Abstract
Student mobility has become a global phenomenon with an upward trend in the past two decades, and Asian countries are becoming important receiving countries. Such phenomenon has been increasingly investigated producing a growing body of literature on Asia-bound international student mobility. However, while some countries stand in the spotlight of international student scholarship, other lesser known destinations remain underrepresented. This article provides an exploratory effort to examine factors that attract international students to Vietnam, a country which has not been visible on international student mobility landscape as a receiving destination. The study employs push–pull factors framework and a mixed methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods (n = 94) to examine the push–pull factors that influence the decision of international students to choose Vietnam as the destination country and a Vietnamese higher education institution as host institution. Research findings show that major push factors include aspirations for new experiences, home country economic outlook and pessimistic job prospects at home. Regarding pull factors, at national level, bright economic prospect is the top pull factor attracting international students to a developing country like Vietnam, and at institutional level, the university’s reputation and its Vietnamese Studies and language programmes are the most important pull factors attracting international students to the university to study. Based on the research results, recommendations are proposed for higher education institutions in Vietnam and other developing Asian countries to attract international students with implications against the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Introduction
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, international student mobility had experienced a steady rise for over two decades. It was estimated that between 1998 and 2018, the number of international students in the world had increased from approximately 2.2 million to 5.6 million students, respectively (OECD, 2020). More importantly, most of such growth occurred over the last 10 years of the statistical period with significant acceleration happening from 2013 to 2018 (IIE and IC3, 2021). Though accounting for only a fraction of the total figure of higher education students worldwide, which stood at 215.9 million in 2016 (ICEF Monitor, 2018), international student mobility is an important factor which contributes to higher education institutions’(HEIs) reputation and serves as a strong motivational force of internationalization (Gao and Liu, 2020). International students also play an important role in enriching cultural capital as well as bringing economic benefits to host countries. In the context of higher education internationalization, the roles of international students are not limited to the quantitative terms and financial goals of HEIs but encompass a range of social benefits including skill mobilities, capacity enhancement and filling skills shortages in sending countries and building closer relationships between countries (Ammigan and Jones, 2018; OECD, 2020). Being mobile could be seen as a demand from the students, and their international mobility would clearly bring multiple benefits to all concerned parties in this area of international education, namely the sending and destination countries, the institutions and the society at large (Phan and Fry, 2021).
Not only increased in number, destination preferences of international students have also become more geographically diverse partially due to global competitions to attract international students (IIE and IC3, 2021) as well as changes in students’ choices (OECD , 2020). While major English-speaking countries remain at the top positions of international destinations, their respective percentages of contribution decreased noticeably to be followed by emerging regional host countries in different parts of the world. Asian countries, in particular, have witnessed surges in the number of international students especially in East Asian destinations namely China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan (Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Aleles, 2015; Chan, 2012; Ding, 2016; IIE and IC3, 2021; Jon et al., 2014; Lee, 2014; Lin, 2020; Mok, 2011; Mok and Yu, 2014; Roberts et al., 2010; Wen and Hu, 2019), with China being now the fourth most popular host country accounting for 9% of the global figure (IIE and IC3, 2021) or over 492,000 students according to its Ministry of Education (Ministry of Education, 2019).
The rise of Asian destinations in attracting international students, in turn, has led to emerging scholarly interest diversifying the international student mobility literature which has been traditionally dominated with studies investigating issues related to international students in Western, or more specific, English-speaking countries (Phan and Fry, 2021). This emerging body of literature investigates a range of topics including factors that influence their choices of Asian destinations (Ahmad and Buchanan, 2016; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Aleles, 2015; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Jon et al., 2014; Lee, 2014, 2017; Roberts et al., 2010; Takeda, 2020; Wen and Hu, 2019), international student experiences and satisfaction (Ding, 2016; Ching et al., 2016; Jiang et al., 2020; Wen et al., 2018; Ma and Wen, 2018; Wang and Chang, 2016; Alemu and Cordier, 2017; Jon et al., 2014), or in a lesser extent institutional or national strategies for attracting international students (Aleles, 2015; Gao and Liu, 2020; Ma, 2014; Wang and Chang, 2016; Gao and Liu, 2020).
However, while the literature discussing Asia-bound mobility in general is growing rapidly, it remains at a fairly early stage compared to the myriad of works investigating international student mobility in English-speaking countries (Phan and Fry, 2021). Moreover, current researches on Asia-bound international student mobility tend to cover mostly East Asia which focus on China (Dervin et al., 2018; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Wen and Hu, 2019; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Lu et al., 2019; Jiang et al., 2020; Gao and Liu, 2020), Taiwan (Chou et al., 2012; Lee, 2014; Ma, 2014; Roberts et al., 2010) and South Korea (Alemu and Cordier, 2017; Jon et al., 2014; Lee, 2017). Elsewhere in Asia, though international student mobility have also been studied in a number of countries in Southeast Asia including Singapore and Malaysia (Mok, 2011; Mok and Yu, 2014; Ahmad and Buchanan, 2016), and Turkey is the rare case in the furthest part of Asia toward the West (Kondakci, 2011; Boyaci and Oz, 2019), existing scholarship tends to overlook a large part of Southeast Asia and the South Asian sub-continent including countries such as Vietnam, Brunei and India in the global student mobility landscape (Phan and Fry, 2021).
