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Parents around the world are looking for the best way to educate their children and broaden their horizons. For some families, this includes looking outside of their home countries to colleges and universities abroad. The costs can be challenging, but for many families, making those sacrifices is critical to what they believe is their children’s future success and their communities.
For instance, more impoverished communities worldwide are looking for options to bring skills and knowledge into their area. They believe that educating their children, especially abroad, will bring skills and knowledge back to their hometowns, and the whole community will benefit. Why go abroad? There are so many benefits, including jumpstarting a career in your home country or the global marketplace, plus the experience of a different educational system from the one in which you grew up. The world has become a global village. Cross-cultural communication and international learning opportunities put students into the position of taking on leadership roles far beyond what you might have dreamed.
The old, established learning methods are no longer adequate to meet the international business community’s needs. Three main drivers are challenging educational institutions today: globalization, mobility of the population and demographic shifts, and the technology revolution. In both developed and developing countries, economies are looking for leaders with globalized knowledge skills, such as cross-culture interpersonal skills, creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, rather than those repetitive, focused skills of the past economies.
There is tremendous pressure on existing institutions, which cannot cope with the demands for education. In South Africa, for instance, there are ongoing shortages of openings in the universities. That shortage was highlighted in 2012 when prospective university applicants stampeded the University of Johannesburg’s gates. One applicant’s mother was killed, and dozens more were injured. The incident occurred during a late application period, highlighting the restricted access to higher education. Nearly 11,000 applicants arrived to vie for a limited number of available spots, just 800 to be precise.
To ensure their application was received, individuals camped out in line. For students in developed countries worldwide, higher education is not seen as a privilege but a right. Yet for countries whose higher education institutions are overwhelmed by demand, their whole educational system feels on the verge of collapse. South Africa’s universities often have double the applicants for the seats available, while vocational schools find themselves with vacancies. Families see a university education as a means to give their children an advantage, providing opportunities to climb the ladder out of poverty. The country also faces the challenge of increasing the number of educational opportunities for its black majority population, many of whom see little material change in their lives, despite apartheid coming to an end.
South Africa’s public education system also deals with multiple challenges and often fails to produce literate, skilled citizens consistently. With the high unemployment rates among young South Africans, the university is seen a
