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Priority 2: Preparing students to be members of an interconnected world community

Internationalisation of the curriculum is concerned with preparation for life as a citizen as well

as life as a professional. It should not just be about training for the performance demands of
professional practice in a globalised world (Mestenhauser 1998; Barnett 2000; Rizvi and

Lingard 2010). It should also prepare students to be ethical and responsible citizens; human
and social beings in this globalised world. A number of scholars call for such an approach
with urgency. Bennett (2003) argues that the development of global souls who “see

themselves as members of a world community, knowing that they share the future with
others” should be at the heart of education (p. 13). Nussbaum (2010) argues that the
recognition of fellow citizens as having equal rights regardless of difference in race, gender,

religion, sexuality, concern for the lives of others and the ability to imagine well and see
one’s own nation and life as part of a complicated world order are important skills in a
globalised world. Rizvi and Lingard (2010) urge us to move away from the dominant

neoliberal imaginary towards a new and blended imaginary which “recognizes that students
are social and cultural beings as well as economic ones” and the need to develop their ability

to think locally, nationally and globally (p.201). This curriculum would “seek to work with a
different moral sense of people’s situatedness in the world’” (Rizvi and Lingard, 2010,
p.201).

However, when a programme is accredited by a local external professional body the

requirements of professional practice frequently dominate the curriculum. Academic staff will
frequently argue that the curriculum is too full to do anything other than fulfil the
requirements of the accreditation bodies upon which they depend for academic survival. In

this situation developing students’ capacities to meet the moral responsibilities of an
increasingly connected world, in which the benefits of globalisation are not equally shared,
may be disregarded.

It is important to achieve the right balance in the higher education curriculum between the
local and the global; between training students to work locally in a globalised world and

educating them as ethical and responsible human beings and social actors in this world. This
is an important priority for the future.

Priority 3: Assessing the development of intercultural competence

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