Australia’s international student dilemma

Things are looking good for Australia’s higher education export sector. In the past two years, every year, close to 300,000 international students have enrolled into Australian universities and vocational education and training programmes. This puts Australia as one of the top four countries in international higher education – behind USA and the UK, but ahead of Canada.

The reason that attracts international students to these countries is primarily the superior quality of education offered by their universities. But, apart from the fact that these are all English-speaking countries (a factor that cannot be overlooked), another major reason is the attraction of being able to stay back in the destination country after graduation to find employment, permanent residence and citizenship.

This second reason of employment, permanent residence and citizenship may offer fantastic opportunities to international students – most of whom come from higher-middle-income Asian and African families – but this regular influx of large numbers of international students can cause a dilemma for the governments of these destination countries. Australia, which receives hundreds of thousands of international students year after year, has been expressing aspects of this dilemma in the media recently.

Image courtesy http://www.studybrisbane.com.au

In a post earlier this month, we had talked about one such concern over housing and quoted from an article in The Age by Michael Pascoe. In that article, Mr Pascoe writes in separate instances,

“The reworked visa system is supposed to be tighter but still attractive to foreign students in what is a highly competitive international market for their custom.”

“The private education sector as well as public universities are actively hunting the fees.”

“Such strong growth also means further urgent need for investment in student housing. The RBA [Reserve Bank of Australia] submission observes that, as well as overall population growth, its composition influences housing demand.”

“So a rise in foreign student numbers should mean a rise in demand for rental accommodation in what already are housing hotspots.”

In another more recent online article, titled Is Australia hooked on international students? in Macrobusiness.com.au, Dr Jenny Stewart, Honorary Professor of Public Policy in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, provides a detailed analysis of what this continuing growth in international students to Australia may mean to her country.

Here are selected excerpts from her article:

“The numbers are substantial. In 2013-2014, of just over 290,000 student visas that were granted, 153,000 were for study in higher education institutions. (Most of the rest were for vocational courses, which in turn offer a pathway towards onshore application for a higher education visa).”

“What do these undergraduate students do once they have completed their qualification? Many, understandably, wish to remain in Australia. Every year since 2006-2007 (the earliest year for which data at the relevant level of detail is readily available), the numbers of long-term arrivals in the higher education visa category have exceeded the numbers leaving by roughly 80,000 people per year.”

“Over the years, international students have brought a good deal of money to Australia and, each year, they continue to do so. Indeed the universities have become dependent upon them financially. The student-migrants are hard-working, and most get jobs.”

“But there are negative implications, too. Firstly, the need to attract, year in and year out, students in these kinds of numbers, has an impact on the prestige-value of Australian qualifications in the international market-place. This is because prestige is affected by the standards (including the English-language standards) that students must meet in order to graduate.”

“From a university perspective, it is enrolments that matter, so there is continuous pressure not to be too demanding when it comes to language skills, and if at all possible, to pass students as they undertake their degree-courses. (Similar factors operate in relation to domestic students).”

“If potential residency is part of the package, prestige may not matter so much to many students. But over time, we would expect it would become harder and harder to attract the best students from specific countries, as their own educational institutions mature, and ambitious families have more options to pursue.”

Dr Stewart gives us several critical pointers to how the higher education export sector may shape up for Australia in the years to come. We agree that the Australian government needs to address these concerns soon and adopt a long-term strategy towards Australia’s higher education exports, visa and immigration policies, housing, and the labour market.

You can read Dr Jenny Stewart’s entire article here.

[Citation: Foreign students set to power housing, Michael Pascoe, The Age, 4 August 2015; Is Australia hooked on international students?, Dr Jenny Stewart, Macrobusiness.com.au, 19 August 2015.]

The integration challenge

This blog is about international higher education, with a skew towards Indian students seeking a foreign education. Recently, we’ve been blogging about the internationalisation of higher education, giving perspectives of students, the universities they attend and the countries they study in. As more and more universities in the developed nations welcome international students, the need to address the internationalisation of students becomes critical in the overall student experience and the reputation of the universities they study in.

It goes without saying that international students studying in countries such as USA, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and European countries face difficulties not only academically, but also in socially adjusting to their new environment. When they go to study overseas, international students find greater difficulty in fitting into the social circles and the local communities than in managing their academic curricula. The internationalisation of higher education covers this entire universe of student experience.

With costs of higher education going up in USA and the UK – which are favourite study destinations for international students from Asia, Africa and Latin America – along with strict enforcement of student visas and immigration policies, many students now prefer to choose Australia, Canada and New Zealand as their study destinations. Although this is excellent news for these countries in terms of income from higher education exports and the building up of a skilled workforce, the challenge for international students and the challenge for universities in these countries with a growing international student population still remain.

