Editorial

A vignette. A springboard

“Sometimes a fascinating conversation takes place in very unexpected ways. Sometimes a chat with a total stranger turns out to be some food for thought or an inspiration you are looking for. … No one would know that the conversation I (Phan Le Ha) – one of the guest editors – was about to have with a stranger passenger, while waiting at the airport in Manila for my connecting flight, would be a perfect start for this Editorial.

‘I am so glad you started the conversation, and I would love to write about it in this Editorial. Thank you very much, indeed. Will you allow me? And will you also allow me to mention you and your university?’, I asked in a delighted and appreciative voice.

‘Yes, of course. Please go ahead. You can mention me, Pen Dina from Svay Rieng University, Cambodia. If you need more information or have any questions, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to share with you what I know, and I can recommend you to the project’s board so they can also invite you to the next meeting’, Dina replied, kindly and equally eagerly.

So, what happened? And what was the conversation about?

As my next flight was delayed for another four hours, I decided to find a place where I could sit down and finish up this Editorial. Everything was almost ready; I just needed to come up with an interesting way to invite readers to the Special Issue. Almost all sitting areas at the airport were crowded, as more flights got delayed. I saw only two or three waiting areas with empty seats and power sockets, so I chose the one where I could still find a spot to plug in my computer. Then, I was quickly lost in my writing.

‘Excuse me, there are still some empty seats here. You don’t have to sit on the floor’, a passenger turned to me, wondering in a polite and caring tone.

I looked up and saw a passenger with some carry-on luggage sitting on a chair close to where I was sitting. I thanked him and told him that my computer cord was short and the battery was completely dead so I needed to sit on the floor to be closer to the socket. Then we talked. I learnt from this passenger that his next flight was at about the same time as my flight, and that he was a lecturer at a rather new, provincial university in Cambodia. He was so delighted to know that I am Vietnamese and that I am currently working in Brunei Darussalam. He told me that his university was only three-four hours away by car from the border with Vietnam. He just completed a several-day meeting at a university in the Philippines, where he had joined colleagues from other Southeast Asian (SEA) countries to discuss capacity building for higher education in the region and in each respective national system. The meeting he just attended was a part of a large ongoing multi-year project called CALOHEA ¹ , which is co-funded by the Erasmus + Program of the European Union. The ASEAN University Network (AUN) acts as co-coordinator within the region, while the University of Groningen (RUG) is the project coordinator. The CALOHEA project’s purpose is to contribute to the internationalization of higher education institutions in SEA, both public and private universities, through developing a series of interrelated measures required for improving recognition of higher education degrees.

This colleague, Dina, was so passionate about capacity building in higher education; his passion was shown in his enthusiastic voice, facial expressions, and stories. He even showed me the title of one similar event he had attended several years ago that specifically had ‘capacity building’ written in its title. Over the years, he had joined other similar projects which varied in their scales and scopes. In these projects, as he further told me, capacity building was gradually introduced via major initiatives and shared regional motions such as the internationalization of higher education and student and staff mobility programs, curriculum development for today’s world, aligning the curriculum with graduate employability, teacher education curriculum and teaching methodology, assessment and quality assurance, and English language training for SEA staff and students. He felt his knowledge was enriched each time he joined a meeting.

Dina talked very eagerly about what he had obtained from the national and international meetings he had attended. He also humbly referred to himself as a novice researcher, who was still trying to complete his doctoral studies, while also trying to fulfil his teaching role the best he could. He also considered himself to be fortunate to have a good command of English, which had enabled him to participate in many projects, and in important and much needed international training programs. Dina acknowledged to me that being given many opportunities also made him aware of his responsibility to pass on his knowledge to others and to work with others toward enhancing institutional, national, and regional capacity building in higher education. He also expressed the importance of collaborating with SEA colleagues, and revealed to me that he was in the process of initiating a new project with one colleague in Vietnam, and one colleague in the Philippines. Three of them could relate to one another, and they shared similar ideas for capacity building and the internationalization of higher education among their three respective institutions.

