We just talk about the good stuff

Shannon O’Brien went from teaching English in Japan to leading one of Bolivia’s only education agencies, where she now sends hundreds of Bolivian students to study abroad. The PIE talks to her about her journey and Bolivia’s diversifying market trends.

Shannon O’Brien joins many others in saying that, when she first came into the international education industry, she had no idea about the massive world she was getting into. 

Founding Minerva Consultores Academicos 12 years ago, O’Brien hasn’t left that world since. She works with four other members of a tight-knit team to help Bolivian students achieve their dreams of studying abroad – wherever in the country they might be from. 

“A good portion of the country is slightly more westernised, in places like Santa Cruz, students from that area are generally well travelled. Whereas nearer La Paz, there is a very large indigenous population, some who have never left Bolivia. 

“However, those people are very keen on sending their children abroad and really invest in their child’s future. In that part of the country it’s getting increasingly popular,” O’Brien explains. 

She mentions that there is a growing amount of students that are going abroad as first generation students. 

“They’re very protective of their kids. Also they have, on occasion, suffered discrimination in the country and are worried that that may happen abroad, so you have to really cater to each individual’s needs and worries, because they all have different issues.” 

Having called Santa Cruz her home for 25 years, O’Brien aims to cater for each and every student that passes through Minerva’s doors, but she’s had experience dealing with students since before her time there. 

After a stint working in banks in her native Vancouver, she saw an advert to teach in Japan, and she jumped at it. 

It was there that she then taught English to children, gaining valuable experience in education. 

She also ended up exploring not just Japanese culture, but an unexpected diaspora right in the heart of Osaka. 

“We were biking around town and we smelled a barbecue. We ended up at this football pitch and there were different groups of Latin people having huge barbecues and playing soccer.

“There’s an incredible number of Spanish speaking people in Japan”

“Turns out, there’s an incredible number of Spanish speaking people in Japan.”

It was there she met her husband, who is Bolivian, and they made the decision to move to his home country. She continued to teach English, until she became a principal, then a university official, where she eventually found her expertise in study abroad, leading to Minerva’s inception.

“We opened up our consulting agency, and it just started booming – and keeps getting busier even now – despite Bolivia having constant political upheaval. 

“It really helps our business in some respects because the parents really would prefer that their kids study abroad.” 

While Bolivia is not the biggest of source markets for major destinations in numbers, it is making headway with increasingly European destinations and, as ever, continues to see students go to the US. 

It started out with only US interest, O’Brien recalls, but its soaring prices are making it increasingly trickier to justify. That’s why, she says, more started going towards destinations like Germany and Canada, and now Spain.

“Spain was quite a surprise to us. We’ve signed agreements with a number of universities there because of how popular it is and these are universities that teach in either Spanish or English or only in English.

“Although they want to go to Spain, they still prefer to study in English,” she notes. Portugal, Hungary and the Czech Republic are emerging destinations too. 

“[Bolivians] really invest in their child’s future”

“They’re just starting out, but because they have such great price points that they’re becoming very attractive,” O’Brien says.

Visa processing delays was an issue that hit Bolivia particularly hard. O’Brien is confident that destinations like Canada and Australia would get many more applications if it wasn’t such a complex, slow process.

“The EU has really fast visa processing and it helps them a lot, but Canada and even the UK is more complex and it takes longer,” she relents.

Governments in countries such as Panama famously offer scholarships to certain numbers of students so they are able to study abroad. O’Brien’s frustration lies with her own adopted country’s government for the lack of that provision.

“I’d love to have that. I really hope that eventually the government starts investing a little bit in the education of the people.

“There’s nothing worse than a kid who comes in, who is brilliant, deserving, has done everything they need to do and just has zero budget. You try to find scholarships everywhere that you can but it never covers everything, so we need some government assistance.”

The post Shannon O’Brien, Minerva, Bolivia appeared first on The PIE News.

Police in India have arrested a travel agent accused of forging visa documents for students in Canada.

It follows the news that Indian students in Canada face possible deportation as border services investigate the use of fake college acceptance letters in study permit applications. It is unclear how many people are impacted in total but media reports suggest anywhere from 100 to 700.

Canadian news outlet CBC reported that Rahul Bhargava, who ran a company called Education and Migration Services, has been arrested in Punjab after complaints from parents linked to the fake letters.

The police are also looking for Bhargava’s business partners, Brijesh Mishra and Gurnam Singh.

