We just talk about the good stuff

January 24 is the UN’s International Day of Education. The theme for 2023 is “Invest in people, prioritise education.”

UNESCO, the UN’s education arm, makes a compelling case for such investment. “Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind,” it states.

Of course governments do already invest vast sums of money in education. Kenya, for example, spends nearly 5% of its GDP according to the World Bank, more than it spends on anything else.

Although the average for sub-Saharan Africa is lower at 3.4% – below the global average of 4.3% – international donors also contribute very large sums.

The Global Partnership for Education invests funds raised from donor countries such as the US and UK. It estimates it has granted more than $231 million for education in Kenya alone since 2005, and more than $275m for Nigeria over the last decade. In total, GPE has spent more than $5.7 billion of donor funding on education across sub-Saharan Africa.

But despite such levels of government and international spending, education outcomes are at crisis levels.

The World Bank’s most recent update estimates that 89% of ten-year-olds in the region cannot read a simple sentence.

The Covid pandemic and associated school closures are not to blame. “Learning poverty was very high even before the pandemic,” says the Bank.

Nor is a lack of enrolment. 90% of primary age children attend school in low and middle income countries.

“What must be prioritised is learning”

These grim statistics make clear that prioritising education is not enough. What must be prioritised is learning.

Increasingly, visionary leaders across Africa are changing the way they spend money on education, by investing in outcomes – clear learning gains for their students.

In Lagos State in Nigeria, the EKOEXCEL basic education programme is a prime example of this new approach. Thousands of government teachers and school leaders have been re-trained and are now supported to teach in a digital and scientific way across all the State’s public primary schools.

Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu explains his government invested in EKOEXCEL in order “to change the learning outcomes from our schools. We believe a solid foundation for our children starts with qualitative primary education”.

Supported by NewGlobe as its technical partner, the program ensures every teacher receives comprehensive instructional guidance for every lesson, based upon cutting edge pedagogical research.

The technology enables world-class quality lessons, specifically designed to maximise learning, to be delivered by all teachers.

It also provides real-time monitoring from every classroom in every school. EKOEXCEL leaders know each lesson is a high-quality one and can track not only student performance, but a whole range of other crucial indicators, as Governor Sanwo-Olu explains.

“We have been able to have tablets that are given to teachers at primary schools for them to have the same learning curriculum. They have the same lesson notes.

“And it ensures that we can reduce absenteeism, truancies, and even teachers not coming. We can remotely monitor them and see who is teaching what and the quality of teaching across primary schools.”

Results are excellent. According to the Lagos State education board, EKOEXCEL is dramatically accelerating learning, with children learning two times more maths and three times more in literacy. Early monitoring also found the program was delivering gender equity gains, with girls attending EKOEXCEL schools 8% more likely to attend than girls at schools other schools.

The training and support for teachers through EKOEXCEL draws praise from teaching unions.

Akintoye Hassan, chair of the Lagos State National Union of Teachers, praises the way his members have been supported.

“EKOEXCEL has brought about change as teaching and learning have become more pupil-centred. As you are teaching, you are also learning. The innovative technology has also enabled the teacher to learn because there is guidance,” he said.

“The pre-introduction training organised by EKOEXCEL assisted in reducing the level of scepticism. It has been a pleasant story.”

The teaching methods underpinning EKOEXCEL and all the programs supported by NewGlobe have been independently studied in Kenya by a team led by Professor Michael Kremer, Nobel Prize winner for Economics in 2019.

It reported that students taught using the methods made some of the biggest learning gains ever found in such a study.

The same methods also support education transformation programs run by the Governments of Edo and Kwara States in Nigeria and the nationwide RwandaEquip program, which describes itself as:

“The Government of Rwanda’s transformative program to make the country’s basic education system globally competitive.”

In each case, gathering regular and accurate data on how students are performing has been key to success. Sadly, that remains a rarity in sub-Saharan Africa – UNESCO points out that there is no data at all on the learning levels of two-thirds of African children.

There is ample evidence to support UNESCO’s argument that quality education boosts economic opportunity.

A new study co-authored by the Yidan Prize winner Professor Eric Hanushek spells it out.

