The Lens
Internationalisation and the APAC Region
Change is the Only Constant
Mobility and internationalisation has had many faces over the years, and now, flows are beginning to change, too.
Dr Sarah Todd, Principal Consultant, QS Quacquarelli Symonds
The desire to become more of an education hub is not new to the region.
Mainland Chinese universities themselves are now being encouraged to look beyond their own borders
Long a region characterised as host to both some of the biggest “sending” and “receiving” countries in terms of international student mobility, the backdrop against which universities across APAC are reviewing and resetting their internationalisation strategies is a dynamic one.
While the Asia Pacific region has traditionally been defined in terms of the outbound flow of students to North America and Europe, and intra-regional mobility from Asia to Australia, recent years have seen significant changes that not only challenge that view but have also seen an increasingly sophisticated approach to global engagement adopted by universities across the region.
Research collaborations that reflect mutual strengths, expertise and access to technology are fast becoming the norm, as is the investment by many governments in further developing the resilience and performance of their higher education sector and institutions. Both have been reflected in the significant improvements in institutional performance across the region as measured by the QS WUR.
While Australia continues to be a greater exporter of education than a sender of students out across the region, programmes such as the New Colombo Plan have seen increased numbers of undergraduate students having cultural, linguistic and academic experiences as well as internships in a diverse range of Asia Pacific countries.
Conversely, traditional senders of students such as mainland China and India have adopted policies to support increased inbound student mobility, ranging from actively encouraging universities to expand their internationalisation, through to the implementation of visa settings that encourage international students to study there.
Increasingly, those that do seek to study abroad are choosing to remain within the Asia Pacific. Intra-regional mobility is undoubtedly one of the biggest shifts in recent years, accelerated by factors such as COVID and associated border closures, as well as increased living costs and shifts in migration policy in the traditional ‘Big 4’ destinations. Studying within the region is increasingly recognised as offering affordable options, cultural familiarity and geographic proximity.
Access to highly ranked institutions that have spare capacity due to demographic shifts and the plethora of branch campuses and other TNE options such as dual degrees that provide the opportunity to access an international education without traveling further afield are fuelling this shifting mobility. At the same time, governments and individual institutions are expanding their regional partnerships, with a focus on long-term, mutually beneficial engagement that supports collaborative research and student exchange. Initiatives by the ASEAN universities and programmes such as CAMPUS Asia, initiated by the governments of China, Japan and South Korea to promote regional understanding through academic and student exchange and that has now expanded to include other ASEAN nations, are reinforcing the focus on enhanced regional understanding among future leaders as well as supporting common standards of academic quality assurance.
The desire to become more of an education hub is not new to the region, with Singapore long having invested in positioning itself as a global study destination. World class homegrown universities and the welcoming of international branch campuses have been part of a deliberate strategy to position Singapore as a connector of East and West, driven by a recognition of the need to attract the best and the brightest.
Mainland China’s move to host increased numbers of international students, and not just in cultural and language programmes, has been more recent, and a particular focus has been the provision of scholarships to students from Asia and Africa, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. As well as playing host to international branch campuses and formally recognising joint programmes, mainland Chinese universities themselves are now being encouraged to look beyond their own borders and expand their delivery offshore.
Similarly, India has increasingly challenged China as the biggest sender of students and it, too, has now turned its attention to inbound student mobility. The adoption of its National Education Policy 2020 heralded a raft of initiatives that have seen not only foreign universities welcomed to India but Indian institutions themselves opening campuses abroad. As with China, India is seeking to attract students from Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, leveraging the move to intra-regional mobility.
And Southeast Asian countries themselves are emerging as significant destinations in their own right. Malaysia has long played host to branch campuses and has more recently gained popularity as a relatively affordable option, supported by government investment and revised student visa settings. Vietnam and Indonesia are further behind but, again, both are opening up to foreign universities and increasing their English-language offerings, albeit while facing significant challenges in terms of their domestic education provision.
Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong are examples of countries within the APAC region looking to attract international students to offset demographic declines which have seen quality universities with excess capacity. Language barriers and rigid employment systems remain as barriers in some cases, with prospective international students increasingly motivated by career outcomes and graduate pathways. However, the rise in Asian study destinations in the recent QS Best Student Cities rankings, with Seoul taking out the top spot, reflects the increasingly attractive option the region offers to students within the Asia-Pacific and those looking for accessible, quality education.
The overall landscape is an increasingly complex one, no longer easily defined in terms of comprising one or two ‘receiving’ countries and a large number of mobile students from the rest of the region. Regional networks and enhanced partnerships underpinned by strengthened collaboration at the institutional level are developing alongside government ambitions to become global study hubs, be that for diplomatic or demographic reasons. The Asia Pacific region is not alone in the challenges it faces nor its desire to strengthen its global positioning, but the pace and scale of the change in a relatively short time, as well as the sheer scale of the population that calls the region home, means that it is definitely one to watch as we look to the future of higher education and its internationalisation.