European countries compete to attract, and retain, foreign students

THE HAGUE — British graduates looking to work at the supermarket chain Tesco might be surprised to learn that speaking Mandarin fluently and being open to a move to China can go a long way toward getting a good job with the company. Related Simplifying Italy to Lure Global Graduates (August 13, 2012) Education Briefs (August 13, 2012) Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors “The fact that someone has a foreign cultural background can be advantageous,” said Nannette Ripmeester, who runs Expertise in Labour Mobility, an international job-matching company based in the Netherlands.

Europe, like the rest of the global economy, increasingly needs highly educated workers. And like Tesco, a British company, many European businesses see value in workers who hold a domestic degree but bring an international background to the job.

Despite the elimination of a visa programme in Britain, a call to enforce visa rules strictly in France, and tuition fee increases in Britain and Sweden in recent years, experts say that most European countries are trying to attract foreign students in the hope that once trained they will stay and join the work force.

As in the rest of the world, student migration is booming in Europe. In 2010, just under 850,000 non-Europeans were studying there, up from almost 660,000 in 2005, according to Unesco figures.

European countries, however, have a harder time retaining foreign students after they graduate than “destination” countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, in part because the path to citizenship is seen as easier there and opportunities for social mobility are greater.

“A lot of students are going abroad as a part of strategic career planning,” said Wei Shen, who is associate dean for China at Essca, a management school in France, and studies student migration. “They are not interested in permanent settlement in Europe.”

Though some European nations naturally attract students from specific countries — France, for example, enjoys popularity among Africans from French- speaking nations — other countries are trying to increase their popularity among foreigners.

A study released this year by the Migration Policy Group, a nonprofit organization, compared the strategies and success rates of five European countries — Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden — in attracting and retaining non-European students.

The Netherlands, for example, was found to do well in retaining students in comparison with the other countries, not only because of its respected postsecondary institutions and relative good value of degrees, but also because bureaucratic forms were easily available and because English is widely spoken in the country, facilitating integration into society.

“The language is not a barrier,” said Hans de Wit, a professor at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and an adviser on the study. “It is a positive factor in the Netherlands.”

Of the five countries profiled, the Netherlands was least likely to be the first choice among foreign students who ended up studying there, with only 59.4 percent of respondents saying the country had been their preference.

When doctoral students were asked whether they would be staying in their host country of choice, those who answered from the Netherlands were more likely to want to stay than those answering in France or Britain.

The level of language proficiency among incoming students was much higher in Britain, France and Germany than in the Netherlands or Sweden, because the first three countries’ languages are more commonly spoken around the world. And, while all five countries offer programmes entirely in English, living in Germany or France tends to be more difficult without a working knowledge of the national languages.

Germany was found to have the highest percentage of students willing to stay for the long term, with 12.5 percent predicting that they would stay five or more years after finishing their study. While the investment many make in learning the German language before or during study plays a role, a strong job market, especially in the engineering sector, also contributes to Germany’s success in retaining foreign graduates, said Ludger Pries, the chairman of the sociology department at the RuhrUniversity in Bochum.