Indian students in Australia: how did it come to this?

Editor’s note: this contribution, by Christopher Ziguras examines the complex factors shaping ongoing debates, and recent crisis, about Indian students in Australia.  Christopher Ziguras (pictured to the right) is Associate Professor of International Studies in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, RMIT, Melbourne. His research focuses on international education policy, particularly related to higher education in the Asia Pacific region. Dr Ziguras teaches within the Global Studies discipline at RMIT University. He was a founding member of the Globalism Research Centre and has continued to be closely involved with the Centre since its establishment in 2002. He manages the Learning Cities program within RMIT’s Global Cities Research Institute, and established RMIT’s Research in International and Comparative Education (RICE) network in 2007.  Our thanks to Chris for his illuminating contribution.

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Eventually something had to give. The number of Indian students coming to study in Australia had been growing for several years at extraordinary rates, and nobody expected the bubble to last. But it was difficult to predict what would trigger the collapse.

In 2002 there was just over 11,000 Indian students in Australia, and by 2005 this number had grown to over 27,000. Australia is accustomed to such sudden surges in demand from particular countries, and this number was still a very small proportion of the total international student population of around 400,000 in 2005. However, by last year enrolments had grown even more rapidly up to nearly 100,00 students, and most of the growth was in private vocational colleges where enrolments of Indian students increased at a startling rate, from 2,600 to 47,400 in three years.

• VET = Vocational Education and Training (postsecondary certificate and diploma programs from one to four semesters duration)
• ELICOS = English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students
• Higher Education = degree level and graduate programs
• Other includes private higher education and public and private primary and secondary schools

(Data source: Australian Education International)

Up until around 2005 most Indian students seeking permanent residency in Australia undertook masters programs, usually in information technology and accounting. This was a perfectly rational response to the key planks of Australia’s skilled migration framework, which seeks to identify those occupations where graduates are in high demand in the  labour market, and prioritises applicants with Australian tertiary qualifications, who in the past have been shown to been more successful in the labour market than migrants with overseas qualifications. So Indian students quite rightly reasoned, “I would like to live in Australia and Australia wants accounting graduates so I will do an accounting degree and stay on in Australia”. Enrolments of international students in programs that enabled students to obtain residence (subject to various other conditions), grew very rapidly. In 2004-05 three quarters Indian students graduating from Australian university programs obtained permanent residency.[1]

The only problem with this had been that many international graduates in these areas of migration demand were not subsequently employed in the fields for which they had studied. Migration requirements were tightened to mandate higher levels of English proficiency and professional experience, and these had the effect of dampening demand somewhat for some university programs.

In 2005 the Australian government increased the number of points international graduates needed to obtain permanent residency, meaning that many international students had to undertake further studies in an area of migration demand that would provide extra points. A number of trades (including hairdressing) had been included on the occupations in demand list for some time, and soon after raising the number of points required cooking was added to the list of occupations for which extra points would be awarded. Private colleges responded quickly be developing new cooking and hairdressing programs that would give students enough points to get through. Some private colleges are very high quality institutions with a wide range of programs for local and international students, but there are low quality providers who cater almost exclusively to international students seeking fast and easy qualifications to support migration applications.[2] By last year, 14,400 Indian students were studying in private colleges in programs grouped under the ‘food, hospitality and personal services’ classification, accounting more than a quarter of all students in these programs.

For several years many in the Australian international education industry have been warning that the rapid growth of private colleges providers focused on migration pathway programs posed serious threats to vulnerable students, who were sometimes willing to pay hefty fees and tolerate poor facilities and teaching in return for a piece of paper that would assist them to gain residency. There was also a concern that the actions of these colleges could bring the entire Australian education system into disrepute internationally. The industry group representing private educational institutions, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, was the most outspoken voice calling for more active investigation and prosecution of substandard providers, recognising that the organisation’s members had most to lose from the actions of rogue providers.[3]

Enrolments in migration oriented programs in private colleges continued to grow, with no sign of slowing, however, the numbers of students in certain programs was beginning to far exceed Australia’s workforce requirements in those occupations. The head of the Professional Hairdressers Association complained last year that private colleges were “bastardising the industry”, by taking in large numbers of international students intending to apply for permanent residency, very few of whom intended to work in the industry.[4] This situation has been compounded by rising unemployment in Australia, as elsewhere. A significant tightening of the student migration policy appears inevitable, but would be devastating for tens of thousands of young people who had invested heavily in study in Australia only to return home with qualifications of very limited value in their home country after wasting much time and money chasing permanent residency.

Australia’s Indian student bubble appears now to have been popped, but by thugs rather than by government. After the terrible attacks on Indian international students, and the extensive media coverage in India, the number of Indian students coming to Australia is expected to drop dramatically.

