Asia, at present, is undergoing a great change in the education industry. Starting with the decline in higher education enrollments in the late 1990s, it is highly significant that in this current decade there is increasing penetration of international universities in Asia. According to a study conducted by the British Council, in 2012, there is a growing population of international students at higher education institutions in Malaysia, China, India, Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia. This trend, according to British Council analysts, is a clear indication of a major shift in the balance of global students from West to East.
The impact of Transnational Education (TNE) on the growth of online degree programs in Asia is very significant in the number of universities adopting online learning and distance education today. This is also clearly manifested in various publications, surveys and reports from leading research companies around the world. To gain a better understanding of how online programs have become pervasive in many Asian higher education institutions (HEIs) today, it is practical for us to examine some of the notable events that occurred in the tertiary education market in Asia during the last decades.
pre-internet period
In the early 2000s, Internet penetration in many Asian nations has been significantly low. Even today, developing countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, still lag behind other countries in terms of information and communication technology infrastructure development. According to a 2012 article published by Pearson Asia Pacific, in Cambodia the internet penetration rate was only 0.5%, while in Indonesia it was only 10.5%. According to a blog article published by The Australian, in 2011, Internet penetration in China and India was 40% and 10% respectively. Therefore, the growth of online programs in these regions is constrained by poor Internet accessibility. This technological circumstance also made many Asian countries dependent on text-based teaching programs and traditional face-to-face classroom meetings for years.
Post-Internet Period and the Rise of Open Universities
The rapid rise of mobile and internet technology seen between 2005 and 2011 introduced new educational markets across Asia. Through funding from national governments and private institutions, new campuses, virtual universities, and learning centers have sprung up like mushrooms across the Asian region. Online and distance learning (ODL) providers have become particularly dominant in South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, countries with great advances in Internet technology. Many analysts considered these improvements in Internet technology a “quantum leap” for many ODL providers.
In Malaysia, around 85,000 students took online degree courses in 2011. South Korea increased its enrollment in web-based classes to more than 112,000 students in the same year. In 2010, about 1.64 million people in China enrolled in various online courses provided through online media.
Open universities, in particular, pioneered distance learning programs in Asia. Major open universities that initially offered online degree programs included Asia e University (Malaysia), Korea National Open University (South Korea), Indira Gandhi Open University (India), and Central Radio and Television University (China).
The wave of mobile students
According to the 2012 study of global higher education by the British Council, in 2010 international students enrolling in UK degrees abroad outnumbered international students on land (or in the UK). This was completely the opposite of the situation during the period 1985-2008, where more than 50% of Asian students were studying abroad, particularly in North America and Western Europe. In Malaysia, there were around 58,000 international students enrolled in degree programs on campus and online in 2010. China, on the other hand, reported 71,700 international students enrolled in the same year.
The rise of MOOCs and global alliances
New ways of learning online courses have triggered explosive enrollment growth at many HEIs in Asia. Growth in the number of TNE students taking online courses was significant in Southeast Asian nations as of 2011. TNE, as defined by the British Council, is “providing or carrying out distance education, twinning programs , branch campuses and franchise agreements”. TNE enrollments in India, China, and Indonesia are projected to experience significant growth through 2020, representing 7.1 million, 5.1 million, and 2.3 million students in the respective countries.
What will trigger this huge growth in online course enrollment is the increasing number of Western institutions engaging with Asian universities for franchising, joint or double degrees, and eLearning or distance learning, including Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). . Related to this, the online degree programs offered by these Asian universities will continue to grow until 2020, according to analysts.