Internationalisation at South African universities: The role of a central international office

Abstract

The central international office plays a critical role in a university's internationalisation process. Universities around the world have responded to the challenges of globalisation in various ways. One of the responses has been to internationalise the campuses. Internationalisation is now a high priority on most university campuses around the world, including South Africa. Many South African universities have not developed effective and efficient internal administrative organisational structures to enable them to address the current internationalisation challenges. How should South African universities develop internal structures to internationalise their campuses? Drawing from the U.S. experience, the article discusses two approaches commonly used to organise international activities--decentralisation and centralisation. It argues that there is a movement toward centralisation of international activities on many university campuses. The article suggests that South African universities should consider centralisation as the administrative organisational approach for their international activities.
South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 19(6) 2005: 1108-1119