West African International Student Mobility To Pentecost University College, Ghana.

Abstract

International student mobility has become a topic of interest in recent migration literature. This is probably because international student mobility has considerable implications both on economic and academic sphere and has rapidly grown across the world. Many tertiary institutions in the world today have interest in recruiting talented international students to ‘enhance their academic reputation, enrich campuses and programmes with cultural, social and academic contributions. Many scholars on the migration field argue that this increase in international student mobility could be attributed to improved international communications, decreasing real cost of air travel, a widening range of educational opportunities for foreign students, increased globalization of labor markets among others. International student mobility has mostly been known to be from developing to the developed countries probably due to the vast research that has been conducted into the area as compared with the little research done on international student mobility between developing countries. This study investigates the West African international student mobility to Pentecost University College, Ghana. The study explores the socio-demographic characteristics of the international students at PUC, factors that influenced their decision making processes to choose Ghana as their study ‘abroad’ destination and their choice of PUC. Additionally, their experiences as international students at PUC are also looked into and recommendations are made based on the findings. Chen’s synthesis model is used to explain students’ decision making process in three distinct stages and to seek various factors that affect the choice of host country and institution. The research sample comprised sixty five (65) quantitative and ten (10) qualitative. The quantitative research method is utilized by using a survey questionnaire while the qualitative research method employed the use of a semi structured in-depth interview guide. The findings indicate that most of the international students were from Nigeria and that many of the students came to Ghana expecting that their Ghanaian credential will put them in a better employment position upon their return home. Quite expectedly, some of the experiences of these students in Ghana have been negative, while others have been positive. Many of them noted the friendliness and hospitality of Ghanaians and the relative safety of Ghana as a country.