Abstract:
Internationalisation of the curriculum has created changes to the traditional
curriculum but little attention in research has been paid to the student perspective
on these changes, and how they experience them. This paper aims to fill the
gap by reporting on the findings of graduate students’ perceptions of the
internationalisation of the curriculum at Makerere University in Uganda. This
study adopted a sequential explanatory survey study in which we collected both
quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of 180 graduate students. The
findings showed that the majority of the respondents agreed that their curricula
had an international dimension. This was commonly seen by graduate students
in terms of international academic staff, international students, travel abroad
programmes for students, courses with an international focus, comparative studies
and focus on ICTs. The participants voiced concerns about logistical constraints and
the universality of knowledge. These findings reinforced the earlier research that
proposed that the above aspects are critical in the IoC and can act as benchmarks to
guide further work in the direction of the university’s internationalisation agenda.
No earlier works had similar results, at least in the context of the Global South
where this study was conducted. Further studies need to involve other actors in
higher education to explore more fully the notion of IoC to explain better the basis
of students’ perceptions and experiences of IoC reported in this study.
Keywords: Higher education; Internationalisation of the curriculum; Graduate students
