Barriers to international opportunities for UK students must be overcome to ensure more benefit from "enriching" experiences, the former Universities minister told The PIE.

To bring some international students back to onto their campuses, institutions in key destinations are closely following government announcements in order to make decisions and are weighing up available options for quarantining students.

As coronavirus continues to dramatically reshape how higher education systems operate, smaller destinations such as Ireland are setting the bar high for their approach to supporting international students at a time when others have been accused of allowing them to "fall through the cracks".

The Office for Students in the UK has said that the number of students who report mental health issues has "risen substantially".

OECD countries now have more than 3.7 million international students with more than half (56%) coming from Asia, but the vast majority of Asian students only choose five destination countries.

Australia's education minister has called for the university sector to work with the government to create job ready-graduates, announcing a range of measures which have potential follow-on implications for international education.

The favourable conditions that pushed Australia's international education growth may soon evaporate as global players improve their value proposition, with increased competition from other destinations and even traditional source markets.

The government of South Australia has released a strategy which aims to increase the value of the international education industry to AUD$3bn by 2030.