Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the market share UK universities hold for students studying abroad from (a) Nigeria, (b) Malaysia and (c) Saudi Arabia.

The government fully recognises the important contribution that international students make to the UK’s higher education sector, both economically and culturally. Global data on international student destinations is not available in the format requested. However, it is available at the tertiary education level from The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the following link: http://uis.unesco.org/en/uis-student-flow. The link also includes further information on what types of education are included in the definition of tertiary education.

This data shows that in terms of overall market share of overseas students studying tertiary level courses, the UK continues to attract the second highest numbers of overseas students (EU and non-EU) after the USA. For students from Nigeria and Malaysia the UK is the most popular destination and for students from Saudi Arabia it is the second most population destination.