Moving beyond myths and realities: impact of the 5C’s strategies on the internationalization of higher education in the context of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted almost all areas of our lives, including the internationalization of higher education. Therefore, enabling the internationalization of higher education is one of the biggest challenges for academic institutions, and in this context, there is a need to move beyond myths and realities. Owing to the scarcity of research in the domain, this study aims to identify various critical strategies and empirically examine their impact on the internationalization of higher education. For this purpose, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to explore strategies and develop a theoretical framework. To test research hypotheses, this study employed an explanatory research design utilizing a survey instrument methodology to collect data from 253 respondents from both the public and private sector universities in Pakistan. The measures of the internationalization of higher education were adopted from earlier studies while an instrument was developed to measure strategies on a 5-point Likert scale. The reliability and validity of data were ensured, and correlation and regression analyses were utilized to test hypotheses, in addition to validation of hypotheses through AMOS and PLS-SEM. Findings revealed a significant and positive impact of communicating, cooperating, coordinating, collaborating, and continuing strategies (5C’s) in enhancing the internationalization of higher education. Also, the finding implies that an integrated policy through the adoption of the 5C’s strategies needs to be implemented by academic institutions to overcome the challenges of the internationalization of higher education.