Author: Admin

Global recognition of TNE qualifications needed to combat “mistrust and resistance”

“Covid-19 is a sad reminder that global challenges need global solutions, and global cooperation”

In order to underpin the growth of quality and needed transnational education, it is important to build trust across borders, and work together with the international community to develop shared solutions that meet the quality assurance needs of different stakeholders, writes Fabrizio Trifirò, head of quality benchmark services at UK NARIC.

Covid-19 is a sad reminder that global challenges need global solutions, and global cooperation. The internationalisation of education has been raising challenges that require the international education community to come together to explore and develop shared solutions. This need has only been strengthen by the current world health crisis.

“Lower score requirements may be acceptable if sufficient English language support is offered”

Diversity is a core value of higher education institutions, and consequently an important consideration for admissions decisions colleges and universities make every year.

While international applicants can help achieve diversity goals, institutions need to decide whether such applicants can cope with the language demands of instruction delivered in English.

This decision is not straightforward because, although English-language proficiency is a key element for academic success, other factors including subject-related knowledge and non-cognitive attributes play a role in future academic performance.

Because of the complex nature of academic language proficiency, requirements for English-language proficiency test scores are essential to the admission process for international students.

“The great part about remote externships is that they’re location agnostic. This means they really do encourage the best candidates to apply.”

Internships. The age-old rite of passage for college students looking to join the workforce. For generations, students have spent their summers during university shadowing executives and making themselves as indispensable to an organisation as possible, so they can lock down a full time job offer when they graduate. But students have also long been restricted by geographical and economic constraints when it comes to securing solid internship opportunities.

The fact is, running large internship programs are an incredible strain on resources for companies themselves.

Enter remote externships – an affordable, convenient, flexible way for teens to gain real corporate work experience – including internationally – irrespective of where they study or live as early as high school.

Here’s why the “Class of Covid” should have at least one remote externship on their resume before applying to college.

“International faculty’s lack of knowledge about local cultural contexts can be an insurmountable challenge”

Employing international faculty can have massive benefits for universities but it can also present a number of challenges, writes Tsediso Michael Makoelle, vice dean of research at Nazarbayev University’s Graduate School of Education.

Moving to any new country involves a new cultural environment which more often than not can cause international faculty to experience culture shock. When faculty experience this culture shock, many can struggle to adapt and adjust to this new cultural environment, including grappling with aspects such as language. In some cases, this could adversely affect their psychological and emotional well-being, leading to underperformance at work.

September 15, 2020
No Comments
Admin
Europe, Higher education, Internationalisation

Can the recruitment of pupils for UK boarding schools ever be 100% online?

“Marketing budgets, once heavily weighted to foreign travel for recruitment purposes, are now shifting to google ads, Instagram and Facebook”

Covid-19 has heralded a shift to an online world which has implications for every aspect of boarding school operations, writes Pat Moores, director and co-founder of UK Education Guide. Clearly, the most obvious impact has been on teaching, shifting almost overnight to Microsoft teams and other online learning platforms.

However, the impact is also being felt in pupil recruitment. The days when agents and schools met in large conference spaces to talk to each other and make agent agreements has also shifted online.

So how far can algorithms and automated online applications processes ever replace traditional Agents, school admissions teams and a school tour?

“81% of international students see buying an international education as an investment”

This year has been an incredible year of disruption for international education, writes Shane Dillon, found of Cturtle and UniAdvisor. It has rapidly brought to the forefront conversations around education delivery and the value of tertiary education in general in the 21^st century.

As of March 2020, the global movement of international students has vanished and the future of the sector, the countries and university brands involved are in a state of flux.

Now more then ever before it is critical for the sector to embrace data on international graduate employment outcomes to illustrate clearly to consumers the value and return on investment an international education delivers. Numerous studies from UNICEF, QS and Cturtle show clearly that employability is the most important consideration impacting student choice across Asia.

August 28, 2020
No Comments
Admin
Australia, China, Higher education, Immigration, International student recruitment, UK, USA

Interest in studying in Germany still strong among Indians despite Covid-19

“Almost everyone was very worried about the prospect of entering an unfavourable job market upon graduation”

Covid-19 is first and foremost a health crisis, writes UCL Institute of Education research fellow Sazana Jayadeva, but research into how the pandemic has impacted postgraduate-level student mobility from India to Germany suggests that health-related fears about studying in Germany during a pandemic were largely absent among both current and prospective students.

Between March and June 2020, I conducted interviews with Indian postgraduate students in Germany, as well as digital ethnographic fieldwork in mutual-help Facebook and WhatsApp groups used by prospective students to navigate the process of going to Germany for study.

The vast majority of my interlocutors were studying or applying to engineering postgraduate courses (reflecting the fact that the majority of Indian students in Germany are studying engineering).

Among my interlocutors, there was a feeling that Germany was handling the pandemic well, the healthcare system was robust, and international students were being well supported. Rather than health and safety, their main concerns centred on two issues.

August 24, 2020
No Comments
Admin
Europe, India, International student recruitment

Upskilling the international graduate talent market for a post-pandemic future

“Overseas talent has always been well-primed to help fill skills gaps in high-growth sectors like digital and technology”

Earlier this month, the UK government released further details on its new points-based immigration system, part of which hopes to provide international students the opportunity to live and work in the UK for a further two to three years after they graduate, writes Justin Cooke, chief content and partnerships officer at FutureLearn.

Similarly, in Australia, the government has announced it will recommence granting student visas among other measures to help support international student’s career pathways in the country.

Unlocking the potential in highly skilled international student talent has become a greater priority for both industry and government over the years, more urgently so since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, larger businesses especially have continued relying on the international graduate market according to recent insights, demonstrating the huge value of this talent pool.

“Asian students appear to travel within Asia or to western countries, but western students are not yet studying in Asia at the same level”

The flow of students in higher education has historically been from Asia to western nations, with most international students studying in Europe, North America or Australia, writes Loretta O’Donnell, vice provost of Academic Affairs at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. However, this trend has been changing for a number of years and is now more multi-directional.

In 2019 China hosted more international students than both Canada or Australia, with the top five highest intakes coming from South Korea, Thailand, Pakistan, India, and the US. Japan also saw an almost 11% increase in international student uptake compared to the previous year, while the UK saw a 2% decrease between 2018 and 2019.

“Little progress has been made in embedding non-Western ideologies and philosophies in current teaching”

There are currently more than 5.3 million international students furthering their education outside their home countries, writes Thanh Pham of Monash University.

The majority of which are non-Western students studying in Western countries. There have been growing calls for the need to support international students in Western countries, including providing financial aid, creating safe environments, and respecting cultural diversity.