Thousand of international students may be shunning the US, UK and Commonwealth countries in favour of continental Europe, where a growing number of courses are being offered in English. A total of 6,407 taught Masters programmes in the language were offered in continental Europe in June this year — a 38 percent rise on the 4,644 courses available just 18 months earlier, according to a report by the Institute of International Education, a New York-based not-for-profit.
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That total was ten times higher than the overall number offered in 2002, says the report, titled English-Taught Master’s Programs in Europe: A 2013 Update. The study is based on course listings from the Study Portals website, which provides information from 1,200 public and private universities in mainland Europe. Programmes in English account for almost a third of the 21,000 Masters courses advertised on the site in continental Europe, the report indicates.
The increased selection of continental Masters programmes in English may explain why applicants visiting Study Portals are becoming less likely to search for courses in the UK, the report suggests. The UK’s share of page views fell from 31 percent in 2011 to 24 percent in 2013, while Germany’s share rose from 14 percent to 18 percent over the same period.
Interest in courses in Sweden and France also increased. In this context it’s pertinent to note that tuition fees in European universities tend to be substantially lower than in the UK. “Interest in the UK from potential Masters students is still strong and it is growing, but it is not growing as fast as interest in other countries,” says Elias Faethe, head of Study Portals’ intelligence unit, who co-authored the report. “If you look at the main competitor countries to the UK in Europe, they are all pushing forward their efforts to attract high-quality international students, and English-taught courses are a way to do this.”
Several Scandinavian countries appear to have switched almost all their postgraduate teaching to English. Some 708 Masters courses in Sweden were taught in the language this year — an increase of 73 percent on 2011 figures and more than four times the number offered in 2007.
The Netherlands provides the highest number of English-taught Masters degrees on the continent, with 946 available compared with 386 six years ago. Meanwhile, Germany has 733 Masters programmes taught in the tongue this year — up from just 88 in 2007. In France, where a law banning teaching in anything but French is loosely enforced, the number of Masters courses available in English has soared from just 11 in 2007 to 494 this year.
With Asian countries such as China and Hong Kong also offering courses in English, the UK may struggle to attract the same number of international postgraduates, especially given the government’s decision last year to shut down the post-study work visa route, says Daniel Stevens, international students officer at the National Union of Students. “The traditional destinations to study in English, such as the US, UK and Australia, are no longer a given. Other countries are realising the benefits of attracting international students and, crucially, their governments are behind them, offering visas that include the chance of working afterwards,” says Stevens.
(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)