Strategies for internationalisation at home by Academic Staff in the College of Education and External Studies

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to establish whether the academic staff are internationalised and the strategies the academic staff adopt to promote internationalization at home in the College of Education and External Studies. The study used a qualitative approach and specifically employed a case study design. It was carried out by administering interviews to purposively selected academic staff that included academic staff from the School of Education and School of Distance and Lifelong Learning; and document check of the strategic plan and relevant documents. The findings indicated that majority of the academic staff were internationalised because they had studied abroad, attended international conferences, workshops, use online teaching, benchmarked international curriculum and participated in joint international programs like projects. It was further discovered that although there were no individual strategies laid by the university to enable academic staff to promote internationalization at home, the academic staff implored a number of strategies to promote internationalization. These included online teaching, sharing notes with colleagues in international universities, learner centered approaches, benchmarking international curriculum and use of progressive assessment. It was therefore concluded that although the academic staff were not well conversant with internationalization at home as a dimension of internationalization, they employed a number of strategies which promoted internationalization at home. It is therefore recommended that the academic staff be sensitized on internationalization at home and the role they play in promoting it. The college should facilitate its academic staff to attend international conferences and workshops to enable them become internationalised. That the university provides adequate computers and well franchised classrooms and continuously review curricula to align it to international best practices; the university out to come out with clear individual strategies on internationalization at home.