Bid to ensure more foreign students stay and work

The near doubling of foreign nationals taking an academic degree in Denmark from 2008 to 2014 is a step forward, but the government should do more to ensure that foreign students stay on and work, according to Minister of Higher Education and Science Esben Lunde Larsen.

International students now account for almost one in 10 students in Denmark, having risen from 13,689 in 2008, to 26,243 in 2014, a jump of 92%.

The 10 largest sending countries are Norway (2,948), Germany (2,622), Romania (2,116), Sweden (1,579), Lithuania (1,347), Bulgaria (1,117), Poland (874), Hungary (873), and Italy and Iceland (both 727).

“It is good to have so many foreign students in Denmark, but when we use our resources to educate them, we should also do more to have them stay and work in Denmark upon graduation,” Lunde Larsen said in a statement released to the press.

He has therefore begun work on developing a strategy to ensure international graduates stay on in Denmark, he said.

“We will focus on all regions and not only the larger cities, so that enterprises all over Denmark shall have access to the workforce they need.”

He also said that the ministry in 2015 is using DKK3 million (US$437,000) for higher education institutions to undertake pilot projects on how graduates can be recruited to work in Danish regions or communities.

In the statement he cited a new report that shows that working conditions in Denmark have a decisive influence on whether international graduates decide to stay or leave and that concrete offers of work from abroad are also a strong pull factor.

Some 5,000 international graduate and exchange students who answered a survey in 2012 were asked if they could be contacted at a later stage, and 4,727 of them were identified and sent a questionnaire in the summer of 2014, of whom 40% responded.

A survey for the report asked: “What factors are of importance for international students to stay in Denmark upon graduation?”

The 2014 follow-up study was designed to check if the respondents were still living in Denmark and had joined the workforce or had left Denmark for their home country or another destination.

The factors cited by respondents as reasons why they stayed in Denmark are: the balance between working time and leisure time in the Danish working life; the salary level; access to professional development and challenges; and exposure to international training.

The reasons for people leaving were: a job offer from outside Denmark or a professional or social network outside Denmark.

The study broke down the personal characteristics of the respondents and found that having a Danish partner increased the chances of staying; the older the graduate the greater the chance of staying; having worked alongside studying increased the likelihood of staying; as did having a good knowledge of the Danish language. In addition, a higher proportion of graduates with technical or health degrees stayed in Denmark.

Students from other Nordic countries are less prone to stay in Denmark.

Of the respondents, 54% were working and 46% were seeking work. Altogether 36% had applied for more than 40 work positions; 72% were working in the private sector and 22% in the public sector. Some 40% were working in companies with more than 100 employees.