Australia Beckons Growing Numbers of Pakistani Students

[Riaz Haq]

While the overall foreign student population in Australia has declined this year, the number of Pakistanis studying in Australia is continuing double-digit growth, according to recent Australian government data on international education. Pakistan has now become the top growth market for Australia's struggling international education industry, even though revenue from its neighbor India fell almost $1 billion in a single year, according to The Australian newspaper. New Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that Australia's fourth-biggest export industry is turning to new markets to counter a $2.2bn loss of revenue last year.

Australia's earnings from the top 12 foreign markets all fell last year, topped by India, which slumped by 37 per cent, but Pakistan bucked the trend, with revenue rising 15 per cent to $253 million.

Australian international education revenue from Pakistan has been rising, more than tripling over the past five years. Earnings from the boom-bust Indian market are down 50% in two years, collapsing from a 2009 peak of $3.1bn.

Although the growth in the total number Pakistanis studying abroad has slowed since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001 in the United States, the world's sixth most populous nation continues to be among the leading sources of foreign students in America, Europe, Australia and new emerging higher education destinations in Asia.

Source: Economist Magazine

As the number of Pakistani students in the United States has declined from a peak of 8,644 students (ranked 13th) in 2001-02 to 5,222 in 2009-10 (ranked 23rd), English-speaking OECD nations of the United Kingdom and Australia have become the biggest beneficiaries getting increasing market share of the Pakistan education market. Both nations have benefited in spite of the fact that the UK and Australian visa rejection rates for Pakistanis are higher than for students from other nations.

 With rising urban middle class, there is substantial and growing demand in Pakistan from students, parents and employers for private quality higher education, including vocational training,  along with a willingness and capacity to pay relatively high tuition and fees, according to the findings of Austrade, an Australian govt agency promoting trade. Private institutions are seeking affiliations with universities abroad to ensure they offer information and training that is of international standards.

49,000 Pakistani Students Abroad in 2011 Source: OECD

Trans-national education (TNE) is a growing market in Pakistan and recent data shows evidence of over 40 such programs running successfully in affiliation with British universities at undergraduate and graduate level, according to The British Council. Overall, the UK takes about 65 per cent of the TNE market in Pakistan.

A common concern about Pakistani students is that they might not return to serve their country. I think this is a genuine concern but it is often overblown. Pakistanis with advanced training are helping their country of origin in many ways. Those who are living and working overseas send significant amounts of money home to help Pakistan's economy. Others contribute their know-how by returning home as doctors, engineers, professors and other professionals and technocrats on a permanent basis or by frequent working visits.

Examples of foreign-educated Pakistanis who are directly contributing to the nation  include a Fulbright computer science scholar who has returned home to help fight terror, a plastic surgeon helping victims of acid attacks, a heart surgeon setting up a hospital in a remote Pakistani village, successful business executives, scientists, university professors and deans, current central bank governor, current finance minister and thousands of others.

It is extremely important for Pakistan's public policy makers and the nation's private sector to fully appreciate the expected demographic dividend as a great opportunity to turn the nation's fortunes for the better. The best way for them to demonstrate it is to push a pro-youth agenda of education, skills development, health and fitness to take full advantage of this tremendous opportunity. Failure to do so  would be a missed opportunity that could be extremely costly for Pakistan and the rest of the world.

 

 Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Expected Demographic Dividend

Pakistani Graduation Rate Higher Than India's

India and Pakistan Contrasted in 2011

Educational Attainment Dataset By Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee

Quality of Higher Education in India and Pakistan

Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital

Intellectual Wealth of Nations

Pakistan's Story After 64 Years of Independence

Pakistan Ahead of India on Key Human Development Indices

Scholarships at Foreign Universities

Institute of International Education--Open Doors

UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency Report

Austrade on Education in Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Nearly 21,000 students from Pakistan as international students return to Australia but not yet at pre-pandemic levels


https://monitor.icef.com/2023/04/international-students-are-returni...


Short on time? Here are the highlights:

Australia’s international student numbers and overall enrolments were up in 2022, but they have not yet reached their levels before the pandemic in 2019
The Chinese market is not rebounding, and Indian students now account for more commencements (first-time enrolments) than Chinese students do
Driving the Australian international education sector’s recovery are new students from Thailand, Nepal, Colombia, Pakistan, and other emerging markets

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Australia’s international education sector is recovering from pandemic losses, but it has not rebounded to pre-pandemic performance yet according to new data from Austrade.

Australian institutions enrolled 619,370 foreign students in 2022. This is up 8% over 2021 but is down 18% since 2019.

Commencements (first-time enrolments in Australian programmes) grew by 39% y-o-y but were 23% lower than in 2019. Fewer new Chinese students depressed commencement volumes: there were 39% fewer Chinese students in 2022 than in 2019. In 2022, India displaced China as the largest source of commencements.

Total course enrolments (as distinct from total international students) nudged upwards by 4% to 746,390 in 2022, but this is 22% lower than in 2019. (Australia provides data on both international students and international enrolments – the second is always a higher number as an international student may enrol in more than one course while on their study visa.)

