Which countries are coming for the UK’s intled market share?

Citing data from a joint report from Studyportals, IELTS and the British Council, global partnerships manager at the British Council Megan Agnew said the number of English language taught programmes outside of the world’s four most popular study destinations has rocketed by 48% between 2019 and 2024.

“Looking at pre- and post-pandemic, the rise of English-taught programs is increasing. And potentially this will signify [that the] landscape for undergraduate programs has more competition in the future,” she told delegates at IELTS‘ very first open day.

Held at the British Council headquarters in London on July 16 with The PIE News as the media partner, the open day brought together key players from the ELT and higher education sectors to hear industry insights from a series of panel discussions and workshops.

Using data from IELTS, delegates heard which emerging markets are becoming more popular with international students.

Countries including Finland, Italy, France and Germany are becoming more popular with international students, possibly threatening part of the UK’s share of the international education “pie”, according to Shivani Bhalla, head of international student recruitment at Brunel University.

While the UK remains a fixture of the ‘big four’ study destinations alongside the US, Canada and Australia, stakeholders should not take this for granted, Bhalla told delegates at the event.

The UK attracted record numbers of students in the 2021/22 academic year, according to the latest data from HESA – almost 680,000 of them.

“I don’t think we should take any of this for granted because very soon you will see things changing,” Bhalla warned.

“There are lots of people in the world that want to seek better opportunities, especially education comes as, I suppose, the first conversation as a family. Especially in markets like East Asia and South Asia – which will always be the big centres for study abroad – it’s a dinner table conversation, what you’re going to study, where you’re going to study,” she said.

Countries like France and Germany have simplified their visa processes and there has been a rise in international student interest in Finland, Italy and Belgium, she told delegates.

Meanwhile, Turkey is emerging as a strong international education provider – with 25 of its institutions featuring in QS’s 2024 rankings, Bhalla noted.

And she said that Malta is another country that is beginning to show clout in the sector, despite its small size – especially for medical training.

Bhalla also pointed out that the pandemic may have acted as a tipping point for several of these countries, allowing them to be bolder with their offerings as the big four scrambled to work out their next steps.

“These countries realised very quickly during Covid – because if you, if you go back, everything was online… they kind of picked up what each of these international students want to come and study for,” Bhalla said.

“Obviously, the US was closed, Canada was closed, Australia was closed. So someone somewhere [thought], okay there’s an opportunity, let me set up this international strategy.”

But she reassured delegates the the situation is still very much salvageable for the UK sector.

She said: “Can anyone imagine Germany being a top country, attracting international students from China and South Asia and hugely from India and Pakistan?

“But when you look at the pie, obviously they’re not taking hundreds of thousands of students. They’re taking those 2,000-3,000 students from out of share. There’s still an opportunity to get those people back.”

“I don’t see those countries as [major] threats. They are small, mini-threats,” she added.

Bhalla cautioned that press negativity about international students in the UK – even with the reasonable positive outcome of the MAC Review – was still sticking in the minds of parents wanting to send their children to study overseas. Such parents may choose to keep their children closer to home, she pointed out.

But while transnational education could offer a solution for this situation, it has its downsides, Bhalla said.

“As much as I’m a believer in transnational education, it doesn’t give you the value of coming to the UK as a destination and learning the culture, the language – the whole experience is different.”

Our communication to these students has to go back to basics

Shivani Bhalla, Brunel University

And the UK is still outperforming other European countries in terms of the quality of research coming out of higher education institutions, she said.

Another factor holding back other nations compared to the UK is that English – often considered the lingua franca of the business world – is not the first language.

“Yes, it’s great to go to Germany to be able to speak German and have a career there, but you will never be a global citizen. Whereas if you study in the UK, you speak in English, you study in English – but you also get to learn foreign languages. For example, we teach about nine foreign languages, completely free of charge for international students [at Brunel].”

But in order to keep its dominant position in the market, UK institutions must do more to show their international students that they are welcome, Bhalla urged.

“Our communication to these students has to go back to basics. I think we we became very, greedy in some ways to get the majority of international students coming in. But then we were not looking after them,” she said.

“And I think that’s what especially France, the Netherlands… Germany have picked up – that if they give these international students a really good time, they will go back and pass that message across back home.”

Bhalla also emphasised the importance of good-quality English language tests for international students.

“The first thing an international student thinks of when they think of studying abroad is an English language test that they have to do, because more often than usual, they go to a country where English is the first language,” she told delegates.