Last year there were several cases of violent attacks on Indian taxi drivers, which led to highly publicised street protests. At around 3:00 am on 29 April 2008 a 23 year-old Indian international student, Jalvinder Singh, working as a taxi driver in Melbourne was stabbed by a passenger. The following night Indian taxi drivers staged a 24-hour protest blocking one of the city’s most prominent intersections, calling for improved security for drivers, including security screens to be installed in all taxis, and for improved security around suburban railway stations.[5]

The state government agreed to phase in security screens and to fully investigate all attacks. A 45 year-old man was charged with attempted murder. On 18 May 2008 in Adelaide an Indian international student, Balraj Singh, driving a taxi was assaulted late at night by two 24 year-old men, who were subsequently charged with aggravated assault and robbery. Hundreds of taxi drivers staged protests in Adelaide, with similar demands to the Melbourne protests.

There has been a long history of violent attacks against taxi drivers in Australia, but what has changed is the ethnic composition of the workforce. A very large proportion of taxi drivers are now Indian, and the more experienced drivers, who are usually from more established migrant communities, tend to work day shifts while Indian students who study during the day and have less ability to pick and choose their shifts, are left to work night shifts, especially on weekends, which are notoriously dangerous. After the Adelaide attach the head of the Cab Drivers Association told local media, “We’ve got drivers out there that are not properly trained that the government refuses to recognise this – it’s a critical issue in inflaming these assaults. We are exploiting our immigrants by getting them to become cheap labour in the taxi industry…. I mean we should have the decency at least to train them properly, to skill them on what sort of situations they could face out there and we should have more interest in the work environment.”[6] These attacks led to discussions between the Indian consul general, South Australian government and police, as well as taxi industry, and drivers’ representatives.[7] However, while some branches of government were working hard to try to improve driver security, many international students driving taxis were in fear of immigration authorities who were carrying out inspections at taxi ranks to ensure that international students were not working more than the 20 hour limit imposed by student visas.[8]

Last year the attacks seemed confined to taxi drivers, but in 2009 a series of serious assaults against Indian students in a one-month period in Melbourne and Sydney resulted in street protests in both cities and a media storm in India, with serious political repercussions in both countries. On 9 May Sourabh Sharma, 21, a hospitality management student was beaten up on a train by a group of teenagers. He was returning home in the evening after a shift at KFC.[9] Four teenagers were charged over the assault. Security video footage of the attack, made public later in May, was broadcast extensively in Australia and India, showing a group of teenage boys who appeared to be of diverse racial backgrounds repeatedly punching and kicking Sourabh, who sustained a broken jaw and extensive bruising from the attack. On 25 May Baljinder Singh, 25, an Indian cookery student, was stabbed in the stomach in an attempted robbery while leaving a suburban railway station.[10] The following day four Indian students were attacked when a birthday party at their home was gatecrashed by two teenage boys. One of the students, Sravan Kumar Theerthala, 25, who studied automotive technology in a private college, was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by one of the intruders, putting him in a coma. A 17 year-old has been charged with attempted murder.

Photographs of Kumar and Singh, one unconscious in hospital with head bandaged and tubes protruding from his nose and mouth, the other on a hospital bed displaying a large bandaged stab wound, were shown prominently on Indian television and in newspapers. Television current affairs programs and newspaper editorials speculated about the root causes of this apparent “wave of racist attacks”.  Was this caused by Australian resentment at India’s growing status in the world and the newfound affluence of Indians abroad, some asked. As stories of previous assaults on Indians in Australia emerged others asked whether the Australian media had been covering up these racist attacks.

The political response in India was fast and furious. On 29 May Australia’s High Commissioner to India was summoned to a meeting with Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi, who urged Australia to ensure the events were not repeated.[11] India’s High Commissioner to Australia travelled to Melbourne to convey her government’s concern to Victorian police, government and educational representatives. The Prime Ministers and the Foreign Ministers of the two countries discussed the issue with their counterparts, all expressing their abhorrence at the attacks. On 30 May Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan announced he would turn down an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology that he had previously agreed to accept.[12] On 6 June Bollywood’s largest union, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees called on its members to stop filming in Australia, its leader proclaiming, “We prefer to call it a non-cooperation movement because we feel what is happening in Australia is painful and shameful. The Australian government is just not taking adequate steps to find the culprits”.[13] This comes after a string of big-budget Bollywood films have been filmed and set in Australia in recent years.