Speaking on a Vancouver-based radio station in March, Canada’s immigration minister Sean Fraser said the country had taken steps over the past years to “strengthen the integrity measures” in place to ensure acceptance letters are real.

“Every once in a while you do see bad actors”

“Every once in a while you do see bad actors, particularly from other parts of the world who are difficult to police from Canada, who seek to take advantage of international students,” Fraser said, describing this behaviour as “disgusting”.

outside of canada’s immigration board at a rally in support of 700 international students from india who paid tens of thousands for school, worked and paid taxes only to learn that they’re being deported after an agent scammed them with fake school admission letters. pic.twitter.com/TpzFFAFtOo

— Evy Kwong (@EVYSTADIUM) March 30, 2023

Some of the students facing deportation reportedly plan to fight their cases in Canada’s courts, arguing they were scammed by the agent.

A spokesperson from IRCC said they could not comment on individual cases but, generally, individuals in this situation would “benefit from a procedural fairness process”.

“Individuals involved would be offered an opportunity to explain what transpired, and the officer would take that information into account when making their decision,” they said.

IRCC launched a Letter of Acceptance Verification Project in 2018 to create a centralised office for communicating with institutions to verify the authenticity of letters of acceptance.

“In processing study permit applications, if an officer has concerns or doubts about the letter of acceptance that has been submitted, it can be referred to the LoAVP for verification,” the spokesperson said.

“It is the applicant’s responsibility to show that they meet the requirements and applicants are responsible for the documents submitted with their applications,” they added.

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International students studying at universities across the UK had an opportunity to share their experiences with university leaders at The PIE Live Europe last week.

At the student roundtable breakout session, students candidly shared personal experiences about their time in the UK, as well as the extent to which they believe the UK is meeting their needs as international students.

While there were a list of prompts on the table to facilitate the dialogue, conversations between students and university and provider representatives emerged organically, with stakeholders eager to learn firsthand about the student journey, and students keen to share.

Blessing Okoroafor an international student studying at Coventry University discussed how her UK education well prepared her for employment post graduation. And for Okoroafor, that time has arrived, as her graduation occurred on the day of the round table.

“Today is my graduation day,” she told The PIE News. “But it is so important for me to be here and to share my story about how the UK prepared me for the future.”

In discussing employability and specific skills she acquired during her time at Coventry, she said, “My UK education helped me with time management, with prioritising.”

She noted that employability is not just about the soft and hard skills. “I believe that not only will my future employers recognise the skills I learned at my university, but also, they will recognise my potential, and that is a powerful force.”

“Growing up in India, the pursuit of higher education in the UK was considered to be aspirational”

Adityavarman Mehta is a doctoral researcher of politics and international studies at the University of Leeds and spoke about the dream of a UK education. “While growing up in India, the pursuit of higher education in the UK was considered to be aspirational. Having done the IGCSE, I had first-hand exposure to the academic rigour of a British education.”

However, Mehta indicated that beginning graduate school in the UK was not without its challenges.

“Finding accommodation in Leeds was a monumental undertaking. Since I’m not a British citizen, I was asked to supply a guarantor or pay 6-12 months’ rent in advance. Which established professional, let alone a student, can pay so much rent upfront?”

He also discussed the significant housing shortage in Leeds and how he was forced to utilise the private rental market because university accommodation was booked months before he received his visa.

Banking also emerged as an issue for many of the international students in the room. They indicated that the timeframe is often over 10 weeks to set up a bank account. Moreover, when housing is delayed, it impacts the opening of an account, as banks require a UK address.

“It is crucial for the higher education sector to be cognisant of the importance of life essentials such as housing and banking. If students cannot access housing and banking, how are they supposed to focus on their education?” Mehta implored.

“More importantly, universities must be transparent in their communication of these issues because they are key considerations in a prospective student’s decision to pursue a degree at a university,” he added.

“I feel left out of conversations about international students”

Sára Kozáková, a master’s student at Newcastle University, discussed an issue with tuition fee labels that has made her UK educational experience challenging. “As a European student with pre-settled status, who has been consequently given the ‘home student’ tuition fee label, I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.

“As a student who is currently not ‘home enough’ nor ‘international enough,’ I feel left out of conversations about international students because data-wise I am categorised as a home student.”

She believes her pre-settled status has not only taken away her European identity but also has also created confusion among institutions and students themselves.

