Month: January 2015

“We are kidding ourselves into thinking a one-time meeting one month after programme is sufficient in supporting students’ needs during their return processes”

Supporting students during a period of study abroad is a topic that’s widely discussed, but equally important is continuing to support them after they have returned, writes Megan Lee, an international educator, traveller and writer and former Study Abroad Director for GoOverseas. Megan currently leads study abroad programmes in Asia, the South Pacific, and Africa. Chat all things #intled with her on Twitter @peglegmeg.

While working as the Study Abroad Director at GoOverseas.com, I observed a range of activities designed to serve returnee study abroad students, from providers, non-profits, and universities alike. Tweet ups, meet ups, photo contests, review outreach. While some outstanding programming stands out, such as the Lessons From Abroad conferences in the United States, let’s face it: overall, we fall short in our offerings for students.

We have watered down our post-programme correspondence to scavenge for more photos, reviews, or collect campus volunteers for reaching potential students (“Ambassador” programmes). We have taken students’ genuine fire for study abroad, living a passion-inspired life, and willingness to contribute to a cause they believe in, and morphed them into our nationwide marketing army.

It’s important that our field recalibrates our approach to reentry programming. We need to make good on our commitment to encouraging student growth, and prioritise students’ needs before we fulfil our organisation’s needs.

4 Simple Ideas to Strengthen Your Re-Entry Programming

Instead of jumping ship when students really need you most, here are some easy, no-fuss ideas to better serve your students with integrity:

1. Offer open office hours

Let students come to you when they are struggling, feeling off, or just need to talk. Avoid the bureaucratic nonsense of making appointments and meetings before they can reach you. Sometimes students just need a friend who ‘gets it’.

2. Check in with students periodically after programme

We are kidding ourselves into thinking a one-time meeting one month after programme is sufficient in supporting students’ needs during their return processes. It is our duty to also check in with students three months, six months, and one year after programme.

Challenge students in these conversations. Don’t simply ask how they are doing or stick to surface-level chit chat. Tell them to demonstrate how their experience abroad has had a real, tangible impact on their life in their home communities.

3. It starts with relationships

Advisors need to make a conscious effort to have individualised attention for each student. Once you gain a student’s trust, you will be able to speak more comfortably and openly. When providing mentorship to students you have a personal relationship with, you will eventually have a greater overall impact.

Advisors need to more confidently own their roles as mentors, and play an active role in students’ lives beyond logistically organising their semester abroad and helping them choose a programme.

4. The internet is your friend

Do you have alumni around the country or around the world? Why not reconnect with students by using technology they are accustomed to in a manner they enjoy? Fire up that webcam and connect creatively with your past students in a monthly webinar, or leverage social media to build online communities that always available for students to tap into.

No Excuses!

As a field staff educator, I now recognise how difficult it is to stay engaged with a student post-programme. Before, I would think, “How hard is it to offer X, Y, Z to a student?” And now, from the opposite end, I totally understand how these aftermath tasks get pushed to the bottom of the priority list, and how your focus quickly shifts to the next group of students preparing for their trip abroad.

I have heard multiple international educators say “Students aren’t interested in return programming unless there’s something in it for them,” or “We organise a great big event and only 20 students show up,” or “Our students clearly don’t experience reverse culture shock very strongly.”

To all that I say a big. fat. “PHOOEY.”

It is too easy an out for us, as educators, to allow these menial excuses to keep us from doing better; from solving the problem more creatively; from providing better support to returnee students (you know, the kind that allows them to flourish as global citizens upon their return).

Get Excited!

I get really excited thinking about working with students before, and especially after, their study abroad programme. While interacting with students directly during their time abroad is meaningful, I realise now it is the easy part. Completing the programme abroad is the easy part.

The hard part is when students return to where they started and are challenged to maintain their fresh perspectives borne abroad. The hard part is when students feel isolated, disempowered, and tempted to return to their old ways. The hard part is when students lose their footing and succumb to the pressures of their home communities.

The hard part is where we come in!

Let’s step it up as a field to ensure our students have the support necessary in their life after study abroad. What programme offerings are successful in your office, and what other weak areas exist that we can be doing better in?