In Australia, the response was quite different. Violent attacks by young men against other young men are not uncommon occurrences, and as around one in three people living in Melbourne and Sydney was born outside Australia it is very common for either the victim or perpetrator to be a foreigner. In Australia debate hinged on whether the attacks were racially motivated, that is whether some young men (of various ethnic backgrounds) were targeting Indian students, or whether Indian students were finding themselves in the wrong places at the wrong times. For example, one senior editor with the Australian newspaper criticized the Victorian government for downplaying the racist character of the attacks, while other articles in that newspaper have pointed to the diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds of the perpetrators of the attacks. While there are some young Anglo-Australian men who are xenophobic and who have mounted ugly demonstrations against the “invasion” of their suburbs by immigrants (most famously in Cronulla in Sydney), there has been little indication that these particular assaults were motivated by such white racist backlash, though some surely are. The “survival tips” put forward by an Indian graduate from an Adelaide university paint a frightening picture of the threat posed by violent white teenagers.[14] The student’s advice, titled ‘Adopt their culture without compromising on yours’, concludes that “Mostly all matured Australians are quite friendly with a great sense of humour. The whole Australian community should not be judged just because of the behaviour and the manners of some of the most ill bred Aussie teenagers.”

A major incident in early June in Sydney highlighted the complexity of the racial issues. On 8 and 9 June Indian students staged large protests in a low-income neighbourhood where in recent years Indians have surpassed Lebanese as the largest ethnic group. The protests were sparked by an attack on an Indian student by a group of young men of Middle Eastern background. Indian students claimed that the police were not doing enough to protect them from Lebanese gangs. Indian protesters attacked three uninvolved Lebanese men and police brought in the reinforcements to control the crowd.

(Students at a Melbourne private college participate in the city’s ‘Harmony Walk’, held in response to attacks on Indian international students, photograph: Christopher Ziguras)

But why Indian students? Nearly half a million international students studied in Australia last year, but Indian students seem to be suffering the most from violent attacks. Some research has suggested that many of the Indian students who are attracted to vocational programs in private colleges are from less affluent backgrounds, and have lower levels of English language proficiency, compared with those who enrol in university programs. These students are able to obtain loans with which they can pass the financial means test to obtain a student visa to Australia, but they are understandably reluctant to draw down on those loans and instead seek to earn enough in Australia to pay their tuition fees and living expenses. Compared with other international students in Australia, students from India appear to be more dependent upon income from shift work, such as driving taxis, stacking supermarket shelves, and working in convenience stores and as security guards. They are more likely to be living in outer suburbs with cheaper housing, and therefore travelling late on trains more often, and in areas where street violence is more common. Gender is an issue too, as assaults against strangers on and around public transport are generally perpetrated by young men on other young men, the vast majority of Indian students are male whereas East and South East Asian students are evenly split by gender. As a result one would expect a greater rate of assaults against Indian students.

In a subsequent post I will discuss the responses of Australian federal and state governments, which have been diverse and ever-expanding. What started with a damage-control response to publicity about violence against students from India may well lead to significant changes in international education policy, with most attention being focused on some private colleges and their overseas agents, and many people asking how Australia’s major cities can better ensure the safety and security of the hundreds of thousands of young people from abroad who study in Australia each year.

Christopher Ziguras

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[1] Birrell, B. (2006). Implications of Low English Standards Among Overseas Students at Australian Universities. People and Place, 14(4), 53-64.

[2] http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/schools-in-for-stayers/2007/07/03/1183351209855.html

[3] http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/canberra-failing-to-regulate-colleges-industry/2007/03/14/1173722558926.html

[4] http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24373848-5013404,00.html

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36c6NGZQM3c

[6] http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/taxi-drivers-protest-bashing-of-indian-cabbie-in-adelaide_10050257.html

[7] http://overseasindian.in/2008/may/news/20083005-124114.shtml

[8]

[9] http://www.theage.com.au/national/scarred-scared-and-wanting-to-go-home-20090515-b64p.html

[10] http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25551722-661,00.html

[11] http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25558985-25837,00.html

[12] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Amitabh-Bachchan-turns-down-Australian-doctorate-as-mark-of-protest/articleshow/4597284.cms

[13] http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/bollywood/a158572/bollywood-union-vetoes-australian-shoots.html

[14] http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2009/jun/01/adopt-their-culture-without-compromising-on-yours.htm

Sweetening Canada’s offer in the race for global talent: a new immigration class eases the route to permanent residency for foreign students

International students are the focus of front-page news in Canada this week with the launch of the long-anticipated new immigration scheme, the “Canadian Experience Class.”

Intended to fast-track foreign students and skilled workers currently in Canada from temporary migrant to permanent resident status (and potentially to Canadian citizens), this new program continues a series of recent changes implemented by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) seeking to enhance Canada’s economic competitiveness through the attraction and retention of highly educated migrants. Details of the program are outlined here in the Canada Gazette.

Like the existing immigration points-based system, this new program evaluates applicants on a range of criteria. However unlike the traditional economic class route, this stream makes work or study experience in Canada a key factor in gaining admission. Now international students, along with workers in select skilled occupations and professions that have studied or worked for two years in Canada, may apply to become landed immigrants from within the country, no longer needing to leave to join the (backlogged) overseas queues after their studies.

