We just talk about the good stuff

Germany is aiming to attract skilled workers from around the world to fill shortages gaps in the country’s labour market.

The Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz continues on developments on the Skilled Immigration Act, in force since March 2020.

Three pillars – skilled labour, experience, and potential – seek to assist qualified workers in non-regulated professions, those with employment contracts in non-regulated professions and a points-based system for those not yet with employment contracts.

Through the means of the rule, the government also said it is “particularly committed to ensuring that more third-country nationals come to Germany for training or study and then work as skilled workers in Germany”. It also hopes that a new Digital Campus will help to attract international students and smoothen the process of preparing to study in the country.

“To be able to compete for talent and auxiliary workers, we are offering new, and more importantly, more straightforward ways to work in Germany,” said federal labour minister Hubertus Heil.

The EU Blue Card – Europe’s equivalent of a US Green Card – will see existing salary thresholds lowered and “more attractive conditions will be created for new entrants”.

The skilled labour pillar also aims to make vocational training or to study in Germany “more attractive”.

“Unfortunately, the notion that all the skilled workers in the world want to come to Germany per se is an illusion,” Heil added.

Germany is looking to collaborate with partner countries on labour migration. A recruitment strategy will target certain countries, but the ministry did not expand on which countries will be targeted.

“We urgently need more bright minds and hands, also from abroad, for growth and prosperity,” added Bettina Stark-Watzinger, federal minister of education and research.

The law will “simplify access to the German labour market”, she continued.

“In the future, skilled workers with a degree and professional experience will also be able to enter the country without a recognition procedure. We are expanding the possibilities for recognition procedures after entry and offer incentives for this.

“And we want to work with the federal states and chambers to speed up and simplify recognition. We will also strengthen educational migration by making it even more attractive to come to Germany to start vocational training or study and to stay here after graduation.”

Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock recently visited India, where she signed a mobility agreement to “make it easier for our people to study, do research and work in the other country”. The trip comes on the back of a partnership, announced earlier this year, on migration and mobility.

Included in the agreement are the Academic Evaluation Centre in New Delhi, an 18 month extended residence permits to students, 3,000 annual job seeker visas, “liberalised short stay multiple entry visas and streamlined readmission procedures”, the ministry said.

“The India-Germany Migration and Mobility Partnership is part of overall efforts to create a network of agreements with prospective labour market destination countries with twin objectives of creating of favourable visa regime for Indians towards accessing the labour market of these countries,” the Ministry of External Affairs added.

Nicht nur, weil wir uns in diesem Jahr schon so häufig gesehen haben – die Weltlage macht unsere enge Abstimmung mehr als nötig – fühlt sich mein erster offizieller Besuch in #Indien an wie der Besuch bei Freunden. Vielen Dank dafür, lieber @DrSJaishankar! 1/3 pic.twitter.com/BM8kTNfYGx

— Außenministerin Annalena Baerbock (@ABaerbock) December 5, 2022

India has recently signed significant agreements with Australia and the UK.

The Bundesagentur für Arbeit (Federal Employment Agency) – responsible for the “professionalisation of recruitment from abroad” and fair migration and in partnership with third countries, said the continuation of creating mediation agreements with “suitable partner countries” is key.

The teaching of German language skills is also vital for the overall success of the policy, according to the government.

DAAD welcomed the skilled worker policy, describing it as the “right step that policy-makers are focusing more strongly on the great potential of international exchange students and graduates of German higher education institutions as skilled workers of the future”.

Approximately 350,000 international students attended German higher education institutions during the 2021/22 academic year, an 8% increase from the previous year.

“The vast majority of these young people are highly qualified, familiar with the German culture and have acquired language skills,” DAAD president Joybrato Mukherjee said.

International students are often studying high-demand disciplines from the STEM field, and surveys have “shown that many would like to live and work in Germany after graduating”, Mukherjee continued. A 2020 survey found that 60% of overseas students hope to stay in Germany.

“We as a society should make far better use of these opportunities. The new paper published by the Federal Government points out the right levers in this respect.

“In order to keep the most brilliant minds in Germany, we need to improve the general conditions for recruitment and higher education preparation and offer more services to help international exchange students enter the German labour market.”

Recent analysis found that Canada and Germany lead over their competitors in international student retention.

German Association for International Education (DAIA) also welcomed the initiative.

“We very much hope that this new impetus will not see the academic pathway to migration sidelined. We think Germany should extend the existing program that grants work permits to recent non-EU graduates of German HEIs,” chair Martin Bickl said.

