Tertiary scholarship schemes as institutionalised migration of highly skilled labou

Abstract

Providing scholarships has become an integral part of the global higher education and so has research on its impacts. This article examines the tertiary scholarship scheme of the Czech government for providing scholarships to students from the global South as a part of its development cooperation programme with a double goal. Firstly, it examines the programme's development effectiveness from the perspective of migration studies, and secondly, it investigates the underlying motivation factors which influence the students' decisions on where they will stay after their studies. A survey among students and graduates of the scheme was triangulated with quantitative data obtained from official sources. The results show a mean values of 45 percent for brain gain, meaning that almost half of the graduates do return back home after their studies, yet this situation is aggravated by a significant share of brain waste. The major factors that influence students' migration decisions were established to be economic factors, the utility of the studies and the ease or difficulty with which they can find jobs in their home countries.

Global Korea Scholarship students: Intention to stay in the host country to work or study after graduation

“…These studies usually overlook university experience satisfaction as a possible influencing factor. Some include academic satisfaction either as a variable on its own (Trice & Yoo, 2007), or satisfaction with university experience is treated as part of social adjustment factors (Hejkrlík et al, 2018) or of academic achievement (Li & Sun, 2019). To address a lack of an agreed upon definition, this study suggests that university experiences can be understood as students' encounters with actors and services affiliated with their academic institution.…”

Postgraduate migration behaviour of international university students supported from the Czech Development Cooperation scholarships

“…The return rate identified in our survey among the alumni respondents on average 2.85 years after the end of their study was only 31%. This is lower than estimates reported in previous studies (Hejkrlík et al, 2018; Jelínek, Dessieová, & Náprstek, 2004) and far behind the return rates reported for the scholarship programmes funded from Australian or British development aid (Abimbola et al, 2016; Commonwealth Scholarships, 2017; Marsh et al, 2016) and many other development‐oriented international scholarships financed by governments of sending countries (Perna et al, 2014). Together with the relatively low intention to return, the low return rate uncovered in this study cast doubts on the Czech scholarship programme's effectiveness if conceived as a development intervention seeking to expand human capital in developing countries.…”

“…We were mainly concerned with the ques- The return rate identified in our survey among the alumni respondents on average 2.85 years after the end of their study was only 31%. This is lower than estimates reported in previous studies (Hejkrlík et al, 2018;Jelínek, Dessieová, & Náprstek, 2004) and far behind the return rates reported for the scholarship programmes funded from Australian or British development aid (Abimbola et al, 2016;Commonwealth Scholarships, 2017;Marsh et al, 2016) and many other development-oriented international scholarships financed by governments of sending countries (Perna et al, 2014).…”

“…Sponsoring studies of citizens from Global South at universities in Global North represents a traditional instrument of official development aid, recently reinvigorated by the inclusion of international scholarships among targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (UN, 2015). However, the evidence on the development impacts of international scholarships has been insufficient and, at best, mixed (Abimbola et al, 2016; Carpenter & de Vivanco, 2013; CIDA, 2005; Hejkrlík, Horký‐Hlucháň, & Němečková, 2018; Marsh, Baxter, Di Genova, Jamison, & Madden, 2016; Mawer, Quraishi, & Day, 2016; Němečková, Krylová, Horký‐Hlucháň, Hejkrlík, & Jílková, 2014). Despite the declared development focus, these programmes may further exacerbate rather than reduce the increasingly unequal distribution of benefits from internationalisation of higher education (Adnett, 2010).…”