International education stakeholders in Nepal are raising concerns that the government has stopped issuing No Objection Certificates for non-higher education programs needed to study abroad.

Those impacted are non-university level students, such as those applying for language, vocational and advanced diplomas overseas. It is thought that the government restrictions aim to keep Nepalese young people in the country.

The NOC document is required for students to travel abroad and for international payments to institutions. Stakeholders are worried that the inability to access the certificates could heavily impact the ability for Nepalese students to travel overseas.

In 2019, the country’s Supreme Court issued a stay order to the education ministry after it stopped issuing the NOC to vocational and language students.

Founder and CEO of Motif Education Abroad, Umesh Pandey, told The PIE News that the entire student recruitment business in the country could be impacted.

“There are already thousands of students who will be impacted due to various reasons,” he said.

“It’s difficult to make government officials understand about the flexible qualification frameworks they offer and have for both the domestic and international students.”

The International Education Representatives’ Initiative of Nepal has met with the country’s minister for Education and briefed him on the difficulty the NOC is creating for students and stakeholders.

“It impacts highly to those providers who have accepted students only in their Diploma or Advanced Diploma programs or English program only,” Pandey detailed.

Delays in NOC issuance have been exacerbated as interest in international education opportunities has increased in the aftermath of the pandemic. Some 600 applications were made to the government on one day in early April.

A rule, meaning students wanting to join non-university education program such as language courses cannot access visas, came into effect on April, according to a ministry spokesperson.

However, the number of students receiving abroad study approval is increasing, with 81,573 individuals approved since the beginning of the current fiscal year in mid-July 2022, according to local media.

Sazeena Nemkul, from Kingsford International Institute and Kingsford Academy Australia, shared that government ought to rethink its action on NOCs.

“The market and visa rates for diploma and advanced diploma were already very low”

Six consultancy associations have attended a meeting with the minister of education Ashok Kumar Rai where they expressed “deep concern” of the NOC for non-higher education programs, Nemkul detailed.

“The market and visa rates for diploma and advanced diploma were already very low from last April/ May 2022 and that has impacted a lot,” she said.

“This prohibition is not just stopping students from their right to choose but forcing unemployment to many and business failures. I would say they should think from a bigger picture and revoke the decision on not just ‘No NOC’ but freedom to switch faculties as per their growing interest or past experiences,” she told The PIE.

“Language or skilled-based degree (Certificate, Diploma and Advance Diploma) can help international students to land in many scopes.

“I wish our government will re think on this matter and think it in a bigger picture to have their youth come back home with better skills, knowledge and experiences along with the international degree,” she added.

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A new landmark research publication has claimed that there has been a gradual shift from the “ideal of mother tongue fluency” towards a more contextualised approach, among other findings.

The Future of English: Global Perspectives, which was published by the British Council and is the first of a “major program of research and global engagement”.

Amid the rise of different types of English being spoken around the world, as opposed to American vs British English, Mark Walker, director of English and exams at the British Council, said that there will likely be increasingly context specific assessments.

“We are all probably going to be increasingly open to variations of English,” Walker said in an interview with The PIE News.

“In a lot of teaching and assessment organisations, there has been the idea of accepting American and British spelling – but there are now stylistic differences and different variants of English around the world that we will increasingly see become accepted if they are applicable in certain contexts,” he explained.

“If I’m learning English and go to work in Singapore, for example, then I need a variant of English that is to be understood – those other variants of English are not going to disappear.”

Continuing on testing, the report said that there needs to be a regular review of “the approach to assessing English proficiency”, lest assessment professionals be complacent to developing “study, work and social interactions”.

“The point the research is making is that every time [an organisation] reviews, it should be thinking, “am I testing the right English for the target context?”” he explained.

Crucially, on a wider level the publication said that English will likely continue to be the “global language of communication” for at least the next decade.

It will also, according to the research, retain its “important role alongside” other languages to provide a plethora of linguistic opportunities globally – something, Walker says, may placate the minds of some who have been “worried about” English displacing other languages.

“What we’re hearing… is particularly policy makers and educators are a lot more attuned to the risk of that – so rather than English being seen as something to supplant other languages, it is increasingly there as a supplementary tool. I think that’s really critical,” Walker explained.

The other crucial finding the report focuses on is the ELT sector’s relationships to AI and new technologies.

