Janet Ilieva, founder of the consultancy Education Insight, said it was “fair to say” that the market is seeing an accelerated diversification of study destinations, as well as a “natural power shift East and South, with regional student hubs gaining much greater prominence”.
China, India and Indonesia dominate as sending markets, she told delegates at the British Council’s Going Global conference last week, accounting for 42% of global tertiary enrolments. But she pointed out that students are increasingly looking for study opportunities beyond the traditional destination markets – the UK, the US, Australia and Canada – known as the big four.
“There are various events that have triggered significantly boosted demand for international education in the rest of the world, but I think Covid has played a significant role in terms of accelerating education to alternative study destinations,” she said.
Leina Shi, director education China at the British Council, said it was her opinion that China is “no longer satisfied from just participating in global education”, with an ambition to start “repositioning global education”.
Shi added that China is increasingly allying itself with ‘belt and road countries’ – a group of 155 countries holding cooperations with China that spans the globe, including Nigeria, Egypt, Greece and Argentina – and diversifying the destinations of where it sets up transnational education partnerships.
There are various events that have triggered significantly boosted demand for international education in the rest of the world, but I think Covid has played a significant role in terms of accelerating education to alternative study destinations
Janet Ilieva, Education Insight
Ilieva pointed out that Vietnam, too, is seeing “a significant shift at the policy level”, and is trying to reposition itself as a student hub in the region.
According to Minh Quach Thi Ngoc, deputy head, division of partnerships and investment, international cooperation department, ministry of education and training, in Vietnam, the country is responding to “the new landscape of international education” by moving beyond its traditional role as a major sending country and towards welcoming more international students to its own institutions.
The government is also welcoming TNE opportunities, she said. “I think the Vietnamese government is using TNE as a tool for encouraging knowledge diplomacy… We are not competing with our neighbours to become the host destination of students and foreign education providers, but we would like to become a partner in that,” she added.
In October 2025, the UK and Vietnam announced a comprehensive strategic partnership, paving the way for closer education cooperation and new transnational education opportunities.
Meanwhile, Ilieva said the number of international students in “new players” Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates is climbing and predicted that future growth in international higher education will come from students from lower-middle income countries.
Jo Johnson, chairman of FutureLearn and former universities minister in the UK, told delegates that emerging destination countries were adopting central government strategies for international education that “are pursued systematically and with great purpose”.
This is in contrast to the big four countries, he said, where policies affecting international education are “subject to a tug of war between competing departments”.
For example, Johnson said the UK has a Foreign Office that sees the sector a “good for the diversity of the learning environment, good for UK soft power”, and a Department for Business and Trade that sees international students as a source of growth in the economy – whereas the Home Office views them “as migration and as presenting issues around border control”.
“The tensions between those departments, which are mirrored across the other big four countries, leads to great policy volatility and a kind of whipsaw effect that is extremely unsettling for the families of potential international students, who therefore look at those markets with a degree of concern and wariness,” he warned.
Andy Westwood, professor of public policy at the University of Manchester, warned delegates that the political hurdles that have affected study destinations around the world were unlikely to change any time soon.
“The geopolitical and geoeconomic environment is increasingly uncertain, but that uncertainty isn’t going to go away,” he said.
“It’s going to be around for a while and I think any university that hopes it’s going to pass is in for quite a rude surprise.”
“For universities in those big four countries, it’s particularly frustrating, because they are in the process of throwing away what is perhaps one of their greatest strategic assets,” said Johnson. “And that’s the ability to attract talent from all around the world to study in their institutions.”