“According to our projections based on historical patterns of long-run growth, the world would gain $718 trillion in added GDP over the remaining century if it were to reach global universal basic skills. This is equivalent to over five times current annual world GDP.”

But driving-up learning outcomes does even more. As Liesbet Steer, executive director of the Education Commission explains, investing in human capital is also vital to saving the planet from climate disaster.

“Greater investment in education, especially for girls and women, is a critical means of enhancing adaptive capacities over the long term…investments in women’s and girls’ education offer the potential dual benefit of furthering climate action while increasing overall social equity.”

On International Day of Education, we should be clear that investment which drives-up learning and transforms outcomes for students must be our priority. And clear also that if it can be achieved, the gains across Africa and for the whole world will be transformational too.

About the author: Clement Uwajeneza is African director, NewGlobe and managing director of RwandaEQUIP, the Government of Rwanda’s transformative program to make the country’s basic education system globally competitive.

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Researchers are testing the efficacy of Collaborative Online International Learning as a means to internationalise curricula following a “surge of interest” over recent years.

While institutions have looked to COIL due to the rapid transition to online during the pandemic, along with its environmental and inclusivity benefits, researchers have looked to its impact on the development of students’ intercultural competence.

The method of learning and teaching, involving two or more lecturers at institutions in different countries, sees students assigned online group work and projects.

“It is assumed that students develop intercultural competencies through this experience,” researcher Simone Hackett said.

“But there is very little empirical evidence showing that COIL is effective and helps students develop intercultural competencies.”

The findings, offering practical implications for educators and how best to implement COIL, identified that the teaching method may benefit different types of learners more than others.

“COIL might be more effective for certain types of students, for example those who do not have any other international elements within their study programs, as we saw for the US students [in our study],” she said.

Students with no access to English-taught internationally orientated courses or to international students in their class, or where programs do not focus on internationalisation, “might get more out of COIL compared to students who do have these international opportunities”.

Hackett stated that while it can help students develop intercultural competencies, other efforts such as having students work with international students at their home university or having students follow an internationally orientated course, could have the same effect as COIL.

However, more research is needed to determine this, she continued.

The study, featuring a sample of students from The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and State University New York Brockport in the US, saw students split up into four groups: a US and NL experimental group and a US and NL control group.

The experimental groups consisted of students from both the US and NL institutions working together, while control group students did not work together with international partners, but with students from their own class.

Results showed the US experimental group increased in intercultural competence while the US control group did not, which researchers said supports the hypothesis that COIL helps students develop intercultural competence. However, the same was not observed for NL students.

“Both the NL experimental group and NL control group increased in intercultural competence. This could have been due to the NL control group being exposed to other international input during the course, as they worked together with international students at their home institutions and followed an internationally orientated minor.

“This was not the case for the US students who had no other international elements within their study program,” she told The PIE.

“The Covid-19 pandemic also explicitly showed the vulnerability of over reliance on student mobility”

“In order to determine whether COIL works or not, or how we might be able to make it more effective, we need more mixed-method studies that make use of control groups to test any positive or negative findings. Our study sets the groundwork for this, but it would be ideal to repeat this study using a much larger sample,” Hackett added.

The instructional design of COIL courses should also be further investigated in order to find which is most effective in supporting students intercultural competence development, she continued.

With rising concerns over the carbon footprint of mobility, universities have “no choice” than to look for alternative, ethical ways to help their students develop intercultural competencies rather than flying abroad, Hackett concluded.

Institutional strategic plans should include internationalisation at home strategies and ensure educators and support staff are equipped with the time and resources to design and execute such activities.

“In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic also explicitly showed the vulnerability of over reliance on student mobility.

“Internationalisation at home practices such as COIL, or collaborative learning within the international classroom, are more inclusive and more sustainable and should be seen as a basic element within educational programs.”

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Projects for Canadian students to study abroad have been “ramping-up” since in-person mobility reopened following the lifting of pandemic-related travel restrictions.

According to the Canadian government, efforts by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada – the department responsible for delivering the International Experience Canada program – has reached some 10 million impressions on social media, while campaigns on Google generated 286,000 impressions in 2019.

