Key role of employability in choice of foreign university

International students from several Asian countries, including India and China, who are looking to choose a university abroad have become more focused on employment prospects in choosing a subject, university and the country of study abroad.

According to a new global comparison report on international student employment outcomes and international student satisfaction published by Australian-based student-university-alumni network platform Cturtle, which also produces international student satisfaction data and the International Alumni Job Network, students from eight Asian countries are prioritising career issues in choosing a university abroad.

“We are starting to see interesting trends that show how important employability is when it comes to recommending the country or recommending the university abroad to future students,” says Shane Dillon, co-founder and group CEO of Cturtle. Sea turtle is the nickname used in China for international students who return home after graduation.

“We get a lot of enquiries asking for international study advice based on employment. We hadn’t seen it before,” Dillon says.

More than 81% of some 10,000 students surveyed from China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam said they wanted to study abroad to improve career opportunities, or to pursue a specific career, according to Cturtle’s International Student Employment Outcomes and Satisfaction Report 2019.

“With the future of work so uncertain, a lot of students are picking a course which they think will give them a greater advantage once they enter the competitive employment stage,” notes Dillon.

“Five of the top 10 reasons that students and alumni recommend their university to others are related to employability and seven of the top 10 reasons for recommending the country are related to employability,” he says, adding that the job market “is now so competitive and there are more and more international students going through that system so that their uniqueness and competitive edge is dulling. Employability then becomes a really critical issue.”

Employability has also become important because of the large amounts invested in education abroad by international students.

Poor university response

However, “universities do not really respond to this,” Dillon says. Only four or five out of 10 international students were satisfied with their university’s career support, according to the survey findings, with lower satisfaction in Australia and the United Kingdom compared to the United States and Europe.

Universities in countries like the US, Australia and Canada are failing to help international students improve their employment prospects, concentrating mainly on employability for their local students rather than for international students, he adds.

“I see a huge gap. Our research has shown that four in five international students did not get access to internships” in the host country, Dillon says. In countries like the UK and Australia only 17% of international students had access to internship offerings. In Europe it was 37% of international students.

Students from Singapore, Hong Kong, India and Malaysia were most likely to participate in internship programmes as part of their studies abroad, with 83% of Singaporeans and 71% of Indians saying they had done so – an indication of the importance students place on such internships if offered.