These gaps in the literature may require exploratory researches to not only fill the missing pieces on Asia-bound international student mobility puzzle, but also offer insights for the institutions and governments in the lesser known parts of this global international student flow, which had already been diverse before the COVID-19 pandemic and will become more so in the future (IIE and IC3, 2021; Mok et al., 2021; Strods et al., 2021). As the pandemic seems not to be completely eradicated in foreseeable future and international students, especially those from Asia, may consider closer destinations to home (Mok et al., 2021), higher education institutions in Asian destinations might have the opportunities to attract students from other countries in the region. Thus, studies on the factors that attract international students to Asian countries, especially those remain untouched in the literature, could offer unique insights not only for scholarly inquiries but also provide practical recommendations for attracting international students to the ‘peripheries’ of international education.
This study offers a contribution to the body of literature on international student mobility to Asian countries by presenting an original investigation on factors that attract international students to a higher education institution in Vietnam, a country which has not been seen in the international education landscape as a receiving country. Employing the push–pull factors framework (McMahon, 1992; Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Altbach, 2004; de Wit, 2008; Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014) and the mixed methods design (Creswell and Creswell, 2018), the study seeks to answer the following research question: • What are the push–pull factors that influence the decision of international students to choose a university in Vietnam as a host institution?
Findings of the study help identify the niche market factors that attract international students to Vietnam, a developing country which remains largely internationally unrecognized in higher education (Trần et al., 2014). Then the discussions will include recommendations for attracting international students to higher education institutions to Vietnam and developing countries in Asia in general.
Research setting
Higher education internationalization and international students in Vietnam
In Vietnam, internationalization, described as international integration in Vietnamese language documents, has long been named as one of the vital measures in fundamentally and comprehensively innovating the country’s education. This guiding approach has been consistently presented in official policy documents including ‘Education Development Strategy, 2011–2020’ promulgated in 2012 by the Prime Minister and Resolution number 29-NQ/TW of 2013 by the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam on fundamentally and comprehensively innovating Vietnam’s education and training. The solutions include pushing the number of foreign-trained academics, encouraging cooperation between local and foreign institutions, increasing international cultural and intellectual exchanges and attracting foreign resources investing in Vietnam’s education. There have also been major programmes including Projects 322, 599, 911, ‘Advanced programs Plan 2008–2015’, or joint programmes between domestic higher education institutions and their international partner universities resulting in a certain level of success.
However, the most crucial drawback of higher education internationalization in Vietnam is its international student enrolment in courses offered by local universities. The most notable example is the 2005 ‘Advanced Program Scheme’, which only achieved six out of seven of its objectives leaving that of attracting 3000 international students into advanced programmes unfulfilled (Trần, 2020). In terms of currently enrolled international students, most of them come from neighbouring countries of Laos and Cambodia under bilateral schemes, hence lack of either diversity or an in-depth approach (Trần et al., 2014). Looking at the bigger picture, despite annual increases from approximate 600 international students in the period between 1998 and 2000, to 3717 in 2011 and 21,000 of all categories in 2018 1 , such figures are dwarfed by the total number of 1.7 million university students nationwide. 2
The case university in discussion
Against such context, the university in this research (hereafter University A) offers an interesting case as it had maintained a steady number of full-time and sizeable flow of short-termed international students in enrolment prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
University A is a founding member of Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), one of the two national university systems in Vietnam which comprises of seven higher education institutions. The university is recognized as a leading institution in the fields of social sciences and humanities in Southern Vietnam, which offers 35 undergraduate courses, 32 master and 16 doctoral degree programmes with a student population of over 11,000. It is also reputed to be the top highly internationally exposed member of the VNU-HCM system with an extensive international network with partner institutions from over 15 countries.