“I am saddened by the ‘go away’ message that seems to be writ large in the perception sphere of those Indian students and their parents who once considered studying in the UK but won’t any longer”

Sonal Minocha, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement at Bournemouth University, writes about falling interest among Indian students in studying in Britain, how to address it, and the power of Education Brand Britain.

Following a customary break in India over Christmas I am ready to start the New Year with New Ideas. The PIE is the perfect forum for that!

So why India? Well, ’tis the only way to escape stuffing my mouth with Christmas cake and mince pies and red wine for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between – life of a PVC! And India is where family is as well for me – so instead Christmas is all about lots of dhals, currys, chicken tikkas and oh, those diabetic Indian sweets for me! And it all ends with a Delhi Belly by my last day before flying back – an excruciating flight a day or two after New Year follows! For me it’s been the same routine, year on year, since 2001.

This time round, however, I felt a special connection with India. Was it because I am so proud of what India has achieved since I left home? Is it because Modi has genuinely put India on the map and made all NRIs (Non Resident Indians) proud? Is it because I am saddened by the depravity that still engulfs one of the fastest growing economies of the world? It has to be because I am saddened by the ‘go away’ message that seems to be writ large in the perception sphere of those Indian students and their parents who once considered studying in the UK but won’t any longer (Britain has seen a decline of 51% in enrolments from India in the last two years). The latter hurts.

“I know the truly transformative power of Education Brand Britain”

As an international student to the UK first and then as a staff member in UK HE I know the truly transformative power of Education Brand Britain. Yet to see this questioned by the once prospective international students from India is sad and something I am determined to rectify.

Yes, our policy environment hasn’t been conducive; yes, we have got it wrong with the immigration, visa and PSW debates. I along, with other leaders in HE, will continue to make a compelling case on all three matters. In the meantime, however, I want us to make a call for a campaign to restore faith in Education Brand Britain. I will start this firstly as PVC at Bournemouth University, but hope that my counterparts will join in on sending a welcome message to India. This is not a marketing gimmick or a precursor to a token ministerial visit. This for me is a commitment to the values of Higher Education in Britain, which are currently challenged in the Indian context. Britain has never denied access to talent – so I make a call to my readers to work with me as we begin work to rebuild Brand Britain in India. Practically, I offer three directions in which to approach this agenda:

1. Closer working with Indian employers

This is crucial to ensure the employer base in India continues to value the skills development that British HE excels in. Input from Indian employers into our curriculum is another agenda that HE institutions might want to think of collectively – are our graduates ready to operate in the Indian socio-economic-political environment? An environment that is undergoing unprecedented transformation.

2. Closer working with Indian alumni

Since 2004, over 250,000 alumni from UK institutions have returned to India – they are a powerful voice and testament to the transformative intervention that education in Britain provided them – yet am not sure that we do enough collectively as a sector to work with these alumni.

3. A clear set of communication messages

This is easier said than done. However, I feel I still have to make the case: the media coverage for governmental and educational interaction with India has only resulted in confused messages from Britain to India at worst and at best made us appear fragmented and short sighted in our purpose. The messages that Britain is open for business and is welcoming of Indian students have lost their value in the minds of the discerning Indian ‘customer’ (businesses, students, parents etc). The policy regime has been contradictory to these generic messages. It’s time, therefore, to refine our messages and unify them (across the government/ministerial/business/non government bodies) so that we have one clear message from Britain to India and it isn’t just welcoming but is also clear, consistent and compelling.

This is my short passage to Britain as I embark on my journey back home (to Britain) from home (India)!

Sonal Minocha

Sonal Minocha is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Global Engagement at Bournemouth University.

“I never bought into the idea of volunteering abroad. What on earth would an HIV positive Kenyan child growing up on a rubbish dump want with a spotty, white teenager pretending to care?”

Joe Pearson, Marketing Executive at African Adventures, writes about how his perception of volunteering abroad has changed and the benefits of project-led volunteer organisations.

After finishing A-Levels, I took a gap year. A few friends did the same. I worked in a sweet shop and many of them worked too, saving money for a trip to Africa or India, or wherever, to volunteer. I grew up in a relatively affluent area so I was not surprised that so many opted to volunteer abroad. Gap year volunteering was the norm, if you took gap year you travelled or volunteered. Anything else was a wasted year.

