'Govts think controlling foreign students is easy way of reducing immigration, that's a problem'

As India continues with the endeavour to expand its global education networks, universities around the world are considering it a viable market to establish international campuses and knowledge hubs.

In the post-COVID world, where learning went beyond borders, universities all around the world found it an interesting way to reach out to more students who have the desire to learn.

However, the recent immigration crisis in the Western world did emerge as a major barrier in this regard, with the government formulating stringent policies and sometimes closing doors for international students.

As education goes global, international universities look to come to India and Indian universities look at expanding abroad, Firstpost’s Bhagyasree Sengupta spoke to Professor Richard Wells, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) of UK-based Coventry University to understand why that is happening and how it will impact students and countries.

Wells is an expert in transnational education and looks at the global activity of his university, including student recruitment and academic partnerships, and has driven collaborations in the Gulf, Australia, China and Southeast Asia.

Q. As someone who has been working on building transnational education networks around the world, do you see more openness in students globally in exploring new areas to study as well as new areas of study?

I would say there’s been a huge change in the last probably five to ten years, particularly post-COVID. Before the pandemic, the aim for most international students was to go overseas either to the UK, Australia, Canada and the United States all those different big markets. Now I think there’s much more of a choice, there are opportunities whereby international universities can operate overseas.

The concept of online education has transformed since COVID. Before COVID, governments kind of looked down their nose. Online education was viewed very much as second class. The pandemic proved that really that’s not the case and universities now have to justify almost why students have to come to campuses.

So a lot of governments and regulators have changed their views about the validity of online education. I think the more progressive universities of which I count Coventry as well have realised that actually something of a blended approach is the best way for young people to learn.

The days of lecture halls with 100-200 students sitting and scribbling notes, being talked at by a professor are over.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) Of Coventry University Richard Wells and Leena Arora Kukreja, Regional Managing Director (India hub) with the team of the Indian Chapter of the British university. Image Courtesy: Coventry University (India Hub)

At the end of the day when you are working, you will not be going to go back to your exercise book and look at that exact problem, it isn’t going to be there. So it is about problem-solving.

Q. Other than conventional degrees, what are the upcoming areas of interest in students that you have noticed?

I think we still see that degrees in conventional academic disciplines are still a predominant demand coming from South Asia in particular. There’s a lot in computing, data science, digital, and graphics. Stuff like gaming, how you will apply data and graphics into gaming, artificial intelligence (AI), and the very applied end of computing science are becoming very important.

But the demand for conventional areas of things like hard engineering, medicine and health is still very strong.

Q. What does the presence of international students bring to a university and the host country?

It brings massive benefits to everyone in a university. In my opinion, it benefits both the incoming students and the host students. Because at the end of the day, graduates of today are going to work in a global job market. They are not going to have one job for most of their career they’re not going to work for one employer for most of their career. Chances are they’re going to have multiple jobs, multiple- employers, probably in multiple countries.

They will be working with people from completely different backgrounds and different cultures. If you don’t educate yourself in that environment, you are never going to be properly prepared for working in that environment.

The job of a university is to prepare somebody for work. So to educate home students in an environment where they are entirely surrounded by people like themselves would not be doing them a good service.

We are not very good at this in the UK, that’s something we really have to promote quite hard. Hence, the whole concept of ensuring a global environment for education is really important.

Q. India’s new education policy also encourages foreign universities to set up their operations in India. What are your plans in India?

We have got big plans for India. We are the biggest provider of face-to-face transnational education in the UK so at the moment we have about 24,000 students overseas studying for Coventry degrees. The changes in the regulatory framework for India are a big opportunity for us.

It is one of our few markets where we recruit a lot of students, where at the moment we don’t have an educational presence.

We do expect to open a facility in India in the near future and I don’t anticipate it to be the last one. India is big enough for us to have more than one presence and we hope to open such facilities elsewhere in South Asia as well.

Prof. Richard Wells with the team of Coventry University (India Hub). Image Courtesy: Coventry University (India Hub)

There’s a huge demand and I think we can really contribute to the needs of the region.

Q. What do you think about the role regulatory framework plays in ensuring best education practices are being followed and what are your thoughts about the regulatory framework that is currently in place in India?

Regulatory frameworks are important, I will be honest with you some are better than others. So in some countries, the regulatory frameworks try to get overseas universities to either deliver exactly what they deliver at home or to deliver exactly the same way as their home universities.

My view of the best forms of international transnational education is that you bring the best of an overseas university to the local environment where you are operating. For example, if I have a site where I’m teaching law for example overseas, an Indian student I don’t think is particularly interested in being able to understand British law (well they might be). Chances are they want to understand and be taught Indian law.

There needs to be flexibility in that and that is not there in all countries. What you need is an idea of the regulatory framework which protects the quality of the education because that’s critical. But it should allow a degree of flexibility so that you can operate in a way which is the most beneficial for the country that you’re operating in.

In the case of the current UGC regulations in India, it’s a good start, it’s at a good place. I think there are still some details that need to be understood. I think there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on them.