Dina talked at length about the transformations that he saw in himself, as he was interacting and working closely with colleagues in Asia and beyond. From Dina’s accounts, I could see that these transformations were taking place at all levels, including personal, linguistic, professional, and aspirational. He also told me a very touching story about why and how he learnt English in the 90s in Cambodia. In addition to the many positive transformations Dina acknowledged, he also indicated various challenges, obstacles and dilemmas faced by colleagues and institutions in the region, particularly those from Southeast Asia that he was more aware of. For example, many universities in provinces and away from major urban centers struggle to attract students, and these universities often cannot attract high quality students in terms of merit and academic performance, because such students usually go to major cities where more opportunities await them. As a teacher teaching English, Dina observed that his students’ English was very poor and limited, and their motivation to learn English was also very low. His university up until recently hardly had any international students. Although he was aware of dynamic mobility programs for students all over Asia, Dina felt sad that international student mobility still remained ‘something in dreams’ for his students in that small province of Cambodia.

Indeed, when Dina greeted me with his first question, he had no idea that at that very moment I was also typing ‘capacity building in Asia’s higher education’, a major theme highlighted in this Editorial. Neither did Dina know I felt extremely thankful that he started the conversation, which then helped me come up with an engaging way to write the introduction part for this Editorial. I wanted the Editorial in general and the beginning part in particular to be unique, somewhat personal, compelling, and different from the usual convention of editorials. I wanted to bring to the fore various significant and meaningful moments to emphasize the conceptualization of this Special Issue (with Part I published in 2021 ² and part II published in 2023) as well as the processes during which the two Parts were taking place. I would also like the Editorial to speak powerfully and with depth to the second part of this Special Issue, which is guest edited by three of us (Phan Le Ha, Anatoly Oleksiyenko, and Gerald Fry). Hence, with these ideas in mind, an ordinary introduction and a business-as-usual Editorial would not satisfy me/us. Neither did they do justice for this entire Special Issue.

Just right when I felt I must find something special to draw on as a springboard to start the Editorial, this passenger greeted me with his question. And our conversation that followed was the perfect springboard I was looking for. Isn’t this whole encounter something meant to be?” ³

Looking back. In retrospect

In early 2019, when we (Phan Le Ha and Gerald Fry) were conceptualizing and calling for potential contributors for this Special Issue “International Educational Mobilities and New Developments in Higher Education in Asia: Putting Transformations at the Centre of Inquiries” planned for publication in 2021 in this Journal, international academic mobilities were at their peak; inter-Asian student mobilities were also on the rise and taking place in diverse manners. There were new energies and phenomena in Asia’s higher education (HE) that inspired us and motivated us to put together this Special Issue (SI) to collectively examine and engage with these changes, to seek new theorizations, and to bring new insights into the vast existing literature on international academic mobilities, We wanted to focus on the transformations generated and enabled by what was happening in Asia’s HE (for more details, see Phan and Fry, 2021).

Following the call in 2019, we were thrilled by the richness of submissions from potential authors. The range of questions, topics, and higher education contexts proposed to us went beyond what we could include in one single issue. Hence, we decided to break the SI into two parts, and our decision was well received and supported by the Journal’s Editor, Professor Hubert Erlt. The first part of the SI, with an editorial, five research papers, and a commentary, was published in September 2021 (Hanada & Horie, 2021; Kheir, 2021; Kumpoh et al., 2021; Leve, 2021; Lipura, 2021; Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b; Phan and Fry, 2021).

