People can live anywhere, but a motherland is a special dwelling for everyone. There are many students in the world who leave their own country for higher education. There are many reasons behind going abroad to study; however, it brings many advantages and disadvantages for sending and receiving countries. Students prefer to go abroad to study for many reasons such as lack of places in local universities, low standard of local education, and impressive multinational employment. Due to this reason the host countries face some social and development problems from the foreign students who only focus on making money, because it draws down the educational progress of the country. It is a brain drain to sending countries which means that well qualified and trained students are moving out of country.
In general, the most commonly observed impact on students who studied abroad are better foreign language proficiency, more knowledge about the culture, politics, and society of the host country, and altered stereotypes. For instances, when I was in Sri Lanka, I only knew Tamil, Sinhala and English but after coming to Bangladesh for my higher education, I’m able to understand and speak Bangla and Malayalam since I have the opportunity to interact with many international students. This is a great opportunity for all the foreign students to learn many languages. In addition, the host country citizens can know more about other cultures. Also, when the students are from different backgrounds, they have the chance to live in multicultural environment where they can acclimate with others. Moreover, Students who are studying at Asian University for Women have said that studying in another country helped them make career and life choices, attain skills in intercultural communication, improve problem solving skills and gain respect for cultural differences.
However, many of the students who went abroad to study never came back to their own countries and the well trained students in foreign countries are not able to apply their studies in their own countries. The well trained students can control this negative impact of going abroad by investing money on educational progress of their mother country to improve their local educational system. But the question is, will you take the initiative?
The writer is a Bangladesh based correspondent at Youth Ki Awaaz.