A second critical issue is the consequences for languages. To view globalization from a language perspective, we therefore need to consider the use and status of languages in a global context, or what Maurais calls “their relationships and their competition on the world’s checkerboard” (2003, p. 13). This approach might be called a sociolinguistic perspective on globalization. The organization of languages and their relationships in a global context are outlined by de Swaan (2001):

The epic center of the world’s languages is English. English is the one language that “connects the supercentral languages with one another and that therefore constitutes the pivot of the world language system” (de Swaan, 2001, p. 6). English obtained this position at the core of the global language system due to a variety of historical reasons, namely “large scale migration and settlement of native language speakers, military imposition (colonialism), commercial or political power and prestige derived from scientific, cultural or other achievements” (Leitner, 1992, p. 186). Additionally, the brightest students from almost every country in the world come to study in U.S. universities rendering English as the main language of books, newspapers, academic conferences, science,, international business, medicine and especially the internet now has official or special status in over 70 countries across Africa, Asia and the Pacific (Crystal, 1997, p. 3).

However, some interpret globalization as a form of colonization. As Holly (1990) writes:

English speaking countries such the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand can attribute their economic gains to the global spread of English language facilitated by the internet. It is English language education and education using English as the language of instruction are a big business for English-speaking countries, such as the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia (Kaplan, 2001). In the academic year 2000-2001, 548,000 international students in the United States contributed 11 billion dollars to U.S. economy (Economist Global Agenda, 2002, May 21).

As the major formal agency for conveying knowledge, schooling features prominently in the process and theory of globalization. Early examples of educational globalization include the spread of global religions, especially Islam and Christianity, and colonialism, which often disrupted and displaced indigenous forms of schooling. Recent postcolonial globalizing influences of education, over the last 200 years, have taken on more subtle shapes. In globalization, it is not merely the business transaction and political agreement, but also the shared consciousness of being part of a global system that bring nations and societies together. That consciousness is developed through transnational movements of people and most recently over the last twenty years the spread of computer technology and media.. The unalterable transformation of consciousness brought on by globalization impacts the content and delivery of education, as schools play a significant role in the process.

A policy of using schools as part of the democratization process often accompanies structural adjustment measures. However, encouraging user fees to help finance schooling has meant a reduced ability of people in some impoverished areas of the world to buy books and school materials and even attend school, thus enlarging the gap between rich and poor and impeding democracy. Even in areas displaying a rise in educational participation, observers have reported a reduction in civic participation. Increased emphasis on formalism in schooling could plausibly contribute to this result. An expansion of school civics programs could, for example, draw energy and resources away from active engagement in political affairs by youths, whether within or outside of schools.

By mid-twentieth century, missionaries and colonialism had brought core Western ideas and practices to many parts of the world. With contemporary globalization, penetration of the world periphery by means of education has been accomplished mainly in other ways, especially as contingent on structural adjustment and democratization projects. Some scholars, including Howard R. Woodhouse, have claimed that people on the periphery are "mystified" by dominant ideologies, and willingly, even enthusiastically and without conscious awareness of implications, accept core Western learning and thereby subordinate themselves to the world system.

The shift of the focus on the role of education in globalization has changed in terms of the structural adjustment in policies of the World Bank and other international lending organizations for underdeveloped and low-income countries. These organizations push their hidden agenda such as cuts in government expenditures, market liberalization, currency devaluations, reductions of government subsidies, price controls, and most importantly the privatization of public services such as health and education.

In regard to education, structural adjustment in policies presumably reduces public bureaucracies that hinder the delivery of more and better education. By cutting wasteful expenditures and increasing responsiveness among concerned agencies, these policies promote schooling more efficiently. However, Samoff (1994) noted that observers have reported structural adjustment policies often encourage an emphasis on inappropriate skills and reproduce existing social and economic inequalities, leading actually to lowered enrollment rates, degradation in the quality of education, and a gap between educational needs and provisions.