As quoted in the Globe and Mail (Aug 13, 2008: a1), a CIC spokeswoman explained the change is part of revamping Canada’s immigration approach to compete with “rival destinations such as Australia and the United Kingdom.” This framing is significant for several reasons.

First, CIC’s language acknowledges a shift in immigration policy logic from one based on broad nation building to one based on keeping pace with other countries competing to gain advantage in their ability to attract migrants for the knowledge economy. As political scientist Ayelet Shachar (2006) has argued, the policy framework of many immigrant-receiving countries is no longer driven primarily to meet domestic needs, but to keep up with the offer on hand from other countries also trying to become the next “IQ magnet” in the ever-spiralling global race for ‘talent’. The rationale is that if international students can become permanent residents immediately after their studies, then this may have the desired effect of increasing the likelihood that many will remain post-graduation and contribute to the Canadian economy, as well as making Canada a more appealing educational destination for young migrants at the outset.

Second, from a national perspective, international student mobility has historically served a multifaceted role as both an element of international political relations (think of programs such as the Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholarships), and as an increasingly lucrative industry.

In recent years, however, many governments have also begun to place greater emphasis on the innovation and labour market potential inherent in mobile students and researchers. Canada’s new scheme – along with the recent announcement that post-graduation work permits for students would be extended to a three-year duration – indicate the heightened interest placed by the Canadian government on the potential longer-term economic contributions that foreign students can make.

So what to make of these developments?

On one hand, they certainly fit with contemporary theories in economic development planning that emphasize the importance of developing a diverse, educated and skilled labour force as a necessary context for sustained economic vitality, and the ability for universities to feed into this process at a local scale. International graduates can make particularly valued contributions to such strategies through their different academic and cultural traditions as well as transnational research and social networks. Advocates of international students will likely also laud this new initiative for enabling those already in Canada who have established ties and made intellectual, economic, and social contributions to remain with greater security, if they so choose.

On the other hand, however, there are several concerns and potential consequences worth considering.

First, this new class does not address – and may further exacerbate – existing problems of excessively long waiting lists for overseas immigration applicants.

Second, and even more disquieting, this new ‘class’ promotes unequal access to the protection and rights attributed to Canadian permanent residents by excluding lower-skilled labourers who also make important contributions to the Canadian economy and society and who comprise the majority of temporary permit holders.  It is important to ask whether Canada wants to advance a system with differential paths to citizenship based largely on the fluctuating economic valuation of certain types of knowledge.

Lastly, it also seems probable that this new fast-track scheme will become an admissions strategy for young migrants able to afford the expense of studying as an international student in Canada. While the financial picture for international students is complex, varying from high tuition fees for most undergraduate studies to receiving scholarships for funded graduate students, the financial accessibility to this potential route to citizenship complicates the already unclear picture wherein international students are desired for their future ambassadorial roles, for their financial contributions to individual institutions, and/or for their potential economic input as desired young researchers and future ‘knowledge workers’.

Time will tell if these various objectives can succeed in co-mingling or if tensions and contradictions in the diverse strategies involving the spheres of higher education, research, immigration, and economic development will emerge.

Reference

Shachar, A. 2006. The race for talent: Highly skilled migrants and competitive immigration regimes. New York University Law Review, 8(April): 148-206.

Kate Geddie

Graphic feed: growing global demand for higher education (2000-2025)

Source: Brandenburg, U., Carr, D., Donauer, S., Berthold, C. (2008) Analysing the Future Market – Target Countries for German HEIs, Working paper No. 107, CHE Centre for Higher Education Development, Gütersloh, Germany, p. 13.

Graphic feed: global geography of PhD holders migrating to Canada (2001-2006)

Source: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (2008) Trends in higher education – Volume 3: Finance, Ottawa: AUCC.

Graphic feed: cross-border flows of higher education students within the APEC region

Source: Centre for International Economics (2008) APEC and International Education, Sydney and Canberra: Centre for International Economics.

Strategic communications via global higher ed: the Uniting Students in America (USA) proposal

Further to our entry on the new Rand report (U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology), today’s Chronicle of Higher Education includes coverage (‘Subcommittees Debate Proposal to Bring International Students to U.S.‘)of some global higher ed-related testimony on 19 June 2008 at the United States House of Representatives. This news item is, in some ways, the higher ed side of the higher ed/research dynamic that is becoming framed in global geopolitical and geoeconomic senses by elites in the United States, Europe, Australasia, and so on.

