Reimagining Border in Cross-border Education

Universities are inherently and definitionally universal in their quest for the creation and dissemination of knowledge. They are set to defy borders that exist in parochial forms. Globalization which opened up borders has by design or default created inequalities and imbalances in knowledge systems. Undoubtedly, knowledge is power but there is difference in the power that is intrinsic to it and the power that is ascribed which is determined by dominant political and economic hierarchies.

If knowledge predominantly flows from global north to global south, people seeking knowledge move from global south to global north. These imbalances are also seen within these regions, between cultures and communities, one claiming superiority over the other. These realities call for a reassessment of not only what constitutes knowledge, but also what encompasses the idea of borders.

This book elaborates on the inclusive role of education that can act as an equalizer or as a catalyst for creating a level playing field across borders.

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Neeta Inamdar is Professor and Head of the Manipal Centre for European Studies (MCES), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal. She was instrumental in establishing MCES in 2009 and since then, has led it through the years to make it a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence that offers the only master’s program in European Studies in India. Though interested in various aspects of the European economy, society, and culture, she is more drawn toward education in Europe―both school and higher education as reflected in the projects led by her in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and Bologna Process and Internationalization of Higher Education. She believes in people-to-people “connect” as a means for peaceful coexistence and focuses on research on the educational connect between India and Europe. She has been a recipient of the Jean Monnet module (2014-2017) and Jean Monnet Chair (2017-2020). She was instrumental in the formation of the Association of European Studies in India (AESI) and is presently the Secretary of AESI.

Pranjali Kirloskar is lecturer at Manipal Centre for European Studies, MAHE. She has worked on her doctoral thesis in the area of the internationalization of higher education. Presently, she teaches modules of Education, Globalization and Society, Educational Strategic Planning and Management, International Education, Inclusiveness in Education, and others. She is also the Coordinator for the Centre for Education Research at MAHE. She closely works with the partner universities in Europe, Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility Programmes as well as facilitates student and staff mobility at the Department. Pranjali, as a recipient of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship, studied at Leiden University for the academic year 2014-2015 as an exchange student during her master’s degree in European Studies.