ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the status of internationalisation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. It provides, notably, a detailed analysis of student mobility, in order to present some key regional internationalisation trends. Internationalisation holds many advantages – such as its capacity to boost students’ employability – and, especially given the region’s socioeconomic context, MENA stands to benefit from enhancing it. Yet the region has not yet taken full advantage of internationalisation’s benefits. The chapter finishes with some reflections on the way forward for MENA. It maintains that internationalisation – understood in its broader definition, going beyond student mobility – ought to be further mainstreamed into the region’s tertiary education systems, with a particular focus on internationalisation ‘at home’, which emerges as a key strategy for the region, even more so within the COVID-19 context.
