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CANADA
Plunging popularity

CANADA SEEMS TO BE LOSING THE attention
of international students so quickly that its institu-
tions might not recruit enough students this year
to hit the sharply lower visa caps imposed recently by the
Trudeau administration.
After watching overseas student enrolments surge to
more than 400,000, the federal government this year an-
nounced the imposition of study visa caps aimed at ratchet-
ing down the number by about a third to around 290,000.
But at current application rates, Canada’s colleges and
universities might get only some 230,000 students from
abroad for the coming academic year, estimates Apply- Nusantara: controversial new capital city
Board, an online services company.
Universities Canada says its members are “seeing appli- In June, amid concerns about the progress of the new
cation numbers down” by an average of 40 percent. “Can- capital, outgoing president Joko Widodo broke ground on
ada’s attractiveness has fallen significantly,” Meti Basiri, the construction of a new branch of Gunadarma Univer-
ApplyBoard’s chief executive and co-founder, told Times sity, the first higher education institution in Nusantara.
Higher Education. “There is far less demand than supply.” But analysts are doubtful that top universities, both within
The reason, explains Basiri, is that the Trudeau admin- Indonesia and internationally, will be rushing to set up in
istration has taken several other steps in recent months the new capital.
beyond the visa caps, and had threatened more, which to- Not only does the new city still lack basic infrastructure,
gether are discouraging many international students from there is unlikely to be a mass exodus from Jakarta. “Perhaps
considering Canada. Those additional steps by the federal the government might offer very high incentives for these
government include doubling of the wealth requirement for universities to build in the capital city, but at the end of the
incoming international students, new limits on their work- day in terms of population, in terms of the demand, (it) is
ing hours and new visa limits on their spouses. still located in Jakarta,” says Teguh Yudo Wicaksono, head
While the full enrolment picture for the coming academic of the Mandiri Institute, an economic thinktank.
year is not yet known, the apparent speed of the turnaround Indonesia has been attempting to attract international
is shocking. In recent months, Canada’s higher education universities more widely in recent years, inviting top in-
leaders had been loudly warning of dire consequences from stitutions to establish branch campuses and develop new
visa caps, apparently unaware that those caps might prove research centres. In 2022, Australia’s Monash University
moot because of other factors. “We did what the UK did,” opened a branch on the outskirts of the current capital —
says Basiri of the limits on visa rights for spouses and de- crucially, on the opposite side of the city to the sinking north
pendents of students, “and five other things on top.” Jakarta — while Deakin and Lancaster universities are set
to open a joint campus in Bandung, 94 miles from Jakarta.
INDONESIA
Slow flight from Jakarta FINLAND

AS JAKARTA (POP.10.6 MILLION) RAPIDLY Free Finnish education
sinks into the ocean — 40 percent of the greater IDEALLY, MARIANNE KORKALAINEN’S HIGH
metropolitan area of the country’s admin capital school in Rautavaara, a tiny town in eastern Fin-
(pop.30 million) is now below sea level — Indonesia’s be- land, would enrol at least 20 new pupils each year.
hind-schedule, controversy-ridden new capital city on the This autumn, her shrinking municipality will send her only
jungle-clad island of Borneo could spell a new era for the about 12. But Ms Korkalainen, the head teacher, has a plan:
archipelago’s universities. she intends to invite half a dozen youngsters from poorer
The ambition for the new capital Nusantara is bold: a countries to help fill her empty seats. Eager adolescents
futuristic, sustainable smart city that can propel Indonesia’s from places such as Myanmar, Vietnam and Tanzania will
economy, supported by a “21st-century education cluster”, swap their tropical cities for her snowy bolthole. They will
including world-class universities. Two years in, the reality receive a Finnish education. At Finnish taxpayers’ expense.
is a little different: a development project that is lacking in School-age populations are shrinking in lots of European
investment and — somewhat ironically, given the situation countries — and in Finland, faster than most. By 2030, the
in Jakarta — a stable water supply. country could have nearly 10 percent fewer children aged

AUGUST 2024 EDUCATIONWORLD 59