This internationalisation of students problem is broadly termed as ‘the integration challenge’. The Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE), for instance, released a paper recently on this very topic of the internationalisation of higher education. The paper, titled The Integration Challenge: Connecting International Students with their Canadian peers, by Janine Knight-Grofe and Lisa Deacon attempts to document the challenges of and solutions to the internationalisation of higher education in Canada and globally. The following are excerpts from this paper selected by us for your quick reading:

Image courtesy http://www.cbie-bcei.ca/

“The number of foreign students in Canada continues to grow rapidly. In 2013, there were 293,500 international students in Canada, up 50% in the last five years.”

“Yet emerging research indicates that one of the strategic advantages of an internationalized campus — the formation of social bonds between international students and their Canadian counterparts — has been unsuccessful. In CBIE’s 2014 survey of more than 3,000 post-secondary international students at 25 universities and colleges across Canada, 56% of respondents reported having no Canadian students as friends. Even those international students who plan to stay on in Canada after studying are no more likely to have Canadian friends — only 46% of them do. In addition, 36.6% indicated that it is difficult to get to know Canadian students.”

“A recent US study (Gareis, 2012) found that almost 40% of international students in the US indicate that they have no close American friends and would like to have more meaningful interaction with Americans. Students highlighted internal as well as external factors for their lack of social bonds. Internal factors included “shyness” and lack of strong language proficiency. External factors included what is seen as a lack of interest in other cultures on the part of US students.”

“In Australia, the issue of international student integration has been studied for many years. In a 1973 study on loneliness, two-thirds of international students reported feeling loneliness and/or isolation during their studies (from Weiss, R., 1973, in Nuffic, 2007). In a 2011 study, many students indicated that they have only superficial interactions with Australian students (Gresham and Clayton, 2011). Australia Education International’s (AEI) 2006 International Student Survey found that 87% of international students at the school level, 80% of international students at the post-secondary level and 91% of international students studying preparatory English language courses would like to have more Australian friends (AEI, 2012). AEI attributes this to Australian students having an existing circle of friends and not seeing a particular benefit to social bonds with international students.”

“In the UK, a 2004 survey jointly conducted by the British Council, Universities UK, UKCOSA and the Council for International Education found that two-thirds of international students have few or no British friends. The survey results show that most international students befriend students from their home country or other international students. In fact, nearly 60% of international students said that their friends were other international students only, including students from their home country; 32% said they have a mix of UK and international friends; and only 7% of international students said that the majority of their friends were British.”

“While this disquieting global trend of lack of international student integration is increasingly recognized across Canada’s campuses, the barriers to the formation of social bonds between international students and their Canadian counterparts, as well as best practices to address such challenges, remain only partly identified. Though Canadian institutions invest significant resources in orientation and integration programs, and many use researched best practice models, there remain both internal (student) and external (institutional, structural) factors which influence the formation of friendships between international and Canadian students.”

You can read the entire paper The Integration Challenge: Connecting International Students with their Canadian peers by Janine Knight-Grofe and Lisa Deacon here.

[Citation: The Integration Challenge: Connecting International Students with their Canadian peers, Janine Knight-Grofe and Lisa Deacon, Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE), 2015.]

International higher education is driving Australia’s growth

Globally, the higher education industry is in a flux. More so in developed nations like USA and the UK where rising costs of higher education is attracting fewer and fewer students to universities within their own borders.

Hence, these US and UK universities have had no choice but to woo more and more international students, typically, from Asian countries like China and India. Even then, they face strong competition from other English-speaking countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand which see tremendous opportunities in building their own higher education sectors.

Australia, for instance, has been a higher education destination for Asian students for many years. It witnessed a drastic fall in international student enrollments after 2009 when immigration laws and student visa policies were tightened; but has put new strategies in place recently to ease and expedite student visa applications and offer limited work permits to international students after graduation.

Image courtesy http://www.australia.edu

The Australian government sees higher education as a promising and profitable export service, and is encouraging individual as well as state-wise universities to formulate their own higher education strategies. The international student community – particularly from Asian countries – is responding well to Australia’s invitation, and enrollments to Australian universities have shown an increase in the past two years.

These Australian universities, which had earlier relied entirely on local (i.e. Asian) foreign education agents with university representatives visiting Asian countries now and then as a support service, are now investing in student recruitment and marketing offices and officers of their own, locally, in countries like China and India. This had been a practice for a few Australian universities for the past six years or so, but many more Australian universities are making this investment now.

In an online article, titled Foreign students set to power housing, in The Age dated 4 August 2015, Michael Pascoe writes, “…foreign student numbers are rising sharply and predicted to regain and surpass the record 2009 level of some 120,000 in two years and then keep going.” He continues with “The foreign-students boom is a fine thing for the Australian education industry and the overall economy. It should drive substantial investment in education – some of the urgently required and missing-in-action non-mining investment.”