“We need to rethink the labels we put on students, otherwise we are not sending a welcoming message if we keep neglecting a whole group of students based on labels,” Kozáková concluded.

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A new institution in Cyprus will endeavour to frame itself as a truly internationally-minded institution with an increased overseas student intake, according to its new rector.

The newly-branded University of Limassol will see the current institution – the Cyprus International Institute of Management – become integrated into UoL as the CIIM business school.

The aim is to launch the new, bigger university, also including a tech and innovation school and an economics and finance school, with a more “international strategy”.

“There are 11 universities here in Cyprus, and with only a million people – it’s a small market,” said Theodore Panayotou, speaking to The PIE News.

“In order to continue to be competitive today, you have to be international and face that global competition. This is the only field to play,” Panayotou continued.

The University of Limassol will aim to begin its classes in autumn in subjects such as business management, economics and finance, and information technology, with at least a “quarter” of the student body being international.

Then, Panayotou said, the aim is to grow that number each year, with a third being international in the second year and half by the third year.

Later, schools of law, social sciences and health sciences will also become available.

While the ambitions are very much international, the new institution will also look to make lasting ties with the local community.

Panayotou calls Limassol, in the south of Cyprus, completely different to the rest of the country, because of its international flavour – tourists flock to the country every year, and more and more big businesses are setting up shop in the city.

“We definitely want to be grounded in the market here because there are many opportunities for internships for our students, where they can create good relationships with tech companies, financial companies and shipping companies, for example,” Panayotou said.

In terms of international recruitment, the university will start primarily in the Middle East and Southeastern Europe, and also look to the key market of China.

The Cyprus International Institute of Management has already had numerous Chinese graduates, some of which, Panayotou said, have gone on to become ambassadors and take senior positions in government ministries.

One setback that may arise despite the work opportunities available during study – after six months, non-EU international students can work up to 20 hours per week – is the lack of post-study work opportunities.

“The big draw is the knowledge, the contacts, and the relationships”

Non-EU students will not be able to get post-study work visas due to Cyprus’ current rules; however, Panayotou insisted that this will not deter them from gaining advantages.

“The big draw [for opportunities] is the knowledge, the contacts, and the relationships that they can make with companies in the area – in fintech, in shipping, in tourism – there may not be a door that is wide-open to the EU here, but there is a window to the rest of the world.”

A new, main campus is under construction – due to be completed in 2026 – on the outskirts of Limassol, and for the time being the CIIM’s current campus will be in use for classes. Up to 200 undergraduate students and 150 graduate students are expected in the first year, in addition to the 250 graduate students that will be transferred from the current CIIM programs.

A further 50 graduate students are also expected for the January intake.

“We want sustainable growth that does not harm but enhances the student experience,” Panayotou noted.

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The UK has seen a rise in student visa risk factors such as fraudulent documents and issues surrounding English proficiency, despite being a generally compliant route, according to UKVI.

“With the rise in overall application volumes that we’ve seen coming in we have seen a slight increase in the volume of forged documentation provided and from particular nationalities as well, particularly around bank statements” said Oliver Rae, deputy director, study operations, UKVI.

Rae did not specify which nationalities have had an increase in such risk factors.

According to Rae, UKVI is working to eliminate fraudulent documents, which includes bank statements and educational certificates, as well as working with sponsors that may have either been targeted or have seen an increase in a particular type of risk.

“We’ve been working with a number of institutions that have seen an increase in students arriving and being issued with a CAS and a visa and then applied for asylum fairly quickly within their arrival to the UK,” he said.

“It obviously indicates on occasions that they’re not genuine students and are trying to use a student route for for that purpose.”

Students’ insufficient claims of having a particular level of English language is an recent topic of engagement, said Rae, with some students not being at “the level expected against the immigration rules”, when encountered at the visa application stage or at the border upon arrival to the UK.

Despite this, Rae noted that student visas are a “generally compliant route in the visa world”, with an average 3% refusal rate.

“We want to continue to work to bring that down as much as we can.”

At The PIE Live Europe event held in London, Rae was asked about the risk to universities of working with the private sector to increase admissions capacity.

We always encourage people to approach us about potential partnerships before jumping in

“The sponsor guidance is very thorough on that, we always encourage people to approach us about potential partnerships and potential links before jumping in. We can have a conversation with our response team around the pros and cons of that from a guidance position,” said Rae.

The PIE understands that at least one UK university has been recommended by UKVI against outsourcing its admissions processing due to risk.