In the context of a joint session sponsored by the US House Foreign Affairs (Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight) and the House Education and Labor Committee (Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness), advocates for the Restoring America’s Leadership through Scholarships for Undergraduates from Developing Countries: The Uniting Students in America (USA) Proposal testified yesterday. The witnesses, as they are deemed, were:

• George Scott (Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Team, Government Accountability Office)
• Philip O. Geier (Executive Director, Davis United World College Scholars Program). Testimony available here.
• William B. DeLauder (President Emeritus, Delaware State College, Counselor to the President, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges). Testimony available here.
• Philip O. Clay (Director, International Admissions and Services, University of Texas – Pan American). Testimony available here.
• Rachel C. Ochako (Scholar, Davis United World College Scholars Program, Middlebury College). Testimony available here.
• David S. North (Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies). Testimony available here.

As the Chronicle notes, the plan for the “Uniting Students in America” proposal:

would finance 7,500 scholarships each year for undergraduates from foreign countries who come from low-income families. Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts who is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, said he plans to introduce a bill by the end of the summer that would create the scholarship program. The program is projected to cost $1-billion over four years and would assist 30,000 students per year by the time it is fully phased in.

The testimonies point to a desire to more intensely weave together the dual objectives of international development and the enhancement of the reputational standing of the United States in the world via global higher ed. Indeed, the title of the hearing – Restoring America’s Leadership through Scholarships for Undergraduates from Developing Countries – is a blunt statement that in many ways says it all. Yet it is really the testimonies that provide the nuance and flesh to this agenda. On this note, here are some lengthy quotes from two of the speakers.

First, Philip O. Geier (Executive Director, Davis United World College Scholars Program):

Much has been written about America’s role and reputation in today’s post Cold War and post 9/11 context. Much of that literature is ideological, lacking both balance in perspective and a constructive long term strategic view of America’s special place in the world. While an exhaustive discussion of this literature is beyond the scope of this hearing, this does seem an appropriate place to suggest a few ways to achieve greater balance and a greater focus on long term approaches to America’s positive engagement with the rest of the world.

We would be well served to find a greater balance between our “hard power” and our “soft power.” We would be equally well served to find ways to build in-depth, personal relationships between the most promising future leaders in our country and their counterparts from elsewhere in the world.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates articulated these objectives clearly in a speech given on November 26, 2007. He said, “…based on my experience serving seven presidents, as a former director of C.I.A. and now as secretary of defense, I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use ‘soft power’ and for better integrating it with ‘hard power…. ’ We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about policies and goals…. We can expect that asymmetric warfare will be the mainstay of the contemporary battlefield for some time. These conflicts will be fundamentally political in nature and require the application of all elements of national power. Success will be less a matter of imposing one’s will and more a function of shaping behavior of friends, adversaries and, most importantly, the people in between.”

Secretary Gates was drawing from the work of Joseph S. Nye Jr.’s Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004) which contends that effective public diplomacy includes “building long-term relationships that create an enabling environment for government policies.” Nye maintains we need to develop “lasting relationships with key individuals….”

Similarly, in January 2008, we were presented with the report [cover image above] of the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee constituted jointly by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State. Its co-chairs’ message stated: “Our long term success requires not only that we deter and detect determined adversaries, but also that we persuade millions of people around the globe of our ideals – democratic freedom, private enterprise, human rights, intellectual pursuit, technological achievement.”

One of the key recommendations of the Secure Borders and Open Doors report was that “the U.S. should articulate a comprehensive policy for attracting international students….”

In my view, we are approaching an opportune time for some reformulation of our foreign policy. While we must continue to take all necessary measures to ensure our security, we should also become more pro-active in promoting our nation’s values and opportunities to others so that they can truly understand and benefit from our way of life. In this context, we can leverage one of our country’s most unique strengths, its institutions of higher learning. While worldwide opinion polls would suggest that America has lost its allure, there is no question that America’s colleges and universities remain the envy of the world and that an opportunity to gain a degree in the U.S. is without compare.

And second, from William B. DeLauder (President Emeritus, Delaware State College, Counselor to the President, National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges):

I believe that there is a broad consensus around the country that student mobility contributes greatly to fostering goodwill and better understandings between nations. Some have called this a form of educational diplomacy. To be effective it must occur both ways – i.e., more American students studying abroad and more international students studying in this country.

As stated in the Report of the NASULGC Task Force on International Education [cover image above], “The goodwill and strong personal ties to this nation built through generations of students coming to our colleges and universities from around the world are important underpinnings of U.S. foreign relations.” Former Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed it this way: “International students and scholars enrich our communities with their academic abilities and cultural diversity and they return home with an increased understanding and often a lasting affection for the United States. I can think of no more valuable asset to our country than the friendship of future world leaders who have been educated here.”….

The USA Program therefore should contribute to improving the image of the United States abroad and thereby improve our diplomacy abroad. As several studies have shown, our image around the world is badly tarnished. International students who study in one of our colleges or universities will have an opportunity to meet and talk with American students and others from diverse backgrounds, to experience the diverse American culture, to learn about American democracy, to learn about American institutions, and to obtain a valuable undergraduate education that will be a strong asset in their life pursuits. Many of these students are expected to become future leaders within their respective countries. They will bring with this new responsibility a better understanding of the United States that should enhance their countries’ relationships with the United States.