A very important point we would like to highlight here is that, back in 2019 when we (Phan and Fry) initiated the whole SI, no one knew then that in less than a year global HE would face one of the worst global health crises in history — the COVID-19 pandemic. In actuality, when the first part of this SI was released in 2021, the world was experiencing massive chaos, challenges, never-before total lockdowns, and travel restrictions in many places across several continents, increased mental distress, economic downturns, political and cultural tensions over the origin of the virus, life losses, human dislocation, business closedowns, fears, anxieties, vulnerabilities, uncertainties, and helplessness, as a result of the pandemic and its accompanying consequences. The pandemic put global HE under tremendous and unparalleled difficulties and shook its operation to the core (Cheng, 2022; Farnell et al., 2021; Iqbal and Phan, 2020; Le Grange, 2021; Mbous et al., 2022; Oleksiyenko et al., 2021a; Ramia, 2021; Roshid et al., 2022; Welch, 2022). The pandemic and its immediate impacts on HE also called into question many policies, practices, and modes of thinking.

In this situation, one of the very aspects of HE most severely affected was international student mobility, particularly when mobility was made paralyzed, frozen, disabled, and even unethical because of concerns about public health and because of the unavailability of travel means during the global pandemic period, to name a few. Disorientation, skepticisms, and worries loomed large over the future of higher education; and the deeply rooted mobility-driven globalization and internationalization central to global HE for decades were turned upside down by the pandemic. Almost all academic mobility programs in place were cancelled, terminated, or put on hold. At the same time, quickly taking the stage were growing critiques of the mobility-dominant mentality shaping global HE, critical reflections upon HE, and new thinking about HE in the new “pandemic normal” (Cheng et al., 2020a, 2020b; Keasberry et al., 2021; Liu & Gao, 2022; Mok, 2022; Noorashid et al., 2021; Purcell and Lumbreras, 2021; Yang, 2022; and so on). Within a short period of time, a huge amount of COVID-19-induced scholarship was produced to warn HE of the danger of relying on mobility and internationalization for its operation and purpose. This body of work also offers alternatives to rethink and reimagine HE in the years to come (see, e.g., Hage, 2020; Mok et al., 2022; Cortez Ochoa and Phan, 2022; Phùng and Phan, 2021; Tilak and Kumar, 2022; Yang and Tian, 2023). Against this pandemic backdrop and its implications for global higher education, the many positive transformations as well as the many upbeat possibilities for transformation associated with inter-Asian mobilities and the mobility-driven internationalization in Asia’s HE that were well documented, examined, discussed, and brought to the fore in the first part of our SI (published in September 2021) suddenly looked somewhat irrelevant, as during that time the pandemic still did not show signs of easing in some parts of the world, particularly Asia.

Confronted with this reality, we (Phan and Fry) found it important and sensible to reconceptualize the focal theme of the second part of the SI. We discussed, exchanged ideas, and reflected upon what we had accomplished in the 2021 collection, and pushed ourselves to engage critically with new imaginations for HE. We wanted to ensure we would not lose sight of the ways in which international academic mobilities, new developments, and transformations in Asia’s HE were and would be further shaped, reshaped, and transformed by the pandemic, and by the resultant policies, practices, and actions at every level. We realized that the SI would benefit from contributions centered on crisis-induced transformations in terms of capacity building and new developments in Asia’s HE, as well as from contributions exploring the emerging mobility modes. Much of the literature cited above also gave us the confidence that inter-Asian mobility would be preferred by more students in the region. Moreover, we recognized the importance of positioning more explicitly Asia’s HE as an educational destination for students from outside the region as well. With these aims, we invited Anatoly Oleksiyenko, who was already familiar with our SI, to join us as another guest editor for the second part of the SI. In fact, Oleksiyenko, a scholar well recognized for his expertise and scholarship in comparative and international education, contributed an article on mobility, capacity building, and the World Class University model in several Asian HE systems that he co-wrote with other colleagues to the first part of the SI (Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b).