“We know that agents often use sub-agents… but ultimately whether that comes through that particular cycle or that particular route, it is on the sponsor in terms of taking responsibility from there.”

In the UK, educators must report details of any third parties that have helped with international student recruitment to the Home Office, or risk action being taken against them.

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The Metropolitan College and AKMI IEK in Greece, with 27 campuses and locations across the country, have been acquired by an international investment firm.

BC Partners has taken over a majority stake in the post-secondary education providers that specialise vocational and transnational education courses.

AKMI IEK is a vocational training institute offering courses such as gastronomy, recognised by École Hôtelière de Lausanne and Ducasse Education, while Metropolitan College also provides a range of international qualifications.

Metropolitan College, for example, offers business and marketing managements undergraduate courses from Queen Margaret University, accounting and postgraduate programs from Oxford Brookes and Computer Science programs from the University of East London.

The TNE provider also works with VET by EHL, Southampton Solent, The University of Arizona and the University of North Alabama.

Together, Metropolitan College and AKMI IEK teach some 22,000 students annually.

According to BC Partners chairman of Europe, Nikos Stathopoulos, the education providers exemplify “the characteristics we look for in our investments: market leaders benefiting from long term and resilient growth with multiple value creation levers”.

“We will support the next stage of growth through innovative learning programs, digital initiatives, and expanding the business internationally”

“We will support the group in its next stage of growth through innovative learning programs, digital initiatives, and expanding the business internationally,” he added.

Founders of Metropolitan College and AKMI IEK, Konstantinos and Kalliopi Rodopoulos – who remain shareholders and will continue to support the business – noted that BC Partners brings “a wealth of international and operational expertise”.

BC Partners has previously invested in global scientific service provider, Springer Nature, content publisher, Keesing, and higher education software and tech service provider, EAB.

“This landmark investment highlights the robust fundamentals of the Greek market and will support us to continue delivering the highest standards of education to young people in Greece and beyond,” the two founders added.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and expected to close by Q2 2023.

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The African continent is at the top of destinations where Indian universities are braced to set up international branch campuses.

The news comes as the country prepares to roll out an internationalisation plan that will also see several Asian and Middle East targeted in the drive.

A number of the Asian giant’s universities including the prestigious state-owned Indian Institutes of Technology were keen to set up campuses on the continent as soon as the government publishes enabling regulations in April.

According to Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar chairman of India’s University Grants Commission the commission was encouraging institutions to set up campuses abroad, identifying African countries, the Gulf region and Asian countries of Thailand and Vietnam as fertile grounds.

Among other things the UGC and the institutions are buoyed by the huge presence of the Indian diaspora population in the countries, and the fact that the country’s more than 1,000 universities have a wide range of programs to offer including highly-reputed IT courses.

“There is huge potential for setting up campuses in African countries. Thailand, Vietnam and a few Gulf countries, there is immense interest and the opportunities are immense too. It is just that we have not had any enabling regulations so far,” Kumar is quoted saying by The Times of India.

“We have in India a huge university ecosystem. There are outstanding universities, both in central government, state government funded and private universities. We want to encourage these varsities to set up their campuses abroad,” the chairman added.

“Some countries are coming forward to provide the infrastructure to our universities to set up their campuses.”

Several of the country’s IITs, including in Madras and Delhi, have been receiving requests to set up campuses in African countries including Tanzania and Egypt, and from the Middle-Eastern and South Asian countries, whose identity he did not disclose.

While IIT Delhi is considering setting up a campus in UAE, IIT Madras is exploring options in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Tanzania. IIT campuses are also in pipeline in Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia and the UK.

Currently the chairman disclosed, the main obstacle remained the absence of necessary regulations laws to allow the institutes set up branches abroad.

A method was being worked on, he further explained, to ensure that the IITs are able to establish foreign campuses without breaching the law that set them up under the Council of Indian Institute of Technology.

The Asian countries of Nepal, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, occupy the top three positions in terms of the number of international students in India according to data portal Statista. Other countries include the US, the UAE, Bhutan, Sudan, Nigeria, Tanzania and Yemen, the US being the only country outside the developing world in the top 10 list.

“Some countries are coming forward to provide the infrastructure”

The number of overseas students enrolled in Indian higher education institutions fell by 2.6% in the last two years from 49,348 in 2019/20 to 48,035 in 2020/21 according to The Indian Express, quoting data by All India Survey on Higher Education.

