Today, many students will apply to a post-secondary institution only if it has a reputation for good employment outcomes. Students now turn to new rankings that highlight institutions with impressive rates of graduate employability, such as QS’s Graduate Employability Rankings and Times Higher Education’s Global University Employability Rankings, and they pore over school websites and marketing collateral for evidence that the overall student experience:

• Includes meaningful linkages with industry and/or professional groups;
• Incorporates work experience projects and internships;
• Features career guidance, support, and networking events;
• Results in good jobs obtained within a short time;
• Produces graduates who go on to have distinguished careers.

Research shows the shift

That employability is now the number one priority for international students is evident in a growing body of research. For example:

• A joint survey by market research firm Decision Lab and the International Alumni Job Network (IAJN) found that the top two reasons that surveyed alumni from Australian, American, British, Canadian, European, and New Zealand institutions chose to study abroad were to improve career opportunities (81%) and to pursue a specific career (43%). The opportunity to live abroad was third (39%).
• According to QS Enrolment Solutions’ International Students Survey 2018, which gathered the opinions of close to 70,000 students worldwide, the top factor influencing choice of course was “It leads to my chosen career” (74%), ahead of “high-quality teaching” (67%) and “affordable tuition” (53%).
• QS’s 2015 How Do Students Use Rankings? study asked students in several countries to prioritise a list of nine ranking indicators to see what a hypothetical “student-created” ranking system might look like. Half (50%) chose “employer reputation” as most important and 47% chose “employment rate.” In comparison, 28% chose research, 16% chose academic reputation, and 10% chose faculty-to-student ratio.
• That same study asked students why they would choose an internationally ranked university. Nearly two-thirds (62%) chose “employment prospects” and 45% chose “connections worldwide.” By comparison, only 34% chose “quality of education” and 28% chose “student experience.”

The extent to which students now link higher education with jobs is strikingly illustrated in a 2019 research study commissioned by academic support company among 1,000 Australian students, in which three-quarters of respondents thought that universities “had a responsibility to help them find employment.” Judyth Sachs, Studiosity’s chief academic officer and a former provost at Sydney’s Macquarie University, said that such attitudes reflected students’ “sense of ‘I’m paying for a service, and this is a service that I expect.’”

Implications for recruiting

Many international students, especially those from developing economies, are keenly interested in studying in countries where there is a clear path toward employment after graduation and after that, even permanent residency. Not coincidentally, major destination countries with rapidly expanding international student populations, such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, and Japan, offer solid post-graduation work rights.

In contrast, work rights for international students have been curtailed over the past five years in the UK. In the US, there are rumblings of a looming tightening of both student visas and post-study work rights. In both countries, international student numbers have either declined or flattened over the past two years.

It is important for governments and institutions alike to ensure that international students truly understand the conditions that would allow them to work while studying or after they finish their studies. A recent survey conducted by Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) found that the top reason international students chose the US was to improve job prospects. Sixty-two percent expected to work in the US after graduating, and 6 in 10 expected their job search to take less than two months. Those are high and often unattainable expectations, and the negative word of mouth that can result from frustrated international job seekers can be incredibly damaging to a country’s brand as a study abroad destination.

Putting the focus on career outcomes

Perhaps the most immediate takeaway for all educators is that it is highly advisable to highlight the following across their marketing outreach initiatives (e.g., website, social media, brochures, and at educational fairs):

1. Employment rates after graduation;
2. A programme’s links to its relevant industry or professional fields;
3. Successful alumni.

Institutions should ensure they are presenting entirely accurate information about employability outcomes. Co-presenting at the NAFSA 2019 conference in Washington, DC earlier this year, Kirsten Feddersen of SNHU, Ilaria Bossi of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, and Nannette Ripmeester of i-graduate offered a stark example of a university that overstretched its claims. The unnamed university boasted that “90% of our grads actively seeking employment had careers within 6 months,” then added a long disclaimer in fine print to qualify the claim. The extent to which the fine print discredited the claim led to the university being sued by the American Federal Trade Commission and having to offer US$100 million in refunds.

By contrast, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore pitched its attractiveness to students by offering an array of totally accurate facts, including:

• Milan’s low unemployment rate and numerous major multinational headquarters, including Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft;
• The ability of international students to work part time while studying;
• The fact that the university offers two career fairs and more than 400 employment-related events per year, was among the top 150 universities in the 2018 QS Graduate Employability Rankings, and was number one in Italy for “student-employer connections.”

Those proof points are convincing – and beyond dispute. In their presentation at NAFSA, Ms Feddersen, Ms Bossi, and Ms Ripmeester emphasised the wisdom of working with lawyers to ensure that marketing claims about graduate employability are accurate and responsible. Careful presentation of compelling facts about employability is likely to give universities and colleges today an edge in the marketplace.