“Policy makers and educators are a lot more attuned to the risk of English displacing other languages”

While the research indicates that technology itself will be playing a larger role in how English is taught and how it is learned, it won’t be there to totally displace the teacher – due to the limitations on which technology can actually do in terms of language teaching.

“There will always be contexts in which teachers are going to be critical – people are still looking for human interaction,” he added.

On the other hand, the report says that the risk technology poses is not so much to jobs, but to general access to English language learning.

While technology has largely been seen as something that widens access to education overall, the risk lies in the divide between people who have access to the technology in the first place – and of course, those who don’t.

“That means that it’s easier for the privileged to get access to and acquire good English language skills – and it’s more challenging for those who don’t have that technological access.”

The report also touched on the importance of collaboration in private and public sector relationships in terms of English language learning, testing and teaching.

However, it also stressed that private sector “gap-filling” should be monitored as private provision qualities can be “variable” – and such quality assurance, Walker says, is approached in different ways across the world.

“I think where we have to be more sensitive as a global profession is when there are markets where the customer is not able to take a more informed view.”

Four universities have been given the opportunity to dig further into the themes of the report – as the British Council has issued them research grants.

The University of Bedfordshire will delve into EMI communication in higher ed classrooms; Lancaster will be focusing on the linguistic demands on EMI; the Open University will examine English for the “EDI generation” and the University of Warwick will look into English as a school subject in basic education.

“We are all probably going to be increasingly open to variations of English”

“There’ll be this sort of opportunity for everybody to take part and there’ll be continued academic research into the themes that the Future of English examines,” Walker added.

The opportunity for the wider masses to take part will be through a touring exhibition as part of the project, which will be taking to Stratford in East London in late April.

The Future of English exhibition, which will feature various facets of the report’s core themes, will have interactive sections to gain more perspectives from visitors for future iterations of the report.

“The exhibition is an opportunity to take that conversation even wider and get other perspectives on what the future of English might be,” Walker noted.

The tour will make its way round the world, starting in London on April 26, before going to the New Directions conferences in São Paulo in late May, and the Hanoi iteration in late October.

While other locations for 2023 have yet to be confirmed, the British Council has stressed the exhibition will return to London next year.

The post “Shift is happening” in English learning methodology – British Council appeared first on The PIE News.

The idea of a streamlined, complete booking system for agents in direct conjunction with language schools “could work”, but some stakeholders remain sceptical.

Delegates at the International Association of Language Centres workshop in Dublin, Ireland, mused that a system akin to booking.com would help speed along the process of booking students and allow more to be fed through the pipeline.

However, for smaller agencies – especially solo agents – the idea of taking out the negotiation and relationship may be too much in terms of interfering technology.

“I would be open to something like it, but I would prefer to keep control over the situation – I’m too small as an agency to maintain it,” Christine Bonneux, president of the I Love Lingua agency, told The PIE News.

“As a result, I also don’t think I would end up being contacted through my website, because of SEO issues; and I have a lot of communication with parents especially, so that needs to be taken into account,” she continued.

Claudia Herrmann, an educational consultant with GLS Sprachenzentrum Berlin – which sends students across Europe, but mainly to the UK and Ireland – said such a program wasn’t “really necessary” when asked about the possibility.

“I think with the changing market in language courses, you need your counsellors – it’s not as simple as just book and go,” she added.

Maria Hernández Muratalla, the commercial director of the Joma Student Experience agency, still stressed the need for something that helped centralise the process.

“[The idea] could work especially to better coordinate when things are changing so fast. It’s harder to manage when you’re working with many different schools.

“We need something that’s more put together,” she told The PIE.

During a panel discussion at the conference that touched on the streamlining of booking students onto language courses, Wimbledon School of English CEO Jane Dancaster recalled a similar discussion around a replication of the booking.com model over 10 years ago.

“We’re constantly trying to improve the lives of our admin staff who are dealing with agents sending in bookings… if we can find the technology to take the grief away from them, we can streamline the booking process.

“We had this discussion in Brisbane [at IALC] ten years ago, and we haven’t got very far with that,” she noted.

On the same panel, director of ALTO Reka Lenart pointed out that it is the reluctance of agents, and of schools as well, that has been holding it back.

“Before anything else, there is a mentality change that needs to happen”

“There’s a feeling that the individuality and the personal attention would be lost if we moved the industry to a platform like that.