The IEC is a key part of the government’s 2019-2024 international education strategy, along with the new Global Skills Opportunity program, to promote outbound mobility among Canadian students.

The strategy said it would measure the success of its efforts through the awareness among Canadian youth of the International Experience Canada program, the number of leads generated by marketing campaigns, as well as the experiences of GSO and IEC participants.

Despite the pandemic hindering “the program’s social media promotion in 2020 to 2021 (with 54,000 and 9,700 impressions respectively)”, an increase in post impressions in 2022 has been recorded, with 76,000 impressions, the government has said.

“This increase in interest from Canadian youth is also reflected in a 42% increase in website traffic for 2021 and 2022,” an IRCC spokesperson told The PIE.

“Since 2013, an average of 19,000 Canadian youth per year have undertaken an IEC experience abroad”

Between 2019 and 2023, IRCC participated in over 200 in-person and virtual events, meeting Canadian youth, their influencers and stakeholders, they added.

“These events helped develop meaningful partnerships with new and ongoing stakeholder to raise awareness of the work and travel opportunities for Canadian youth and to address information gaps,” they said.

However, sector stakeholders have recently said more can be done to promote the IEC more widely to Canadian youth.

A government spokesperson explained that the IEC is being promoted to secondary and post-secondary youth directly via fairs, information sessions, social media, and workshops, as well as through engaging stakeholders at secondary and post-secondary institutions.

“Since 2013, an average of 19,000 Canadian youth per year have undertaken an IEC experience abroad,” IRCC said, according to information from country partners.

From 2015 to 2021, a total of 108,830 Canadians participated in travel and work abroad experiences under established IEC Youth Mobility Arrangements, they continued.

“The pandemic and its related restrictions played a significant role in the decreased amount of Canadians going abroad in 2020 and 2021, with under 12,000 Canadians going abroad over the past two years.”

In-person mobility for the GSO, officially launched in November 2021, was not able to begin until March 2022, after travel restrictions lifted.

“Since then, projects have been ramping-up. As of December 31, 2022, 1,895 students had completed or were completing an experience.”

Early results indicate the new program “is on track to meet or surpass objectives related to supporting underrepresented students (74% of participants) and to support travel to non-traditional destinations (i.e., destinations other than the US, UK, France, and Australia), with 78% of participants travelling to non-traditional destinations”.

The results show positive experiences among participants, including 84% saying they have been extremely or very helpful in increasing their intercultural competencies, 79% saying they’ve improved collaboration skills and 78% have increased communication skills.

The $95 million GSO, delivered by Universities Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada, remains a key component of the International Education Strategy, and IRCC will continue to promote opportunities for work and travel abroad through International Experience Canada.

“The program targets its promotion and engagement to all youth, regardless of whether or not they are students. IRCC is also working with some GSO funded post-secondary institutions and other key stakeholder groups that support youth in communities of interest who may have additional barriers to outbound mobility (e.g. Indigenous youth, youth identifying as part of LGBTQ2+ communities),” the IRCC spokesperson added.

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The Australian government should extend the time an international student must spend at the institution they initially join before they can switch providers, universities have reiterated. 

Queensland University of Technology and the University of Wollongong have recommended that the government restrict university transfers for international students.  

Currently, students must complete six months of study before they can transfer to a different institution and the course they transfer to must be the same level as their previous one. But some universities say that six months isn’t long enough as students are switching to cheaper providers as soon as possible. 

“Once in Australia, there are a range of legitimate reasons for students to move between providers and this process is well established in visa regulations and processes,” said Neil Fitzroy, general manager, marketing and sales, university partnerships Australia at Navitas.

“The majority of providers work collaboratively and in the interests of the student to ensure this process is transparent and supportive.

“There are a small number of providers, agents and students, that seek to use this system to transfer once onshore for reasons other than educational outcomes. Whilst this is a small minority, it undermines the integrity of the system.”

Universities have suggested that tightening controls would ensure that incoming international students are “genuine”, as Australia’s decision to uncap the amount of hours students from overseas can work has created concerns around students enrolling for the sole intention of securing work visas. 

