Migration governance and higher education during a pandemic: policy (mis)alignments and international postgraduate students’ experiences in Singapore and the UK

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with the nexus between migration governance and higher education. While the intersections between these two societal/policy systems have received attention in existing literature, much has changed as a result of the recent COVID-19 crisis. The global pandemic has introduced spatial and temporal disjuncture that significantly impact how international students navigate these systems. We address this issue through the lens of international student mobility, taking postgraduate international students’ perspectives as a vantage point. By drawing on a comparative qualitative study between Singapore and the UK (specifically, London), we focus on how international students experience, first, (mis)alignments between migration governance and pandemic-induced mobility regulation and, second, tensions between mobility regulations and institutional measures adopted by universities in Singapore and the UK. In both contexts, pandemic governance often compounded the complexities of migration policies, creating additional barriers for international students. In navigating these new challenges, international students adaptively draw on various resources while also imagining new possibilities presented by the otherwise challenging circumstances.

KEYWORDS:

• International student mobility
• higher education
• migration
• COVID-19 pandemic
• Singapore and the UK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 As a city–state, Singapore occupies both the ‘national’ and ‘city’ level. This unique characteristic, however, does not undermine our comparative setup, which rests upon a multilevel analysis of two universities of similar global standing.

2 Information provided is accurate as of 22 September 2021. Given the contingent nature of the pandemic border and travel measures, categories of travel health control measures are updated at https://safetravel.ica.gov.sg/shn-and-swab-summary.

3 Traffic light system rules for entering England (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/students/international-students/orientation-and-entering-england/preparing-arrive-england-travel-advice).

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the National University of Singapore Humanities and Social Sciences Seed Fund for project International Student Mobility in the Time of COVID-19: Regimes, Experiences and Aspirations, 2021–2022 [PI: Brenda Yeoh], and supported by Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 [MOE-T2EP402A20-0004, PI: Ho Kong Chong].