“Simply stunned. our first priority should be to try to reassure the many EU students, academics and friends and work tirelessly to keep them”
In a referendum that saw the highest turnout in a national vote in nearly 25 years, the UK has chosen to leave the EU, with immediate dramatic consequences for the value of the pound sterling and a period of uncertainty for all industries. Here’s what #intled stakeholders had to say.
“International students spend most of their time outside the classroom. We can’t leave that experience to chance”
What are the challenges and what are universities doing to make sure they meet the needs of their overseas cohort? These were some of the questions asked at Universities UK’s conference on Enhancing the International Student Experience.
Studying, working or undertaking an internship abroad can help to equip students with skills and experiences they might not otherwise have had – but the challenge for many students is communicating this to employers. Katie Arango, managing director of Connect-123, considers how institutions can enable their students to get the most out of their international experiences.
International education professionals, students who’ve studied abroad, and at this point, a large portion of the general population are well aware of the many benefits of study, volunteer, teaching and internships abroad. Getting pushed outside one’s comfort zone and being immersed in a different culture presents a multitude of growth opportunities that enrich students personally and eventually, professionally. And in this highly competitive work environment, time spent abroad can certainly be a point of differentiation from other candidates.
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“The political imperative to tighten the numbers of immigrants entering the country must be balanced against the need for a fair system for all institutions”
In the UK, concerns have been brewing for some time that strict Home Office regulations – including the cap on the number of visa refusals institutions are permitted to keep operating – may be disproportionately harming smaller institutions, writes Alex Bols, deputy chief executive of GuildHE. What can be done to remedy the situation?
The UK has a world-class higher education system, the strength of which is – at least in part – the result of the huge diversity of universities, of all sizes and specialisms.
Many students deliberately choose to study in a smaller or more specialist institution because of the world-class facilities as well as the safer and more personalised experience that they will receive and these opportunities should be available to the many international students wanting to study in the UK.
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“I firmly believe that if I had stayed in India, I would not have achieved what I have managed to here in the UK”
Sonal Minocha, pro-vice chancellor for global engagement at Bournemouth University, writes about her experience of being a woman in a senior leadership position, and how her experience might be different if she’d stayed in India.
Women hold just one fifth of senior leadership roles in higher education (@hefce) https://t.co/4H4a24gzaR
— Phil Baty (@Phil_Baty) April 12, 2016
This tweet, the data it highlights, and the very persuasively presented blog, together made me think – perhaps consciously for the first time – of how privileged I am to be a product of UK Higher Education. My career, both as a student and a staff member, has thankfully defied the allegations and statistics that this article summarises.
So let me give you my personal context – I am Indian by origin – born and brought up in Delhi, and my first time away from India was as an international student to Newcastle in 2001. I am (or at least was then) very much a migrant, a foreigner, an ethnic minority!
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“Expecting executive learners to stay the (online) course based on a cobbled together jumble of videos, articles and chat rooms is farfetched”
Paul Hunter, director of IMD’s Corporate Learning Network, argues that MOOCs aren’t best suited to executives, and offers some tips about making virtual learning more appealing.
After the scurry of educational providers scrambling to be part of MOOC mania, the hype has all but dissipated, primarily due to low traction rates and lackluster results.
Undoubtedly, MOOCs have their place for disciplined and curious individuals with an iron will, available time and a natural predisposition to persevere. However, for time-stretched executives juggling high-pressure professional objectives and increasingly scarce personal time, MOOCs have not provided the hoped for panacea.
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“Universities want graduates to be well-rounded, highly employable human beings. All top HE institutions ask for evidence of ‘supercurricular’ activity”
Bellerbys College is a GCSE and A Level college with four campuses in the UK. Here Kevin Brady writes about the importance of enrichment programmes and his own experience looking at the student response to extracurricular programming at Bellerbys.
Universities want graduates to be well-rounded, highly employable human beings. All top HE institutions ask for evidence of ‘supercurricular’ activity – we call it ‘enrichment’.
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“This will be not only a valuable service for the world, but also a significant generator of revenue”
Rick Levin, CEO of online course giant Coursera, on the move towards fee-paying courses:
“I remember my professor’s wife telling me that this was only the beginning for me, and she was right”
Sabrina Prioleau refutes the idea that short-term study abroad doesn’t have an impact on students, describing how her own experience has inspired her to do a PhD in international education.
While in graduate school at Webster University, I noticed the wonderful study abroad opportunities that were offered to undergraduate students. I remembered saying to myself I wish there was a two week study abroad option, however I quickly recanted and said, but they would never have such a short program. To my surprise, I received an email in November 2011 from Webster’s main campus in St. Louis, Missouri. The email encouraged me to add international experience to my resume by participating in a hybrid course, which consisted of 6 weeks of online course work and two weeks abroad.
“It’s clear that too often internationalisation within our universities is too narrowly defined as the inward mobility of international students, and then generally only for the economic benefit they bring”
Vincenzo Raimo, pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) at the University of Reading, reflects on conferences he has attended, and asks what higher education leaders can do to broaden their perspectives on internationalisation.
The recent International Higher Education Forum was a mix of the practical: how to develop partnerships in India; the commercial: how to segment your student recruitment markets and improve return on investment; together with a dash of inspiration towards the end of the day from Professor Bertil Andersson, President of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, who is able to “smell” the success of his strategy by walking around his campus and by speaking to his very international mix of staff and students.
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