“Whilst this is a small minority, it undermines the integrity of the system”

In a recent submission to a parliamentary inquiry, the University of Wollongong said, “One solution to better control the quality of applicants coming to study to Australia would be to tighten the onshore movement of international students by restricting university transfers.”

Queensland University of Technology also recommended that the government should extend the requirement to 12 months in order to “reduce the onshore withdrawal/transfer poaching market”.

“The recruitment of international students within Australia is highly competitive and QUT absolutely supports the right of students to make informed choices about their course of study and provider,” a spokesperson from QUT told The PIE. 

“However, a consequence of the policy of permissible transfer of providers (after six months of the principal program) is that it can lead to commercial behaviour that prioritises withdrawals and transfers for provider gain over student wellbeing and graduate outcomes. QUT does not engage in this behaviour.

“Additionally, international students are cost-conscious and the promise of access to our economy alongside the lure of transferring to a less expensive provider to reduce their costs across the life of their study in Australia is no doubt appealing.”

In 2022, the then-called Department of Education, Skills and Employment said transferring between providers “is not common”, with approximately 5-6% of all international students choosing to change providers since 2019.

Despite this, discussions around student transfers have been ongoing for years, predating the pandemic. Fitzroy said Nativas was “not aware of any significant change in the behaviour of students, agents or providers in recent months”.

Universities were given a chance to have their say on the topic in the 2022 Education Services for Overseas Students review, with Universities Australia and Innovative Research Universities both recommending at the time that the six-month period remain the same. 

Speaking to The PIE this week, Paul Harris, executive director at IRU, said, “The IRU recommends retaining the six-month restriction on course changes for international students, while retaining flexibility for universities to respond to genuine student circumstances. 

“This helps to protect the sector’s reputation for quality and integrity by helping to protect institutions against poaching strategies and lowering the risk of non-genuine students. We also recommend that any visa risk should switch to the new provider, following a change of institution.”

If students wish to transfer before six months, they must be ‘released’ by their current institution, but there are suggestions that some students are transferring without permission. 

In a 2022 submission to the ESOS review, the University of Melbourne recommended that the Australian government should “ensure proper enforcement of the requirement for students to be released by the primary institution to facilitate a transfer within the restricted period”. 

The ESOS review was not completed due to the change of government in Australia in May 2022, but the new government is consulting with providers via a parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s international education sector and a review of the country’s migration system.

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The APPG for International Students has written the UK cabinet urging for changes needed to “truly maximise the potential of the UK’s education exports sector”.

Writing to six Secretaries of State, including education minister Gillian Keegan, home secretary Suella Braverman and chancellor Jeremy Hunt, APPG co-chairs Lord Karan Bilimoria and Paul Blomfield highlighted further cross-departmental engagement and immigration reform that could help.

Leaders should create “a more ambitious and sustainable target” for international student numbers in the UK, they urged.

The Home Office must be included in cross-departmental engagement to “truly make the IES a success”, they stated. UK sector stakeholders have previously raised concerns that the Home Office was ‘pulling in the opposite direction’ on country’s international education agenda.

While the Departments for International Trade and Education collaborate closely, Home Office support is necessary, the letter indicated.

“The Home Office has a key part to play in ensuring that the student visa system remains competitive with other English-speaking markets,” it said.

Streamlining UKVI operations and immigration at borders through digital processes, such as more nationalities being eligible to use e-gates, is essential for the IES, the letter continued.

A new single visa for students joining school or pathway programs, undergraduate and postgraduate study would “reduce the burden of the student immigration system on government and students while creating a more coherent journey for students”.

London Higher has suggested a new single pathway student visa would “incentivise” undergraduate international students to progress more easily to postgraduate qualifications in the capital. UUK has also previously called for costs of visas for researchers to at least be in line with international competitors.

“A sustainable target for growth should include a commitment to diversification”

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should also play a role in ensuring businesses are aware of the new graduate visa. Just this week, UK stakeholders discussed how to address the problem of lack of awareness of the initiative.

After UK international numbers hit 679,970 in 2021/22, the APPG said a “sustainable target for growth should include a commitment to diversifying the international students who come to the UK, where they come from and what they study”.

