The Internationalization and Globalization in Central and East European Higher Education

Abstract

The paper is focused on the public policy consequences of the emerging question of tense relations between internationalization and globalization of higher education assuming the perspective of internationalization as a possible response to worldwide-felt globalization pressures in higher education. Globalization of higher education (with its introduction of business culture and corporate ethos) and internationalization (with its focus on internationalizing curricula, developing exchange programs for students and faculty, interdisciplinary, international and team-oriented research etc) are manifestations of strong Westernization of Central and East European (CEE) higher education. The rationale of the two processes seems to be different, though: political and economic in the case of globalization of higher education, academic and social/cultural (following the Bologna Declaration - also increasingly political and economic) in the case of internationalization of higher education. Both processes are main challenges for higher education today: one as a catalyst, the other as a response. Central and Eastern Europe in this respect is not an exception to a worldwide trend.