When the UK released a strategy in March 2019, which is new international education strategy mainly focuses on aimful concrete target growth up to the year 2030, with the focusses of gaining an enrolment target of 600,000 international students, which would be overall growth of about 30 percent as compared to 2017-18 targets.

Suddenly after passing two years or even reaching a decade ahead, it is found that the enrolment target has to reach that peak. According to current data released by Higher Education Statistics Agency(HESA) , 605,130 targets have been reached by those who have enrolled for 2020-21 as international students. While observing these data, it is found that there is a regular increase of about 9% from 2019-20. It is continuously growing in an excellent pattern for UK higher education from the last 5-6 years. The heightening trend is growing vastly looks surprisingly magical, even after the UK’s departure in January 2020 from the European Union and the bad impact of novel pandemic coronavirus.

According to Lucy Van Essen-Fishman, HESA policy and research analyst, “In Spite of all the fears that novel pandemic would affect international student counts, the data reported in 2020-21 shows that there is a significant increase in the international student of the first year.”Further added, “First-year students increases by 8% from the EU, which is slightly less than the overall considering count of first-year students. In the EU, the domiciled PG student enrollment rate is also high. The 2020-21 year seemed to be the last year where EU students were offered confirmed fee home status, which encourages EU applicants so that the education couldn’t defer them during a great pandemic.

The analyst further said, “The count of several students of the first year from international enrollment other than the EU became lesson 2019-20, but this decrease in number is balanced by the sudden increase of non-EU PG research students by 7 percent and 8 percent by non-EU taught PG students, which can represent the most lag group of international students. Thus even after facing a huge bad impact of a great pandemic, it is found, Uk higher education still manages to remain an attractive option for the graduation of international students.”And it is simply observable that demand is still going to increase year by year. After the reintroduction of post-study work rights for all the international students who are willing to do their graduation from a foreign university, the UK gets most benefits in terms of getting significant increases in the number of enrollment of student visas in 2021, and mainly the growth is reaching more height due to non-EU markets involvement.

After the end of September 2021, officials of UK immigration stated that they had issued about 428,428 visas, representing about 143% more than the last year, September 2020, and about 55% greater than the year ending of September 2019.

So after observing a record, Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK International, said, “It looks so good to see a significant increase in the overall number of student Visas which have been granted over many years. Even after facing such huge challenges, UK universities never get back in delivering a high-quality experience and generous behavior to all the enrolling students worldwide. We have made our policy which is very supportive, competitive, and excellent opportunity giving, under the UK government. He believes that they would move at this pace and even more in the coming future with a collaborative spirit in a way to address every challenges and opportunity that comes in recruitment space.”

Analysis of students and from where they come:

After observing many reported data after drawing lots of graphs, it is found that a large section of students coming to the UK is mostly outside of the EU. After seeing 2016-17 data, it is reported that students of European Union countries made about 31 percent of overall foreign enrollment in UK universities. And this huge proportion decreases to 25% at the end of 2020-21. Mainly Italy and France are top at the market for British higher education all over Europe. Among non-EU markets, China and India made significant growth in 2020-21.

Some of the important key points which HESA notes after considering non-EU enrolment trends in point-

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  Country China is founded to have sent a maximum number of overall students in UK universities than any other overseas country. According to 2020-21, 32% of non-EU students were from China. And also, the count of students who are from China made significant growth by about 50% over the last 5 years.

  
  


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  And several students who come to Malaysia have dropped about 30% over the last 5 years. There is also a continuously decreasing number of enrollments from Nigeria and Pakistan.

  
  


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  Enrolling students from Nigeria are placed in the third position in enrollment of students outside the EU, but this and many other countries are still in the top queue then the numbers of enrolments from EU countries.

  
  


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  In comparison with the number of enrolling students from China in UK universities, India lags, but it even has a large section of enrolment, which has increased by 67,660 from the last five years. Maximum significant increment saw in two major years, 2019-20 and 2020-21. And total students from India, which is about 19 percent, represent non-EU enrollment in 2020-21.

  
  

After going through all these data, it is found that if China and India altogether, if counted, would represent about half of all the overall non-EU enrollment in the UK country. Although China remains the top non-EU enroller, now the Chinese enrolments rate of enrollment in UK universities seems to be flattening. Still, India’s number in terms of enrollment is increasing year by year, breaking the old records.

Thus, the UK is breaking records year by year regarding student visas for the Uk being granted from many countries to international students who want to enroll in UK universities. Its number is still growing, which will be such a huge number in the coming future.