There is also the opportunity to “shift focus” to the international student experience – everything from visa application to experience at borders to success during and after study.

Specific changes the group called for included more focus on non-HE education, such as technical studies, FE, the pathway sector, ELT, professional education and independent and boarding schools.

It also reiterated calls to remove international students from net migration figures, arguing that international students should be treated as temporary migrants as the majority “return home following study”.

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Canada’s International Experience Canada program should be promoted more to domestic Canadian students to encourage them to gain international study experiences, an expert has suggested.

The country’s minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, launching the 2023 International Experience Canada season on January 9, focused on its potential to help Canadian employers find workers needed to fill labour shortages.

The program – which had its capacity for inbound student extended in December by 20% – is now open to nearly 90,000 international youth hoping to work in Canada, minister Sean Fraser noted.

“Our government supports international youth to work and travel in Canada, effectively helping employers find the workers they need,” said the minister, adding that those already in the IEC pool will begin receiving invitations to apply for their work permit.

“By giving youth the opportunity to gain international travel and work experience, we are strengthening our economy and creating a win-win solution for everyone involved,” he continued.

But there are questions about the lack of attention on the other part of the International Experience Canada that offers opportunities to Canadian students.

Of the four ministers quoted in the government release, only the minister of Women and Gender Equality and Youth of Canada, Marci Ien, pointed to the initiative’s opportunity for Canadians.

“The IEC program not been promoted widely to Canadian youth”

“IEC helps young people not only develop new skills and explore different cultures, but also return home with an international perspective. IEC is a unique and exciting program, and we encourage all eligible youth to take advantage of it,” she said.

“Although I believe the IEC program is crucial for Canada in order to diversify our labour landscape as well as fill gaps and shortages, it has not been promoted widely to Canadian youth,” Kellie McMullin, manager of International Learning (Outbound) at NSCC International, Nova Scotia Community College, told The PIE.

“I would say there would be very few students at NSCC or maybe none that are aware the program exists. There have been other programs in the past such as the Youth Internship Program where universities and colleges have been able to take advantage of to get students into a global work setting.”

A key part of the country’s 2019-2024 international education strategy, the IEC initiative sought to promote outbound mobility.

The strategy outlined that the reciprocal program saw “many more foreign youth participate… than Canadians”. Four countries – France, Australia, the UK and New Zealand – “traditionally receive a total of 80% of Canadian participants”, the document continued.

It promised to promote IEC to raise awareness among Canadian youth, which would “increase both the popularity of IEC and the number of Canadian youth with valuable skill sets sought after by employers in today’s global markets”.

According to Universities Canada, only 11% of Canadian undergraduates undertook international mobility experiences over the course of their degree, according to 2017 data.

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Like the rest of the world, Canada’s visa processing officials have been slightly inundated over the last 12 months.

There’s been issues across the board – slow processing times, high denials in certain areas that have caused controversy, among other concerns.

As well as the IRCC’s own share of problems, various colleges have been coming under fire for their handling of these issues.

CBC, the country’s biggest news outlet, recently reported on two compelling cases. The first – Precious Christianah Ademokun, a prospective student from Nigeria who applied to a college programming course at George Brown College in Toronto.

When she sent in her visa application, she expected to wait the 60 day standard – this was not the case.

By that point, she had already sent in a near CAD$9,000 deposit – the deadline for a refund in the case she needed to withdraw also came and went as she waited for her decision.

“Students are trapped between the college and their visa forms”

Eventually, IRCC came back with that decision – a denial – and left Ademokun with no choice but to try and ask for a refund anyway. Her appeal was then rejected by George Brown College.

“Students are trapped between the college and their visa forms, and they don’t know where to go next or who to talk to,” said Nick Peterson, who is a support staff member at the college’s student association, in an interview with CBC Toronto.

He claims he gets international students with this problem at least twice a month – showing Ademokun’s case is not the only one.

It was only after pressure from the news outlet that GBC said they would review their internal practices, and refund Ademokun – but not all students in her position have the amplification of CBC. So what can be done for them?

