Category: Edtech

Why Australia can’t afford to neglect international students

“We must continue viewing students as an asset, not just to our economy, but to the prosperity of our nation”

Have you ever stopped to think about what Australia would be like without international education? Australia’s education industry supports 240,000 jobs. If all those people suddenly became unemployed, our unemployment rate would jump from 5.2% to 7.1%. With a $37.7 billion hole in Australia’s economy, either taxes would go up, or spending on services would go down.

In the past, Australia’s prosperity was driven via wool, wheat and energy exports. Today, international education is one of the country’s strongest revenue generators, with recent federal department of education statistics revealing that over 700,000 international students have lived, worked and studied in Australia this year to date.

November 4, 2019
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Australia, Edtech, International student recruitment

Online schooling: nurturing a new generation of internationally aware learners

“There is a rising trend in families travelling the world, educating their kids themselves while on the move”

Online schools are fostering children and young people’s international awareness by providing greater opportunities to connect and develop alongside peers from all over the world.

Online and distance learning is already well-established in the context of post-secondary education. However, online education for school-age children is becoming increasingly popular as more families are seeking out alternative options to mainstream school.

Faster broadband speeds and ever-greater access to the internet, along with huge advances in technology over the past decade, have made online schools possible. Platforms such as My Online Schooling provide a full-time, curriculum-led education to serve as a complete alternative to a traditional school for those who need it.

“Classrooms will certainly look different with mobile chatbots offering support to individual students and more personalised learning plans”

With the technological advances in the last 10 years, it is a challenge to predict future changes in another 10 years. However, there is so much scope for existing tech to be developed further, it is a fair guess that many of the ideas outlined below will make a tangible impact on the UK Boarding school sector.

Chatbots are already an established part of academic and admissions support teams at some UK and U.S. Universities. At Georgia Tech one online support worker ‘Jill Watson’ helped students on Professor Ashok Goel’s Knowledge-Based Artificial intelligence class, for a whole year, without students knowing she was a chatbot.

“Video-based communications can prepare students for a future built on collaboration, and flexibility, no matter what they are studying”

Educational institutions play a major role in generating a new skilled workforce that has the potential to open the doors to the innovations that will change the world.

To achieve this, school administrators and educators must be able to communicate with each other and their students in real-time. Helping to realise that ambition is video collaboration, which has many benefits.

It allows for face-to-face meetings with professors and lecturers across the world in different times zones; it provides access to online courses and meetings with faculties from different universities. Plus, students are using these tools to connect with other students and experts across continents, to collaborate and work on projects together.

“Upskilling isn’t just about staying relevant, studies show that it can also boost motivation and self-confidence”

A report by the World Economic Forum on “The Future Of Jobs” says that by 2020, more than a third of the desired skillsets for most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today.

As technology continues to evolve, so do many sectors of the global economy. And with this reality, comes a growing trend for the need to “upskill” in the workforce.

Simply put, upskilling is defined as the process of learning or teaching new skills, and in today’s digitalised world, it is becoming a necessity to stay relevant. Whether its a vocational worker employed by a manufacturing facility or a financial analyst who relies on software to run numbers for their clients, every job will require some form of new learning in the future.

“Teachers should encourage students to practice critical thinking… no matter how righteous it may seem”

Social media is all around us; meeting someone who doesn’t engage in any of the available platforms is rare. As social media has continued to develop and further integrate into society’s basic functions, there are dangers that teachers can help students better understand before it’s too late.

From hurting journalism to promoting outrage culture, social media should be treated with caution. Here’s what teachers can do to help.

February 27, 2019
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Edtech, Higher education, Study abroad, UK

Nurturing a digitally resilient generation

“Schools worldwide need to start thinking differently about how to equip children with independent learning skills”

In this week’s blog, director of The British School, New Delhi, India Vanita Uppal OBE, takes an award-winning approach to educating students and the wider community, on the benefits of becoming digitally resilient.

The constantly changing world of technology can throw up unprecedented issues for our children. All over the world cyberbullying exists, but India experiences particularly high rates of this issue and a growing number of young and impressionable mobile device users attend our schools.
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How international students can benefit from online learning

“Sometimes learning can be a long and a tedious journey…online learning makes that journey interesting and fun”

CEO of internship & training platform Internshala Sarvesh Agrawal discusses the benefits of online learning over traditional classroom-based learning.

Many students across the globe looking for internship and job opportunities end up getting rejected, and the reason behind the rejection is often of a lack of relevant skills. Employers actively seek to hire students who have skills and knowledge that could be put to the test and be an asset to the company. One possible so to the problem is online learning.
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Getting the Most from Educational Marketing

“We’ve seen a significant rise in ad spend for social media and the like, yet direct mail is still proving successful”

First impressions count when it comes to educational marketing. In this week’s PIE Blog Jason Sullock, marketing manager at UK mailing house Washington Direct Mail discusses the potential for direct mail and how you can get the most from your strategy.

Educational marketing is critical to boosting the profile of your school and encouraging those prospects to visit.

In the digital age, we’ve seen a significant rise in ad spend for social media and the like, yet direct mail is still proving successful. We live in a world where 269 billion emails are sent per day, with the number expected to rise to a staggering 333 billion.

The increasing chance of losing consumers due to email marketing getting lost in the sea of junk mail is growing, and the change is occurring.

“In 2018, the likes of Facebook and even Google opted to incorporate direct mail into their marketing”

Multi-Channel Integration

Nevertheless, we certainly cannot undermine the success rate for online advertising. However, place the two communication methods together and you have a force that is, quite literally, unstoppable. The sheer number of people you can target is astonishing, and multi-channel integration has also proven its success rate, lifting response rates by an impressive 118%.
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April 20, 2018
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Edtech, International student recruitment, Social media

How will English language exams change in the next five years?

“As specific IELTS and Trinity exams are linked to visa applications it is unlikely a fully online provision will be deemed secure enough in the next five years. However, this doesn’t mean that for other purposes, English Language provision and exams will change significantly.”

With online English language courses gaining in popularity, Pat Moores, director and co-founder of UK Education Guide, looks at whether English tests will increasingly be offered online. Specific exams are linked to visa applications, but does that mean provisions cannot change significantly for other purposes?

The appetite for learning English shows no signs of slowing up. According to latest figures from the British Council there are over 1 billion people currently learning English worldwide.

There is also deepening interest in online delivery of English language courses. For example in May 2015, FutureLearn launched its free course ‘Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language tests’.

Over 2 million learners have now signed up for the IELTS course across multiple runs.

But what is the broader picture?