Russia: Easier access and better fees

A new campaign organised by the Russian state universities group, , is promising African students a range of benefits not commonly offered by Western universities. According to , the “Study in Russia” campaign emphasises low tuition fees (US$2,000 to US$4,000 a year) and the availability of English- and French-taught degree programmes offered by the association’s 20 university members.

The campaign is also distinctive in that it promises guaranteed (1) admission to African students, including for medical and engineering programmes and (2) student housing for the length of a programme.

A weakening competitive offer from the West

In contrast to Russia, rejection rates of African students’ visa applications are notoriously high in the West.

US: Research conducted by shows that 54% of African students were refused an F-1 visa in 2023, up from 44% in 2015. Shelley Landry, senior director of government affairs at Shorelight, said: “This report makes it abundantly clear that the high rate of visa denials in Africa and the Global South is contributing to a loss of share of international students to global competitors.”

Canada: More than half of African students were denied a study permit in Canada in 2023,
according to published in June 2024. Strikingly, and as shown in the chart below, less than half of African postgraduate students’ applications were approved in 2023, “in contrast to over 80% approval rates from non-African students.”

UK: Visa approval rates are not excellent for African students in the UK, either. For example, while demand from Kenya is rising quickly, notes that Kenyans with confirmed offers of acceptance (CAS) on its platform were much less likely to be approved than other students: “Kenya’s refusal rate against CAS issued stood at 6.99%, compared to India (1.88%), Bangladesh: 5.52%, and Pakistan: 4.65%.”

Meanwhile, the dependants’ ban that came into effect in January 2024 has drastically reduced demand from Nigerian students to study in the UK. Nigeria had been a fast-growing market for UK educators before the ban.

“Study in Russia” is a top-level government priority

The Study in Russia campaign dovetails with Russia’s renewed efforts to establish more influence in Africa. In February 2025, for example, Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov announced the launch of the Department for Partnership with Africa in Moscow. Mr Lavrov heralded Russia’s “return” to Africa and explained the reasons that Russia had withdrawn from Africa in the first place. These given reasons were not surprisingly anti-Western in their orientation and included Russia’s “mistaken” belief that it would be embraced by the West after the dissolution of the USSR.

Japan promotes in-demand programmes for African students

Meanwhile, Japan has its own plan: the programme. Supported by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and spearheaded by Akita University, the plan aims to recruit African students to Japanese universities to programmes in artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, environmental studies, information technology, and robotics, as reported in .

Japan is working closely with African universities including Kenya-based (JKUAT) to promote scholarship opportunities in Japan. JKUAT’s engineering and technology programmes enjoy a good reputation and are seen as “an ideal bridge for African students seeking higher education in Japan.”

Japan will set up regional recruiting offices in Botswana and Kenya in April 2025. Currently, there are less than 2,000 African students in higher education institutions in Japan, but the plan is to increase this to 2,500 by 2028.

In 2022, according to the , almost half of Japanese firms relied on workers over the age of 70. In 2023, former Prime Minister Kishida told lawmakers in the country that “Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society” as a result of its falling birthrate and elderly population.

What of France?

France remains the top enroller of African students, and most of its top African markets are continuing to grow. The exception is Morocco, which was down -4% in 2023/24 versus the previous academic year. Here is a rundown on African enrolments in France in 2023/24:

• Morocco: 43,350 (-4%)
• Algeria: 34,270 (+7%)
• Senegal: 16,955 (+11%)
• Tunisia: 15,255 (+7%)
• Cote d’Ivoire: 11,770 (+10%)
• Cameroon: 10,880 (+11%)

While France has tried to diversify its international student population to rely less on African enrolments, slower growth in 2022/23 from Asia underlined the importance of a continued focus on Africa.

For additional background, please see:

• “France enrolled over 430,000 international students in higher education in 2023/24”
• “New report highlights the increasing competition for international students from Sub-Saharan Africa”

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The BRICS group includes the founding members of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. At the 15th BRICS Summit in August 2023, six additional members – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – were invited to join, and will assume full membership in January 2024. All told, the group currently accounts for roughly 42% of the world’s population.

Not that this is a new idea, but the war in Ukraine has a drawn a sharp line under the idea of BRICS as a geopolitical rival for the G7 countries, or for the NATO bloc more broadly. In truth, the situation is more complex and many countries maintain active ties with both BRICS and its allied institutions as they do with the Political West and its various international bodies.