Levin (2001) contends that open capitalism and global multi-national corporations projects a perception that the world is becoming a shared social place by technological and economic advances. The world has become so interlinked that there is a common consensus among educationists and policy makers that it is having a lasting impact on our educational missions and goals. In his own words:

Similarly, Burbules and Torres (2000) have emphasized the need for educational innovations in light of changing contexts and emerging new circumstances globally. Some believe that capitalist interests of First-World countries are in dire need of skilled labor forces to increase their economic gains. Thus they seek to meet their human resources supply and demand by increasing the educational level of marginalized Third-World countries. They argue that the false perception is that these peoples’ socio-economic conditions are being improved due to the process of globalization. However, in reality, the market-driven agenda of First-World countries may not be to empower the people and improve their living conditions but to fulfill their need to continue economic gains in terms of abundant work-forces from poor countries. In this regard, it is worthwhile to refer to Bigelow and Peterson (2002) who state that “It is impossible to separate our teaching about wretched conditions of workers around the world from all the factors that produced the desperation that forces people to seek work in those conditions” (p. 3). White (2008) states:

As part of the globalization process, the spread of education is widely viewed as contributing to democratization throughout the world. Schools prepare people for participation in the economy, giving them the knowledge to make responsible judgments, the motivation to make appropriate contributions to the well being of society, and a consciousness about the consequences of their behavior. National and international assistance organizations, such as the U. S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), embrace these objectives. Four key elements of globalization are described in the UNESCO education position paper (2004) as follows: 1) the growing importance of the knowledge society/economy; 2) the development of new trade agreements which cover trade in education services; 3) the innovations related to ICT; and 4) the emphasis on the role of the market and the market economy.

These factors are catalysts to new developments, namely:

The global market in educational services is estimated by Merril Lynch to be worth outside of the United States $ 111 billion a year with a “potential consumer base of 32 million students” (cited in Spring, 2009. p. 84). The data of the U.S. Department of Commerce indicate that higher education is the fifth-largest service sector “export” for the United States (Economist Global Agenda, 2002, May 21). Of the almost 2.8 million international tertiary students studying worldwide, the United States of America and the United Kingdom host the largest numbers of foreign students, accounting for 21.2% and 12.0% of total international students, respectively, in 2006. Education services ranks as the third largest export category earner for the year 2007-08. Overall, international students, and the associated visitation from friends and family contributed $12.6 billion in value-added to the Australian economy and generates 0.29 in full-time equivalent (FTE) workers (Access Economics, 2009).

Along with mass provision of schools, technological advances have permitted distance education to convey Western concepts to the extreme margins of society, exposing new regions and populations to knowledge generated by culturally dominant groups and helping to absorb them into the consumer society.

Increased privatization of education in the name of capitalist democratization could invite greater participation of corporate entities, with the prospect of commercializing schools and reducing their service in behalf of the public interest.

In this regard, it is important to note that Joel Spring (2009) has speculated that the three major consequences of the growth of the multinational corporations in educational sectors, first, the creation of a level of uniformity in global education culture as the result of marketing of for-profit schools, the international use of testing products, global databases, and most importantly, the publishing of textbooks for global markets. Second, exertion of corporate control of the ideologies disseminated through schools around the world. Third, globally marketed schools and worldwide information and publishing corporations might transform and displace local cultures (p. 88).

As might be expected, such marketization and commoditization have led to a significant privatization of education in a number of countries, in the United States, for example, schooling, higher education and training have been seen as lucrative markets to be in. Giroux (2000) reports that education markets represented around $600 billion in revenue for corporate interests. Over 1000 state schools have been contracted out to private companies. However, we need to understand the nature of the forces that have pushed governments into adopting such policies and it is here that we can see the process of globalization directly at work (Monbiot 2001, p. 331).

Likewise, Duderstadt, Taggart and Weber (2008) argue that in a knowledge-driven economy, many governments are increasingly viewing higher education basically as a private benefit to students and other patrons of the university rather than a public good benefiting all of society. This is really a major shift in the value position from that of government responsibility for supporting the educational needs of society to university responsibility for addressing the economic needs of government-an interesting reversal of traditional responsibilities and roles (Duderstadt, Taggart & Weber, 2008, p. 274). In the words of spring Spring (2009) who states “What is strikingly new is the conceptualization of trade in educational services as a source of income to be included in the financial planning of nations, educational institutions, and for-profit multinational corporations” (p. 83).