For additional background, please see:

• “Further evidence that international students are increasingly prioritising employment outcomes”
• “Study compares post-study employment offers and outcomes for international students”
• “Survey reveals important shifts in student decision making”

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We say “slice” because the report essentially parses selected emerging market responses to the QS World Grad School Tour Applicant Survey gathered between June 2014 and June 2016. At 2,096 emerging market respondents, the sample size is small (especially on a per country basis) but nevertheless provides some interesting directional indicators for recruiters. All of those responding to the survey were in the process of applying for admission to postgraduate degree programmes abroad.

The survey zeroes in on four countries that are increasingly seen as significant emerging markets for international recruitment: Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, and Turkey. In most cases, QS has paired these priority targets with other promising markets from the same region: Brazil with Mexico and Colombia, Nigeria with Ghana and Kenya, and Indonesia with the Philippines.

Bangladesh and Pakistan round out an 11-country sample of markets that share some common characteristics: booming youth populations, significant issues with domestic higher education, and, in some cases, national scholarship schemes to support study abroad.

Why study abroad?

Consistent with other surveys in the field, QS finds that employability is a major driver of demand for postgraduate studies abroad.

Most emerging market respondents indicated more specifically that their primary motivation for study abroad was to progress in their current career path. Bangladesh and Pakistan were the exceptions here: most applicants from those countries said they wanted to pursue postgraduate degrees abroad in order to progress to higher-level academic qualifications (that is, doctoral studies).

Where to study?

Not surprisingly, the US and UK were the two most-preferred destinations among emerging market respondents, with Canada, Australia, and Germany rounding out the top five choices.

Some interesting regional variations were noted, with the US and Canada more prominent in the preferences of students in Nigeria and Ghana, for example, and Germany and Australia more strongly preferred by Bangladeshi and Pakistani students. In contrast, the US and UK were consistently the number one and number two choices (respectively) of emerging market respondents in Latin America.

The main factor behind destination preferences appears to be “international recognition of qualifications,” which QS interprets as the students’ interest in ensuring that their foreign degrees will be valued at home and abroad.

Broadly speaking, African and South Asian students gave even greater weight to the availability of scholarships or other financial aid. And respondents from Latin America, along with their interest in international recognition of qualifications earned abroad, put a high priority on cultural and lifestyle factors.

The importance of subject rankings

When it comes down to choosing an institution, most respondents (47% of master’s applicants, 49% of doctoral applicants) put the highest priority on the institution’s reputation or ranking with respect to their intended field of study.

For master’s applicants, and reflecting the overarching importance of recognition of qualifications earned abroad, this was closely followed by institutional reputation (45%), employment prospects (40%), and funding (34%). Funding was the second-ranked factor for PhD applicants (42%) followed by overall institutional reputation (36%).

QS concludes that framing postgraduate study as a stepping stone to career advancement is likely to have the widest appeal, except for students in Pakistan and Bangladesh who are more strongly inclined to see master’s-level study as a path to a more advanced degree.

The report authors also suggest highlighting both subject-specific and institutional reputation for prospective postgraduate students, with a greater emphasis on subject-specific strengths when recruiting in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Indonesia, and Turkey.

On the key question of post-study work, the report concludes, “While post-study work opportunities are considered by a significant proportion of applicants in all profiled markets, this appears to have a particularly strong impact on the destination choices of those in the Philippines, Brazil and Turkey, while carrying less weight for those in Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Indonesia.”

For additional background on the motivations and key decision factors for international postgraduate students, please see:

• “Survey says employment prospects the key for postgraduate applicants”
• “When it comes to rankings, students really want to know about employment”

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Similarly, post-study work rights and opportunities for immigration have also consistently been shown to play an important role in student decision making for study abroad.

These major demand drivers reflect an underlying shift in the role of educational institutions today, and the expectations placed on them by students and families. Speaking at the Higher Education Policy Institute late last year, OECD Director for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher summed up the situation: “Over the last thirty years, the focus of higher education has changed significantly, primarily in response to the changing nature of work. A rapid increase in jobs requiring higher-order cognitive skills has created a worldwide need for more graduate employees. As a result, the priority previously given by universities to inducting a small minority into research capabilities has given way in many countries to providing up to half the population with the skills and knowledge relevant to employability.”

A recent report from the British Council further places this shift in the context of international education in noting that, “International student mobility patterns are evolving based on increased education provision globally and students’ inclination towards programmes with tangible employability outcomes.”

These observations point to both a growing responsibility for higher education institutions with respect to the employability of graduates. They also underscore the opportunity for education marketers and recruiters to place a greater emphasis on employment outcomes, both in supporting students’ readiness for and transition to work and in tracking and reporting of graduate outcomes.

There is considerable evidence from markets around the world, however, that college and university programmes do not always track closely with labour market requirements.

• Earlier this year, leading corporations and other employers in Russia filed a petition with the Ministry of Education and Science calling for measures to improve the quality of higher education in the country, and to better align the programmes on offer with the requirements of the Russian economy. The seriousness of the situation is illustrated by official statistics from Moscow indicate that up to 51% of unemployed youth in the city are graduates of higher education institutions. Irina Arzhanova, the executive director of the National Training Foundation, put it to  that “a lack of serious analytics during the design of their academic courses and programmes currently remains one of the major problems of Russian universities, which results in too many graduates not being able to secure jobs.”