But what the expansion of BRICS illustrates is that Russia is hardly universally isolated in the wake of the war in Ukraine. Indeed, the initial shock of sweeping economic sanctions from the Political West has subsided as Russia reformed its supply chains and trading arrangements to simply rely less on Western markets and more on friendlier nations in the Global South.

We can see these patterns playing out as well with respect to international student enrolment in Russia. Those numbers continue to grow and official government figures indicate that foreign enrolment in Russia reached a high of 351,500 in 2022, representing an 8% gain over 2021 and a considerable step beyond the pre-COVID benchmark of just under 300,000 students in 2019/20.

Students are drawn mainly from the former Soviet republics, or from countries in Asia or Africa. Kazakhstan is the leading sender (with roughly 62,500 Kazakh students in Russia as of early 2023, followed by China with just under 40,000 students). Other key source countries include Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, India, Egypt, and Belarus.

The Russian Ministry of Education reports that medicine and engineering are consistently the most popular fields of study for visiting students.

The bigger picture

Foreign enrolment levels for 2022 have exceeded the Russian government’s previous target to host 310,000 students by 2020. A more recent target, however, to build foreign enrolment to 710,000 by 2025, remains very ambitious.

Aside from the close ties of former Soviet republics, and those afforded by the expanding network of BRICS countries, Russia’s foreign enrolment growth has had a boost from a couple of key factors.

First, the government has considerably expanded the national quota of spaces set aside for foreign students in Russian universities, from 18,000 in 2021 to 30,000 this year. Students enrolled within that quota programme study for free – that is, the costs of their study are covered under government subsidies to the universities.

In addition, Russia remains an affordable study destination in an era where costs of study and costs of living weigh ever more heavily in student decision making. One recent report, for example, noted that Moscow State University’s Faculty of Journalism currently charges around US$5,000 per year, before any scholarships or grants, and costs of living are similarly attractive with some student beds going for as little as US$10 per month.

For additional background, please see:

• “Russia reopens to international students“
• “The student recruitment landscape in Russia for 2021 and 2022“
• “Kazakhstan: Could demand for study abroad shift to new destinations this year?“

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Students International (SI) Deputy Director Igor Mishurov explained that recent months have marked a period in which “the majority of our clients have gone back to a normal life.”

“We have done already quite a number of fairs and activities face-to-face,” he added. “Like a couple of weeks ago, for example, we did big fairs in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and we visited 40 cities all over Russia with our colleagues from different institutions. We have also invented a new model: a hybrid participation. We brought key SI staff, sales managers from all over Russia to Moscow for three days of intensive sales training by Zoom [given by university and school staff overseas]. After the training they went to the fairs in Moscow and Saint Petersburg to represent those schools.”

That hybrid approach speaks to some of the practical aspects of recruiting this year, in Russia and otherwise, where institutional staff may still not be able to travel as easily as they had in the past. For some, this will be because of institutional policies that limit travel; for others it will be simply that travel is more difficult to some markets due to continuing border restrictions, vaccine recognition, limited flight service, or other logistical barriers. “If we have no possibility to have foreign representatives, we are ready to run the hybrid model at our events this year [where agency staff act on behalf of foreign institutions],” added Mr Mishurov.

The panel noted though that students and parents are much more interested in connecting with agency or school staff in person rather than remotely. “People are tired from all of this online,” said Mr Mishurov. “There are more people who wish to come to the office and speak to you. They want to know that you are a real company with a real office,” agreed Ms Sledyeva.

They reported as well that demand for education abroad remains strong, but has been shifting this year. “The demand for different destinations has really changed and is much diverse now,” said Ms Sledyeva. “US and UK are traditionally very popular and prestigious places to go for education but they are very expensive. There are not so many students who can afford this but many people still want to go and study abroad. So they are looking at different options. In Europe, there are many good opportunities in Germany, in Spain, and even in Eastern Europe where the tuition fees are much lower. You can study in English in Poland, for example, for €3,000 per year, and students are looking at those destinations.”

Joining the panel via video, Insight-Lingua Managing Director Anastassia Kohlweiss added that, “Health and safety and well-being is the most important concern for families and students considering education abroad. Vaccinations are not proceeding as quickly as everyone had hoped. Many Russians do not want to get vaccinated with Russian vaccines — they are looking for foreign vaccine options.” She noted though that public awareness campaigns are ramping up throughout this year and the expectation is that a larger share of the population will be vaccinated by the end of this year. The panel felt that most students planning for study abroad in 2022 will be vaccinated.