While international students are enrolled in various undergraduate courses in University A, the vast majority of them are affiliated with the Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Vietnamese Studies programme, which has been exclusively offered by the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies for foreign students until recently. The courses are conducted entirely in Vietnamese language with a minimum language proficiency requirement as a prerequisite. Students then will spend their first semesters improving language skills before taking up courses in aspects of Vietnamese culture, history, socio-economic issues alongside with other compulsory courses required by Ministry of Education and Training for their conferment of a standard bachelor’s degree in Vietnam. After its inauguration in 2000 with the first cohort of 13 students, the BA in Vietnamese Studies programme had grown rapidly until just before the COVID-19 pandemic. During the period of 2015–2020 the total international enrolments in the programme increased by 60% from 206 to 341. Besides full-time students, the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies also provide non-degree Vietnamese language courses which used to attract over 1000 short-termed international students annually before the COVID-19 pandemic. The faculty’s international training portfolio is also complemented with transnational Vietnamese Studies programmes jointly organized with partner universities in South Korea (hereafter Korea) and Taiwan which offer Korean or Taiwanese students the first 2 or 3 years of their learning in Vietnam followed by final years in institutions in their home countries. In terms of full-time student nationalities, 95% of students of the 2020–2021 academic year intake come from Korea which, though probably higher than the conventional ratio prior to COVID-19, reflects the overall pattern of students’ home countries.
Though the proportion of international students in the university in University A is significantly smaller than its total number of students, this institution has often taken the leading position in terms of international students compared to other public universities of similar backgrounds in Southern Vietnam. Hence, despite the disproportionately high proportion of Korean students in University A’s international students profile and their homogenous affiliation to one particular undergraduate programme taught in Vietnamese, which could lead to under-representativeness of research results, findings drawn from this study could provide preliminary understandings on international students in Vietnam contributing to international recruitment activities in HEIs in Vietnam as well as the literature of international students in Asia as a largely underrepresented issue in international education, especially in the context of ongoing and post-COVID world.
Theoretical framework
Push–pull factors that influence international students’ choice of destination
The push–pull factors have long been used in migrant studies (Cheng et al., 2020), yet it was not until Lee (1966) that it was elaborated into a research framework. In this approach, factors affecting the migrating decision-making process are divided into two main groups that are related to the sending countries (push factors) and the destinations (pull factors).
Since then, international education scholars have adopted the push–pull framework to investigate factors that influence the decision to for overseas for educational purposes. McMahon (1992) identifies push factors of home countries that include economic strength, involvement in global trade, state priority on education, availability of expertise or programmes demanded by students. Regarding pull factors, McMahon (1992) highlights the relations between the sending and receiving nations, along with economic linkages, bilateral economic and political relations, financial supports for international students are factors that attract international students. Among them, lower level of economic development along with home countries’ participation in global trade are major push factors, while main pull factors include economic development gaps between sending and host countries and their economic relations. This model illustrates how international economic relations are not only the driving forces behind globalization but also the factors that significantly impact international student mobility in the form of push and pull factors.
In their seminal work on push–pull factors, Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) map out a three-stage decision-making process of international students involving (1) deciding to go overseas; (2) selecting a host country and (3) selecting an institution. This whole process is influenced by push–pull factors which share complex correlations. By deciding to go overseas to pursue higher education, the students are aware of the advantages found in a foreign institution, able to avoid fierce university entrance competition at home countries, complement the unavailability of desired courses at home countries, gain better understanding of a foreign (Western) country or consider migration opportunities. All of which establish the push factors that influence international students’ decisions to study abroad.
Regarding pull factors, Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) divide them into two categories which are pull factors of destination countries and those of host institutions. Students seem to be attracted by their understandings of that particular destination, in other words, those of educational reputation of host countries, recognition of the foreign qualifications at home countries and international reputation of host countries. Recommendations from friends and relatives also contribute to the pull factors of the receiving countries thanks to word-of-mouth influences, particularly when the friends and relatives live or study in the country. Cost is another important pull factor attracting international students. This includes financial costs and social costs including crime rate, social safety or racial discrimination, all of which could become advantages in recruiting international students. Moreover, the presence of co-national international communities could also be seen as a cost-effective advantage, which may imply further influx of international students from the same countries in the future. Other less important pull factors are natural environment, geographical proximity, and social connections. In terms of host institution selection, factors are ranked by Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) in the following order of importance: highly recognized qualifications by employers, reputation of the institution, teaching quality, alumni network and size of international community.
Altbach (2004, cited from de Wit, 2008) argues in the same vein with Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) when maintaining that harsh competition in gaining admission to higher education in some countries along with other factors including the lack of world class HEIs, desired courses or academic freedom in sending countries could be seen as reasons for students to seek for educational opportunities in developed countries. Regarding the destinations, factors such as prestigious and reputed education system, more relaxed admission reality and bright job prospects after graduation could be counted as pull factors for students to make decisions for a particular host country and destination (de Wit, 2008).
