Internationalisation and the lived experiences of Non-South African postgraduate students in accessing higher education in South Africa
Abstract
The internationalisation of higher education has resulted in an increase in student mobility from countries of their origin to experience a different kind of education elsewhere. South Africa absorbs most international students within Africa. According to Chasi and Quinlan (2021, 209) the Council for Higher Education reported that 6.5 per cent of the total number of enrolments in universities in South Africa are international students, which is a significant proportion of the student body. The success of these students contributes to raising the profile of South African universities as far as rankings are concerned as well as generating revenue for the institutions. This article explores the lived experiences of postgraduate international students at a university in South Africa. The aim of the article is to identify the opportunities and constraints that students experience, coming from outside South Africa to pursue postgraduate studies. Using Sen’s capability approach, the article endeavoured to unveil conversion factors that international students encounter while studying for their postgraduate programmes. A qualitative approach was employed to generate data through interviews with students who had completed their postgraduate studies. The findings revealed the capability to study as a “doing” that mattered to the students with the intention of ultimately attaining their postgraduate qualifications. Experiences along the way included both enabling and constraining factors such as immigration, cultural adjustments, supervision and institutional factors. There is a compelling need to revisit the processes of admission and immigration regarding international students aimed at benefiting both students and institutions.
Downloads
References
Abd Rahman, Nur Hayati, Shafinar Ismail, Abdul Rahim Ridzuan, and Khairunnisa Abd Samad. 2020. “The issue of graduate unemployment in Malaysia: Post Covid-19.” International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences 10(10): 834‒841.
Adeoye, Blessing F., Blessing E. Anyikwa, and Deneca W. Avant. 2012. “Teachers and students perceptions of internationalisation of higher education in Nigeria.” European Scientific Journal 8(19).
Ammigan, Ravichandran. 2019. “Institutional satisfaction and recommendation: What really matters to international students.” Journal of International Students 9(1): 262‒281.
Austin, Zubin, and Jane Sutton. 2014. “Qualitative research: Getting started.” The Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy 67(6): 436‒437.
Biyela, Kwazikwenkosi Colinah. 2019. “Experiences and challenges of international migrant students: at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.” PhD dissertation. (Howard College).
Calderon, Angel. 2018. “Chapter 11. The geopolitics of higher education: Pursuing success in an uncertain global environment.” In Handbook on the politics of higher education, ed B. Cantwell, H. Coates, and R. King, 187‒198. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786435026.
Chandar, Harish, Junaimah Jauhar, and Ahmad Bashawir Abdul Ghani. 2015. “Postgraduates’ perception about the causes of brain drain among Malaysian professionals.” Problems and perspectives in management 13(2): 365‒370.
Chankseliani, Maia and Tristan McCowan. 2021. “Higher education and the sustainable development goals.” Higher Education 81(1): 1‒8.
Chasi, Samia, and Orla Quinlan. 2021. “Inclusion in Times of Covid 19: The Case of International Students in South Africa.” Journal of Student Affairs in Africa 9(1): 205‒221.
Cloete, N., C. Sheppard, T. Bailey, and K. MacGregor. 2015. “South Africa as a continental PhD hub?” University World News 6 March 2015.
Cloete, Nico, Peter Maassen, and Tracy Bailey. 2015. Knowledge production and contradictory functions in African higher education. African Minds.
Colaizzi, Paul F. 1978. “Psychological research as the phenomenologist views it.” In Existential-Phenomenological Alternatives for Psychology, ed. R. S. Valle and M. King, 48‒71. Oxford University Press, New York.
De Wit, Hans, Fiona Hunter, Laura Howard, and Eva Egron-Polak. 2015. “Internationalisation of higher education.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Internationalisation of Higher Education in the Global South, 23‒28. Brussels/Strasbourg: European Parliament, Directorate-General for Internal Policies.
Department of Higher Education and Training. 2019. Policy framework for internationalisation of higher education in South Africa. Pretoria.
Goldstein, Susan B. and Sadie R. Keller. 2015. “US college students’ lay theories of culture shock.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 47(2015): 187‒194.
Grossman, Elly S. and Nigel J. Crowther. 2015. “Co-supervision in postgraduate training: Ensuring the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.” South African Journal of Science 111(11‒12): 1‒8.
Hart, Caroline Sarojini. 2019. “Education, inequality and social justice: A critical analysis applying the Sen-Bourdieu Analytical Framework.” Policy Futures in Education 17(5): 582‒598.