“Not only are these graduates highly skilled but they have also formed a strong bond with their host country, its language and work culture – invaluable assets that increase the chance of a good fit between vacancy and candidate. In essence, we hope this new initiative will complement rather than replace existing academic pathways to permanent residency. Anything else would seem like a quick fix rather than a sustainable strategy,” he told The PIE.

“Germany can definitely learn a lesson or two from our antipodean friends”

“Australia has pioneered the university pathway to migration, and Germany can definitely learn a lesson or two from our antipodean friends. Not only does this pathway provide extremely well-qualified graduates for the national economy but it is also a great asset for promoting academic programs to prospective students.”

Graduates of German universities are more grounded in society, and most likely to stay on and be successful in their jobs, he added.

“In an ideal world, Germany would produce enough and the right kind of graduates to fill its vacancies, but as we have been seeing for decades this simply isn’t happening.”

Bickl also called for greater policy alignment across Germany.

“We’ve often had a situation over the last 20 years where the federal level has been promoting skilled immigration whereas many local authorities aliens’ departments (Ausländerbehörden, which are tasked with implementing the policy on the ground) have been struggling to follow suit as many are understaffed and overwhelmed.

“We definitely need to get all local authorities on board if we are to not only recruit but retain skilled migrants.”

Gerrit Bruno Blöss, CEO of Study.eu, warned that simplifying the process to work in Germany with degrees from other countries could have an adverse effect on interest in German qualifications.

“Access to the German labour market through the relatively generous graduate visa is one key driver for student interest in Germany. If a German degree is no longer necessary, student interest might decline; likely particularly for masters degrees at private universities that charge fees,” he suggested.

“It’s possible that semester exchange students can now more easily come back to Germany”

“Such institutions will need to put more emphasis on the value of their education in terms of employability. At the same time it’s possible that semester exchange students can now more easily come back to Germany. How this plays out in practice will ultimately depend on the details of the law.”

Blöss also suggested that universities could address language barrier issues by making German lessons more prominent in their education, including for students enrolled in English-taught programs, and embedding internships and corporate projects to allow students to make valuable connections.

Doing so could improve dropout rates among international students, which are generally higher than for German students, he said.

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The Irish government will fund the construction of new student housing, following warnings that the country’s housing shortages are leaving some students homeless. 

Some 667 new beds will be delivered in the short-term via building projects in areas where planning permission has already been granted but development has been stalled by increasing construction costs. 

Building work will take place across the University of Limerick, Maynooth University and University of Galway with further work on projects ongoing with Dublin City University and University College Dublin.

This is the first time the Irish government has invested money in building student accommodation and it said the funding has been provided in return for “affordability commitments” on rent. 

Some €32m will be invested, according to the minister.

“The step marks the beginning of the state’s new policy on student accommodation,” said Simon Harris, Ireland’s minister for further and higher education, research, innovation and science. “We will continue to progress proposals and bring them to government.”

We welcome this announcement from Minister for Further and Higher Education @SimonHarrisTD which states that the Government is going to partially fund the construction of almost 700 student accommodation beds in Maynooth, Limerick and Galway https://t.co/LcOvDyalFO

— Ollscoil na Gaillimhe | University of Galway (@uniofgalway) November 30, 2022

At the start of the 2022/23 academic year, the Irish Council for International Students experienced a 86% rise in the number of queries it had received about housing problems, while the Irish police warned that accommodation fraud targeting students was on the rise.  

Ireland’s housing minister met with ICOS and the Union of Students in Ireland earlier this week to discuss concerns around accommodation.

Speaking to the PIE in September, ICOS president Laura Harmon called on the government to develop a national student accommodation strategy. 

“The reliance on the private market to deliver accommodation has not worked,” she added. 

The government has now also approved investment in preparing technological universities to build student accommodation, which will include assessing regional needs and vacant stock.

“In order for our TUs to thrive and to ensure we have balanced regional development, we need to have more accommodation in our regions,” Harris said. “Our TUs are ready for the challenge and this funding will start them on their path.”

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The northeastern Australian technical and further education provider has been using a new insight reporting tool to develop localised adverts targeting students in Japan and South Korea.

Developed by QuantPlus, the AI technology has analysed as many as 60 billion ad impressions across 30 countries to identify the statistically highest-performing creative elements.

It can also reference pre-existing data on higher education campaign performance to further enhance results.

TAFE Queensland approved a move away from its global advertising campaign to a more localised creative delivery after the ad-tracking data convinced them that it would result in higher enrolments.

The new localised adverts reportedly reached and engaged twice as many South Korean students compared to their previous campaign, at a much lower cost per click.

