Empire, Memory, and Knowledge: Clive’s Shadow to TNE Campuses

A few weeks ago, I turned a corner off Whitehall and there he was, Robert Clive in bronze, surveying his dominion. The sight was a stark reminder of how empire lingers in subtler forms. Education has long been a medium of power, and my time in London sharpened an old question: if guns and tariffs once carried British influence, do degrees, curricula, and branch campuses now serve the same purpose in gentler guise? 

Knowledge has never traveled neutrally. Empire conferred prestige on what was taught in its centers and relegated indigenous traditions to the margins. The legacy endures: English dominates academic publishing, global rankings reflect Western metrics, and UK degrees remain universal benchmarks. To many, the statue of “Founder of British India” is more than a relic.

Expansion of UK Higher Education Abroad

Transnational education has expanded rapidly, with British universities offering degrees through branch campuses, joint programs, and franchises across Asia and the Middle East. For UK institutions, these ventures broaden recruitment, diversify revenue, and extend prestige, an imperative amid today’s higher education crisis. For host countries, they promise capacity building, global visibility, and access to programs otherwise available only through costly study abroad. Yet such arrangements often encode asymmetries: when curriculum, assessment, language, and quality assurance are imported wholesale, epistemic authority remains firmly with the sending country.

Malaysia presents the most frequently cited success story. The government courted foreign providers to build an education hub, and British universities responded with branch campuses that now enroll thousands. For students from Malaysia and neighboring countries, these campuses offer an attractive proposition, a recognized UK credential at a fraction of the cost of relocating to Britain. Faculty recruitment has broadened local expertise, investment has upgraded facilities, and some campuses have become research-active rather than purely teaching outposts. Many describe a shift from exam-oriented classrooms toward discussion-based learning that emphasizes critique and independent inquiry.

Benefits and Critiques of Academic Imperialism

The benefits are clear, but so are the tensions. Branch campuses may siphon top students and staff from local universities, creating a two-tier system favoring those who can pay international fees. Governance can reinforce hierarchies when key decisions remain with the home institution. Strong campuses invest in partnerships, align with national priorities, and cultivate local leadership; weaker ones chase enrollments with little adaptation. The line between partnership and proprietorship is revealed in how a campus listens to its host society.

India exemplifies the opposite starting point. Memories of colonial education, the scale and complexity of the domestic system, and legitimate concerns about equity have produced decades of caution. Recent policy changes create narrow corridors for foreign providers in special zones and priority fields, which indicates a willingness to experiment without ceding broad control. Success will require humility, co-governance with Indian partners, and demonstrable public value. It will also require some departure from the model of replicated programs. India’s curricular priorities and social needs cannot be treated as add-ons to a British design.

Beneath these country narratives sits a more general set of benefits that should not be dismissed. Transnational arrangements expand access to high quality programs for students who cannot migrate. They create cosmopolitan classrooms where regional and global perspectives intersect. They seed collaborative research and professional networks that persist long after graduation. When universities approach host countries as sites of learning rather than markets to be harvested, the result can be mutual capacity building. 

Critiques of academic imperialism remain powerful, however, because they identify structural patterns. Profit dependence can create incentives to prioritize recruitment over mission. The hegemony of English privileges some voices while disciplining others into silence. Rankings and reputational economies channel resources toward institutions already branded as excellent, which can lock local universities into subordinate roles. The symbolism matters too. When a campus in Asia is branded as an offshore extension of a storied British university, it can signal to students and employers that value flows from the center. If leadership is expatriate and syllabi are imported, the perception of a colonial echo is not unreasonable.

South Korea’s Selective Integration

South Korea complicates this picture. It has long sent large numbers of students to Anglophone universities, including the UK. This outward flow is driven by educational aspiration, economic strategy, and sharp critique of domestic limits. At the same time, Korean universities have pursued aggressive internationalization: expanding English-medium instruction, incentivizing publication in international journals, and chasing rankings. These policies have raised Korea’s profile but also reveal how Western metrics shape domestic agendas.

Unlike many other countries, Korea has proven inhospitable to British branch campuses. Attempts by UK institutions to establish a presence have stalled or failed: Aberdeen withdrew, Lancaster never materialized, and Southampton left little visible trace yet. Demographics are unforgiving, with a shrinking college-age population and an oversupply of university seats. Competition is fierce, and parents often doubt the value of a branch degree compared to top Korean universities or studying abroad. Regulators and local institutions remain cautious about duplication without clear added value. More importantly, the Korean government’s priorities lie elsewhere.

Korea is now inverting traditional flows. Its goal of hosting large numbers of international students is both ambitious and symbolic. These students sustain universities, diversify campuses, and position Korea as a provider of sought-after academic experiences across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. If successful, the shift will challenge the idea that excellence must be imported from the West. Korea’s selective integration, embracing some aspects of global higher education while resisting others, shows it can benefit from global education without surrendering autonomy.

Toward Partnership, Not Proprietorship

From London, these cases sketch a wider map. UK higher education can reproduce dominance when programs are transplanted without context, when decisions remain distant, or when profit is the priority. But it can also foster partnerships when universities listen, co-design, and commit long-term. The difference lies in posture and practice. Four principles should stand out: curricular humility, tailoring content to local histories and needs; shared governance, with real roles for local leadership and regulators; reciprocity, through scholarships, joint research, and reinvestment; and transparency, ensuring students are protected if ventures falter. 

In the shadow of Clive’s statue, it becomes clear that higher education can still mirror the logics of empire or, alternatively, chart new paths of reciprocity. The test for UK universities abroad is whether they appear as proprietors extending dominion, or as partners cultivating shared futures. The bronze may remain immovable, but the practices of transnational education need not repeat its shadow.