Another push–pull factor framework is also developed by de Wit (2008) who elaborates these factors further in details by categorizing them into three groups of educational factors, political/social/cultural factors and economic factors. De Wit’s framework shares a number of similarities with those of McMahon (1992), Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) and Altbach (2004) which highlight the significance of economic factors by arguing that the level of integration in global economy and the economic relations between sending and receiving countries push and pull students to a particular destination. Yet, de Wit (2008) also emphasizes the political-social-cultural aspects in the dynamics of push–pull factors including cultural ties, language factor, regional unity and strategic alliances between the two countries as well as the significance of alliances between HEIs. That means beside factors such as country’s educational reputation, recognition of qualifications, employment prospects, social networks and economic dynamics as mentioned in works of Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), Altbach (2004), and McMahon (1992), de Wit (2008) discusses the important roles of educational, cultural-social and economic linkages between sending and receiving countries and between HEIs at an international scale.
Pull factors attracting international students to Asian destinations
The push–pull factor frameworks have significantly contributed to the understandings of factors influencing international students to leave their home countries to study in another. However, such frameworks, which have been largely conceptualized by scholars from English-speaking countries, have been identified with limitations in analysing motivations of international students who choose to study in Asian countries such as Korea, China and Taiwan. Though sharing certain common motivations with their counterparts in English-speaking countries, international students in Asian destinations are characterized by distinctive push–pull factors which require further research to shed light into their decisions to select Asian host countries and HEIs for higher education.
In the case of Taiwan, while academic reputation of host country has been identified as the top important pull factor by Lee (2014) and Wang and Chang (2016), which is consistent with Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), other studies point to other factors as the most important reasons for international students in choosing Taiwan as their destination. Roberts et al. (2010) prove that the top two factors attracting international students to Taiwan are scholarship opportunities and Mandarin Chinese study programme. The role of scholarships is also confirmed by Lee (2014) and Ching et al. (2016), while Wang and Chang (2016) emphasize Chinese language and culture as a major factor influencing students’ decision to choose Taiwan as a study abroad destination. Lee (2014) also maintains that Mandarin Chinese courses in Taiwanese universities plays an important role in providing a supportive and friendly learning environment, which is one of the top factors influencing students’ decision to choose Taiwan as their study abroad destination. Regarding institutional factors, Roberts et al. (2010) point to friends’ recommendations, reputation of the university’s Mandarin Chinese study programme and recommendations from Taiwan’s foreign missions in their home countries as the top three factors that attract international students to the case Taiwanese university.
Turning to China, Ding (2016), Jiani (2017) and Ahmad and Shah (2018) show that learning Chinese language as either the most important or among the top reasons for international students choosing the country as their destination. China’s rapid economic development in recent decades also plays a crucial role in attracting international students (Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017), while, similar to the case of Taiwan, access to scholarships contributes to their choice (Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018). The rise of Chinese universities in terms of international reputations makes China a rising destination for international students. Ding (2016) finds that having high quality universities ranks third in factors attracting students to Shanghai, China’s most important economic hub. This factor is seen as the most important in Ahmad and Shah (2018), whereas Jiani (2017) attributes students’ decision choosing a particular university in China mostly to the overall reputation of the institution. Lu et al. (2019) when analysing the differences of preference among different groups of international students in Chengdu, the major metropolitan in the Southwest of China, emphasizes education quality, referrals from relatives and friends and bilateral relations between home countries to Chine as most popular factors attracting international students from developing countries. In addition, ‘Chinese specialties’ in terms of cultural experience, tourism, language learning and cultural exchanges are also found to have important influence on students’ choice to study in China. Such finding is in line with Ahmad and Shah (2018) emphasising experiencing Chinese culture help distinguish China from Western countries as destination for international students.
Jon et al. (2014) establish that learning and practicing Korean language, experiencing Korean culture are the most important pull factors of international students in Korea followed by scholarship opportunities and job opportunities both at home and abroad after graduation. Exploring new culture, Korean culture, and scholarship are also identified as major motivations for international students to come to Korea alongside with reputation of programmes in their fields of study by Alemu and Cordier (2018). However, to Chinese students in Korean, it is lenient selectivity of Korean universities to international students, parents and friends’ recommendations and, to a certain extent, job market vision, that play a crucial role in their decision to choose Korea as a destination country as shown in Lee S·W. (2017).
A review of existing student mobility to major destinations of international students in Asia reveal a diverse range of pull factors, which, on the one hand, include those identified in seminal works of McMahon (1992), Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), Altbach (2004) and de Wit (2008) namely bilateral relations between the home and host countries (Lu et al., 2019), financial supports (Roberts et al., 2010; Lee C.-F., 2014; Ching et al., 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014); education quality of host country (Lu et al., 2019), recommendations of friends and relatives (Roberts et al., 2010; Lu et al., 2019; Lee 2017) and reputation of institution or programme (Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017). On the other hand, international students in Asian destinations seem to highly value local language courses and experiencing local culture (Roberts et al., 2010; Lee, C.-F., 2014; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014; Alemu and Cordier, 2018) making them niche elements for emerging destination in international student mobility.