• Meanwhile, unemployed graduates in Zimbabwe have been publicly demonstrating in the streets, and campaigning online, . Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Jonathan Moyo said earlier this month that the protesters lack the skills required by employers and that, “A lot of people with key responsibilities across our economy have the wrong skills.”

• Another recent survey in Canada found that one in three employers feel that universities need to do more to prepare graduates for the world of work, particularly in regard to so-called “soft skills,” such as communication, writing, and strategic thinking.

• Even more striking, a 2015 analysis by the consulting firm EY estimated that as many as 75% of India’s higher education graduates are not considered employable, with the situation particularly acute outside of the small number of top-tier institutions in the country.

Many of the issues swirling around these protests and troubling statistics point to the need for greater transparency with respect to reporting employment outcomes at the institution or programme level. They also highlight the need for stronger links between education programmes and the skills in demand within local or national economies. And now a new category of service provider has emerged in recent years that aims to give educators and education marketers new tools in this respect. These companies harness the power of big data to provide new insights into labour market requirements as well as the outcomes for graduates.

College Measures, for example, provides rich data for prospective students that allows them to evaluate the ROI (return on investment) of individual programmes at US colleges. The service aggregates information on graduate earnings with other outcomes data to promote greater transparency in student decision making. It provides some data directly through regular reports and data services and has been deployed to date on dedicated sites for states such as Colorado and Texas.

Other institutions are using new data services to better match their programmes and courses to employer requirements. Burning Glass Technologies is one such service. It scans millions of job openings in the US, across a reported 40,000 job-listing websites, to monitor demand for specific skills and qualifications.

The company highlights the example of Lone Star College, a Houston-based institution with 90,000 students that began working with Burning Glass data in 2010. In the years since, Lone Star has closed three degree programmes, revamped several others, and launched nearly 30 new degree and certificate programmes targeted to emerging areas of employer demand. “With real-time, labor-time market data, we can conduct a scan of any occupation. We know who is hiring and what competencies and technical skills they need. We are making sure our programme choices and curriculum remain current so that our students are trained and ready for jobs employers need to fill,” says Lone Star Associate Vice Chancellor Linda Head.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has also noted that the use of labour market and graduate outcomes data is becoming more widespread among US colleges. Along with Burning Glass, other specialist firms in the field include  and . “[When it comes to] determining where to spend limited work-force-training dollars and what programmes to offer that will benefit students and the community, I think that being faster in collecting data will help colleges make these difficult decisions,” said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations and policy analysis at the American Association of Community Colleges.

Whether via such data services or otherwise, other education systems around the world are also taking up the challenge of boosting graduate employability. The Canadian province of New Brunswick, for example, announced a new task force on  earlier this month that aims to better equip graduates for the world of work.

We can expect to see more such initiatives in the years ahead at the national, state, or local levels. Indeed, this may well be a new area of opportunity for collaboration between international partners, data services and educators alike. Given the increasing importance that students and families now place on employability, the scale and scope of this opportunity will only continue to grow.

For additional background, please see “Is employability data an untapped resource for student recruiters?,” “Is employer engagement in education the next source of competitive advantage?,” and “The link between employability and international student recruitment.”

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But the potential is there for further growth, driven in part by large youth populations, rising incomes, and by a demand for higher education that cannot be fully met at home.

This is certainly true of the West African nation of Ghana, a country that has been one of Africa’s strongest performers in terms of economic growth and which has outpaced overall growth rates in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade and more.

Tumbling oil prices triggered a slowdown in 2015 and 2016, but economists anticipate that the economy will return to form and perform closer to long-term averages of  from 2017 on.

GDP growth in Ghana, per capita values as well as year-over-year growth compared to regional averages, 1991-2013. Source: World Bank

An analysis from Brookings provides an important counterpoint to this : “The major concern, however, is that growth has been driven largely by the extractive sub-sector [notably, from 2011 on, the oil and gas sector, ed.], which is known to have limited job creation impact, while manufacturing and agriculture, with relatively better employment-generation effect, continue to record slower growth…Productivity in agriculture and services is still low and, coupled with the weak growth performance and the declining size of manufacturing termed as the ‘missing middle’, makes it difficult to equate the sectoral shift in national output with economic transformation.”

Employability and skills gaps

This point is borne out by employment levels in Ghana, which remain only marginally higher than regional averages. The national unemployment rate has hovered around 5-6% in recent years, but is notably higher among Ghanaian youth (10-12% between 2010 and 2013).

A closer look at employment trends suggests as well that many of the jobs in Ghana are in the informal sector, and can be classed as vulnerable to some extent. Ironically, unemployment rates are higher among those with secondary school or tertiary education, reflecting in part the limited job opportunities available in the public or corporate sectors for those with more advanced education. “The relatively higher unemployment rate among the educated is an indication of limited job creation in the formal sector to absorb the increasing number of tertiary and secondary school leavers,” adds Brookings.