Honestly, I never bought into the idea of volunteering abroad – it seemed an expensive way to achieve nothing. What on earth would an HIV positive Kenyan child growing up on a rubbish dump want with a spotty, white teenager pretending to care?

This is a massive oversimplification of problems but some of these concerns remain valid. The uncomfortable truth is that volunteering abroad is a mandatory rite of passage for children of doctors and lawyers that must be undertaken before they persue their true destiny at Oxford or Cambridge. At best they might volunteer again after university, at worst their trip to ‘save Africa’ goes down as just another line on the CV.

“Volunteering abroad is a mandatory rite of passage for children of doctors and lawyers before they persue their true destiny at Oxford or Cambridge”

Yet volunteering in Africa is a changing industry. Faye Egan, a friend in full-time work, recently volunteered in Nakuru, Kenya. Her experience, she claims, could not have been more different. Keen to make a lasting difference, she volunteered with a company called African Adventures and worked at projects near the Hilton Dump site in Nakuru. Travelling alongside Ely College and Ormiston Sudbury she was delighted at the way the organisation, the projects and the volunteers worked with each other to support sustainable projects and make a difference. Ely College’s Group leader, Mark Sirot-Smith, commented on the impact of volunteering both on his students and the children at the projects in Kenya.

“First there was the confidence they gained through the fundraising process. Initially many students didn’t believe that they could raise £1500 each, but they all did – through quizzes, curry nights, sponsored events, race nights and by directly approaching businesses. What they discovered was that many people are keen to help them, but want to see that they have taken some initiative and are not simply relying on others for hand-outs. I think they surprised themselves.”

“Many of the team had never really experienced success before, but to achieve what they did and to be told how well they had done was a real boost”

“In Kenya they had to work as a team, which is very important, but what I think they gained most of all was belief in themselves and what they could achieve. Many of the team had never really experienced success before, but to achieve what they did within a week and to be told how well they had done was a real boost to them.

“The benefit is longer term – all of them have started to understand what they can do rather than what they can’t. They have started to believe in themselves and understand how much richer life can be if you give yourself. I truly believe this experience will be the making of the team. Volunteer in Africa, but make sure you do it with a purpose not simply as a holiday. The extras such as the safari are lovely but without the volunteering it would have been an empty experience.

“Be prepared to get emotionally involved – go as a volunteer and a human being, not a teacher”

“Be prepared to get emotionally involved – go as a volunteer and a human being, not a teacher. Be prepared to muck in and lead by example. It’s a lot of work and there are times when you will think – never again, but the impact of the experience overcomes all these and the high you experience when you see your students achieve great things is immeasurable. I’m totally hooked!”

Oliver King, from Ormiston Sudbury School, who led a similar trip to Kenya, had similar thoughts on his student’s experience. “Eleanor Roosevelt said ‘do one thing every day that scares you’. Wifi, hot water and electricity are all things I no longer take for granted, not just because we went without for a few hours at a time but because we worked with young people every day succeeding with much less.”

I believe travelling is crucial to development. Recently groups from King Richard’s School in Portsmouth and Ross Hall School in Glasgow volunteered in Kenya, both schools from deprived areas of their respective cities. All of the students had to fundraise in order to pay their trip costs and did so successfully. I don’t doubt in the slightest how beneficial this has been for those children.

“Their target market? Well, it’s certainly no longer exclusively individual groups of wealthy gap year students”

Perhaps volunteering abroad is more than just a line on a CV for today’s students. Providers such as African Adventures maintain that they are project led, which is a welcome change. Sustainable projects assisted, but not dictated by, UK run organisations are becoming more common. These organisation’s successes are rightly judged by the successes of their partner schools and projects in-country. Their target market? Well, it’s certainly no longer exclusively individual groups of wealthy gap year students. School, college and university students all attest to the immeasurable value of volunteering abroad. It’s about time. Volunteering shouldn’t be a dirty word and it certainly shouldn’t be seen as some sort of exclusive club. It might surprise many that an awful lot of good can be done by volunteering, you can actually help people and make a difference. Who knew?