On the other hand, in his book “Post American World,” Fareed Zakaria (2009) argues that higher education is America’s best industry. Eight of the top ten universities in the world are in the United States. By 2010, foreign students will get more than 50 percent of all Ph.D.’s awarded in every subject, and in the sciences, that figure will be closer to 75 percent. He further argues that the United States invests 2.6 percent of its GDP in higher education, compared with 1.2 percent in Europe and 1.1 percent in Japan (pp.190-191).

It is not surprising that all the above given assertions and claims seem to be true. According to the latest report on enrollments in academic year 2008-09 based on a comprehensive survey of approximately 3,000 accredited U.S higher education institutions of all types and sizes: International students all time high in numbers 671,616 contributed $17.8 billion to the U.S. economy, 65% of all international students receive the majority of their funds from personal and family sources and 70% of all international students’ primary funding comes from sources outside of the United States. (Open Doors Report, 2009, November 16)

In a more global setting higher education institutions have more plural sources of finance and they need autonomy and academic freedom to be both intra and inter global effective. American universities, though now severely challenged, are still perceived as being in the top rung of the higher education ladder.

Australian universities currently have the perception of being strong contenders with their blend of relevant programs and high quality research. European universities are regrouping to capture a better place in the global market. In the Task Force report (2000) of the World Bank on higher education in developing countries, it is stated that “The task force believes that, in the knowledge economy, highly trained specialists and broadly educated generalists will be at a premium, and both will need to be educated more flexibly so that they continue to learn as their environment develops” (p. 14). However, in the report it is also stated that Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise does not offer a universal blueprint for reforming higher education systems, but it does provide a starting point for action. While the benefits of higher education continue to rise, the costs of being left behind are also growing. Higher education is no longer a luxury: it is essential to national social and economic development (p. 14).

The changing trends of higher education are visible as many countries have set ambitious targets, for example, China had a goal of expanding vocational education so that at least 50 percent of the enrolments in secondary education would be in vocational education in the near future; India has a similar target of reaching 25 percent; and Bangladesh 20 percent (Tilak 2002). The impact of globalization is also evident in China's current push in higher education.

Recognizing that the country needs a better-trained workforce in order to move up the economic value chain, the central government of China has committed itself to boosting scholarship and other types of aid in 2008 to $2.7 billion, up from $240 million in 2006. Officials have plans to expand overall government spending on education, which was a merely 2.8 percent of GDP in 2006 to 4 percent by 2010, a large portion of which will be devoted to small number of globally competitive elite institutions. (Zakaria, 2009, pp. 95-96)

India is one of the largest higher education system in the world facing the crisis of, university of the poor, with continued expansion, deteriorating standards, limited resources, and political involvement (Swar & Panday, 2008). In this regard, it is important to note that recently, the Indian government has approved the Foreign Education Providers (Regulatory) Bill (2010) that will allow foreign universities to open branches in India. When this bill becomes a law after approval in the parliament, foreign universities will be able to enter the education market. However, this raises some concerns among Indian politicians as many believe that there would be no control, over export and import of higher education, and the private institutions, from overseas would open branches in India, exchange of degrees and certificates that would go on without any restrictions. Some of politicians argue that Indian Universities are already at loss as more than 50,000 students of our country are studying abroad in U.S., Australia and U.K., where as a very small number of foreign students are seeking admissions in Indian Universities.

On the other hand, some politicians argue that the presence of foreign universities, within India would also undermine task of creation of knowledge and services for the community and for nation building, as Indian Universities have their special mission to provide traditional educational values, which perpetuate the caste system which severely impacts women along with teaching, learning and research. The vedic values of gurukul, are embedded in the higher education of India, to preserve the cultural heritage to keep our customs, rituals and spiritual touch of divinity alive (Swar & Pandey, 2008).

First, the challenge that most global educators are facing is to design visionary and new agendas to cultivate a re-vision of humankind with the view of generating the learners’ intellect necessary to cope with the complexity of globalization as an evolving new reality. The emergence of globalization is making educators’ task more challenging than ever it was.

Second, it must be the utmost priority of the higher institutes to cater the needs and demands of diverse population of the global world.

Third, higher education institutions need to look for all possible avenues and to foster their quality of education.

Finally, in this evolving global context, American higher education institutions need to creatively operate out-of-the-box attitudes and prepare themselves for new challenges of the 21st century and establish more networking, collaboration, cooperation and more importantly to embrace developing multidimensional scholarship.