Transformation, mobility, internationalization, and capacity building in Asia’s higher education

The articles featured in this whole Special Issue (SI), both Part 1 (2021) and Part 2 (2023), are well informed and developed by the contributing authors’ creative and varied modes of engagement with Asia’s HE, of which transformations play a central role. Various aspects concerning the question and concept of transformation have been identified, discussed, theorized, and enhanced in both parts, as each individual article shows. These articles also unpack nuanced dimensions coupled with the aspirations for change and improvements among HE’s multiple actors and agents. Our SI, the second part in particular, provides a glimpse of a new architecture of inter-Asian mobility and institutional transformations during and in the post-pandemic era (see Gu et al., 2023; Mai and Chau, 2023; Pongsin et al., 2023; Roshid and Phan, 2023; Tran and Bui, 2023), whereby the prospect of Asia rising as a major and conducive new hub for inter-Asian mobility and even for international student mobility more broadly is posited and examined.

Inter-Asian mobilities: Energies, hopes, and limitations

Both Part 1 and Part 2 engage creatively and complexly with the mobility aspect of the internationalization of HE. If the articles included in the first part of the SI (2021) are largely centered on varying forms of inter-Asian mobilities, particularly those mobilities that involved physical academic mobilities between national contexts, the articles driving the second part, while still engaged with mobilities and the internationalization of HE in Asia, locate transformations in relation to the agenda of capacity building more explicitly. Together with discussing vibrant energies and long-term hopes associated with these student mobilities in Asia, their limitations are also raised. In other words, our SI neither describes nor celebrates Asia as a new hub of international student mobility superficially or uncritically.

On the one hand, the SI highlights many important factors contributing to the rise of Asia as a new dynamic hub for study abroad, as clearly documented and discussed in most of the individual articles included in the 2021 and 2023 Parts (e.g., Gu et al., 2023; Hanada and Horie, 2021; Kheir, 2021; Kumpoh et al., 2021; Lipura, 2021; Mai and Chau, 2023; Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b; Pongsin et al., 2023; Tran and Bui, 2023). In what follows let us pay closer attention to several HE contexts covered in our SI to give readers more concrete understandings of the factors shaping inter-Asian and toward-Asian student mobilities.

Take Gu et al. (2023) as an example. These authors carefully examine how Chinese students began to rethink their choice of study abroad destinations during the COVID-19 crisis. They speak of a new “intra-Asian student mobility wave.” They look specifically at three destinations that Chinese students found particularly appealing: (1) Japan, (2) Singapore, and (3) Hong, Kong. The surveyed Chinese students’ choice of Japan was driven primarily by two factors. The first was Japan’s commitment to subsidize and support international students financially to lower their costs and to allow well-paid part-time work. The second factor was the “cultural magnetism” of Japan. The authors also note negative factors such as rigidities in Japanese higher education processes and continually changing cross-border policies. Singapore as another popular choice was driven by its being branded an “intelligent island” and Asia’s biopolis (Collins et al., 2014; Sidhu et al., 2021). The high rankings of the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technology University as world-class universities (Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b) also contributed to the popularity of Singapore as a destination. Singapore’s historical cultural connections with China make it particularly appealing to Chinese students. The final choice discussed in this article is Hong Kong. Like Singapore, it has highly ranked and well-regarded universities such as the University of Hong Kong, considered by some Chinese students to be even better than the University of California, Los Angeles. The style of learning and pedagogies at Hong Kong’s best universities were perceived by many Chinese students as mirroring those of the best in the West. Chinese students can also travel to Hong Kong easily by train from all parts of China. Given Hong Kong’s economic wealth, its universities are able to offer many scholarships and fellowships for non-Hong Kong residents.

Another example is Pongsin et al. (2023) that examine Thailand as a potential international education hub with its often-talked-about potential. The article presents case studies of three very different Thai universities and provides insights into the nature of the international student experiences in Thailand. Thailand’s advantages are identified in the articles as follows: (1) its extremely low costs; (2) its warm welcoming attitude toward international students; (3) its high-quality higher education physical infrastructure with many attractive campuses comparable to the best in other countries (e.g. Assumption University-Suvarnabhumi); and (4) special study niches in which Thailand has a comparative advantage such as tourism and hospitality, alternative health, gemology, and the sufficiency economy (cf. voluntary simplicity, one-straw revolution) (Avery and Bergsteiner, 2020). Like Vietnam, Thailand’s higher education system is highly diverse with eclectic international influences from Europe and the United States (Porntip and Chotima, 2018; Rattana and Hill, 2016).