In some ways this is nothing new: countries around the world have always sought to use scholarships to enhance their strategic communicative capacity, build their economies (through the import of skilled labour), build capacity in other countries, and so on. Yet these are interesting time in the US as the end of the Bush/Cheney era approaches.

Given the rhetoric in these testimonies it might seem like the US should be poised to launch, under the leadership of McCain or Obama, a much more substantial material and symbolic drive to support a vast number of global higher ed linkage schemes, including via the offer of scholarships to students from developing countries. However, the counter-current forces and hurdles are substantial despite the swell we are seeing now re. strategic communications agendas. These include increasing social anxiety in the US about access to a very expensive higher education system, a startling fiscal mess enabled by the Bush/Cheney regime, an ideological disconnect with the idea of state-led action via ‘soft power’ (US neoconservatives being more inclined to use state largesse for the tools associated with ‘hard power’), an existing sense of global higher ed dominance in some political circles (i.e. why spend more when we’re No. 1 already), and the lack of a national approach to higher education, let along global higher ed, as Lloyd Armstrong has noted in Changing Higher Ed.

This is an ongoing debate worth watching as the US prepares itself for a significant national political transition.

Kris Olds

Surveying US dominance in science and technology for the Secretary of Defense

The global higher education and research landscape is a fast changing one at this point in history. Amongst many indicators we have increasingly powerful players (e.g., Kaplan, Thomson Reuters), new interregional and global imaginaries starting to generate broad effects (e.g., via the global dimensions of the Bologna Process), a series of coordinated multi-university attempts to create action on what some stakeholders deem “global challenges” (e.g., see The Global Colloquium of University Presidents), and a recent US-based attempt to create ostensibly global higher education action for global development.

On this latter initiative, deemed the Higher Education Summit for Global Development, I can’t help but think that the cost to organize and operate such a ‘summit’ was significant when compared to the related announcement of “$1 million [644,000 euro] to fund 20 partnership-planning grants of $50,000 to plan long-term collaborations between African and U.S. institutions of higher education“. Money of that scale is characteristically snatched from a dormant account inside some department to produce a ‘deliverable’ and seems somewhat incommensurate (in material and symbolic terms) with the stated ambition of the event, even if it is just the marker of a new phase of action.

The pace of globally-framed higher education and research change was abundantly clear to me last week when I was in Brussels (pictured to the left) meeting with a wide variety of informed and creative stakeholders; stakeholders who are actively creating elements of this new global higher ed/research architecture. The combination of insight and resources was impressive, and another reminder of what happens when states focus on building intellectual infrastructure for the medium to long term.

In this context, today’s entry briefly profiles one new contribution to challenging dominant views on the status quo of thinking about aspects of the globalization of higher education and research, though from the other side of the Atlantic – in the USA.

On 12 June the Rand Corporation released a major report titled U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology. The associated press release can be accessed here, and a summary Research Brief here.

This new report is a 2008 “companion report” to the 2007 collection, Perspectives on U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology, in which we flagged the Rand Corporation’s inclusion of one chapter by Jonathon Adams, a UK-based private consultant whose firm (Evidence Ltd) provides services in relation to the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology presents findings that challenge notions of a slide in the dominance of the United States in the global science and technology landscape, especially with respect to research. In summary fashion, Rand notes:

Is the United States in danger of losing its competitive edge in science and technology (S&T)? This concern has been raised repeatedly since the end of the Cold War, most recently in a wave of reports in the mid-2000s suggesting that globalization and the growing strength of other nations in S&T, coupled with inadequate U.S. investments in research and education, threaten the United States’ position of leadership in S&T. Galama and Hosek [the Rand authors] examine these claims and contrast them with relevant data, including trends in research and development investment; information on the size, composition, and pay of the U.S. science and engineering workforce; and domestic and international education statistics. They find that the United States continues to lead the world in science and technology and has kept pace or grown faster than other nations on several measurements of S&T performance; that it generally benefits from the influx of foreign S&T students and workers; and that the United States will continue to benefit from the development of new technologies by other nations as long as it maintains the capability to acquire and implement such technologies. However, U.S. leadership in science and technology must not be taken for granted, and Galama and Hosek conclude with recommendations to strengthen the U.S. S&T enterprise, including measures to facilitate the immigration of highly skilled labor and improve the U.S. education system.

Coverage of the report is now emerging in outlets like the Economist, in the general media, and in the blogosphere (e.g., see this critique of the Rand message in the Computing Research Policy blog)

U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology is also noteworthy for it is produced by Rand for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), a relatively sprawling institution as is evident in this organizational diagram:

As the inside page to the report puts it:

The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted in the RAND National Defense Research Institute [NDRI], a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-C-0002.

