Dr. Andrea Lane
GlobalEd Visiting Faculty
Dr Andrea Lane is currently a Technical Advisor to the Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA). Previously, she was Assistant Professor in Business Management and Director of Enterprise at Herriot-Watt University Dubai and Assistant Professor in Entrepreneurship at the University of Nottingham Ningbo (China). Her research interests focus on the intersection of innovation management, entrepreneurship, and professional learning and leadership in the context of higher education. She has extensive work experience in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. Qualifications include a PhD from Newcastle University (UK), a Master's in Education from the University of Bath (UK), and a Master's in East Asian Studies from the University of Bristol (UK). She is the Regional Editor (Africa) for the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education.
Kenya in Focus
Dr. Lane will be heading up a research project for GlobalEd focused on internationalization of higher education in Kenya.
Altbach, Reisberg & Rumbley (2009: 7) asserted that it is not possible for higher education to opt out of the global environment of higher education, and recent initiatives over the past two decades have been implemented to support the internationalization of African higher education with the world. Knight (2008:21) defines internationalization as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of higher education at the institutional and national levels”. As such, internationalization is not an end but a means to improving the quality of research, teaching, and other services of higher education. Following this definition, Söderqvist (2007:210) distinguishes five stages of internationalization of higher education, which suggests that internationalization requires wider changes in higher education, including policy changes, organizational restructuring, curricular and teaching methods modification, and so on (Leask, 2009; Ge, 2022).
This study takes an institutional perspective exploring how Kenyan universities are institutionalizing and localizing international education. Informed by Söderqvist’s (2007) five stages of internationalization, the study explores the current state of internationalization in Kenya, the key stakeholders, and the challenges and opportunities for internationalization of higher education in Kenya. This study is based on graphic-mediated interviews with academic leaders (vice-chancellors and managers tasked with internationalization) and critical analysis of secondary literature, including university strategic plans.
By situating internationalization in the current efforts to decolonize higher education in Africa, the study’s findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of internationalization away from internationalization as “a Westernized, largely Anglo-Saxon” concept (Jones & de Wit, 2021: 35).