The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is probably the single most important development in the global multilateral trading system since the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) came into effect in 1948.

This report, which was presented at a UNESCO/World Bank/World Trade Organisation conference in Oslo in May 2003 consists of three sections. The first focuses on higher education and the knowledge society, the  proliferation of regional free trade agreements and the notion of trade in education services. Section two assesses the implications of GATS for higher education in the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and addresses some of the concerns raised by GATS for the service sectors in developing countries in general, and for the higher education system in particular. It concludes by providing a set of scenarios as possible responses to GATS by SADC countries in the immediate and shortterms.

The third section looks at the issue of foreign students and academic staff in the only SADC country in the region for which such data is available, South Africa.