The logic of the OSD funding NDRI-produced research likely relates to the US defense establishment’s concern about emerging science and technology (and research) ‘footprints’ of powers like China, India, and Europe vis a vis intra-US capacities to educate, produce knowledge, and have this knowledge disseminated (and generate effects) at a range of scales and via a variety of channels. Yet the report also seeks to use data and analytical narratives to prick holes in the emerging taken-for-granted assumptions that the era of American hegemony, with respect to global knowledge production, is over. It reminds me, a little, of the informed testimony of Michael S. Teitelbaum, Vice President, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, on 6 November 2007 before the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives. Finally, the report is very clear in flagging the dependency of US science and technology capacity, and the US’ global research presence/impact, upon highly educated foreigners.

In an overall sense, then, U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology could be read as a detailed and insightful contribution to ongoing deliberations about the scale of US science and technology might, and an effort to reshape the contours of a critically important debate. I’m not sure if it could be classified as a contribution to thinking about “war by other means”, but rather as a reflection of a “new threat environment ” where thinking and analysis focuses on:

[h]ow and in what way do new challenges–from terrorists, insurgents, weapons of mass destruction, and the proliferation of technology–that the United States faces at home and abroad color America´s definition of and approach to national security? How will changes in the international economic, diplomatic, political, and alliance environments affect U.S. interests and capabilities? How will those changes and threats–from states, non–states, and other traditional and non–traditional sources– affect the United States´ ability to engage and project its power?

Regardless of the logics behind it, the report is thought provoking, laden with data and well designed graphic images, and is clearly written.

Finally, readership. I can imagine the current Secretary of Defense quite enjoying this read given that he was most recently President of Texas A&M University, and “also served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the American Council on Education” and “the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges”. I am not as sure about the previous one, though. If he is still on the OSD mailing list perhaps he’ll be perusing the text for indicators of the declining health of “old Europe”!

Kris Olds

29 June update: This letter to the Economist (26 June 2008) is worth reading:

SIR – Referring to the conclusions of a RAND report on research and development in science and technology, you claimed that fears that America is losing its competitive edge in innovation are “overblown” (“What crisis?”, June 14th). Your evidence is that “America has lots of sources of R&D spending: federal money accounted for only $86 billion of the $288 billion it spent on R&D in 2004” and that “spending on the life sciences is increasing rapidly, a reasonable bet on the future.” The important point to be made here is that the composition of American R&D has changed markedly over the years.

Federal support for basic research at universities in the physical sciences and engineering—the type of research most directly coupled to technological innovation—has withered relative to spending on research in the life sciences and R&D carried out by industry. The increase in privately financed product-development (often the D in R&D) and biomedical research are both good, but neglecting basic research investments of the type that gave us the internet, solid-state electronics and medical imaging is not a recipe for future success.

Given that it typically takes 15 years for new ideas dreamed up in the laboratory to become commercial, America may be losing the technology race even while seeming to remain on top. At the very least, America’s relative position in the world is slipping, which bodes ill for the future economic standing of the United States.

George Scalise
President
Semiconductor Industry Association
San Jose, California

Graphic feed: global student mobility matrix (2005)

Source: Internationalization of Higher Education: Foreign Students in Germany-German Students Abroad. Results of the 18th Social Survey of the Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW) conducted by HIS Hochschul-Informations-System, 2008.

Update: see nanopolitan‘s interesting 4 June reflections (‘Indian’s studying abroad‘) on this table, and the changing nature of the foreign Indian student presence in the USA.

International students in the UK: interesting facts

Promoting and responding to the globalisation of the higher education sector are a myriad array of newer actors/agencies on the scene, including the UK Higher Education International Unit. Set up in 2007, the UK HE International Unit aims to provide:

credible, timely and relevant analysis to those managers engaged in internationalisation across the UK HE sector, namely – Heads of institutions, pro-Vice Chancellors for research and international activities; Heads of research/business development offices and International student recruitment & welfare officers.

The UK International Unit both publishes and profiles (with download options) useful analytical reports, as well as providing synoptic comparative pictures on international student recruitment and staff recruitment on UK higher education institutions and their competitors. Their newsletter is well worth subscribing to.

