Chinese and Indian higher education students go abroad: listening to them to determine what their needs are

This paper voices the opinions of international students’ from China and India, and highlights the intentional process of integrating their perceptions of internationalization into a strategic service delivery plan. Data on those perceptions were analysed using a probabilistic model. We clustered 766 international students’ opinions into categories that enabled us to determine the main ideas that constituted their perceptions. The findings enabled us to draw comparisons between two major sending countries and to formulate a series of recommendations for stakeholders in higher education institutions that receive Chinese and Indian students, as well as for policymakers. Primary differences relate to factors such as learning and internship opportunities for Chinese students and service provision for Indian ones. In conclusion, this study offers the next step in the analysis of Chinese and Indian international students’ needs providing with an innovative way of determining students concerns with a view to empowering them within the internationalization process of higher education institutions.