The Norwegian Minister of Education and Research Kristin Clemet:

Forum on Trade in Education Services

11. oktober 2004, Sydney,Australia

Bridging the Divide

Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

First let me thank the Australian government for organizing this important conference and for the inspiring opening session we have just had.

I’d also like to thank the organizers of this conference for inviting me to address you on this important topic. Trade in educational services is a most pressing challenge to all education authorities, and there is a need for informed and continued discussion.

We have come together here in Sydney to consider ways to “bridge the divide” – the unfair and unnecessary distance between the global rich and poor, between those who possess a developed knowledge society and those who still struggle to attain elementary standards of education. And against this – another divide, between exporters and importers of educational services; less definite, but very significant in defining national interest.

I represent a well-off country, on the same side of the poverty gap as Australia, our host. But at the same time Norway is a considerable importer of education and in that respect we share more interests with some countries in Asia and with the larger and less wealthy countries in the South.

(I should perhaps mention that I use the terms ‘North’ and ‘South’ in their symbolic, rather than their geographical meaning, remembering that we are now technically in the South.)

More importantly, though, I wish to emphasise the common interest we all share in a more equitable distribution of global education resources, despite our differing positions. Education paves the way for growth and economic progress and for democracy and good governance.

John F. Kennedy said:

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

He spoke of national resources, but the same is true of the world at large – Our progress as a global community can be no swifter than our progress in education.

I am pleased to see that this third – but maybe not the last – Forum on Trade in Education Services is co-organized by OECD and UNESCO. Their joint mandate and expertise signify our special effort – we have put the best people on the job!

The first, the Washington Forum in 2002, was primarily an attempt to establish an arena of dialogue on globalisation and trade, involving all the education stakeholders. This dialogue, after a period of growing mistrust, was a timely attempt to identify the real challenges posed by growing trade in education. We met to examine possible strategies for facing the challenges, with or without GATS.

By the next Forum on Trade in Education – in Norway one year ago – a lot had happened. That conference particularly dealt with the challenge of ensuring that transnational educational services are subject to standards of quality and integrity. The result was an extensive joint effort by the OECD and UNESCO to establish global guidelines for quality assurance. This initiative is important measure for all stakeholders and all countries.

In Sydney we have reached the next stage and the next questions:

• How can we prevent that the global inequalities of the past will continue into the new education era?
• How can the future global education market be developed in a way that gives equal access to its benefits and shared responsibility for its disadvantages?
• And what are the criteria for success?

The need to build national capacity is at the root of these questions, and it is natural and necessary for the international community to discuss it. I shall return to some comments on the many dimensions of capacity-building.

But first let us reflect on the connections between the trade agenda and global objectives of education policy. Following the breakthrough in the WTO negotiations in Geneva in July, the development dimension of the Doha round has been strengthened. Leading developing countries have demanded that the round must produce results that strengthen the trade position of the poorer countries, and there is consensus about this. Discriminating measures from rich countries against export goods from developing countries must be significantly reduced. This has provoked a lively debate in many countries in the North. Some of our key sectors have sheltered behind protective trade barriers. They have even been subsidised in order to compete with products from developing countries in export markets. My own country is no exception. But some of the groups that oppose reduction in protective trade measures, are often at the same time very vocal in their criticism of the North for selfish policies that neglect our responsibility for global fairness.

In the field of education a parallel situation would be to refuse to share knowledge and competence with the poorer countries, for fear that they might transform it into successful innovation and cheap products. Such a strategy is widely denounced as immoral and unlikely to benefit the countries trying to protect themselves. History offers many stories about the failure of regimes that cut themselves off from the global communities of learning. Education, competence and ideas must cross national borders freely. But not necessarily free of charge! To my knowledge nobody would deny countries or universities the right to charge a fair price for their services abroad. But there are conditions: Quality must be maintained. And the receiving country must be in full control and able to ensure that the service supplied is sound and appropriate to the needs of the population.

