The pandemic may lead to a rise in student mobility within Asia, with countries such as China and Malaysia potentially becoming major competitors to English-speaking countries, an international education expert has predicted.

John McNamara, global research manager for international education services at the British Council, said that intraregional mobility was ¡°a rising phenomenon¡± before Covid-19 but it ¡°might become even more so¡± in the wake of the crisis.

As a result, he said, ¡°we might need to change our views about the competitor set¡± for the UK in terms of international student recruitment. ¡°It might not just be about the major English-speaking destinations being the UK¡¯s competitors; it might increasingly be countries like China and Malaysia,¡± he said.

It follows predictions in March by Simon Marginson, director of the Centre for Global Higher Education at the?University of Oxford, that East Asia will emerge as a regional hub for international student mobility.

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Speaking at the British Council¡¯s virtual Going Global event, Mr McNamara added that there may also be a trend towards ¡°shorter periods of mobility¡±, such as a semester abroad instead of a full academic year,?while these experiences may also include a?¡°greater adoption of online learning¡±.

¡°What I think we need to think about is the extent to which Covid-19 might accelerate some of the trends that were already playing out in the background [before the pandemic],¡± he said, during a session on the shape of international higher education after 2020.

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Mr McNamara also predicted that international student recruitment in the UK ¡°won¡¯t just be about China going forward¡±.

¡°People often ask who is the next China? There isn¡¯t a next China, but there might be a more distributed approach across a number of different markets,¡± he said.?

Mr McNamara added that previous shocks to the sector, such as the global financial crash, have demonstrated ¡°the resilience of student mobility¡±, and he said that an optimistic viewpoint in terms of the future of international higher education ¡°is not necessarily the wrong one to have¡±.

Matt Durnin, global head of insights and consultancy for international education services at the British Council, said that there have been assumptions that transnational education will expand as a result of Covid-19, as students who would have previously wanted to study abroad will now opt to study TNE programmes in their own country.

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However, he said that the council¡¯s previous studies have found that ¡°we¡¯ve tended to overexaggerate how much these two things overlap¡±.

¡°They¡¯re actually very distinct markets. When I¡¯ve done focus groups with branch campus students I¡¯ve rarely found that student who had a strong intention to study overseas and then changed to TNE,¡± he said. ¡°But certainly the forces are aligned to maybe push students down that direction in the next year or two.¡±

Mr Durnin also questioned whether there was enough capacity within TNE to absorb a potential increase in short-term demand and, if there was, whether students would revert to their original patterns of mobility when the pandemic was over.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com