For the moment, vaccination rates remain low in Russia relative to many countries. As of the end of October 2021, only about 33% of the Russian population is fully vaccinated, primarily with the Sputnik V vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy is widespread, and for students in particular, part of the challenge is that Sputnik V is not widely accepted outside of Russia.

As Mr Mishurov explained, “I do have a big issue for next year. A lot of countries will accept students who are vaccinated but only with a vaccine approved by the WHO [World Health Organization]. Unfortunately, Sputnik V is not recognized yet. So the issue is what will happen with students on arrival?” What this means in practice is that Russian students going abroad are subject to more post-arrival testing and quarantine requirements than are other students who have been vaccinated with internationally recognised vaccines. Mr Mishurov urged educators at the seminar to provide additional support for Russian students to help them work through those post-arrival requirements.

He described a number of issues with post-arrival testing and quarantine as barriers, and stressed the need to ensure that support services are in place and working well for students who are not vaccinated with approved vaccines. “I would ask all of our international colleagues to pay a little more attention to this and to make sure that everything is working well for the students,” he said. “Advertising is great, roadshows are great, but the best advertising is word of mouth. [Without happy students and good word of mouth], we will never progress to bigger numbers. We really need [universities and schools to provide] somebody to take care of the students for the first couple of weeks. That is the most nervous time. After that, everything is easier.”

Sputnik V was one of the first COVID vaccines approved anywhere in the world, and Russia has since exported it to 70 countries. However, it has not yet been approved by major international public health bodies, most notably the European Union’s (EMA) or the World Health Organization (WHO). Reuters reports that EMA approval will not come . And WHO approval is similarly on hold, pending some .

One aspect of this is that Russian students going abroad may be interested in taking a foreign vaccine during their programme of studies. AcademConsult’s Sledyeva sees this as a potential market opportunity for language schools in particular and suggests, “Why not offer English and vaccination? That would be very helpful for families who want their students to get vaccinated with a foreign vaccine.” The panel added that up-to-date information on public health conditions, including numbers of local COVID cases (in the community where the institution or school is based), is also very helpful for promotion and effective student advising.

For additional background, please see:

• “Survey: Students embrace vaccines when planning for study abroad“
• “Russia reopens to international students“

The post The student recruitment landscape in Russia for 2021 and 2022 appeared first on şÚÁĎąŮÍř Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

To be allowed into the country to study, students must present a medical document written in Russian or English that confirms that they have received a negative COVID-19 test no more than three days prior to departing for Russia. After arrival, students are required to isolate and take another COVID test within 72 hours. They can leave isolation at the point when they receive a negative test result.

After prohibiting students from attending in-person classes from 13 November 2020 to 6 February 2021, the Russian government announced earlier this month that students could return full time to campus as of 8 February.

Students may fly from one of 21 countries

Students who are permitted to enter Russia for study purposes must fly in from one of the 21 countries with which Russia has restored airline service. These countries are (as of 23 February) Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, Greece India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Qatar, Serbia, the Seychelles, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, UAE, and Vietnam.

The UK is absent from the list: Russia has closed its borders to UK travellers until at least 16 March in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID variant that was first detected in Britain. There has been at least one Russian citizen infected with the variant when that person returned from the UK in January.

Roughly 300,000 international students have had their study plans in Russia interrupted by restrictions related to the pandemic. Many – about 100,000 – left Russia when the crisis began in the spring of 2020 and were unable to return. Remote learning was the only option for much of 2020 and into 2021, but not for everyone: students enrolled in medicine and engineering programmes were asked to take academic leave and were not offered online learning.

Steady enrolment growth

Russia’s 2019/20 foreign student enrolment was 297,995, with the most important source countries Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, China, Tajikistan, Ukraine, India, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Kyrgyzstan.

That 2019/20 enrolment figure came close to Russia’s target of increasing its international student population to 310,000 by 2020. There is also a longer-term target of having 710,000 students enrolled in Russian education institutions by 2025.

The number of international students in Russia has grown steadily over the past decade. The foreign student population is overwhelmingly composed of students coming from the former Soviet Republics and to a lesser extent, from Asia. In 2017, less than 2,000 students came to Russia from European or North American countries, less than 1% of the country’s total foreign enrolment that year.

