4 April 1995 Lincoln Backs Internationalisation With Action

Internationalisation at Lincoln University gets added emphasis this year with the institution holding its first ever overseas graduation ceremony.

The venue is Malaysia, a choice of location which reflects the high proportion (over 40 percent) of Malaysians among Lincoln’s overseas students. However, the ceremony is open to all international graduands and it is hoped that it will be a focus for those from a range of Asian countries. The ceremony is scheduled for 29 August, in Kuala Lumpur.

The move is another in a number of initiatives which highlight Lincoln University’s commitment to global education and the injection of an international perspective to its teaching.

An emphatic move in this direction last year saw the start of Lincoln teaching one of its degrees on an overseas campus. The site is the training institute campus of the Malaysian electricity supply company Tenaga Nasional Berhad, near Kuala Lumpur. Almost 100 students are enrolled there studying for a Lincoln University Bachelor of Commerce and Management degree. For the first three years of the degree programme the students study at Tenaga, then the fourth year is completed in New Zealand.

Add to this the 1993 establishment of an International Centre at Lincoln specifically focused on the overseas promotion of the University's educational excellence – as well as looking after the welfare and progress of international students when they arrive on campus – and you have a picture of an outward-looking, progressive university in tune with global developments.

Another move indicative of Lincoln’s outward vision was the signing earlier this year of an agreement with the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand.

This "memorandum of understanding" between the university and polytechnic is aimed at enhancing student access to both institutions internationally as well as domestically.

"Global trends in education are towards networking and the acquisition of an 'international education'," said agreement signatories Bruce Ross, Lincoln’s Vice­ Chancellor and Shona Butterfield, Chief Executive Officer of the Open Polytechnic.

"Propelled by the information technology revolution, this networking provides pathways for students between institutions and across nations. By positioning ourselves on this network with distance education capabilities, we become very attractive internationally as education providers.

"In order to compete in today's world, New Zealand must develop open learning systems that link into the emerging global network," they said, "and Lincoln University and the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand are now taking that step forward together."

Complementing Lincoln’s work in Asia, such as the degree programme at Tenaga Nasional Berhad and the graduation ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, the University is now reaffirming and expanding its long-standing links with South America. A mission from Lincoln's International Centre recently visited Colombia, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil, and found without exception an enthusiastic awareness of New Zealand and of Lincoln University.

In Chile, for example, International Centre Director Geoff Ormandy says there was great interest in international education.

"The Chilean institutions and the Chilean government are looking for partners for training and development purposes and there is an awareness of both New Zealand as a country and the quality of our education system which will form an excellent foundation for partnerships.

"There is considerable potential for all New Zealand universities to benefit from partnerships in Chile," he says.

Who knows ... years down the track Lincoln could be holding graduation ceremonies in the Americas as well as in Asia! One thing is certain – the University's commitment to internationalisation is opening up all sorts of new academic and geographic challenges!

Ian Collins, Journalist/Information Officer, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.