Out of the number around 15,000 in 2021 were African according to the Association of African Students in India, with 4300 of them coming from the three African countries in the top ten list.

The drop was attributed to lack of employment opportunities for international students who have graduated from Indian universities, unlike in European and North American destinations of UK, Germany, the US and Canada, where they are free to work a specified period.

India has been stepping up efforts to internationalise its education, especially since the launch of the NEP in 2020. The January release of draft regulations to allow international universities to set up in the country is the latest.

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The Parliamentary Friends of International Education officially launched in Australia last week, aiming to bring together sector stakeholders with legislators.

Federal education minister Jason Clare joined the group’s co-chairs Liberal Party MP Zoe McKenzie and Labor MP Julian Hill at the launch event in Canberra on March 28.

The non-partisan forum will allow MPs to meet and interact with international students and industry leaders from both the public and private sectors.

The group has been established as part of advocacy activities by Australian sector leaders, as well as improve the literacy about international education across parliament.

Issues the group hopes to address includes student experience, market distribution and the sustainability of growth.

“At different times, every study destination country has concerns about the strength of our social licence to operate in our wider community. Just when you think that international students are becoming more welcome some issue can come out of left (or more particularly right) field to cause concern,” Phil Honeywood, chief executive of International Education Association of Australia, told The PIE.

“For example, who would have thought during the recent Covid pandemic that accommodation shortages in countries such as the UK and the Netherlands would create pushback against any increase in overseas student numbers?

“IEAA has recognised the need to better educate both the wider community, as well as elected representatives”

“IEAA has recognised for some time the need to better educate both the wider Australian community, as well as our elected representatives, in the benefits that a diverse cohort of overseas students can provide us with.”

The official Parliamentary Friends Group for International Education has been formed to this end, he continued.

“Altogether, 43 federal senators and House of Representative MPs from all major political parties have now signed up as members of the group.”

IEAA previously hosted a trial virtual meeting but has now launched the initiative officially.

“We were overwhelmed with the response and had over 100 attendees, including the CEOs of associated peak bodies, on the night. Our guest speaker, the federal minister for education, Jason Clare, spoke passionately about the importance of our sector to the nation’s future. He placed particular emphasis on our sector’s soft power diplomacy attributes,” Honeywood explained.

Vicki Thompson, CEO of the Group of Eight, reiterated in an online post that international education is “so much more than a numbers game”.

“Our universities have, over decades, developed deep and meaningful partnerships built on a foundation of research and education.

“Group of Eight unis educate one in three international students who choose to study at one of our global powerhouses. It’s a no brainer that this sector, our largest export that we DON’T dig out of the ground, is supported across the political divide,” she added.

International education is the biggest export we don’t dig out of the ground. It doesn’t just make us money. It makes us friends.

It was a privilege tonight to speak at the launch of Parliamentary Friends of International Education. pic.twitter.com/OmxWoW2KFP

— Jason Clare MP (@JasonClareMP) March 28, 2023

Co-chair Julian Hill previously told The PIE that the group will be a “conduit between the MPs who are interested in and support international education and international students in Australia”.

“We are ascertaining which politicians might be best suited to act as vocal champions for our sector”

Additionally it will be a forum for dialogue for providers and students to “build an understanding and literacy amongst parliamentarians, of international education and international student issues”, Hill said.

“With so many elected representatives in attendance, our association did not want the opportunity to go by without providing everyone with a handout that highlighted recent ‘Good news on policy initiatives’ but also contained ‘Calls to action’ to our politicians on the reverse side!” Honeywood continued.

“We are now forwarding a copy of this advocacy piece to every federal and state politician in the country.

“Going forward, we are planning to host at least one large cocktail networking event at Parliament House each year and we are ascertaining which politicians might be best suited to act as vocal champions for our sector.”

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The international education sector is one that focuses on internationalisation – lives it, and breathes it.

International student recruitment, for many, is the main driver. Stakeholders want students to be able to travel abroad and take in other cultures, get a worldly education and become global citizens.

And yet, those who are not able to travel abroad for their studies still should have access to international opportunities.

Where does that leave those unable to study abroad? Instead of internationalisation through travel, providers can internationalise through examining course curriculums and campuses.

The term internationalisation of the curriculum, coined by Betty Leask, is defined as “incorporating international, and/or global dimensions into content of the curriculum as well as learning outcomes, assessment tasks, teaching methods and support services”.