Methods
This research employs a mixed methods approach to explore the push and pull factors that influence the decision of international students to choose Vietnam as a destination and University A as a host institution. Such approach, which involves qualitative and quantitative methods in a single study, allows researchers to have a holistic view of both similarities and differences and along with it a more complete understanding of the research topic. While qualitative method offers detail information and insights of the research subjects making the findings more illustrated, quantitative data enhances the objectivity and generalisation of the findings. Thus, by mixing both methods into one study, the researchers are able to collect more multidimensional and comprehensive data rather than unitarily employ either of the approach (Creswell and Creswell, 2018).
Data collecting and analysing stages were conducted along the line of the exploratory sequential design as described by Creswell and Creswell (2018), yet with a few modifications that reflect the research actual happenings. The whole process was divided into four stages that involve collecting and analysing qualitative data, identifying factors that require surveying and designing the questionnaire, collecting and analysing quantitative data and lastly discussing findings based on qualitative and quantitative data.
In specific, a list of semi-structured questions was compiled based on available literature. Then, a series of interviews with selected international students currently enrolled in the university was conducted. Data generated from these interviews and insights from the literature served as the base on which quantitative survey questionnaires were designed. Qualitative and quantitative data, after being analysed, was employed to discuss and illustrate the research findings and recommendations of this study.
Qualitative data collection and analysis
Purposive sampling technique, which is common in qualitative research (Creswell and Creswell, 2018), was used to recruit respondents for the semi-structured interviews following pre-determined criteria including being a full-time undergraduate student of the Bachelor of Arts in Vietnamese Studies programme, willing to take part in the study, being able to communicate conveniently in Vietnamese and representing different cohorts of the students. By the end of the recruiting process, a total number of six students representing the sophomore, junior and senior cohorts met all the criteria and agreed to participate in the interviews. Among them five were Koreans and one was Thai which is consistent with the overall nationality ratio of international students in the BA in Vietnamese Studies programme. The interviews were conducted entirely in Vietnamese with approximate lengths of 45–60 min, and the conversations were also audio recorded with consent of the students. The interviews seek to ask the following question: • What are the factors that influenced the students to choose Vietnam as the destination country and University A as the host institution?
The sequence of the questions reflects the destination decision making process as presented in Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), in which international students would choose destination country prior to deciding host institution.
The interviews were later labelled, transcribed and coded using open coding based on preliminary findings. Regarding choosing Vietnam as a destination country, the items include unbright economic prospect in home country, job requirements in family business in Vietnam, Vietnam’s bright economic prospects, brighter job prospects with Vietnamese language competence and personal fondness for Vietnamese language. In terms of reasons for attending University A, reputation of the institution and its Vietnamese Studies programme, referrals from friends or relatives, employers’ requirement for degree from University A and information from co-national social media platform on the Internet were included. These coded items were then employed in the questionnaire design process and subsequently used to complemented quantitative data from the survey.
Quantitative data collection and analysis
Push–pull factors identified in the literature (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; de Wit, 2008; Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014; Alemu and Cordier, 2017) and data from the interviews provide a premise on which the survey questionnaires were designed to explore the push–pull factors that influence the international students in this study to go abroad and choose Vietnam as destination country and University A as their institution. The push–pull framework in this study include seven push factors, eleven country pull factors and seven institutional pull factors. While the factors were adapted from the literature, elements that may not be available in the context of Vietnam, namely scholarship for example, were excluded from the list albeit significant in other studies. The questionnaire was bilingual, Vietnamese and Korean, reflecting the vast majority of Korean nationals in the international student population in the Bachelor of Arts in Vietnamese Studies programme. 5-point Likert scale was used for close-ended questions where students were asked to grade the significance of individual factors ranging from ‘not important at all’ (1) to ‘very important’ (5) in affecting their decision to choose Vietnam as destination and University A as host institution.
Percentages of student by gender.
Percentages of students by nationalities.
Percentages of participants by year of study.
The quantitative data was processed using IBM SPSS Ver 23.0 to calculate mean value and SD for each of the surveyed factor. Subsequently, the factors were descriptively analysed based on its mean score on the 5-point Likert scale and the comparison with similar factors discussed in the literature and finally analysed alongside with qualitative data.
Findings
Factors for the decision to go abroad of international students in University A
Factors influencing the decision to study abroad.
Factors influencing the decisions to choose Vietnam as a destination country
According to Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), after making the decision to study abroad, students would continue to consider their destination options. This decision is made mostly based on their perceptions of the pull factors of one particular country (Lee, 1966). Factors that attract international students to traditional destinations, mostly English-speaking countries, may vary but often consist of those related to the receiving nation’s culture, economic development, employment opportunity, educational quality and migration opportunity (McMahon, 1992; Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Altbach, 2004; de Wit, 2008). Yet, recent studies on international students in Asia show that this region is not just highly regarded for its rise in economic development but also becoming a popular destination for international students partially thanks to its economic rise (Roberts et al., 2010; Jon et al., 2014; Lee C.-F., 2014; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Lee S·W., 2017; Wen and Hu, 2019).
