Furthering Equality in International HE

Today, some thoughts following the HEA seminar at the University of Surrey, which took the ambitious theme of Furthering Equality in International Higher Education: UK and transnational programmes 

As one delegate remarked, in many ways internationalisation and equality/diversity seem clearly linked topics, but it's remarkable how rarely the two appear on the same agenda (with occasional honourable exceptions such as work by the Equality Challenge Unit).  Later, I'll come back to what came out in today's attempts to combine the two.

But first, I want to welcome another rare juxtaposition of topics.  The three papers focused respectively on the experience of international (specifically Chinese) students in the UK, the experience of outwardly mobile students from the UK (in this case, on Erasmus work placements) and the experience of students taking UK degrees under transnational education (TNE) arrangements (in Hong Kong).  While these are generally agreed to be three of the principal aspects of student-focused internationalisation, they are rarely considered holistically, leading to some odd disconnects in the literature.

Bringing these together generated some clear common themes:

First, the potentially transformative nature of international education, as widely evidenced in the work of those who have written about "study abroad", mainly focused on credit-based mobility of organised mobility from the US and to a lesser extent European sending countries.  Contrast this with the literature on international students coming to the main receiving countries, which for quite some period focused on adjustment problems and deficit models, 'otherising' the sojourner.  Therefore Qing Gu's work on the transformative effects of UK study on Chinese students brings a welcome recognition that this transformative power is not uni-directional, and applies to all globally mobile students.  This, of course, raises a crucial question about TNE: can the same transformative effects be found from having an international education at home?  Johanna Waters research suggests that this is far from certain.  Moreover, some authors (eg Luke 2012) would argue that if all higher education is or should be transformational, we have to consider how we disentangle which transformative effects are due to the 'international' as opposed to the 'higher education' experience.

Second, the explanatory power of Bourdieu's ideas of social, education and cultural capital are incredibly useful at helping us understand why some students move, and others do not.  Hannah Deakin's work on Erasmus placement students finds language and finance to be significant barriers for UK students, coupled with lack of encouragement (or at times active opposition) from faculty.  I would suggest that while in some cases finance is a genuine barrier, there is sufficient evidence that both language and finance are barriers that can be overcome to suggest that the real issue is students' lack of social and mobility capital.  Importantly, when faculty members themselves have mobility capital, they are effective at sharing it with their students (returning students likewise do), explaining why students are far more likely to move when faculty are active international champions.

Third, a common theme in all three modalities was the importance of employability.  For students, the personal developmental aspects were important - perhaps increasingly so over time - but one test of their international experience was how it was seen by employers.

But what about equality? 

In relation to students who had studied in the UK, we touched briefly on the issues of inequalities in global flows, both at national level, and at the level of the individual.  What went unspoken was the role of financial capital here, as well as social and educational capital.  Although in countries such as China there has been a vast expansion in the numbers able to engage in study abroad, still only 2% of Chinese students study abroad.  Opportunities remain very much the preserve of elites (although here second-tier elites, as the first tier study at home), albeit on a larger scale than previously. 

In relation to TNE, which potentially extends international opportunities to those not able to leave home, the question was asked: "Is the involvement of UK universities about (equal) opportunities, or opportunism?"  The consensus was that it was perhaps 80% the latter, rather than primarily attempts to extend widening participation approaches on a global scale - although there was a recognition that for some teaching staff, the latter might be the primary motivation, and even at institutional level equality aspects might be an added bonus.  There are some interesting parallels between the perceptions of TNE as second rate compared to domestic public HE in Hong Kong, and perceptions of "more means worse" in relation to increased access in the UK, suggesting that in both cases elites seek to preserve their social and cultural capital by questioning the validity of new waves of provision.

In relation to outward mobility, Deakin's suggestion is that Erasmus work placements have potentially extended opportunities for study abroad by removing some of the financial and linguistic barriers.  However, as Annette Kratz pointed out, current Student Finance England policies on funding students abroad are much less favourable for work placements than study abroad, assuming that the former are paid, which is not always the case.  There is scope for a review of policy here if the full potential of work placements to increase outward mobility of UK students is to be realised.

Finally, one other surprising thing about today:  nobody even mentioned MOOCs (Massively Overhyped Online Courses as I like to call them), but if I were to extrapolate I would say that today's themes confirm that MOOCs are unlikely to achieve the personal transformative effects of study abroad in terms of social and cultural capital.  Moreover, if TNE is seen as the poor relation of in-country study, MOOCs must carry even less credibility.  However, MOOCs undoubtedly have a role in increasing access to HE globally.  As Andrew Ng, founder of Coursera, said this week:

"This is about education, it is not about making money, and so if you can't afford it we still want you to benefit from it. This is not the sort of decision that a normal company would make. But we are here to educate everyone."

