Narrator: You will hear a tutor and two students discussing international mobility.
Tutor: Hi Nils, hi Eva. Come in and sit down. You wanted to talk about your research paper, is that right?
Nils: Yes, we've drawn up an outline for the introduction and done some preliminary interviews.
T: And how did that go?
Eva: We've come across some interesting findings.
T: OK - let's go through what you've done so far. What's the subject?
N: Right, so we're doing our paper on international student mobility.
E: We're looking at the overall picture - you know, where overseas students are going in the world to study and why ... and we think that picture's changing.
T: Sounds interesting.
E: The first thing we've looked at is numbers, and as part of that, um, how many students there are in total who are studying outside their own country …
N: That seems easy. It looks like it’s around three million.
E: 1Yeah. but the problem is that the definition of the term 'international student' varies across countries.
N: Yeah, and because of that, the figure could be much higher.
T: I see.
E: 2Our next question was... well, we wanted to know what the breakdown of numbers is around the world - you know, how many students go where. But we're not sure how accurate those figures are either.
N: Yeah. 3Even though it's the fastest-growing sector of higher education, some ministries don't include the students at private institutions in their count.
E: Mm, it's quite frustrating. Anyway, um, next we wanted to know where the majority of students come from.
N: This is something that's changing quite rapidly.
T: Well, that would be an interesting point. What's changing?
E: Most people know that the largest group of international students comes from East Asia.
N: 4But what we hadn't realised is that figures for the US have quadrupled over the past 20 years, and a lot more students from Europe are also now studying abroad.
T: Ah-hah.
N: Yeah - we need to look at some more figures there.
E: Lastly, we looked at the countries that students go to -and the trends there.
N: 5Yeah, our question really was about the destinations of international students and whether they're changing.
E: And they are! Countries like China are providing more higher education opportunities for their own students and for students from places like Britain.
N: 6This means that higher education is becoming more ... well, there are high levels of competition.
E: But with that there's also a spirit of exchange - it's not so one-sided any more.
(pause)
T: So you said you'd done some preliminary interviews?
E: Yes - we thought we'd start by talking to some of the international students in our city.
N: Just to help us design the web interviews we plan to do.
T: OK.
E: We wanted to find out if there are common factors that students consider to be important when they choose an overseas course.
N: Obviously, these will vary across the international student population, but we thought some, like cost, might be significant.
E: 7Surprisingly, a lot of students said they left finances to their parents, but they did want to know that their university was a good one.
N: They said they decided about this by talking to friends at home - not by looking at how many degrees or publications the staff had.
E: 8That's right But they were interested in the degrees they were taking and whether when they finished their course they'd get a good job.
T: OK. What else did you ask them about?
N: What sort of incentives they think source countries should offer students - to encourage them to return home after they've graduated.
T: A very interesting question: What did you find?
E: Well, many said that if they chose to get another qualification, they'd stay or move to a third country to do this.
N: Yeah, so there doesn't seem to be much point in offering scholarships to get them to return home to study.
T: 9What about grants for research?
N: 9Post-graduation. that was much more popular. especially if the system let them compete individually for these.
E: And many students were keen to go home and get a job if they could be sure they'd have a good income and lifestyle.
N: 10For example, they felt that the government should perhaps offer tax exemptions so that they could afford to live in a nice area.
T: Some countries have created special work zones for incoming graduates, particularly in the science field.
N: Yeah, and some of these include apartment blocks as well.
E: Mmm. But as many of the students we talked to were Arts students, this didn't seem to appeal to them.
T: OK, well, I think that's a pretty good start, let's just …
