On March 7, Professor Jane Knight of Toronto University gave a lecture “International Program and Provider Mobility; New Developments and Challenges” for our faculty members and staffs at International Conference Room at Yotsuya Campus. As a leading expert on internationalization of higher education, she introduced the global trend relating tp the topic as well as a new approach “International Program & Provider Mobility (IPPM)” and its tasks. Having been a longstanding supporter of Sophia University through research exchanges as well as in presenting symposiums, she also serves as our Advisory Board member established for third party to assess globalization of Sophia University. While she is visiting to attend its meeting, this lecture realized aiming to enlight faculty members and staffs in order to bring further progress on globalization of Sophia University.

In the lecture Professor Knight introduced the current trend, diversification of internalization of higher education at first. In receiving international education the proportion of student mobility is much lower than expected, she mentioned. Instead she introduced the fact that numbers of franchised programs, branch institutions or international joint university has rapidly increased in the recent years in providing international education. She also addressed the fact that as for England, the country high in demand for those who wish to study abroad, the data shows more than 50% of students stayed in their own country to receive its education.

Professor Knight has been doing extensive researches on such an increasing trend of educational programs or providers moving between countries positioning such an approach as “International Program & Provider Mobility (IPPM)”. IPPM is significant in making international education widely available for students worldwide however she also addressed remaining issues to be considered such as the program quality assurance, the responsibility of accreditation and the settling of its cost. After the lecture eager questions and suggestions gathered from our faculty members and staffs showing high interests toward such a topic.