“All throughout the pandemic, GBC has had a special – more flexible-  withdrawal policy for those students who are studying online from overseas and who still have not received their study permits,” Janene Christiansen, the university’s registrar of strategic enrolment, told The PIE News.

“George Brown College, along with other post-secondary institutions, has advocated through member organisations (most notably, CiCan) for more resources to be put against the visa delay issue.

“The college also encourages students to apply for their visa as soon as possible after they receive their letter of acceptance from the college, to ensure their visa application is processed in time,” she explained.

Christiansen defended the college, insisting that the vast majority of students do withdraw on time – and also stipulated that GBC’s withdrawal policy aligns with MCU and IRCC regulations.

The IRCC, when asked about situations like Ademokun’s, said that it doesn’t “have the authority related to educational institutions” – saying it’s down to the provincial governments.

“While IRCC encourages more flexible tuition refund policies, it doesn’t set them and can’t intervene in individual situations,” a spokesman elaborated.

IRCC went on to defend its visa processing speeds, saying the current focus is on “reducing existing backlogs”.

“[These include] the applications that have been in our inventories longer than our service standards. We are aiming to process 80% of all new applications within these standards, accounting for expected delays in complex cases,” the spokesman clarified.

However, these decisions are still taking too long for some students.

Also left in limbo is Omar Burqan – a Jordanian national who came over to New Brunswick with his family to study the educational assistant program at Atlantic Business College.

The program, which was originally included in a sub-set of New Brunswick’s Provincial Nominee Program – a specially created Private Career College Graduate Pilot program – would allow Burqan to obtain a work permit after his studies end.

The work permit, CBC says, was a big reason for his moving his family over. However, he is less than two weeks out from finishing his course and still has no work permit.

This is because ABC has now been dropped from the program after crisis talks between provincial officials in New Brunswick, where the college is located and the IRCC – the IRCC declined to comment on the case.

Despite its exclusion, the page advertising the permit on ABC’s site is still up as of publication on January 18, 2023 – over five months after it was dropped.

While he currently holds a job, Burqan’s permit to work in Canada expires 90 days after graduation, and he has no idea what he will do after that.

“I asked them many times… to send me an official guarantee that wouldn’t happen to me what [happened] to my colleagues,” he said, but ABC has provided him with no communication about the program.

They have, however, repeatedly requested that he pay $7,400 he owes in tuition, to which he responded that he would if the college “follow through on their original promise” of a work permit.

The PIE attempted to contact Atlantic Business College for clarification on Burqan’s current status, and what is being done to support those who are in a similar position to Burqan. The college did not respond.

The issues come as Canada remains in the spotlight, with international students flooding through the country’s borders to study.

“As of November 30 2022, IRCC had processed over 670,000 study permits”

“With unprecedented interest in Canada from applicants all over the world, IRCC continues to set the bar higher for immigration processing,” the IRCC spokesman said.

“As of November 30 2022, IRCC had processed over 670,000 study permits, compared to more than 500,000 during the same time period last year. As a result of these efforts, most new study permits are now being processed within the 60-day service standard,” they added.

Cases like Ademokun’s and Burqan’s show that while Canada is striving for that “higher bar”, cracks in the system still leave behind some who wish to go to the country to study and in many cases, stay and work there.

However, the question must then be asked, will issues like these remain as long as colleges continue to take on more and more international students?

“This issue will be greatly mitigated if visa processing times are improved, but George Brown College, as a reputable and well-respected public institution, is committed to reviewing our internal processes and policies to ensure equitable, clear, and transparent process for all prospective students,” Christiansen added.

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There is undoubtedly a “weakening consensus” on the benefits of international students among British politicians, Lord Jo Johnson has told sector stakeholders.

As he and multiple other big names in the higher education sector were announced as the first commissioners in the International Higher Education Commission, he talked about the difficulties international students are facing in terms of how they are viewed in the country.

“The basic policy architecture is still in place, but I think political support for it is weaker than it was two or three years ago – and I do think we need to acknowledge that and to understand why it’s become weaker,” he told attendees of the IHEC launch event.

“To my mind, it’s ironic that some of the loudest critics of international students and what they bring to the UK are actually on the right of the Conservative Party because the success of the UK in international student mobility was a Thatcherite reform.

