2022-05-26 06:02:40
With Covid-19 halting cross-border travel for most of the world for an extended period, stakeholders predicted a trend for prospective international students remaining closer to home in study hubs like Dubai in the Middle East or Malaysia in South East Asia. Helen Packer delves into how likely intra-regional mobility is to be a sustained trend.
At the beginning of the pandemic, countries shut their borders, universities closed their doors and numbers of students arriving from abroad dropped by staggering amounts in some regions.
But international student numbers remained steady at The University of Nottingham Malaysia, a branch campus of the UK university located 30km south of Kuala Lumpur.
It was, in fact, the local market that proved to be the most precarious for the institution. While Malaysian students waited to see if in-person classes would resume before enrolling, international students tuned into the university’s online lectures from Asian countries including China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
The university is one of several in the country that welcomes a significant proportion of students from neighbouring nations, and, in the process, is contributing to the establishment of Malaysia as an education hub for the region – the country hosted 127,583 international students in 2019.
Traditionally, students from the Global South have flocked to the North for an international education, picking up new language skills and taking advantage of post-study work opportunities in the process.
But studying in non-English speaking countries closer to their own homes is becoming an increasingly popular option among some students, with nations including Malaysia, Dubai and South Africa establishing themselves as in-demand destinations for students from their respective continents.
Although global data on intra-regional mobility is limited, in 2014 the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development found that 21% of international students were studying in countries sharing a direct land or maritime border with their homeland.
Michael Lawson, regional recruitment director at Heriot-Watt University Dubai, believes the pandemic accelerated regional mobility, arguing that the trend of studying closer to home “gained worthy popularity”.
“Students in the Middle East and North Africa were forced to reevaluate their higher education goals because entry into countries such as Australia, the UK, and Canada were temporarily closed,” Lawson says.
Would-be international students looking for alternative study destinations to these “traditional” ones were already on Jagdish Singh’s radar, even before the pandemic. As the director of student recruitment at The University of Nottingham Malaysia, he purposefully targets aspiring students from within the region.
But Singh believes that there will always be some students – normally wealthier ones – who want to study in Western destinations, pandemic or no pandemic.
“It is very unlikely that I'm going to convince them to come to Malaysia,” he says. “And in fact, I don't even want to spend time and resources trying to convince them.”
But there’s another segment of young people who Singh thinks are much more amenable to studying a little closer to home: the “aspirational” middle and upper-middle class. These students (and their families, on their behalf) are eager to experience an international education, but struggle to afford the high price of university in the Global South.
Instead of ruling out international study, these students are increasingly considering closer destinations where they can reap the benefits of studying abroad without the expensive price tag.
It’s not just universities, but politicians who are keen to promote intra-regional mobility. Even before the pandemic, governments around the world began to realise that keeping international students on their own continents can help tackle brain-drain, boost economies and enhance regional cooperation.
"AIMS is opening up opportunities for them to understand the region"
For example, the AIMS program in Asia gives students at universities in the region the opportunity to spend a semester abroad in another ASEAN country. This initiative, which is overseen by the respective government education departments, promotes academic cooperation across nine countries and 77 higher education institutions. Since 2010, over 6,000 students have participated in the program.
“We want to harmonise the higher education sector,” explains Romyen Kosaikanont, centre director at the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development.
She notes that the mobility program is part of a wider geopolitical strategy to integrate the ASEAN countries – including boosting trust and understanding between the countries – in order to make them more competitive on the global stage.
All the countries in the ASEAN region were once colonies and, as a result, Kosaikanont believes that many of the people in these nations know more about the countries that once colonised them than they do about neighbouring states.
“AIMS is opening up opportunities for them to understand the region,” she says, “and make them feel comfortable actually coming back to be a student or coming back for employment”.
Much like Singh’s recruitment strategy, the AIMS exchange, which has been running since 2008, is primarily aimed at the students who lack the resources to travel further afield.
Although the AIMS program was long-established before the pandemic, the crisis forced the participating universities to adapt, meaning students can now benefit from virtual and hybrid mobility options, as well as physical exchanges. As a result, Kosaikanont says mobility in the ASEAN region has become more accessible and inclusive.
The need for regional integration and fears of brain-drain have also motivated African countries – where three-quarters of the population are under 35 – to focus on local student mobility.
A number of institutions and programs have emerged to support intra-African mobility, including the African Centre of Excellence, the Pan African University and the Inter University Council of Eastern Africa.
Some countries in Africa – including South Africa, Egypt and Senegal – already experience positive net mobility, with more international students coming in than domestic students going abroad, and a 2015 study of South Africa found that African students chose to attend university there due to the convenience of travel, the lower cost and the familiar culture.
But government support and investment is crucial to the success of intra-regional mobility. Speaking about South America, Victor Hugo Baseggio, director at student agency Central de Intercambio Brazil, says there is little regional mobility due to "bureaucracy and visa restrictions" and lack of job opportunities for foreigners.
Even when leaders are committed to boosting mobility, it takes more than just a focus on education to attract students. Singh believes that local students choose Malaysia over other countries in Asia not only because of the quality of the universities there (particularly the several Western-branded TNE options on offer, like the University of Nottingham Malaysia) but also due to the country’s fast-paced development.
"It's very, very well developed in terms of infrastructure, technology, [and] our financial systems," states Singh. "A lot of us speak English, which might not be the case in Vietnam or other developing markets. It's very safe. It's very affordable."
However, despite changes brought by the pandemic and the country’s selling points, regional hubs like Malaysia are not yet competing with major Western destinations. The students who can afford to continue to head West to complete their degree programs.
"Demand for countries like the UK, Australia, USA, Canada is showing no signs of slowing down," notes Akshay Chaturvedi, founder and CEO of Leverage Edu, a study abroad platform.
"With the onset of the global pandemic, students and parents now want to make sure the destination country not only has the best universities, but also give immigrant students access to universal healthcare and a higher quality of living."
Chaturvedi also believes that students will still prioritise future work opportunities – something that countries closer to home may be unable to offer.
Singh agrees that, in order to recruit a wider range of students from within the region, more needs to be done to link higher education with employability in the country.
“Malaysia is not as attractive because we still don’t offer a post-study work visa. There is no pathway to permanent residence or being a citizen,” he says, adding that he is confident that the Malaysian government is “waking up to the importance” of post-study employment options for students.
“I think on a government level, that's what we need to be thinking about to compete with these other countries, because it can't just be the universities,” he says. “There's only so much a university can do”.
"You talk about where the world’s youth are. It’s in Asia"
Over in the UAE, Lawson believes that the “growing job market” is a key factor encouraging students from the Middle East and North Africa region to study in Dubai. In May 2022, the UAE government enhanced its “golden visa” scheme to allow “outstanding” graduates from the country’s universities to apply for a 10-year residence permit, signalling its commitment to attracting international students.
One thing is clear – universities in these emerging hubs won’t be slowing down when it comes to regional recruitment.
“This shift in the outlook of being closer home for education is not a short-lived trend and is here to stay,” says Lawson.
“Asia is where it's at,” says Singh. “You talk about technological advancement. You talk about where the world’s youth are. It’s in Asia.
“I think there’s a lot of opportunities here and I think students are increasingly seeing that.”
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