In recent years, more and more South Asian students have shown their willingness to study abroad. For most of them, the global north remains a favored destination. Professor Nawshaba Ahmed explores the reasons behind this.
Job and PR opportunities:
According to some studies, even with the uncertainties of Covid-19 students’ interest in studying overseas remains strong as planned (Global Reach, 2020). If analyzed, the trend to study and immigrate abroad can tell us so much about the Global South and the neoliberal global economy; a complex set of reasons that work in tandem to influence such choices. The obvious reason are such as getting a competitive edge at the job to have the possibilities to become an immigrant, in the long run.
Quality Education:
South Asian students turn to western institutions looking for a quality education that their home institutions often fail to provide. Politics and corruption in higher education, unfair recruitments, lack of professionalism from the teachers, and lack of resources are some of the reasons that have long plagued the higher education systems in South Asia. Families are willing to pay much higher tuition to ensure their children get a good education, even if this means that a heavy burden falls on them.
Oppression and racism:
Furthermore, students who have experienced oppression based on class, gender, religion, or sexuality in their native countries perceive migration to the West—that supposedly upholds the values of equality, liberty, and inclusivity—as an escape from the systemic oppression.
Ironically, racialized students often experience racism, microaggression, and disadvantage in the western countries that they wanted to evade in the first place. For the racialized students who lack an ethnocultural connection, the experience of the embodied navigation in the white institutions can come off as a rather slow but rude awakening.
Exposure of Western culture:
There is another side to this story that we must also consider: the historical and contemporary impact of Western thought and methods on Asian education can have long-term effects on its societies as well. This can very well mean that the students’ outlook on their home country and culture can be significantly altered.
So, whether from a developmental or economic sense or from a philosophical standpoint, the east to west migratory routes (as opposed to the historical west to east colonial migrations) can have many consequences for all. So, it is high time that the South Asian countries start looking for ways to address the concerns over the quality of education.
Nawshaba Ahmed is a Faculty at BRAC University.
