The market for international higher education is substantial

According to an OECD report from last year (but containing data upto 2012), “Asia is the source for more than half of today’s internationally mobile students (53%), with China, India, and South Korea the main source countries.” Even though the source countries for international higher education student mobilisation may remain the same in 2015, the distribution of higher education students to destination countries in numbers and percentages based on university and college admissions have changed.

In other words, student demand for international higher education is changing. Recent reports from the US and the UK suggest a serious decline in university admissions from international students – a trend visible from 2013. Australia, which had suffered a similar decline a couple of years ago, seems to have recovered by making conscious changes to their university admissions, visa and employment policies. The Australian government seems to have given its full support.

Image courtesy http://monitor.icef.com/

Although the US still remains the biggest attraction for students from China, India and other developing economies, followed by the UK (still an Indian favourite), countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand are showing increased eagerness to win over international students for their universities and colleges. Somewhat behind are countries like France, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Japan, and a few others. The federal governments of these countries are taking an active interest. Higher education is becoming an export sector for them. Hence, all these countries are stepping up their student recruitment efforts and channels.

They are building stronger relationships with developing economies and formulating their own national higher education strategies for international students. They are encouraging their universities and colleges to (a) develop courses and programmes which are more globally relevant, (b) set up student support services to ease student-university interactions, (c) reach out and market themselves to international students in their own countries and institutions, (d) recruit students through education and counselling agencies, (e) offer attractive scholarships, and (f) create multicultural student and social communities to welcome and engage international students.

And why not? The market for international higher education is quite substantial. In an article in Forbes magazine last month, titled How The U.S. Can Capture The $170B Opportunity In International Higher Education, Allison Williams (an Analyst at University Ventures), quoting Ryan Craig, author of College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education, writes:

Consider the following: Education is Australia’s largest services “export” sector, contributing $13.5 billion to the Australian economy, or roughly 1 percent of GDP… If the United States was able to generate 1 percent of GDP from the export of online programs, that’s $170 billion or about 7 times the current U.S. higher education “export market” (i.e., international students studying stateside). It would represent a 30 percent increase in the overall higher education market.

In theory, in a purely online world, the potential could be much larger than Australia’s 1 percent. American universities could compete with every Asian university for every Asian student—not simply for those willing to travel abroad. In practice, as average tuition per online student would be much lower than what Chinese students are paying today in Australia, 1 percent is a reasonable target and would make higher education America’s largest export, ahead of agriculture and entertainment.

[Citation: OECD releases detailed study of global education trends for 2014, OECD, 17 September 2014; How The U.S. Can Capture The $170B Opportunity In International Higher Education, Allison Williams, Forbes Magazine, July 21, 2015.]

Should foreign universities be allowed into India?

India’s young population is increasing by the year, putting pressure on our education system which is struggling to create enough schools, colleges and universities to meet this demand. Not simply in the number of institutions needed to meet this demand, but also to provide quality education to create strong foundations for our students. Data available from the Ministry of HRD suggests that the 621 universities and the 33,500 colleges aren’t enough to meet this demand in sheer numbers. Nor are they capable of meeting the demands of the industry when students apply for jobs or seek opportunities for higher/tertiary education to advance their knowledge and careers.

This has prompted the bright and the wealthy students to seek a foreign education in countries such as USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, among others. The number of students is well over 200,000 in the last count – and increasing by the year. But who can blame them? According to the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings, not a single Indian university or institute of higher learning such as the IITs qualified to secure a rank in the top 200. Of course, many institutions and individuals have debated these rankings, but there is no doubt that India needs to assess her education systems, policies and standards in order to create an ecosystem of quality education for Indian students and to compete globally.

Image courtesy http://www.bloomberg.com

These facts were highlighted in an article, titled Why Harvard and Others Must Be Allowed Into India, by Dr Shashi Tharoor on NDTV.com late last month when he stated that, “The need for education reform has never been clearer. India’s spending on higher education is only 1.22% of GDP, which is quite low compared to US spending at 3.1% or, closer to home, South Korea’s at 2.4% of GDP. The figure should be higher. So too should India’s share in global research output, which is far too low at 3.5% for a country with 17% of the world’s brains.”