In Japan, the campaign attracted 90% more visitors to its landing page and 30% more enrolments tracked from the lead generation.

Marty Lock, manager of international engagement and communications at TAFE Queensland, explained “the data, the reporting and the support we have received [from our external partner] has helped us drive returns back into enrolments. This has helped us strengthen our brand in those markets”.

QuantPlus was founded in 2021 by the owners of GlobalRevGen, an Australian media buying and digital strategy agency. Designed specifically for the education sector, the machine learning technology now references billions of impressions across the world.

Standard AB testing can analyse a range of elements within ad creatives, ranking them against performance data and then optimising the efficiency for future advertising. The difference with QuantPlus is the ability to pre-optimise campaigns using data specifically collected from international education trials.

The technology was tested with a range of pilot customers in Australia to enlarge their central data lake first before moving forward with clients including GO8 universities.

Speaking about the system, Bosco Anthony, head of strategy and growth, said, “We are revolutionising the digital advertising ecosystem and how industries view creatives. Our clients at GlobalRevGen have started to incorporate QuantPlus insights in their everyday creative advertising decision making.”

The higher education industry has traditionally been slow to adopt data-driven sales tools, instead relying heavily on the experience of staff and manual processes to form recruitment campaigns.

However multiple factors such as image composition, colour palette, age, gender and ethnicity of models or authenticity of imagery can all affect the regional impact of advertising and require a more dynamic approach to design and delivery.

Other factors such as timing and copy phrasing can all be AI tested to improve advertising performance and many universities are now turning to powerful e-commerce tools to achieve better return on investment on their advertising spend.

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The government of Western Australia has announced a $50,000AUD campaign to entice homeowners in the state to host international students.

Amid a housing crisis in Australia that has been ongoing since before international students returned in April, international students in WA are seeing rent increasing while housing availability plummets.

Therefore, the WA government are stepping in, asking WA residents with room to host an international student with the offer of remuneration at $295 a week.

“It is important that we provide safe, affordable, and welcoming accommodation to international students arriving in our state,” said David Templeman, WA minister for international education.

“Hosting an international student in your home is an enriching experience that drives value within the community.

“As a WA homeowner, this is your chance to help an international student find their feet in a new city,” he explained.

The campaign is being delivered by StudyPerth in conjunction with the WA government and the Australian Homestay Network, one of the country’s most experienced sites with the practice.

The plan aims to drive homestay host registrations in the run-up to the first semester of 2023 – and the campaign will continue to run through print, social media and on radio stations across the state until early next year.

“It is important that we provide safe, affordable, and welcoming accommodation”

Derryn Belford, StudyPerth’s CEO, said that as numbers are at around “80% of pre-pandemic levels”, the hope is that numbers will return to normal around 2024 – but the issue remains of housing the growing numbers of international students.

“The rental market is very, very tough at the moment,” she said.

“We’ve actually identified that there’s probably unmet demand for anywhere between 3000 and 4000 beds next semester for students,” she explained.

The announcement read that providing “safe and affordable housing” for students coming from abroad will be “essential to the growth of the sector”.

Other states have also responded to the housing crisis in different ways; South Australia’s capital city Adelaide gaining a new $110,000AUD complex courtesy of housing provider GSA, where 90% of rooms belong to international students.

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The US Department of Homeland Security has announced an 18-month designation of Special Student Relief for F-1 international students from Ethiopia.

The decision to suspend certain regulatory requirements for the F-1 non-immigrant students from Ethiopia means that now students experiencing severe hardship as a direct result of the crises in the country can request employment authorisation to work remotely.

They will also be exempt from the standard student employment requirements, and can reduce their course load if necessary.

The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration “applauded” the news, describing it as “humanitarian flexibility for Ethiopian international students”.

Jill Welch, senior policy advisor for the Presidents’ Alliance said, “Extending these protections and flexibility to Ethiopians living in the United States is vital to the U.S. humanitarian response for Ethiopia.”

“Ethiopian international students need the flexibility to drop a class or work off-campus as they and their families face the financial hardship brought on by the humanitarian crisis back home,” Welch added.

“We urge the administration to continue to use TPS and SSR together”

According to the Federal Register, the action will apply to approximately 3,592 F-1 non-immigrant students who are Ethiopian citizens currently enrolled at SEVP-certified academic institutions in the US.

Ethiopia was also recently designated for Temporary Protected Status, providing protection from deportation and permission to work for Ethiopians living in the US.

In a statement, the Presidents’ Alliance said, “Pairing TPS and SSR provides additional flexibility and protection for Ethiopian nationals in the United States while Ethiopia is in crisis.

