THE UK STUDENT VISA CUT AND ITS IMPLICATION TO INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION IN THAILAND

Abstract

This paper discusses the flow of international students in higher education to five most popular English-speaking countries i.e. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, the US and also Thailand which is included as a typical ASEAN source as well as destination of international students. The possible effects of the new UK student visa rule, aiming to reduce student visa by 25% starting April 2011 are studied. A source-destination student flow model is developed based on secondary data to explain the extent of the change in student enrolment in higher education due to the UK student visa reduction. A questionnaire interview was carried out on stakeholders in student flow from Thailand to the UK including education service agents, higher education institutes representatives from the UK, and prospective Thai students seeking for education in the UK. These stakeholders felt neutral about the overpopulation of international students in the UK and the need to reduce the number of student visa. They, however, realized that the student visa cut was inevitable and they have to find strategies to co33.3pe with this visa cut. The majority of 66.7% of the education service agents will maintain the present level of effort in recruiting Thai students for the UK while 33.3% adopt the wait and see attitude and none will “increase the effort†in student recruitment for the UK. 50% of the higher education institutes in the UK consider both the “maintain the present effort†while another 50% adopt a “wait and see†policy and none will “increase the effort†for student recruitment. As for the prospective students, the majority of 83.3% adopt a “look elsewhere†for education destinations while a minority of 16.7% will “maintain the present effort†in trying to find a seat in the higher education institutes in the UK, and none will “increase the effort†in trying to get education in the UK. Most of the stakeholders agree that there is an opportunity for the growth of international education in Thailand which can accept students from ASEAN countries. However, the improvement of quality and the reduction of cost may need to be considered. The problem of low English skills in Thai students seems to be a major obstacle to international education in Thailand which uses English as the international language. The problem about low English skills of Thai students needs to be solved.