|
|
|
Linking up
|
|
|
 |
Making valuable business connections to education agencies that can recruit international students to a high school or university is an integral part of business for some. But how does one meet and connect with prospective business partners? Amy Baker investigates.
|
|
|
We have never used agents. I think, for one, our institution is too small to make this effective,” says Clinton Schoonraad of Kaizen Business Education Centre in Edenvale, South Africa. “Secondly, the perception is that there are a load of dodgy agents out there and I am reluctant to have our college’s name banded about with the possibility of someone not delivering and it would then be that our name is damaged.”
This is the view of some education providers who are reluctant to allow third parties to conduct student recruitment on their behalf. While a reluctance to delve into unknown waters is understandable, the business reality is that more and more education institutions worldwide are looking to international students to bolster domestic numbers, create other revenue streams and provide an enriching diverse student population on campus.
How to go about this is the difficult part, as once relationships are set up with trusted agencies, international intake is usually assured over as many years as the partnership continues. For agencies, the issue of how to meet good university partners or secondary school partners might be equally tricky, if they have no experience in this field.
Yet, “We have no difficulty finding agents to represent us,” claims Beth Knowles, International Director of Education Services at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) in New Zealand. She points to agent fairs (organised by an agency for local students in their home country), events organised by Education New Zealand and English New Zealand and inbound agent visits as ways in which agent relationships have been established. Knowles is luckier than some to have the backing of Education New Zealand, for its remit includes organising and funding annual agent visits to its education institutions in the country.
Knowles adds that CPIT’s website also attracts direct enquiries from agencies keen to work with the institution, and otherwise, students might ask an education agent to process their application to CPIT, which can be the start of a working relationship. CPIT therefore has some international profile, clearly, and high website visibility.
Another way to build business contacts can be to contact the national agency association in a particular country. Joel Roderick, Academic Registrar at Oxford Tutorial College in the UK, relates that this is one strategy that has been used by his college, which has worked with agencies for 25 years; “a lot more so in the last seven”.
“We used Tieca [in Thailand] as a way of starting a database in that country,” he relates, although he says agent fairs [Tieca organises its own education fair] are the best way to meet potential partners, in his opinion. In terms of overcoming initial concern about reputation or reliability, Richardson says that a “fairly large deposit” upfront can go some way towards assuaging any financial concerns. “Guaranteeing that the student has been well advised is impossible,” he comments. “You learn by experience with specific agents and learn to watch out for warning signs in the application process.”
Back in New Zealand, Claire Easterbrook, International Manager of Mount Aspiring College, points to Education New Zealand conferences, professional association with Belta [national agency association in Brazil which organises student fairs] and workshop organiser, Icef, as useful in building agent relationships. She nods to the International Language Centre (ILC) which is part of her college as possibly starting the ball rolling with agents, indicating that international student recruitment via agencies began when the ILC opened 15 years ago.
“I was reasonably fortunate in that the directors before me had established relationships with most of our agents and I just ran with keeping up the good work and catering to everyone’s needs,” she explains. “Most of the agents we deal with have visited New Zealand and our school. They usually send a representative to us bi-annually so they can put a face to the name of the person at the end of the emails.”
Jeremy Poulter, Registrar at Glenalmond College in Scotland, UK, also underlines the importance of personal connection when maintaining relations with professional agencies. “I have been delighted to meet agents here and show them the school,” he recounts. “For me personally, most of this [business from agencies] is direct personal contact and a deliberate fostering of the relationship.”
Poulter says the majority of his agency partnerships have started because the agency approached the school, or the agency has been recommended (sometimes by another agency). “If they recommend someone, I will try to accept their recommendation, knowing that if we are ultimately dissatisfied they would be the loser in subsequent years,” he underlines. Glenalmond College is also marketed as part of a consortium of six schools, which receives local authority funding for this purpose.
“In my view,” continues Poulter, “it is far better to trust local agencies than to organise to travel yourself, and expect to hold successful meetings in a new city, with no local knowledge, and probably no local language.” He says that utilising alumni networks can have some benefit, albeit within a limited sphere, but this does not mimic an organised agency business: “We have on occasion used the existing structure of former pupils in an area, and although they are immensely keen to help, they are less effective, helping with a reception perhaps for their own expatriate circle, which severely limits the horizons.”
It seems that trust, international friendship and connection with agencies via professional associations and/or student fairs overseas are some of the main conduits used when building business. Attending agent workshops is less typical, but fruitful, while enhancing web presence and facilitating agency direct contact is highly recommended.
Case study
“After working in independent education in the UK for over a decade, I recognise the importance of developing good relationships with reliable educational agents [for] my international programme to be a success.” So says Cheryl Boughton of Elmwood School in Ottawa, ONT, Canada. She explains that her first step was to contact ex-colleagues in the UK to ask for agency details.
Although they happily shared this information, the agencies all specialised in UK placement. “I was back to where I started.” Next step was to consider attending various agent workshops. “It is difficult to know which ones will offer me the right introductions,” says Boughton. “I was impressed by the Alphe workshops because of the detailed background checking that they perform.” She plans to attend one or two workshops and to work with her homestay agent to find possible agency partners.
Finally, contacting certain embassies abroad might yield business avenues. “I know that we have a lot of [web] visitors from Germany, China, Japan, Australia and Mexico to name a few,” she relates.
|
|
|
Education Travel Magazine
11-15 Emerald Street
WC1N 3QL
London, England
T: +44 (0)20 7440 4020
F: +44 (0)20 7440 4033
Pacific Office
T/F: +61 (0)8 9341 1820 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