More examples can be seen in Mai and Chau (2023) and Tran and Bui (2023) that focus on international student mobilities in Vietnam as well as the accompanying transformative possibilities for institutions and students. While Mai and Chau (2023) examine the multi-faceted experiences of a small number of degree-seeking Korean and Thai international students enrolled in the Vietnamese Studies program at one of Vietnam’s two national universities, Tran and Bui (2023) look at Vietnam as a short-term study abroad destination for a large number of Australian engineering students being supported by the Australian government’s new reverse Colombo Plan initiative. Although the experiences of these student cohorts are mixed, Vietnam does appear to be a potentially appealing destination for international students. What is presented and discussed in these articles enhances our awareness of Vietnam as a site far more desirable for young people in many ways. Vietnam, for example, is one of the world’s most dynamic IT markets and was ranked sixth in the world as a “global software outsourcing destination in 2021” (Kearny, 2021). Both articles about Vietnam send an important message, which is we need to think of Vietnam as a country, not a war. Also, students going to Vietnam can experience an educational system that has benefitted eclectically from an amalgam of international influences (for instance, Chinese, French, Russian, Eastern European, U.S., and global). In terms of their transformative learning, many Australian students enhanced both their cultural literacy (Fry and Rosarin, 2020; Jon and Fry, 2021) and their comparative thinking (see D’Angelo et al., 2023), important “soft skills” in an increasingly multicultural world.

On the other hand, despite many advantageous and positive factors driving international student mobilities within and toward Asia, as shown above, our SI also shows how these factors remain under-recognized by many Asian institutions and their staff and students. For example, the many seemingly ideal and strong elements of Thai HE, especially in some of its high-profile institutions, appear to receive rather limited international attention, making Thai HE more a less a marginal HE context (Pongsin et al., 2023). In the same vein, while the interest in learning Vietnamese and pursuing education in Vietnam among international students such as Koreans is fast rising (see Phan et al., 2022), Vietnamese HE institutions remain somewhat distant to the need to develop a long-term sustainable, appealing, diverse, and more advanced learning environment and a good student service mindset for international students, as we can read between the lines from Mai and Chau (2023). By the same token, the study conducted by Gu et al. (2023) with Chinese students regarding their study abroad destination options reveals that only a very small number of Asian HE systems (i.e., Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong) are regarded highly by the surveyed students (and possibly by many other students) wanting top-tiered education in Asia. This finding shows that options in Asia for high-end internationally competitive education are still limited.

What’s more, the SI as a whole also collectively points out and investigates new phenomena of inter-Asian student mobilities as well as their associated key trends. Student mobilities take place between emerging and somewhat peripheral HE destinations (i.e., between Brunei and Vietnam — see Kumpoh et al., 2021, and between some Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan — see Kheir, 2021), between a prominent destination and a rather off-the-radar HE setting (i.e., between South Korea and India — see Lipura, 2021, and between South Korea and Vietnam — see Mai and Chau, 2023), as well as among well-established HE destinations (such as those among China–Japan–South Korea — see Hanada and Horie, 2021). Part 2 of the SI also brings another dimension of student mobility to the landscape of internationalization, which is toward-Asia mobility as in the case of Australian students going to Vietnam for their study abroad experience (Tran and Bui, 2023). In the same vein, another emphasis of Part 2 lies in the examination of several Asian countries and their respective HE systems as potential mobility destination for inter-Asian and toward-Asian mobilities (e.g., the case of Thailand — see Pongsin et al., 2023, and the case of Vietnam for students from Asian countries — see Mai and Chau, 2023). These surveyed phenomena and the associated key trends can enhance inter-Asian student mobilities; they can also stimulate and strengthen HE capacity building in general and capacity building of and desire for world-class universities in the previously underprivileged regions and countries (Oleksiyenko, 2019; Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b; 2022).

