Cross-Border Providers of Higher Education
	Dynamic changes worldwide are altering traditional concepts of higher education. In particular, the growth of new information technologies, the prospective liberalization of trade in educational services and the emergence of various forms of borderless or transnational education have posed new challenges to governments, institutions, policy-makers, educators and students. Nation-states are no longer the sole providers of higher education and the education community no longer holds the monopoly on provision of education.

 

UNESCO’s challenge as a response to these developments is to provide a structured agenda and offer an international policy frameworks for dealing with globalisation and higher education, reconciling the interests of national governments, the traditional public higher education sector, for-profit providers, the needs of students and the general public interest. The Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications was launched to meet this challenge. Activities in 2003 include: • The development of the UNESCO Guidelines on Responsible Partnerships between cross-border higher education, business and society; • Research on and data about the impact of transborder higher education on access to higher education.