ASEAN background

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) aims to bring together the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) member nations into a single market that is able to compete in the global economy by 2015. ASEAN members include Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, plus two observers Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea.

The AEC’s economic integration will provide for the free movement of trade, labour and capital within the region. The purpose of the AEC is to bring economic prosperity and stability to the region and to work toward eliminating the development gaps between ASEAN members. ASEAN has created this fantastic video to explain (in simple terms) what the AEC hopes to be.

Thailand has responded by stepping up its education reform efforts in order to develop students who are ready to go out into the workforce of the ASEAN Community. The Ministry of Education has identified a number of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to prepare students to work and thrive in an international community, and develop Thailand into an international education hub in the ASEAN region:

• develop students’ skills in the English language and the languages of neighboring countries;
• enhance Thai student’s knowledge of the ASEAN community;
• relax regulations, such as those concerning visa issuance, to facilitate the travel of foreign teachers and students to Thailand;
• develop the national qualifications framework in preparation for students’ credit transfer within ASEAN and educational liberalisation in the region;
• study the education policies of other ASEAN members, especially the progress of the free flow of skilled labour in seven fields: engineering, architectural, surveying, nursing, medical, dental, and accounting services;
• create a working group to exchange information and create networks linking ASEAN countries;
• enrich public relations to boost the profile and operations of the Ministry of Education;
• design special task forces to handle specific missions in order to avoid the duplication of work.

Reforms are also taking place in the K-12 sector, with high-speed Internet access and tablets rolling out to classrooms nationwide, and mergers and curriculum reforms at smaller schools.

All of this could turn into potential opportunity for international education providers, as Thailand (and other ASEAN nations) may welcome the resources offered.

Vocational sector to benefit

Vocational education is seen as one area in need of development, and the Office of the Vocational Education Commission has implemented “an urgent policy to develop the quality of 197 small vocational colleges, with emphasis on producing more personnel in preparation for the ASEAN Community. A target has been set for English programmes to cover 150 vocational colleges in 2013.”

A goal of the AEC is international recognition of professional qualifications, and to that end they are developing professional testing and standards certification centres across Thailand to test the skill level in a number of vocational professions.

“Emphasis will be placed on professional standards in the fields that Thailand wants to develop as its strengths in the ASEAN region. These fields are involved with information technology and communication, construction, beauty and spas, gems and jewellery, logistics, automobiles and automotive parts, fashion, Thai cuisine, and retail business.”

Students who pass the skill test in their profession will receive a certificate certifying their professional competency, which they can then use to find work in any of the ASEAN member nations.

Thai government reaching out

New Zealand’s government recognised they could help in this area and have recently agreed the Joint Framework for Cooperation on the Education Partnership with Thailand to develop new training and vocational courses, as well as assist in building capacity with English language programmes. NZ education providers will no doubt reap the rewards of this agreement.

Further afield, Thailand has agreed to support research in vocational education in Mongolia, as well as student and academic exchanges between the two countries.

Additionally, Thailand and France have penned five agreements covering cooperation in various areas, namely, vocational curriculum development and education, under which a number of French teaching volunteers will come to teach in various schools in Thailand between June and September 2013.

Finally, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand Mr Surapong Tovichakchaikul has called for more frequent and regular exchanges between Thai and Russian academic institutions, asking Russia to consider giving Thai students more flexibility to choose universities in Russia, as well as their fields of study.

English language sector holds the most promise

Building English language capacity might just hold the most promise of opportunity for foreign providers.

A single language is needed for business and communication across the AEC, and English has been chosen as the working language of the Community. To meet this requirement, Thailand has embarked on an ambitious programme to boost the English levels of its students.

In general, the English language levels of Thai students is quite low. “Recent university admission exams show that Thai students scored an average 28.43 out of 100 in English, according to the National Institute of Educational Testing Service.”

One very good reason for this is that Thai students don’t need to speak English on a regular basis, and therefore don’t get the practice needed to maintain a working level of the language.

With the ASEAN Community looming and English being used more regularly, the Thai Ministry of Education is keen for English courses to be included in all vocational and higher education institutions for students and faculty/staff.

English language training is also spreading to the government sector, with the Office of the Civil Service Commission launching an e-learning project to prepare officials for the ASEAN Community in 2015.

The push for English is not just happening in Thailand; similar opportunities are available across the ASEAN member nations.

For example, the English Language Company (ELC) of Australia has already signed an MOU with the Ministry of Education in Vietnam to provide English language teacher training to teachers across the country with the aim of improving the English standards of students throughout Vietnam. English language providers could be looking to do the same in any of the other ASEAN nations.

Education hub aspirations

Like many of its ASEAN neighbours, Thailand aspires to be a regional education hub. “The Office of the Higher Education Commission is preparing various universities to be ready for the Government’s plan to turn Thailand into an international education hub.

To date, 1,017 international courses have been opened in universities in Thailand. Out of these courses, 344 are for bachelor’s degrees, 394 for master’s degrees, 249 for doctoral degrees, and 30 for training programmes.”

This could mean a good number of opportunities, for international education providers both in the Southeast Asia region and further afield.

Foreign colleges and universities are already eyeing Thailand as a place to offer their courses or to open a branch campus – the University of Central Lancashire (UClan) is one. By opening a branch campus or offering university courses through a Thai partner, a foreign university would hope to attract not only local students, but also students from across the ASEAN Community.

Once the AEC is in place, the free flow of people across ASEAN borders should make it easier for students to choose to study outside their home country, but within their region.

Thailand’s potential as a sending market

The opportunities for traditional student recruitment are still there. Many Thai students will still look to universities overseas for their education, particularly if English is going to be the new working language in the region.

Recent statistics from UK-based Higher Education Statistics Agency show that the UK remains an attractive destination, with 6,800 Thai students going to the UK to study higher education in 2011/12, up from 6,500 in 2010/11. China is also proving to be a popular study destination for Thais, with one institution alone having around 5,000 Thai students.

But the numbers from the US paint a different picture. According to the most recent IIE Open Doors report, the number of Thai students in the US dropped by 7.4% from 2010/11 to 2011/12.

At least one institution in Japan clearly sees Thailand as a lucrative recruitment market. Fukui University of Technology has opened an office in Bangkok: the “first such move in Southeast Asia, in an attempt to search for eligible Thai students and help them with Japanese-language improvement before they enter the university, said Mr Etsuo Matsuura, manager of the office.” The office will be responsible for recruiting students onto the University’s engineering and science programmes, and if it proves a success they will open offices in two other ASEAN nations, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Other countries wishing to recruit Thai students will be interested to learn of the ‘One-District-One-Scholarship’ programme, which began in 2004 and is slated to run until 2020. The scheme allows high-performing Thai students to pursue higher education either at home or abroad. Over 30 countries are eligible, and approximately 14.49 billion Baht will be spent on the program in the next eight years.

A total of 1,856 scholarships are available, and it is thought a number of students will use their scholarship to study overseas.

The ASEAN Economic Community will certainly strengthen the Southeast Asian region in many ways – economically, socially, and politically. But it will also bring both partnership and recruitment opportunities to education providers within the region and beyond.

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This makes international education a significant export sector in the country, and the government aims to see it bigger still, having set a target of doubling the sector’s value to NZ $5 billion (US $4.1 billion) by 2025.

Funding boost to attract more foreign students

New Zealand took an important step in this direction last week with the announcement from Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce of an additional NZ $40 million in funding over the next four years to further the promotion of New Zealand as an international study destination.

“This $40 million investment through the Government’s new Education New Zealand crown agency will continue to strengthen New Zealand education’s presence in key markets such as China, India, South-east Asia, and South America, and will attract more international students to study in New Zealand,” said Minister Joyce.