“Before anything else, there is a mentality change that needs to happen within the industry,” Lenart affirmed.

The idea that it should be easier definitely resonated with IALC delegates – Joh Ahmed Suhail, CEO and founder of Angelstream, said, as an agent, he would like to see variants and filters on such a platform to make the process simpler.

“I think it would make things easier, but we also have to consider that unless it’s closed off, students then be able to do it themselves,” he pointed out, speaking with The PIE.

Suhail also made the point that such a platform would need to include stringent, complicated cross-checking in order to be viable – making sure that aspects like British Council accreditations are accounted for when agents make bookings with schools.

Additionally, he mused that if the idea of making a streamlined portal would become too commercialised, the market would become too saturated with options and thus nullify the whole point of the platform.

Edvisor has been one of more-used technology companies in the language school sector for some time, and is currently aiming to capitalise on the gap in the market.

Its recent release of an add-on that essentially acts as the precursor to a streamlined booking portal, EdCommerce, will mean that at least, more of its customers might come around to the idea, according to sales manager Jamie Gibbs.

“The objective here isn’t to replace the agency or to replace the school”

“The reality is that as purchasers – for example, how did you book your flight to get here? How did you pick your hotel? – there is a behaviour tendency that we all follow. Education is just way behind on that,” he said.

“The objective here isn’t to replace the agency or to replace the school or to modify the school, it’s to give them the tools in which they can better adapt to the tendency that purchasing is taking.

EdCommerce, which is aimed primarily at taking payments on bookings, was released in early April to Edvisor’s current customers, and is currently only available as an add-on prior to a gradual wider release in the coming months – but will always be tied to using the rest of the Edvisor platform.

Whether a comprehensive, streamlined booking portal will be implemented in the next ten years after this IALC conference, the sector will have to wait and see.

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An ethical shift in international higher education is the “only option”, stakeholders have said, branding the current approach as unsustainable and worsening inequality worldwide.

Wei Liu, program administrator of the Global Academic Leadership Development program at University of Alberta International, made the comments in a recent article in The Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.

“International higher education in major Western countries has been pursued both as an export industry to obtain economic profit and as an immigrant recruitment platform to obtain top talents.

“This is a highly unsustainable approach to international higher education, as it serves to worsen inequality worldwide,” wrote Liu.

Instead, Liu said the sector should focus on “developing global citizenship and global leadership among all students”, so that higher education institutions can “better contribute to the solution of common challenges we face today“.

Liu highlights the pandemic gave many institutions a chance to work “reorient their future”, but since then focus has reverted back to filling enrolment gaps.

Professor Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit, Emeritus professor and distinguished fellow, both at Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education recently wrote about some of the consequences of higher education operating as an industry.

“[University leaders] have not learned about the risk of over-dependence on international fees for institutional budgets that was made clearer by the pandemic.

“They appear not to be concerned about geopolitical tensions, climate change or challenging economic, demographic and educational contexts in sending regions,” the article read.

Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, shares concerns on the current model of fee-based international education, and described its ethical foundation as “threadbare”.

“As I see it, the English-speaking countries are maintaining a colonial relationship with the emerging countries through higher education,” Marginson told The PIE.

“By presenting their higher education as necessary and superior, they maintain the old cultural pattern of colonial domination, while transferring revenues from the middle class in the emerging countries, to provider higher education institutions in the wealthy world.

“If we in the ‘education export’ countries were sincerely committed to lifting up education across the world, we would help to build capacity in the emerging countries themselves,” Marginson added.

Although Liu appreciates lack of government funding as one reason institutions focus on revenue from recruitment, he said that “balance needs to be pursued between economic gain and social responsibility”.

“Balance needs to be pursued between economic gain and social responsibility”

Liu gave multiple recommendations, including calling upon faculty members to internationalise their institution’s curriculum.

Whilst the concept of internationalisation of the curriculum has been around for some time, it is a slowly re-emerging trend in major study destinations including the UK and US.

He also recommended institutions “recognise diverse epistemological perspectives; raise students’ awareness of global problems; strengthen their intercultural competences; and push them to become responsible and active global citizens and leaders”.

Jenna Mittelmeier, senior lecturer in international education, University of Manchester, agrees that many universities in the Global North, particularly in Anglophone contexts, focus internationalisation activities on those that bring direct economic gain to institutions, such as international student recruitment or international research collaborations.