Factors influencing the decision to choose Vietnam as a host country.
Qualitative data also reflects this point when interviewees in the interviews stated that ‘…in the future I won’t work in Korea, [I] will work in Vietnam. I think a Vietnamese university is more suitable for me. It is hard to get in a university in Korea, and after graduation I would be unable to find any job that fits me either. [So] I chose to study here [Vietnam].’ – (Interview-Student 1). Another student when asked the reasons for his withdrawal from an undergraduate course in Korea to move to Vietnam voiced that ‘…previously I had studied Chinese language in a Korean university… But I thought that Chinese language could not guarantee a bright future … because China–Korea relations worsened, and many Korean businesses repatriated to Korea. So I thought of picking up another language would be better’. He then continued ‘…my father had a plan to expand his business in Vietnam, so I came to Vietnam to learn Vietnamese language…Vietnam is a country with a very bright future, if I stay in Vietnam there will be [pause] as very big development in my life’ – (Interview-Student 6).
The third most important pull factors for Vietnam were ‘desire to experience Vietnamese culture’ (3.74) This finding is consistent with those of Jon et al. (2014), Wang and Chang (2016) and Lu et al. (2019) arguing that the cultural distinctiveness of host countries was an important pull factors attracting international students. Thus, experiencing local cultures could be seen as a distinctive pull factor attracting international students to Asian countries.
McMahon (1992) sees economic relations between sending and receiving countries as an important factor influencing the student flow between the two countries. Jiani (2017) and Lu et al. (2019) when examining the case of China as a rising destination in Asia for international students have gone further by emphasising amicable bilateral relations in general as one of the pull factors attracting international students. This argument was also supported by findings from this study with ‘good economic-political-social relations between Vietnam and your home country’ ranked at the fourth position in the list of pull factors (3.63). It is highly visible in the observations of bilateral relations of Vietnam with countries of origins of international students in the university in this research especially Korea, where most of the students came from. The relationship between Vietnam and Korea has been significantly tightened in recent years to become a comprehensive strategic relation. Such close ties between the two countries have resulted in a trade volume of 69.2 billion USD in 2019 and been expected to reach 100 billion USD by 2023. 3 Korea is also the leading investor in Vietnam with over 9000 enterprises in operation as of late 2020 4 . Such robust figures might have led to the increase demand for Vietnamese language proficiency, which, in turn, has resulted in the need to take up Vietnamese programmes among Korean people 5 and positively contributed to the attractiveness of Vietnam as a destination for Korean students as an interviewee from this study stated that ‘Korean businesses are increasing investments [in Vietnam] […] there will be more opportunities for both countries’. (Interview-Student 6).
Other pull factors such as ‘recommendations from friends, teachers and families’, ‘known about Vietnam while in home country’, ‘travelled to Vietnam prior to enrolment’ and ‘ political-social environment’ had relatively important roles in attracting international students to Vietnam with mean values ranging from 3.01 to 3.28. These findings support the push–pull framework of Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) and other studies of Lee S.W. (2017), Jon et al. (2014), Lu et al. (2019) which emphasise the importance of understandings of host country and roles of families and friends.
Factors influencing the decisions to choose University A as a host institution
Education quality and reputation of host countries have always been seen as one of the most important pull factors for international students (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Altbach, 2004; Jon et al., 2014; Lee S·W., 2017; Lu et al., 2019).
However, Vietnam’s higher education in general and its HEIs have not established internationally recognised reputation for quality, consequently lack of pulling power to attract international student (Trần et al., 2014). So, what could be the factors that influenced international students’ decisions to choose a Vietnamese university, as a host institution?
Factors influencing the decisions to choose the university in this study as a host institution.
The university is also seen as a ‘top of mind’ institution to major foreign companies in the Southern part of Vietnam, especially those from Korea. Qualifications from its Vietnamese Studies programmes could improve students’ employability at large Korean enterprises or when they returned home, as stated by Korean students in this study: “[studying in this university] is an advantage to get a job at a Korean company”- (Interview-Student 1). “With a degree from this university, [I] can easily find a job in Vietnam … There are many big [Korean] companies in Vietnam such as Samsung. If [I] had high skills in Vietnamese and English, [I] could easily land at a job there … I plan to stay and work here, if couldn’t find a job I would go back to Korea and teach Vietnamese” - (Interview-Student 5). “…If went back to Korea, I would apply for a job in the civil service…There is a branch that needs Vietnamese language competence in the police force.” – (Interview-Student 3)
In Asian context, language programmes have also been demonstrated to be an important pull factor attracting international students (Roberts et al., 2010; Jon et al., 2014; Jiani, 2017), since fluency in the language of a country that has strong economic status could enhance students’ employability (Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018). Thus, the findings of this study also confirm those found in the aforementioned studies and further support the notion of language programmes as a niche market factor for HEIs in Asia in attracting international students as argued in works on international students in China and Taiwan (Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017).