Choice-making in internationalization and capacity building: EMI, and HE as public good

Our whole SI (both parts) also brings to the fore the question of choice-making with regard to the internationalization of HE, and institutional capacity building. The articles in the SI acknowledge internationalization being an important instrument for major transformations in regional and national HE; yet they also interrogate problems inherent in the means via which such transformations are conceptualized, imagined, and enacted. The internationalization of HE has also tended to be pursued by HE systems and their universities as a trend rather than a transformative strategy, pedagogy, and infrastructure in HE. This misapprehension of choices has appeared to create challenges as much as opportunities for many academic programs. The second part of our SI examines in particular a range of dilemmas faced as well as generated by the quest for internationalization via English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) programs where utilitarian rationales were prioritized and cultural contexts and connotations were peripheralized (see Irham and Wahyudi, 2023; Pham et al., 2023). The collection of papers presented in this second part also question the extent to which critical assessment of emerging problems contributes to the conceptualization of dilemmas experienced in the internationalization of HE in Asia, and in the adoption of mobile ideas and practices in curriculum development, and traing programs.

The study by Irham Irham and Ribut Wahyudi on “Promises and realities of foreign language instruction in the light of internationalization: A case of study on EMI and AMI at an Indonesian Islamic University” provides an insightful analysis of challenges that are faced by Arabic learners in the usage of EMI. Trying to overcome the problem of mediocrity (Phan, 2017) which results from poor capacity in teaching and learning of English, the studied Indonesian Islamic University in their article appears to absorb rather than defy colonial mentality which hurts the developmental prospects of HE in Indonesia. The disregard and neglect of local languages in favor of the global templates of competitiveness (e.g., rankings and world-class university making) nurture mediocre status of local abilities in the global competition. Irham and Wahyudi (2023) show that the engagement of Arabic as Medium of Instruction for the internationalization of local universities achieves greater impact if it does not follow the trends set by the EMI programs in the region. Empowerment through students’ choice of language (English or Arabic) is particularly viewed by the participants as creating a better learning environment.

Relatedly, Pham et al. (2023) elaborate a range of intricate challenges faced by EMI instructors in Vietnamese universities in the transformation of their roles, when they try to redefine their responsibilities and focus more on content and substantive instruction rather than teaching conventional English to Vietnamese students pursuing English language education. The authors explain why the internationalization of curriculum development and teaching in this area remains a work in progress for those who teach English in professional programs (e.g., accounting, electronics, communication, or international relations). At the time of changes shaped by demography, technology, and disciplinary orientations, the teachers realize that their relations with students often move away from the traditional methods of English language teaching.

On another note but also related to institutional transformation and capacity building, in their study on “Higher Education as Public Good, Sustainable Development Goals, and Crisis Response in Neoliberal Political Economy,” Mohammod Moninoor Roshid and Phan Le Ha (Roshid & Phan, 2023) further delve into the dilemmas of choice-making. The authors exemplify the problems by showing how debates on the values emerge in the discourse on public and private goods in higher education. These debates often become tenuous during crises created by the neoliberal economy. Yet, solutions also tend to arise when the crisis becomes acute and decision-makers have to take resolute measures to address the burning issues. Roshid and Phan (2023) demonstrate how the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh has handled such decisions and measures during COVID-19. The authors argue that the pandemic appeared to stimulate the stakeholders’ comprehension of the public roles and responsibilities and urged the flagship university of the country to take lead in defining social agendas and implementing crisis management. Tensions between the public and private good in the neoliberal setting of Bangladeshi HE have however remained amidst unequally distributed resources and access opportunities, and the prevalence of neoliberal rhetoric and the underappreciation of humanistic agendas and genuine liberal education.