“This approach tends to favour the increased presence of intercultural diversity and difference in university practices without reflecting on the processes of just and ethical interactions,” said Mittelmeier.

She told The PIE that the majority of UK universities do not have in-depth institutional-wide strategies for internationalising pedagogy and curricula.

“My feeling is that internationalisation tends to be thought of as an additive approach, whereby universities add on readings from other countries or course units with a ‘global’ focus.

“However, research consistently shows us that this additive approach does not develop transformative learning experiences and, at times, can even exacerbate existing biases or stereotypes that students bring with them to university.

“For internationalisation to be truly transformative and develop the types of graduate outputs that universities expect, programs would need to develop more purposeful approaches which fully embed internationalisation throughout the curricula, pedagogies, and intended learning outcomes,” said Mittelmeier.

In a LinkedIn post, Ruth Arnold, executive director of external affairs at Study Group, highlighted that one way to contribute to solutions of global common challenges is to “involve international students and alumni themselves in developing international education”.

She also highlighted the importance of respectful collaboration between institutions around shared educational aims, movement between countries, ensuring skills and research meet the needs of home communities and employment, and fostering relationships on campus.

The post Stakeholders call for shift in intled ethics appeared first on The PIE News.

Designing strategic post-pandemic partnerships requires novel approaches, said stakeholders during a discussion on the new landscape – particularly in Asia, Africa, and LATAM.

During the pandemic, university partnerships were forced to undergo significant restructuring, moving away from traditional models. At The PIE Live Europe, two US leaders in partnership development discussed further.

“The pandemic prompted a shift in our peer relationships as we discussed our common problems and potential solutions collaboratively and compassionately,” South Dakota State University assistant vice president for international affairs, Jon Stauff, told The PIE News.

“New players and products appeared in the industry and disrupted our customary approaches to partnership development,” he continued.

Stauff asserted that the new tools presented leaders in IE an opportunity “to create new and inclusive networks to support partnerships” and also expand institutions’ “global footprints”.

Co-presenter, Jill Blondin, associate vice provost for global initiatives at Virginia Commonwealth University, agreed.

“It is incumbent for universities to be strategic in the way we approach partnership development post-pandemic,” she told The PIE after the session.

She said this calls for asking “not what we can do, but what we should do” to increase student, faculty and staff’s global engagement.

Such discussions led the pair to embrace innovative approaches to their current partnerships and to the development of new collaborations, such as enrolment funnels, research collaboration, and short-term and virtual options.

“We have a strong academic division at our institution, so our previous partnerships were mostly academic and stayed in their lane but the VCU vice president of research saw an opportunity  – and understood the significant role that research plays in student enrolment and recruitment,” Blondin explained.

Being able to narrate both the academic and the research ‘sides of the house’ produces myriad opportunities for students and future research, she claimed.

When the global initiatives division partnered with the vice president of research, it enabled VCU to better tell their story about their achievements worldwide and provided more opportunities to tell those stories.

“Our previous partnerships were mostly academic… but [we] saw an opportunity in research”

She also highlighted an innovative approach to partnership through VCU’s da Vinci Centre for Innovation promoting student entrepreneurship.

“These programs, including those with Lego and Bank of America, demonstrate the relevance between corporation and academic and they promote employability, which is key to student recruitment,” she said.

“With a careful international strategy… all partners can be victors and we can bring new options abroad”

Like VCU, SDSU is deeply engaged with global corporate partners. Stauff noted that given the suburban location of the university, many of their partners are leaders in precision agriculture and smart faming.

“It encompasses the intersection of IT, agriculture, and engineering and this collaboration engages and attracts not only local students, including students from Native American populations from the region, but also international students.”

While Blondin promoted “early, easy wins” for institutions keen to explore partnership creation and expansion, she also advised thought and intention.

“We recognise that it is through cooperation and collaboration that we will find solutions to global problems and challenges,” she noted.

Stauff also suggested delegates cast a wide net in considering the faculty and staff who may best champion specific partnerships from the university side.

“Don’t be shy about saying, ‘who else in your office might we talk to about this?’ if you don’t have the correct person right away.

“With a careful international strategy supporting this work, all partners can be victors and we can bring new options abroad to our students and colleagues on campus,” Stauff added.

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New Zealand’s international education sector could return to its 2019 $3.7 billion contribution by 2030, according to a recently released analysis.