In fact, Mr Pascoe sums up this happy boom in Australian higher education sentiment very aptly in his article’s first paragraph: “Education is one of the stars of Australia’s rising export services sector and one that has an often overlooked multiplier on the tourism side.” Mr Pascoe feels this boom may also affect the housing sector in Australia. He writes, “It also looks like being the source of the next wave of housing price pressure, especially in Sydney and Melbourne hotspots.”

Mr Pascoe sums up this sentiment as well with “Such strong growth also means further urgent need for investment in student housing.”

[Citation: Foreign students set to power housing, Michael Pascoe, The Age, 4 August 2015.]

International student recruitment depends on student visas

No matter how strong the student’s academic grades are, or how easily he or she has qualified in the admissions procedure to a university or college overseas, it is impossible to study in a foreign university without a student visa. It’s true that it can be heartbreaking for a student to be refused a student visa to study overseas at a university of his or her choice; but it is equally important for universities to ensure that their country’s visa procedures for international students do not restrict the best students from being refused entry into the country and the university.

Moreover, as international students are keen to find employment in the country of study after obtaining their degrees, as well as find part-time jobs during their study to reduce the burden of their tuition fees and living expenses, student visas are closely linked to in-country employment opportunities available to them. Universities, therefore, lobby with their governments to ease both student visa as well as employment visa procedures for international students. This is a complex decision for governments and not all countries are open to offering employment to international students.

Image credit ung.edu

Still, higher education is an export services industry for countries like USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, among others, where international students flock to study. They earn substantial amounts from international student fees, and add much more to their GDP through tourism when the families of these students visit them. However, a growing number of international students also means the responsibility of providing employment for most (if not all) of them, both during study and after, which could put pressure on the local job and labour markets and influence the country’s immigration policies.

USA, the country that attracts the largest number of international students, is still conservative in issuing work permits during study and employment visas to international students. It has managed to keep its lead in the global international higher education market simply due to its reputation of offering quality education. The UK, which is also revered for quality education among international students, has taken a very tough stance against offering employment opportunities to international students (particularly from non-European Union countries) after a recent crackdown on fraudulent practices in student enrolments and visa applications.

Australia has benefited most from restrictions on international students in USA and the UK. It has begun actively marketing itself as a study destination for international students and has simplified the entire student visa application process. It has also become more empathetic towards international students in offering employment opportunities. Apparently, the higher education export services sector is one of the most-promising industries in the Australian economy and the Australian government plans to invest further in it to bring the industry back on its heydays of 2009.

Canada, too, has benefited substantially by welcoming many international students who are turning away from USA and the UK. A recent change in its immigration and employment policies allow international students to work 20 hours a week without a work permit while studying. Like Australia, Canada has also simplified its student visa system and relaxed its policies to welcome many more international students into the workforce after graduation. And like Australia, Canada has stepped up its higher education marketing to attract international students. Both countries have aggressive international student recruitment strategies.

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.]

How do you measure success in international education?

Although many Indian students are keen on a foreign education, they (and their parents) often wonder about the value and usefulness of that education – particularly when they hear rumours of poor job prospects in the countries the students choose to study in.

Beckie Smith, in an article titled How do you measure success in international education? in The PIE News dated 6 March 2015, echoes this thought as follows:

“Two of the most obvious indicators of success in higher education are grades and graduate employment rates. As Lakshmi Iyer, Director and Head of Education at market entry consulting firm Sannam S4 points out, “Someone’s decision to undertake studying abroad is often driven by the idea that it will help them stand apart in the local market and also help them achieve a better standing in their chosen profession”.

Many institutions therefore focus on how well they can prepare students for the world of work.”

Not only to please their students, but also to check the effectiveness and experience of the education they are imparting, foreign colleges and universities usually assess their own strengths in the delivery of their education. To accomplish this, they constantly collect and evaluate data – from student enquiries and applications to student performance during programmes to end-of-programme outcomes in academics and job placements.

Image courtesy http://www.msjc.edu

Fortunately, the matter doesn’t end there. As Ms Smith reports earlier in How do you measure success in international education?:

“In discussions about what constitutes success in international education, one common thread is particularly prominent. Described variously as “a well-rounded experience”, “broadening horizons” and “an opportunity to grow”, it is now widely acknowledged that international education is a multifaceted experience whose success hinges not only on academic achievement but on a student’s personal development and enjoyment of the experience.

This discussion is founded in a consensus that these different facets are interdependent, and that ensuring that students experience life outside the classroom is both a worthy goal in itself and one that can boost student retention and benefit learning.”