Transformation and its complexity

We as editors take great prided in the well-put, well-developed, and well-evidenced series of arguments centered on the transformative power of the internationalization of HE, international student mobility, and new developments in Asia’s HE. Such transformative power is developing in unexpected, at times uneasy, and organic ways, as Phan and Fry (2021) have maintained and theorized, and as also beautifully elaborated and echoed in Leve (2021). While transformative possibilities are endless, complexities, challenges, and limitations are also ample, and, hence, must not be overlooked. The articles included in Part 2 of our SI showcase and engage in particular with these complex realities across HE contexts, including Australia, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. As well, they offer nuanced analyses of these various specific HE contexts and their respective multi-layered transformations, as perceived and experienced by the diverse HE actors and players studied.

With the evidence shown above, one can also see that our SI examines and poses critical questions concerning the pros and cons of the internationalization of HE and its varied manifestations (such as student mobility and the introduction of English-Medium-Instruction programs). All in all, our SI not only looks into the trends of internationalization, which, in some cases, are perceived predominantly as a global fashion to follow, but also investigates the ways in which internationalization, as Phan (2017) and Oleksiyenko (2019) argue, can be embraced and incorporated into HE as a transformative instrument to use for enhancement of quality and diversity of learning experiences. Evidently, although they point out the excellent potential of Thai HE, Pongin et al. (2023) also admit that Thailand is less commonly known and lacks top ranked universities. In comparisons with other more internationally known neighboring HE contexts such as Singapore and Malaysia, it also suffers from serious English language deficiencies. Hence, in the logic and language of university rankings and metrics, many countries in Asia appear to be vulnerable to deterministic trends within global HE as their institutional capacities are judged by their participation in global competition and rankings rather than by the values of educational activities developed through diverse approaches to the internationalization of HE. Their engagement with EMI programs is particularly viewed as indicative of their capabilities for global gaming in the rankings-driven HE as much as in advancement of economic agendas. These inclinations are not only derivative of pressures coming from more advanced economies and HE systems elsewhere but also embed aspirations of local entities to enhance their reputation and status in the global networks of trade and services. When economic and utilitarian values dominate such aspirations, many EMI and the so-called international HE programs in many Asian countries tend to achieve “transformative mediocrity” which Phan (2017) identifies, discusses, and theorizes. This mode of transformation (sometimes seen as a better than nothing outcome) also invites complex engagement and critical examination, as Phan (2017) argues.

Internationalization creates transformative powers in HE when axiological and cultural perspectives are prioritized over the utilitarian concerns. However, the latter often appear to be attractive and influential for both teachers and students seeking to achieve benefit from the internationalization of HE. In the times of crises, however, the problems and perspectives of public good become particularly prominent and tend to guide cross-border collaborations and learning processes (A Oleksiyenko et al., 2021a; AV Oleksiyenko et al., 2021b; Phan, 2017). At the same time, internationalization and international student mobility are not yet for everyone, as reminded by the conversation presented in the beginning of this Editorial between one of us (Phan Le Ha) and Pen Dina, a colleague from Cambodia. Hence, transformation ought to be conceptualized and discussed with complexity and from critical angles as well. We propose that more attention be paid to the relationships of internationalization, inter-Asian mobilities, capacity building, and transformation in HE contexts and settings across Asia and beyond.

Yes, so much is going on in Asia’s HE. Likewise, there is so much scope for rigorous and original scholarship that can identify, document, and interrogate the range, nature, scale, and intensity of transformations that are taking place in this region as a whole and in each national context and setting. We hope that our whole Special Issue will be well received, as it provides readers with another solid body of well-put-together original and novel scholarship and research on the still scarce literature on inter-Asian mobilities (also referred to as South–South mobilities) (see, for example, two other Special Issues on inter-Asian student mobilities and mobilities in unlikely places put together by Collins and Ho, 2018; Kang et al., 2022). To continue the spirit and vision set out in the 2021 part of this Special Issue, let us now invite you to engage with the articles included in this 2023 part.