One of the world’s COVID hotspots

So far, Russia has 4,177,330 cases of coronavirus and 83,630 deaths – making it one of the world’s after only the US, India, Brazil, and the UK. It has its own domestically produced vaccine, the Sputnik V, which is already being distributed in Russia and exported to a number of countries around the world. A trial of this vaccine involving about 20,000 Russians found that the vaccine was about 91% effective at preventing patients from becoming severely ill with COVID-19, reports the British medical journal .

For additional background please see:

• “Russia preparing for new recruitment drive in Western markets”
• “The link between vaccination rollouts and the attractiveness of study destinations”

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• Immigration policies
• Increased (or decreased) government support allocated to the sector in some countries
• A surge in nationalism and/or anti-immigrant sentiment in some countries
• The political climate in both the UK and the US
• Growing higher education capacity in some sending countries
• The emergence of important regional study destinations
• Intensifying safety concerns among students
• More options for students to “study abroad” while not leaving home (e.g., MOOCs, transnational education, online and distance education)

As we began to examine more closely last year, these same factors are leading to some notable changes in the table of leading international study destinations.

Year-over-year growth for the world’s leading global study destinations, based on the most recent two reporting years available for each country.

The US and the UK remain in first and second place, respectively, when it comes to total number of international students enrolled. But behind those rankings are meagre year-over-year growth rates compared with countries such as China, Canada, Australia, Russia, and Japan. In 2016/17, US and UK enrolments grew marginally, despite the fact that so many institutions in the US and UK are highly ranked and despite the overall prestige of each country’s education system in global markets. These results are to some extent related to the political environment in each country (e.g., curtailed work rights for international students in the UK, Brexit concerns, and in the US, President Trump’s travel ban affecting citizens from certain Muslim-majority nations).

It is interesting to note that amid a more challenging domestic climate for the recruitment of international students to the UK, there has been a significant uptick in the transnational activity undertaken by British universities of late. Right now, there are more international students studying for British credentials outside the UK than there are international students studying in the UK.

Canada

The virtually flat growth occurring in the US and UK is also a consequence of other countries ramping up their offer to international students. Canada, which recorded international student enrolment growth of 20% in 2017 (and 41% in the period 2015–2017), offers attractive work and permanent residency opportunities to students wanting to stay and is increasingly seen as one of the safer countries in which to study abroad. In 2018, it offers serious competition to the US on the basis of value for price, reputation for safety, and a welcoming political and social environment. Canada is becoming increasingly attractive in the important sending markets of India and Vietnam, not to mention Iran and Bangladesh. Canada’s international student enrolment target was to reach 450,000 students by 2022, and, as of 2017, it had already met that goal with 494,000 foreign students enrolled.

Australia

In Australia, international enrolment reached a new high in 2017, with 13% growth over the year before and a total count of 624,000 foreign students. Australia is now the second-most popular destination for university-aged students from China and India and boasts significant numbers from other Asian markets such as South Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand. One higher education analyst predicts that foreign enrolment in Australian higher education will exceed that of the UK’s by 2019 if growth trends for the two countries continue.

Like Canada, Australia is competing on its reputation for safety and educational quality while its proximity to Asian markets is also a definite advantage. The country’s international enrolment target is 720,000 students by 2025, and it is well on track to reach that goal. For several years, the Australian government has been a strong supporter of the sector, with international education identified as one of five “super growth sectors that will help complete Australia’s transition from a resource-based economy to a modern services and knowledge economy.”

China

China, meanwhile, has grown quickly to become the world’s fifth leading study destination. A total of 489,200 international students enrolled in Chinese institutions and schools in 2017. This represents an increase of 10.5% over 2016, and puts the country well within reach of its longer-term goal to host 500,000 students by 2020.

The growing profile of China’s leading institutions, an expanding scholarship scheme (especially for students enrolling in degree programmes), the powerful Chinese economy, and the relative affordability of Chinese higher education have been notable factors in China’s growing share of the world’s international students. Top sending countries for China in 2017 included South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, the United States, India, Russia, Japan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and Laos.

Nearly two-thirds of all foreign students in the country (65%) come from markets targeted by China’s “One Belt, One Road Initiative,” a massive trade and foreign investment programme linking markets along the traditional Silk Road trade routes throughout Asia and Europe. “As of the end of 2017, China was the most popular destination for international students in Asia,” notes a statement from China’s Ministry of Education.

