International curriculum transfer in geography in higher education: an example

Abstract

Internationalization of geography in higher education comes in many guises. This paper discusses some of these, with particular attention to curriculum development and transfer. The context is Bangladesh and a case study is presented of a link programme between three higher education institutions in that country and one in the UK. The British Council funded project INSPIRE provided funding and organizational support for a project that lasted 4 years and enabled 22 staff visits from Bangladesh to the UK and 6 in the other direction. As a result, curricula of 43 teaching modules in the general area of environmental hazard and risk, environmental change and climate change have been initiated or revised. While this type of transnational knowledge transfer has its drawbacks, we argue that there are specific circumstances in which it can work.

Keywords::

• internationalization
• curriculum development
• Bangladesh

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the staffs of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar, IUB and Durham from Departments of Geography and Anthropology, whose cooperation and investment of time made this project possible. The British Council are acknowledged for their generous grant and their sustained interest in our progress.

Notes

^1.http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/10/02/the-politics-of-international-education/; http://www.hesa.ac.uk

^2.http://www.obhe.ac.uk/what_we_do/Going_Global.7e.26_March._Lasanowski.pdf; http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story = 20120802130423710&query = fees

^3.http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/; http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2012

^4.http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/inlt/

^5.http://www.aag.org/cs/cgge

^6.http://www.igu-cge.org/

^7.http://www.herodot.net/index.html

^8.http://www.unesco.org/en/university-twinning-and-networking/inter-university-cooperation/

^9. A full list is provided by the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh: http://www.ugc.gov.bd