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Enayat A. Shabani is director of international affairs and development at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). He is in charge of Office of International Student Admissions, Office of International Marketing and Recruitment, Office of International Development Studies, Office of ISS & Consular Affairs and TUMS Secretariat of Curriculum Internationalization. He is a founding member of Education IRAN (An Interuniversity Project for the Internationalization of Higher Education in Iran). Enayat was the director of the International Journal of Women Research at University of Tehran in 2010-2011. He was also a member of the University of Tehran English Gatekeeping Test (UTEGT) Development Board in 2009. His research interests include language and linguistics, and he also has several publications on internationalization of higher education.
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Higher education worldwide no longer works through isolated societies and communities. The trend of internationalization of higher education is now a dominant approach throughout the world. Numerous countries and thousands of higher education institutes have implemented plans to move towards internationalization in different aspects of higher education. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the close competition between institutes of different levels and rankings, it can prove difficult for single universities and institutes to achieve their desired results, particularly when the competition occurs between entities of more developed countries (at least in terms of higher education) and those of developing nations. In this case, a more centralized support system, preferably rooted in governmental initiatives in the initial stages, can become critical: a support system which covers many aspects such as operationalization of activities, financial incentives, strategic planning, monitoring, etc. Moreover, a highly valuable and essential feature of internationalization is that this process, contrary to what the concept of globalization prescribes, respects and holds in high regard the sovereignty of nations and their sociocultural values.
Thus, although it aims to bring institutes into an international context, the main background and sociocultural features and values of home countries shall be taken into account. The two reasons mentioned above call for a more centralized and concentrated grand program of internationalization which encourage and guide internationalization schemes of smaller scales. To answer this call, some countries, including Iran, have either recognized or addressed the need for this centralized approach by establishing or taking the preliminary steps to develop national programs which are responsible, inter alia, for monitoring and enhancing the performance of their countries’ institutes of higher education towards realizing a truly internationalized setting. Organizations of this nature can assist universities and higher education institutes in various areas of operation including strategic planning, student recruitment, curriculum internationalization and development, quality assurance and accreditation, international relations, student and staff mobility, and international marketing.
The present paper discusses the need for establishing a Centralized National Internationalization Program (CNIP) and the necessary steps through which such an enterprise can be fulfilled.
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