At this year’s Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) Annual conference, February 16-19, 2020, over 900 Senior International Officers (SIOs) came together in Washington, DC, for three days of engaging sessions, speakers, and
networking around this year's theme Rethinking Comprehensive Internationalization for a Global Generation. The theme invited us to think and reflect on both the nature of our commitment and how we shape our work in a dynamic globalized
society.
AACRAO was pleased to contribute again to the AIEA Annual Conference. The work AACRAO has been doing around the UNESCO Global Convention for Recognition (GCR)
intersected with the conference theme. This year, AACRAO’s Melanie Gottlieb and Julia Funaki led a session and discussion on "UNESCO’s Global Convention on Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education: Implications for
the U.S. International Student Marketplace."
The session began with a look at the International Recruitment Landscape based on the latest Open Doors and Project Atlas data. Gottlieb and Funaki outlined the Basic Principles of the GCR (page 7, Article III), including the Right of Individuals to have their qualifications assessed for applying for admission to study or seeking employment. The audience could see that these principles were in line with the practices at their own institution.
While the United States is no longer a member of UNESCO and therefore will not be a party to ratification or adoption of the Global Convention, AACRAO will continue to discuss how the principles of the Convention are sound principles for all institutions.
The purpose of the Global Convention on Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education is to facilitate global mobility in higher education and to provide an inclusive global framework for the fair, transparent, consistent, coherent, timely
and reliable recognition of qualifications concerning higher education. Certainly, that purpose was fitting with the AIEA theme of Rethinking Comprehensive Internationalization for a Global Generation.
AACRAO is proud to be a leader in supporting ideas and policies that our membership can apply at their institutions. We look forward to reprising this session and continuing the discussion at the AACRAO Annual Meeting, April 2020 in New Orleans.