 Now, if only the rest of the HE sector could adopt the same policy...

HESA stats: have international students passed their peak?

Today the Higher Education Statistics Agency have published their Statistical First Release of the number of students in UK higher education institutions in 2011-12.  This gives us the first official data on the number of international students in UK HE in the last academic year.  It doesn't make cheery reading for those who would like to see more international students increasing the diversity of our universities, providing fellow students with a more internationalised experience... and of course financially, numerically and academically helping to keep our HE sector the world-leading success story it currently is.  (Helping with the UK's economic recovery would of course be a bonus.)

The headline figure will no doubt be used by government to say that all is well, as the total number of non-EU students registered in 2011-12 increased 2% from the previous year.  But when compared with rises of 6%, 12% and 9% year on year in the three preceding years, it becomes hard to sustain the claim that this is a success story.

More worrying is what you see when you dig deeper. 

First year non-EU enrolments have not grown.  They have in fact dropped, although by less than 0.5%.  This means the growth in the total comes from previous years' increases working through the system.

In the context of this week's headlines about crisis in funding for UK taught postgraduates, equally worrying is the fact that non-EU postgraduate total enrolments have dropped by 1%.  Take a look at HESA's chart to see in graphic form how dependent full-time postgraduate courses are on non-EU students, and the importance of this particular drop becomes manifest.

Numerous articles in this week's Guardian have put the case for a change in policy.  Let's hope the government is listening.

International Education the Australian Way

Guest blog by Dorothy Davis and Bruce Mackintosh

While the UK, Europe and the US have been the traditional destinations for students from less developed countries, in the last quarter century Australia has become the preferred destination for many, with the third highest number of international students in the English-speaking world.  Despite concerns about massification, commercialisation and the possible consequent decline in standards, it has achieved this position through a combination of smart marketing, high educational standards and a reputation for a safe and welcoming environment for students.

A new book “Making a Difference – Australian International Education” which we have edited and is published by the UNSW Press, reveals all of the history, process and outcomes of the highly successful Australian approach.  It begins with the multiple benefits of international education to students, institutions and communities, and concludes with a look to the horizon of 2025, including the influence of the growth in open/learning/distance education, now heightened by the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

It includes a detailed account of the history of international education in Australia, from the enrolment of private international students in the early part of the 19^th century, through the significant Colombo Plan scholarship scheme of the 50s and 60s; this cemented the place of Australia in educating the brightest students from Asia and laid the foundations for the expanded, “aid through trade”, phase of international education after the Australian Government moved to allow institutions to enroll full-fee paying students as is done in the UK.  It critically analyses the role of government throughout the century or so of international student enrolments, including the vexatious issues of visas, migration and work rights.  The Australian way of marketing is described for all to see, and the role of private-public partnerships in international education is described using the highly successful Navitas, Australian based but now globally active. 

The supporting roles of off-shore programs, English language schools, English language testing, student welfare organisations, community initiatives, professionalisation and research are all covered in detail.  And the student outcomes are not overlooked with their stories interspersed throughout the book.  There is a tribute to Tony Adams, one of the most important figures in the 25 years of the development of the fee-paying program.  Fittingly the profits from sales of this book will go to the Tony Adams Fund to support professional development, research and student mobility.

This is a book for anyone who wants to understand how Australian institutions so successfully developed an effective system of international education, and how the lessons learned in that process can be applied in countries and educational institutions seeking their own success in this enterprise.

The book contains contributions from many leading policy makers and practitioners in international education and was supported by the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) and many organizations including Australian Government departments and agencies, state governments, all 39 Australian universities, institutions from other sectors, peak bodies and education-related organizations.

The latest student visa stats: what they do and don't show

Last week's immigration statistics from the Home Office were much trumpeted by a government keen to show it is being tough on immigration, stressing the headline reductions in net migration, in large measure due to a drop in international students coming to study in the UK measured variously by

• a 26% decrease in the number of visas issued in the year to September 2012 compared to the previous year; 
• a 10% drop in students entering the country for study in 2011 compared to 2010, 
• and a fall of 7% in the number of students as estimated by the International Passenger Survey for the year ending March 2012 compared to the previous year.

The headline figures, however, disguise enormous sectoral differences.

While the government may claim that the HE sector is unaffected using the figure of a 1% increase in visa applications (from 154,575 to 155,821), in the context of the global demand for international study, a 1% increase is undoubtedly a cut in market share, and at best a flatlining in terms of numbers.