To contain the migration of Indian students to foreign universities overseas, Dr Tharoor makes a case for the entry of foreign universities into India with this point of view:

“Given the size and potential of our population, foreign universities are now showing a keen interest in creating institutions in India. But whereas countries in the Middle East, and China, are going out of their way to woo foreign universities to set up campuses in their countries, India’s regulatory framework turns away the many academic suitors who have come calling in recent years. Harvard and Yale would have both been willing to open branches in India to offer quality education to Indian students, but have been obliged to stay away.

Those Indians who choose to study abroad easily get opportunities to do so – currently nearly 100,000 of them in the United States alone. We made a huge fuss about Indian students getting beaten up in Australia. They would not need to go abroad – nor their parents to spend an estimated $3 billion a year in sending them afar — if we opened up the higher educational space in our country to institutions of international repute, and authorized the setting up of double the number of universities as we currently have.

There is no question that the need exists, the demand is huge, and that our growing and youthful population could easily fill several hundred new campuses. Nor is there a shortage of able and willing institutions ready to come into India.”

Read Dr Shashi Tharoor’s entire article here.

[Citation: Why Harvard and Others Must Be Allowed Into India, Dr Shashi Tharoor, NDTV.com, 23 June 2015.]

Indian students more rational in choosing foreign education

On 8 May 2015, The PIE News, a renowned industry web journal on international education, published an article by Sara Custer titled INTO survey shows agents bullish, jump in secondary courses. The article referred to and analysed a recent survey on foreign education consultants – or agents – done by INTO University Partnerships, a global education partnering organisation based in the UK.

The key takeaway from the survey was that foreign education consultants or agents in China, India and a few other countries (where the survey was conducted) were fairly certain that their business of sending students overseas to study was on the rise, with USA, UK, Australia and Canada being the most popular destinations of choice for foreign education by the students.

Image courtesy The PIE News and INTO University Partnerships 2015

The article stated that, according to the 762 agents surveyed, students preferred USA, UK, Australia and Canada over other destinations for higher education – with USA and UK way ahead of Australia and Canada. The article explained that these study destinations offered three major benefits (listed here according to priority as indicated in the survey): employment prospects, new experience, and personal development.

These three benefits or ‘motivating factors’ for students differed in degrees from country to country. For instance, Indian agents stated that ‘better employment prospects’ and ‘new experience’ were strong motivators for Indian students in choosing a foreign education. Chinese agents, on the other hand, stated ‘personal development’ as the primary motivator for students from China.

The article reported that, “Speaking with The PIE News, INTO’s vice president for global business and intelligence and development, Tim O’Brien, observed that Indian applicants approach overseas study as a “much more rational consumer looking at migration and long term employment prospects”.”

[Citation: INTO survey shows agents bullish, jump in secondary courses, Sara Custer, The PIE News, 8 May 2015.]

Indian student mobility

A week ago, ICEF, an international organiser of education, recruitment and industry events and resources, published an ICEF Monitor news article which focused on global student mobility.

Amongst other important research findings, the report stated that the number of Indian students seeking and obtaining admission to colleges and universities overseas has increased substantially over the last couple of years, edging past China which had led international student mobility for the past four years.

Image courtesy ICEF Monitor and M.M Advisory Services

The article, titled India reports strong growth in outbound for 2014; edges China for first time, published on the ICEF website, links to another report Indian Students Mobility Research Report 2015: Latest Trends From India and Globally [which] “draws on a range of international and host country data sources to conclude that total Indian outbound was just over 300,000 for 2014.

The report notes as well that roughly 85% of Indian students chose to study in five English-speaking countries – the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand – and much of its analysis accordingly concentrates on trends among these key study destinations.”

To find out more about the report’s findings, read the ICEF Monitor article here and the Indian Student Mobility report from M.M Advisory Services here.

[Citation: India reports strong growth in outbound for 2014; edges China for first time, ICEF Monitor, 3 June 2015; Indian Student Mobility – Latest Trends from India and globally, M.M Advisory Services, 2015.]