The additional funding for Education New Zealand is part of a broader package of NZ $400 million in investments in internationally-oriented growth to be found in New Zealand’s 2013 budget.

Beyond its immediate economic impacts, Minister Joyce also set out the role of the education sector in supporting greater economic, political, and social linkages between New Zealand and its trading partners: “Although the income from international education is important, it is the strong people-to-people links that flow from it that brings the greatest benefit to New Zealand.

Former international students are often employed overseas for New Zealand companies, and international students are great advocates and ambassadors for New Zealand in their home countries.”

The new funding will be used to expand New Zealand’s recruitment efforts in both established and developing markets, encourage greater delivery of New Zealand education services abroad, and increase the participation of New Zealanders in overseas study.

In its budget update on the funding announcement, Education New Zealand noted: “[We] will continue to update the industry throughout the year about where and how these additional resources are being invested, beginning with the release of our Statement of Intent in May. Following this, we will host a series of industry forums around the country to present our new Business Plan, which sets out Education New Zealand’s priorities for the next three years.”

Education New Zealand Chief Executive Grant McPherson added:

“In addition to our own efforts, we will also continue to work with other government agencies to capitalise on all-of-government initiatives to market New Zealand internationally – ensuring a New Zealand education is promoted alongside tourism and other trade initiatives.”

The tourism sector is a powerful one for the island nation, contributing NZ $9.6 billion a year to New Zealand’s economy. Recent headlines here include:

• Tourism Industry Association New Zealand has earmarked NZ $28 million over four years to support the growth of tourism businesses;
• Tourism New Zealand and STA Travel Group signed a joint NZ $2.4 million marketing programme to promote youth tourism to New Zealand;
• new safety measures are being implemented in the adventure tourism sector.

Visa processing improvements

This increased marketing investments follow on the heels of major initiatives from Immigration New Zealand to improve visa processing between now and 2015. These measures include the rollout of the Immigration Global Management System – a system for delivering visa services online – and the expansion of a global network of Visa Application Centres (VACs).

Such moves parallel those in other major destination countries, most closely matched by recent announcements in Canada, to improve service availability and reduce processing times for temporary resident visas, including student visas.

Enrolment trends

These promising funding and immigration developments are all the more important when considered against the backdrop of declining international student enrolments in New Zealand over the past decade. While industry revenues have recovered to 2003 levels over the last five years, international enrolments have been flat or declining since 2003.

International student enrolment and tuition fees for New Zealand, 2003–2012 from Education New Zealand

Education New Zealand reports a marginal increase in tuition value of 2% from 2011 to 2012, with total enrolment falling again over that same period. With the exception of ITPs (Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics) – where enrolment grew by 7.1% in 2012 – all other sectors saw enrolment declines from 2011 to 2012, ranging from a 3% drop for the schools to a 13% decline for PTEs (Private Training Establishments).

The latter group is especially concerning as it is largely made up of English language schools, often a bellwether group for broader enrolment trends due to the degree to which ESL students move on to academic programmes after completing their English language studies.

Education New Zealand attributes the 2012 drop in English language enrolments to price sensitivity related to the strengthening New Zealand dollar, intense competition in the ESL sector, and changes to immigration policy impacting ESL students.

For more background on the country’s performance in 2012 and a robust roundup of the government’s progress towards its ambitious 2025 goals, please see our related article: “Student visa approvals drop in New Zealand, government working to reverse the trend.”

The Education New Zealand analysis is accompanied by the crown agency’s strong commitment to “working with each sector of New Zealand’s international education industry to support institutions’ needs and priorities, and to enable industry-led growth” – a challenge for which the country’s increased marketing investment and visa system improvements are surely very welcome developments indeed.

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Higher costs for international students

Eight government-funded universities in Hong Kong have raised tuition fees by as much as 20% for international students, affecting approximately 10,000 undergraduates. The change, according to government sources, comes about due to general inflation as well as the strength of China’s currency (the Renminbi) against the Hong Kong dollar. It is the first time they have raised fees since 2010. University World News records the details as follows:

• Chinese University, the University of Science and Technology, and City University: a 20% increase to HK $120,000 (US $15,500) per year;
• Hong Kong Institute of Education: a 17.6% rise to US $14,169;
• University of Hong Kong: a 13.5% rise to HK $135,000 (US $17,390);
• Polytechnic University, Lingnan University, and Baptist University: 10% increase.

The eight universities which have boosted fees have also increased the levels of scholarships accordingly. The amount of the highest admission scholarship provided in each university is enough to cover full tuition and average costs of living.

Approximately 77% of foreign students in Hong Kong are from China, and despite the fee hike, educational officials have stated that they believe Hong Kong will remain attractive to mainland students for four main reasons: the ‘Western-style’ education, high rankings of its universities, generous scholarships, and rising household income of mainland families.

In fact, mobility from China to Hong Kong could increase thanks to a push on the mainland to recognise foreign degrees taught in Hong Kong. This would also be good news for UK universities, considering that British institutions offer a high percentage of programmes in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s fiscal outlook

The Hong Kong government has allocated additional financial resources to support the restructuring of the education sector, and the 2013/14 budget outlines various proposals for increased spending such as more scholarship funds for local students to study in overseas universities as well as enhanced vocational training, particularly in the local shipping and aviation industries.

But fiscal issues remain for Hong Kong’s public universities. Even after the tuition fee increases, local universities assert that it’s not enough to cover the costs of educating each student, and that the universities need to subsidise non-local students from non-government funds.

Under the existing policy, up to 20% of students in University Grants Committee (UGC) funded institutions can be non-locals, and only 4% of them are allowed to be subsidised by the government; the rest have to be self-funded.

The average cost of educating an undergraduate student enrolled in a government-funded programme was HK $233,000 (US $30,000) last academic year, according to the UGC.

Chouk Yin, external liaison manager of mainland and external affairs at City University in Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post, “The purpose of admitting non-local students is to make our university more international; making money is not the purpose. Admitting non-local students can also promote communications between local students and students from other cultures. It can broaden the scope of local students.”

Naturally foreign students add to Hong Kong’s appeal in the international education landscape, but their financial contribution cannot be ignored or underestimated, particularly as financial challenges loom and the country deals with hyper competition for university places in the short term.

Local students face competitive pressures

Hong Kong has made dramatic changes in recent years in its effort to become a regional education hub, as we highlighted in our 2012 article “Foreign applications to Hong Kong universities up sharply this year.” Changes include:

• scholarship funding for foreign students has increased;
• quota limits on international students have doubled (from 10% to 20%);
• visa regulations have been relaxed (foreigners can now undertake internships, part-time on-campus jobs and summer jobs during their programme of study, and they can stay on in Hong Kong to work for a year after graduation);
• the degree system shifted from three years to four years;
• the pre-collegiate school system has been reduced from 13 to 12 years.

The system changes have created a double cohort of students completing the old three-year degrees and the new four-year degree under a new university system that began in September 2012. And when combined, all of these market reforms have exacerbated the heavy competition Hong Kong residents face for limited university places, especially in popular subjects such as the sciences.

For the 2013/14 academic year, there will be 22,000 available places at public and private universities for 27,000 secondary school pupils likely to meet the minimum entry requirements.

Hong Kong’s competitive pressures – coupled with parental anxiety and ambition – are so severe they have helped turn average tutors into millionaire celebrities who advertise on glossy posters and appear regularly on television. Sources claim that a staggering 72% of final-year school students in Hong Kong now use private tutors. This is clearly helping to bolster the global private tutoring market, already a multi-billion dollar industry, which is expected to reach US $102.8 billion by the year 2018.

