ICEF Higher Education Workshop and Partnership Forum 2018 - Safety, Student Accommodation, Language and Affordability Key Factors for student choice.

Wittenborg is attending the ICEF Higher Education Workshop and the Higher Education Partnership Forum in Geneva this week, prior to participating and attending the 2018 EAIE conference. WUAS is making the most of the extensive network opportunities with study abroad representatives from over 30 different countries.

In recent years, study abroad agencies have once more become important factors in marketing and advertising higher education for Netherlands institutes and Wittenborg has seen a significant rise in the numbers of students coming through agencies, but also the international diversity has increased.

Agents - quality and international diversity increasing

In contrast to the past, when agents were mainly seen as companies representing recruitment in a limited set of origin countries, the modern world of study abroad advisors covers countries across the globe, and in 2018 WUAS currently recruits students from 17 different nationalities through agents. This still falls significantly short of the 38 nationalities coming via internet applications.

Safety, Student Accommodation, Language and Affordability

From their research, ICEF has stated that students looking to travel abroad are mainly concerned about 4 things: Safety, Student Accommodation, Language and Affordability. World ranking came in after these 4 important factors, as students would self select ranked institutes depending on their own ability and achievements. This was echoed by the study abroad agents.

Partnership Forum & Brexit

During the start of the Partnership Forum, a series of presentations by representatives from higher education institutes in the UK (Scotland), Ireland, Canada and Vietnam discussed different approaches to partnerships and the importance of them within a university's overall strategic plan.

Another hot topic of discussion was Brexit and the effect this will have on international partners  for UK universities and vice versa. Brexit will probably be a dominating topic throughout the whole week at EAIE.

WUP 11/9/2018

by James Wittenborg
©WUAS Press