Yet more worrying is what is going in in other sectors.  Even independent schools - which the government has said are not a concern in immigration terms - are showing a 17% fall.  This is unsurprising given the link between choosing a UK school and intention to progress to university - a clear sign of the damage to pathways through the education sector.

The really catastrophic evidence comes in the impact on language schools and the FE sector.  Applications for Tier 4 visas for language schools have fallen 76%, from 15,930 to a mere 3,748 in the year ending September 2012.  While some students may have opted for an Extended Student Visitor Visa instead of a Tier 4 visa (often of necessity as the number of Tier 4 sponsors in the sector has fallen), this is still a worrying trend of a decline in the long-stay segment of the market, which is important not only in its own right but as a feeder for the rest of the sector.  Equally of concern is that the FE sector (including both public FE colleges and a mix of private tertiary colleges) experienced a 67% dip from 99,296 visa applications to only 32,900 in the year ending September 2012.  A number of factors are no doubt in play here: inequitable work rights for students, the loss of licences (for colleges all parts of the sector) and closure of many private colleges, leading to bad publicity and in some cases exit from the market.

These latter figures reflect a report from Study UK earlier in the year that colleges were seeing 70% falls in applications.  Even if a proportion of these institutions or students were mis-using the student route, it seems implausible that the figure was as high as two-thirds.  The impact on genuine students and genuine colleges is clear - as are the direct and indirect knock on effects of loss of current and future business.

The Home Office figures also pick up on the rising number of student visitor visas, alongside the fall in Tier 4 visas: student visitor visas have increased by 12% to 66,569 in the year to September 2012.  Not all student visitors have to apply for a visa in advance however, so we must also look at the total number of those admitted under the student visitor category, including those who were granted this on arrival, giving a total of 262,000 in 2011.

Putting two and two together, as John Vine has done in his recent Tier 4 report, it is easy to see how he concludes:

We found a potential risk of non-genuine students opting to apply for Student (Visitor) visas instead of Tier 4. Student (Visitor) visas are not subject to the same stringent rules that are applied to Tier 4. In early 2012, for the first time since the introduction of Tier 4, a greater number of Student (Visitor) visas than Tier 4 visas were issued. The Agency needs to be alert to this to ensure that this route is not exploited in the future. 

Yet inspecting the Home Office figures, the breakdown of nationalities shows little evidence of this displacement.  Of the top ten nationalities issued visitor visas in 2011, only China, Saudi Arabia, India and Nigeria overlap with the top ten countries for Tier 4 student visas, and the scale is quite different - 52,484 Tier 4 visas to Chinese nationals compared to 7,430 student visitor visas, 34,827 Tier 4 visas for Indian students compared to 3,659 student visitor visas.  In terms of student visa admissions, almost half are from the US (and though I've heard it said that Brits are one of the largest groups of illegal aliens in the US, I've never heard that the reverse was true.)  So while John Vine's assessment of the potential weakness of the student visitor route may be correct, the statistics don't yet show evidence of displacement.

If these figures give us cause for concern, it is not over potential abuse of the student route, but about the impact of Tier 4 on the education sector as a whole, including the warning signals that in a year's time even higher education could be seeing really significant falls in new student numbers unless there are significant changes soon in the government's student immigration policy.

Mapping global flows

If you're interested in global flows of international students in any direction, it's well worth a look at UNESCO's new interactive map on the global flow of tertiary students.  If you select UK in the drop down box, and click on "where do students come from", the map of the world turns even pinker than in the heyday of the British Empire.  If ever there was a graphic indication of the soft-power potential of international student mobility, this is it.

While we nervously wait to see whether more or fewer international students come to the UK in the current climate it's worth noting that emerging education hub Singapore is reporting a marked drop in its international student numbers, and Australia continues to report a decline in numbers in all sectors in its latest figures, despite strenuous efforts to reverse some of the immigration and safety factors which have made it less attractive in recent years (it can do little about the strength of its currency).

Now go back to the UNESCO map and look at the outward flows for the UK.  With the caveat that the data is incomplete (no data for instance on the country of origin of any students in China), it's worth comparing the small total outward mobility from the UK with the aspirations expressed in a recent British Council study in which one in three respondents thought they would have benefited from living or studying abroad.  While raising domestic student fees may changes the incentives (HSBC reckons studying in the UK is now the fourth most expensive option for English students) that policy alone may not be a game changer. [See Rachel Brooks' blog on the evidence to date.]