Government reforms address challenges

The government has made some moves to address space problems in its universities:

• First-year-first-degree places funded by the UGC have increased to 15,000 per year;
• The number of senior year undergraduate intake places is expected to double to 4,000 per year by 2014/15;
• By the 2014/15 academic year, annual recurrent grants for UGC-funded institutions will increase by HK $3 billion to about HK $14 billion.

Furthermore, the Education Bureau has published a set of guidelines aimed at improving the governance of private tertiary institutions, some of which have been accused of over-enrolment. The bureau has not set a cap, but they have said that colleges will have to seek approval for their enrolment ceilings.

But the Hong Kong Education Bureau warns that its tertiary sector could look drastically different by 2016: approximately 23,200 university places for 22,000 students expected to meet entry requirements. If true, this could require consolidation of the very universities that are hurrying to expand today.

Alternatively, it gives Hong Kong-based institutions even more of a reason to boost enrolment figures from foreign students in the long term. In addition, it opens up future pathways for associate degree students to upgrade to full bachelor degrees.

So, as Hong Kong faces a surge of students now, it paves the way for expanded enrolment in the years ahead.

Hong Kong’s international reach

Students who still find themselves on the losing end of the high stakes competition for local spots will seek placements overseas, as they have for years. In 2012, the UK proved to be the number one destination for Hong Kong students (25%), followed by mainland China (22%), Australia (14%), the US (13%), and Taiwan (13%).

China will likely remain a popular destination, also owing to last year’s Ministry of Education’s announcement that 70 universities on the mainland would be allowed to admit foreign students (including those from Hong Kong) even if they had not taken part in the competitive national entrance examination, the gaokao.

A recent example of Hong Kong mobility outreach is the bilateral working holiday scheme agreement recently set up with France. Under the agreement, which comes into effect 1 July 2013, young people in Hong Kong and France can gain work experience while travelling. It’s the eighth bilateral working holiday scheme Hong Kong has set up with other countries, and so far 30,000 have taken advantage of the programme.

In an even wider international linkage, Hong Kong is part of a common credit transfer scheme that could be adopted by all higher education institutions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, China, Japan and Korea. The programme will be piloted with selected universities and courses from the beginning of the 2013/14 academic year for 18 months before an agreed credit transfer system would be expanded to the entire region.

The credit transfer framework could be a boon for Hong Kong because relatively few non-Chinese Asians attend school there. Of 56,921 full-time undergraduates on UGC-funded programmes in 2011-12, only 1,057 came from non-Chinese Asia, while 274 came from the rest of the world.

Furthermore, Hong Kong still has work to do for its non-native residents. A 2012 Equal Opportunities Commission survey showed that students from South Asian countries, such as Pakistan and Nepal, accounted for 3.2% of primary school pupils, but only 1.1% of senior secondary students and 0.59% of tertiary education students.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee cited the percentages when it urged the Hong Kong government to intensify efforts to facilitate the integration of ethnic minorities into public school education. Some problems stem from the difficulty immigrants face trying to learn Chinese when it isn’t their birth or household language, however other factors may be involved, such as teacher training, and the government has been asked to report back to the UN within one year on the matter.

The Language Fund, which was set up in 1994, provides financial support for projects and activities promoting bi-literacy and tri-lingualism, including programmes to support non-Chinese speaking students in learning Chinese. The government has proposed to inject HK $5 billion into the Fund to facilitate its longer term planning.

International students can fill the gap

As Hong Kong deals with the challenges of absorbing the double cohort of first-year university students into its education system, it is faced with an imbalance of supply and demand. Once the glut of students has moved through the education system (i.e., by 2016), the pendulum will swing the other way, leaving Hong Kong with an overabundance of seats.

Thus, these next few years will be critical for the nation to position itself as an attractive destination for international students who will not only fill the future gap of extra capacity seats, but also provide much-needed funds into the education system.

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Today’s ICEF Monitor post looks at the findings of several new reports as they relate to trends in participating EU countries’ efforts to attract international students – including work and immigration policies, which are frequently viewed as key elements of a study abroad nation’s competitiveness.

A decade of growth

According to a new report from the European Migration Network (EMN), a body of the European Commission, the number of international students in Europe increased by roughly 114% from 2000 to 2010 – a substantially higher rate than the growth of international students in North America, which was estimated at roughly 55%.

The EMN report, entitled “Immigration of International Students to the EU,” was based on contributions from 25 countries including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom, and Norway.

International students a substantial part of many EU populations

Overall, the EMN report found that international students compose an important proportion of the non-EU population in many EU countries: 21% of all new first residence permits in the report’s participating countries were issued for education reasons.

Despite many countries’ efforts to facilitate the entry of Erasmus students (students from the EU going to other EU countries to study), the report notes that only “1.4% of the total number of first permits issued in Member States in 2011 for the purpose of study” were given to students coming under the high-profile Erasmus mobility programme.

National strategies in use to attract foreign students

In terms of the national strategic goals for wanting to attract international students, the report listed two:

• Attracting skilled students (mostly master and doctoral students) within a wider policy context of attracting highly skilled workers to meet skills shortages in national labour markets;
• Attracting international students for national economies to benefit from the revenue streams associated with these students (e.g., fees, living expenses, etc.).

Strategies used to attract foreign students vary from country to country, and may include:

• Marketing programmes to promote the country as an attractive destination and to provide information to students on available courses and services;
• Scholarship and funding opportunities, often tailored to students from countries with which the host country has a bilateral agreement in place;
• More recently, the introduction or augmentation of English-language courses (already prevalent in The Netherlands and Sweden, others are now prioritising English-medium instruction, including Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Spain);
• Flexible admission procedures;
• Providing freer than usual access to the labour market (e.g., number of hours allowed to work) – but the report noted this was often restricted to low-skilled sectors rather than in sectors that would allow the student to build his/her professional network and expertise;
• Ability to apply for work permits without leaving the country, and even the ability to be self-employed as entrepreneurs.

Many of the countries participating in the study are putting the focus on attracting the “brightest and the best” students … “mostly masters and PhD students who contribute to the knowledge base of specific sectors important to the economy.”

Some (Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Spain) are setting clear targets for the number of international students they want to attract (e.g., Finland wants to increase the number of foreign degree students by approximately 77% from 11,303 in 2007 to 20,000 in 2015, and Spain is looking to boost its international student population from 4.9% in 2012 to 10% in 2015).

Meanwhile, some are targeting specific countries for international students (e.g., France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands are prioritising BRIC nations, and Portugal favours Portuguese-speaking countries).

And others plan to amend their policies on international students. For example, The Netherlands intends to more effectively prevent “misuse of the student route” by setting targets for students and collecting biometric data during the visa application process. “Poland intends to introduce preferential admission and stay regulations for international students and university graduates.”

Hungary and Latvia appear to be the only countries without a national policy on international students. In Latvia, each institution determines its own needs and strategies for attracting foreign students. “In Hungary, only an action plan is in place which aims to strengthen the education of ethnic Hungarians living outside the territory of Hungary.”

Survey reveals current internationalisation strategies

Meanwhile, on the subject of strategies, a recent survey on the state of internationalisation in higher education by the European University Association (EUA) of 175 HE institutions in 38 countries found that “more than half (56%) have an internationalisation strategy in place and a further 13% intend to develop one or have considered internationalisation in other strategies.”

The survey revealed the following internationalisation strategies currently used by HE institutions:

• development of new partnerships with new regions and countries (73%);
• sending more students abroad (72%);
• growing the international student population (68%);
• offering international opportunities to staff (67%);
• offering more courses in English (67%);
• developing double and joint degrees (61%).