What is critical is that the regulator is willing to have those conversations. I think that is the case in India, you’ve actually got a regulator that’s prepared to listen and have a conversation with the potential operator.

Q. Is the curriculum altered to suit local needs in case of campuses abroad?

Formulating the curriculum based on the local need is how I like to see transnational education. That’s our ideal, that’s what we would do given the choice. Some countries don’t allow it, and India isn’t one of them. You want to be able to teach a relevant curriculum. That’s how we deliver our education.

Q. How do you ensure the quality of education on campuses abroad or with partners abroad is the same, or maybe even better, than back home?

You have to recognise that the quality of a university’s education is everything. If our quality drops anywhere, whether that’s in Coventry, in our London campus, in Singapore, or in Egypt, if that quality drops, that’s our right to exist gone essentially.

If people think our degrees are not worth what they used to be, why would they pay good money to attend our hubs overseas or come to the UK to do a degree, you know that’s a lot of money. It’s expensive.

We have a regulator called the Office For Students, which basically gives us the license to operate in the UK but they also take a view of any education that we deliver overseas. Hence, overseas education has to be of a similar standard to what we deliver at home If not, it would affect our licence. So we have absolutely no choice but to ensure that.

Q. What makes India a viable market in promoting transnational education and what will it take for India to emerge as a global education hub?

The growth in India at the moment is phenomenal. It reminds me of the growth in China 15 years ago. India’s population has already exceeded China’s, but this growth demands education, the real thirst for education and the ability to take the education on and deliver it to startups, SMEs and businesses, that is a fantastic ecosystem for any education entity to be part of.

I’ll be honest, of all the places I go in the world, India is by far the most exciting for me. I see incredible potential and it’s really important, I think for universities to be part of that.

Q. How big a barrier is the cost of education and relocating in taking education really global? For instance, British universities like many others around the world have cheaper tuition fees for local students in comparison to international students.

Not only the cost of education is higher if you are an international student, but the biggest barrier can be the cost of living. It’s a huge investment for an individual or more likely their family and that’s why I am a big believer in the concept of transnational education.

It allows different market segments to benefit from overseas education. Some universities in the UK will worried about transnational education because they think that if they go overseas to deliver education those overseas students won’t come to the UK.

Personally, I don’t believe that, I think there’s a group of students who have the funds available to them to undertake international education, and they will always want to travel.
Something like this is significantly cheaper, the living costs are very likely to be significantly less. So the overall cost of education in this model is a lot less.

Q. There is a sense that Western colleges and universities want foreign students, but governments are becoming increasingly cagey in letting those students work and stay there. What is your take on this?

I think we are in a period of global politics where all the big countries that are involved in education are concerned about immigration. It’s largely a perception of a certain portion of society. I don’t think it’s real in the slightest personally and the problem is that governments think that controlling the number of international students is an easy way to start to reduce those immigration numbers.

Now the reality is that is nonsense actually because you know students have been massive contributors to the UK economy. Education, I think is our second biggest export, not only do they massively contribute, but they tend to be relatively young. They don’t tend to use health services, they tend to use very few public services but contribute hugely to the local economy.

So the argument itself is fatally flawed. This is the problem in all countries you talk about Australia, Canada, the UK, US, there is a public perception that international students are a problem now. This is leading to difficult conversations being had around things.

Q. In January this year, the Rishi Sunak administration announced that new overseas students will no longer be able to bring family members to the UK. Even students pursuing post-graduation or PhDs will have to demonstrate exorbitant finances for their family members. Do you think policies like these hinder the aim of building a transnational network of education?

The easy answer to that question is yeah! I think of course it’s a barrier. It’s telling people you can’t come and if you can come, it’s going to cost even more money. The biggest problem of all this is that it sends out a message that international students aren’t as well as they used to be or worse that they are not welcome.

Now all I can say to that is that it is completely the wrong message. It’s a message that the government in the UK is putting out because it is incredibly unpopular and is destined to lose the forthcoming elections.

Policies like these are greatly affecting the number of students who are applying to come to the UK and I’ll be honest with you, it’s having a very negative effect on university finances.

The biggest problem at the moment is uncertainty. There isn’t certainty in the market, and that’s the one thing that kills any business. I still remain reasonably hopeful, because we have had these times before, and we always get through them.

One of the biggest problems in the UK is a shortage of staff, and the worst way to deal with that is to say we don’t want international students staying after their degree. I remain hopeful that post-election sense will prevail.

Q. How do you see the face of global education changing, in say, the next decade or so?

There are definitely new locations which are becoming education hubs. You look at the growth in places like Dubai that is now starting in other countries as well. It is interesting to see how Indian universities are growing overseas to operate now.

There has been the rise in some slightly more unusual destinations, Georgia for example is turning into a hub for health education. So there are definitely countries that are becoming locations for students who probably can’t afford to go to what I would call the big four.

I could easily foresee India becoming a real hub in the Asian markets.