With the “big four” study destinations increasing restrictions on international students – including student caps and a ban on dependents – Asian universities are maximising their appeal to attract overseas applicants.

ICEF hosted a panel ‘Beyond the Big Four: This rise of Asian study destinations’ at its conference in Berlin on November 3. Here, representatives from China, Korea, and Japan shared what each country has done to boost their visibility in the international education sector.

South Korea

WooYoung Shin, representing the Global Education and Services and University Network for International Education, shared South Korea’s plans.

Following changes made in 2023, South Korea has increased its internship degree options. The country has recognised the need for work amongst international students, and policies will make this far easier.

The UK still has restrictions on working hours for international students, but South Korea are making education more accessible, as students can work alongside studies to afford living costs, Shin revealed.

He said that international students can then gain experience in sectors alongside their degree, and that universities are also extending their post degree period visa to three years to help students find permanent work.

“When local universities are collaborating with local industries and their local government, students can study their degree and they can do a part time job – the local government can help them to do that. This is a key issue for our country,” said Shin.

Korea is still not authorising visas from students from certain developing countries, but universities are making efforts to increase the list of certified countries, he added.

Japan

Japan has set a huge target for an influx of international students. Currently there are 280,000 international students in Japan, but the target for 2033 is 400,000.

The country intends to increase its student numbers to offset its current aging population. To aid this, getting a visa is becoming increasingly easy.

There are very few application declines, and Japan is making a pledge to increase the number of working visas too.

“There’s so few declines and fast processing. Definitely a very attractive point for Asian destinations,” said Josephine Phinith, business development manager at ICEF.

Japan is also offering new degree content to study alongside courses to help international students assimilate.

The courses offer Japanese language support with credits to encourage students to gain an eloquence in the local language. It is hoped that with daily communication, students will be able to integrate into the community and brighten student satisfaction.

Universities are also placing emphasis on postgraduate career support for international students intending to stay in Japan. Students are offered part time jobs, but Japan is going to many more lengths to integrate international students.

Universities are offering cultural courses in curriculums and extra credit cultural courses, as well as stressing the importance of integrating with domestic students in societies and activities.

There’s so few declines and fast processing. Definitely a very attractive point for Asian destinations
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Rob Turner, international development and marketing manager at International College of Liberal arts (ICLA), stressed that sharing co-curricular activities is mutually beneficial. Mixing domestic and international students.

“The mutual benefit of helping with that internationalisation would be good for the rest of the university and the Japanese locals as well as giving international students more and more exposure to the local area, local community, language, culture and customs,” he told delegates.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong has also made efforts to increase its visibility in the educational market. The country’s 2021 statistics revealed that only 1% of its students were international.

It has introduced a government scholarship exclusively for International students greatly increasing the university’s viability for international education.

China also recently passed its new Degree Act to encourage international and transnational education.

Like South Korea, Hong Kong is now offering a two year working visa post-graduation. The visa application takes between one to three months and delegates heard that students receive “lots of support”.

The administrative region does not currently work with many agents to recruit international students, but this could change in the future.

Sophie Xhang, representing The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, stated: “Right now, we are very open to working with agencies in a more diverse model, like not really just commission-based methodology.

“We also want to work with them together to promote about our programs to attract the top students in all those countries.”

Hong Kong currently encourages international students to attend online seminars as well as summer camps and short-term programs. The current programmes successfully encourage and integrate international students into higher education.

Institutions in the region have made their degrees extremely accessible by having courses taught exclusively in English. International students can therefore still be integrated into the local culture without spending large amounts of time learning the language before arriving on the course.