The survey found that the most popular priorities for action were:

• attracting students from abroad (30%);
• internationalisation of learning and teaching (19%);
• providing students with more opportunities to have a learning experience abroad (12%);
• strategic research partnerships (10%).

Three variations in university-level promotional efforts

In order to execute some of these strategies, universities in EU countries may be conducting their marketing…

• by themselves – often via scholarships or including offers of free or discounted services. For example, the EMN report notes that the University of Luxembourg provides free lodging to Chinese students.
• with another institution. The EMN report provides the example of the Spanish-Moroccan cross-border campus between the University of Cadiz and Abdelmalek Essaâdi University.
• in collaboration with the university sector in the country as a whole. For example, in The Netherlands there is a Code of Conduct agreed to by the joint institutions of higher education that is promoted to international students to signal a sector-wide commitment to excellent education for international students.

Waving the job flag

The EMN report assesses that there are two types of policies in place in the participating EU countries regarding employment after graduation for international students:

• Member states that only allow international students to stay if they have a job or are continuously employed (Belgium, Cyprus, Spain, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and United Kingdom);
• Member states that allow international student graduates to stay in order to search for a job (Austria, Germany, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Norway).

An example of the impact of the second type of policy – allowing international students to remain in the country post-graduation to find work – can be found in Finland, which allows international students to remain to seek employment for a period of six months after graduation. In 2007, 73% of foreign students who remained in Finland found work.

For further details on this topic, please see our article from last year, which gives an overview of the intentions of 6,200+ international students at 25 universities in Germany, France, the UK, Netherlands, and Sweden.

The economic contribution of international students

Despite the economic contribution of international students, actual revenues realised thanks to foreign students vary due to the different types of educational systems across the countries. Some, for example, offer free access to education and low student fees.

The EMN report provided a table that shows the sources of international student revenues for select participating countries:

Source: EMN’s “Immigration of International Students to the EU” report

Immigration prospects important to study market attractiveness

Right at the outset, EMN’s report makes it clear that increasingly, the countries that provided data for the study are well aware of international students’ potential to remain in the country and add needed workforce skills.

And it moves on to declare: “States with a more flexible policy [on allowing international students to work during and after study] might be considered as more ‘attractive’.”

It seems, from the growing number of non-EU international students choosing EU countries to study in, that both national-level and institutional-level strategies are on the whole working well to attract students from outside the EU.

Looking for room for improvement, the report concludes:

“The overall aim of improving EU and national strategies and policies is to ensure that the EU can be considered as a world centre for excellence in education.

Further legislative action at the EU level, aiming to provide for further improvements in admission conditions, rights during stay, including mobility, and ensuring safeguards for third-country nationals, in line with Treaty objectives, is likely to make an important contribution to delivering this objective.”

Tourism sector a signal of Europe’s strength

The EMN report and EUA survey arrive at the same time as two more pieces of research; the first being the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO) new “World Tourism Barometer.” Results show that international tourist arrivals in Europe were up by 3% in 2012, a “very positive result in view of the economic situation.”

UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said of the modest growth in European tourist arrivals: “2012 saw continued economic volatility around the globe, particularly in the Eurozone. Yet international tourism managed to stay on course.

The sector has shown its capacity to adjust to the changing market conditions and, although at a slightly more modest rate, is expected to continue expanding in 2013.

Tourism is thus one of the pillars that should be supported by governments around the world as part of the solution to stimulating economic growth.”

Zeroing in on the continent, the European Travel Commission’s (ETC) latest “European Tourism in 2013: Trends & Prospects” report indicates that “international arrivals and nights to Europe for the first quarter of 2013 point to a slower, but continued growth for most of the reporting destinations.”

Like tourism, international education seems relatively resistant to shocks to the overall economy, but as emerging economies and developing markets continue to advance in both sectors, Europe will need to fight harder to remain a competitive and attractive destination.

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Following the 2011 Knight Review, in early 2012 the Australian government moved to ease visa processing for international students bound for Australian universities. Only months later, this streamlined visa processing – a package of reforms that ease assessment levels and dramatically reduce processing times for visa applicants – was also extended to selected private colleges and TAFEs (Technical and Further Education colleges).

Private-sector providers, meanwhile, are still waiting. And while they wait they are at a distinct competitive disadvantage relative to other Australian institutions with respect to visa processing times for incoming students.

“Agents won’t deal with us”

A March 2013 item in The Australian sums up the situation as follows:

“The most recent official statistics show the different fortunes of private higher education and public universities. In the first half of last year, undergraduate student commencements in private higher education and TAFE fell 4.2% while the figure for public universities rose 4.6%.

The International College of Management, Sydney, saw commencing student load fall 41.5%. Managing Director Frank Prestipino blamed the strong currency, lack of streamlined visa processing and competition from public universities with uncapped, taxpayer-subsidised places.

‘Agents (who recruit overseas students) won’t deal with us, in terms of having to spend six to nine weeks to process a standard visa versus a streamlined visa,’ he said.”

In March of this year, Martin Cass, the chair of the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET), expressed the industry’s frustration in an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard that called for an extension of the country’s visa reforms to non-university providers.

“After the turmoil that hit the sector in 2008–2009 your government acted to make it simpler for international students to come to Australia and study at universities, but not at institutions like mine,” wrote Cass. “Your government’s reluctance to support small, niche education providers and their students is alarming.”

ACPET is the leading body for private colleges in Australia and its letter singles out a recommendation from 2013’s Chaney Report that calls for streamlined visa processing for all sectors of Australian education.

Current and recent Australian immigration ministers have promised a further announcement on streamlined visa processing in the near future but these assurances come on the heels of some months of anticipation within the Australian industry – stretching back to November 2012 – of an “imminent” decision by government.

The Australian, however, quotes ACPET chief executive Claire Field as noting that the government has stalled on its own reforms.

“Good providers are going to the wall and Australia is losing substantial export income,” said Field. “The industry is on its knees as a result of government inaction.”

Risky business?

The heart of the issue appears to be a perception that easing visa processing much beyond the university sector could be a risky business. The streamlined processing now available to universities and others in Australia comes with some additional responsibilities for receiving institutions, particularly with respect to student quality, reporting to government, and other quality controls. The university sector in Australia is composed of a relatively small number of institutions that are in turn relatively easy to monitor, regulate, and hold accountable against the provisions of the reforms.

The government’s confidence of its ability to similarly ensure compliance for other sectors with larger numbers of institutions, such as private colleges, appears to be a factor in the months-long delays in further action on streamlining Australian visa processing.

Iain Watt, the Australian government’s former senior education representative in China, is quoted on this question in the aforementioned Australian article:

“[Watt] conceded an argument for extending the post-study work visas to ‘the higher end of the VET sector’, but it would be too risky to broaden streamlined visa processing beyond universities.

‘To let in a whole lot of students and be publicly wiped off the list would be disastrous to (a university’s) reputation and just not worth it. If you’re a private VET provider you could very well make a business decision that you can make an absolute fortune in two years before (the Immigration Department) catches up with you.’”

Meanwhile, the country’s private colleges continue to argue for a level playing field as in the request with which Cass closed his recent open letter to the Prime Minister: “I ask you to act on the advice you have received and to extend improved visa processing arrangements to international students in non-university providers, rather than seeking to only reward large, homogenous public institutions.”

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International students in Japan

Let’s first set the scene by providing the latest top-line statistics on Japan as a sending and receiving market.

Japan has fared better of late in the area of inbound internationals than in recent years. The education sector experienced a drop after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent radioactivity release at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. Another downward driver had been the Yen’s high exchange rate against the Korean Won, but 2012 numbers were close to those from 2011.

