Where English, neoliberalism, desire and internationalization are alive and kicking: higher education in Saudi Arabia today

The internationalization of higher education globally continues to grow more and more towards commercialization and neoliberalism paths, despite growing concerns about the underlying consequences. Building further on our work and using Saudi Arabia as a national case, this article critically investigates how and in what ways the Saudi government's desire to internationalize its higher education system has overlooked the many problems associated with its English-only policy, and the neoliberal shaping of social and economic pressures. The article also demonstrates the paradoxical messages concerning internationalization success, strategies, and visions conveyed by the Saudi government and by several institutions from English-speaking countries in response to Saudi Arabia's aspiration for internationalization of its higher education. We draw on several data sources in this article, specifically: (1) the Colleges of Excellence (CoE) project documents – a major Saudi government's initiative to restructure the technical and vocational education system; (2) Several publicly available news items released by technical and vocational colleges from Canada and the UK as well as by the UK government in relation to their participation in Saudi Arabia's CoE project; and (3) publicly available news items published in a number of key local Saudi newspapers regarding various aspects of the CoE project.