There is a storage shed in Mornington packed to the roof with recordings. It includes a box of VHS tapes and cassettes (remember those?) from focus groups in the late 90’s for Cisco, who wanted to know whether there was potential for a private Cisco university in Asia.
The Asian economic crisis, the dot.com crash and the evolution of rankings and regulations put paid to that particular notion. But the results showed that industry needs and education supply are inextricably linked. Cisco identified that being both an IT powerhouse and IT education provider would strengthen its global footprint.
In examining the motives for Cisco, we need to be cognisant of the dynamics at the time. The use of new technologies across every sector was escalating at a meteoric rate. The demand for access to these technologies, called for an enormous pool of talent with the necessary skills and competencies to apply them in vastly different settings around the world. Therefore, ensuring an ongoing supply of Cisco-ready graduates gave a distinct product advantage over competing suppliers.
It was a radical concept. Building in-house programmes for specific sectors in conjunction with universities was a recognised trend, and one which was a pillar for many Business and Engineering Schools. But to what extent would an industry and university partnership, one which would have created IT education pathways throughout the region, have challenged what we knew then as TNE?
In its most recognised form, TNE is largely seen as a collaborative arrangement between education partners, with a particular emphasis upon Higher Education studies in various co-delivery forms. Even so, industry has also been actively engaged in co-education delivery in other ways, given that for corporations, there is significant value in leveraging education to build brand loyalty, create new opportunities, accelerate specialised learnings and enable future outcomes.
In Global North economies, industry has been a long-term sponsor of education per se, particularly through in-school programmes, such as the promotion of branded awards and competitions. And now the likes of Lego and Microsoft are building strong traction across Global South schools.
The objectives of many corporations through their schools engagement, mirrors the brand loyalty approaches of the soft drink- and cosmetic companies mid-last century, who famously used their brands as early loss leaders to maximise future lifelong spend.
Since the early 2000’s, corporate MNCs have universally entered into strategic alliances with universities, research centres and business advisories, to build specialist education content relevant to their sector and corporate needs. Such programmes often reflect the issues of the day, such as cyber-fraud, biosecurity, big data analytics, identity theft and the latest trend, AI.
These MNCs have also reprioritised the attributes and expectations of the graduates they seek. The reasons include changing workplace cultures, more flexible employment conditions, shifting social and behavioural attitudes, lifestyle value settings, specialist workplace needs and the importance of such qualities as communications, enterprise, social licence, recognition and reward.
Consequently, attributes associated with graduate portability, meaning the ability to work within diverse settings, locations and roles, can today be viewed as a higher priority than those associated with the more linear global mobility alternative.
In terms of future graduate preparedness, many corporations can rightly consider themselves as ideally positioning to contribute to the qualities needed for changing workplace cultures, industry settings, technology enabled environments, and the opportunity to rapidly apply sector, role and location portability skills.
Industry is at the forefront of the most topical headline issues of today, from security to AI. Corporations have prioritised the acquisition of specialist knowledge and expertise to ensure capacity in these types of critical areas. As education content providers they can offer exposure to real-world scenarios and access to their workforce engaged at the forefront of new technologies and innovations. And with a depth of accessible talent, and given the challenges of retaining talent, they can utilise education as a vehicle to access those who are the ‘best of the best’.
Playing a frontline role in the delivery of curriculum, gives corporations an opportunity to identify and cherry-pick unique capabilities and establish direct recruitment channels, without the need to always involve external partners. The cost of delivery can far outweigh the costs of expensive recruitment practices.
The movement of industry into education content delivery, indicates that TNE will need to co-exist with other co-delivery options, where the motives may not reflect the pedagogical priorities of established education providers. For example, for corporations’ access to a pool of talent that possesses the requisite values, capabilities and informed knowledge they need, represents a specific and tangible ROI.
There are also behavioural considerations impacting education choices that are relevant to this conversation. Today a large proportion of working professional’s step-in and step-out of education as they transition between different industries and roles. Formal qualifications from established providers can appear less attractive than the combination of immediacy and relevance which an industry-focussed provider is better equipped to deliver.
In addition, the types of subject matter expertise sought by industry and working professionals alike, is often associated with possibly lesser standing but more relevant credentials and hybrid delivery formats. The appeal of industry in this space is that corporations represent less complex approval processes, recognised areas of specialisation and the ability to apply current real-world scenarios within the curriculum; a combination of attributes which have a unique attraction for those who seek education as applied workplace knowledge with an immediate ROI.
For the next decade at least, there will be a core TNE market founded upon students whose choice factors, whether self and / or family, are based around access into a combination of universities, courses and locations.
However, even at post-secondary school level social behaviours and technology access are creating a more immediacy-based audience. These will ultimately lead to a cohort of highly capable students who will inherently possesses many of the core traditional qualities which university curriculum has traditionally provided, and who are therefore opting instead to bi-pass traditional studies and ‘hit the ground running’ in other ways.
The international education sector may still look at TNE as a vehicle to attract fee-paying international students through various access and mobility options. But with home country capacity growth, improving choices and quality, and improved access, the option to augment home country options through foreign university access pathways, may no longer be the career panacea.
At the same time, we need to change the vernacular from Global Mobility to Global Portability. This is how corporations think, given the appeal of graduates who possess global perspectives, flexible workplace capabilities and applied specialist knowledge. Workplace capability and flexibility is no longer about adapting to a movement between places, but about transitional and influential change between locations, industries, roles and applications.
In a few years, more collaborative and market-driven education options will emerge in response to demand. Never before has the market been more receptive to accessing non-education providers, specifically corporations, with a shared commitment to the delivery of informed and workplace relevant knowledge. TNE will soon have a new co-delivery partner. TNI.