What Indian students today should know about their parents’ education

Most students today have little knowledge of their parents’ education. For the parents, growing up in the eighties in India, selecting subjects of study in high school and later in college/university were a done deal. There was not much to go on with. It was Science, Arts or Commerce in high school as broad streams of study – which opened up a few more opportunities in college/university. Science students could choose from physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics as the vanilla options. Or, branch out to more career-oriented studies like engineering and medicine – which opened up further options either based on the stream of engineering students chose (mechanical, electrical, electronics, etc.) or later during post-graduate studies with specialisations which was mainly true for medicine.

Arts students, which comprised mostly of women, could choose from vanilla options such as literature/language (e.g. English, Hindi, etc.), economics (which was sometimes classified as a science subject), history, political science, geography, education, philosophy, comparative literature and international relations. Commerce students were limited to commerce subjects like accountancy and economics, which helped them to branch out to chartered accountancy and cost accountancy later on. There were special subjects too, like agriculture, architecture, anthropology, geology, instrumentation, law, marine engineering, mining engineering, paper technology, pharmacy, psychology, statistics, textile engineering… among quite a few others.

Image courtesy classroom.synonym.com

Computer Science was introduced in many colleges around this time (earlier it was a part of Electronics Engineering); which means, parents of college-going students today learnt to use computers on their own. Of course, the great levellers were management studies (or business administration) and the Indian Administrative Services which produced millions of civil servants for our country. Both options were offered at post-graduate levels and coveted by many students from the time they undertook undergraduate courses. Management studies were for the elite – usually hand-picked students from wealthy and upper middle-class families who went on to lead large private (typically multinational) companies. They talked of business goals, strategies and profits while they collected handsome pay-packages and built lifestyles envied by many.

The Indian Administrative Services offered job security and immense power as civil servants in the government – be it administrative services, foreign services, revenue services, the police… among a plethora of choices… and welcomed graduates from the lower middle-class to wealthy families. From an economic dividend point of view, the Indian Administrative Services were far more democratic as a job and lifestyle leveller. There was also the perk of making additional money collected for/from favours – a topic that was known universally but talked in hushed tones. Apart from money, what was – and still is – most attractive about doing a post-graduate management programme or joining the Indian Administrative Services is the status and prestige they promise.

However, very few students in eighties’ India accomplished the feat of getting into a management programme or the Indian Administrative Services. Most high school and college/university students were clueless about their careers. There were no career guidance or student counselling services available to them either. Their teachers were academicians, and knew nothing about careers, except what they taught in class. Yet, their parents (i.e. grandparents to today’s students) had fixed notions about what their children should study and which careers they should choose from the limited options available at the time. They were under parental control, unable to take decisions on what they wanted to do with their lives and which careers to pursue.

Which was not too different from how many high school and college/university students feel now… in spite of thousands of options before them.

The education-skills disconnect

There’s a skills shortage. Not just in India, but the world over. Corporate organisations, large and small businesses, startup firms, governments, NGOs, healthcare and utility services, industries far and wide, and even education and training institutions which have the onus of producing skilled manpower for the industry and the world’s economy, are all complaining that there aren’t enough skilled people, nor enough people with the right skills, to meet the demand in the marketplace. In short, there’s a disconnect between the supply of skilled manpower from the education institutions and what’s in demand by the industry.

Image courtesy http://www.knowledgedirectweb.com

In Asia, where the demand for skilled people is far higher in sheer numbers than anywhere else in the world, governments in specific countries are investing heavily in education and training. India is a case in point, where the college-going population and, in turn, the working-age population (estimated to be growing at 12 million every year) thereafter are growing in leaps and bounds. To manage the growing college-going population, the Indian government plans to introduce another 800 universities and 35,000 colleges by 2020, mainly through public-private partnerships (PPPs).

Despite this focus and growth in higher education in India, employers, be they public or private organisations or the government, complain that the large majority of university graduates who enter the working population are unfit for the jobs in the marketplace. Not only do these graduates not possess the ‘technical’ skills required for the jobs, they lack soft skills as well. They even lack skills and attitudes necessary to adapt to new technologies at work and the discipline to fit into the work culture. These drawbacks mean further investments by the employers to prepare the newly-hired employees into the workforce.

