The scramble for international alumni: Towards balanced benefits

Dilemma

Within the higher education sector, ministries of foreign affairs of developed countries provide funds for programmes that build the capacity of the local labour markets of partner countries. The ministries of economic affairs and education on the other hand, have a mandate to secure skilled workers (including foreign ones) for their own labour markets. Can such opposing interests by two ministries which represent the same government be reconciled?

Programmes supporting alumni to contribute to their home economies

Nuffic and DAAD are intermediary organisations that manage scholarship programmes that aim to develop the labour forces of developing countries. These programmes are financed by charitable foundations or ministries of foreign affairs.

One of the Dutch scholarship programmes (i.e. Netherlands Fellowship Programmes, NFP) has a return-home policy. Fellowship holders are expected, but not required, to return to their home countries upon graduation, while their employers are required to guarantee that the fellows will have at least their old job back upon their return. The promise of job security, together with a high intrinsic social commitment of development scholars, encourages at least 90% of the graduates to readily return to their home country, their home communities and employers.

Nuffic has also managed the International Fellowships Programme (IFP) in continental Europe, which  is currently being phased out after ten years. A recent alumni survey conducted by CHEPS at the University of Twente shows that 91% of all IFP fellows worldwide returned to their home countries.

DAAD has similar programmes, which encourage but do not require home-return (e.g. the Postgraduate Courses for Professionals with Relevance to Developing Countries). In this programme, at least 75% of the fellows return to their home country.

Programmes that make it attractive for the scholarship  programmes’ alumni to stay in their home countries are also funded. Professional development opportunities reduce the probability of the alumni leaving for other work destinations abroad in search of better resourced working environments. For example, at least two years after returning to their home countries, NFP alumni can obtain an additional NFP scholarship to attend a short refresher course.

DAAD has a larger portfolio in this, with the following programmes:

• the Sur Place- / Third Country scholarship programme, which provides initial and continuing education and training for young university teachers, key experts and executives in their home countries or home regions; 
• the “Cross Border” Study Programmes and “Sandwich” PhD Scholarships, where only part of the PhD research is undertaken in Germany and the larger part is carried out in the home country to reduce re-integration problems of graduates;
• the Re-invitation programme, which provides funding to alumni wishing to return to Germany for academic purposes, for a period of up to three months; 
• funding schemes that allow acquisition of literature and research materials by alumni living in their home countries; 
• the Alumni Special Projects, which allow alumni to participate in a one-week thematic summer school or training course in Germany, followed by a trade fair or conference to update their networks and their knowledge of the latest developments and technologies in their fields of work;
• the Alumni Portal Germany, partly supported by DAAD, which provides overviews of relevant job vacancies in the home countries of alumni. Communication of relevant job options in the alumni’s home country reduces the probability of them leaving home.

Programmes attracting international graduates to stay in their host economies

Parallel to development-related programmes, both Nuffic and DAAD also manage programmes that support international alumni to serve as ambassadors for their host country’s higher education sectors, labour market, culture, language and living environment. These programmes are mainly financed by the ministries of economic affairs and ministries of education, as well as the private sector in the Netherlands and Germany.

Such programmes are born out of the ambition of these knowledge economies to strengthen their position in the world as top knowledge economies. To achieve this ambition, both countries require highly skilled knowledge workers. The realisation that these cannot be sourced from the local environments alone has led to funded campaigns to attract foreign skilled workers.

The immigration policies and procedures have been adapted accordingly to facilitate this. For instance, the Netherlands provides one-year visas to international highly skilled recent graduates, allowing them to remain in the country and look for work. Germany will similarly issue the EU blue card, which gives highly qualified workers from outside the EU the right of residence and work in Germany. 

Coherence

For Nuffic and DAAD, it is tricky to juggle the conflicting objectives of the various government units with regard to alumni in equal measure. Coherence in the mandates of the various ministries involved would be welcome. We believe that such coherence can be achieved and with very little effort. For example, ensuring that the money that is intended to develop the labour forces of partner countries actually achieves this aim, by excluding graduates of development-related scholarship programmes from skilled worker immigration policies.

Currently, these policies are blanket policies, attracting workers indiscriminately, and thereby intercepting some of the graduates who were supposed to have been educated for their own home economies. This is a win-win solution since it would still leave more than enough graduates for the host economies.