Skilled Migrants in Brazil

Latin America’s biggest economy is now the world’s sixth. With a population of over 190 million people and an annual growth of 4 %, Brazil is expected to become the fifth oil exporter by 2020. Despite recent warnings that its economy is not sustainable and that inequality is still prevailing across the country, significant socioeconomic changes have occurred including the 28 million people having moved out of poverty, improved education outcomes - Brazil’s 2009 PISA results placed it ahead of Argentina and Colombia, birth rates lower than the ones of the US (1.9 children/woman vs. 2, down from 6 children/woman in the 1960s) and a closing gender gap in education - women account for 60 % of the country’s graduates.

In addition to these changes which are likely to increase consumption, new employment opportunities will be created thanks to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. At the same time, Brazil needs more professionals than it produces and is fortunate that the world crisis is bringing the latter its way. In order to facilitate procedures, Brazil is about to revise its immigration policy and create a path for skilled workers.

Asia’s Prospects: Regional Hubs and Skilled Mobility

This post covers the latest developments in human mobility in Asia, mainly with regard to skilled migrants and international students. While China, Korea and Japan are trying to attract skilled immigrants as well as to ease policies toward immigrants already arrived, they might have to compete with Southeast Asian countries.

The University World News article Worldwide Student Numbers Forecast to Double by 2025 revealed some highlights of the Bob Goddard chapter for the book Making a Difference: Australian International Education. According to the author, by 2025 there will be 262 million post-secondary students worldwide (up from 150 million currently, or an increase of 75 %), much of that growth coming from India and China; and almost 8 million students studying outside the country in which they were born (up from 3-3.5 million currently).

Goddard points to Singapore and Malaysia as emerging education hubs: the former hopes to attract 150,000 foreign students by 2015 while the latter has a target of 100,000 by 2020. However, both countries are currently experiencing some problems.

Turkey’s Target: 100,000 International Students by 2020

In order to attract tourists from all horizons, Turkey and Istanbul have been promoted as a country/city between two continents – where East meets West. Now Turkey's officials are looking forward to another campaign – how to optimize the benefits of  international students mobility, and maybe take their exports and marketing to another level.

According to the Turkish Student Selection and Placement Center (OSYM) latest statistics, there is a 59 % increase in the number of foreign full-degree students over a 5-year period – from 16,000 in 2006/07 to over 25,500 in 2011/12 (Today’s Zaman 2011). The overall growth is largely due to a 65 % increase in the number of students from Muslim countries – from 11,000 in 2000/01 to 18,000 in 2010/11(Uzum 2012). In times of rising Islamophobia, Turkey was perceived as a politically safe and economically stable country in the Muslim world. However, academics and students cited other reasons for the increase, among which positive experiences of former international students, Turkey's cultural and historical heritage, reputation for  good educational facilities and programs and increased promotion of universities at education fairs.  

Forthcoming Posts on Skilled Migration

My next posts will cover skilled migration news from Latin America, Northern Europe and the English-speaking world (the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) -- all policies gravitate around the models of Canada and Australia while these countries have problems of their own...

Open J-Gate: Search Tips and Comparison with DOAJ

You have probably used Informatics India directory Open J-Gate (the website is not working at the moment) to find open access articles and journals.

However, in case you didn't know it (b/se DOAJ search options are not that many), search tips (e.g. operators, truncation) about using the database can optimize your results. You can learn how by reading some of J-Gate Newsletter search tip monthly articles from June 2011 onwards - just browse the J-Gate Newsletter archive. 

Innovation Union: EU R&D Updates and Competitiveness

Innovation Union  was created under the Europe 2020 Strategy and functions as a part of the Communication Unit of the EU Commission's Research & Innovation DG.

Free Language Learning Resources

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