Internationalisation and education hubs : The case of Singapore

Education hubs are the third generation of cross-border education and can be characterized as a strategically planned internationalisation in education (Knight, 2011). The article focuses on the case of the education hub in Singapore and the strategies and reforms that were introduced through the Global Schoolhouse project. Initiated in 1998, the government-led Global Schoolhouse project was an engine of transformation into an education hub by introducing market driven education reforms in the context of state-controlled education governance in Singapore. Thus, the education hub in Singapore has been created with strong government leadership giving way to other higher education stakeholders in the process of higher education system steering. There is a very strong economic rationale underpinning education policies in Singapore. The process of developing an education hub in Singapore however, encountered multiple challenges and setbacks that could be recognised as consequences of the neoliberal orientation of the education policies. The article finds that the transformation into an education hub was characterized by five governance processes: privatization, competition, decentralization, corporatization and internationalisation.