Japan

Another Asian country is posting impressive growth as well: Japan, where international student numbers have grown for five consecutive years. As of May 2017, 267,040 foreign students were studying in the country, an increase of 11.6% over 2016, according to the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO). Japan’s goal is to host 300,000 international students by 2020, and it may reach that target by late 2018 or early 2019 if the current growth trend continues.

China and Vietnam continue to be the major senders of international students to Japan – though there has been significant growth stemming from several other markets including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Myanmar – and all the top ten source markets for Japan are within the Asian region.

Japan’s success in increasing its foreign enrolments is due to a number of factors, but particularly interesting has been the country’s astute understanding that international students put employability high on their list of goals when they decide where to study. The Japanese government has for some time been supporting subsidised company internships, help with finding jobs on graduation, additional Japanese language courses, and more streamlined processes for work visas to international students.

Germany

The goal was to enroll 350,000 international students by 2020, but Germany has already exceeded the target as official statistics confirm that 358,900 foreign students were studying in German universities in 2017, a 5.5% increase over the previous year. Germany is now the world’s sixth leading study destination worldwide, after the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and China.

China remains by far the most important source market for Germany, sending 35,000 students in 2017 and contributing growth of 8.5%. The number of Indian students in Germany grew even more robustly (13%) and in 2017, Germany’s universities enrolled 13,540 Indian students. Iran, the US, Korea, Pakistan, Syria, and Tunisia also sent notably more students to Germany in 2017 than in 2016, while Russia, Germany’s third most important source market, sent fewer.

Within the past few years alone, Germany’s international recruitment efforts have been boosted by a no-tuition policy for international students, improved opportunities for work during studies and after graduation, and the continuing expansion of English-taught programmes within German universities.

France

International enrolments in France are growing more modestly, with a growth trend closer to that of the UK than to those in other major destinations including Germany, Canada, China, and Australia. As of 2016, the last year for which data was released, there was a year-over-year increase of 4.6% and the country hosted 325,000 foreign students. While numbers continue to go up in France – with a combined growth of just over 12% between 2012 and 2016 – the country’s market share has been slipping over the past several years.

Africa remains the home of France’s most important education export markets. More than four in ten of all foreign students in France come from Africa and the continent has provided some of the most important drivers of French enrolment growth over the last five years (including Morocco with 15% growth since 2010/11, Congo at +24%, and CĂ´te d’Ivoire at +50%).

France’s notable non-African growth markets are largely found in Europe. They include Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and the UK.

France has a stated goal to build its international student base to 20% of total higher education enrolment by 2025. This would mean enrolling about 470,000 international students based on current levels.

Russia

Russia, which is roughly tied with France in terms of market share of international students (around 6% as of 2016) has a new international recruitment programme designed to dramatically expand foreign enrolments in its higher education institutions from just under 220,000 students today to nearly 310,000 by 2020 (a 40% increase) and 710,000 students by 2025. The population of foreign students at Russian universities has grown by an average annual rate of 9% since 2003, with most coming from the former Soviet Republics that now make up the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Russia intends to strengthen its competitive offer by means of strengthened support services for international students; expanded English-medium degree programmes; and more joint programmes, pathway options, summer programmes, and online programmes. The strategy also anticipates greater coordination of Russian recruitment efforts through marketing campaigns, education fairs, and also through a new online portal promoting Russian education.

For additional background, please see:

• “Measuring up: Global market share and national targets in international education”
• “Measuring the international competitiveness of British higher education”
• “OECD charts a slowing of international mobility growth”
• “Megatrend: The shift to emerging markets”

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The measures will include an expansion of English-taught programmes at Russian universities, improvements in campus facilities, introduction of new scholarship programmes, and a streamlining of visa processing for visiting students.

The Russian Ministry of Education and Science indicates that scholarship details will be forthcoming later this year. In the meantime, early reports indicate that the government will move to substantially reduce visa processing times for foreign students, from the three months (or more) currently required to 15 days or less.

The drive to 2025

It appears that these initiatives will mark a new chapter in Russia’s long-term effort to further expand its international student numbers. In May 2017, a government executive council formally approved a strategy to build the country’s foreign enrolment from a base of about 245,000 students to nearly 310,000 by 2020. The plan also sets out a longer-term target to build Russia’s foreign student base to 710,000 students by 2025.

To get there, Russia will need to open up new markets and further accelerate the already-steady growth in its international student numbers. The foreign student base in the country has grown significantly since the early 2000s, with an average annual growth rate of 9% through 2016. If it were to maintain that pace, Russia’s foreign enrolment would “naturally” reach roughly 670,000 by 2030. That the government aims to reach an even higher student base more quickly makes it clear that additional measures will be required.

