The new paradigm of an “International Student”
In line with the OECD´s definition of an International student AKA foreign students ‘an international student is a person who received their prior education in another country and is not resident of his/her current country of study.” In 2017 there have been over 5 million international students compared to 2 million in 2000.
By 2017 the North America, Britain, and Australia received forty percent of students from abroad ” The USA counted over a million and two hundred students in 2018. Australia had nearly 1 million three hundred in 2017. There were over 640 thousand in Canada in 2019 and there were half million foreign students during the 2019/20 academic year in the UK National definitions.
The definition of “foreign student” and “international student” varies from country to country in accordance to their own national education system.
In the United States of America International students are “Individuals living within the US on a non-immigrant temporary student visa that allows only to study at a post-secondary level; Immigrants who are permanent residents, citizens, resident aliens and refugees are excluded from this definition”.
In Europe students from countries who are part of the European Community can participate in the Erasmus program, which allows students from the EU to study in other countries with government funding.
Canada defines international students as “..temporary residents with approval to study in Canada by an immigration officer ” This approval would determine the level of study and duration of the stay authorized to the student in Canada. Many International students do not need a student visa for
courses that are shorter than six months if they will finish the course before the six-month visa authorization they usually provide to foreign visitors.
In Australia an international student is basically “Any individual with a student visa taking a course in a Australian institution that has been registered to teach”. New Zealand´s students are not included in the statistics as they do not require a student visa “.
In Japan the definition is “A student from another country who is enrolled at any Japanese university, professional training institution, or university preparatory course and who is currently living in Japan with a “student’ visa status.”
This is important to know before applying to any Institution as depending on the destination country and your immigrant status you would have opportunities to apply or not directly to the Schools, to participate or not in National Calls, to have resident enrollment fees or not, or even to enroll or not in public institutions.