Overall, more than half of international students come from Asia, and traditionally, about 25% come from Europe. Of the Asian students studying in Europe, the majority are enrolled in the United Kingdom. As for the national composition of international students at British universities, according to data from The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the top five spots are held by students from China, the EU, Asia, and North America. Australia is one of the leading countries in the international education market and has been making significant efforts over the past decade to consolidate and expand its position. One of the distinctive features of this country’s education policy is “a significantly higher percentage of students enrolled in undergraduate programs rather than graduate programs, as is the case in the United States and the United Kingdom.” China’s role in the development of international student flows is gaining significance in the global market. China is currently the largest source of international students, a trend driven by government policy, the value of a degree in the Chinese labor market, and rising prosperity. Most Chinese students pursue their education in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Japan. In turn, China has also actively begun implementing a strategy to attract international students to its universities, setting a goal of attracting approximately 500,000 international students by 2020.
Among the current trends in the development of international education, the formation of regional markets for educational services stands out. Recently, countries in Southeast Asia have been increasingly joining forces in the fields of education and science, including through the creation of research clusters. The first three clusters will specialize in health care and medicine; Singapore and Thailand will serve as coordinators for these clusters. Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam will serve as the coordinating countries for two additional clusters (agriculture and the food industry); the Philippines and Indonesia will coordinate the clusters in the fields of energy and biological research.
According to experts, a significant increase in the number of international students is expected in the long term in the countries mentioned above. Ukraine is gradually becoming more attractive to foreign students, but its position in the international higher education market remains relatively low-profile. As of 2017, there were 64,066 international students from 147 countries studying in Ukraine. The main countries of origin for international students in Ukraine are: Azerbaijan (14.5%), India (12.1%), Turkmenistan (10.2%), and Morocco (7.2%). Positive trends include: a gradual decrease in the percentage of international students from post-Soviet countries (38.7%) compared to those from other countries (61.3%); an increase in the number of international students studying in Ukrainian; an increase in the number of English-language educational programs. The development of the educational services market necessitates the creation of marketing mechanisms.
In the context of competition among higher education institutions, the lack of effective marketing of educational services leads to a weakening of a university’s competitive advantages in favor of institutions that actively implement strategies to promote their educational services to the market. Consequently, Ukrainian higher education cannot remain on the sidelines of internationalization. In response to global challenges, universities are compelled to seek opportunities for international development and to incorporate internationalization into their development strategies. The need to advance internationalization is driven by various factors, including the need to expand access to sources of cutting-edge knowledge, new opportunities for building partnerships and developing intercultural communication skills, as well as strengthening civil society, training professionals prepared to work in a globalized world, and enhancing the reputation of higher education institutions, among other things.