This is the significance of the new package of initiatives being reported this month. The government has committed itself for some years now to improving the standing of Russian universities (most notably through the additional funding provided via the “5/100 initiative”), and to strengthening the offer for visiting students. Speaking at the recent IUNC Eurasia conference in Moscow, State University of Management Rector Ivan Lobanov highlighted the affordability of Russian higher education, the improved performance of leading Russian institutions in international rankings, and the strong employment outcomes for foreign graduates of the country’s universities as major factors that are attracting greater number of visiting students to Russia.

However, a majority of these students still come from the former Soviet Republics (most of which are now Commonwealth of Independent States countries) or, to a lesser extent, from Asia. To highlight one example from within the CIS, Kazakhstan has seen its outbound numbers roughly triple over the last decade. Nearly 90,000 Kazakhstani students went abroad in 2017, with nearly eight in ten of those (or about 70,000 students) going to study in Russia.

In contrast, less than 2,000 students came to Russia from Western markets in 2017, whether from Europe or North America. This amounts to less than 1% of the country’s total foreign enrolment last year.

Demographic downturn

The importance of Russia’s international recruitment goals is underscored by another recent report from the Ministry of Education and Science which indicates that the number of college-aged students in the country has plummeted in recent years. Indeed, total enrolment in Russian higher education has fallen by more than a third since 2011 – from about 8.6 million in 2011 to 6.1 million as of 2016. Total enrolment is projected to decline further through 2021 as a result of demographic trends that have led to a rapidly shrinking pool of applicants for Russian universities.

notes that the number of secondary school graduates in Russia was basically cut in half between 2000/01 and 2014/15 (over which time the number of high school leavers in the country dropped from 1.46 million to just over 701,000). This dramatic change is now rippling through to university sector, with the Ministry of Education and Science projecting that higher education institutions can expect a drop in application volumes this year, the first such decline since the early 1990s.

As the longer-term targets for 2020 and 2025 make clear, the government aims to counter this downturn in part by further boosting international student numbers. But the prospect of university closures and mergers is looming as well, and QS reports that 14% of Russian institutions were shuttered in 2017 alone. Going forward, the government’s clear intention to reduce the number of Russian universities will no doubt be a powerful driver of increased competition for both domestic and international applicants.

For additional background, please see:

• “BRIC economies return to growth in 2017”
• “Russia aims to triple international enrolment by 2025”
• “Foreign enrolment in Russia triples over past decade”

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This is why a return to growth by some of the largest emerging economies this year is such a significant development. For the first time in nearly three years, the world’s four biggest emerging markets are all growing at the same time. All four of the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – have registered positive growth, albeit at very different rates, through the first half of 2017 and the indications are for continued growth and recovery across the board for the balance of this year.

Looking ahead, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) further projects positive growth for all four markets through 2021.

International Monetary Fund projections for average annual growth for BRICS economies, 2016–2021. Source: IMF

As the current-year performance, along with those longer-term forecasts, will suggest, there is a clear distinction to be made within these four economies. recently observed, “Roughly speaking, the BRICS can be broken into two groups – those that took advantage of globalisation’s march to integrate themselves into global supply chains (primarily China and India) and those that took advantage of globalisation to sell their abundant natural resources (primarily Brazil and Russia).”

The return to growth for both Brazil and Russia, therefore, has much to do with an ongoing recovery in world commodity prices. Whereas China and India are being buoyed, respectively, by strengthening demand for manufacturing and service exports.

Especially in that context, it is interesting to reflect on how the BRIC countries have lost some of their lustre in recent years, and not just because of the aforementioned speed bumps in commodity markets and fiscal policy. Global expectations for the BRIC group (now BRICS with South Africa having been invited to join in 2010) have often keyed on how quickly they are growing. The truth is that the four countries are expanding at very different rates, and, in the case of Brazil and India, at a pace below what you might expect of a major growth market.

But this focus on year-over-year growth belies the fact that such expansion is only part of the context for the BRIC economies. Another important element, and arguably the more significant aspect going forward, is just how large these markets now loom on the world stage.

Here is just one indicator of their scale: the IMF projects that more than half (54%) of all world GDP growth over the next five years will come from China, the US, and India alone. Overall, the five BRICS economies (including South Africa) will account for nearly 40% of GDP growth through 2021.

