17 May 2020  Issue No: 598

Campus leaders and international educators must ask themselves if it is not hypocritical and even unethical to invite international students to campus when the United States is at the epicentre of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the situation is still clearly out of control.

United States President Donald Trump has rebuked Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and a key member of the White House task force on the coronavirus, for warning that no vaccine would be available to facilitate students returning to campuses in September.

Among the proliferating internationalisation strategies and formal partnership agreements of international higher education, there is something which universities often overlook – the power of interpersonal relationships. With international mobility restricted and professional relationships across distances seeming fragile, we need personal contacts more than ever.

The Global Recognition Convention paves the way for increasing mobility between regions and continents, and Norway’s ratification is the first step towards creating a global platform for collaboration and problem solving, information sharing and developing good practice in recognition and international higher education.

Deteriorating relations between Sweden and China have prompted the closing of Confucius institutes and classrooms in the Scandinavian country and the ending of city partnerships. The moves have been prompted by growing concern in Sweden over security, human rights and the jailing in China of a Chinese-born publisher with Swedish citizenship.