Territories and international locations like South Korea and Hong Kong, a part of the so-called “Asian Tigers” alongside Singapore and Taiwan, now view worldwide college students and intra-East Asian mobility as essential to sustaining financial development within the area.
“We now have a really completely different financial state of affairs in comparison with the UK or Canada. We don’t have an employment downside – in reality, we’d like extra folks and extra expertise throughout the board,” mentioned James Tang, secretary-general, College Grants Committee, Hong Kong SAR, throughout a session on the Worldwide Greater Schooling Discussion board 2025, held final week on the College of Birmingham.
“Our path to financial development should shift – pushed extra by innovation and expertise,” he added.
A broader immigration crackdown lately throughout main research locations, together with the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, has had important repercussions for worldwide college students.
The US, beneath Trump, has imposed research visa interview freezes, elevated social media vetting, and revoked visas over private views and nationality.
Canada continues to implement tightened restrictions on momentary residents, whereas Australia and the UK have proposed coverage measures to make it tougher for worldwide college students to enter and stay of their international locations.
These modifications, mixed with extra reasonably priced choices nearer to residence, relaxed residency necessities, decrease tuition charges, and world-renowned universities, at the moment are prompting the historically West-bound cohort from East Asia to look inward for increased schooling alternatives.
In response to a British Council report, pupil mobility inside East Asia grew extra quickly between 2013 and 2020 than mobility from the area to main English-speaking vacation spot international locations.
We’re now specializing in elements of the world which had been beforehand inconceivable to us as potential pupil markets
James Tang, UGC, Hong Kong
Whereas over 140,000 college students from East Asia studied in China in 2018, its particular administrative area, Hong Kong, is advancing its “Research in Hong Kong” model, positioning the territory as an rising worldwide hub for post-secondary schooling.
Between 2019/20 and 2021/22, the variety of worldwide college students enrolled in Hong Kong’s eight universities rose from 12,349 to 13,376, with round 65% coming from Mainland China.
In an effort to diversify that pupil physique, Hong Kong is more and more focusing on college students from India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and different international locations.
“With the correct sources and assist, we’re serving to universities work collectively to achieve out to potential markets. Our longer-term technique is to advertise broader consciousness of Hong Kong’s establishments globally,” said Tang.
“One fascinating improvement is the potential of attracting extra college students from Afghanistan and Indonesia. We’re now specializing in elements of the world which had been beforehand inconceivable to us as potential pupil markets.”
Though Tang acknowledged the challenges of job creation and the scarcity of reasonably priced housing in Hong Kong, he emphasised the necessity to develop campuses that cater to worldwide college students.
“To remain aggressive as a small area with large internationalisation ambitions, we have to construct campuses which are actually cosmopolitan and numerous.”
Just like Hong Kong’s schooling branding efforts, South Korea has been advancing its “300K” mission, which goals to spice up the variety of worldwide college students at its universities to 300,000 by 2027.
As of June 2024, the determine had reached 236,000, a rise of 29,000 from the earlier 12 months and a big soar from round 170,000 recorded in 2022.
Whereas South Korea is simply starting to embrace the concept of welcoming extra worldwide college students, there’s additionally a rising effort to spotlight their worth to the nation’s ageing inhabitants, which now makes up a big majority.
“We have to spotlight that internationalisation isn’t nearly bringing in worldwide college students but it surely’s additionally about how these applications impression our home college students, their schooling, and future employment,” defined Jun Hyun Hong, professor on the College of Public Service, Chung-Ang College, South Korea.
South Korea’s push to draw extra worldwide college students is pushed by its must counter a declining fertility fee and an ageing labour, however the effort can be challenged by nationalist sentiment and issues over job competitors.
“If we would like internationalisation to be significant, we have now to take a number of key points critically and assume otherwise about how we method them,” said Hong.
“The federal government, universities, and trade should work collectively to make sure these efforts should not solely profitable but additionally sustainable in the long term.”
In response to Hong, areas like South Korea and Hong Kong don’t must look to international locations just like the UK, US, or Canada for steerage on being a number nation, as an alternative, they need to concentrate on leveraging their very own strengths.
“I don’t assume Korea ought to attempt to turn into just like the US or the UK. We have to observe our personal mannequin that matches our nationwide context and values,” mentioned Hong.
Furthermore, applications like Campus Asia, which promote trilateral educational collaboration between South Korea, China, and Japan, have now additionally been prolonged to ASEAN international locations by means of the Korea-ASEAN AIMS (Asian Worldwide Mobility for College students) mission.
“What’s encouraging is that this program is now being prolonged to incorporate ASEAN international locations as effectively,” defined Hong.
“If we wish to be environment friendly and make actual progress, we have to construct on these sorts of alternate applications.”
Because the US schooling sector undergoes important modifications, together with cutbacks, funding reductions, and downsizing, stakeholders like Tang wish to the UK to bolster its already robust academic partnership with Hong Kong, seeing it as a relationship that might profit East Asia.
This comes because the Trump administration strikes to limit Chinese language pupil visas and restrict US universities’ partnerships with Chinese language establishments, citing “nationwide safety” issues.
“Of our 6,000 ongoing analysis initiatives, over half contain companions from Mainland China, with the remainder largely coming from the US adopted by the UK, Germany, and France,” said Tang.
“We at present have about 400 analysis collaborations with British universities, and there are nonetheless many alternatives to develop, each in analysis funding and pupil alternate.”
In response to Tang, the present headwinds dealing with Hong Kong universities’ partnerships with US establishments current a chance to deepen collaboration between Hong Kong and the UK.
“As our personal technique evolves and world circumstances change, there’s important potential for us to step up our engagement with UK establishments,” he mentioned.