“We urge the administration to continue to use TPS and SSR together to provide protection for individuals whose home countries are in crisis,” the statement continued.

The DHS said its decision to take action was due to the current crisis in Ethiopia caused by the armed conflict in multiple regions of the country resulting in large-scale displacement of civilians.

In July 2022, UNICEF estimated that 29.7 million people in Ethiopia are in need of humanitarian assistance, including access to food, water, and health services.

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A shared commitment to improving the framework for supporting international students embarking on an international student experience in the US was aired by delegates attending the 14th AIRC annual conference in the US last week.

“In 2023, we will focus on developing more institutional standards, guidelines and best practices that will put AIRC at the forefront of international student recruitment,” David Adler, CEO at ApplyWave and AIRC Board Agency Representative, told The PIE.

AIRC is the only organisation that certifies its member education agencies – they become part of an organisation which also welcomes education institutions in the US as members. There are 94 certified agencies at present with others awaiting the outcome of a certification process.

At its most recent annual conference, 450 members and delegates convened. “It’s exciting to see AIRC continue to grow in numbers and in influence,” commented Adler.

“We will focus on developing more institutional standards, guidelines and best practices”

The theme of the conference, “Acting with Purpose and Understanding Our Why,” was highlighted in addresses made by AIRC executive director Brian Whalen and president Derrick Alex.

“A lot was accomplished in these three days,” Alex told The PIE. Key themes at the conference included identifying shifting market trends and being adaptable so as to respond with an appropriate strategy.

And the new AIRC standards were a hot topic as practitioners discussed how best to incorporate them into practice.

During the opening conference address, Alex encouraged all attendees to stay actively involved throughout the year. “[It] is probably one of the best ways to remain visible to your potential partners, stay current on industry trends, and contribute towards continuing to improve international student experiences,” he counselled.

Alex himself came to the US as an international student through a recruitment agency. And the focus on the student journey was, indeed, a major undercurrent throughout the four-day event.

At the Student Voices Luncheon, a panel of current and former international students each spoke about their own student journey.

Former international transfer student – now COO of EdVisorly Hanna Ving – told The PIE, “It is extremely powerful when we create a platform for students to voice and share their experiences. We can better serve the next generation of leaders when we listen, and then deliver on what we’ve learned from students.”

Several student panellists referenced the flexibility of the US education. “[You have] the option of choosing a major at a later stage, further study abroad options, [and] being able to transfer credits easily,” panellist Tushar Sukhwani underlined.

Several student panellists referenced the flexibility of the US education

“Also, the system is structured in a way that facilitates students’ overall personal growth and the freedom to curate their own path. Yet it teaches them how to be responsible, accountable, and independent,” he added.

Webster University sponsored the luncheon and, following the event, Samrat Ray Chaudhuri, Webster’s Director of Global Enrolment told The PIE that a key takeaway from the panel was the lack of transparency and direction that international students face while researching US institutions.

“There is a lack of trust, and this can be resolved by including current students and alumni in the overall communication and engagement plans,” said Chaudhuri.

Ryan Fleming, aecc’s Director of Partnerships, US also spoke to The PIE about the collegial networking during the AIRC conference and AIRC’s “core mission of bringing leaders and newcomers alike in our field together for insight and introspection.”

He reflected about the past few years in the field: “We feel like we have moved through a period of acute crisis with brighter times ahead… but what exactly has changed since pre-pandemic times? What core assumptions are due to be challenged?

“How have student needs and wants shifted? Most centrally of all, how do we maintain a sense of mission and identity while also pursuing growth, innovation and change?” he asked.

Fleming suggested that these ongoing conversations serve to “raise the bar of our profession for the benefit of students, rather than just ourselves [to] help support the advancement of our field.”

The 14th AIRC annual conference was the largest to date, with over 450 attendees gathering at The Hilton Universal City in Los Angeles, California.

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Seven scholars from South East Asia have been chosen as recipients of the British Council’s scholarships for women in STEM for 2022/23, as the organisation continues efforts to enhance South East Asia-UK relations.

For the second year running, the fully funded scholarships have been awarded in partnership with 26 UK universities, with the aim of benefiting women from South East Asia, South Asia, the Americas, Egypt, Turkey and Ukraine.

Helga Stellmacher, country director for British Council Thailand, said the objective of the program is to “encourage women who would not have had the financial means to go and study in the UK”.

Some five scholars from Thailand have been chosen to study or conduct research at Brunel University London, Teesside University, University of York and University of Glasgow.

A further two students from Laos and Cambodia have been chosen to study at Edinburgh Napier University.