The research, commissioned by Education New Zealand Manapou ki te Ao, found that the financial contribution declined to an estimated $0.8 billion in 2020.

The report, from EY, “confirms the tough time the sector has had over the past two years”, ENZ chief executive, Grant McPherson said.

EY suggested that under a ‘conservative’ scenario with a slow recovery in onshore enrolments, immediate-term economic impacts – including fees, expenditure, visiting family and friends tourism spend and education-related exports – will only recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2030.

Labour supply yearly impacts will be 62% of pre-pandemic levels by 2030 in the ‘conservative’ scenario.

An ‘optimistic’ recovery with quicker rebound will see immediate-term economic impacts return to pre-pandemic levels in 2028, and “labour supply yearly impacts start to recover from 2030 onwards”.

By 2030, the ‘conservative’ scenario envisions a $3.8bn contribution (increase of $0.1bn from 2019), while the ‘optimistic’ recovery estimates a $4.2bn contribution (increase of $0.5bn from 2019).

The return to pre-pandemic immediate-term contribution levels is unlikely until 2030 “without significant investment in a sustainable and resilient sector”, the report said.

ENZ also recently launched an online pilot learning platform for adult professionals, as part of the Strategic Recovery Plan for International Education launched in 2020.

The Study With New Zealand Online is designed to cater to the “significant career-oriented adult learner market” that is looking for career-progression education, according to ENZ general manager for Sector Engagement, Wendy Kerr.

“Good examples of courses unique to New Zealand are a short course on sustainability in the wine industry delivered by NMIT | Te Pūkenga,” she said on March 31.

The online platform has up to 60 courses available from more than 20 education providers.

“We know how hard the pandemic was on international education”

“We know how hard the pandemic was on international education. This project is about exploring new and different ways to deliver, and new and different audiences for, the New Zealand education experience. The goal is to diversify and build resilience,” Kerr added.

The EY report also analysed the indirect longer-term contribution of international students in the country.

Some 62% of international students return to their country of origin after their studies, the research found. A further 13% leave the country after completing their post-study work experience.

The international students living and working in New Zealand in 2019 and 2022 contributed some $6bn to New Zealand’s GDP in both 2019 and 2022.

“[This report…] highlights the contribution it made in the past, the contribution it makes beyond economic value, and tells us that it is possible to become a vibrant, sustainable and resilient sector in the future,” McPherson added.

In the previous 10 years some 74,000 international students remained in New Zealand and transitioned into the domestic workforce, EY concluded.

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A new student conversion platform has launched in the US promising to be a “game-changer” in helping institutions reach their enrolment goals.

XEquals utilises its technology to integrate student CRMs and institutions’ digital marketing channels to create a “connected picture” of recruitment funnels.

The company says ineffective or inefficient enrolment funnels mean energy and budget is being wasted and institutions are losing prospective students.

Alex Calder, MD of XEquals said the platform “will be a game-changer in helping institutions achieve their enrolment goals”.

“Our mission is to empower higher ed institutions with the necessary tools and expertise to improve student conversion and enrolment outcomes, and we couldn’t be more excited to contribute to that goal,” he noted.

Institutions also face additional challenges due to shifting student demographics, changing priorities for high school graduates and more further education options opening up for them, the company continued.

“Our mission is to empower higher ed institutions with the necessary tools and expertise”

The student conversion platform is designed to help marketing and enrolment teams to understand the need and requirements of prospective students better, and ultimately help student find the right-fit institution for them.

Two products are featured on the platform.

X=Connect configures advertising spending that led to enrolled students and pinpoints and identifies missed opportunities. X=Convert on the other hand is designed to “improve student conversions through the funnel”.

Data, insight and expertise allows institutions to convert more of the right students and convert marketing/recruitment efforts into greater results, the company noted.

By better understanding which advertising campaigns international student enrolments came from, XEquals can help convert international applications and identify exact costs of recruitment, the company told The PIE.

“XEquals helps to understand where international students are located in the student journey, specific marketing and advertising campaigns they engaged with and what international events they attended. This is connected to whatever student CRM you use for international recruitment and shown in realtime,” a spokesperson told The PIE.

The program can integrate with 750+ student CRMs, they added.

It is also offering a free CRO audit, where the company promises to “dig into your online inquiry journey and unveil actionable improvements to boost your conversions rates immediately”.