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Offsetting a decline in Chinese enrolments (177,470 in 2022, down 11% y-o-y) and zero momentum from India (128,980, up .03%) were notable enrolment increases from:

Thailand, the 6th largest market, up 61% to 25,792
Nepal, the 3rd largest market, up 21% to 71,805
Colombia, the 4th largest market, up 21% to 28,435
Pakistan, the 9th largest market, up 21% to 20,935

Combined, China and India still contributed half of all international enrolments in Australian institutions in 2022.

Foreshadowing the shape of the sector’s recovery in the years to come are commencement trends. Chinese commencements fell by 8% in 2022 compared with 2021, while Indian commencements increased by 45%, boosting India to the top market for Australia in terms of first-time enrolments in courses. Otherwise, the biggest stories in terms of commencements come from:

Thailand, up 145%
Nepal, up 94%
Pakistan, up 71%
Philippines, up 61%
In 2022, India and China each accounted for roughly 18% of commencements, with Nepal next at 11%.

[Riaz Haq]

From Google Gen Ai:

Studying in Europe offers Pakistani students access to world-renowned institutions, innovative teaching techniques, and multicultural surroundings. In 2019, nearly 10,000 Pakistani students registered in European colleges.
The number of Pakistani students studying abroad has grown steadily over the past decade. In 2020, 64,604 Pakistani students were studying abroad.
Some of the top countries for Pakistani students to study abroad include:
The United States, The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Malaysia, France, Singapore, Sweden.
Some of the top destinations for Pakistani students in Europe include:
Germany
Austria
Sweden
The United Kingdom
Pakistani students are required to pass language tests to study abroad. However, some universities offer scholarships that allow students to study in Europe without IELTS.

[Riaz Haq]

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT MOBILITY

https://wenr.wes.org/2020/02/education-in-pakistan


Pakistan is a significant exporter of international students globally. According to UNESCO statistics, the number of outbound Pakistani degree-seeking students grew by 70 percent over the last decade, from 31,156 in 2007 to 53,023 in 2017. While that number is dwarfed by the more than 330,000 degree-seeking students from neighboring India, consider that Pakistan’s outbound mobility ratio—the percentage of international students among all students—is almost three time as high (2.7 percent in 2017) as that of India (1 percent). This means that it’s far more common for Pakistani students to study abroad and broaden their academic horizons in another country than it is for Indian students.

Further increases in student outflows from Pakistan are expected in the years ahead. The British Council, for instance, expects Pakistan to be among the top 10 growth countries worldwide until 2027, despite an overall cooling of international student mobility on a global scale. For one, the precarious economic conditions and employment prospects in Pakistan are a major push factor for both international students and the hundreds of thousands of labor migrants leaving Pakistan each year. Studying abroad can open immigration pathways in countries like Australia or Canada, while a foreign degree gives those that return a competitive edge on the Pakistani labor market.

Another important driver is the lack of university seats and high-quality study programs in Pakistan, particularly at the graduate level. While Pakistan has created a tremendous amount of new doctoral programs over the past decade, growing numbers of Pakistani scholars are heading abroad to access higher quality education, primarily in fields like engineering and the sciences. To modernize research in Pakistan and raise the qualifications profile of university faculty, the government supports this development with scholarship programs of considerable scale, considering Pakistan’s fiscal constraints. While most Pakistani students are said to be self-funded, overseas scholarship programs have helped thousands of graduate students to pursue studies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Cuba, Germany, France, and various other countries in recent years. Scholarship recipients are often required to return home after graduation.

The traditional English-speaking international study destinations, Australia and the U.S., are currently the top choices among Pakistani degree-seeking students, as per UNESCO statistics. Datapublished by the Australian government show that the number of Pakistani students grew almost threefold over the past decade, from 3,512 in 2008 to 10,000 in 2019, making Pakistan one of the top 10 sending countries of tertiary students in Australia.

In the U.S., likewise, Pakistani enrollments have generally been on an upward trajectory over the past few years. According to the Open Doors data of the Institute of International Education, Pakistan sent 7,957 students to the U.S. in 2018/19, an increase of 5.6 percent over the previous year, making it the 22nd most important sending country. Around 44 percent of these students are enrolled in undergraduate programs, 35 percent in graduate programs, and 4 percent in non-degree programs, while 17 percent pursue Optional Practical Training.

Other popular destination countries include the U.K. and the Muslim-majority countries Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, the latter also being a magnet for labor migrants from Pakistan. It should be noted, however, that China has emerged as a significant destination as well. China may, in fact, now host the largest number of Pakistani international students worldwide. While UNESCO does not report data for China, and Chinese government figures are difficult to compare,1 Pakistan is currently the third-largest sending country to China with 28,000 students, per Chinese statistics.

[Riaz Haq]

Market snapshot: International student recruitment in Pakistan - ICEF Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment


https://monitor.icef.com/2024/10/market-snapshot-international-stud...

Recent data on which destinations are hosting the most Pakistani students include:

UK: 34,690 in 2022/23 (+50% y-o-y)
China: 28,000 before the pandemic
UAE: 24,865 in 2020 according to UNESCO
Australia: 23,380 in 2023 (+49%)
US: 10,165 in 2022/23 (+16%)
Germany: 8,210 in 2022/23 (+22%)
Kyrgyzstan: 6,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO
Malaysia: 5,000 in 2023
Canada: 4,750 in 2023 (+101%)
Turkey: 2,385 in 2020 according to UNESCO
Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Qatar: At least 4,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO

(Total Pakistanis studying abroad is about 150,000)