Many are fearful of globalisation because it may lead to brain drain from the developing countries. Experience so far seems to support that notion. This is in fact a strong argument for of global agreements and improved legal instruments. I believe we can achieve a more equitable distribution of knowledge and competence in the future, but only through collective, responsible action. That is why the processes expressed by this conference are so important.

The topic of this third Forum – Building Capacity – sets us a very important goal. We do know a few things about the significance of building national capacity and competence. A solid competence base is a precondition for stable societies with a robust infrastructure. The ability to develop and take advantage of competence explains to a large extent how countries with previously similar levels of development have shown very different progress during the last century.

However, many factors contribute to a country’s capacity to manage and develop its national intellectual resources. Let me mention a few:

Basic education is crucial and Education for All is prominent among the UN Millennium Goals. The quality and capacity of national basic education leads to the development of a qualified labour force, it teaches citizenship, basic health care and other fundamental skills to the population at large. Education provides a labour market for teachers, the most important channel of dissemination of expanding knowledge resources. And it is the fertile ground for recruiting future researchers and teachers into higher education.

At the same time, lifelong learning is important. Lifelong learning and the ability to reach out to people outside the formal structures of learning – provides a chance to jump-start capacity-building. Without waiting for today’s primary-school pupils to grow up and enter the labour market, successful adult-education programmes give immediate results on the factory floor or in the farms.

A developed system of higher education and research is the most costly element in the national competence structure, but it is crucial for economic prosperity.

Attitudes to the higher education sector in national development processes have varied over the last two or three decades. I think a consensus now is that a national education system functions as a whole, and that no one sector can achieve its goals without the contributions of the others. Many higher education institutions in the South are essential engines of growth in their national economies.

Participation in international co-operation is also important because it provides access to global learning resources. Whether it is the non-commercial networks and exchanges, international research funding agencies or transborder education providers in the national market – all serve to supplement and expand national capacity.

Therefore, the use of international resources is a tempting solution to the capacity problems of so many countries. But it is also a demanding solution. Even with international regulations, transnational education providers pose new challenges for national education authorities. I think the different capacity of national administrations to deal with a globalized education market may be one of the divides to be bridged, one of the factors to make some countries more able to harvest the benefits of internationalisation than others.

For the international community it is therefore a central task to assist poorer countries in building their capacity to regulate their own education, to set and enforce national policy and to develop its own education system.

The issue of ‘brain drain’ is contentious. Some claim that ‘brain circulation’ is a necessary and stimulating aspect of international learning and research, and that it benefits all. However, experience certainly shows that ‘brain drain’ and ‘brain gain’ hit different countries and regions unevenly.

As long as studies abroad are available, and as long as access to further studies and rewarding research is found more easily in the rich countries, there will be a flow of brainpower in that direction. One obvious way to reduce this tendency is to develop more attractive research environments and opportunities in the home countries. When offered a way to contribute to the development of their own country, researchers and scientists may be more willing to stay or return.

What I think merits serious discussion, is to what extent, if at all, the richer countries make policy objectives to recruit and retain the most talented students from developing countries. While brain drain used to be seen as a problem to be fought, it may for some now appear desirable.

The composition of the future education market is still far from clear. We do not know yet what will be the dominant mode of study. It may be study abroad, as today, or distance learning, by use of the Internet or by other means, where the provider delivers a service across the border without leaving home. The Internet does create new learning opportunities, but a fairly general experience seems to be that quality is harder to ensure without supplementary support locally.

So, to realise the full value of e-learning we must address some drawbacks: For instance an expensive and complicated technical infrastructure is necessary to build real competence through pure e-learning. And the absence of local competence-building is sometimes a problem, since course materials are generally developed and provided from abroad.

