With roughly 10,000 international students, Indonesia is dwarfed by Singapore that hosts 65,000 non-Singaporeans and Malaysia that is a destination for a staggering 130,000 international students.

Indonesia is listed in the top 10 of the world’s emerging markets for businesses, and its language is considerably easier to learn than other Southeast Asian languages like Thai and Vietnamese, so it is already off to a great start for foreign students to pursue their education here.

Indonesia appears to be less attractive even though Singapore does not provide a stay back option after graduation and Malaysia is flooded with international graduates. Three challenges may be hindering the present efforts.

It goes without saying that Singaporean and Malaysian universities have more English-taught programs than Indonesian universities, which, of course, is a major pull factor for international students. Although this fact still does not justify Indonesia lagging behind Thailand.

With most local universities still teaching their programs in Thai, the universities with programs in English managed to attract more than 20,000 foreign students. In addition to the lack of English programs for foreigners at Indonesian universities, scholars have identified student visa processing issues as a major contributing factor, as well as the global image of Indonesia having poor education. The time-consuming process to navigate through the bureaucracy of visa applications prevents many institutions from guaranteeing the legality of their foreign students’ stay.

Furthermore, though universities have worked their way up the world rankings aggressively, like Gadjah Mada University (UGM), the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the University of Indonesia (UI), and private universities in Indonesia like BINUS University possess exceptional infrastructure and academically-rigorous professors, their reputation still does not travel far beyond the country. The main hurdle is, presumably, not the branding of the universities per se, but rather the branding of Indonesia as a destination for study.

As an Indonesian who works in the international relations team at one the most internationalized Korean universities, I see great potential in Indonesia to attract more degree-seeking international students and compete with its Southeast Asian counterparts, provided that the government continues efforts to slash visa processing times and provide more transparency. There are two aspects major Indonesian universities should factor in when making internationalization part of their vision.

First, instead of focusing the marketing banners solely on general academic rigor and the image of being a cultural heaven for foreigners, higher education institutions should make the programs specialized and attractive. To begin with, the recruitment should be spearheaded by Indonesian business schools, because their graduates are known to successfully punch through the local job market and make their way to become entrepreneurs and parts of giant corporations.

Using successful alumni as a stepping stone, tapping into the networks of enterprises and collaborating with them to establish post-graduation hiring and internships for international students is not an impossible maneuver. Guaranteed work experience that is integrated with the curriculum and short-term employment upon completion of study are definitely substantial incentives for international students to make Indonesia a study destination.

Moreover, such a package would not only make the students aim to experience Indonesia on the surface level but also to aim to integrate into society. Additionally, business schools with start-up incubators should incentivize their domestic students to take their projects to the global level by pairing with international student collaborators. International start-up entrepreneurs consistently include Indonesia as a market for their businesses.

Encouraging future international entrepreneurs to come to Indonesia to start establishing their local network via fellow student collaboration, therefore, would be a great way to pique the potential students’ interest.

Second, the most crucial step, above all, is to form a dedicated team just for international marketing and recruitment to allow further research, analysis, strategy-making and promotion with undivided attention. Universities’ current common fallacy is putting academics in charge of the internationalization strategy.

While the idea of using their networks still benefits the effort, such a move would only lead to an exposure level of internationalization like exchange or study abroad programs instead of full-time degree-seeking international students. Following the team formation, finding market positioning and identifying the segment are the next pivotal moves to establishing unique recruitment strategies.

As Indonesia is not yet considered a leading destination for international students, the promotional efforts must not mimic those practiced by study abroad destinations like the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia or other English-speaking oriented destinations with saturated target markets in order to create an exclusive positioning.

One technique to consider, for example, is that, instead of broadly promoting Indonesia as a study destination to all countries possible, it is worth trying to focus first on the top 10 nationalities of foreigners who reside in and thrive professionally in Indonesia. Combining both the fact there are international communities who live and prosper in Indonesia and the country’s image as a rising economic powerhouse in Asia, the promotional pitch would be effective in combatting the harmful and misleading portrayal about the quality of studying and living in Indonesia.

Investing more effort into having an internationally diverse student body does not only enrich the academic and pedagogical portfolio of the universities but, when done carefully and strategically, serves as a lucrative revenue stream for universities. Therefore, Indonesian higher education institutions should not wait any longer to start with aggressive international student recruitment, especially as they can take advantage of the country’s significant economic rise and conducive environment for start-ups and other businesses to grow.

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The writer is a member of the international relations team of Woosong University.