JOIN USMany countries across the world are investing heavily in their education sectors to attract international students, writes Natasha Chopra.
Many countries across the world are now investing heavily to attract international students. The benefits that have been garnered by the traditional education centres like US, UK, and Australia are aplenty and other countries too are looking forward to follow suit.
US, followed by UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, are still the preferred options. Other countries that are working on making themselves the next edcucation hubs are Singapore, Malaysia, and UAE.
Dubai’s knowledge village with a number of foreign universities is also attracting other International institutions. Singapore as an education destination is already well established and more universities are also likely to set up there over the coming years. Over the last 10 years, Chinese universities have achieved excellent infrastructure and rankings and are already currently attracting as many as 2,50,000 international students with the largest numbers coming from USA and Korea. However, other countries such as Hong Kong and Dubai have also entered the league to become an international hub.
Many of the European countries are now also increasingly establishing themselves in India and are offering Education options that are lower in fees . German institutions have been attracting the very best of the Indian engineering talent by offering subsidized fees and even options for work permits and stay back. France Netherlands, Spain, and Italy are others in the fray of attracting Indian students.
Whilst the trends are clearly showing that there is a large number of options. The selection criterion needs to be based on students’ aspirations and outcomes that they are seeking. Students who are looking for possibility of applying for a permanent residence, after course completion, can look forward to Canada, Australia and Ireland. While Britain’s current visa policies are restrictive for work options, it is still one of the key destinations for a high quality global educational experience.
Students are also now choosing their study destination based upon the course that they wish to pursue. The strength and niche areas of specialization become the most important factor in the choice of country. For example, in fashion and design, France and Italy are becoming increasingly popular. For hospitality, students prefer Switzerland and France.
It is also interesting to see that students who were looking for MBA ,without work experience, are also now increasingly focusing on specialized programs in business marketing, finance, and entrepreneurship. Engineering students are also looking at further specialization in their fields or combining this with business modules.
Even though Europe is in recession and USA is experiencing slow growth, they are also experiencing skill shortages in key areas. Students need to align their areas of competence to the skill shortages and take up programs that will offer long-term opportunities - both for employment and permanent residence, if that is what they are seeking. Most of the developed economies have skill shortages in the areas of health, computing and IT, engineering, accounting, and finance. These shortages are not only encouraging for permanent residence but also for those students looking forward for a bright opportunity to express their talents and skills. High-end achievers are always attractive to companies at any point of time and students of such calibre can milk the best out of it even in recession.
India has excellent students and these students are now looking at high ranking institutions, across the world, in Germany, Spain, US, UK, and even Hong Kong. There are over 200 thousand students who opt for overseas studies. This number is likely to widen in the coming years.
(The writer is an overseas educational consultant)