There is a chicken-and-egg aspect to this unemployment pattern as well in that the Ghanaian economy is clearly shifting away from agriculture and toward resource and service industries. However, only a small percentage of the country’s labour force has completed tertiary education and recent studies have pointed to significant skills shortages and skills gaps across the economy, particularly in the professions and in a number of technical and vocational areas.

This points to an underlying issue in Ghanaian higher education and the employability of its graduates in particular. “Ghana tends to produce a large number of humanities graduates, in excess of what the economy requires, while the scientists, engineers, and technologists needed for the manufacturing sector are produced in limited numbers,” says Brookings. “Even though enrolment in science subjects in public universities and polytechnics has been inching upwards in recent times, the improvement is very slow.”

A recent British Council study adds that there is also widespread concern among employers in the region as to suitability of local graduates. “While employers are generally satisfied with the disciplinary knowledge of students,  in their IT skills, personal qualities (e.g. reliability) and transferable skills (e.g. team working and problem solving).”

Writing in  earlier this year, Phillip Clay, a former chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, underscores the broad issues at stake for Ghana and for the region as whole. “There are fewer than 2,000 colleges and universities on a continent with a billion people in 55 countries. In comparison, the US is home to more than 4000 institutions for 320 million people. Less than 7% of Africans have college degrees compared to 30% of North Americans and Europeans. More than half of Africa’s population is under the age of 30. This is either a demographic dividend, if the talent is developed, or a demographic curse if the next generation is large, economically marginal and unable to do the work of advanced economies.”

Quality an issue as well

In pursuit of this demographic dividend, demand for higher education in Ghana continues to expand in line with the country’s growing economy. But this is in turn putting a strain on the higher education system. “Expansion in the context of limited public funding has placed the system under significant strain,” says the British Council. “In many cases, lecturers lack adequate qualifications and preparation themselves, and transmission-based pedagogy and rote learning are commonplace. Universities have also suffered a severe lack of physical resources, including buildings, laboratories and libraries.”

As in many other emerging markets, Ghana’s government has attempted to ease the pressure with help from the private sector. A number of new private universities, most of which are affiliated with accredited public institutions, have opened their doors in the last decade. According to the country’s National Accreditation Board, there were 69 registered private tertiary institutions in Ghana as of the end of 2015. As Professor Clay’s earlier point highlights, however, higher education remains an option for a relatively small percentage of the Ghanaian population, and total tertiary enrolment in the country was just under 300,000 in 2015, of which roughly 22% (64,112) were enrolled with private institutions.

Significant quality questions have been raised about private universities in Ghana as well, an issue which the institutions themselves have recently moved to address through the formation of a shared quality assurance unit that will “appraise programmes and degrees to meet .”

Push factors for mobility

All of these factors – a growing economy, a large youth population, significant skills gaps, and quality issues in higher education – are also combining to fuel greater demand for study abroad among Ghanaian students and their families.

The number of Ghanaian students abroad continues to grow, and was estimated by UNESCO at just under 9,000 in 2013. More detailed or updated figures are scarce but given the incomplete mobility data available for many Sub-Saharan markets the UNESCO estimate likely understates actual student movement from Ghana.

In any case, Ghana has clearly become a more important sending market in the region in recent years. It is now the second-largest source of Sub-Saharan students in the US, after only Nigeria and after having edged out Kenya for the number two spot as of the 2014/15 academic year. More than half of all outbound students choose the US or UK, with the balance distributed among institutions in Canada or in Europe.

For all of these reasons, Ghana is likely to assume a larger role in the international education landscape going forward, both for recruiters aiming to expand their enrolment from the region and also for institutions that hope to help build a stronger domestic system through partnerships and the provision of programmes in-country.

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The research for the report was conducted among 43,919 student prospects representing 208 nationalities living in 175 different countries. The majority (61%) of students were intending to study at the post-graduate level, while 35% were aiming for undergraduate study. A fraction of students (4%) were looking at foundation programmes, English-language programmes, or vocational programmes. Almost half the students were from Asia (46%), while the rest came from Africa (20%), Europe (15%), North America (12%), and Oceania (7%).

This is the fourth year Hobsons has conducted such a large-scale survey among prospective students.

The report’s key takeaways are that:

• There is currently fierce competition for students located in a handful of markets. Hobsons calls this a “key market” strategy that “sees the majority of universities spend their international marketing budgets competing against each other in core markets in South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe, leaving vast territories and student segments under-served.” Hobsons advocates for a more diversified market approach.

• Relying on “gut feelings” in international student marketing is increasingly inadvisable. Instead, collecting data on students to inform marketing and to remain connected with what students want – from initial interest to graduation and beyond – is required to implement an intelligent internationalisation strategy.

• Students remain convinced that university represents the best way to prepare for their careers, but they are highly aware of – and could potentially be dissuaded from pursuing university because of – the costs of obtaining a degree.