“Many of them see the UK through the lens of having studied here, many of them occupy leadership positions in their home countries. It’s a huge benefit to us all,” he continued.

It comes as mounting disillusion in parliament has seen even a former cabinet minister, Kit Malthouse, criticise the counting of international students in migrant figures as “bonkers”.

“The basic policy architecture is still in place, but I think political support for it is weaker than it was”

The gathering saw the likes of UKCISA CEO Anne Marie Graham, former universities minister Lord David Willetts, London Higher CEO Diana Beech and former culture secretary James Purnell be welcomed as commissioners onto the fledgling project, which aims to find more cohesive ways to develop a cross-party international education strategy.

The project will see regular roundtable discussions like the launch event, as well as a series of reports regarding “key themes in the HE sector” over the next few months.

At the end of May, a consultation document is also set to be finalised.

Chris Skidmore, the MP who has helped set up the group, set out his thoughts on what the commission could achieve.

“We need to ask questions not just about whether the 600,000 figure target, which has been met, is the right one, but also to look at a more granular detail about our approach to international students more broadly.

“Is the right support being provided in terms of student welfare and housing? How can we ensure that the international student pathway more broadly into the UK remains sustainable in the long term?,” he asked.

The roundtable on January 17 proved that many in the UK’s sector are keen to combat the current rhetoric that surrounds international students, especially surrounding how they are viewed in staying in the UK past their “welcome”.

“[The rhetoric] has proved surprisingly hard to kill off as a critique because it was so sort of categorically asserted as fact by the Theresa May administration that international students were overstaying and that tens or even hundreds of thousands,” Johnson stated.

“That allegation was unfounded. And when the data was finally established, it was revealed that international students were actually the most compliant of all visa categories,” he added.

Nick Hillman, from HEPI, championed the commission’s efforts beginning to be put into place, and said that the economic value of international students, as well as the non-economic value, need to be looked at simultaneously, rather than being singled out as one or the other.

He also pointed out that the commission will be in a unique position to act when it comes to issues like that of women learning in Afghanistan, and that he hopes it can “think about in a wider sense” how it can maintain a lifeline in such scenarios.

Nic Beech, a board member at University Alliance and VC of Middlesex University and another one of the new commissioners, also urged attendees to think about international students from a business perspective.

“International students have various roles they can play in business creation of one sort or another. I think we probably want to look at this a bit more closely, and about the narrative associated with things like the number of jobs created. That actually can be really appealing,” Beech pointed out.

Hillman commented that he knew of the capacity of international students to transform both their own and other people’s lives, and the commission shows “the power that has been brought together”, but conceded it would not be all plain sailing.

“In the beginning, we mustn’t just get together in rooms where we all agree with each other. You must engage with people that are [different] to understand where their unfounded fears come from, because evidence is on our side,” he added.

Skidmore told attendees that the raft of commissioners, picked from the sector, that has been announced today will not be the last – and that in mid-February there would be a further announcement on international student commissioners who would join the fold.

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Raising awareness among UK employers of the graduate visa route remains key if the initiative will succeed, but other challenges exist. One difficulty employers have is the length of the program, stakeholders have warned.

“We need to be vocal about the importance of [the route] to enable the UK to stay competitive within this sector,” managing director of Kaplan International Pathways, Linda Cowan, said at a webinar organised by HEPI and Kaplan.

A recent report has warned that a lack of awareness among UK employers of the graduate route could be hampering the success of the initiative. Only 3% of the 656 employers surveyed said they were using the route to employ staff, while a quarter of employers were not actually aware of the initiative.

“There is actually now a huge amount of information around the graduate route”

A number of panellists at the webinar pointed to practical guides for employers that stakeholders can promote to businesses. The International Student Employability Group, chaired by UKCISA, has a published guide for employers, in addition to a useful factsheet.

“There is actually now a huge amount of information for international students and for companies around the graduate route,” Cowan said. But the next step is how to ensure “we land that well with employers”.

Senior policy advisor for Sustainability, Skills, and Employment at Institute of Directors, Alex Hall-Chen, reminded that many SMEs don’t have HR functions or dedicated departments and “won’t have a familiarity with all visas”.