The Japan Student Services Organization’s (JASSO) most recent figures for university undergraduate, junior college, technical college, graduate, professional training college, and university preparatory course students studying in Japan as of 1 May 2012 are as follows:

As a whole, the country’s tertiary sector received 137,756 students, only 0.2% fewer than in 2011.

Besides China and South Korea, other nations that sent fewer students to Japan in 2012 included Malaysia, Thailand, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Laos.

Below is a two-year regional breakdown of where Japan’s international students originate:

Japan as a sending market

The number of Japanese students flowing overseas has declined in recent years. The downward drivers are multifold, and include a flat economy, graduate unemployment, and changing demographics. The latter is a particular concern, and puts Japan in the same boat as other Asian regions such as South Korea and Taiwan. But Japan’s demographic shift is the most severe of the group.

Simply put, the Japanese government forecasts that the nation’s population could contract by 30% in the next half century, with negative effects in many areas of society, including international education. With Japanese citizenship and permanent residency still difficult for foreigners to obtain, there seems to be no easy way to bolster the country’s demographics.

Consider data from one of Japan’s largest receiving markets: the United States. In the US, traffic from Japan fell from 24,842 in 2009-2010 to 21,290 just a year later, totaling a drop of 14.3%. And in 2012, Japan registered a 6% drop. With so many factors at work inside Japan, it’s safe to say this was not mainly a demographic decline, but certainly fewer Japanese students will not help the overall situation.

However, nearby nations have seen more Japanese students arrive in recent years. Australia showed a 4.1% increase in Japanese student commencements in 2012, driven by growth in Australia’s vocational and English language education sectors. In New Zealand the number of Japanese students also rose in 2012, against an opposite trend of fewer overall student visa approvals.

Changes in the English Language Teaching (ELT) sector

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed what he calls a “three-arrow” approach to educational reform aimed at improving science and math scores in order to produce more PhDs in those areas, focusing more on IT education, and bolstering the English skills of Japanese students.

In the latter area, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is pushing for regulations requiring students to achieve a minimum TOEFL score before acceptance to universities, and also before graduation. The proposal is aimed to shift the current system away from writing and grammar proficiency toward functional English, but it has caused considerable debate in Japan.

Some opponents point out that even though more Japanese schools have already been offering TOEIC and TOEFL courses in recent years, students are not learning to speak English but rather to pass tests. They say the number of students who can successfully communicate in everyday English remains small, and is not likely to increase significantly even with minimum score requirements.

Part of the difficulty stems from English teachers themselves possessing lower proficiency in the language than needed, however the proposals address this shortcoming by calling not just for students to reach benchmarks (45 points or higher on the TOEFL test) but for teachers of English to score 80 or higher.

Hiring more foreign English speakers to teach the language has been suggested, but liberalising the current foreign teacher employment rules – under which native English speakers can be hired only as assistants, not full-time instructors – would likely be opposed by the Japanese teachers association Nikkyoso.

However, a proposal from the LDP aims to double the number of teachers hired for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program (from 4,360 in 2012 to 10,000) in three years. The teachers would be dispatched to all primary and secondary schools within ten years.

And it’s worth noting that foreigners are finding Japan a more fertile job environment than during the country’s more insular past. Foreign students are filling more openings after graduation – 8,586 of them in 2011, as opposed to the 2,689 that obtained work visas in 2000. Some are finding integration and acceptance a challenge, but an expanded job market is good news for internationals. Whether a similar hiring influx looms for the English education sector is undetermined.

Despite obstacles, Prime Minister Abe and LDP are pushing ahead with their reform package, which calls for ¥400 billion for English education restructuring. Pieces of the proposal will be included in LDP’s campaign pledges for the July 2013 Upper House election.

Shift in national enrolment schedule

One of the largest changes in Japanese education could be structural: universities could shift to a fall enrolment schedule. At the moment, the school year begins in April, which places Japan out of sync with international systems and may be yet another reason the country sends relatively few students overseas.

The University of Tokyo (Todai), the top institution in Japan according to Times Higher Education rankings, is at the forefront of this radical idea. Todai President Junichi Hamada hopes to achieve the transition within five years, and perhaps earlier. But there are still obstacles, including the opposition of nearly 40% of parents with children up to 18 years old.

Switching the system would be a huge undertaking, requiring a shift at all school levels from kindergarten up, and would involve giving students several months of potential idle time between April and September (on the upside, that time could be devoted to exchange programmes, summer camps, travel abroad, volunteering and internships). But the idea has momentum; the push by Todai has already caused Kyushu University and Kanazawa University to start discussions about a similar shift.

Initiatives in Japanese higher education

Under the Global 30 initiative, Japanese national universities pledged to lure 300,000 undergraduate international students to 30 schools by the year 2020, which would amount to 10% of the total student body. The original 2008 proposal was whittled down to 13 universities – all of which offer English-medium instruction – because of budget woes, but current government policies aim to expand the plan to 42 universities. If successful, this would be a massive influx of students, and recruiters should stay abreast of efforts to reach this goal.

On the outbound side, the Global 30 Plus programme and the Reinventing Japan project are aimed at encouraging Japanese students to study overseas. Tomohiro Yamano, deputy director general of the higher education bureau at the Ministry of Education, told Time late last year:

“The ultimate goal is tied in with improving Japan’s economy. More specifically, for Japanese graduates to work for Japanese companies that will do business around the world and become more successful.”

Japanese universities are generally ramping up efforts in student exchange, international recruitment, and overseas collaboration. Government policies encourage double degrees with Asian and US universities, as well as promoting university networks, particularly in science and technology. And in order to bolster its sending numbers, Japan is funding short-term international studies for 10,000 Japanese university students.

The government is also hoping the education sector receives a general boost in 2013 from a new Southeast Asia credit transfer arrangement to be adopted by all nations in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and China, as well as Korea).

In addition to the credit transfer agreement, Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have created what they call the ASEAN-Japan Plan of Action, a joint initiative designed to:

• implement education programmes to nurture entrepreneurs, seminars to strengthen human resource development, and training courses to study skills and know-how on international business within ASEAN;
• promote Southeast Asian studies, including Southeast Asian languages, in various universities and other educational institutions;
• establish human resource development centres in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam to provide business education and Japanese language training;
• develop further educational exchanges under the ASEAN Universities Network (AUN) and the Universities Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP) initiative;
• expand access to basic education and improve the quality of education, recognising that basic education is the foundation of nation building.

Some other international linkages include:

• Earlier this year at the Abu Dhabi Japan Economic Forum, ten agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed between Abu Dhabi and Japan that impact upon the education sector.
• A new agreement was signed aimed toward African development, particularly in the education sector.
• Australia continues to look toward Japan for new education agreements.

Changes for domestic students

The Japanese government is looking at reforming its higher education sector via revised regulations that could limit the establishment of new universities and merge existing schools. With 75% of private universities falling short of enrolment targets, policy makers are focused on maintaining overall sustainability in the sector.

Heightened competition for a shrinking pool of prospective students has prompted private universities to restructure summer campus visit programmes. For example, Osaka University of Economics and Law now pays ¥15,000 (US $192) to those who visit the campus from distant reaches of Japan such as Hokkaido and Okinawa, and even students who visit from much nearer Tokyo can receive ¥7,000.

Meanwhile, at Hyogo University in Kakogawa, the ¥30,000 entrance exam has been discounted by one-third for candidates who visit the campus and complete other tasks. Universities are also making more effort to attract parents, such as touting job assistance programmes that could offset tuition costs.