• The availability of post-study work opportunities in a destination country matters to many international students, and the employment outcomes associated with a field of study are highly influential to students’ decisions about what they will study.

Now we’ll look at the top-level research findings from the report.

What motivates students to study abroad

The vast majority of students pursue their studies on the basis of what interests them (89%), and many make a firm connection between what – and where – they will study and their career prospects. Four in ten (40%) said they would go where there is high demand for employees, and 38% would choose based on expected high earnings associated with the industry their degree prepares them for.

A couple of years ago, ���Ϲ��� Monitor reported on another Hobsons report, Beyond the data: Influencing international student decision making. A major finding of that report was that graduate outcomes are a key factor in international students’ decision-making, and we advised then that:

“Students are pursuing a degree not only for the sake of an education, but also for the sake of the rest of their lives. Show how your programmes are benefitting your graduates.”

That advice stands today.

Similarly, the QS World Grad School Tour Applicant Survey 2015 revealed a trend over the past six years toward a greater emphasis on employment outcomes for post-graduate applicants, whether the student has a specific career goal in mind or just “a more general sense of the need to become as ‘employable’ as possible.” In short, as Hobsons notes, students are expecting a return on investment from their studies, one that relies on “the tight association between obtaining a university qualification and favourable employment outcomes.”

The costs of obtaining a degree weigh heavy on many students

More than four in ten (43%) of students told Hobsons “they would consider not attending university if the cost was too high.”

That said, 81% of students agreed that university is “the best way to prepare for their careers.” The allure of degree programmes is thus alive and well … for now. For now, because two other research findings point to an international higher education industry ripe for disruption:

• 25% of the surveyed prospective students would consider not attending university if there was a better way of getting an education;
• 42% would prefer to stay in their home country if the quality of education was similar.

As ���Ϲ��� Monitor has been reporting on for some time, now, several major traditional source countries are working hard to increase their attractiveness to students – both domestic and in many cases, international. For example:

• China hosted nearly 380,000 foreign students in 2014 but has a target to attract 500,000 by 2020;
• Japan is aiming for a target of 300,000 students in 2020;
• Malaysia wants to reach a foreign enrolment of 250,000 by 2025;

Regarding the idea of students opting for “a better way of getting an education” than attending university (again, an interesting proposition for 25% of the prospective students surveyed), the past few years have witnessed a surge in the discussion around – and provision of – “alternative credentials” (e.g., certificates of shorter duration than degree programmes). The trend arises as a result of two of the themes revealed by the current Hobsons’ report: (1) students’ cost-consciousness, and (b) their increasing demand that education be career- and/or skills-centred.

Hobsons states that “universities must … focus on producing work-ready graduates, linking programmes to local industries and actively demonstrating to students and employers the value that comes from their degrees” in order to be able to compete with disruptive emerging models. According to Dr Michelle Weise, a leading expert on disruptive innovation in higher education, they would do well to not only compete with emerging models but also to integrate them into teaching approaches.

Hobsons, for its part, sees an opportunity for universities to invest in technology to improve students’ experiences and outcomes:

“The potential for immersive technologies such as consumer virtual reality devices and ubiquitous broadband connectivity is one example of how savvy entrants could create an education user experience that far outstrips current online (and indeed ‘bricks and mortar’) learning models, simply by leveraging technologies that are becoming available to core education demographics for other purposes (in this case, entertainment and gaming). A combination of technologies allowing new types of teaching and learning at a lower cost, if connected to qualifications and student outcomes in the right way, would be a powerful threat to the status quo.”

Post-study work rights and immigration policies key to competition

The new Hobsons’ research finds that “migration is an important part of the international education plan for 47% of students.” That’s almost half of prospective international students who are influenced by the visa and immigration policies of destination countries, and we can see these policies’ effects in the fluctuations in destination countries’ market share of international students when rules are changed. The most striking example of this recently is in the UK, where the more restrictive immigration policies of the past couple of years are taking a toll on institutions’ ability to compete for international students.

Over one in three (32%) prospective students responding to the Hobsons survey indicated a desire to stay temporarily in a destination country on a post-study work visa, compared with 23% who planned to return immediately to their home countries after finishing their studies. A smaller but significant proportion (15%) said they wanted to migrate permanently to the destination country after finishing their studies.

Heavy student social media use presents great opportunities

The Hobsons’ research found that:

• 71% of prospective students use social media at some stage while researching universities;
• 50% of international students use social media to find information before making an enquiry;
• 26% use social media to help when making an application.

With so much student investment in social media, Hobsons’ argues that “a university’s social media strategy should offer not only another source of information for a prospective student, but a vital opportunity for universities to reach the student profiles they want.”

In all these respects, the 2016 Hobsons survey is a valuable addition to the growing base of student survey research available to international educators today. The scope of the survey and its methodology may vary from report to report, but all such research is an important window into the student perspective on study abroad, and so a necessary foundation for strategic planning and recruitment strategy for international programmes.