There is definitely opportunity among SME employers, Stephen Isherwood from Institute of Student Employers, agreed.

“[They] really don’t understand the graduate route, don’t know actually the fact that it is process light, [but] do have immediate skill needs,” he said.

Education providers can also help students to help themselves, Cowan suggested.

“We’ve got a huge role as education providers around how we help students to be more vocal with employers when they’re applying for jobs on the ease of the graduate route,” she said.

“Actually international students could play a huge role when they’re speaking to employers.”

“Applicants can indicate that they don’t currently have the right to work in the UK but they can very easily get that at no expense or bureaucracy to the employer, as those two are the main concerns [for employers],” Hall-Chen agreed.

Extend beyond two-years

Cowan warned that some sectors will find the two-year visa, rather than three-year, is “a disadvantage”.

“For certain sectors, and particularly STEM, us continuing to work with the government to see whether there’s a possibility for a three-year graduate route, I think would be enormously helpful,” she said

Moderator of the session, director of HEPI Nick Hillman, highlighted that former UK universities minister, Jo Johnson, has previously called for the route to be extended to four years.

PhD students are currently the only ones eligible for a three-year graduate route.

From an employer’s perspective, Isherwood highlighted that graduate employment schemes tend to last over four years.

“Employers are nervous about hiring people when there’s only a two-year timeframe. What they don’t want to is get to that two-year point to find that actually that visa can’t be secured,” the chief executive said.

ISE, a body that helped to campaign to get the graduate visa really reinstalled, has seen its members opt for the skilled visa route over the graduate route, he continued, especially when it comes to graduate employment schemes or further professional qualifications.

The graduate route is used when employers have short-term problems, he continued.

“One of the challenges for [most of] our members, running [graduate] programs, is they tend to start their hiring in the autumn. Actually they’ve often said getting international students through the visa process in time to start can be a real challenge…

“Some of our employers do use that graduate visa route when they need to step people into their organisation pretty quickly. They might hire them on a temporary contract initially while that gets sorted out.”

It is also unclear whether IoD members are aware that they can switch from graduate to skilled worker visa, Hall-Chen highlighted.

“[In our research], we didn’t have an opportunity to ask about the awareness of the ability to switch visas. I would say just generally employer awareness of all of these schemes is low, so I would assume that understanding of being able to switch from one to another course would be low.”

Hall-Chen added that the IoD would “certainly support any moves that would make it even more useful for employers”.

“Demand from employers is there”

“If that means extending it to three for all international students, not just those who’ve got PhDs, that would be a positive development,” she said.

“There’s still a chance we can get it to three years if we focus on the aspect of the skills shortage in the UK,” Cowan added.

Miss-selling concerns

One audience member also raised the potential issue of miss-selling the UK experience and over-promising prospective students on what they can expect from the graduate visa route.

Cowan pointed to Isherwood’s statistic that at the end of 2022, 9% of graduate vacancies had still gone unfilled, while Hall-Chen noted that IoD’s research found only 20% of employers said they wouldn’t consider using a graduate visa.

“Demand from employers is there,” Hall-Chen said, “but what isn’t always there is employer understanding of the various visa routes.”

Isherwood added that, however, the initiative had been led by the higher education sector with a view to increase international student recruitment.

“The strong growth and input into the economy [international students bring] actually that means that the conversation is often not being driven by employer demand necessarily, it’s not as if it’s the labour market saying, ‘we need these students, let’s bring them into the country’,” he said.

“It’s being driven by universities increasing their intake, so that connection gets lost between the labour markets.

“I think that is where this danger of miss-selling does come into it.”

Employers are under pressure from universities to offer employment opportunities to a range of cohorts.

“Imagine you’re an employer sat in front of a careers team at a university and that university saying, ‘What about the WP students? What about our ethnic diversity students? What about international students? Are you hiring them?’

“The employer goes, ‘I’m getting 20,000 or 30,000 applications every year for 500 vacancies. Some people are going to get through and some people aren’t’. I think a bit of candour around that side of the equation would help increase understanding on both sides.”

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