The five countries of India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Vietnam were named as UK priority regions in the UK 2019 international education strategy as they had shown a significant potential for growth. However, out of the five, two priority regions in the UK international education strategy reflected a decline in the number of international students in the academic year of 2021-2022.

According to new data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, UK, also known as HESA, there was a decline in the number of international students from Saudi Arabia and Vietnam regions who enrolled in the UK in the academic year 2021-2022 than in the previous academic years.

Steve Smith, the champion of international education has focused on the priority regions by addressing the market barriers, diversification of recruitments, and increasing education exports. Mr. Smith’s efforts of facilitating higher education in the regions of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia in a recent couple of years have witnessed an impressive growth of 18% with numbers increasing by 555 students respectively.

The University of Hertfordshire was the top recruiter who enrolled 5,825 Indian students the last year and crossed 1000 students in the current academic year. The data revealed a steady rise in the UK priority regions of India and Nigeria. The student numbers from Nigeria doubled from 21,305 in the last year rising to 44,195 in 2021-2022. The number of international students from India increased from 84,555 to 1,26,535 this year.

Chinese students perceiving postgraduate courses in the UK steadily increased from 5,000 to 88,755, on the other hand, the number of Indian students at the same level surged from 40,000 to 101,765 surpassing the Chinese students.