British Council event highlights opportunities, challenges for students from Asia in the UK
Held at the University of Hong Kong, speakers at East Asia Education Week explained what the country offers international students.
A panel discussion at East Asia Education Week 2025, hosted by the British Council and held at the University of Hong Kong from March 5 to 7, 2025. Photo: HandoutBefore you read: The British Council hosted an event in Hong Kong to highlight the challenges, trends, and opportunities for students from Asia studying abroad in the UK. Speakers touched on the country’s appeal to international students and Hong Kong’s close ties with Britain.
Think about it: What are some of the challenges students face when looking to study abroad in the UK, and what solutions are presented in the article?
Although Asia remains a “substantial” source of international students in the United Kingdom, this could be affected by regional demographic issues and worldwide economic uncertainty, a representative from the British Council has said.
“Asia [including Australia and New Zealand] still accounts for a substantial 30 per cent of all international students studying in the UK and remains a priority region,” the British Council’s regional research analyst, Sonia Wong, said during the organisation’s second annual East Asia Education Week early this month.
The event, hosted at the University of Hong Kong, saw 250 attendees from 12 countries and territories, including alumni who studied in the UK as well as education agents. It discussed the trends affecting students in Asia who want to study in the United Kingdom.
Appeal of the UK
Nearly 230,000 international students in Asia*, Australia and New Zealand chose to study in the UK in the 2022-23 school year, almost one-third of the country’s total international student market.
Wong said most of these students were from China and India, but Hong Kong and Singapore also remain hotspots.
She added that the UK’s policies appeal to international students more than those of other English-speaking countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the United States.
“Right now, the UK appears ... the most welcoming of all these big four English countries,” she said.
Wong noted that Canada capped the number of international students allowed to enter the country for the second year in a row. In Australia, the federal government has implemented various policies to slow the growth of its international student population.
Recent developments in the United States have threatened university funding, which Wong said caused some institutions to limit their PhD admissions.
“For the UK, we have not imposed any caps on student numbers. We have not imposed any caps on the graduate routes, and we even removed the caps ... [so] the students will be able to find a job after they complete their studies,” she said.
Wong added that East Asia’s demographic shifts – low birth rates and ageing populations – could cause the UK’s number of international students from the region to drop in the next few decades.
She also discussed some of the challenges students face when looking to study in the UK. These included the rising cost of living in Britain and the threat of economic uncertainty given US tariffs, which could affect people’s ability to pay for education abroad.
Wong suggested that prospective students look for scholarships, research and plan for the cost-of-living differences in the United Kingdom, and try to understand the student experience through social media and engaging with alumni.
Strengthening ties
After the British Council’s inaugural East Asia education event in Malaysia last year, the organisers decided Hong Kong would be appropriate for the second edition, given the city’s close ties to the UK.
Susannah Morley, the organisation’s director in Hong Kong, highlighted how education and cultural exchange helped nourish connections between the UK and Hong Kong.
“By facilitating these educational exchanges, we ensure that the tradition of academic excellence and cultural collaboration continues to thrive,” Morley said.
“This ongoing interaction between students from both regions not only preserves but also enhances the connections, ensuring that the ties between Hong Kong and Britain remain strong for generations to come,” she added.
Leighton Ernsberger, the British Council’s education director in East Asia, also noted the importance of these connections: “There’s a lot of research partnership between the UK [and Hong Kong], but then you look at the student numbers, and the number of [UK] alumni here is massive,” he said.
“It was a really good representation of the student journey ... Connectivity is always important, and Hong Kong is a well-connected city.”
Regardless of where students end up going for university, Ernsberger offered a piece of advice about the value of higher education.
“Education is always seen as ‘I’ve got to get skills for a job,’” he said. “You will learn specific things ... [but] it’s the process of learning that you actually benefit from in a university environment.”
Ernsberger noted that higher education could help people develop the skills to adapt to the rapid changes in the world.
“Even if you’re learning philosophies from thousands of years ago, even if you’re learning technologies that will take over the world in the next hundred years, [what] you’re fundamentally doing is learning how to understand it and embrace it,” he said.
“And that’s what I think education gives you.”
*The British Council included numbers from mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.