Vaccine bounce

Will international recruitment benefit from the UK’s success with Covid shots?

In Friday’s Playbook, we took a detailed look at the considerable challenges involved in recruiting and supporting students from India, given the spike in coronavirus infections in the country. As we pointed out, much of the growth in non-European Union international recruitment in recent years has come from India, with numbers having doubled since 2018-19.

In contrast to the accelerating rate of Covid-19 infections in India, the UK’s successful vaccine rollout means that we are continuing along the government’s planned path of unlocking the economy—just not yet to the point of allowing all students to return to university campuses. Given the global perception that the UK’s vaccine programme has been exemplary, what might that mean for international student recruitment in the next academic year?