Put together, this is quite the lofty task. Many elements go into it, but according to Anthony Manning, director of lifelong learning at the University of Kent, it is worth working towards.

“My mission in internationalisation of the curriculum is about working with colleagues across different disciplines, with tools that are easily accessible to help people incrementally develop,” he notes.

“Of course, the impact of this kind of learning is likely to be different to the kind of transformative and immersive learning brought about by disorienting trigger experiences from entering or living in an unfamiliar culture.

“However, not everyone has access to those kinds of profound experiences, so as international educators we have a duty to help people to gain access to international perspectives and cultures in a range of inclusive and accessible ways,” he explains.

While it is more of a nascent concept in the UK, globally it has surged in popularity as another internationalisation tool. Shazim Husayn, who heads up the Global Galway project at the University of Galway, has seen this development through years of recruitment experience.

“After Covid, people work in different places, do different things – and to be able to connect with a curriculum that identifies different ways to say, calculate something in a different country or different methods of a framework geographically is really important.

“I think there’s more institutions in different parts of the world using it also as a tool of decolonising the curriculum, as well as internationalising the curriculum,” he says.

While going down different avenues in their methodology, decolonisation and internationalisation of the curriculum are not that different from each other. One South African paper examining the subject described it like this: “decolonisation aims to transform the university curriculum to redress injustices and inequalities done to the colonised.

“Whereas internationalisation aims to transform and promote peaceful global relations through cross-cultural engagements.”

As such, both endeavour to foster an equality.

As Husayn points out, countries across the world may end up taking different approaches. Culture is different everywhere, and so then is their method of globalisation, coming from a different state of affairs.

Some US universities are coming in hot with ideas. Michigan, for example, has begun offering options from embedding international elements in their course content to even short international trips.

The American Council for Education has begun to offer a course in internationalisation of the curriculum for institutions. Some, however, look at a more practical approach, and often draw on existing expertise, as internationalisation at home is yet to have its own arsenal in terms of budget and staff.

Stephanie Tignor heads up Virginia Commonwealth University’s education abroad department – and events in the last few years have shown the need to work together with other departments in her university’s sphere to help internationalise both the curriculum, and recognise issues within it.

“We’ve discovered that there’s a lot of overlap between what our office does and what our Office of Multicultural Student Affairs does. We can achieve more with students engaging in an office like that and also with the opportunities that we offer in the global learning space,” Tignor tells The PIE.

Tignor cites the university’s undergraduate degree “major maps”, which endeavour to ensure every student that goes through the college gains a certain level of cultural agility – leading to a group of more global citizens. In addition, its cultural conversations initiative has also gained popularity in recent years, especially in the wake of the pandemic.

The internationalisation “at home”, as Manning calls it, happens through other actions like this at VCU, through incremental extra and co-curricular activities – in a way that involves both domestic and international students in a more integrated fashion.

Manning’s own assessment of internationalisation of the curriculum concurs with the fact that each institution has to start somewhere.

“It’s likely that developing intercultural awareness through IaH will require a more sustained approach over time through a varied range of classroom activities and campus events.

“Of course, the impact of this kind of learning is likely to be different to the kind of transformative and immersive learning brought about by disorienting trigger experiences from entering or living in an unfamiliar culture. However, not everyone has access to that,” he relents.

Manning still advocates that despite study abroad generally being the best way to develop global citizens, this is a step that is worth taking, both in terms of investment of money and time.

Kent’s own work on the idea has been designed around “embedding internationalisation in the formal, informal and hidden curriculum” from the start, by incorporating into module specification – as well as campus initiatives, like awards, “hangouts” and leadership development programs.

However, Manning stresses that budget is still something that would be useful to help this branch of internationalisation advance. But as metrics on measuring its utility aren’t as tangible as international student numbers of study abroad program success, it becomes an uphill battle. 

“It’s really important for us to continue to find ways to raise the profile of internationalisation of the curriculum and internationalisation at home across the sector, in terms of their valuable contributions in addition to and beyond international mobility,” he insists.

“Yet, unfortunately the institutional prioritisation of these important aspects of internationalised experience without travel is not yet uniform or optimal.”

For now, he suggests collaboration between colleagues, much like VCU’s efforts, and sharing existing good practice.

“It’s a good idea to begin by drawing inspiration from the work of others for transfer or reinterpretation in local development projects.

“It’s definitely worthwhile because these means of embedding international diversity in the curriculum are more widely accessible and achievable for so many people.”

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