Advice and orientations from families was the next important factor that influenced students’ decision on choosing the university in this study, this finding reflects the advantage of the institution’s image in students’ co-national communities. This point is consistent with findings of Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) which emphasises institution reputation as a driving force for families to advise students to enrol, while Jon et al. (2014), Ahmad and Buchanan (2016) and Lu et al. (2019) also highlight the role of families and relatives in influencing students’ decision. Interviewees in this study also strengthen the importance of this factor by saying ‘I go to this university because my sister graduated from here’ – (Interview-Student 1). Another student mentioned referral from a Vietnamese employee in his family business, stating that ‘an employee in [my father’s] company introduced this university [University A] to me’ – (Interview-Student 5).
However, other pull factors that are identified as important in other studies including information from the Internet, friends or alumni network (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Chang, 2015; Cheng et al., 2020) show limited importance in the findings of this study with mean values did not exceed 2.5/5. Qualitative data also reveal a lack of or at least inefficient alumni network of international students in the university, as one student said: ‘…I didn’t receive support from my seniors. In fact, in this Faculty of Vietnamese Studies, there isn’t much of connection between juniors and seniors. If some were close to each other, they would help, if not, no support at all’ – (Interview-Student 6). Yet information from co-national communities via social network could be helpful as stated by interviewees that ‘I learned about this university [University A] on Korean social networks’ – (Interview-Student (2) or ‘I gained some information about University A, so I chose University A…I found [the information] myself on the Internet…Korean [social] network, Naver’ – (Interview-Student 6).
Discussion and implications for Asia-bound international student mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic
Discussion
This study is among the very first to explore the push–pull factors influencing international students’ decisions to study in a HEI in Vietnam. The findings reveal common and distinctive patterns in the significance of the investigated push–pull factors compared with those identified in both the seminal works of McMahon (1992), Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), Altbach (2004) and de Wit (2008) and the newly emerging international students in Asia literature (Roberts et al., 2010; Lee C.-F., 2014; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Ahmad and Shah, 2018; Jon et al., 2014; Alemu and Cordier, 2018).
Data from the survey shows that international students in this study were more highly influenced by aspirations for new experiences, and economic- or employment-related push factors, namely gloomy job and unbright economic prospects in home country rather than educational reasons such as high tuition fees, or course unavailability as identified by Mazzarol and Soutar (2002). This tendency seems to be common among Asian students. Chinese students in Lee S.W. (2017) ranked job market conditions in their home country the second most important push factor only preceded by the notorious National College Entrance Examination (or Gaokao). While desire for new experiences characterises international students’ motivation to go abroad, the significance of economic and job prospects in home countries as push factors is closely linked with the pull factors that attract international students to Vietnam.
In terms of country pull factors, Vietnam’s bright economic prospect and employment prospects after graduation are the two most important factors attracting international students to the country. This point was also confirmed by qualitative data and in line with the major push factors which were identified in this study, namely ‘unbright economic prospect’ of home country and ‘not so optimistic employment prospect’. Another important pull factors of Vietnam as a host country is ‘desire to experience Vietnamese culture’. Factors which were seen as relatively important by students from this study include good economic-political-social between Vietnam and the sending countries; recommendations from friends, teachers and relatives; known of Vietnam while at home; travelled to Vietnam prior to enrolment and Vietnam’s stable environment. The least important factors established from this study comprises of those of presence of co-national communities, tourist attractions and job requirement. All of these factors have been discussed in studies on push–pull factors of international students (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Jon et al., 2014; Wang and Chang, 2016; McMahon, 1992; Ding, 2016; Jiani, 2017; Lu et al., 2019) showing that international students in University A on the one hand were influenced by similar pull factors as the students in other studies especially those examine international education in Asia, on the other hands, varied in the levels of influence by each individual factors in the process of choosing a country to go abroad.
Regarding pull factors of an institution, the present study confirms the role of institution reputation in attracting international student, which is self-evident in both qualitative and quantitative data, and consistent with the literature (Mazzarol and Soutar, 2002; Roberts et al., 2010; Jiani, 2017). In the context that Vietnam has not been recognized internationally for its educational quality, it could be argued that international students in this study decided to choose University A as host institution mostly thanked to the ‘brand name’ of its Vietnamese language and Vietnamese Studies programme. This finding illustrates the role of language, culture and country studies programmes in general in attracting international students as discussed in Asia-bound student mobility literature ((Roberts et al., 2010; Wang and Chang, 2016; Ding; 2016; Jiani, 2017; Jon et al., 2014; Alemu and Cordier, 2018). Other institutional pull factors varied in their importance towards students’ destination decision, yet all of them were well below the mean values for institution and Vietnamese studies programme reputation.
