Higher Education: Overseas Students

(asked on 31st January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to Higher Education Statistics Agency data published on 25 January showing that their International Education Strategy target to increase the number of international higher education students in the UK to 600,000 per year has been met a decade ahead of schedule, what assessment they have made of the level of their global ambitions for the UK education sector.


Answered by
Baroness Barran Portrait
Baroness Barran
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 9th February 2022

As set out in the government’s International Education Strategy, we are committed to growing the value of education exports with two key ambitions to achieve by 2030: increasing education exports to £35 billion per year, and hosting at least 600,000 international higher education students in the UK per year.

We are making good progress against these ambitions. In 2019, total UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity was estimated to be £25.2 billion, an increase of 8.1% since 2018 in current prices. The ambition for international students was met for the first time in the academic year 2020/21 with 605,130 international students studying in the UK.

Promoting and sustaining the growth of education exports and international student numbers remains a priority for this government. We have committed to review progress regularly against the strategy and we will keep the strategy and its ambitions under review.

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