The international education stratum has been through a lot of changes over the last decade and the ongoing pandemic can be attributed to the overwhelming percentage of the changes that happened over the last couple of years. While the pandemic has had a negative impact on the whole education space like most other sectors across the globe, innovative educators has come up with innovative and effective solutions to tackle the issues caused by the pandemic. And as a result, the international education stratum has benefitted by this which has helped millions of students across the globe to continue their education without any major hassles. And in this article, we will take a closer look at the challenges faced by the international education sector, the upcoming trends and technologies in this space, the growing industry academia gap, as well as the best courses that students can opt for. 

• The Challenges

International education of students has had many challenges owing to the pandemic including not being able to go to classes due to the various restrictions which has not only impacted the academic side of the students. Staying in their houses over long periods of time without little to no contact with the outside world has had negative repercussions on the mental side of the students as well. Increased stress and social anxieties are just a couple of these side effects. And for very young students, they are missing out on their crucial years of their social development.

International education market has also suffered owing to the pandemic with many travel restrictions limiting students going abroad for higher education. And this has also resulted in tides of change in higher education with many students having being forced to give up on their higher education dreams.

• Changing Trends and Adopting New Technologies

Like challenges, the various educators across the globe have come up with innovative solutions to tackle those challenges and the online medium of education which was something many people were hesitant about.

The past year has been a year that also saw massive developments happening in the growth as well as implementation of AI in education that helps for a better as well as effective learning experience for the students.

Then comes the untapped potential of data analytics in international education that can massively boost not only the success rate of students but also change the way in which students as well as teachers perceive how to impart and receive education.

• Addressing the Industry-Academia Gap

The industry academia gap is a prevalent problem that has been plaguing the higher education sector for many years now. And it is worse in many developing countries when compared to some of the well-developed western nations. The pandemic has increased the industry-academia gap and millions of students from across the globe has suffered severely because of this. The ever-increasing competition in the job market and the rapid increase in unemployment have all resulted in the creation of the perfect storm that has shown how much the higher education sector of many countries should improve if their students have any chance of surviving in the modern-day ultra-competitive world.

• Time for New Attractive Courses

There have always been courses that appeal to students during a certain period of time and now as well as for the near foreseeable future, there are various Business as well as IT courses that shows more promise when compared to the rest. And this includes Data Science programs that will be a mainstay for many years to come as well as various programs in Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, and Business Intelligence to mention a few.

These programs not only offer better job opportunities now but also for the near foreseeable future. And that is something crucial if you want to succeed in this dynamic world we are living in right now.