International student mobility: Linguistic barriers to accessing mainstream higher education

Student mobility is a significant feature of the internationalisation of higher education (HE). Various countries have been remodelling and restructuring their HE institutions to attract international students or make their education system globally competitive (Ball, 2012; Tsegay et al., 2018). There are about six million international students in HE worldwide, and the number is expected to reach eight million by 2025 (Tsegay et al., 2018). Research indicates that most international students prefer to study in institutions of the ‘Global North’ due to their education credentials,
which could enable better job opportunities and economic returns as well as sociocultural experiences (UNESCO, 2022). However, international students from the ‘Global South’ face many challenges in securing admission and visas to study in the Global North for many reasons, including English language requirements. In this piece, we discuss
student mobility with a focus on how proficiency in the English language impacts access to foreign HE institutions. Many studies have been conducted to analyse issues of access and widening participation from various perspectives, such as through the lens of social justice (Ball, 2012; Burke, 2012). Nevertheless,the analyses have paid less attention to linguistic barriers...