Implications for Asia-bound international student mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has been ongoing for over 2 years at global scale causing unprecedented disruptions across all aspects of world population including higher education and international student mobility. However, gaining international educational experiences in a foreign country would remain a real demand of students in the world (QS, 2020). The issue ahead would be which countries will remain or even emerge into new destinations in the new normal of the ongoing and post COVID-19 world, when vaccines will become globally available and travel restrictions will be relaxed. Strods et al. (2021) argue that after long delays of initial studying abroad plan, students now may tend to change to a different destination rather than their first choice. A study by Mok et al. (2020) shows that while most of the students from China and Hong Kong in their study cancelled the plans to study abroad, those decided to keep would change to destinations closer to home such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, while traditional destinations of Australia, Canada and France had lost their appeals to these students. The most apparent reasons revealed by students from the study were that Asian destinations seemed more successful in controlling the pandemic, had lower tuition fees and less expensive cost of living, were closer in terms of geographical proximity and most of all, these destinations could be perceived as safe by the students’ families (Mok et al., 2020). A report by UNESCO also highlights the probability of HEIs in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Korea to continue to attract international students in the new situation (UNESCO, IESALC, 2020). That is to say to international students, especially those from Asia, COVID-19 has impacted their plans to study abroad as well as their selection of host countries as they tend to opt for closer destinations with geographical and cultural proximity and safer environment.
Findings from this study along with reports on COVID-19’s impacts on international education offer very important implications for increasing the number of international students in Vietnam, a developing country with strong economic growth even amidst the global pandemic, which could become a potential destination for international students. Since international students in this study as well as elsewhere in Asia seem to be driven by economic and employment-related push factors, they, in turn, will be pulled to countries which could attain continuous economic growth. Bright economic prospect, which has been shown in this study as the most important pull factor for international students to Vietnam, continue to be forecasted in 2021 (Madani and Morriset, 2021) may establish the premise for the country to become an attractive destinations for foreign nationals including international students. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, it requires the cooperation of multiple stakeholders including the Ministries of Education and Training, Foreign Affairs, along with major HEIs to formulate suitable strategies in order to enhance the process of internationalization in higher education on the one hand and promote Vietnam as a bright economic spot to the world on the other.
Experiences from other Asian destinations show that international students would like to experience the culture of the host nation and language programmes could be seen as a competitive advantage of Asian host countries (Roberts et al., 2010; Ding, 2016; Wang and Chang, 2016). The present study investigating international students in a Vietnamese university also demonstrates that international students decided to enrol in the university thanked to the reputation of its Vietnamese language and Vietnamese studies courses. This is a point that may require extra attention. As Vietnam’s educational quality has not been internationally recognised and advanced programmes taught in English remained underdeveloped, HEIs in Vietnam might consider formulating strategies to take advantage of the niche market of language courses aiming at international students who seek to learn the language and experience the culture right in the destination country while continuing to build up English-taught course capacity. By following this approach, HEIs in Vietnam could achieve the short-termed goal of increasing the number of international students to build international reputation, which would in turn serve as the preliminary promotion of English-taught advanced programmes when those courses would become widely available serving a mid-termed goal of internationalisation. COVID-19 has brought both challenges and opportunities to international education, and HEIs across the world have been required to be innovative in their practiced and operation with virtualization and other initiatives. HEIs in Vietnam also need to look at the bright side of this picture and start to innovate their own ways to attract more international students, even if most of the teachings will be conducted on virtual platforms. However, this new reality could bring new opportunities for those who tackle it, the sooner, the better.
These implications could also be considered in the same vein by HEIs in developing countries in Asia whose higher education systems remain undeveloped, and English-taught programmes are still in the early stage of development. While accelerating world rankings, setting up English-taught courses, or offering scholarships might require substantial resources and time, attracting international students could begin much earlier on starting with the countries’ own characteristics of distinctive language and culture as demonstrated in the literature and empirical findings of this study.
Limitations and implications for future research
Although this research is among the first to have investigated push–pull factors influencing international students in a HEI in Vietnam and provided unique insights regarding the investigated issues, there is a major limitation. The population and samples were homogeneous in terms of nationality, namely Koreans, and programme of study, which was BA in Vietnamese Studies. This could lead to the issue of data bias impacting the generalisation of research results. Future studies employing similar framework should be conducted in other HEIs in Vietnam that host international students in non-Vietnamese Studies courses, especially English Medium Instruction programmes for a more complete picture of international students in Vietnam and Asia in general.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research is funded by University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City under grant number T2020-18.