The scale and reach of the Chinese economy has of course been very widely documented, but another interesting dimension within the BRIC markets is that India has now begun to outpace China’s annual GDP growth. A recent commentary from argues that, “China, with its enormous debts, closed capital markets, asset bubbles and increasing communist party interference in the economy [looks] like an entirely different kind of investment prospect than India, with its greater growth potential, favourable demographics, open and pluralist society and reform-minded government. Indeed, apart from both being large economies it’s hard to imagine anyone putting the two economies in the same category anymore.”

This overall growth trajectory will in turn drive some of the key indicators, including income growth and the expansion of the middle class, that play a big role in shaping study abroad demand. “In 1990, China made up 0% of the global middle class; by 2015 it comprised 16%, and another 350 million Chinese people are expected to join by 2030,” notes Time. “Indians went from 1% of the global middle class in 1990 to 8% in 2015, with another 380 million Indians expected to join by 2030.”

The other point that could be made here is that the contribution of the BRICS economies to world growth through 2021 is projected to significantly outstrip that of the G7 economies. This important indicator underscores again the steady but sure shift in global economic and political power that we noted earlier this year.

For additional background, please see:

• “Megatrend: The shift to emerging markets”
• “Global economic power projected to shift to Asia and emerging economies by 2050”
• “Is Asia ready to be the next higher education superpower?”

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We also have two prominent, and recent cases, illustrating how a decline in scholarship funding can profoundly and quickly impact outbound mobility: Saudi Arabia’s massive Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Programme (previously the King Abdullah Scholarship Programme, or KASP) and Brazil’s Science Without Borders (CiĂŞncia sem Fronteiras, or CsF).

And now this year ushers in as well the first really large-scale scholarship programmes targeted to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). Online learning has reached a new level of prominence over the last two years, with total enrolment estimated at 58 million worldwide in 2016. We are also seeing a rapid expansion in both the availability of online degrees from traditional higher education institutions as well as the emergence of alternate credentials from major MOOC platforms, such as edX’s “MicroMasters” or Udacity’s .

These are major trends that can be expected to act on traditional modes of delivery for higher education in the years ahead.

Now add to this the participation of tech and information giants in funding a further expansion of enrolment in online learning. In a joint announcement earlier this month, Google and Bertelsmann launched a scholarship programme that will fund 75,000 students in  programmes this year.

Google will support 60,000 scholarships in Web and Android Development, 40,000 of which will be reserved for those with no programming experience at all and 20,000 for junior developers with one-to-three years of experience. Bertelsmann will fund a further 15,000 places in the field of Data Science.

“Bertelsmann’s businesses are becoming steadily more digital,” says Bertelsmann’s Head of Talent Management Hays Steilberg. “Accordingly, digital skills and IT expertise are becoming increasingly important, especially in data science. We see it as our responsibility to make as many people as possible fit for the demanding, IT-based tasks of tomorrow’s working world.”

This year’s expanded effort builds on a pilot from 2016 which saw 70,000 European students apply for 10,000 funded spots in Udacity programmes. Aside from the greater number of scholarship spaces this year, the programme has expanded its eligibility to include students from Egypt, Israel, Russia, and Turkey.

Both corporations are already heavily invested in training, and in the last few years alone Google has trained more than three million people in the EU. Bertelsmann’s focus has historically been on training its own staff, which already have access to more than 10,000 online courses as well as those offered at  (one of the first corporate universities in Germany). But both companies are now opening the field even further with this year’s Udacity scholarships.

Udacity CEO Vish Makhijani adds, “We’re excited to be working closely with Google and Bertelsmann to continue training new talent in Europe and beyond. In less than 9 months, 75,000 people in the region will have the needed skills to advance their careers and shape the digital future. The success stories from the first cohort are inspiring and we look forward to welcoming even more students into the scholarship programme next month.”

By enrolment, Udacity is the fifth-largest MOOC platform in the world with an estimated four million registered users in 2016. Class Central reports that  were enrolled in Nanodegree programmes with Udacity last year.

For additional background, please see:

• “Online learning still expected to pressure traditional higher education models”
• “Global MOOC enrolment jumped again last year”
• “Online enrolment in US continues to grow”
• “Opening the door to new learning models”

The post Rolling out the first large-scale scholarship programmes for MOOCs appeared first on şÚÁĎąŮÍř Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.