THE STATISTICS OF STUDY ABROAD

In: International social science bulletin, Band 8, Heft 4, S. 604-614

Abstract

The availability of statistics on the number of S's enrolled for higher educ in countries other than their own is largely a product of the work of UNESCO. A distinction between the pol'al signif of study abroad & its intercultural signif needs to be made. Partly because of problems of definition (of foreign S, higher educ, & fields of study) & partly because of inadequate information from some countries, the number of foreign S's enrolled for higher educ can only broadly be reported as 120,000-166,000. About 95% of S's studying abroad are concentrated in the following 30 countries: 35,000-40,000, the US; 10,000-20,000, France, GB; 10,000-14,000, Argentina; 5,000-6,000, Federal Republic of Germany; 4,000-4,500, Switzerland; 3,500-4,000, Japan, Netherlands; 3,000-3,500, Austria, Canada, Mexico; 2,500-3,000, Egypt, Italy, Vatican; 2,000-2,500, India, Spain; 1,500-2,000, Australia, Philippines, Lebanon, Uruguay; 1,000-1,500, Belgium, Chile, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa; 500-1,000, Cuba, Hungary, Sweden, Syria, Venezuela. Estimates of the countries from which foreign S's come are as follows: 8,000-10,000, US; 7,000-8,000, French overseas territories, Canada, UK non-self-governing territories; 4,000-5,000, China, Federal Republic of Germany; 3,000-4,000, Greece, India, Korea; 2,000-3,000, Iran, GB; 1,000-2,000 Ceylon, Colombia, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela; 500-1,000, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Sweden, Yugoslavia. The % of S's studying in various fields are: humanities including educ, 25-27; soc sci including law, 19-23; medical sci 15-18; engineering & technology, 15-16; natural sci's, 12-14; others, 6-10. From 15%-20% of S's studying abroad are F. The largest number of scholarships for foreign S's in the yr 1955-56 were provided by the US, France, Egypt, Turkey, GB, & Sweden. Other scholarships were provided by international org's such as the UN. A diff conception of the signif of the above figures is obtained if they are related to the total enrollments for higher educ in each of the participating countries. In these terms (the foreign S's in US Coll's & U's represent only 1.5% of the (total - sum) enrollment). The corresponding figure for GB is 10.7%; for France, 10.3%; for Austria, 18%; for Switzerland, 25.3% for India, 0.4%; & for Japan, 0.7%. B. J. Keeley.