The challenges of international education and academic exchange – mobility between Portugal and the United States
In the United States of America, this week is commemorating the International Education Week, a joint initiative of the Department of State and the Department of Education aimed at marking and enhancing the advantages of including in the academic path of students, Americans and other countries, an international experience, whatever its duration and purpose.
Last July the two departments had already issued a joint statement, which they called Joint Declaration of Principles in Support of International Education, in which they recognized that the United States cannot and would not stop investing in educational exchanges with other countries, a fundamental mechanism to strengthen diplomatic relations, train current and future leaders and respond to globally shared challenges, from the pandemic to the climate crisis. for security and reducing disparities in economic terms.
In practical terms, the commitment is based on a set of principles and actions that allow for a renewed focus on the international aspect of higher education and research. Among these principles, there is, first and foremost, the need to concert a national approach with regard to attracting foreign students, researchers and professors, promoting international study experiences for Americans, and fostering international collaboration with regard to research. and the internationalization of American universities. In a country like the United States, where decentralization is the norm in practically all sectors, namely in higher education and research, an attempt at national level coordination is exceptional, only possible if developed on the basis of a principle of narrow partnership with higher education institutions and a wide range of partners and stakeholders in the internationalization process, a principle that is also assumed in the Joint Declaration.
The message is clear – the United States is open to offerings to international students, researchers, and faculty, valuing diversity of backgrounds and fields of study, while encouraging American students, researchers, and educators to seek to complement theirs. educational path with an experience of study, internship or research developed in an international context.
The commitment to international education and the promotion of equitable access to its benefits is unequivocally presented as part of the post-pandemic recovery of covid-19, both internally and assuring a global leadership position for the United States.
But the pandemic has limited mobility and exchange, and the numbers in the Open Doors 2021 report, published earlier this week by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the State Department’s Institute of Education and Culture, reflect that. For the first time in six years, the number of international students attending US higher education institutions in the 2020-2021 academic year has dropped below one million, with a total of 914,095, a 15% decrease from the 2019-2020 total.
On the other hand, with regard to US students who chose and were able to study in other countries, the data available in the report was exactly correct for 2019-2020 – a year already heavily affected by the pandemic – and the drop was 53.1% , from 347 099 to 162 633.
Data on exchanges between Portugal and the United States also show a decline – in 2020-2021 there were 791 Portuguese students in the US
(-15.3% compared to 934 in the previous year) and in 2019-2020, 528 American students chose Portugal as their destination (-51.8% compared to the number of 1096 in the previous year and interrupting a growing trend marked in recent years).
In both cases, however, the declines remained in line with the average of the global exchange breaks in the US and the preliminary data that are available for the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year allow for some optimism regarding a mobility to approximate pre-pandemic levels.
This is also the trend observed in the activity of the Fulbright Commission, which administers the Fulbright Educational and Cultural Exchange Program in Portugal. The American students, researchers and professors who, with the support of the Fulbright Program, will develop their projects in 2021-2022, have already been described as arriving in our country, and the departure of Portuguese Fulbright scholarship holders to the USA has been regularly packaged.
The Fulbright Programme, celebrating its 75th anniversary worldwide in 2021, will thus support close to a hundred glarers from and to Portugal, in a clear contribution to the joint effort to relaunch international education and academic and cultural exchange between Portugal and the United States of America.
And the competitions for the Fulbright Scholarships for Portuguese people for the year 2022-2023 will start on December 1st, continuing a joint effort with several partner institutions to foster mutual understanding and partnership between the two countries.
Resources:
https://iew.state.gov/
Executive Director Fulbright Portugal Commission