How is COVID-19 affecting international students plans to study in the Netherlands - part 2
Part 2 of the study into the effects of the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic on the decision of students in higher education to study in the Netherlands.
Main findings and considerations
- When asked “What will you most likely do?” and given the option to share their first and second choice, most of them planned to travel to the Netherlands to start with on-campus classes (39%) or online education (30%). Only a small percentage of respondents wanted to start their study programme in the Netherlands in September while remaining in their home country (15% choose this as their first or second option).
- For many of the respondents, deferring for a year was neither their first nor second choice (only 20% selected this option). The number of students who wanted to defer was highest among respondents from Neso countries (24%), followed by OKP (10%) and EEA (9%).
- Zooming in on the prospective students from the 10 countries where a Neso is located, they indicated that they had experienced uncertainties about visa procedures and travel restrictions even more frequently than 2 months ago in the first report. Concerns about access to the Dutch healthcare system and concerns about personal health conditions remained almost equal, whereas concerns about scholarship possibilities and admission requirements had decreased.
- Regarding the mode of instruction (online or on-campus), the survey showed mixed results: compared to the first survey, the percentage of students from Neso countries indicating the mode of instruction as an uncertainty increased slightly from 30 to 34%. At the same time, the most popular responses to the question “What will you most likely do?” among prospective Neso students were “start in September and travel to the Netherlands for either online education (25%) or on-campus classes” (34%) as opposed to 16% who indicated they planned to stay in their home country and pursue online education.
- Of the 229 OKP scholarship recipients that completed this survey, 86% had already received a formal decision regarding their application and 59% indicated they would most likely start as planned by travelling to the Netherlands for on-campus or online classes. They mentioned travel restrictions (74%) and visa procedures (38%) as their two main uncertainties.
- With regard to the respondents (N=154) from the EEA, most of the respondents indicated they would most likely start as planned by travelling to the Netherlands for either on-campus or online classes. Furthermore, health concerns were mentioned relatively less often compared to the respondents from Neso countries, with concerns about personal health at 16% and concerns about access to the healthcare system in the Netherlands at 23%. The mode of instruction, however, appeared to be a main concern for the EEA respondents. It was even the most frequently chosen uncertainty (60%).
- When it comes to being deterred from studying abroad as a result of COVID-19, there was a difference between EEA students and students from Neso countries: 61% of EEA respondents indicated they were not deterred from studying abroad, whereas only 37% of respondents from Neso countries gave this same answer.