The Impact of COVID-19 on International Student Support: A Global Perspective (original) (raw)
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Impact of Covid-19 on International Student Support
Journal of International Students, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic caused unique challenges to international students. Student Affairs and Services (SAS) across the higher education sector played a key role in supporting students and institutions during the pandemic. This article reports the findings of an exploratory survey with SAS practitioners from around the globe on the ways in which SAS responded to the pandemic and sought to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on students in general and international students specifically. The results demonstrate that international students were among the primary groups of students impacted by the pandemic. Specific challenges identified include mental wellbeing, inability to return home, financial hardships, fear, and uncertainty. Discrimination of certain groups was also noted. SAS intervened to assist international students in navigating these challenges across world regions, including services declared essential for international student support. Finally, financial implications and...
The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on International Students
Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on international students. This study was conducted with the qualitative case study method, based on the experiences of an international student. The research found that with the declaration of the pandemic, some international students were besieged in their host countries; they were confronted with difficulties in returning to their homes, and their education and apprenticeships were interrupted. Students who could not return to their home country went through intense stress and anxiety in terms of accommodation, having access to food, financial resources, and medical supplies. This experience has caused international students to become more skeptical about continuing with mobility and has caused candidate international students to change their countries of preference. On the other hand, this does not appear to be the case for countries and universities that successfully managed the pandemic and did not sp...
Journal of College Student Development, 2022
After the COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United States (US) to transition into online instruction, a particular subpopulation of students was highly impacted: international students. This study is aimed at understanding the impact of COVID-19 on international students' social support, financial wellbeing and psychological stress. This study is guided by the following research questions: (a) In what ways, if any, are the experiences of undergraduate and graduate students similar and different across variables?; (b) How does Covid-19 impact residential students in comparison to those who were living on campus and those who returned home?;(c) How do students' perceptions differ according to the source(s) of funding for their studies? Through 359 responses to a survey conducted at two large universities in the US, this study found that doctoral students reported higher social support in comparison to undergraduate students and that master's students were more satisfied with the university's decision to move to online instruction than bachelors' students. Students with multiple sources of funding reported higher levels of financial wellbeing than students with one source of funding. However, no differences were found between students who stayed on campus and students who were off campus or who returned to their home countries. We also found no statistically significant differences in any of the variables between students who are self-funded and students who are not. This study suggests that different groups of international students deserve more attention from HEIs in times of crisis as the one caused by the effects of the pandemic.
Canadian Journal of Medicine
International students are one of the most vulnerable social groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored by social and financial welfare programs. The use of statistics, governmental statements, and academic literature outline the additional hardships faced by post-secondary international students to propose interventions to reduce precarity. The hospitality of educational institutions and response programs towards international students would be crucial for upholding commitments to social justice during these challenging times. This paper can contribute to understanding the role of social work in serving groups most vulnerable to COVID-19.
The Impact of Covid-19 on the Institutional Fabric of Higher Education: Old Patterns, New Dynamics, and Changing Rules?, 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a glaring light on the range of obstacles to equitable learning and development in higher education across the globe. Higher education and Student Affairs and Services (SAS), as part of higher education, are faced with a set of challenges that are in part related to the characteristics of their student bodies, the resourcing of the institutions, and also the socio-cultural and political contexts in which the institutions and the students are embedded. In this study, four researchers from different parts of the world explored how SAS has responded to the changes in student and institutional needs due to COVID-19. To this end we surveyed 781 SAS professionals from across the globe. Overall, the data shows SAS’ changed and critical role in mediating the various challenges related to COVID-19 within and beyond the higher education institution that impact student success. In the course of the analysis of our data, there emerged four domains that have impacted on student success in the context of the pandemic. They include 1) the students’ personal situation, 2) the socio-cultural context and familial milieu in which the student is embedded, 3) the institutional and academic domain, and 4) the broader, macro-public domain, which includes larger structural and political-economic issues. Based on the data, we developed a heuristic model that aids in understanding SAS’s engagement with students’ ability to learn and develop in higher education under the unique conditions presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The data show that the four domains have different significance in different world regions and in varying national systems of higher education, depending on political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts. Additionally, while SAS and universities do a great deal to support students in their learning, factors in the macro-public domain and factors in the socio-cultural community and familial milieu are mitigated by SAS to promote a context that is conducive to learning across the globe. Finally, the study demonstrated that COVID-19 has not only changed the scope of SAS, but also its role in lobbying and advocating for living and learning contexts that are more conducive to student success. This is an expanding role and function of SAS and appears to emerge as a critical factor for SAS to become more impactful in supporting conditions for student success. The chapter concludes with recommendations to further develop this heuristic model to contribute to the development of a global SAS profession that plays a significant role in advancing higher education practices that promote equitable success for all students.
Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Life of Higher Education Students: A Global Perspective
The paper presents the most comprehensive and large-scale study to date on how students perceive the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on various aspects of their lives on a global level. With a sample of 30,383 students from 62 countries, the study reveals that amid the worldwide lockdown and transition to online learning students were most satisfied with the support provided by teaching staff and their universities’ public relations. Still, deficient computer skills and the perception of a higher workload prevented them from perceiving their own improved performance in the new teaching environment. Students were mainly concerned about issues to do with their future professional career and studies, and experienced boredom, anxiety and frustration. The pandemic has led to the adoption of particular hygienic behaviours (e.g. wearing masks, washing hands) and discouraged certain daily practices (e.g. leaving home, shaking hands). Students were also more satisfied with the role played by ...
Journal for Students Affairs in Africa, 2021
The global pandemic caused by Covid‑19 has impacted every facet of our lives and challenged service delivery to students within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The Centre for Student Counselling and Development (CSCD) at Stellenbosch University (SU), South Africa, is situated within the Division of Student Affairs (DSAf) and the centre’s reflective practitioners had to respond to the challenge of altering services to ensure continuous support to the SU community. The CSCD aims to provide the SU community with psychological, developmental and support services, with the focus on critical engagement, advocacy, personal growth, and optimising graduate potential. The CSCD has been functioning virtually since mid-March 2020. Each of the Centre’s five units had to respond to both the challenges and opportunities to adhere to social distancing and to accommodate students who did not have access to online devices. All support sessions – whether it be academic, social justice, career, s...
2021
The Covid-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has completely reshaped the lives of people around the world, including higher education students. Beyond serious health consequences for a proportion of those directly affected by the virus, the pandemic holds important implications for the life and work of higher education students, considerably affecting their physical and mental well-being. To capture how students perceived the first wave of the pandemic's impact, one of the most comprehensive and large-scale online surveys across the world was conducted. Carried out between 5 May 2020 and 15 June 2020, the survey came at a time when most countries were experiencing the arduous lockdown restrictions. The online questionnaire was prepared in seven different languages (English, Italian, North Macedonian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish) and covered various aspects of higher education students' life, including socio-demographic and academic characterist...
2021
International students have contributed to the internationalization and diversification of U.S. higher education; yet, when COVID-19 (i.e., coronavirus) struck, it became evident that this subset of the U.S. higher education student population was left unaccounted for and unprotected. This manuscript underscores the unimaginable damage and disruption that can occur when a global crisis of the highest magnitude meets under preparedness, pre-existing discrimination, and impulsive policy-making. It also highlights, for context, past crises and their impacts on international students, thus establishing a trend which places international students at the epicenter of the blow’s concomitant with crises of different nature. Moreover, the manuscript provides considerations higher education stakeholders should reflect upon, as well as the following implications for higher education institutions: a) Establish support systems, b) create a sustainable emergency/crisis relief fund, c) seek and ma...
International Students in the Time of COVID-19
Journal of International Students
International education and the international student experience worldwide have been fractured due to the COVID0-19 global pandemic. This special issue brings together papers from around the world which not only critically examine the impact a global crisis has on policies, procedures, operations and people around international education but also the unprecedented effects these have on international students themselves. This special issue moreover opens discussion on the future direction of international education policy and practice in order to create the best international student experience possible.