Harwood, Nigel and Bojana Petrić. 2016. Experiencing master’s supervision: Perspectives of international students and their supervisors. Taylor & Francis.
Hesse-Biber, Sharlene Nagy, and Patricia Leavy. 2010. The practice of qualitative research. Sage.
Kadir, Juliana Mohd Abdul, Navaz Naghavi, and Geetha Subramaniam. 2020. “Unemployment among graduates-Is there a mismatch?” International Journal of Asian Social Science 10(1): 583‒592.
Lessing, A. C. 2011. “The role of the supervisor in the supervisory process.” South African Journal of Higher Education 25(5): 921‒936.
Lilley, Kathleen, Michelle Barker, and Neil Harris. 2015. “Exploring the process of global citizen learning and the student mind-set.” Journal of Studies in International Education 19(3): 225‒245.
Maringe, Felix, Nick Foskett, and Steve Woodfield. 2013. “Emerging internationalisation models in an uneven global terrain: Findings from a global survey.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 43(1): 9‒36.
Mmadi, Pontsho James. 2022. “Perceived Benefits of Postgraduate Qualifications Among Social Workers Without Postgraduate Qualifications.” Southern African Journal of Social Work and Social Development 34(Sup1): 1‒16.
Mutula, Stephen M. 2009. “Challenges of postgraduate research: Global context, African perspectives.” In Proceedings of DLIS 10th Annual Conference, 80.
Naim, Norbaizura Mohd, and Saroja Dhanapal. 2015. “Undergraduate students’ perception of the final year project supervisory process: A case study at a private university in Malaysia.” Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Management 3(4): 31‒49
National Planning Commission. 2012. National Development Plan: Vision 2030: Our Future – Make It Work. Pretoria: National Planning Commission.
Ngema, Nokuphila Dawn. 2021. “Transitioning from homelands to South Africa: Coping mechanisms employed by international students at institutions of higher learning.” PhD dissertation.
Nkhoma, Andrew. 2021. “Youth Aspirations and Experiences: A Case Study of Alternative Higher Education Programmes in Malawi.” Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education 13(5S).
Nussbaum, Martha and Amartya Sen. (Ed.). 1993. The quality of life. Clarendon Press.
Olorunfemi, Glory C. 2021. “Addressing the state of youth unemployment in Nigeria.” Int. J. Innov. Psychol. Soc. Dev 9(2021): 102‒113.
Popescu, Florentin. 2015. “South African globalization strategies and higher education.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 209(2015): 411‒418.
Presbitero, Alfred. 2016. “Culture shock and reverse culture shock: The moderating role of cultural intelligence in international students’ adaptation.” International journal of intercultural relations 53 (2016): 28‒38.
Quinlan, Orla and Tasmeera Singh. 2022. “How can internationalisation regain momentum in South Africa?” University World News 12 May 2022.
Ralarala Monwabisi, Ernest Pineteh, and Zandile Mchiza. 2016. “A case study on the language and socio-cultural challenges experienced by international students studying at Cape Peninsula University of Technology: Part 2-general articles.” South African Journal of Higher Education 30(4): 231‒255.
Robeyns, Ingrid. 2021. “The capability approach.” In The Routledge handbook of feminist economics, 72‒80. Routledge.
Rodny-Gumede, Ylva. 2023. Visa crisis is jeopardising internationalisation efforts. UWN Africa.
Rogan, Michael and John Reynolds. 2016. “Schooling inequality, higher education and the labour market: Evidence from a graduate tracer study in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.” Development Southern Africa 33(3): 343‒360.
Sehoole, Chika Trevor. 2011. “Student mobility and doctoral education in South Africa.” Perspectives in Education 29(3): 53‒63.
Sloan, Art and Brian Bowe. 2014. “Phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology: The philosophy, the methodologies, and using hermeneutic phenomenology to investigate lecturers’ experiences of curriculum design.” Quality & Quantity 48(2014): 1291‒1303.
The Mail & Guardian. 2021. “The future of postgraduate education”. 15 October 2021.
Van Loo, Jasper B. and Tonette S. Rocco. 2004. “Continuing Professional Education and Human Capital Theory.” Online Submission.
Weisser, Reinhard. 2016. “Internationally mobile students and their post-graduation migratory behaviour: An analysis of determinants of student mobility and retention rates in the EU.” OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 186, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlwxbvmb5zt-en.
World Economic Forum. 2020. “The Future Jobs.” 20 October 2020, 29‒39. Geneva, Switzerland.
Copyright (c) 2024 Tiffany Vincentia Banda, Bhekuyise Perfect Zungu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
