Global higher education mobility has grown by 57% since 1999, with more than 2.9-million students seeking education abroad, new research has found.
The publication, titled Higher Education on the Move: New Developments in Global Mobility is the second book in a series of global education research reports published by the Institute of International Education (IIE) with support from the American Institute for Foreign Study Foundation.
It argues that the dramatic rise in numbers of mobile students can be attributed partly to worldwide growth in higher education.
‘Not only has the number of internationally mobile students grown, but the overall context of global mobility — both in terms of who is going where and the mix of host and sending countries — has also changed significantly,” says Peggy Blumenthal, chief operating officer of the IIE and its director of research and, evaluation Rajika Bhandari, who co-wrote the introductory chapter.
‘Most countries now view international academic mobility and educational exchanges as critical components for sharing knowledge, building intellectual capital and remaining competitive in a globalising world.”
Higher education enrolment worldwide grew to 144-million students in 2005, up from 68- million in 1991, the report states. Countries in Asia and the Pacific have experienced the largest growth with some, such as Malaysia and China, almost doubling higher education enrolments in recent years.
Expanding higher education populations have put enormous pressure on higher education systems in many developing countries — especially at postgraduate level — leading large numbers of students to seek higher education outside their home country. India is an example of a country where growth in the student population has outpaced the capacity of existing higher education institutions.
The book explores the rapid growth in the scale and nature of mobility, global developments and strategies that have contributed to this expansion, the effects of recent developments in higher education, the world economy and government policy on global scholar mobility.
‘Authors describe phenomena including the emergence of global rankings; liberalisation of the higher education sector through the World Trade Organisation’s general agreement on trade and services treaty; competitiveness in science and technology; intergration of higher education in Europe through the Bologna process; and asks how these processes affect the movement of students and scholars across national borders,” says an IIE media release.
The essays offer higher education policymakers and practitioners the opportunity to consider how broad-based global factors influence mobility.
‘The challenge to each higher education institution is to answer the questions of who, what, where, when and how such mobility can best be promoted and why it is desirable,” says IIE president Allan Goodman. The IIE has more than 1 000 university and college members and 20 offices worldwide.
William L Gertz, president of the American Institute for Foreign Study Foundation, which runs cultural exchange programmes, says that any discussion about global student mobility must be seen in the context of the worldwide financial crisis.
Although it is clear that students desire to study abroad and institutions are working to eliminate barriers to mobility such as credit transfer and university calendars, Gertz says, it is ‘apparent that financial considerations will be the number one factor limiting student mobility. But we believe there is momentum that will enable student mobility to increase after the downturn ends.”— University World News