This shifts the focus from colleges/universities to the students. Although colleges/universities try to create a friendly and multicultural environment for its international students and welcome them into the local community, sometimes, faced with the challenges of a new environment, international students aren’t quick to adopt to their circumstances. They are slow to build a network of friends and support services.

In her article, Ms Smith sets us up with an example:

“As Kelly Franklin, Director of UNC Charlotte’s English Language Training Institute, notes, it is students who consider their sole purpose of studying abroad to be just that – studying – who are most likely to struggle.

“It seems these are the students who have the most difficulty when they face any challenge, be it a difficult class or a broken fixture in their apartment, simply because they haven’t developed any network of support or empathy,” he remarks.

The importance of building relationships and participation in a student community can therefore hardly be overstated.”

Of course, colleges/universities continue to embrace international students through a variety of engagements such as orientation programmes, student clubs, extra-curricular activities, alumni relations, volunteering opportunities, mentoring initiatives, and more. To colleges and universities, student retention is a key metric in assessing the success of the overall ‘student experience’ for international students.

Read Beckie Smith’s article in detail here.

[Citation: How do you measure success in international education?, Beckie Smith, The PIE News, 6 March 2015.]

Challenges of settling in – Part 2

Read Part 1 of this post here.

Food is sometimes a problem for Indian students. After all, they are used to certain types of foods, tastes and food habits while living in India. Studying in a foreign university automatically means bidding goodbye to home-cooked food. Adjusting to new types of food, specifically if the students are vegetarians, can be a challenge. Moreover, the students have to fend for themselves. There’s no home to go back to, to find mom waiting with a sumptuous meal laid out on the table.

Social adjustments also require effort. In spite of universities offering multicultural environments, welcoming diversity and organising orientation programmes for international students, getting to know foreign students and faculty members well and feeling comfortable in their company and in their social circles requires time, open minds and fairly extraordinary social skills which Indian students are not used to. Added to this is the natural human stress Indian students feel for leaving their social circles behind.

Image courtesy http://www.better-ed.org

Language can be a problem too. Supposing students obtain admissions in English-speaking countries, even for Indian students who are conversant with understanding, speaking and writing English – and have met the English language requirements during admission – using English language locally/colloquially can be a challenge. Countries such as the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. all have their specific English language usages and idioms which require familiarisation and practice. Failure to do so quickly creates difficulty in understanding lectures and in conversing with local people, slowing down the social integration process for Indian students.

Since most Indian students need to control their finances wisely, staying away from many social activities becomes imperative. Participation in social activities means incurring small expenditures which puts a strain on the students’ pocket money. To counter this, acquiring a temporary income becomes necessary. But many Indian students aren’t willing to take up part-time jobs to earn some extra cash as they aren’t used such work in India. Those students who are open to part-time work don’t always find suitable work opportunities, or are limited by the number of hours they can work in-campus.

These challenges for Indian (and other international) students are very real. Although, as foreign education counsellors, we try to set student expectations as close to the reality as possible before the students leave India for their destination universities, these acclimatisation challenges are still difficult to manage. This leaves many Indian students feeling a little bit lonely and isolated, slowing down their settling in process in their destination universities and countries. Fortunately, most Indian students get a grip on this reality pretty soon.

Challenges of settling in – Part 1

It’s normal for Indian students who have obtained admission in universities overseas to be excited by the prospect of studying abroad and beginning their life as international students. However, life isn’t always easy for them when they reach their destination universities. Relocating to another country and acclimatising to a new environment pose many challenges.

A great deal is at stake for the students. Even if they are uncomfortable in their new environment, returning home isn’t an option. Much time and effort is already invested in obtaining admission in a university; parents have borrowed significant sums of money as education loans for them; and they have travelled long distances to a foreign land. Not to mention the social repercussions of a failed attempt in foreign education should they return.

Image courtesy http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

As foreign education counsellors, we organise acclimatisation orientation programmes for both students and their families prior to their journeys abroad. But these aren’t always enough to help them settle in their new environment, make new friends, and enjoy their stay in a new country. For some students, the experience of settling in can be stressful. So, in this blog post, we have decided to mention a few of the challenges Indian students face when they reach their destination universities.

The first is the challenge of reaching the university from the airport in the foreign country should the university not arrange for local transport as a pick-up – or, if the student, by chance, misses the pick-up transport due to an exigency. It’s always better for the student to familiarise himself or herself with the destination city and directions to the university from the airport while still in India. Connecting with past students from the university or the admissions officer, and internet searches are good ideas.

Next is finding accommodation. If the university does not offer accommodation or facilitate in-campus stay, ideally arranged before the journey, then finding a place to stay can be a daunting experience for the students in a new environment. Particularly in finding accommodation which is affordable and which is not too far from the university, so that local conveyance costs are kept at a minimum. Of course, there’s also the issue of safety for the students.

[Continue to Part 2]