(123rf)
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The number of international students enrolled in South Korean universities has significantly increased, placing Korea 10th among OECD member countries in terms of growth in foreign student numbers, according to a recent report by the Science Ministry and the Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning.

OECD data shows total international student enrollment in member countries rose from 3 million in 2014 to over 4.6 million in 2022.

The organization explained that this surge was partly attributed to the country’s “Study Korea 300K Project,” which aims to attract 300,000 foreign students and turn South Korea into a global education hub. The project kicked off in 2023.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the number of international students hosted by OECD countries rose by 18 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to the report.

This figure, however, was lower than the rise of over 30 percent seen between 2014 and 2018.

But the organization explained that universities’ ability to adapt to new challenges as well as diverse policies implemented during and after the pandemic to support international students, such as flexible visa regulations and extended work opportunities, led to a rise in global student mobility in general.

Only five countries — Australia, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand and the United States — saw a fall in the number of international students they hosted between 2018 and 2022 due to migration and health restrictions and more restrictive student visa policies applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the OECD.

Meanwhile, the number of Korean nationals studying abroad has decreased.

In 2018, there were 96,603 Korean students who studied overseas.

This number fell to 82,384 in 2022, causing South Korea to drop from fifth to eighth place on another OECD list of countries with the highest number of students studying abroad.

The organization revealed that China and India remained the two biggest sources of overseas students, together accounting for around 30 percent of the total number of foreign students enrolled at institutions in OECD countries in both 2018 and 2022.


sj_lee@heraldcorp.com