| dc.description.abstract | This master thesis is based upon my interest in intemationalisation in higher
education. The ministry of higher education conducted an evaluation of the 2004
Quality Reform in Norwegian higher education in 2006. This evaluation put
emphasis on the change of conception within the term intemationalisation in
higher education.
Until 2006 the emphasis on intemationalisation was on the number of students
on exchanges, but after the evaluation the focus changed. The Ministry of
Higher Education moved the focus away from intemationalisation as a goal in
itself towards a mean to achieve higher quality in all activities within higher
education. This change of focus within official policy also led to that higher
education institutions in Norway had to change their ways ofthinking regarding
intemationalisation.
My master thesis's main aim is to show what the higher education institutions
use as tools to implement new official policy within the organisations.
Throughout my thesis I have used organisational theory with structural, cultural
and symbolic perspectives to examine the chosen institutions. The higher
education institutions I have required my information base from, all have
different starting points when it comes to intemationalisation, some ofthem
already had good structures for their intemationalisation strategies while others
where in the midst of reorganising their structures.
The main challenge for all the chosen institutions was to give examples on the
cultural changes within the framework of intemationalisation, but then again,
first you build the structures and then you create a new culture around them.
I am aware of the fact that the higher education institutions still are in an early
stage of implementing new official policy with regards to intemationalisation
according to the new focus that occurred shortly after the evaluation in 2006.
However, some ofthe institutions already integrated intemationalisation as part
of increasing quality within all aspects of higher education just after the Quality
reform in 2004. Still, severai higher education institutions have a long way to go
before they may say that they have fulfilled the new requirements from the
Ministry of higher Education. | en_US |
