Adverse articulation: Third countries in China–Australia student migration during COVID-19

Bostancı

et al. 2021

HEED

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and international student mobility from an alternative perspective and to reveal descriptive findings.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows qualitative research methodology. In accordance with the purpose of the study, the data were collected by the literature review and then it was analyzed by the descriptive analysis method. The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on international student mobility and the relationships between these variables are explained by tables and classifications.FindingsAccording to the findings obtained, the restrictions in physical student mobility and shutdown are observed as the biggest challenges that occurred in higher education during the COVID-19. On a global scope, international student mobility has experienced a major break. Physical campus life is still on standby. Online higher education does not give any campus life as before. Students cannot benefit form city's or country's facilities when studying online at home country. The collaboration between university and business has been declined and this is even more discouraging for international students. The hybrid education model produced an intermediate solution in this period. On the other hand, the rise of online education has created new techniques for higher education. University students who cannot go abroad attend different countries lectures and education programs. But also a new challenge has come as the access of online platforms in under developing countries university students. Online education system also discussed in terms of creating inequality in higher education.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focused on student mobility and not focused about academic mobility.Practical implicationsIt is seen that the traditional higher education system has been adapted into online distance higher education system since COVID-19 crises began globally. On the other side, it is observed that most of studies have focused the effect of COVID-19 on university students based on the transition to online education. When considering the effect of pandemic process on the mobility of international students and higher education, the authors can suggest policy makers to develop new higher education protocols and teaching models supporting key issues (economic, social, health, education and equalization) in the long-term. Higher education institutes have been able to produce creative and innovative solutions for both education and communication during the pandemic process.Social implicationsUniversity students who cannot go abroad attend different countries lectures and education programs. But also a new challenge has come as the access of online platforms in under developing countries university students. Online education system also discussed in terms of creating inequality in higher education.Originality/valueThis study provides a new perspective for international student mobility in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. This is an emerging issue for the literature. This study is original with its approach to the subject from a global perspective through reviewing the studies of different countries. This study points out key variables for determining the effect of COVID-19 on international student mobility for future studies. When employing quantitative research models, the current key variables can guide them.

Section: The Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study determines that the mobility can cause some risks, but responses to the risks are varied based on prohibitions. Haugen and Lehmann (2020) examined what kinds of implications supported Chinese students for education and traveling issues.…”

Section: The Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking mobility of international university students during COVID-19 pandemic

Bostancı

et al. 2021

HEED

Progress in Human Geography

“…A focus on platform migration, however, draws attention to both the entrenched mechanisms that support and sustain migration as well as their significance in responding to the pandemic's impact on movement. While I take up these issues in greater detail in a subsequent report, it is worth noting at this juncture that many government responses to Covid-19 actually draw on existing migration industries and infrastructures (IOM, 2020), and in some cases, such infrastructures have provided the foundation for migrants to navigate border closures (Haugen and Lehmann, 2020). Rather than being undermined by border closure and travel suspension, migration platforms are what make such actions feasible while laying the groundwork for their negotiation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies of migration I: Platform migration

Collins

2020

This first report on research about the geographies of migration examines the sociotechnical platforms that enable migration and shape its outcomes. I begin by examining two areas of recent inquiry that analyse (1) commercial actors that form migration industries and (2) the broader infrastructures that underpin and direct migration. To elaborate on these insights, I also discuss observations of multinational (stepwise) migration as grounded evidence for the importance of sociotechnical systems in understanding the geographies of migration. Addressing platform migration reconfigures the spatialities and temporalities of migration, highlighting the diverse and distributed actors, networks and institutions generating, directing and constraining movement in the world.

“…Restrictions on travel to and from or through China in early February produced significant disruptions. An estimated 106,680 of Australia's new and continuing Chinese students, many celebrating the Lunar New Year with their families, were forced to make alternative plans, with many calling on the services of education and migration agents to make use of third countries as clearing houses (Haugen & Lehmann, 2020). Approximately one third succeeded in returning to Australia only to find campuses in lockdown shortly afterwards.…”

Section: Digital Infrastructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

International student mobilities in a contagion: (Im)mobilising higher education?

Sidhu

Cheng

Collins

et al. 2021

Geographical Research

This article reflects on the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on international student mobilities and higher education systems. Celebrated as a 'success' story of a mutually beneficial globalisation, international higher education as we have known it is unravelling and reassembling. We offer an overview of the material changes and public discourses that are reframing student mobilities and higher education from three Anglophone positions involving Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand. The authors interrogate the amplified role of digital infrastructures in remaking international higher education, through border management practices and digital learning strategies. We outline changes at the urban scale that are starting to take hold from the stasis in student mobilities. We also speculate on emerging modalities of international higher education and their accompanying economies of opportunities and vulnerabilities. Our reflections take seriously calls to understand the wide-reaching implications of an invisible, border-crossing microbe, and interrupt the impulse to resurrect what came before the pandemic. It is in this spirit of thoughtful reflection to stop rebuilding 'more of the same' that we interrogate novel border rationalities and market making, which are being called on in work to govern space-time and subjects in a fragile post-COVID world.