Perspectives and approaches to internationalization of higher education

The turn of the new century witnessed a paradigm shift in economic and political philosophy that has changed the face of the world. Conventional frame work fostering isolation and economic restraint, protectionism and self-centredness has given way to economic liberalism, permissiveness and collectivism. The world started looking at the immense opportunity of ‘transacting trade without barriers.’ The fallout of this has been quite impressive that it has made foot prints in education also. In the context of globalization, education has become yet another means of serving political and economic goals. Whereas students across the globe took it as an opportunity for expanding their academic aspirations to gain the benefit of vast expanse of knowledge in potentially vibrant cultures, and advance their learning in tandem with the ambience of diverse peer group and scholarly academia of reputed universities, nations began to encash upon this opportunity by proactively creating conducive environment for such ambitious expeditions of foreign students, what we refer to as internationalization in Higher Education. This paper aims to revisit our approach to understanding internationalization through conceptualising models. The goals and philosophy of various dominant models of internalization and key features the models are discussed.