Institutional Branding versus Classroom Equity
The structural tension between marketing English-medium instruction and maintaining academic standards at the master's level highlights fundamental contradictions in higher education internationalisation. Academic institutions systematically promote English-taught postgraduate degrees as elite pathways to multinational employment and global prestige [1]. However, this institutional branding frequently obscures the complex realities of classroom communication, where linguistic hierarchies and variable faculty preparedness can diminish curricular depth. As higher education discourse shifts toward commercial competitiveness, English serves as a symbolic marker of institutional validity rather than a carefully scaffolded educational medium [1]. To mitigate these deficiencies, programs require structured pedagogical adaptations such as blended and flipped learning methodologies that foster collaborative interaction and support complex conceptual acquisition [4]. When curricular design fails to integrate such active learning frameworks, international cohorts face substantial hurdles in mastering specialized discipline-specific knowledge. Without robust quality assurance mechanisms and dedicated instructional support, the uncritical expansion of English-taught master's degrees risks reinforcing structural inequalities, placing recruitment targets ahead of sustainable educational outcomes.