Another influence affecting Japanese students is the debt burden they take on to get a degree. About 960,000 – or one-third of current university students – are dependent upon public loans to finance their studies, and the amount of debt repayments in arrears hit ¥470 billion last year, mainly caused by joblessness and income drops during Japan’s extended economic slump.

Looming political difficulties with China

Perhaps the most important short-term factor for the Japanese education sector moving forward is an escalating territorial dispute between Japan and China over a set of uninhabited but oil-rich islands located in the East China Sea. Because family and parental views are a major factor in students’ choice of schools, especially in China, some sources expect the flow of applicants from China to fall dramatically in 2013.

This may already be happening. Hitoshi Iwamoto, Director of Fukuoka Foreign Language College, told Study Travel magazine that a third of Chinese students that had enrolled in courses scheduled to commence in October 2012 cancelled. October was the last period from which the Japanese government has made student visa data available. But Iwamoto has said that applications for April programmes are 80% lower than expected.

A decline in numbers that large from Japan’s largest sender of international students would be disastrous, but so far neither side is backing down in a dispute that has seen Japanese nationalists, Chinese marine surveillance vessels, and Japanese coast guard cutters all plying the same waters. In addition, the dispute reached an alarming pitch when Japanese Prime Minister Abe vowed to use force if necessary.

Japan as a bellwether

Japan faces challenges on numerous fronts, but positive changes have taken place. Many observers see the country as the “canary in the coal mine” for other industrialised nations, some of which are seeing the same demographic trends take hold, if to a lesser degree. Japan will be closely watched as a case study of how to manage such issues, and which strategies lead to successful outcomes.

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China and India are top source countries for Canada

In 2012, 104,777 new study permit holders entered Canada, up from 79,264 in 2008 – for a 32% increase over those four years. The total number of international students in Canada has also risen, from 177,657 in 2008 to 265,377 in 2012, for a 50% increase over the same period. The Province of Ontario accepts the most international students (45,401 out of the 104,777 new arrivals in 2012), followed by British Columbia (26,639) and then the French-speaking province of Quebec (16,770).

Universities claim the highest numbers of international students in Canada (41% of new arrivals in 2012), with “other post-secondary” (e.g., colleges, polytechnics, and CÉGEPS) coming in at 25%, and K-12 at 23% of the Canadian total.

The top ten source countries for Canada, representing nearly 70% of annual entries into the country, are:

• China
• India
• Republic of Korea
• France
• US
• Saudi Arabia
• Japan
• Mexico
• Brazil

Students from China and India together represented 37% of the international student entries to Canada in 2012.

Top source countries of new international student entries to Canada for 2011 and 2012 from Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

More international students choosing to immigrate to Canada

CIC noted in a recent presentation at the 2013 ICEF North America Workshop in Toronto that “the number of former students choosing to immigrate is increasing” and acknowledged the “growing importance of post-graduation employment.” Growth is driven by demand; there are no international student quotas.

The Canadian Experience Class is one of the key streams through which international student graduates are entering; since 2008, more than 6,000 students have attained permanent residence status through the Canadian Experience Class. CIC notes that there is an 84% approval rate for Canadian Experience Class applicants.

Visa office closures offset by new online services and VACs?

Faced with budget constraints and with a strong mandate to improve processing efficiency, CIC has decided to close visa offices in a number of countries over the last couple of years. The following table documents those closures, as well as the rerouting procedures used to compensate:

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada

Such closures are always a concern for local students, families, and advisors – and with a global average processing time of 76 days for study permit applications, all stakeholders have an interest in seeing processing times reduced where possible. However, CIC reports as well that processing times are low and approval rates high for students applying from many top source countries.

On average, 81% of all study permit applications to Canada were approved in 2012, and 80% of applications were finalised within 42 days.

Citizenship and Immigration also notes that processing times are considerably shorter – on average, 45% shorter in fact – for those students applying online, which is now much easier due to new online services that have been introduced in recent months:

• In November 2012, CIC launched an online Help Centre offering information on over 500 popular topics and designed to facilitate online client self-service;
• In December 2012, CIC launched a global electronic application service for temporary residents, including visitors, students, and temporary workers.
• The eMedical initiative was also launched in December, allowing physicians to submit medical results online to be integrated with the applicants’ electronic files.

CIC also anticipates that its plan to increase the number of Visa Application Centres (VACs) around the world will further help to improve service to international students wanting to study in Canada. As distinct from Government of Canada visa offices within Canadian embassies or consulates, VACs are managed by private companies or international organisations and are authorised to provide specific services to applicants under a formal agreement with CIC.

Currently, there are 67 VACs in 47 countries; the plan is to expand this network to over 130 locations in 95 countries. Of the plan to expand VACs, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney has said:

“Our goal is for there to be a global VAC network, one with worldwide coverage and services standardised across all locations. That way, no matter where you are in the world, you can expect the same service from all the VACs.”

As we reported recently, Canada is also part of the first five-country VAC in Singapore. For more on how VACs can help international students with Canadian study permit applications – as well as where they are in the world – see here.

Suggesting that further service improvements are still to come, Canada’s expanded online visa application services and burgeoning VAC network are taking shape against the backdrop of the Canadian government’s having earmarked CDN $23 million in its latest budget to supporting its national international education strategy and CDN $42 million to improving visa processing for temporary residents including students. See our related article for more background on what steps Canada is taking to boost its competitiveness as a study abroad destination.

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To learn more about how US schools can operate within compliance and proactively work with the government, we present an exclusive video interview with Mr Michael Compitiello from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Watch our interview and continue reading below for more information on the activities of the DHS, such as their Campus Sentinel School Outreach initiative, as well as a new security change for border agents announced earlier this month.

US department structure and student statistics

The September 11^th attacks prompted the US to create the DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). The departments’ roles are, as outlined on the government website:

• “On behalf of the DHS, SEVP manages schools, non-immigrant students in the F and M visa classifications, and their dependents.
• The Department of State (DoS) manages exchange visitor programmes, non-immigrant exchange visitors in the J visa classification, and their dependents.
• Both SEVP and DoS use the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to track and monitor schools, exchange visitor programmes, and F, M and J non-immigrants while they visit the US and participate in the US education system.”

The volume of data in SEVIS continues to grow. On 1 January 2013, SEVIS contained records for over 1 million active non-immigrant students, exchange visitors, and their dependents. The total number of records for all F-1, M-1, and J-1 visa holders has increased to approximately 10.3 million.

SEVIS monitoring

As Mr Compitiello explains, SEVP was put into place to monitor foreign students’ progress and current location via the SEVIS electronic system:

“We found a loophole after 9/11… there was no comprehensive way to track students once in the US and the SEVIS programme was the answer to that problem.”

Maintaining accurate and up-to-date SEVIS records is critical to ensure the safety of foreign students, prevent exploitation of the system, and continue to welcome legitimate international students via a healthy student visa programme.

Mr Compitiello offers examples of some of the common pitfalls for schools, such as keeping student records up-to-date, specifically:

• enrolment status, especially if a student has completed his/her programme early or has transferred to a different school;
• a student’s (and/or his/her dependent’s) change of name or address;
• accurate programme start and end dates;
• Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorisation including employer and address;
• disciplinary action due to criminal conviction.

Ultimately, as Mr Compitiello affirms,

“It’s a partnership between the government and the schools themselves.”

The benefits of this collaboration are numerous, such as:

• by sharing information with school officials, the DHS may help improve a school’s programme management and help prevent students from falling out of status;
• information sharing and open lines of communication between the DHS, institutions, and students works to improve strategies for identifying and prosecuting unlawful activity;
• investigating and eliminating fraudulent schools upholds the integrity of the student visa programme;
• teamwork improves the reputation of international education programmes in the United States, raises foreign student enrolment at quality schools, and reduces potential threats to national security.