Compare once again with Australia.  Following a white paper on Australia in the Asian Century, the Australian government is committing A$37 million  (£24 million) to a grants scheme for study abroad in Asia
 which aims to help over 10,000 Australians gain experience of work or study in Asia.  Now that might really make its mark on the map.

The highly skilled migrants debate

It's desperately depressing to hear Theresa May at the Conservative Party Conference equating the recruitment of international students with "importing more and more immigrants" and describing it as "the counsel of despair".

Thankfully, for every voice seeking to throw up the walls of fortress Brtain a little higher, there are equal numbers advocating the opposite (though according to May these are "vested interests").

A new Policy Exchange report on digital entrepreneurship argues for reinstating a two-year post-study visa for STEM graduates, as well as other relaxations of visa requirements for skilled migrants.  They cite the US as an example to follow - although the US is currently reporting a decline in immigrant-led entrepreneurship - perhaps due to tighter visa restrictions.  Although both Democrats and Republicans have put forward bills for an increase in the number of visas available to international students to stay on and work, none have yet been adopted.  Unlike Germany, where the new blue card scheme is proving attractive to international students. 

Meanwhile the Economist laments the 11% drop in international students enrolling on Economist-ranked UK MBAs (and similarly for European MBAs more generally), due to the lack of post study work options, the London Met debacle and the slump in the European economy.  Their figures show that it is Canada and Australia who are benefitting from their more welcoming visa stance and booming economies, while MBAs in Asia are also on the up.  It counsels that "If rich countries do not lay out welcome mats soon, they may find the queues outside their doors have disappeared."

Perhaps as a result of immigration policies increasing focus on higher-skilled migrants (if encouraging immigration at all), it is interesting to note that a recent OECD report finds that the proportion of migrants who are graduates has increased: a third of those who arrived in OECD countries in the last five years have a degree, and in countries including the UK, that figure rises to half.  (This has potential implications for brain drain - although, on a related note Professor Sharun Mukand's recent paper argues that relaxing immigration rules could benefit the global economy, and be an effective tool for development and poverty reduction - so perhaps brain circulation wins out after all.)

And another useful statistic from another recent OECD paper (see link above), for those concerned about the balance of net migration in the UK.  The report finds that 1.7 million highly educated migrants within the OECD area are from India, 1.3 million from the Philippines, 1.2 million from China... and 1.3 million from the UK. Good thing for our net migration figures that so many other countries have a welcoming immigration policy...

Human Rights and Human Wrongs

This month the Australian Human Rights Commission has published Principles to promote and protect the human rights of international students.  As Dr Helen Szoke, the Race Discrimination Commissioner said at the launch:

Each year, families all over the globe bid farewell to loved ones as they set out overseas – to study, to work, to explore a wider world. They do so expecting that these loved ones will be treated with respect and with dignity – that they will have the same sort of access to services as others at their destination; that they will be safe; that their rights as human beings will be recognised wherever they go....

...[but] social isolation, poverty, exclusion from health services or affordable housing, sexual harassment and exploitation, excessive transport costs, and prohibitive fees to access government schools for their children are just some of the disadvantages confronting those who rightly come expecting more.

This is in addition, of course, to the occasional physical violence we know has been experienced by some in recent years; as well as the discrimination and hostility that many report.

All of this means that some international students experience life in Australia as second class members of the community, despite their hopes of a first class education.

The principles advocate for

• the removal of barriers to equality and equality of access to basic services such as health and housing
• providing access to complaints procedures and legal redress
• understanding the diversity of international students' needs
• encouragement of international student participation and engagement

If we use these as a measure of international students'  experiences in the UK, how do we shape up?

On the plus side, international students do have good access to health services and education for their children (at least, for those decreasing number allowed to bring dependants), to travel discounts and at least optional accommodation accreditation schemes.  There are also lots of interesting examples of ways institutions promote student participation and engagement in the UK, though inevitably this is work in progress.

On the negative side, although violent incidents such as the murder of Anuj Bidve are exceptional, evidence shows that international students, like students from BME communities in the UK, do encounter racism (see for instance the NUS No Place for Hate report), and this is an area where we must not be complacent about its impact and the need for support.  (As an aside, there's an interesting Inside Higher Ed article on how some US campuses are challenging online hate speech - a reminder that students encounter racism on campus as well as off.)

On complaints and legal redress, we are currently working with sector bodies to see how these issues can be addressed more systematically across the sectors (public and private), to identify gaps and propose how they can be filled.  Licence revocations and college closures over the last year have demonstrated the potential vulnerability of international students.  For those who have taken the leap to come here, we owe them at the very least a safety net.  But how best to put that in place?  Where should responsibility lie?  Thoughts and comments welcome.