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campuses broadens the choices and the opportunities available to these glocal students.
They can access a different style of education and a different type of experience from that which is typical of their home country, but without the costs associated with travelling and living in a different country.
And the branch campuses themselves come in increasingly diverse forms; trying to count them depends first on how you define them.
Perhaps the most traditional format is the one in which a university from one country establishes a base in another country where it teaches and awards degrees (and so it is the degree awarding powers that provide quality assurance).
This is the format that is familiar in Malaysia, with Nottingham and Monash as perhaps the best examples.
Both award degrees from their home countries and offer qualifications, which are equivalent to those offered at their home campus.
They are also typically regulated in their host country so students have the reassurance that their degrees have been subject to two forms of regulatory oversight.
But there are other interesting variations on this model; an increasingly common format is associated with private providers such as Manipal and Amity who establish campuses internationally under a common brand, but with local degree awarding powers (here only the quality assurance comes from the host country but supplemented by the institutional brand).
And then we see the emergence of the nationally sponsored universities where a new institution is established carrying a country name – and the country name is the approach to providing assurances of quality.
The most prominent example of this approach comes with the German University in Cairo and other branches of German Universities, which have been established in a range of countries around the world.
Technically these are not branch campuses but they still aspire to offer an international experience to students in a diversity of countries.
The numbers of branch or international campuses have grown dramatically in the last 15 years and as a glocal outlook becomes more common, we should expect to see not only more of such campuses but also more interesting models for the provision of education.
Such developments will offer greater choice to the students of the future.
But those involved in managing such developments will need to give careful thought to how best to help students make good choices when faced with a diversity of options for their higher education.
More choices offer many benefits but decisions about education are complex and high risk, so students (and their parents) will need clear information about the options available and good advice about the quality (and the quality assurance) of the programmes they are considering.
Prof Christine Ennew is the chief executive officer and provost of The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.