For one thing, the university education curriculum is slow to change with the times. Thus, falling behind in providing state-of-the art education and training needed in jobs in the marketplace. Most of the education is theoretical, with very little focus on practical teaching which is expected to provide actual skills. Moreover, many universities, colleges and training institutes – particularly the new privately-owned ones – lack qualified and experienced faculty members to impart the education and training needed by the industry. There seems to be a skills shortage here too.

College admissions are a breeze in India

College students who are studying Science, Arts, Commerce and Law say getting into college wasn’t all that difficult for them. It depended on the marks they obtained in their school-leaving examinations. In fact, it had everything to do with how well (or badly) they had performed in school and in their one-and-only final school-leaving examination. Students scoring 90% marks or higher secured admissions into the best colleges; while others enrolled into colleges that selected them from a long list of students applying for admissions. The school-leaving exam mark sheet was the single qualifying criterion of their merit as a college/university applicant.

It also depended on the colleges/universities the students sought admissions in – with some prodding from their parents. The reputation of the college played an important part during application for admission. No one bothered to check the specific college/university faculty or department in terms of reputation of professors, achievements of past students, facilities offered like labs or libraries, general college/university amenities, scholarships, or even what the fees were. No one went for a campus visit. It was simply the overall reputation of the college/university that attracted the students. And, in some cases, particularly for the girls, proximity to their homes.

Image courtesy indiatoday.intoday.in

Of course, there were tense moments for many of them – and their parents – running around and standing in long queues to collect and submit forms, and pay fees, within deadlines set by the colleges. Looking back, the students now feel that the college/university admissions procedure was a breeze. There were no public examinations as there are for admissions to engineering and medical science courses; no SATs or IELTS tests to sit through; no Statement of Purpose or essays to write and submit as there are when seeking admission to foreign colleges/universities; or any other test or interview to qualify in for admissions.

Leaving aside engineering and medical colleges, this admissions procedure holds true for most colleges/universities in India at the moment. Some colleges do insist on written tests and interviews for admission. So, perhaps, specific colleges/universities in India do have specific qualifying criteria or rules for admissions. The point is, admission procedures to colleges/universities in India do not follow the kind of rigour or regimen that is standard practice for the best colleges/universities in the developed nations like the UK or USA. No doubt, this relatively easy college admissions procedure is a happy thing for students in India.

Clueless

Many parents with children in high school and college/university complain that their children are clueless about their careers. They are unsure about what subjects to choose and study, typically at college/university levels, in order to firm up on a career which will be rewarding for them and will make them happy. They believe that a foreign education is best for their children if they can afford it (and they are willing to borrow large sums of money to accomplish this) – and if an admission can be obtained in a reputed university overseas, there’s nothing like it. This usually means studying in countries like the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, etc. If this preferred option fails, then they are open to an education in one of the best Indian colleges/universities that their money can buy.

What parents and their children are also clueless about is what to study and which college or university to study in. Today, there are thousands of courses to choose from and hundreds of thousands of colleges and universities to study in, both in India and abroad. The general belief is that a foreign education is better than an Indian education; and, hence, the higher education industry segment has become one of the fastest growing businesses globally. Unlike most countries where the working population is on its way out, India is a youthful country where, apparently, 12 million students are getting into higher education very year. That means, at least, 12 million decisions on higher education and on subsequent careers need to be made every year.

Image courtesy counselorindelhi.in

With this in mind, several things are happening at the same time. The Indian government is getting busy planning and establishing private colleges and universities across India through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). This, of course, means India also needs to plan to produce hundreds of thousands of academic and support professionals to cater to these colleges and universities. Not to mention setting up of systems for administration, evaluation and certification. On the other hand, colleges and universities abroad are targeting the Indian higher education student population as a source of their intakes and income. They are offering a wider spectrum of courses to study, in many more modules and combinations of electives, and are willing to go to great lengths to offer financial aid to deserving students.

All this has created further confusion among Indian students and their parents. Now, with so many more options presented to them, they are just as clueless about what to study, where to study and which career to pursue. Perhaps more so, as, for Indian students and their parents, the universe of higher education has grown far too fast for them to comprehend. In this milieu, Indian high schools, colleges and universities are still unprepared to counsel their students and offer career guidance. Education consultants have come up in response to this need, and mostly offer information on courses, colleges/universities and admissions. Some offer in-depth career counselling services, along with psychometric tests and evaluation to determine student aptitudes, in order to identify appropriate career options for students.