Readers of GlobalHigherEd might find the following UK HE International Unit compiled facts interesting:

• In 2004, 2.7 million students were enrolled in HEIs outside their countries of citizenship. In 2005-06, six countries hosted 67% of these students (23% in the US, 12% in the UK, 11% in Germany, 10% in France, 7% in Australia, and 5% in Japan). (UNESCO, 2006)
  
• New Zealand’s share of the global market for international students increased more than fourfold between 2000 and 2006. Australia’s increased by 58% and the UK’s by 35%. (OECD, 2006)
  
• There were 223,850 international students (excluding EU) enrolled at UK HEIs in 2005-06, an increase of 64% in just five years. There were a further 106,000 EU students in 2005-06. (HESA, 2006)
• International students make up 13% of all HE students in the UK, third in proportion only to New Zealand and Australia. For those undertaking advanced research programmes, the figure is 40%, second only to Switzerland. The OECD averages are 6% and 16%, respectively. (OECD, 2006)
  
• UK HEIs continue to attract new full-time undergraduates from abroad. The number of new international applicants for entry in 2007 was 68,500, an increase of 7.8% on the previous year. The number of EU applicants rose by 33%. (UCAS, 2007)
• Students from China make up almost one-quarter of all international students in the UK. The fastest increase is from India: in 2007 there were more than 23,000 Indian students in the UK, a five-fold increase in less than a decade. (British Council, 2007)
• The number of students in England participating in the Erasmus programme declined by 40% between 1995-96 and 2004-05 – from 9,500 to 5,500. Participation from other EU countries increased during this period. However, North American and Australian students have a lower mobility level than their UK counterparts. (CIHE, 2007).
  

Susan Robertson

The National Academies’ International Visitors Office: strategic communications while institutionalizing mobility

The National Academies is a US-based institution that is made up of representatives from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. This institution was created by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and has evolved into a key stakeholder in debates about the globalization of higher education, especially with respect to science and technological matters. The activities of the Policy and Global Affairs Division should be of particular interest to GlobalHigherEd readers. Approximately 1,100 staff work at the National Academies’ offices in Washington DC.

The National Academies’ Board on International Scientific Organizations has just released a podcast that explains what role their International Visitors Office plays in facilitating the movement of scientists and foreign students to the United States in the “fundamentally” transformed post-9/11 era.

The office, which was set up in 2003, seeks to facilitate human mobility but in a manner that is less problematic when the “national security interests” of the US can sometimes “alienate” the “skilled migrants” who play a critically important role in meeting the science and technology needs of the US. Thus the initiative also has diplomatic (aka strategic communications) objectives associated with it. The podcast is approximately five minutes long.

Kris Olds

Graphic feed: enrollment of foreign graduate students increases (esp. in 2006) in US science and engineering fields

Source: National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, First-Time, Full-Time Graduate Student Enrollment in Science and Engineering Increases in 2006, Especially Among Foreign Students, Arlington, VA (NSF 08-302) [December 2007]

US student mobility: cultural enrichment and national security

Record numbers of US students are studying abroad. The Institute of International Education‘s latest report, Open Doors 2007 (IIE), provides details of the 150% increase in US student mobility over the last ten years with an 8.5% rise in 2005-2006. Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education have detailed coverage of the findings.

Looking below the headline figures a number of features become clear. As the US Department of State website highlights, most students take part in programs of eight weeks or less, just over a third stay for an entire semester and only 5.5% are away for a year or more. Europe is the most popular destination but there have been big jumps in numbers going to Latin America (particularly Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica and Ecuador), Asia (in China, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Hong Kong numbers have seen large increases), Africa (Tanzania saw a 19% increase ). In the Middle East students have been increasingly mobile into Israel and Jordan.

Looking at the numbers and destinations it becomes hard not to see a pattern emerging. US students are being funded through IIE administered programs into countries with particular affinities with the US. In addition, one new source of funding is the US Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative program which targets mobility for learning Arabic, Chinese, Hindi and Persian and other ‘critically’ needed foreign languages.

The rhetoric which surrounds the celebration of these trends is familiar. So Condoleeza Rice says that mobility:

Expands young people’s opportunities, enriches their lives, and demonstrates our respect for other cultures

While Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes is especially proud of IIE programs which:

By reaching out to students of more modest means, has produced truly remarkable gains in the numbers of US citizens from minority communities who can now aspire to the life-changing experience of study abroad.

If we draw together a number of features of US student mobility patterns we can start to ask some important questions about the objectives which are served by mobility. The top three majors of US students studying abroad are the social sciences, business and management, and humanities, so why are math, science and technology majors nowhere near as mobile.? The majority of students follow well worn paths to countries with cultural, economic and political affinities with the US but is there a growing trend towards mobility into countries with developing importance for US interests? Students still tend to be mobile for very short periods of time; how does the dynamic of State Department funding for critical language (and cultural) understanding interact with the necessarily brief exposure of less than eight weeks?

With hard power and soft power increasingly on the march, it seems that we need to keep on thinking about what is at stake when we talk about student mobility. Mobility is always from somewhere to somewhere and for some purpose. US student mobility patterns suggest that we need to keep looking at the cultural and political in addition to the economic. There is a link between cultural enrichment and national security and EU policy in Central Asia suggests it is a link which is not only made in the US.

Peter D. Jones