Population shifts ‘necessitate international education rethink’

Depopulation of many of the world’s economically ascendant countries will force a transformation of international education around the globe, entrenching “hybrid” teaching approaches that predominated during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a demographer. 

Paul Spoonley, a New Zealand-based sociologist and emeritus professor at Massey University, said countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which had experienced a “golden age of international education” before Covid, will need to change their approach as source countries become increasingly reluctant to send youngsters abroad.

This would particularly apply to China, which had tipped into demographic “deficit” as the fertility rate in its major cities “plummeted” to one child per woman.

Professor Spoonley said China’s labour supply issues were “not especially obvious at the moment”, as the country grappled with soaring youth unemployment. “But I certainly think by the 2030s, if the demographic trajectory of China continues, they are going to be short of labour.

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“They face a significant risk in sending a student to Australia or New Zealand, because we offer them the option of becoming permanent residents. Not only is there an outflow of capital from China. Their best and brightest are…staying here.”

He said it was an “open question” whether Beijing would actively prevent its students heading abroad. “If China were to experience significant and ongoing labour supply issues, would it then begin to look at the international education system as a hole that needed plugging?”

Professor Spoonley, a former pro vice-chancellor at Massey who co-directs New Zealand’s Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, spoke to Times Higher Education ahead of a keynote address to the New Zealand International Education Conference.

He predicted the “growth and growth” of online and distance education, as universities and colleges embrace technologies such as gaming and artificial intelligence and mull other ways of teaching foreign students on their home soil.

Authorities in traditional source markets would insist on “in-country” services, he said. “One of the prime options will be to say, to Monash or Massey or whoever the educational partner is: ‘your degrees, your staff, your courses, but taught in China’.”

His remarks coincide with a visit by Chinese education minister Huai Jinpeng to Australia and New Zealand. Online education and “twinning degrees” were among the topics discussed, according to Australian education minister Jason Clare.

Professor Spoonley said that while international education would continue to be a profitable enterprise, provider countries would face escalating competition from rival nations and new teaching modes. And as baby boomers aged and populations stagnated or declined not only in Australasia but across Europe and particularly East Asia, many richer countries would value international education primarily as a way of acquiring skills rather than money.

He said that while international educators’ attention tended to focus largely on China and India, most population growth this century would occur in Sub-Saharan Africa – particularly in crowded countries like Nigeria, whose population could exceed China’s by 2100.

Nigeria could become a significant market and also a potential international education competitor, he said, as its economy evolved. “They will develop institutions which will be able to offer education…in the African context. They are certainly going to need the skills. One of the things that all countries will need is a strong healthcare workforce that is well trained. And the question becomes, where do you train them?”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com