India’s education legacy

For Indian students, there are a multitude of career options to choose from these days. Forty years ago, higher education choices were limited to a meagre few: Science, Arts and Commerce in high school; Engineering, Medicine, Science, Arts and Commerce in college. Law, Accountancy, the Indian Administrative Services, and Business Management came thereafter as post-graduate options.

Studies, or studying, meant memorising stuff from books and lecture notes before ‘vomiting’ it all out in long and arduous exams. Students practised answering hundreds of questions and ‘solving’ test papers from years past, with the hope that their exams will contain some of those questions, making it easier for them to score higher marks. Students intent on scoring well in exams simply crammed and crammed their brains with study material and ‘vomited’ it all out when the time came.

It was a test of memory. Students who could retain facts, figures and processes in their brains scored well in their exams. There was no test of skill or problem-solving or application of knowledge. Those students who could actually apply themselves to the best of their abilities and solved problems that mattered in their professional life didn’t necessarily do well. It was something like remembering a whole lot of ‘statistics’ on cricket matches, players and their performances; it didn’t matter if you could play cricket or not.

Image courtesy ibnlive.in.com and AP

Some high school students joined the Indian Defence Services or the merchant navy; but these options were limited to boys. Since there were so few career options to choose from, academic and career paths were more or less set for the students. Nobody cared for career counselling for students or for administering aptitude tests to evaluate student aptitudes and abilities to perform well in specific academic fields or careers later on. If students got into a good college and found themselves a job after graduation or post-graduation, they considered themselves lucky.

That was the state of education in India forty years ago – and it continues in this manner in much of India even today. The marginally-few ‘bright’ students applied their minds and, with the support of their families and part-scholarships, pursued a foreign education. They, typically, chose university programmes in USA and in the UK, never to return to India again. There was a hue and cry about ‘brain drain’ by economists and policymakers, before private institutions and some Indian universities began offering new curricula and research options to attract the ‘bright’ students and retain them in the country – not just in colleges and universities, but also in the workforce.

Of course, the ‘bright’ students still left the country for a foreign education; but the new curricula initiative attracted the general (mediocre) student population into new fields of study and careers. Some of these students did rather well too. It began tentatively in the early eighties with computer education, which blossomed into a fast-growing private-sector industry before the 1980s were over. Education came to be recognised as an industry sector, a business making profits, albeit with private players building the industry. It hasn’t looked back since.

Over the years, with private investment, many professional training institutes, colleges and universities have come up. They offer many more fields of study for academic and career pursuits than what was on offer as higher and tertiary education forty, thirty or even twenty years ago. With liberalisation and globalisation opening up the economy, Indian businesses flourished, demanding many more people with many more skills in the workforce. Education became a sought-after commodity and, with more money in the hands of the Indian middle-class, many more students were able to choose their fields of study and careers from many more institutes of education… in India and abroad.

Where do you look for a job when you’re stepping out of college?

Stepping out of college or university is one of those watershed periods in a student’s life. The lucky ones go through campus interviews and step into a new world with job offers in their hands. But the majority of students in India and across the globe haven’t a clue about what to do or where to go.

Most colleges and universities don’t have career guidance facilities available for students, and parents and college professors aren’t much help either. Usually, students stumble along looking for jobs through family and friends, or through the internet, hoping to get lucky. Many never do. Sadly, this has been the situation for years, driving some students into despair and desperation.

Reputed colleges and universities do have guidance counsellors – though, when I speak to students, I hear that most counsellors lack sufficient knowledge (of the thousands of careers available for them) or the motivation to guide the students. Thereby, leaving students as clueless as their parents were 30 years ago. So, the question still remains: where do you look for a job when you’re stepping out of college?

Fortunately, there’s a great deal of information about jobs and companies available on the internet and in the mainstream media which makes job hunting a lot easier for students. For instance, you could start by finding out who are the best employers to work for in India. To help you along, here are two sources of such information: A Great Place To Work’s India’s Best Companies To Work For 2014 and Universum’s India’s Ideal Employers 2014.

Business Today magazine had also published an article on The best companies to work for in August 2014.