OZ 2009/4

M T 131 ORGANIZACIJA ZNANJA 2009, LETN. 14, ZV. 4 that occur when ‘the teacher, student, programme, institution/provider or course materials cross national jurisdictional borders’. (UNESCO, 2006). CBHE can take different forms, ranging from branch campuses through franchises of universities offering courses abroad to eLearning. One example of a branch campus is the Nottingham University Campus in Malaysia. Another is EMUNI – the Euro-Mediterranean University located in Portorož, in Slovenia – a recent initiative to create an international university in Slovenia by bringing different Mediterranean institutions and academics together. EMUNI aims at strengthening a Euro-Mediterranean higher education area and contributing to inter-cultural dialogue. Cross-border providers can contribute usefully to capacity building at local level if they have adequate quality assurance mechanisms, realise the importance of local relevance, adopt the principles of dialogue, cooperation, and show recognition and respect for diversity and national sovereignty. To reinforce such practices and protect students from disreputable providers, UNESCO and OECD developed and disseminated 2005 Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border higher education mentioned earlier. Developed through a process that involved experts and representatives from 93 different countries, the Guidelines provide tools to enable different stakeholder groups to assure the quality and relevance of CBHE. One of the major obstacles to the expansion and acceptance of CBHE is low quality provision, the extreme example of which is degree mills. Degree mills or bogus institutions sell counterfeit or valueless diploma and degree certificates for money. Closely linked are accreditation mills that operators of degree mills create to give a spurious cover of legitimacy. Degree mills are an urgent problem for three reasons: • First, legitimate higher education institutions are not expanding fast enough to satisfy the growing demand in the developing world. Desperate students turn to degree mills either because they believe them to be legitimate or because, although they know them to be fraudulent, they believe they can pass off their phony diplomas to employers and universities without being found out. • Second, more students are studying at a distance with foreign providers while remaining at home. Degree mills try to present themselves as legitimate cross- border providers. • Third, the Internet is increasingly accessible in all corners of the globe. It gives degree mills the opportunity to present themselves impressively, at little cost, to a worldwide audience. One degree mill, for example, reproduced a photo of Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s birthplace, on its website, implying that this was its campus. Others use UNESCO’s logo or references to one of UNESCO’s programmes as a cloak of legitimacy. Degree mills misuse UNESCO’s name by making claims that range from 100 % false to not quite untrue. They use various tricks to create a false connection or misrepresent a real link with UNESCO in order to give the impression that their outfit is internationally recognised. One institution may use several different tricks. These institutions mutate rapidly. Let me give you some examples. One degree mill invited you to verify its bona fides by corresponding with the Embassy of Liberia in Washington. Or you could call the phone number of the Director of Higher Education at UNESCO. They hope that you won’t! Another body calls itself the Educational Accreditation Association and says that its accredited institutions accept and adopt "The Recommendations of the World Conference on Higher Education, sponsored by UNESCO", and the applicable sections of the "UNESCO Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education". It also provides web links to UNESCO and WHO. INTERNATIONALISATION OF QUALITY ASSURANCE Fortunately, the expansion quality assurance, another new trend identified at the 2009 WCHE, provides some protection against spurious providers. Moreover the internationalization of quality assurance is a response to the growing policy challenges facing higher education systems and institutions as a consequence of the trends identified above, such as private higher education, cross-border higher education, mobility and migration, eLearning and Open and Distance Learning, and the growing role of the Internet. UNESCO has prepared the ground for this process of internationalization through the standard setting tools that were highlighted at the WCHE. These are the Conventions for the Recognition of Degrees; and the 2005 Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Provision of Higher Education.