Sunday Posts

Traditionally, UK universities and colleges, alongside their counterparts from Australia and elsewhere, depended on agents, or education advisers, to recruit students in the international markets. This model works beautifully: The agent brings the local knowledge and personal touch students need while making the big, transformational decision in their lives. It also works well commercially: The institutions pay a commission, usually 10% to 20% of the first payment the student makes, to the agent, a good sum of money in many countries, and being paid after the registration is secured, is good in cash flow terms too. However, while the benefits are obvious, the problems of this model are increasingly becoming apparent. Over-dependence on the agents usually results in the institution becoming distant, not closer, from their target markets. The agents often work for a number of institutions, and auction off applicants to the highest bidder, which may not be the most appropriate instit...

The British Home Secretary, Ms Theresa May, is scheduled to announce the long anticipated changes in the Student Visa system about an hour from now. She is expected to say what everyone expects her to say – and what conservatives have said before – that they are cracking down on the visa abuses, limiting immigration and reversing the open door policies pursued by Labour. However, the message will appear – to the rest of the world – as confused and off the mark as the government’s approach and policy to immigration has been so far. Ms May and her colleagues are fully aware that any misdirected tweaking of the system can cause long term and irreversible damage to the British Higher Education industry. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has recently pointed out that this should be treated as a key export industry, and he is indeed right. In fact, Higher and Further Education is one of the rare sectors where Britain can claim some sort of a World Leadership, behind America but ahead of t...

Higher Education in Britain is currently in the middle of what can be called - after Karl Poliyani - a Great Transformation, where a historically developed, social (and not socialist necessarily) education system being replaced by a system of open markets. I am indeed enjoying being an involved observer, not just as I study the phenomena, but also at work - as I explore, progressively, building a market-led college to offer courses and collaborate with universities in transition. A conscious exposition of this work, I concluded, should be at the core of my 100 day agenda, and therefore, I have started writing about it. In Higher Education, this is an 'All Change' time. The universities are in serious disarray, and it indeed seems that the government is also indecisive about what they are going to do. The hidden Tory agenda has finally come up in the open and is now head to head with the Lib-Dem muddle, and suddenly, the university administrators across Britain are left in an u...

I have decided to focus my research on the Overseas Student experience, particularly in the UK. I have strong reasons: I have access to a lot of overseas students, and the fact that I feel a natural affinity, though, truth be told, I have never been an 'overseas' student myself. I still have an year before I start writing the thesis, so I decided to use this time to collect data and reflect. This blog, being my scrapbook of ideas and the platform to continue the conversation with all those who share my interests, will obviously be the place where I post these ideas and observations. I shall start with a random one. The use of agencies by British colleges and universities have always been controversial, though the practice has only expanded in the recent years to American colleges. The idea is simple and common sense - that a commission is paid to an agent for recruiting students on behalf of British universities and colleges. The commission varies from 10% to 35%, not a bad sum...