Portuguese Institutions’ Strategies and Challenges to Attract International Students

Abstract

Public institutions in Portugal have not invested in strategies to attract international students until recently, when the adoption of new legislation and a national strategy for internationalization created more appealing conditions for it. This article aims to study the strategies institutions employ to recruit international students in a country less attractive than the major receiving countries and the main challenges they encounter. The study draws on interviews with top and middle managers in two public universities. The findings identify three types of strategies: institutional branding, revision of admission procedures, and curricular adjustments. The main challenges are the creation of institutional structures with an exclusive remit for international students and the choice of teaching language, despite a prevailing opinion that the Portuguese language should be maintained as a competitive advantage.

‘There was no freedom to leave’: Global South international students in Portugal during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…A number of common experiences emerged. From a positive point of view, we could argue that their experience of moving to Portugal and integrating into Portuguese society was ‘easier’ due to shared language and some level of cultural familiarity, to the extent that host institutions tended to overlook their needs as international students ( Ambrósio et al, 2017 ; see also Neto, 2021 ; Santos, 2020 ; Sin et al, 2019 ). Being more circumspect, we also observed that students from the former Portuguese African colonies were highly dependent on programmes created by the government of Portugal or home country administrations, with systematic problems reported about the late payment of scholarships, with waits of up to four months after the start of exchanges, and grants being pegged at levels insufficient to cover basic living cost (see also Ambrósio et al, 2017 ; Doutor and Alves, 2020).…”

Students from Portuguese Speaking African Countries in Portuguese Higher Education

“…Also, common language plays a key role in choosing the country destination. As demonstrated in the previous literature, students with proficiency in the host country's language have a better experience (Sin & Tavares, 2019;Wilks & Neto, 2016). However, the issue of language deserves more attention.…”

“…Portuguese HEIs have clearly assumed the idea of a "Lusophone space", and cooperation with these countries represents a strategy that strongly reinforces the internationalization of Portuguese HEI. Indeed, the Statute maintains a special regime for students from the PALOP countries, offering scholarships in order to preserve the privileged relationship with these countries (Sin, Tavares & Cardoso, 2019). Recently, Angola and Cape Verde have represented key players for the Portuguese HE system, being respectively the second and third most frequent countries of origin of students in full-degree mobility (DGEEC, 2021).…”

“…On the other hand, Portuguese is not their first language, although it is the official one. This may negatively impact their self-efficacy, affecting their academic success and even their social integration into the host society (Sin & Tavares, 2019;Wilks & Neto, 2016).…”

More students and more diverse: new trends in international mobility to Portugal

“…The recruitment of full-degree international students has become important for Portuguese higher education institutions over the last decade (Guerreiro, 2015 ; Sin et al, 2019b ). Several developments – demographic, economic and political – have contributed to this: pessimistic demographic projections and a declining pool of national candidates (Dias et al, 2013 ); public funding cuts for higher education following the 2009 economic crisis; the Strategy for the internationalization of Portuguese higher education (MADR/MEC, 2014 ) which made international recruitment a priority; and the Statute of the International Student, a decree-law from 2014, according to which public institutions can charge higher fees for international students (except those from EU countries).…”