Allowing foreign education institutions to set up branches on national soil has the advantage of increasing capacity very quickly. It does, however, pose some serious questions related to sustainability. Most countries have an elite that is able and willing to pay for education under the quality stamp of a foreign university. Unless there is a real effort to include a significant national competence and a nationally-based learning and research environment, the net effect may be a crippling loss of revenue for local institutions.

Foreign institutions are forced to keep an eye on their balance sheet. They are free to come and go, and with shifting tides may choose to change or even to close down activities in any host country.

It is my view and the Norwegian view, that the established principle of long-term sustainable development must be applied to transnational education. As far as I can see, this does not conflict with a reasonable and sound business practice that every service provider has to follow. It may conflict, however, with pure profit goals as a higher priority than the established basic ideas of a sustainable global academic community.

The European Ministers of Education emphasised the idea of education as a collective responsibility in the “Berlin Communiqué”, as part of the “Bologna Process” when they decided to:

…reaffirm their position that higher education is a public good and a public responsibility … and …that in international academic cooperation and exchanges, academic values should prevail.

A number of consensus initiatives over the last few years have sought to confirm this principle of academic good practice in trade in education, and have left me feeling optimistic. Apart from the UNESCO Global Forums, carrying on the work after the World Conference on Higher Education, I’d like to mention the thorough reporting by the OECD on quality assurance and transnational education; the UNESCO resolution at its last General Conference, proposed by Norway, Iceland, Japan, Mozambique and Tanzania; and the OECD/UNESCO working-group on guidelines for quality provision in cross-border higher education.

Many countries are probably poorly equipped with structures and methods to protect students against low-quality institutions. Building competence also means addressing the need to build capacity in quality assurance. Countries should develop both institutions and legal instruments, and they need technical, academic and administrative competence to ensure the objective integrity of quality assessment.

Building research capacity, as I am convinced we have all experienced in our different countries, is long-term, painstaking work with no short-cuts leading to the high-quality research that we strive for. But there are tools.

Participation in the international research community is one necessary element, resources to fund national centres of excellence another.

Allow me briefly to describe one program run by Norway which aims to facilitate the transfer of research capacity to developing countries and to assist institutions in these countries in gaining access to the international community of learning:

It is called the NUFU programme of academic research and educational co-operation, and is based on equal partnerships between institutions in Norway and in the South. The objective is to promote mutually beneficial co-operation based on priorities by the institutions in the South. The element of institution-building is also very strong, and there are a number of examples that show lasting effects.

Co-operation in the fields of research and education also has an effect on political diversity and democracy. The co-operation gives Norwegian researchers access to experience and materials that both enhance and challenge academic perspectives and provide good conditions for the development of new perspectives.

Altogether almost 1000 Ph.D. and Master candidates from our partner countries have been educated under the NUFU programme since the start in 1991. In 2003, 235 candidates were in the process of finalising their education. In the same period almost 4000 publications have been published.

We are convinced that this kind of co-operation is a very effective tool in building national research capacity. In my view two aspects are essential to the success of the programme:

First, emphasis on priorities in the developing countries and on the equality of the partnerships ensures both relevance of activities and sustainability of the capacity in our partner countries.

Secondly, the funded activities are important to both partner institutions, rather than a one-way transfer of knowledge. Therefore there is a common interest in the quality of the projects and of the results.

Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude:

Transnational education provides important contributions to capacity building – one that many countries cannot do without. Our common task must be to ensure that this contribution has sustainable effects. We need guidelines and improved legal instruments as well as national capacity in all countries to steer transnational education in a direction that can benefit the interests and the education agenda of all.

I hope this Forum may contribute to the development of a common agenda for the future structures that can promote the overall ambition of the UN Millenium Goals. Education is a noble cause in many ways, but in addition to its inherent values it contributes to almost any other development agenda you may care to mention.

After all, if you take a lofty view what we want is simple: The eradication of poverty and a just world.

And again – thanks to the OECD, UNESCO and to Australia for organizing this conference and to you all for your attention!

Thank you!