US government partnership with school officials

In order to facilitate this partnership, the ICE Project Campus Sentinel School Outreach initiative was formed.

The campus sentinel gives the DHS a chance to go out to the schools, meet with Designated School Officials (DSO), and personally educate them on how to avoid pitfalls. This face-to-face engagement opens the lines of communication, and shows them how to keep records up the date and report any suspicious activity.

Institutions are encouraged to alert the DHS if they become aware of dubious activity, such as:

• non-SEVP certified institutions providing instruction to foreign students;
• failure to maintain accreditation, licensing, facilities, curriculum or necessary teaching staff;
• schools allowing students to drop below SEVP attendance requirements;
• sudden, high volume foreign student enrolment growth;
• unusually high patterns of schools transferring students in and out multiple times;
• schools unlawfully maintaining students’ ‘Active’ status in exchange for money;
• recruitment of students under false pretenses or advertising of programmes that the school does not offer;
• schools manufacturing or providing false diplomas or transcripts.

Naturally, the majority of institutions have the best of intentions but as Mr Compitiello says, “One bad apple can spoil the bunch.”

Mr Compitiello concludes with one overriding message to our industry:

“We appreciate the business that the schools are doing – it helps our economy – and we are here to help you do business the right way and to avoid any problems that you may have because of a lack of having someone to ask.”

SEVIS access for all border agents

Safety and compliance continues to be much on the minds of the public, especially in the wake of the Boston bombings. The tragedy spurred the government to initiate a new procedure – effective immediately.

The DHS ordered border agents to verify that every international student who arrives in the US has a valid student visa.

Under existing procedures, border agents could verify a student’s status in SEVIS only when the person was referred to a second officer for additional inspection or questioning. Under the new procedures, all border agents are expected to be able to access SEVIS to verify a student’s visa status before the person arrives in the US using information provided in flight manifests. If that information is unavailable, border agents will check the visa status manually with the agency’s national targeting data centre.

Regarding the information sharing and security challenges, Mr Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, told CNN:

“The fact that a foreign national was able to re-enter the US with what appeared to be a valid student visa, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers were unaware that his visa status had become invalid, represents a serious hole in our national security. The front-line CBP officers did not have access to the system that would have informed them of a change in legal status.”

It is unclear what long term impact the new procedure will have on wait times at airports and borders, but in the immediate term, schools should alert incoming students to allow for more time at airports. Customs officials are required to report any effect, including longer waits, on a daily basis, and there have been reported delays of 30 minutes to three hours at major airports (i.e., in Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco) due to F, J and M visa holders being sent to secondary inspection. Inside Higher Ed has reported that the impact is especially being felt by border commuter students.

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The survey does more than look at growth and demographic data for FEDELE’s schools – it also asks for opinions about Spain’s international education sector from the survey’s respondents (school directors) from across the country.

Top-line results reveal an increase in student weeks and revenue in 2012, driven by growth from Russia and China as sending markets, which compensated for declines from other nations, namely Denmark. Small and medium-sized schools fared better than larger institutions. Below, ICEF Monitor translates, examines, and puts FEDELE’s data into context.

What is FEDELE?

Before getting into the survey, here’s some quick information about FEDELE that will help in interpreting the information: FEDELE’s main objective is to promote quality teaching of Spanish in Spain. It consists of six associations totaling 88 private Spanish schools. Five of the associations are named for five of Spain’s autonomous communities, and their schools are located in or near those communities.

The sixth association is Asociación Escuelas de Español como Lengua Extranjera, or the Association of Spanish Schools as a Foreign Language, referred to as AELE. This association encompasses schools that are not members of the other five associations, and which are scattered from Málaga in the south of Spain to the Basque Country in the north. So as a whole, FEDELE looks like this:

• FEDELE Barcelona, which has 7 schools, all located in Barcelona.
• FEDELE Comunidad Valenciana, which has 13 schools, located in Alicante (3), Castellón (1), and Valencia (9).
• FEDELE Madrid, which has 13 schools, all located in Madrid.
• Asociación Español en Andulacía, or AEEA, which has 33 schools located in Cadiz (7) Granada (6), Málaga (13) and Seville (7).
• Asociación Español de Español de Castilla y León, or AEECYL, which has 14 schools in Avila (1), Salamanca (12), and Valladolid (1).
• AELE, which has 8 schools located in A Coruña (1), Guipúzcoa (1) the Balearic Islands (2), Marbella (1), Navarra (1), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1), and Biscay (1).

Of the 88 schools, 50 took part in the survey, and FEDELE states that it is extrapolating data from this sample size to apply to the whole association. In a similar vein, FEDELE’s figures apply only to its collection of private schools, and may not perfectly correlate with data for other types of language schools in Spain.

Demographic trends in FEDELE schools

The FEDELE survey uses a measure based on enrolment weeks to show the size of its schools, the growth trends per region, and the demographic makeup of the students. The entire survey is of interest, but we’re going to jump to the middle and start with the demographic information that will be of greatest interest to recruiters.

The graphic below reveals which countries or regions send students to FEDELE Spanish schools and in what proportions. Most of the Spanish country names are self-explanatory, but a few to note are Alemania (Germany), Reino Unido (UK), Corea (Korea), Europa del Este (Eastern Europe), Suiza (Switzerland), Paises Nordicos (Nordic countries), and Paises Arabes (Arabic countries).

The charts below break the data into FEDELE’s sub-regions. FEDELE does not group Dinamarca (Denmark), seen in both the chart above and those below, with the Nordic Countries, though it is in fact Nordic.

The data was collected not by surveying actual student numbers, but by asking the institutions to indicate the top five nationalities of their enrolees. This methodology made for some revealing results, which we see below. The list shows which countries or regions were top five senders for FEDELE schools. In other words, 94% of the schools reported Germany as one of its top five sending countries, and so forth.

• Germany – 94%
• United Kingdom - 70%
• Italy – 52%
• United States – 52%
• France – 46%
• Netherlands – 32%
• Nordic countries – 24%
• Russia – 24%
• China – 22%
• Japan – 20%
• Austria – 18%
• Switzerland – 16%
• Korea – 14%
• Brazil – 8%
• Denmark – 6%
• Arab countries – 2%

The ups and downs of international sending markets

FEDELE also asked its schools which nationalities showed the fastest growth in 2012, and which showed the steepest decline. The methodology was the same – i.e., the results shown refer to the percentage of schools that included these nationalities in its response.

The results were broken into two charts. Thus FEDELE reveals which nationalities showed growth:

And which showed decline:

FEDELE doesn’t include 2011 charts for comparison, but reveals that as a sending market, China has fallen two places since last year. However, respondents still ranked China highly, which indicates merely a downtick in what remains an upward trend.

ICEF Monitor reported last month that about 25,000 Chinese students are currently studying Spanish in Spain, a number representing a huge increase compared to ten years ago. Spanish language instruction within China is also up, with 35 Spanish academies now operating in Beijing, and 90 universities offering Spanish courses. The change shows both the increased importance of Spanish in global markets, and also the increased competition that FEDELE faces.

Notably, the Nordic Countries are up as senders, but Denmark shows a marked decline. Also Germany, while remaining the top sending market to FEDELE schools, did show a slight decline.

The differentiated charts appear below and reveal sharp variation between countries. For example, the US is down as a sender to the Valencian region located on Spain’s eastern coast, but up to Andalucia in the south. Similarly, the Nordic Countries (minus Denmark) are up to Andulacia but sharply down to Castille and León.

FEDELE growth figures

As stated earlier, the survey uses a measure of volume based on enrolment weeks to show the size of its schools.