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The International Labour Organization (ILO) reported in 2014 that , estimating that productivity in Singapore was nearly 15 times greater. The ILO analysis found that even when benchmarked against other middle-income ASEAN countries, such as Malaysia and Thailand, Vietnam trailed badly as well.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), meanwhile, has estimated that Vietnam now needs to boost labour productivity growth by more than 50% in order to keep its economy growing at the current fast clip. MGI points out that some of the important drivers of economic growth in recent years – including an expanding labour force – are starting to weaken and that continued growth will rely more on productivity gains going forward.

Improving access to education, and the quality and relevance of programmes on offer, will be a big part of the country’s answer to this challenge. Vietnam has greatly expanded its higher education system over the past 15 years, and total tertiary enrolment tripled between 2000 and 2013. But there are significant quality issues in Vietnam’s universities and colleges, and, as a result, ongoing challenges in terms of employability of graduates.

There are real concerns about youth unemployment in particular: 6.3% of those aged 15-to-24 are out of work, compared to a national unemployment rate of 2.3% – and the General Statistics Office indicates that one of every five unemployed people in Vietnam has a bachelor’s or master’s degree. These figures are even more striking when placed against the statistic that nearly two-thirds (62%) of Vietnamese employers say they have difficulties in filling job vacancies.

This mismatch between employer requirements and graduate skills now appears to be contributing to an increase in demand for vocational training. A recent item in VietnamNet Bridge highlights dramatic reductions in the number of high school leavers planning to attend university.

“In the past, university was the choice of the majority of students,” says the report. “However, students seem to have become more practical. The fact that hundreds of thousands of university graduates are unemployed has opened their eyes. Many university graduates have to ‘put bachelor’s degree into a drawer’ and go back to vocational school because industrial zones and factories only need skilled workers, not bachelor degree graduates.”

Another recent report from echoes the point, noting that some university graduates are now returning to vocational studies in order to improve their prospects: “Now, a completely upside down trend has emerged as a large number of graduates, who were trained to work as white-collar staff, now have to hide their degrees and switch to cooking, tourism, mechanics, pharmacy or even factory work.”

The latest figures from districts around the country also reflect that high school students are choosing vocational studies in greater numbers. As many as 40% of high school leavers in central Nghệ An Province will sit the exams for a high school graduation certificate this term, as opposed to university admission exams. “[This] means these students will not choose higher education, but turn to apprentice training institutions after high school,” says Vietnam News.

The same is true in Hanoi where the number of students opting out of a university admissions path has increased by nearly 50% this year, and in Hoa Binh Province only 30% of this year’s high school leavers are expected to apply for university.

This emerging pattern lines up with some larger policy goals of the Vietnamese government. Only 15% of working-age Vietnamese have completed formal vocational training and the government has set a target that 55% of workers will have skills training (with one-third completing advanced vocational training) by 2020.

But to get there, Vietnam has had to undertake – and will need to extend – some substantive reforms in its vocational training system. A national strategy calls for a restructuring of technical and vocational training institutions and the system by which they are administered. It aims as well to boost quality controls, strengthen curricula, and expand international collaboration.

In terms of international partners, the Asian Development Bank, and other international development agencies, have contributed to recent reform projects and capacity building initiatives. And there are a number of significant collaborations between Vietnamese ministries and institutions and those overseas, including with partners in Canada, Australia, and the UK.

The challenges facing the Vietnamese system are considerable, but there are some large forces at work here too in terms of a government commitment to expand and improve vocational training, a growing range of international partnerships, and especially the pressing skills requirements of employers in a rapidly growing and evolving economy.

The bottom line is that the Vietnamese economy needs skills: English skills, IT skills, and targeted training for a wide range of occupations and industries. The patterns we now seeing playing out in Vietnam indicate that students are now going to access skills training through a variety of new models and new collaborations and, increasingly, outside of a university campus.

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For example, a 2015 study of how students interpret international university rankings found that students often look beyond the ranking tables for additional indicators to guide their school selection, and that employability and employment outcomes were the dominant considerations among the study respondents.

In another 2014 survey of 45,000 prospective international students, 90% cited employment outcomes – whether at home or in their intended destination country – as a primary driver of their interest in study abroad. A further example from 2015 finds that employability is also a major decision driver for postgraduate applicants, with nearly two-thirds of master’s candidates indicating their primary motivation for further study is to progress in their current career, to improve their employment prospects more generally, or to enter a particular profession.

Indeed, demand for study abroad in some of the biggest emerging markets, such as India or Vietnam, is driven, at least in part, by real concerns over employment outcomes for graduates of local institutions.

Today, the desire for improved career prospects is driving the increasing popularity of interdisciplinary departments and programmes. These are defined variously by different academics, but perhaps most straightforwardly by , a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, who sums them up as “multiple disciplines blending together to produce a new discipline aimed at solving an issue.”

