Africa on the move: Top countries with outbound mobility
Many universities focus largely on the biggest markets of international students, namely India and China, but in reality, other countries are also worth investing in for student recruitment. In general, African countries show growth and potential to become bigger markets for different destination countries that could keep developing over the coming years. Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, and Ethiopia specifically indicate future potential as they exhibit the highest growing student interest, in addition to being among the top 10 in the continent with the highest outbound enrolment rates.
Although Nigeria has been hit with economic challenges, Nigerian students still make up 30% of total African enrolments worldwide, followed by Ghana and Egypt. This also aligns with UNESCO data related to student mobility from these countries. According to UNESCO, Nigeria has been in decline but still sends the highest number of students abroad, while other African countries have displayed increased volumes of outbound students, with Egypt indicating a growth of almost 16% from 2017-2019.
When looking deeper into the UNESCO data, it is apparent that the top African countries mostly go to North American and Western European institutions for their studies. Moreover, Moroccans are also inclined to go to Central and Eastern Europe, while Egyptians are keen to study in neighboring Arab countries as well.
Even with enrolment data provided, some institutions may wonder about these countries’ expense capabilities. The figure below shows that the majority of the top African countries are predicted to have an increase in their average household income in the coming 4 years, namely Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. It is also worth noting that Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria are expected to see an increase in their average income, bringing them into the middle-income bracket. On the other hand, South Africa and Nigeria will face economic issues which could affect their application rates. With that, it is good to note that currently, there are over 2,000 scholarships offered worldwide to countries specifically from Africa which could help alleviate students’ challenges in tuition costs.
“Africa is the next frontier of international education. The continent is home to a large pool of talented, aspirational, and upwardly mobile students who are increasingly seeking a world-class education abroad. Historically, these students have faced significant hurdles in financing their education. However, thanks to innovative lenders like MPOWER Financing, more students from Africa and around the world can now pursue their educational dreams. Remarkably, 93% of MPOWER’s students say that its financing was imperative to their ability to study abroad.” Lisa Kaplan Vice President of Products, MPOWER Financing
When comparing the countries in terms of population, Nigeria, Egypt, and Ethiopia will remain the top sources of tertiary-aged students, specifically the age bracket of 15-19 years. Depending on their youth’s educational attainment, such markets could prove to be sustainable in higher education. While most of the selected countries will see a growth in this age bracket, Morocco and Tunisia show a much slower rate of that increase in contrast to their neighbouring countries such as Algeria and Egypt.
The chart below provides an overview of relative African student demand for programmes based on their tuition costs. The bars indicate the relative demand, varying from blue to indicate high demand to orange which represents low demand. The black lines represent the relative supply of programmes offered in each cost bracket. As such, lower tuition fees are more desirable and in demand. It is also good to note that tuition fees greater than 25K euros indicate oversaturation in supply. However, it is important to take into consideration that while students will usually want to pay less for their degrees, the high demand towards North America and Europe suggests that they also have other priorities that would motivate them to seek programmes with higher costs.
Case Studies: Comparing top African source countries
Since Nigeria and Ghana are two neighbouring countries with the top 2 highest enrolment rates from Africa, it is interesting to point out some differences between them that could be otherwise missed. For example, while they both have similar destination patterns, including the UK, the US, Canada, and Ireland, it is interesting to note the difference in tuition fees that they pay. From Nigeria, students have most likely enrolled in programmes with tuition fees of up to 60K euros. Students from Ghana show different ranges of tuition fees that they have paid during their study, starting from up to €10K, €70K, or €100K+.
Such a variety shows that the Ghanaian market is more diverse than it may seem, which universities should be aware of. It is also apparent that Ghana is more likely to go to the US, highlighting their readiness to pay larger tuition fees. Moreover, it is crucial to note that since interest from these two countries towards the UK has been significantly decreasing, mainly due to recent policy changes, other countries such as the US and Canada could benefit from knowing more about their enrolment behaviour to understand how to attract them towards their countries in the near future.
Not only are Morocco and Tunisia neighboring countries in North Africa, but they also both have a particular interest in enrolling in French universities, a trend influenced by the historical context of the French colonial era in the region. The following charts look at the difference between both countries’ enrolment behavior, specifically towards France.
In France, Tunisian students mostly enrol in universities with programmes that are priced up to €10K. Moroccans, on the other hand, are willing to go up to €20K as well. This is particularly important as Tunisia currently shows an increasing interest in other countries such as Italy; one reason behind this can be the recent policies introduced to increase Tunisian representation in the workforce. Seeing that they are more likely to choose cheaper programmes, France may be at risk of losing more students to other cheaper destination countries.
In general, even though such African countries show student potential, there are currently not enough efforts to capitalize on that interest to increase their enrolment rates. For example, a recent ICEF articlehighlights how visa denial for students coming from African countries to the US has been relatively high, with denial rates ranging between 48% to 71% increase across the different African regions. In other words, the US has not been developing its visa processing to meet the exponential growth of demand that it is receiving from these countries. This is only one example of how destination countries of interest may fail to acknowledge African countries as important source markets for student recruitment. With the data presented and further research, institutions could benefit from diversifying their target groups and seek ways to grab that interest from African countries towards their programmes.