International Education Strategy
- Oliver Lui
- Jun 20, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 21, 2022
The UK government published International Education Strategy (IES): global potential, global growth in March 2019. Led by the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department for International Trade (DIT), it sets a cohesive, cross-government approach supporting global activities for the education sector.
It also set out two targets to achieve by 2030:
increase education exports to £35 billion per year
increase the number of international higher education (HE) students studying in the UK to 600,000 per year
The IES 2021 update: Supporting recovery, driving growth, published in February 2021, re-committed the UK government to achieving the two targets. It made a commitment to work closely with the devolved administrations and the UK education sector to move from recovery to sustainable growth. This update also reported progress in the IES. The 600,000 international students ambition was met for the first time in 2020 to 2021 with 605,130 international students studying in the UK.
A total of 15 action points from the 2019 strategy were closed and an additional 14 new action points were added. These aimed to support the renewal of export growth following disruption caused by the pandemic.
These included:
setting out the priority countries and regions for the International Education Champion: India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Nigeria
working with the UK higher education (HE) sector to enhance international student experience from application to employment
developing a new international teaching qualification, ‘International Qualified Teacher Status’ (iQTS)
increasing export opportunities for UK chartered professional bodies and UK special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) providers
The 2022 update summarises steps the UK government has taken, and outlines progress against the targets and each outstanding action since February 2021. It includes updates on new initiatives to support export growth and increase the number of HE students studying in the UK.
1. International Education Champion - creating greater cross-departmental work and strengthening a coordinated, UK-wide approach to promoting education exports overseas.
2. Graduate route - allowing international students awarded their degrees to stay and work, or look for work, in the UK.
3. Education exports data - defining the scope of education exports and developing a methodology for improving data source.
4. International Qualified Teacher Status (iQTS) - a new international teaching qualification.
5. Turing Scheme – supporting over 41,000 individual mobilities (almost half of them from disadvantaged backgrounds) to over 150 destinations across the 2021 to 2022 academic year.
6. Free trade agreements (FTAs) - understanding export priorities for countries where the UK government is negotiating FTAs.
7. Sustainability and climate change - setting out the UK’s international ambitions and plans.
8. Improving the student journey - Myriad by UCAS, the new dedicated platform for international postgraduate students, launched in February 2022 to provide a fulfilling academic experience for international students studying in the UK.
9. Support for Ukraine - The Department for Education has made over £4 million of additional funding available to universities to distribute to students from Ukraine.
10. Warm Welcome Scholarship Scheme - meeting the needs of different groups with links to Afghanistan in the UK.
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