In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, many B.C. educational institutions have trained their sights on Europe in search of disillusioned students and faculty looking for another destination at which to land.
The most lucrative of such markets, however, might be Great Britain itself, suggested several academic industry observers who gathered earlier this summer in B.C. to talk about Canada’s next great opportunity in the increasingly lucrative international education sector.
“After the Brexit vote, they [U.K. schools] have really been looking for best buddies, to make sure that U.K.’s education remains international,” said Laura Howard, ex-president of the European Association for International Education and a speaker at June’s international education convention in Kelowna.
“With political ties with EU looking tentative, schools in the U.K. have already started to find their own partners in Europe and beyond, looking to develop closer relationships not only on student-faculty mobility, but research and other joint programs.”
That provides an opportunity for B.C. schools to reach out to their British counterparts, according to Howard and others, because those schools might never be more willing to enter into strategic partnerships with an overseas partner.
“The universities in the U.K. were very much involved in the Brexit campaign on the ‘Remain’ side, trying to make people aware of what’s at stake – and what could be lost – if we left the EU,” Howard noted.
As of 2015, Great Britain is not among the top 10 origin markets for international students enrolling in B.C. schools. China (51,130 students), South Korea (12,695) and India (12,105) are the top three. The numbers are the same on a federal level, where British students make up only 1% (3,516) of the 353,000 foreign students studying in Canada, far behind another European market in France (6%).
Robert Buttery, professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, said he has seen something similar to the Brexit in terms of industry impact on international education. He noted that Switzerland narrowly passed a referendum on restricting EU immigration in 2014, and the experience of the Swiss schools that lost access to EU programs like the Erasmus student exchange initiative gives a hint of what’s to come for British schools.
“We had to figure out overnight where to put students, because all these programs were suddenly gone.”
Buttery added that Switzerland quickly set up parallel systems to Erasmus and other EU programs, while individual schools aggressively looked for partners outside the country’s borders.
British Council research director Elizabeth Shepherd cautioned, however, that B.C. should not take its eyes off the rest of Europe. In a recent online survey of 2,500 international students, the council found 95% of respondents said Brexit had no impact on the value of the English language – which represents a big opportunity for English-speaking countries like Canada.
“Most interestingly, significant reference was made in the questionnaire to other international English-speaking destinations – with considerable reference to Canada,” Shepherd said. “So maybe the upshot of this very interesting data is that the English language is not owned by the British.”
The key to creating those partnerships with schools and bringing in new international students, Buttery added, is reciprocation.
“I’m a little concerned with B.C., because I see a deficit of mobility of students and faculty here, getting them and sending them out. It’s all well and good to bring students in – it’s good to generate revenue – but you have to send students out because it’s about setting up business networks overseas.”
According to the latest BC Council for International Education figures, foreign students added $2 billion to the B.C. economy in 2015. •