“We want to encourage women to study STEM in the UK so we do not want any barriers,” said Uraiwan Samolee, head of education Thailand at the British Council.

The scholarship includes complete financial support including tuition fees, stipend, travel costs, visa and health coverage fees and with special support for mothers including childcare, if the student is bringing dependants. English language training is also provided for students who need it.

Stellmacher said that such scholarships contribute to the overall perception and student consciousness of UK study.

“Hopefully those people are coming back into society with a post-graduate [degree] and hopefully they will be able to get up to the higher echelons of the academia. Again, it’s just showing that women can do that,” she added.

According to data from UNESCO, fewer than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women and only 30 percent of female students select STEM-related fields in higher education.

According to British Council, globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in subjects such as information and communications technology, natural science, maths and statistics, engineering, manufacturing and construction.

When the students have completed the scholarships, they are encouraged by the British Council to carry out advocacy work in their home countries focused on encouraging more women to pursue STEM careers and studies, working together with the organisation and alumni throughout the region.

Successful scholarship applicants should have an undergraduate degree in a STEM subject, but the scholarship is also open to students with undergraduate degrees in related subjects through which their skills can be converted.

Launched in 2021, the first Thai scholar to be awarded the scholarship was Lizz Srisuwan, a doctor and transgender woman, who studied master’s degree in public health at Liverpool John Moores University, focusing her research on how LGBTQ+ people are treated within the UK health system.

“I am a trailblazer”

Another alumni scholar, Irene Angela, from Indonesia, was chosen to study sustainable energy at the University of Glasgow.

“I am a trailblazer. I’m the first woman to ever get a master’s degree in my family,” said Angela, in a video for the British Council.

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A boom in professional short course numbers has indicated that six month visitor visas were at a bottleneck in the spring, and could be at the same time in 2023, according to stakeholders.

Independent HE said that the idea of having both study and tourism stints that are under six months in one visa may not be viable – especially when it is affecting movement of students altogether.

“It started off in spring when there was a massive delay in the visitor visa – across all the visas,” Joy Elliott-Bowman, director of policy and development at IHE, told The PIE News.

“They began rushing through the [long-term] student visas, but they didn’t really do anything about the [bottleneck on] visitor visas,” she explained.

The standard visitor visa, which was launched in December 2020 by the UK government, allows people to visit the country for up to six months without leaving – and includes motives for entry such as studying English, sitting entrance exams for higher education, doing electives and professional short courses.

The subsequent bottleneck caused by the stagnation of visitor visa issuances meant that students, in turn, missed courses in the summer – resulting in a recent boom, especially for IHE members, Elliott-Bowman relayed, in students in the latest short course intake.

“What’s become apparent is that [short course students] numbers are not tracked particularly well,” she noted.

UKVI data requested by IHE suggests that the countries that are experiencing a rise in interest for long term student visas are also experiencing, coincidentally, a very time-sensitive rise in visitor visa interest – at the same time that the majority of professional courses are happening.

Due to priorities made on visas for displaced Ukrainian citizens in May 2022, as well as issues in April 2022, this may have been exacerbated even further.

“We fixed the visa delays in the student route, but we haven’t fixed visa delays in the visitor visa route, in any which way, shape or form,” Elliott-Bowman surmised.

“We can’t be equating the experience of a student trying to get here for a two month course once a year and someone hoping to get a visa for a beach holiday in Cornwall.

“It’s a different cost, and it’s a different situation,” Elliott-Bowman added.

Currently, according to the government, visitor visas are taking an average of 5 weeks to process – recent analysis by the Evening Standard also confirmed that over 60,000 visitor visas took over 50 days to process.

With no way of tracking which of those are for short courses, English language courses or tourism, it demonstrates the difficulties posed for those who want to study in the UK for less than six months.

“There needs to be a recognition of the difference in the visitor visa route for students”

Elliott-Bowman said that work had been done to start tracking all education-related exports – including revenue from TNE, higher education and English language learning – but because the visitor visa didn’t specify, it wasn’t enough and didn’t include thousands in revenue coming from professional short course students.

“We need to start tracking professional short courses earlier, in the visitor visa application process – if the purpose of coming is to study, they should have to indicate that the provider is accredited. So there has to be an indication in the application form that says they’re coming for study,” said Elliott-Bowman.

While she is confident that some of the visa backlog has come from the issues surrounding the Ukraine war, it is still something that needs to be addressed before it possibly occurs again next year.

“There needs to be a recognition of the difference in the visitor visa route for students – there is that need for speed, the expectation – the costs that students are outlying to come and do these courses – and the [need to maintain] reputation,” she added.

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