CHEF: How do Danish universities "internationalize" in the current policy context (6 May 2019)
Channel: Centre for Higher Education Futures, Aarhus University
Date: 26/11/2020

Susan Wright and Hanne Adriansen from Aarhus University present the Danish government’s policy to cut numbers of ‘English speaking students’ and the way it had been implemented.

Following index is bookmarking some parts of the discussion in which different attendees present their arguments:
 
00:45:50 The Taxpayer argument - not paying for Romanians 

00:46:25 New Europe with common walls, not concrete but still Trumpian  

00:47:15 Students with previous education are a free gift to Denmark  

00:48:40 Teaching AEG with international students allows for cross-cultural comparison, it’s a great pedagogical tool and it yields better results than it does in the Danish programme

00:50:11 Students who are married to Danes are staying in Denmark and want to contribute to the country but according to the ministry’s definition, they included in the category of  English-speaking, not Danish, students.

00:51:10 Ethnic minorities within Denmark struggle to thrive in a Danish context which is not as inclusive or questioning of what is taken for granted. International settings allow for different identities, more so than Danish spaces.  

00:53:50 Companies are struggling to maintain skilled laborers, it is an economic problem that more students do not stay on and work in Denmark. 

00:54:15 Highly educated migrants often want to stay here but changing immigration laws make it difficult for them to stay, and policies do not support staying because they have little access to the labour market  

00:55:32 How do you internationalize the Danish labour market? It’s blamed on universities.

00:57:40 Language schools are also in trouble as a result of this policy.

00:58:35 People feel so alienated and have such a hard time integrating within the Danish society that they move away because it is difficult to become a part of the systems 

00:59:28 Stereotypes about Eastern Europeans may not be true - Scandinavian students who don’t need to prove their language skills are most likely to leave and take advantage of grants and loans and never repay them 

01:00:53 How do you get incoming students if there is no availability for English places in Danish universities? Difficulties in creating partnerships with other universities because of the unevenness in the process 

01:04:00 What happens to international staff if their teaching has been cut?  

01:12:00 Ministry: There are still a couple hundred programs in English in Denmark 

01:13:03 Before there was no chance of teaching in English in Danish programs, now they changed the policy so up to 49.9% could be in a different language 

01:14:40 Numbers were given to each university and each university made their decision where to make the cuts. They had to do so in a short period of time given by the government  

01:15:25 AU cut whole programs/ CBS cut a little across all programmes so it doesn’t affect any particular program 

01:16:35 Making the category of an ‘English-language student’ was a technical issue, “it was not made in order to exclude them, it’s an analytical thing”

01:20:25 The calculation of numbers to cut was based on which English-speaking students were attending courses that ended up in low-income jobs 

01:21:00 “Deinternationalization” initiative was taken after a period with a high level of internationalization, the growth was major over the last few years and now it has slowed down a little bit 

01:21:35 Grants went from close to 0 to 500 mil DKK, “Denmark has a generous system” especially for international students, acknowledges there are technical difficulties 

01:22:40 This initiative was not meant to prevent specific people from specific countries from coming, this meant to reduce seats in English-students programs and it affected both Danish and English-speaking students 

01:23:40 We are not talking about the content of these courses, we’re not just talking about numbers - have we internationalized in the right way? How do we make sure that we take advantage of these international students, it’s easy to do in AEG but how to make sure  

01:24:50 Student: why don’t we try to improve the staying of students? Collaborate with local companies to get to students staying 

01:25:35 Background - result of 2003 reform when universities were given the mandate to internationalize 

01:26:21 Innovation centres were set up around the world – Danish attachés have been appointed in China and India to link companies and research from Denmark with those parts of the world 

01:27:30 Self-paying students are not in the numbers, but they are in reality because they can’t come either because there are no English courses 

01:28:07 Students and research are tied to one another, they help create international connections 

01:30:15 We need to internationalize - it’s not that we don’t want you here, we want you here longer 

01:30:30 English medium courses don’t just stand on their own - AU’s model should be taken as an example