Wales and the world: The value of international students and global outreach

Gwen Williams

It was Nelson Mandela who suggested that ‘Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world’. But what does our approach to international education in Wales tell us about our values as a nation and our readiness to engage with the world?

The power of international education shouldn’t be underestimated. It benefits the individual, enriches campuses and communities and generates a future workforce that is outward-looking and globally connected. It is both economically savvy – generating £1.26 billion in export impact for Wales – and speaks to our values as an open, welcoming and diverse nation.

To date, Wales has a strong reputation in this area. Over the past ten years, through the Global Wales programme, the sector has worked collaboratively, with government support, to grow international partnerships and promote our institutions globally. The Welsh Government’s investment in both Global Wales and Taith, Wales’ international mobility scheme, has not gone unnoticed internationally and is the envy of other parts of the UK.

With the establishment of Medr, Wales’s new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, comes an opportunity to set out a vision for the post-16 education sector into the future. To support this, the Welsh Government has placed eleven strategic duties on Medr – from promoting equality of opportunity and lifelong learning, to promoting research and innovation, contributing to a sustainable and innovative economy, and promoting Welsh medium education.

In setting Medr a strategic duty to promote a global outlook, ministers understood the fundamental role of tertiary education in developing global citizens, tackling global challenges, and boosting the economy.

Our universities and colleges do this in a myriad of ways:
• International students, staff and researchers bring the best of the world to our campuses and communities, internationalising the experience of students, the wider institution and local area.
• The opportunities offered to students and staff to study and/or work overseas are invaluable to students long after they graduate and instil a global outlook in the teaching of participating staff.
• Education partnerships between Welsh institutions and their counterparts internationally generate opportunities for joint teaching and other innovative models of delivery, internationalising the curriculum and enhancing the quality of provision.
• International collaboration generates impactful research, increasing the reputation and global standing of our institutions.

The ability of colleges and universities to continue providing these opportunities, however, should not be taken for granted.

Immigration

Political pressure around immigration poses a challenge. While temporary migrants, including international students, remain within the UK’s net migration statistics, any moves to create a UK-wide system that is more welcoming to international students will be hard fought.

Meanwhile, global competition for international students is intensifying and countries across the world – from Education Ireland to Study in Scotland, Study in Japan to Education New Zealand – are developing ever more sophisticated national brands along with targeted campaigns, events and initiatives to attract international students. The significant drop in international students choosing to study in Wales – and the wider UK – this year should be understood in this context.

Public debate has also largely focused on international students, their status as migrants and financial contribution to a university funding model under stress. While it’s true that universities have had to recruit more internationally to mitigate the decrease in value of the domestic tuition fee, what gets lost is that institutions place a high value on international students for their educational and cultural contribution. Put differently, under a different funding model, international student recruitment may be done differently, but maintaining an internationally diverse student body is fundamental to the ethos and civic mission of our institutions.

With limited access to EU programmes and constrained national budgets further impacting on the capacity of institutions to internationalise, what might Medr’s role be in shaping and supporting this agenda into the future? What policy changes are required at a Wales and/or UK level? And how might institutions’ international strategies need to evolve?

In March 2025, Universities Wales – in consultation with universities and colleges – will launch a report, funded by Medr, setting out its recommendations for a future approach to international education and research. The report will draw on advice from a purposefully established expert panel, comprised of leaders in international education and research from Wales, the UK and beyond.

With the world changing at a rapid pace, what is clear is that the role of education providers to look outwards to the wider world has never been more important. Fundamentally, it’s about our values – the open, welcoming, tolerant and dynamic country we want to be and the institutions and citizens supporting that.

Gwen Williams
is Assistant Director at Universities Wales