- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 5 2006 23.58 BST
It was a milestone that went largely uncelebrated - but it won't have come as a surprise to those who witnessed the growth in the number of overseas students on UK taught masters programmes in the past few years. In 2004-05, for the first time, more than three in 10 postgraduates at UK universities - some 165,000 out of 532,000 - came from outside the UK.
Half a decade of international recruitment by British universities has reaped rewards, fuelled by extraordinary demand for postgraduate education from India, China and countries in south-east Asia.
But there are signs that the rise is slowing. The number of overseas postgraduates in Britain, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa), was up 6% between 2003-04 and 2004-05, compared with 12% the year before and 18% the year before that. And, with more than half of the overseas students in the UK doing postgraduate degrees, that slowdown is of serious concern to British uni- versities.
"Postgrads are the heart of the market," says Dominic Scott, the chief executive of Ukcosa, which aims to ensure a high quality educational experience for international students. He has spent the past few years campaigning to create a welcoming climate. The recent angst over Britain's immigration system, he says, coupled with sharp rises in the cost of visas to study and remain in the UK, created a "bad story" that will have had an effect in key markets abroad.
Scott hopes the new, points-based immigration system will bring much-needed transparency and simplicity, and is delighted to see the one-year visa extension for international postgraduates, a measure that will allow them time to prove themselves in the job market.
"That was the big obstacle," he says. "We were bringing in large numbers and then telling them to go home. We've now found ways of enabling them to stay on. What we still need to do is to convince UK employers that there is a wonderful pool of expert global labour on their doorsteps."
Other factors, such as the strength of the pound and the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, have played a part. But the real threat, says Steve Berridge, director of the international education office at the University of Westminster (one of the most successful universities in the country at attracting students from abroad), is competition from other education providers around the world.
In traditionally strong Asian markets, such as Singapore and Malaysia, there has been a slight decline in the number of postgraduates coming to the UK, says Christine Bateman, director of Education UK Marketing for the British Council. Countries that were once consumers are becoming regional exporters of education, attracting their own overseas students.
European countries are becoming more serious competitors in the all-important anglophone market. "In France, Germany, Holland and Belgium, you've got postgraduate courses being marketed globally in English," says Scott. The US, meanwhile, has taken steps to make its visa rules more attractive to overseas students.
Bateman says the growth in students coming here to take second degrees from major markets such as India and China has held steady. But more students from India and China are studying for undergraduate degrees in their own countries.
A shift towards demand for postgraduate courses, particularly from developing countries, is understandable when you look at the economics, says Berridge. "It tends to be the wealthy who can afford to send their kids [to Britain] to do undergraduate degrees," he says. "You're looking at three or four years in the UK, and you're not going to get much change from £60,000, with expenses.
"On the taught masters side, it's a one-year course. It's still a lot of money, but it's a little more attainable for professionals who can come and get specific skills."
But with so much competition, Britain has a lot to do. Where the 1999-2004 "prime minister's initiative" simply set targets of increasing the numbers of overseas students in the UK, the second phase focuses as much on developing overseas relationships, and ensuring students in the UK have the best possible experience. That means developing support services for the influx of students to our shores.
"You can't just promise the earth, you've got to deliver the earth," says Scott. "Students are blogging and chatting on phones from the first five minutes of their arrival. Messages are getting around the world." Support is important not only for students, but for their families, particularly those of PhD students. "PhD students don't arrive on the first of October, they arrive all through the year. If they have families, they don't have time to go to the pub with everybody else. So there needs to be special support for people who are making a massive investment of three or four years in the country."
Joy al-Dieb is a full-time coordinator for the postgraduate union at Bristol University. She says Bristol has introduced kosher, halal and Asian food in its university shop, and set up a multi-faith chaplaincy. But universities can do more, she says, especially when it comes to money.
"Cost of living figures should be accurate and updated yearly," she says, "because they can cause a lot of problems. Universities must understand that sponsors and governments look at these figures and they take them verbatim - and that's what students get to live on. And if they're not accurate, and it's not possible to survive on the money, it causes a lot of misery."
Universities such as Westminster have "internationalised" their range of taught degrees, offering subjects such as international journalism, international business and international law, while more universities are launching overseas branches, such as the University of Nottingham's campus in China.
According to the British Council, overseas postgraduates paid £1.2bn in fees to UK universities in 2003-04, of which just over £1bn was from non-EU students. But the benefit to the UK economy could be much greater than that.
"There's a huge quota of international students studying research degrees in the UK," says Colin Beaver of Education UK Marketing. "That contributes immensely to our knowledge economy, and helps us sustain courses that might not otherwise be available. But there are other benefits as well, in terms of how they internationalise campuses and communities. Their impact and value is immeasurable."