Between 2006/7 and 2012/13, the number of degrees conferred in interdisciplinary programmes in the US amid a labour market context where an increasing number of professions and industries require highly adaptable employees with a broader skill set, and where students are looking for a competitive edge in the job hunt.

The context for change

Students today are living at a time in history when:

• Workers – especially millennials – are staying for shorter amounts of time in one job, necessitating a wider, evolving set of capabilities to facilitate the evolution of their careers.
• Start-up culture and entrepreneurialism have emerged as important markers and elements of the global economy – and they are driven as much by personal interest, passion, and collaboration as by discrete skill sets.
• Research and action on the most pressing issues of our times (e.g., climate change, the race for more sustainable technologies, cyber-security, and health epidemics) requires expertise from a diverse range of disciplines.

In 2013, vice-chancellor of the University of Southhampton Don Nutbeam wrote in , “The conventional career ladder [for graduates] is likely to be replaced by a career ‘lattice,’ which may involve moving upwards or laterally, and possibly stopping and starting in new directions as the employment landscape changes.”

In his article, Mr Nutbeam encouraged universities to speed up the normally gradual evolution of their curricula to a pace more suited to the realities of today’s research and industrial marketplace. And now, we are seeing more institutions responding to this idea with interdisciplinary departments and programmes springing up to complement, or serve as alternatives to, single- or dual-focus degrees.

For example:

• The University of Manchester’s University College of Interdisciplinary Learning organises its complementary course units into the following broad themes: Culture & Community, Global Challenges, Languages & Global Citizenship, Professional Skills & Business Expertise, Science & Society, and Sustainability.

• At Wheaton College in Illinois, students in the choose a “guiding directive” encapsulating the overall mission of the degree. To do so they identify a question, problem, and theme they will explore through the programme, then work with their advisors to assemble an individualised curriculum. The major also encourages study abroad and internship components.

• At Queensland University of Technology, Master of Creative Industries students develop an entrepreneurial approach to creative industries and learn how different creative disciplines intersect and inform one another. They are able to try out a range of creative forms as opposed to spending all their time on only one artistic area.

Interdisciplinary programmes such as these often nurture students’ capacity for critical thinking and collaboration, both of which are skills that are much in demand by employers today.

Governments, too, are increasingly interested in interdisciplinary learning. As one example, the calls for universities to “redefine their education and research priorities by focusing more on research fields than scientific disciplines” and to ensure that graduates’ qualifications align with the labour market.” The Modernising Universities agenda recognises that such an evolution will entail universities “revising their structures and organisations (staff management, evaluation, funding, teaching, etc.).”

What interdisciplinary means to students

The age-old “forest versus trees” metaphor has been used to explain the advantages of interdisciplinary learning over single-focus learning. W. James Jacob :

“While disciplinary experts are essential for understanding particular ways of knowing within specific fields of study, their perspectives in addressing larger and more complex issues is often limited. Interdisciplinary approaches take a much broader view of the entire landscape, first by surveying the forest and afterwards drawing upon various tree experts depending on the needs, contexts and circumstances.”

Researchers have found that students graduate from interdisciplinary programmes with abilities suited to a quickly changing world and marketplace. These abilities include:

• Considering concepts and ideas from multiple disciplines for a wider understanding of a problem;
• Understanding that there are multiple “truths” and factors underpinning a problem;
• Balancing and integrating conflicting insights from several disciplines;
• Maintaining confidence in the face of challenges.

Such abilities match up with recent research showing that students want to develop “soft skills” to apply in their eventual jobs. In fact, surveyed by Laureate International Universities and Zogby Analytics said that “colleges and universities should focus on teaching soft skills like accountability, nimbleness, negotiation, networking, collaboration and communication.”

Collaboration is key

The idea of students with one set of interests and talents working with other students, professors, and professionals with completely different skills sets and perspectives is a cornerstone of interdisciplinary learning. For example, design students working with information technology specialists to increase the visual impact of a project; engineers working with psychology majors in pursuit of work spaces that foster employee wellbeing; climate change scientists working with history and geography students focusing on Antarctica.

These three examples alone illustrate the potential of a “forest” rather than “tree” approach to graduating students armed with the critical thinking skills, collaborative mindsets, and adaptability so required by today’s rapidly changing economies and labour markets. Students and employers alike are sending strong signals to educators that the marketplace highly values more varied and multi-dimensional skill sets for graduates. And many institutions are taking up this challenge by expanding options for interdisciplinary study. Going forward, we may well find that such programming figures even more prominently as a source of competitive advantage for institutions and schools.

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Presented by Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop and Minister for Tourism and International Education Richard Colbeck on 30 April 2015, the strategy actually encompasses three integrated strategies for the advancement of Australia’s international education sector.

• The National Strategy for International Education 2025 itself, which reflects a “whole-of-sector” approach and sets out a 10-year plan for further developing Australia’s position as a global leader in education and training. The national strategy is based around three pillars: “strengthening the fundamentals” (including improvements to student services and quality assurance), “making transformative partnerships” (which focuses on links at home and abroad, alumni networks, and visa policy), and “competing globally.”