Institutions such as Cedarville University, Brooklyn Law School and Kilgore College have already seen leads increase by up to 300%, the company concluded.

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The Association of American Universities has launched a task force that will seek to expand partnerships between the US and India.

Led by five US university leaders, the initiative was created in coordination with the government’s U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, which the Biden administration is hoping will form ties between the two countries in technological and industrial collaboration.

“It is nearly impossible in today’s world to make advancements in scientific research and technology without international collaboration and cooperation,” said AAU president Barbara R. Snyder.

“This is why the Association of American Universities is proud to lead this effort to strengthen relationships between leading US and Indian research universities and to lay the groundwork for shared future scientific and economic success.”

Pennsylvania State University president, Neeli Bendapudi, is one of the five chairs. Among the interdisciplinary partnerships that are hoped to be strengthened include in semiconductor technology innovation, nuclear energy, unmanned vehicles, space exploration, AI, and digital infrastructure.

“Achieving peace and prosperity through the development of resilient, critical, and emerging technologies is a shared strategic imperative for the national security of the two largest democracies in the world,” Bendapudi said.

“Our participation reflects the valuable role Penn State plays in American higher education, and I look forward to bringing our research and academic expertise to the forefront to support this impactful collaboration.”

Solutions for 21st century challenges will “require innovations, inventions, and ideas on a scale and at a speed that has never been seen in our history”, added co-chair and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chancellor Robert J. Jones.

“This new initiative is going to build academic partnerships that cross national and political boundaries”

“This new initiative is going to build academic partnerships that cross national and political boundaries and build research collaborations that will harness the intellectual power of the greatest universities of our two nations,” the chancellor said.

“The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been an active, visible, and proud partner with universities and organisations in India for more than 75 years,” he added.

The University of California San Diego has recently launched 21st Century India Center, which chancellor Pradeep Khosla described as “an interdisciplinary, world-class think tank and hub for scholarly research, education, and public engagement, focuses on facilitating dialogue, advancing collaboration between our great nations”

“[It will] support sustainable growth that can help provide important insights to the work of this task force,” Khosla added.

“I look forward to working closely with my esteemed colleagues to bridge cultural and technological gaps, anticipate emerging opportunities and challenges, and facilitate collaborative relationships in service of the greater good of our increasingly connected global society.”

University at Buffalo president Satish K. Tripathi and Johns Hopkins University provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs Sunil Kumar, who is joining Tufts University as president in July are also co-chairs.

The task force features a further 15 members, including Heidi Arola, director of global partnerships and director of the Purdue-India partnership at Purdue University, Ravi V. Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Emory University, Richard Lester, associate provost for international activities at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with colleagues from UCI and Rice.

The post AAU task force to build US-India HE partnerships appeared first on The PIE News.

The American International Recruitment Council and ICEF have announced a renewed strategic partnership with closer cooperation in programming, events and credentialing.

“ICEF and AIRC share a determination to improve professional standards in international student recruitment,” said Markus Badde, CEO, ICEF.

“We firmly believe that self-regulation is preferable to misaligned or ill-informed government initiatives, and as such, we have doubled down on investments in training and accreditation for the overall benefit of our sector.”

Through the partnership, AIRC, the non-profit organisation promoting standards-based international recruitment strategies, will provisionally accept all ICEF-screened agencies to its certification program.

“This will make it possible to introduce many more educational agencies to the benefits of AIRC Certification,” said Brian Whalen, executive director, AIRC.

The partnership will also see one of AIRC’s most popular programs – counsellor training on US higher education – move to the ICEF Academy learning management platform, adding to ICEF’s existing training offerings.

“We are excited that this training will become part of a diverse menu of offerings”

“We are excited that this training will become part of a diverse menu of offerings that provide the knowledge and skills that counsellors need to serve international students seeking educational opportunities” said Jennifer Wright, associate director and director of certification, AIRC.

The organisations have also agreed to coordinate the location and dates of their North American events.

In 2023 the AIRC Annual Conference will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, December 6–9, while ICEF’s event will be in Miami, Florida, December 10-12. In the future, the events are expected to be in the same location whenever possible. 

The most recent AIRC conference in 2022 sought to focus on developing institutional standards, guidelines and best practices in international recruitment.

“Together, AIRC and ICEF will have an enormous positive influence on international enrolment management and the study abroad experiences of thousands of international students,” said Derrick Alex, president, AIRC.

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