Current Initiatives on Internationalization of Education in Selected Higher Education Institutions in the Philippines

This study intended to describe the institutional initiatives of the selected Higher Education Institutions‟ (HEIs) key informants in preparation for the internationalization of education. Further, it would provide insights and baseline data to HEIs in line with implementation of this academic endeavour. In-depth interviews were conducted to the key informants such as university presidents, deans, department chairs for pertinent data collection. Aside from in-depth interviews, researchers„ observations and naturalistic inquiries served as instruments for data gathering. Further, documents such as articles and newspaper clips served as additional sources of data. Triangulation was used in the study to cross-check the researchers‟ observations, key informants‟ interview responses and articles/documents from newspaper clippings. Findings indicated that there were some HEI administrators who were proactive, reactive and passive towards internationalization of education. Among the three core functions of HEIs, instruction had relatively more international initiatives to include invitations of resource speakers on current trends and pedagogies, faculty and student mobility and curriculum realignment based on international frameworks. Research initiatives were geared towards international publication, capability building and involvement in international conferences and fora for some faculty researchers. On community service, HEIs’ initiatives were yet into local community service but slowly building up partnerships through international linkages.

Keywords – content analysis, institutional initiatives, internationalization of education, triangulation,