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For the full story, see"New Private Universities in Kuwait Pin Their Hopes on U.S. Partners" by Andrew Mills is available at: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i37/37a02401.htm

PROPHE Observation:

The development of international academic partnerships is not new, but this article highlights two important aspects of this growing trend.  First, governments are increasingly using institutions from foreign nations to help grow their domestic private higher education sector, with many countries actively encouraging such international arrangements.  In most cases there is reliance by the importing nation on an external form of quality assurance, such as a foreign accreditation agency or a ranking system.  Kuwait takes this relationship a step further by not only requiring partnerships, but also insisting the foreign institution act formally as a quality surrogate (and relying on international rankings as a testament to quality). Although UNUSUAL in this respect (Oman has required similar arrangements), the broader outcome of quickly establishing a robust private sector to meet capacity demands corresponds with the experiences of other countries. Second, the article provides evidence of the diversity of organizational structures being used in these international arrangements.  In the case of Kuwait, the structures appear to range from aggressive to passive involvement of the international collaborator.  For example, the University of Maastricht Business School and Box Hill Institute established branch campuses and assume responsibility for daily operations.  At the other end of the spectrum, the University of Missouri at St. Louis has adopted an advisory role, providing assistance to the local collaborator, but not playing an active role in the operations of the domestic institution.  These endeavors are so new that a dominant organizational form has yet to emerge and more research is needed about outcomes of how these international collaborations are structured.

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