Education Secretary for every school in England to be twinned with a school overseas by 2010. The British Council is playing matchmaker to further education colleges in the UK and colleges in Thailand and Russia, with more planned as part of the Prime Minister's Initiative. The project is demand driven, and as a result the focus in each countries can be different. Thailand is looking to boost provision of skills for its massive tourism industry; Russia is looking at UK methods of keeping teenagers interested in education.

What's in it for the British colleges? Geoff Pine is principal of Greenwich Community College, a member of the Thai and Russian consortiums. Greenwich also runs capacity building projects in Ghana, Iraq and, soon, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. International collaboration is a natural offshoot of Greenwich's multi-ethnic local community, says Pine. He hopes that the college's work fostering vocational training in Iraq and Saudi Arabia will help to develop an understanding of the Muslim world among non-Muslims. "It's about internationalisation," he says. "Making sure our curriculum reflects a global economy; preparing our students to work in a global economy."

While the colleges abroad gain from British vocational approaches to learning and the links with business and technology, it is far from a one-way street, says Ian Baggaley, director of international operations at Bournemouth and Poole College, which is part of the Thai and Russian consortiums and also works with colleges in China, South Africa and Kuwait. "It's a two-way thing," he says. "We're sharing good practice. There are things we can learn from Thai culture and vice versa. There's a cultural difference out there that needs to be embraced."

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