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Internationalisation of the curriculum: international approaches and

perspectives

Betty Leask, Jos Beelen and Loveness Kaunda

Introduction

Internationalisation in higher education includes international, intercultural and global
domains. It is concerned with issues associated with relationships between nations, cultures

and countries and the diversity of cultures that exist within countries, communities and
institutions. It has a worldwide scope (Knight 2004). It is a process requiring ongoing and
continuing effort (de Wit 2012). Internationalisation of the curriculum covers all three

domains of internationalisation, is an essential component of the internationalisation agenda
of higher education institutions. It is also a process and it too has a worldwide scope,

although it may look different in different disciplines, in different regions, in different nations
and in different institutions. It is highly context dependant (Leask & Bridge 2013). Despite
this, several common themes have emerged in the literature on internationalisation of the

curriculum in the past 25 years. In this chapter we explore these themes and approaches to
and interpretations of internationalisation of the curriculum across the world. The chapter
then concludes with a brief discussion of some possible future directions and priorities in the

global agenda around internationalisation of the curriculum.

Common themes

There is an ongoing scholarly global conversation on internationalisation of the curriculum, of
which this chapter is but one small part. Rationales and drivers for internationalisation of the

curriculum vary across nations and regions and have changed over time. Different types of
activities have been emphasised in different contexts at different times and a diversity of

beliefs about and approaches to internationalization of the curriculum are evident. The
concept and the practices associated with internationalisation of the curriculum continue to
evolve. However, a number of common themes are evident in the global conversation

around internationalisation of the curriculum. These are not discrete. Rather they are
interconnected and related.

1. Preparing graduates for a globalised world
The rationale for internationalisation of the curriculum has been repeatedly associated with

preparing graduates to live and work locally in a globalised world. This is not a recent
phenomenon. It was twenty years ago that Harari (1992) connected internationalisation of
the curriculum with the need to prepare graduates for “the highly interdependent and

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