No abstract

An emerging global phenomenon of significant proportions, the mobility of high-level personnel affects the socioeconomic and sociocultural progress of a nation and the world. The information era has conquered the barriers of distance and space, opening up a whole array of opportunities and challenges affecting the mode in which the world interacts and coexists. Instantaneous communication and its declining cost, massive capital movement across borders, the growing hegemony of multinational corporations, greater talent demand to maintain global competitiveness and replenish national pool, relative ease in the movement of people, shift in geopolitics, the emergence of the greener pasture paradigm, and the decline of many Third World countries to provide commensurate living standards have catalyzed the global mobility trend of highly trained personnel. This article explores potentials advanced by the mobility of high-level expertise while examining emerging challenges. It also scrutinizes outmoded assumptions embedded in the current understanding of the mobility process.

Abstract

Higher education in Africa is undergoing a transformation wrought by massive expansion, which has implications for every facet of the sector.

The changing landscape of higher education over the past few decades has increasingly brought internationalization to the fore as one major manifestation of the educational systems of both developed and developing countries alike. As part of this global trend, the Ethiopian higher education sector has, in the past decade, begun to exhibit some of the emerging trends of internationalization despite the paucity of data that portray the phenomenon in an organized manner. This study was conducted to address the prevailing deficiencies with particular focus on identifying the dominant manifestations of internationalization in Ethiopia’s public and private higher education institutions. Data were drawn from nine public and six private institutions using questionnaire and focus group discussion. The major findings of the study revealed that institutions consider internationalization as an important activity for the purposes of promoting teaching and resource mobilization, international research projects, and academic quality and standards. However, in most of the surveyed universities, internationalization was found to be more of an ad hoc and reactive process than a systematically administered proactive undertaking. On the basis of the findings that portray the features of a nascent system, the need for cohesive policies, strategic directions, and operational efficiencies both at national and institutional levels has been projected.