Travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic did not stem the flow of international student mobility, according to the “surprising” findings of a new report.
This was despite the “significant” fall in international student numbers to Australia and New Zealand, which an expert said might have benefited the UK as a result.
The annual Education at a Glance report, published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said most of the 38 OECD member countries closed their national borders during the pandemic in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.
“A lot of people, me included, expected to see relatively strong declines in the number of international students, but that is something that we do not see,” Abel Schumann, lead author of the report and senior programme manager at the OECD, told Times Higher Education.