Thus we see that 48% of the schools are classified as small, 30% are medium, and 22% are large. Spanish schools in the Barcelona and Madrid regions tend to be large, while schools tended to be small in Andalucia in southern Spain, Castille y Leon in the northwest, and in the widely scattered AELE grouping.

Interestingly, the data also showed that while numbers were generally up, the schools showing growth were small and medium schools, while the large schools that responded to the survey showed a tendency to decrease.

Next we see a comparison between 2012 and 2011 weeks/student to get a sense of the growth rate of the schools.

FEDELE’s metric “weeks/student” does not measure actual numbers of students, but rather enrolment weeks. Below is the specific data, which shows that as a whole FEDELE schools grew from 136,100 weeks/student in 2011 to 160,250 weeks/student in 2012.

• AEEA: 53,250 weeks/student 2012; 48,100 weeks/student 2011
• AELE: 8,000 weeks/student 2012; 7,500 weeks/student 2011
• Barcelona: 16,500 weeks/student 2012; 14,700 weeks/student 2011
• Castile y Leon: 21,750 weeks/student 2012; 15,600 weeks/student 2011
• Comunidad Valenciana: 29,250 weeks/student 2012; 25,000 weeks/student 2011
• Madrid: 31,500 weeks/student 2012; 25,200 weeks/student 2011

Growth and decline drivers for FEDELE

FEDELE respondents were asked to cite the major factors affecting school enrolments. Again, the responses were subjective, but give an indication of the issues that are of concern to school administrators. The top responses were as follows:

• The exchange rate in Spain as compared to competing (international) markets: “The impact of this factor in both 2011 and 2012 remains as strong or very strong for most of the schools participating in the survey.”
• The economic climate: “The international economic crisis has affected major emitters of Spanish students and has caused the decline of Spanish students in our traditional markets.”
• Visa policies: “The immigration control measures established in Spain for some countries delay and often hinder penetration into emerging markets.”
• Unfair competition: “The growing number of Spanish students in the world and the consequent development of our sector in Spain has led to the emergence of multiple entities that compete in the market without compliance, with established quality standards even without complying with the law.”
• Marketing budget: “A limited budget to invest in marketing, both in the development of strategies and participation in action.”
• Spain’s image: “A new factor is … the image that Spain has been evolving in recent years [to people on] the outside: economic crisis, corruption, unemployment, eviction demonstrations. This image of instability and insecurity causes insecurity in parents and prescribers that ultimately decide not to send their children/students to our country.”

FEDELE and wider Spain

FEDELE’s data set confirms the increasing global demand for Spanish language instruction and the continued resiliency of Spain’s language sector.

However, the concerns of FEDELE school directors paint a vivid picture. Even in the midst of growth, they feel that their strength with traditional sending markets is declining. Education providers may do well to focus on new sending markets and refine their marketing strategies, perhaps concentrating on untapped customer segments, as outlined in the British Council’s Spain Country Brief.

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With estimates that 42% of global enrolments (or 212.9 million enrolments) will be from the East Asia and Pacific region by 2035, Malaysia’s educational capacity and the quality of its educational system is an important aspect of the regional and global markets.

Malaysians know this, and it is one of the reasons the controversial Barisan Nasional (BN) government (just re-elected in a hotly contested election) has made educational reform such a focus in the last year.

The stakes are high: Malaysia was ranked 55 out of 77 countries in the recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report. Not one Malaysian public university placed in the top 400 of the 2012–2013 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. And yet, the country is busily solidifying its image as an education hub, thanks in large part to its successful efforts to attract international universities: the Iskander Education Hub is one example of such an effort.

An aggressive initiative to lure foreign universities and students does not jibe well with a poorly performing public education system. Nor does a weak public education system elevate an economy to the level it needs to be to compete with the growing number of countries prioritising the “knowledge” basis of their economies. So in autumn of last year, Malaysia announced an ambitious new “Blueprint” designed, among other things, to elevate Malaysian students “from the bottom one-third to the top one-third of the [PISA] ranking within the next 13 years.”

A blueprint for action

The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013–2025 has been called…

“the biggest shake-up ever of our education system … a 13-year roadmap [which] will reshape how our policymakers, education officials, teachers and parents deal with educating and teaching millions of our schoolchildren and preparing them and the nation for the future.”

The stated targets of the Blueprint are:

• Universal enrolment from pre-school to upper secondary education in 10 years;
• Halving the achievement gaps between the rich and the poor, urban and rural, and between the states that form Malaysia in eight years;
• Rising from the bottom-third to the top-third of countries in international assessments like PISA and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 15 years;
• Building an education system that gives children an appreciation of their unique identity as Malaysians.

Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the plan prioritises:

• Upholding the teaching profession;
• Enhancing the leadership of schools;
• Enhancing the quality of schools;
• Strengthening the curriculum and assessment standards;
• Enhancing proficiency in various languages;
• Getting the involvement of parents;
• Partnering with the private and social sectors;
• Making students better prepared for higher education and the job market;
• Improving the competency and effectiveness of our resources;
• Building up the potential and ability of the delivery system.

In addition, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is calling on students to pick up three languages (it has been said that too many students are focusing on Bahasa Malaysia to the detriment of their English language skills). The prime minister said at the Blueprint’s launch in Kuala Lumpur:

“We need that competitive edge. We can leverage on our multiracial component. Why lose that advantage? We should be pragmatic.”

Education Minister Yassin explained that there are three “waves” to the Blueprint’s action plan:

• Wave 1: Blueprint implementation – more support for teachers and a focus on core student skills.
• Wave 2: Building upon progress.
• Wave 3: To occur between 2020 and 2025, schools will take over their own administration.

Officials say they are on track already

A ceremony was recently held to celebrate the First 100 Days of the 2013-2025 Blueprint, and at the event, government officials declared that six of the plan’s initiatives have been carried out.

Chief among them were the development of a parents’ toolkit to foster education at home as well as at school – 10,000 have been given to schools nationwide – and measures and testing to improve the English language proficiency of teachers.

So far 61,000 English educators have taken a Cambridge placement test in preparation for a must-pass test to be introduced in 2016.

Meanwhile, the drive for international students and universities continues

As we reported last summer, Malaysia wants to become the world’s sixth-biggest education exporting country by 2020 with a target of 200,000 international students.

The country is supporting the development – mostly privately funded – of two education “cities”:

• Kuala Lumpur Education City (KCEC), launched in 2007, is still in development and aims to house both international and local universities, as well as primary and secondary schools in a 500-acre KLEC Academic Park. The hub will offer education from University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, Epsom College, and Universiti Sains Malaysia (and potentially other schools) to those in the region with an expected student population of nearly 30,000.
• EduCity at Iskandar is a similar idea: a 350-acre campus on which several universities will be housed as well as elaborate sports and leisure facilities including a 14,000-seater stadium and an Olympic-length swimming pool. The idea is to create a “student village” of about 16,000 students on the campus, where students from each university share access to the amazing recreational and sports facilities. Mohd Hisham Kamaruzaman, acting chief operating officer of Education@Iskandar Sdn Bhd (owned by Iskandar Investment Berhad, which is developing EduCity), told University World News that “the student village and sports complex will be ready by August, in time for the next academic year.” Several universities are already open in EduCity, with more about to start.

Cohesion between public and private educational investments

As Malaysia continues to develop its education hubs, it is reassuring to note that it seems newly dedicated to improving the public infrastructure of its domestic education system.

If Malaysia is able to carry through meaningfully on its new Education Blueprint 2013–2025, this – at least as much as its two education hubs – will set it on the right path to becoming a notable knowledge economy in the region.

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