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.]
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