International Education Strategy – Less Haste, Less Speed

The UK Government’s recently launched ‘International Education Strategy: global potential, global growth‘ has received many plaudits.  But those who believe the floodgates will be opened, with growth similar to recent years in Australia and Canada, should consider the compound annual growth rate implied.  Getting from the 460,000 international students enrolled in 2017 to the 600,000 targeted for 2030 only requires a growth of just over 2% each year.  A bit better than the 1.23% compound growth in enrolments from 2014 to 2017 but it’s hardly tearing up any trees.

A joined-up, Government backed strategy is not in itself a bad idea but this one raises lot of questions and is light on answers in key areas.  The 460,000 number used is the aggregate of international fee-paying students (320,000) and current EU-fee paying students (140,000).  It’s not entirely clear if the plan, and its £35bn target in education exports, includes EU students paying full international fees, staying with UK fees or replacing them with others from round the world.

Staying on the financial side, it was only in June 2015 that Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities and Science, said, ‘We are committed to increasing education exports from £18 billion in 2012 to £30 billion by 2020.’  One presumes that the 2020 target will be missed if the plan is really only to add a further £5bn by 2030. These things are easy to say and people lose track of the performance as easily as they lose track of the politicians who made them. 

To add to the potential for confusion, the new Strategy lumps in trans-national education and includes ‘…education providers setting up sites overseas, and education technology solutions being sold worldwide.’  Given global demographics, the rise of English-language degree provision in emerging countries and the spread of technology, it will be interesting to see how effort is coordinated between the paths to revenue.     

When people start talking about long-term growth and big numbers I am reminded of the song, ‘The Impossible Dream’ from Man of La Mancha.  Visions of tilting at windmills, living with ‘unbearable sorrow’ and the inevitability of the Spanish Inquisition come to mind.  It is likely to be tough to sustain international student growth over a decade or more and it seems to me that the real need is for more urgent action and targets.     

It’s not as if we haven’t been here before and history does not offer good omens.  In 2013 the Government published a strategy – International education strategy: global growth and prosperity – where the stated ambition to help the sector secure 3.7% enrolment growth from 2011 to 2020.  On that reckoning the graph shown below suggests international student enrolment in 2017 should already be around 550,000 by now rather than 460,000.

This reflects another problem with long-term strategies.  Those responsible for blowing the trumpets when they are launched are seldom around to answer for the failures or receive the plaudits.  David Willetts MP (now Baron Willetts) was the Minister for Universities and Science launching the 2013 Strategy, but left the Government by 2014. It is difficult to see The Rt Hon Damian Hinds or Dr Liam Fox being around in 2030.

It is also not entirely heartening to see Action 1 of the strategy being the appoint of an International Education Champion.  Perhaps this newly appointed Degree Czar will be able to develop and implement joined up policy which would be a good thing.  But the 2013 Strategy document was also strong on the need for coordination that never quite happened as the Treasury called for growth and the Home Office battened down the hatches on visas.

It might have been better to see the long-term vision broken down into short-term targets. 5.46% growth per year in international enrolments for the first five years seems a good idea.  It will not surprise the observant and mathematically minded readers that this would take the UK to 600,000 enrolments by 2022.

After that a different set of issues would begin to emerge as the global picture and the UK’s own demographics begin to change.  By 2025, according to the ONS, the number of 18-20 years olds in the UK is likely to be back to 2014 levels and will continue to grow rapidly to 2030 which might bring very different pressures on the sector.

The tension between long and short term is very real and I am reminded that John Maynard Keynes said, ‘The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.’  Education is a long-term business but the needs of the sector are both urgent and important.  It would be good to see the Government responses couched in equally urgent terms.