Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the present factors in cross-border academic migration from, to and within the five post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, and the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict on student mobility flows in Eurasia.

Paper long abstract:

The paper examines the present factors in cross-border academic migration from, to and within the five post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. In the first decades of the 21st century, the number of Central Asian youth studying abroad almost doubled and continues to grow, while the domestic tertiary enrolment has not kept pace with the growing demand for higher education. The data on international academic migration shows that the bulk Central Asian academic migrants go to Russia, where they currently make about 40 % of the total international student population. Besides, the Russian government continues to sponsor incoming mobility the post-Soviet states via scholarships and tuition waivers. Such support, granted to the Russian ‘compatriots’, enable to maintain a continuous migration and further naturalization of the ethnic Russians, especially from Kazakhstan. Apart from Russia, the USA, the UK, Germany, China, Turkey and Islamic countries take considerable efforts to attract students from the region within their public diplomacy and development aid programmes. There is also a visible educational migration within Central Asia; and Kazakhstan has established its Bolashak study abroad scholarship as a part of a nation’s modernization programme.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on academic mobility worldwide, causing complete or partial cease of international travels, imposition of quarantine, and forced introduction of digital education. Numerous surveys among students, teachers and experts in higher education have shown much vulnerability of the existing academic mobility schemes, such as insufficient level of assistance to international students, learning problems, financial and psychological issues. The situation has just started to improve slowly by 2022, but the Russian invasion in Ukraine generated new threats to cross-border student migration, not only in countries directly involved in the conflict, but on a much larger scale. After its show of force in Ukraine, Russia’s soft power in Central Asia will no longer work the same way. While hostilities are underway, and Russia stands isolated from the world’s financial, logistic, cultural and educational space, thousands of academic migrants from Central Asia encounter stresses of uncertainty. This crisis is likely to lead to reconfiguring the landscape of international education in Eurasia.