• The Australian International Education 2025 (AIE2025) , which is the product of both extensive consultations within the sector and research from Deloitte Access Economics. It provides a 10-year market development framework for Australia’s education exports, including “game-changing” strategies to build scalable, collaborative networks of education providers, attract capital to fuel the sector’s expansion, and target key markets abroad.

• The Australia Global Alumni Engagement Strategy 2016-2020 outlines a five-year plan to strengthen and engage Australia’s foreign alumni with the broader goals of enhancing the country’s diplomatic access and influence and building trade and investment links.

“This signals the sector’s and the government’s commitment to work together to advance international education by identifying new products and new opportunities for expansion, and building on our current presence in existing markets,” said Minister Colbeck.

The Minister highlighted as well that international education has been 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. “To achieve this,” he adds, “we must build on our existing education, training and research strengths, to deliver high quality, innovative products and services to students that meet or exceed their expectations. This will enable us to withstand increasing competition and sustainably grow our market share, whilst maintaining the quality for which we are renowned.”

Reconceptualising learning and export goals

There are some notable aspects as to how the AIE2025 market development roadmap frames Australia’s current market position. It puts international enrolment in the country at just under 500,000 students for 2015, which would make Australia the third most-popular study destination after the US and UK. Indeed, the roadmap explicitly identifies the the US and UK as Australia’s primary competitors.

Much of the analysis behind AIE2025 comes from Deloitte Access Economics, which projects a global market of more than one billion students actively seeking education and skills by 2025. Of particular note here is that Deloitte is applying a very broad concept of “student” to include internationally mobile learners as well as those who pursue education via transnational education or online learning.

As education demand – driven both by population growth and increasing global wealth – continues to grow, Deloitte forecasts that Australia’s international enrolment will increase by about 45% by 2025. This works out to a compound annual growth rate of 3.8% over the next ten years and anticipates that about 720,000 foreign students will be enrolled in Australian institutions and schools by 2025. In a high market-share scenario modelled by Deloitte, this projected enrolment could conceivably even reach 990,000 over the next ten years.

“Onshore students in Australia will always remain core,” says the Deloitte report. But the firm clearly sets out a broader frame for Australia’s education exports as well, one that breaks down conventional distinctions between different modes of delivery. “The traditional demarcation of the sector into onshore and offshore or transnational reflects a division that will be challenged as 2025 students access the skills and knowledge they require at the time they chose, through the channel that optimises their learning experience, be it in Australia, online, or in-market as part of course delivery or on-the-job learning.”

With this broader concept in mind, the AIE2025 roadmap aspires to a 10% share of the education export market for Australia, or the equivalent of about 110 million learners across all modes of delivery by 2025. “This scale of ambition reflects the role of international education as one of the next major opportunities to help drive our growth and prosperity,” says the report.

The most striking thing about this model is not just that it clearly anticipates a very large volume of students enrolled with Australian providers over the next decade. Rather, it is its emphasis on the large share of this student population that will be served by transnational education and/or technology-enabled delivery. “In-market delivery will broaden the number of students who can access Australian education products,” says Deloitte. “This may occur through partnership arrangements with local providers, onshore presence of Australian education providers or through distance learning. Given the scale of the potential demand, Australian training providers may increase capacity through partnership or consortia arrangements with one another when entering these markets. The success of this strategy is dependent on stakeholders working together to grow our international education offerings.”

Focus on markets and employability

The AIE2025 roadmap is very clear that implementation will focus on specific target markets, but these targets are not explored in any great detail in the strategy documents, suggesting that this key aspect will be fleshed out further in the forthcoming implementation plan. However, the national strategy allows that much of the projected growth over the next decade will continue to come from China and India, and that other important markets will include the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.

Reflecting the growing body of research as to the importance of employment outcomes for international students, the national strategy also clearly sets out the linkage between expanding education exports and employability of foreign graduates. This is one area where the comprehensive nature of the strategy starts to really click. It anticipates, for example, not only the importance of delivering education and training that provides students with skills required by the labour market, but also that educators will need to expand opportunities to integrate work and learning and, further still, that Australian immigration policy will need to support competitive work rights offers for foreign students.

The consultations around the strategy were enabled and supported by a committee of peak body executives, the Coordinating Council for International Education. The Coordinating Council will now give way to a more permanent council, again representing “a broad cross-section of Australian education stakeholders, that will be charged with the implementation of the new strategy”. Reflecting this strong industry connection to the process, major industry groups in Australia have been quick to voice their support for the national strategy.

“For too long, international education has fallen between the cracks of different Ministers and Departments,” said Universities Australia Chief Executive Belinda Robinson. “The fact that both government and industry representatives were willing to take a whole-of-sector approach in framing the strategy is to be commended.”

“Given that international education is now worth AUS$19.6 billion (US$14.7 billion) a year to the Australian economy, it now requires the level of attention that the nation’s third largest export sector should attract,” added Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia.

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