Outbound mobility ratio: To measure the mobility of students across countries for academic reasons.

Outbound mobility ratio: Enrolment in tertiary institutions of national students studying abroad, total enrolment in tertiary education.

Outbound mobility ratio: By sex, ISCED level, region or continent of destination.

Outbound mobility ratio: Number of students from a given country studying abroad, expressed as a percentage of total tertiary enrolment in that country.

Internationally mobile students: Internationally mobile students are individuals who have physically crossed an international border between two countries with the objective to participate in educational activities in the country of destination, where the country of destination of a given student is different from their country of origin.

The country of origin of a tertiary student is the country in which they gained their upper secondary qualifications. This can also be referred to as the country of prior education. Where countries are unable to operationalise this definition, it is recommended that they use the country of usual or permanent residence to determine the country of origin. Where this too is not possible and no other suitable measure exists, the country of citizenship may be used – but only as a last resort.

Any transfer between different education systems which does not involve the physical crossing of an international border is not considered as international student mobility. In particular, the following are not forms of international student mobility:

- distance learning programmes provided by institutions based in another country to students based in their country or origin;

- programmes offered by foreign-based institutions in the country of origin leading to foreign degrees.

Internationally mobile students may be attributed to either the country of destination, as inbound internationally mobile students, or to the country of origin as outbound mobile students.

Outbound mobility ratio: Number of students from a given country studying abroad, expressed as a percentage of total tertiary enrolment in that country.

Outbound mobility ratio: Outbound mobility ratio should be based on enrolment in all levels of tertiary education (ISCED levels 5 to 8) and types of institutions (public and private).

The UIS sets standards, develops questionnaires and quality control protocols for country data reporting, and maintains the global database on the structure of education and enrolment data in tertiary education by students’ country of origin and sex.

Interpretations

Outbound mobility ratio: A high outbound mobility ratio indicates a high outflow of students from the specific country for study purposes, which may reflect a low retention capacity of students by the national tertiary education system.

Limitations

Outbound mobility ratio: A comprehensive enumeration of outbound mobile students may be challenging task if there is no systemic mechanism to track outbound students by country of destination, or if the host countries (universities abroad) do not report data on the international students by country of origin.

Furthermore, the criteria used to define mobile students may vary from one country to another, which may affect the cross-country comparability of this indicator.