UK: A popular destination for overseas students

Nizar Alam from Bangladesh likes Manchester, “apart from the rain”, because he found the ideal course at Manchester University: mathematical logic. “I’m interested in logical philosophy but only this institution provided exactly what I wanted,” Alam explains. Manchester’s success in attracting foreign students is symptomatic of Britain’s performance in the race to lure overseas students to these shores. Latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show a 7% rise in foreign students and a 6% increase in EU student enrolments between 2005-06 and 2006-07.

Alam plans to tackle a PhD at Manchester after the masters he is now completing. He is one of 8,000 overseas students out of 35,000 overall at this university in north-west England, in the city which is the home of two premier league football clubs and a vibrant music scene.

A separate study from i-graduate, a higher education consultancy, shows that Britain is more popular than the United States as a place to study ([url=http:// style=original]See Tony Tysome’s news story in this issue). This success is not just due to the efforts of individual universities to recruit young people to the UK but also because of a concerted drive on the part of government.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair launched an initiative in 1999, called PMI (the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education), to increase the number of international students coming to Britain. The goal was to enrol an additional 50,000 students in higher education and half that number in further education by 2004-05.

With government funding for marketing and campaigning, managed by the British Council, allied with streamlining immigration and work rules, that target was reached easily. In April 2006, Blair followed it with a £7 million (US$14 million) five-year strategy building on this success.

PMI2 aims to attract an additional 70,000 into higher education and 30,000 to further education as well as doubling the number of countries sending more than 10,000 students a year. The goal is also to achieve higher satisfaction ratings among students and to increase the growth in partnerships between the UK and other countries.

Christine Bateman, director of UK marketing at the British Council, says the response to this initiative is ‘excellent news’: “There was a real slow down in the market with more countries competing.”

Bateman also points to the International Graduate Scheme as a ‘big plus’ for boosting the international market. The scheme allows overseas graduates in any discipline to stay for a year’s work, or work experience, which means they are more employable back home or elsewhere.

Apart from the council’s contribution, Bateman pays tribute to universities that have worked hard to market themselves. She is impressed by the increase in partnership and collaboration with institutions abroad.

Vincenzo Raimo, director of Nottingham University’s international office, says if a university can develop two-way traffic, then it can sustain and increase overseas student numbers. Nottingham, which set up an international office before the rush and has a strong internationalisation strategy, has established campuses in Malaysia and China.

“So we can get the Brits out there with an exchange programme,” Raimo says.

At Manchester, which has the largest number of overseas students in the country, head of international development Tim Westlake says it also helps to have a pro-active careers service.

“Ours looks at innovative ways to work with employers in China, India and Hong Kong so that our students can get the best jobs when they return home. We’ve also held a recruitment fair in Manchester for Chinese students,” Westlake says. “After London, students are most aware of Manchester. Football gives it a high profile.”

But Rosanna Desouza from Goa in India says she looked first to league tables for her chosen subject of biochemistry, then to what the city had to offer.

Quality is the key to success, adds Westlake, as Manchester aspires to be in the top 25 of the world’s best universities. (It rose from 40th in 2006 to 30th last year in the Times Higher Education Supplement-QS rankings.)

“So we continue to look for high quality international students.”

Student support is also an important factor in overseas recruitment. Nottingham, with 7,000 overseas students from 141 countries, starts by picking students up from the airport, providing a separate orientation programme, then makes every effort to integrate them into mainstream student life.

“Brits as well benefit from being part of an international community,” says Raimo. “|One of our biggest challenges is not to ghettoise international students.”

Britain’s university and college staff as well as students can turn for help to the UK Council for International Student Affairs. With five lawyers, it provides information on immigration and visas; advice on fees, funding and work; and professional development for staff.

Dominic Scott, the council’s director, says it was responsible for “an explosion of interest in student experience issues” after the publication of a survey in 2004, Broadening our horizons. This was the first major survey of international students for a decade and found that 89% of the 5,000 sampled were satisfied with their experience in the UK – not just academically but with the support they had been given.

“It is a good Anglophone tradition,” Scott says, adding that the survey had “kick-started a massive amount of student surveying”: “UK institutions are leading the field in market research of their customers which is helping to drive up standards.”